2015年09月发表的文章(37)

道德直觉与反思平衡

【2015-09-29】

@whigzhou: 《醉奸奇闻引出的伦理思考

@whigzhou: 第3第4点其实可以转变成这样一个更一般的问题:法律是否应该允许一个人在有行为能力的状态下做出一个让自己暂时丧失行为能力的决定,并对此决定负责?假如答案是否定的,那么,若一对情侣决定喝个烂醉并大干一场,其中那位男性是否会被认定为强奸呢?特别是假如他酒量足够好而没醉呢?

@正能量满满的哦也:假设您身处美国某州(该州卖淫违法)(您认可法律生成的路径的合法性于是认同法律的权威性),当您发现有一处卖淫窝点时,您会报警吗?即在您认可的共同体里生活时,当共同体规则与自己的价值观不一致时,是遵从共同体规则还是自己价值观?(假设暂时不能逃离共同体)

@whigzhou: 不(more...)

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【2015-09-29】 @whigzhou: 《醉奸奇闻引出的伦理思考》 @whigzhou: 第3第4点其实可以转变成这样一个更一般的问题:法律是否应该允许一个人在有行为能力的状态下做出一个让自己暂时丧失行为能力的决定,并对此决定负责?假如答案是否定的,那么,若一对情侣决定喝个烂醉并大干一场,其中那位男性是否会被认定为强奸呢?特别是假如他酒量足够好而没醉呢? @正能量满满的哦也:假设您身处美国某州(该州卖淫违法)(您认可法律生成的路径的合法性于是认同法律的权威性),当您发现有一处卖淫窝点时,您会报警吗?即在您认可的共同体里生活时,当共同体规则与自己的价值观不一致时,是遵从共同体规则还是自己价值观?(假设暂时不能逃离共同体) @whigzhou: 不会报警 @whigzhou: 当共同体的法律和我价值观相悖时,我会服从,但不会去积极维护,更不会帮助执行。 @渴望自由地呼吸: 现场你会用直觉判断指导行为,没时间做这个理性分析 @whigzhou: 对,但这不能否认分析的价值,因为分析可以影响(分析者自己或其听众的)下一次直觉判断,假如这一分析影响了判决,那么每次判决都或多或少会影响后人的直觉判断 @正能量满满的哦也:请教下,如果那个妈妈在饭桌上的表现让您觉得她理性不足(但让她理性不足的责任链并不全部并坚定地指向她(比如说开吃前不小心头撞桌子后(同桌的您判断为神智似乎不太清了),这时您的讨论会做怎么样的改变吗?还有,一般伦理讨论,你觉得责任链只应该追究得比较近吗? @whigzhou: 问题好像不在链条长短 @whigzhou: 关键是不理性的程度是否达到丧失行为能力的程度,若不到这程度,我们总是假定她是能够对自己行为负责的,至于这个程度的划定,现有司法程序自有办法 @正能量满满的哦也:伦理情境中,我觉得自身的伦理判断标准是一个标准(只和价值观等有关),来自司法的标准是另一个不太相干的标准……您意思是,在您认同的伦理判断的标准里,关于理性与否的判断标准,您将很大部分参考司法(演化而来)的判断标准? @whigzhou: 大致是,但不尽然 @whigzhou: 前提是我大致认可这套司法体系作为所在共同体社会契约的一部分,在此前提下,我的伦理判断和法律判断有所不同,但原则相仿 @whigzhou: 比如在行为能力这个问题上,在法律语境下,我会认可某种司法规则的认定结果(比如医学证据或陪审团裁定),在伦理语境下,我依据自己的直觉判断,但在我看来,普通法的有关原则和直觉的判别原则类似,只是前者客观性更好,假如相关司法规则远远偏离常识直觉,恐怕得不到我认可 @whigzhou: 假如一套司法系统系统性的偏离我的伦理原则,甚至和它没多大关系,那怎么会被我认可呢?在我眼里无疑是恶法啊,此时,我就不会自视为该系统下共同体之一员,就是个反社会分子了(当然可能是忍气吞声的那种) @匈牙利海军上将皮卡丘: 辉总说的有趣,但大多时候菜刀破门团拔刀就上都是最好的方法,这基于如下考量:如果原因只是酒醉,那么属于为自己积德;如果是因为该圈子作风放荡,那么能刺激局外人与之划清界限的决心。临事时瞻前顾后太多反倒容易磨损道德直觉。 @whigzhou: 我说了这不是对临场反应的预测啊 @whigzhou: 更不是建议各位临场时都做这么一番分析之后再行动,事后分析的用处在于:1)帮助我们对在场者的反应做道德判断,2)通过反思平衡修正直觉,影响下一次的反应 @whigzhou: 此例中,分析至少可以帮助我判断:在何种条件下,我有理由指责在场者卑劣或者怯懦?以及程度如何 @正能量满满的哦也:您这里说的(常识)直觉,指的是经过了您反思平衡后得到的伦理准则与直觉反复地反思平衡修正得到的“直觉”,不是人们的简单应激下的直觉吧? @whigzhou: 对,是反思平衡后的直觉,但同时也是快速的,两者不对立,之前的反思平衡影响后续的快速反应 @whigzhou: 依我看没有什么直觉(或曰临场快速反应模式)是不能经由学习和理性思考而修正的,比如围棋大师对局面的直觉,数学家对解题路径的直觉,我是没有的,我对经济学问题的直觉,相信很多人也没有
醉奸奇闻引出的伦理思考

故事(来自微博@吴十六):

成天在看法律与秩序SUV,昨天饭桌上听到一个真事:某校某班家长委员会聚餐,一位漂亮妈妈被灌至大醉,另一男家长尾随她进了洗手间,老师和其他家长其实都听到了动静,但是没人冲进去,代之以在厕所外敲门。颇久后男方才衣衫不整地出现。事后当然没人报警。有人说,报警又怎样,那男的会说女方勾引他

于是我想了一下,假如我当时在场,会怎么做。当然,这不是对我的临场反应的真正预测,因为我没有机会体验临场感觉,所以只能是一种在从容条件下仔细斟酌的结果。

1)关于究竟发生了什么,存在两种解读:A)强奸;B)两厢情愿的放纵游戏;

2)支持第二种解读的一个证据是:没有出现呼救声;

3)对此,一种反驳是:深度醉酒让女甲丧失了行为能力,因而不能认为是两厢情愿(more...)

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故事(来自微博@吴十六):
成天在看法律与秩序SUV,昨天饭桌上听到一个真事:某校某班家长委员会聚餐,一位漂亮妈妈被灌至大醉,另一男家长尾随她进了洗手间,老师和其他家长其实都听到了动静,但是没人冲进去,代之以在厕所外敲门。颇久后男方才衣衫不整地出现。事后当然没人报警。有人说,报警又怎样,那男的会说女方勾引他
于是我想了一下,假如我当时在场,会怎么做。当然,这不是对我的临场反应的真正预测,因为我没有机会体验临场感觉,所以只能是一种在从容条件下仔细斟酌的结果。 1)关于究竟发生了什么,存在两种解读:A)强奸;B)两厢情愿的放纵游戏; 2)支持第二种解读的一个证据是:没有出现呼救声; 3)对此,一种反驳是:深度醉酒让女甲丧失了行为能力,因而不能认为是两厢情愿的; 4)但仍然存在这样的可能性:女甲在醉酒之前便已经决定“让自己喝个痛快,并期待着发生点什么刺激的事情”,此时,她是完全清醒的,因而是充分自由的; 5)从原帖描述,我不能排除第二种可能,当然也不排除第一种; 6)假如我断定是强奸,就有道德义务踹门,若实际上未能这么做,我会承认自己怯懦了; 7)但假如我不能这么断定,该怎么做就要区分几种情况; 8)假如我是聚会发起/组织者之一,或场地推荐者,就无论如何都该出手,因为此时我的责任更强,出手干预的最低条件从对强奸的“断定”降低到了“担心”; 9)或者,假如女甲是受我邀请或可能因为事先知道有我同往才来参加聚会的,同样必须出手,理由同上; 好,我已经把几个容易处理的条件分支解决了,再看余下分支: 10)假如我认为发生的是后一种情况,并且不符合(8)(9)的条件,那么,问题就转变成:我是否容忍这种事情在我参与的聚会上发生?假如不容忍,该怎么办?退出还是干预?在反复考虑之后,我发现,要回答这问题,还要对条件做更细致的区分; 11)此时我首先要回答:X)我是否正置身于一个普遍容忍这种事情甚至乐在其中的圈子里?以及:Y)我自己是否已经或愿意进入这个圈子? 12)假如X和Y都是肯定的,那我当然不会觉得有出手的需要; 13)假如X是肯定的,Y是否定的,那么问题就变成:当我在不知情的情况下被邀请参加这样一个与我价值观格格不入的聚会,因而感到被冒犯时,该如何对待,是退出并忍受被冒犯的结果?还是出手阻止以捍卫自己不受此等冒犯的权利? 14)考虑之后我发现,还得回答先另一个问题:Z)聚会组织者在邀请我参加之前,是否有理由相信我应该会了解这是一个这样的圈子? 15)假如Z是肯定的,那我就没理由出手,只能哀叹自己太跟不上时代了; 16)假如Z是否定的,那我觉得自己可以出手,但这不是道德义务,选择退出也不会让我感到自己太怯懦; 17)假如X和Y都是否定的,那我就有理由出手,而且负有一些道德义务,尽管不如(6)(8)(9)那么强,因为作为与X圈子相对立的价值阵营的一员,我有义务和我的同道一起捍卫我们的公共生活不被前者所侵犯(这事情若是发生在他们圈子里面,我们当然没必要干预); 18)出手干预的义务,还得到了如下考虑的强化:容忍此类行为存在于我们的公共生活中,将削弱我们阻止真正强奸的能力,因为事件的真实性质在发生之际很难辨明,我们不得不对疑似强奸的行为一律加以阻止,才能有效保护免受强奸的权利;这就好比,我们也不能容忍两个人在大街上玩追杀游戏,即便他们是完全自愿的,因为旁人很难将其与真正的追杀区分开来,若要加以容忍,就只能放弃协助自卫的权利,而后者对我们太重要了,不能放弃。 酱紫。  
[译文]我们时代的和平?

Peace for Our Time?
我们这个时代的和平?

作者:Azar Gat @ 2012-09-20 发表于奥斯陆
译者:@Ghostmarine     校对:林翠、@Drunkplane-zny
来源:Peace Research Institute Oslo, https://www.prio.org/Peace-Address/download/PAPA%20Programme%202012.pdf

这次活动组织者建议,用“我们这个时代的和平?”——问号——这样一个多少有些古怪的问句为题进行演讲,我欣然同意。

你们都知道,1938年9月慕尼黑会议,与希特勒达成和平解决捷克斯洛伐克冲突的共识后,手握和平协议志得意满的张伯伦,向迎接他凯旋的人们所作的,正是这句承诺。然而,不到半年时间,希特勒的军队占领了捷克斯洛伐克全境,一年不到,欧洲,继而全世界,沦入另一场世界大战之中,五千五百万人丧生。

张伯伦,连同他那把标志性的雨伞,成了一个永恒的小丑形象。而张伯伦的和平预言,就像其他类似断语一样——比如说一战是一场“终结所有战争的战争”,讲冷战之后建立起一个“新世界秩序”——足以引作对任何宣称战争业已消亡高论的警示。此类宣言总是难免失于幼稚,正如马克·吐温妙评报道自己死亡的新闻【编注:这句妙评是:“有关我死亡的报道过于夸张了。”】。

因此,我不会试图预言未来,未来是开放的,是遍布种种可能性的疆域。相反,我将聚焦历史趋势,通过或远或近的历史,告诉大家战争的确正在减少,和平与日俱增。我会力图阐释其中的原因,并且说明,是什么滋生了张伯伦以及上述其他人的宣言,而在现代社会之前,掌握实际权柄的政治家可不会像先知或者道德家一样信誓旦旦地下各种断语。毕竟,张伯伦之流并非完全被形势所误导。

过去十几二十年里,一些学者提出这样的观点,认为纵观整个历史,战争分阶段减少,例如最近斯蒂芬·平(more...)

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Peace for Our Time? 我们这个时代的和平? 作者:Azar Gat @ 2012-09-20 发表于奥斯陆 译者:@Ghostmarine     校对:林翠、@Drunkplane-zny 来源:Peace Research Institute Oslo, https://www.prio.org/Peace-Address/download/PAPA%20Programme%202012.pdf 这次活动组织者建议,用“我们这个时代的和平?”——问号——这样一个多少有些古怪的问句为题进行演讲,我欣然同意。 你们都知道,1938年9月慕尼黑会议,与希特勒达成和平解决捷克斯洛伐克冲突的共识后,手握和平协议志得意满的张伯伦,向迎接他凯旋的人们所作的,正是这句承诺。然而,不到半年时间,希特勒的军队占领了捷克斯洛伐克全境,一年不到,欧洲,继而全世界,沦入另一场世界大战之中,五千五百万人丧生。 张伯伦,连同他那把标志性的雨伞,成了一个永恒的小丑形象。而张伯伦的和平预言,就像其他类似断语一样——比如说一战是一场“终结所有战争的战争”,讲冷战之后建立起一个“新世界秩序”——足以引作对任何宣称战争业已消亡高论的警示。此类宣言总是难免失于幼稚,正如马克·吐温妙评报道自己死亡的新闻【编注:这句妙评是:“有关我死亡的报道过于夸张了。”】。 因此,我不会试图预言未来,未来是开放的,是遍布种种可能性的疆域。相反,我将聚焦历史趋势,通过或远或近的历史,告诉大家战争的确正在减少,和平与日俱增。我会力图阐释其中的原因,并且说明,是什么滋生了张伯伦以及上述其他人的宣言,而在现代社会之前,掌握实际权柄的政治家可不会像先知或者道德家一样信誓旦旦地下各种断语。毕竟,张伯伦之流并非完全被形势所误导。 过去十几二十年里,一些学者提出这样的观点,认为纵观整个历史,战争分阶段减少,例如最近斯蒂芬·平克(Steven Pinker)在畅销书《人性中更好的天使》(The Better Angels of Our Nature)中的论述。人类战争第一次大幅减少,是因为大约五千年前,利维坦国家崛起于当时世界最先进的一些地区。 就拿挪威来说,这是世界上最晚近才被开发的地区,现在看来与北欧和西欧其他地方没什么两样,可挪威的战争减少现象仅仅从一千年前才开始——当然,虽然你们挪威人有着黑暗的历史,但从那往后做得还不错。 针对此课题的几项综合研究,的的确确从人类学和考古学层面,证明霍布斯对无政府自然状态的描述基本正确。而卢梭主义者的想象,即和平的原始人因为学会了农业,划分私产,建立国家,由此遭到腐蚀,这种在二十世纪中期人类学和流行文化中占主流的观点,已经被证实是无凭无据的。 卢梭主义者的观点基于这样一种假设,认定人烟稀少就不大可能有太多战争好打。然而,现存的狩猎采集社会证明实际情况恰恰相反。澳洲是狩猎采集社会最佳实验室,1788年欧洲人抵达之前,那片辽阔大陆曾经遍布狩猎采集者的身影,一直未被农民、牧民,或者国家之类的概念“污染”。有证据显示,澳大利亚部族之间战争频繁。 即便在人口密度低至每35平方英里一人的中澳沙漠(Central  Australian  Desert),冲突和致命战斗也是家常便饭。很多战争的焦点是水源,后者对该地区的人生死攸关。澳洲土著手提之盾可不是用来狩猎袋鼠的。绝大部分其他地区,狩猎领地被垄断,受到狩猎采集者凶猛的保护,因为区域资源很容易就会被耗尽。 二十世纪六十年代,以和平著称的卡拉哈里布希曼人(Kalahari Bushmen)是卢梭主义者的研究焦点。然而,真相很快水落石出,在国家权力介入之前,该族的暴力死亡率四倍于1990年的美国,而那时美国的这项数据就已经是全球发达国家中最高且遥遥领先的了。 对加拿大北极圈内的因纽特人来说,人口稀少到不知道什么叫资源竞争,可即使这样,绑架女性的战斗也异常普遍,暴力死亡率十倍于1990年的美国。新几内亚高地和亚马逊流域为我们提供了一个初级农业社会的大型缩微世界,两个地区都包含数以百计的部落,以及数以百计的语种,这些社会确实都揭示了类似情况:永不停息的战争和非常高的暴力死亡率。 进一步来说,人类的自然状态和生物界的一般自然状态没什么区别。二十世纪六十年代的普遍看法是,同一个物种的动物不会自相残杀,这就让人类成为一种凶残的例外,并且滋生了这样的猜想:战争完全伴随文明的出现而产生。可是,从那时起,人们发现物种内部的动物之间存在大量的相互杀戮现象,现在每个坐在电视机前看自然纪录片的观众都能对此耳熟能详。也就是说,就这方面而言,人类的行为也不足为奇。 根据几十个前国家社会的数据,前国家社会平均暴力死亡率高达总人口的15%,男性人口的25%,活着的男人统统伤痕累累,而历史上国家社会平均暴力死亡率在1%至5%之间。下降幅度如此之大,主要是由于利维坦国家强制推行的内部和平所致。霍布斯认为,无政府状态是引发暴力死亡的最重要因素,他是对的。另一方面,在绝大多数历史阶段,国家权力不仅仅具有强制性,还具有极强的压迫性,所以社会经济压迫和更加安全的生活常常相伴而行,虽然这种结合并非始终如此。这就是利维坦崛起所带来的代价。 伴随国家的出现,战争死亡率大幅下降的第二点原因相对不那么明显,较少被人提及。和之前的部落群体相比,国家及其军队的规模都更庞大,往往要大得多,从而形成了一种国家间大规模战争冲突的宏大印象。国家战争看似很大,论绝对规模的确不小。然而,主要的问题并非是绝对死亡数,而是相对死亡率,即死于暴力的人口百分比。国家状态下,恰恰由于国家庞大,相对死亡率其实是下降的。与部落群体相比,大型国家面对战争,只需要更低的动员强度,从而令更多的平民免于战争的袭扰。 以人类历史上最早的国家和帝国之一埃及为例。公元前十三世纪,法老拉美西斯二世率军在叙利亚北部与赫梯帝国爆发卡迭石战役,麾下士兵两万至两万五千人。在那个时代,这是一只规模庞大的军队。然而,当时埃及总人口约为两百至三百万,因此,这支军队最多占总人口的百分之一。 纵观历史,对于大型国家和帝国而言,这是一个非常标准的比例,因为长期维持一支远离本土的大规模部队,涉及各种繁杂的财政与后勤问题。因此,对比小规模部落社会的全民皆兵,大型国家部队的参军率以及战争伤亡要低得多。此外,小型部落的战争和冲突中,最容易遭受损失的是女性和儿童,而埃及的平民则远离战争的喧嚣,通常也不会直面战争的恐惧。 这种相对安全,是国家出现后社会人口大量增长的主要原因之一,只有在发生大规模入侵时才会被破坏。这也正是为什么内战——国家内部肆虐的战火——往往会成为最具杀伤力的战争形式,这点也曾被霍布斯清楚地认识到。因此,国家的崛起,意味着规模更大、更加恢弘的战争,然而就整体而言,相对于总人口的伤亡更低。 继利维坦国家崛起之后,战争减少的第二大阶段伴随着过去两个多世纪现代工业化时代而出现。自从1815年拿破仑兵败滑铁卢之后,战争数量和战争总体死亡率锐减,发达国家尤甚,乍听这种观点,很多人往往惊讶莫名。1945年后列强间的所谓长期和平则更多地得到承认,这其中当然应该肯定核武器这个决定性因素的作用,核武器成功地吸引了所有玩家的注意,成为他们脖子上的绞索。民主国家之间的和平也得到了相当程度的认可。 然而,早在核子时代之前,无论是民主国家还是非民主国家,战争便已经非常显著地减少。1815年之后的一个世纪,经济发达国家的战争频率降至此前一个世纪的三分之一,变化幅度空前。我必须强调:降至三分之一,而非下降三分之一。事实上,自1945年至今2012年,现代强权之间已共享长期和平长达六十七年之久,史上第二长的和平期则历时四十三年,从1871年普法战争至1914年一战,第三长和平期跨越三十九年,从1815年拿破仑战争终结至1854年克里米亚战争。可见,迄今为止,现代强权体系中三段长期和平全部都出现在1815年之后,前两段均早于核子时代。这种引人注目的现象绝非偶然。显而易见,如果要解释自1815年之后,战争状态整体上的减少,那么同时也需要说明,这一大潮中两段刺眼的逆流:两次世界大战。 越来越多的人开始认为,过去两个世纪里,战争频率之所以开始下降,是因为战争变得太过致命、太过具有毁灭性,太过昂贵。然而这一假说很难成立,因为战争所造成的相对伤亡、所消耗的相对财富并不比以前的历史阶段更惊人或者更高昂。十九世纪作为欧洲史上最宁静的世纪,其战争程度相对而言格外温和。的确,世界大战,尤其是二战,在伤亡方面绝对位列前茅。然而,不同于我们的直观认识,两次世界大战远非史上惨烈之最。再一次,我们需要审视相对伤亡,战争中的总体死亡率,而不是因为参战的国家多,就把数字一个个加起来。 举几个例子就足以证明,前现代战争的伤亡率和毁灭性并不比现代战争来得小。第二次布匿战争(公元前218-216年)的头三年,罗马损失了约五万17至46岁之间的男性公民,而帝国全境该年龄段的男子一共才二十万人。仅仅三年时间,损失兵役人口的四分之一,与二战期间苏联军事死亡率相当,高于德军的军事死亡率。 与之类似,十三世纪蒙古铁骑横扫欧亚大陆,所造成的伤亡和毁灭性在历史上名列前茅。据估计,中国、俄罗斯人口大幅下降,尽管估算数据颇有浮动。然而,即使按照最低值计算,也与苏联二战时期高达15%的恐怖人口损失数据相当,而中国地区的人口损失率几乎肯定远超该数据。最后一个例子是三十年战争(1618-1648),德国人口损失在五分之一至三分之一,无论哪个数字都比德国一战、二战死亡率之和还高。 人们通常也认定,现代更发达的军事技术意味着更高的杀伤力和毁灭性。然而,更发达的军事技术其实也意味着更好的防护力,例如机械化装甲、摩托化机动,以及防御性电子手段。攻防的先进性通常交替上升,此消彼长。此外,我们太容易忘记,无论是犹太人、苏联战俘,还是苏联平民,二战期间被德国杀害的数以百万计非战斗人员中的绝大部分,他们忍饥挨饿,暴尸荒野,被大量处决,而非死于什么精密的军事技术。 二十世纪发生的几次种族灭绝,与历史上更为古老的屠杀一样,都是利用最简单的技术加以实现,卢旺达种族灭绝者手中的弯刀时时刻刻提醒着我们这一点。是啊,核武器是终极武器,其杀伤力和毁灭性的确空前。然而,正如我们刚才所提到的,远在核子时代之前,战争就开始减少,该趋势同样适用于核子时代的无核国家。因此,尽管二战之后,核武器为促进世界和平发挥了重要的作用,军事技术也很难被视作1815年之后战争减少的原因。 说在过去二百年里,战争比以前更花钱,这也不是真的,因为还是要考虑相对于整体财富这个因素。战争总会牵扯经济运行的方方面面,也是最昂贵的单项国家开支。十六、十七世纪西班牙、十八世纪法国的经济都被战争以及高昂的战争赔款所摧毁,法国甚至因此爆发革命。还有,前现代战争普遍会引发饥荒,这同样会导致死亡。因此,与现代战争相比,前现代战争既不少死人,也不少花钱,或更少毁灭性。 另一种对近代战争行为减少的解释颇有点一厢情愿,认为这是社会对于战争“态度转变”使然。也没人解释为什么这一态度转变,以及民众乐于“戒掉战争瘾”的意愿,会出现在这个历史时间点,而不是更早。毕竟,绝大多数类似佛教、基督教这样的强势道德主义都在谴责战争,千百年下来也没什么成效。这种理论是在说,人民突然就意识到战争就算不疯狂,也是很愚蠢,毫无理性可言。 对于战争的这种看法,在当今现代而又富足的世界里得到了广泛传播。但是想想成吉思汗,他的子孙后代盘踞东亚和中亚长达几个世纪,基因研究表明,他们加班加点,制造出占这些地区全部男性总数8%的子孙,这是何等令人瞠目的性机遇。 不要以为只有独裁者和军事贵族才能从战争中获益,我们应当谨记,古典时代靠战争发家的两大城邦国家分别是民主的雅典和共和的罗马。这两大文明之所以能够成功的关键因素,恰恰是这些政治体系中的人民能够从战争和帝国扩张中获益,所以人们拥护战争,积极投身其中。此外,纵观历史,人民常常会恐惧战争,哀悼战争,正如他们经常热情洋溢地歌颂战争的荣光,传扬英雄的伟业一样。 为了达到目的,人们会采用合作、和平竞争,或者暴力冲突等手段。每种行为策略都是精心设计的工具,可以根据具体的环境和对成功的预期交替使用。暴力并非是一种盲目的生物本能,而是一种为了达到目的,精心选择的策略。这是我们行为工具箱的一把重锤,曾经总是那么趁手自如;其必要性和优越性常常能得到证明。因此,为了理解人类的选择和规范,从暴力冲突转向合作及和平竞争这样的非暴力选项,就必须理解在过去两个世纪以及最近几十年中,环境以及效费比计算方式发生了何种改变。 的确,如果过去两个世纪,战争没有变得更花钱,更具毁灭性,人们对战争态度的改变也不是从空气中蹦出来的,那为什么战争减少了,尤其在发达国家之间?甚至在十九世纪中叶以前,类似圣西门、奥古斯特·孔德、约翰·斯图尔特·密尔,以及曼彻斯特学派的思想家们便很快注意到了这种变化,并且意识到这是由工商业革命的兴起所引发,这一革命是自新石器时代人类学会农业之后,最为深远的人类社会转型。 首先,在世界上已完成工业革命的地区,从工业革命伊始到现在,人均财富翻了三十到五十倍,由于人均财富呈现爆炸性增长,马尔萨斯陷阱得以克服。财富总量再也不会成为基本限制,唯一的问题是如何对财富进行分配,因此,对财富的追求渐渐不再是一个零和博弈。 其次,各国的经济活动不再完全自给自足,通过专业化、规模化,以及交易,国际互联性与日俱增。因此,外国的灾难有可能令整个经济系统变得萧条,从而损害本国自己的利益。(这种现象,最早被密尔所注意,在一战后得到完全证实,凯恩斯在1920年出版的《和约的经济后果》(The Economic Consequences of the Peace)一书中批评向德国索取战争赔款时,便已经预计到了相应的后果。) 第三,更大程度的经济开放,将经济活动与政治主权剥离开来,从而减少了战争爆发的可能。从某个地区获利,不再需要对其进行政治统治。所有这些因素之中,商业上的相互依赖吸引了学术界最多的关注。然而,其他两项因素的重要性也毫不承让。 因此,竞争性经济活动的收益越大,冲突发生的阻力越大,吸引力越小。并非是广为认可的“战争更加费钱”,其实是“和平更加有利可图”。 如果情况的确如此,那为什么过去二百年里,战争还是在发生,尽管频率低得多?首先,种族和民族之间的张力常常盖过新兴的经济逻辑,这足以解释1815年至1945年之间欧洲绝大部分战争。直到今天,这种现象依然存在,在全球不发达地区尤为明显。 此外,十九世纪末二十世纪初,新经济逻辑出现倒退,起因是列强重拾保护主义政策,并随着新帝国主义将保护主义扩展至不发达地区。保护主义与新帝国主义扩张相结合,意味着新兴全球经济被分割成不同的帝国区域,每个帝国领域都会对外变得封闭,而不是更加开放。二十世纪三十年代,全球经济也的确演变成为这种格局。 雪球效应由此产生,列强竞相争夺帝国殖民地。对于领土受限的德国和日本,“帝国生存空间”或“共荣圈”的需求变得极为紧迫。两次大战的种子由此埋下。进而,二十世纪最初十年经济自由主义的衰退,导致反自由、反民主的政治理念和政权的崛起,而这种反自由、反民主势头的崛起,又反过来使经济自由主义更加衰退。二者的相互作用,便催生出一种暴力信条:共产主义和法西斯主义。 1945年之后,大战出现的概率进一步减少。在此期间,核武器发挥了重要的作用。但自由贸易的制度化,以及与之密切相关的经济快速且可持续发展也非常重要。自由民主的传播同样功不可没。的确,尽管在工业时代,不自由不民主的国家一样不怎么打仗,但自由民主政体才更符合和平的主旋律。 由于国内专制高压,非民主国家对外用兵更加自然。相反,自由民主社会内部以和平、法律仲裁关系为主导,因此人民往往希望将同样的范式应用于国际事务。生活在一个越来越宽容的社会中,人民也就越来越容易包容别人的观点。尽管民主国家最初也是庞大的帝国,然而随着提倡自由、法律平等、以及国内政治参与等理念的深入人心,自由民主国家便会发现,在没有得到外国人民同意的情况下,对其进行统治,合理性受到越来越多的质疑。 由于珍视生命、自由,倡导人权,当试图推行压迫统治时,自由民主国家变会陷入被动。进而,在自由民主社会,个人生命和追求幸福的价值被认为远高于集体价值,在战争中牺牲生命正在越来越多地丧失其合法性。只有在极少数正式而实用的情况下,战争才具有合法性。同时战争被广泛地厌恶,不受大众欢迎。 这种不断深化的潮流和共识简直就是奇迹。其最耀眼而广受世人所认可的成就便是民主国家间的和平。随着自由化、民主化,以及经济发展的深入,富裕民主国家之间爆发战争的可能性已降至零点,它们甚至不认为有必要就可能发生的军事纠纷而对另一个民主国家进行军事准备。历史上第一次,曾经是国际无政府主义状态之内在特性的邻国安全困境(security dilemma)【编注:安全困境也叫霍布斯陷阱,是指这样一种局面:当你附近出现一个有能力对你进行打击的邻居,而你又无法确信其善意,就不得不采取预防措施,要么增强防御,要么先发制人,同样的逻辑在对方也成立,结果要么是直接导致战争,要么引发不断升级的军备竞赛,而后者在力量失衡时同样导致战争。这一困境提示了,即便各方最初都无意攻击对方而只是想自保,霍布斯状态下战争也难以避免】不复存在,尤其是在北美、西欧这样世界上最现代化、最自由民主的地区,和平得到实现。 随着苏维埃帝国的崩溃,前社会主义政权汇入全球资本经济的大潮之中,东欧、南亚、东南亚,以及拉丁美洲的经济快速增长与民主化结伴而行,发达国家爆发大战的前景变得愈加遥远。战争的地缘中心从根本上发生了转移。世界上现代化的、经济发达的地区已经变成了“和平区”。战争现在主要限定在不发达地区,即世界的“战争区”,这些国家在现代化进程中落在了后面,其相应的副产品就是时不时地打来打去,有时还会和发达国家开战。 1945年后,国家间战争大幅减少的同时,国内战争有所增加,所以有人就信誓旦旦,说战争并未减少,只不过形式有所转变。就好像说有个什么暴力守恒定律,规定暴力总数为一个定值。然而,这是一种误解,源于对材料的无差别诠释,就像有句谚语里说,平均两寸深的湖水也能淹死人。 现实中,世界上不同地区的社会经济发展非常不均衡,所以,国内战争同样出现了国家间战争所表现出的下降趋势。由于具有更强的共识性、多数代表性、包容度,以及在和平分离方面更大的合法性,现代化的、经济发达、自由民主的国家,实际上已不会发生内战。 相反,不发达或者发展中国家更容易发生内战。这样的国家,往往民族四分五裂,中央政府软弱无力,于二战后去殖民地化并独立建国,从而造成全球范围的内战数量增长。因此,无论是国家间战争还是内战,均主要出现在世界上不发达或者发展中地区。如果考虑到这些地区终将实现现代化,从这个意义上来讲,未来尚且光明。 说了这么多最近几十年的现代化进程中,战争大幅减少,和平播撒人间之后,应当强调,这些巨大的改善或者说正在改善的条件,并非完全确凿无疑,不足以确保人类免于大规模战争的阴影。随着世界新秩序被世界新无序威胁,冷战后的欣快时光恐怕会转瞬即逝。发达国家爆发大战的可能性依然很低。然而,1989柏林墙崩塌后,基于资本主义和民主胜利的那种深刻的变革感,已备受侵蚀。 或许,最重要的改变就是非民主资本主义强权的回归,这种政体自1945年德国、日本被击败之后就长期缺席于国际社会。前共产主义国家中国经历了大发展和工业化,已经演变为专制资本主义,这将成为改变全球平衡的最重要因素。还有俄罗斯,褪去后共产自由主义之后,正逐渐成为一个独裁国家。这些国家是否能够随发展而最终实现民主化,大概是二十一世纪最重大的问题。 早在当前这轮经济大衰退开始之前,我就曾经在《外交事务》上撰文指出,历史的教训并不明朗,并非进步主义者——例如最近,也是最有名的福山——所深信的那样具有必然性。此次经济危机爆发以来,专制强权更加自信。继二十世纪三十年代因资本主义民主的失败而导致法西斯和共产主义极权的崛起之后,全球霸主和民主资本主义遭受无与伦比的一记重拳。 有人希望,当前的经济危机不会演变成一场灾难。然而,国家驱动和民族资本主义专制的诱惑的的确确增加了。与此同时,二十世纪民主胜利的支柱——虽然世人一贯对此有所低估——美国势力正在经历相对衰退,尽管或许不会像某些人预想的那么严重。 新资本主义专制势力分享了“发展、开放、贸易、资本”的和平,深深地整合进了世界经济之中,但却没有成为自由民主国家。因此,在该系统中,避免任何贸易保护主义就显得至关重要,不仅仅是因为贸易保护主义有可能损害经济,还因为避免保护主义可以防止出现抢夺市场和原材料的风潮,在二十世纪最初几十年中,正是这些行为,最终导致了灾难性的帝国保护主义和国际纷争。 即使前景并非如此暗淡,随着实力的增长,中国也有可能成为一个更加专断跋扈的势力,就算不会变得具有十足的侵略性,也会像超级强权那样四处秀肌肉。民主和非民主势力或许多少可以和平地共存,出于相互的恐惧和疑虑彼此戒备。然而还是存在这样一种前景,更具对抗性的关系、意识形态方面增强竞争、潜在和现实的摩擦、军备竞赛加剧,甚至启动新一轮的冷战。中国和俄罗斯对于全球专制政权的支持——最明显的就是叙利亚和伊朗——或许只是将来局面的牛刀小试。 战争减少的第二个明显反例是,过去二十多年里局部战争不断上演,这些战争大部分由美国连同其北约或其他盟友发动,但对手却十分落后,跟现代化民主化几乎沾不上边。反叛乱战争格外吸引到大量关注和批评,而且确实构成了一个难解之谜。超级强国能够轻而易举地碾压最为强大的敌对国家,然而却在世界上最贫穷积弱的地区面对武力孱弱的对手一筹莫展。 但是,人们往往忽略了这样的一个事实,这种困难并非普遍难题,而一边倒的出现在很多自由民主国家,他们之所以遇上这样的问题,恰恰因为他们是自由民主国家。民主国家的行为招致了大量的批评非议,其中有些并非无理取闹,这或许可以看作民主的荣誉而非包袱。 历史经验表明,粉碎叛乱就需要无情地压迫平民,这令自由民主国家越来越难以接受。前现代国家,以及现代独裁国家和极权国家,就不会为使用这些手段而感到困扰,而且总的来说,他们的压迫行动相当成功。 压迫,是帝国统治不可或缺之基石。大英帝国和法兰西帝国之所以能够以如此低的成本维持统治,仅仅是因为他们能够毫无忌惮地推行无情压迫,就拿英国来说,直到1857年还在镇压印度叛变。然而,自十九世纪末以来,自由主义观点深入人心,尽管表面上风头无两,民主帝国其实已时日无多。 转入二十世纪,大英举步维艰,最终在南非达成和解,从爱尔兰撤军,这对于其他自由民主帝国也是一个明确的信号。几乎被世人所忽视的一个事实是,二战后,去殖民化大潮仅仅发生在自由民主帝国之中(以英国和法国为甚)。根本谈不上什么民意压力的非民主帝国,要么像德国和日本一样在两次世界大战中被摧毁,要么在独裁统治土崩瓦解之际和平解体,例如苏联。 质疑者或许会说,当年纳粹德国面对南斯拉夫和苏联的游击队同样一筹莫展。但是,如果德国赢了二战,就能向各种争议地区派遣更多军队,其种族清洗手段也能大展神威。苏联在阿富汗的失败是另一个鲜明的反例,但阿富汗是个例外,位于苏维埃帝国统治系统之外。 车臣或许更能说明问题,而且前因后果一目了然:运用大规模放逐手段的斯大林苏维埃铁腕统治是最残忍也是有效的,九十年代的自由俄罗斯最为温情脉脉,也最无效,而普京制下的独裁俄罗斯介于二者之间。 值得留意的是,在苏联和东欧内部压制反对声音确实更加容易。实际上,我们所能看到的成功叛乱样本,在遭受严重的选择偏差之后,完全被扭曲了,有点像福尔摩斯说的,“一条不叫的狗”——独裁的铁腕下,帝国内部万马齐喑——我们看到的只是最突出的、最具故事性的案例。同样的情况适用于中国,那里成功地对藏人和穆斯林民族主义者进行长期压制,只要中国一日不民主,这些镇压就还将继续存在下去。 人们指责阿萨德在叙利亚的统治残暴,平叛无功。叙利亚的悲剧至2012年的今天已经持续一年半有余,据估计两万多人因此丧命。然而,1982年镇压穆斯林兄弟会哈马城起义时,老阿萨德在三天时间就制造出数量与此相当的尸体。由于害怕外国势力介入,小阿萨德不能像他的父亲那样肆无忌惮。而普京的俄罗斯也没能全盘承袭其前任苏联的那种超级力量,那种东西已经怅然消失了。 并不是说民主国家的所作所为就神圣得无可挑剔。无论是由政治军事当局实施的暴力,还是军队的恣意妄为,都会无差别地针对战斗人员和非战斗人员。自由民主国家严格限制针对平民的暴力,这构成其法律规范标准。尽管很多——或许是绝大部分——违反这条标准的暴力行为都未经报道,但那些已经被自由媒体捅出来的案子,还是会受到公众的谴责和法律的制裁。根据历史纵向比较和国家间横向比较可知,所有这些措施,极大限制了自由民主国家的压迫能力。 要想取得反叛乱战争的胜利就非得残忍无情的观点,其对立面正是近代自由民主宣传中所认定的 “赢得民心”。诚然,施以恩惠、与之合作,展现出令人愉悦的“软实力”,至少赢得被征服社会精英阶层的民心,是帝国“绥靖”政策的中心环节。然而,天鹅绒手套总是罩着一只铁拳,当机立断粉碎本地抵抗,毫无疑问依然是异国统治的终极手段。“赢得民心”确实已成为维持外国社会和平的脆弱而昂贵的指导方针,但那只是因为,自由民主国家实际上已经丧失了武力碾压这些社会的能力。 尽管存在无可辩驳的残忍行为以及政策错误,民主国家的反叛乱战争史依然可以算作其高贵品行的明证。对别国的人道主义干涉同样不可避免地会遭遇上述棘手问题,这的确在一定程度上阻挠了这些干涉。而且,对外干涉逐渐增多,也是为了应对笼罩在战争减少大势上的另一团阴影——非传统恐怖主义。 2001年9月11日,美国遭受大规模恐怖袭击,这起事件成为划时代的界标,并非由于恐怖活动本身,而是一个可怕的征兆,预示着一个晦暗的未来。那就是非传统恐怖主义采用大规模杀伤性武器带来的威胁:核武器、生物武器,以及化学武器。其中,化学武器威胁最小,再成功不过的化学武器顶多杀伤数千人。生物武器的杀伤力要大几个数量级。 基因解码和生物技术方面革命性的突破,大大提升了生物武器的杀伤力和易用性。实验室培育的一株剧毒的细菌或病毒就能够造成与核弹相当的伤亡,更不用说经过特殊选育、尚未出现免疫的超级细菌了,而恐怖分子要搞到这些生物武器远比核弹容易。幸运的是,相对于化学武器和生物武器,恐怖分子无法生产核武器。当然,他们可能从那些能够生产核武器的国家获得。 这个问题的根源在于,原本属于国家级别的大规模杀伤性武器的技术和原料向下流动。核技术流入低安全标准、高度腐败的国家带来的最严峻风险就是与日俱增的泄密危机。迄今为止最著名的案例,就是阿卜杜勒·卡迪尔·汗(Abdul Qadeer Khan),这位掌舵巴基斯坦核弹项目的负责人把核武器秘密卖给了大概十多个国家。 而且,世界上不发达不稳定的地区也有可能陷入分裂和无政府状态。一旦国家政府崩溃,无政府状态取而代之,谁能确保这个国家的核武库安全无虞?这方面,巴基斯坦再次成为一个值得再三讨论的案例。其实,前核武器超级大国苏联的崩溃就是未来威胁的典型模式。出于上述诸多原因,恐怖分子购买、偷窃、抢劫,甚至制造大规模杀伤性武器的能力已经大幅增加了。 007这种类型小说里老生常谈的威胁世界的个人和组织,突然一下子变成了现实。今天这个时代,无需变得强大就可以给世界重重一击。核武器的威慑作用就是基于确保相互摧毁,而这对恐怖分子而言毫无意义,正是他们,而非国家政权,更乐于使用终极武器。与超级大国在冷战中形成的规范不同,恐怖分子所获得的非传统能力非常实用。一旦存在可能,就很难看到什么东西会制止这种事在某时某地变成实实在在的威胁,尤其对于生物技术,潜力确实存在,并且正在逐渐扩大。 这是一个盘根错节的问题,不存在简洁明快的解决方案。防止核扩张,追剿恐怖分子的国际合作至关重要,但是很多国家要么主动抵制,要么作壁上观。外界军事干预极具争议,充满种种困难。一旦这样的事情发生【编注:从上下文看,似乎是指核扩散这件事】,对核武装的伊朗进行军事打击,就成了以色列或美国手中可以打出的一张牌,进而有可能演变成一场涉及世界主要力量的战争。 防御策略基本与先发制人一样问题丛生,对民主国家尤甚。对嫌疑犯的超期羁押意味着异乎寻常的法律程序,繁杂善后处理方法,对民众的监视监听,和其他侵犯隐私的行为,这正是民主国家舆论热火朝天讨论的、法庭上唇枪舌战的话题。涉及反恐战争的进攻和防御两方面议题时,讨论便带有了苦涩的意识形态和义愤色彩。然而,非传统恐怖主义的威胁是真实存在的,也将长期存在,此事绝难善罢甘休。 我们无疑正在经历史上最和平的时代,这是充满喜悦且有着深厚基础的和平大潮。然而,至少自1945年以来,现在是最危险的时代,因为人类第一次具有彻底摧毁自身的能力,即使个人和小团体也能够制造大规模的伤亡,毫无疑问。 众所周知,只要不和未来进行对照,预测就很准。即使最为基础的历史趋势,也会随时间改变方向,产生不同寻常的相互作用。只有时间才能告诉我们答案。我们只能希望,尽管小有起伏,整体趋势依然是确保并且深化我们这个时代的和平。虽然海里的鲸鱼们可能会反对,我们还是希望整个世界都能更像挪威一样。 (编辑:@whigzhou) *注:本译文未经原作者授权,本站对原文不持有也不主张任何权利,如果你恰好对原文拥有权益并希望我们移除相关内容,请私信联系,我们会立即作出响应。

——海德沙龙·翻译组,致力于将英文世界的好文章搬进中文世界——

[译文]罗伯特·康奎斯特功莫大焉

The Triumph of Robert Conquest
罗伯特·康奎斯特的功绩

译者:Horace Rae(@sheldon_rae)     校对:沈沉(@你在何地-sxy)
来源:The Wall Street Journal @ 2015-08-05
网址:http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-triumph-of-robert-conquest-1438814435

He chronicled the Soviet terror that so many in the West refused to see.

他记述了许多西方人拒绝正视的苏联大恐怖。

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President George W. Bush presents the Presidential Medal of Freedom to historian Robert Conquest, left, in Washington on Nov. 9, 2005. PHOTO: E(more...)

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The Triumph of Robert Conquest 罗伯特·康奎斯特的功绩 译者:Horace Rae(@sheldon_rae)     校对:沈沉(@你在何地-sxy) 来源:The Wall Street Journal @ 2015-08-05 网址:http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-triumph-of-robert-conquest-1438814435 He chronicled the Soviet terror that so many in the West refused to see. 他记述了许多西方人拒绝正视的苏联大恐怖。 [caption id="attachment_6041" align="alignnone" width="300"]cover President George W. Bush presents the Presidential Medal of Freedom to historian Robert Conquest, left, in Washington on Nov. 9, 2005. PHOTO: EVAN VUCCI/ASSOCIATED PRESS 小布什总统在华盛顿为历史学家罗伯特·康奎斯特(左)颁发总统自由勋章。2005年11月9日。供图:EVAN VUCCI/ASSOCIATED PRESS。[/caption] Robert Conquest was born in 1917, the year of the Russian Revolution, so it seems fitting that he outlived the Soviet Union by more than 25 years. The indefatigable historian, and enemy, of Soviet totalitarianism died Tuesday at age 98. 罗伯特·康奎斯特生于1917年——俄国十月革命的那一年,所以他比苏联多活了25年是很恰当的。这位苏联极权主义的不倦史家和不懈之敌,于本周二【译注:2015年8月3日】逝世,享年89岁。 Conquest’s major themes were reality and delusion. “The Great Terror” (1968) was the first and still definitive treatment of Stalin’s purges, gulags, show trials and secret police, meticulously documenting the enormity of the death toll. “Harvest of Sorrow”(1986) chronicled what he called the “terror famines” that followed agricultural collectivization. 康奎斯特的研究主题是真实与幻想。《大恐怖》(1968)是关于斯大林政权的大清洗、古拉格集中营、审判秀和秘密警察的第一部论述,翔实记录了庞大的死亡人数,时至今日仍属权威。《苦难的丰收》(1986)则记录了农业集体化之后被他称为“恐怖饥荒”的事件。 When sources inside Russia were few and most Kremlinologists were oblivious, these classics contributed immensely to understanding the nature of the Communist project. They also helped shape the response that won the Cold War; Reagan and Thatcher were among his readers. 当时苏联内部的信息来源少之又少,而苏联问题专家们又袖手旁观,这些经典著作对理解共产主义事业的本质助益极大。它们也有助于制定针对苏联的对策,使我们赢得冷战。里根和撒切尔都读过他的书。 [Hoover Institution Research Fellow Stephen Kotkin on the late Anglo-American historian and his expose of Communist atrocities. Photo credit: Associated Press.] 【胡佛研究所研究员Stephen Kotkin谈论这位已故英裔美国历史学家及他对共产主义暴行的揭露。图片来源:Associated Press.】 Still, until Moscow opened the archives post-1989, leftist intellectuals and especially academics denied the realities Conquest exposed, claiming he exaggerated Stalin’s evil. That debate is now closed beyond challenge. 尽管如此,直到莫斯科1989年以后公开档案之前,左翼知识分子尤其是学术界一直否定康奎斯特所揭露的事实,说他夸大了斯大林的邪恶。现在,这种论调已经毫无争议地停歇了。 Conquest dedicated his later years at Stanford’s Hoover Institution to plumbing delusion, which he defined as “massive reality denial,” or why Russia had so many apologists and sympathizers. He blamed the persistence of destructive beliefs and the bottomless human capacity for self-deception. 康奎斯特晚年在斯坦福的胡佛研究所致力于研究幻想。他把“幻想”定义为“大规模否认事实”,或者(更具体而言),为什么有这么多人维护俄国,同情俄国。他谴责破坏性信念的顽固和人类无穷无尽的自我欺骗能力。 “The mere existence of the U.S.S.R., and its ideas, distorted the way in which many people over the whole world thought about society, the economy, human history,” Conquest wrote in these pages in 1992. “Many were seduced by the comfortable word ‘socialism,’ even to the extent of rejecting the Western ideas of free discussion, political compromise, plural society, piecemeal practicality, change without chaos.” “仅仅是苏联及其理念的存在,就扭曲了全世界很多人思考社会、经济、人类历史的方式,”1992年康奎斯特写道,“许多人都被‘社会主义’这个让人舒心的词汇引诱了,甚至到了抛弃西方的自由讨论、政治妥协、多元社会、零敲碎打式改良的务实精神、有序演变等理念的程度。” Conquest added that the lessons of the bloody 20th century “have not yet been learned, or not adequately so.” Many today across the world still offer solace to dictators and mass murderers, whatever their reasons, so Conquest’s insights into human deception remain and will always be relevant. 康奎斯特补充说,血腥的20世纪的教训“还没有被我们吸取,或者没有被完全吸取”。不管出于何种原因,现在世界上仍有许多人同情独裁者和屠杀者,所以,康奎斯特关于人类自我欺骗的论述会且一直会与我们息息相关。 (编辑:@whigzhou) *注:本译文未经原作者授权,本站对原文不持有也不主张任何权利,如果你恰好对原文拥有权益并希望我们移除相关内容,请私信联系,我们会立即作出响应。

——海德沙龙·翻译组,致力于将英文世界的好文章搬进中文世界——

[译文]教会是科学的敌人吗?

The Mythical conflict between science and Religion
科学与宗教间莫须有的冲突

作者:James Hannam @ 2009-10-17
译者:22(@ 22)     校对:白猫D(@白猫D)
来源:Medieval Science and Philosophy, http://jameshannam.com/conflict.htm

Introduction
简介

Newspaper articles thrive on cliché. These are not so much hackneyed phrases but rather the useful shorthand for nuggets of popular perception that allow the journalist to immediately tune his readers to the right wavelength. Yesterday’s clichés are, of course, today’s stereotypes as any perusal of earlier writing will show. The conflict between science and religion is an acceptable cliché that crops up all over the place.

报纸文章充斥着陈词滥调。这些陈词滥调倒不是简单的陈腐语句,而是一个流行见解百宝箱,让记者可以方便趁手地用来将读者调到正确的认知波段上。当然,阅读任何早期文字都将发现,正是昨日的陈词滥调成就了今日的刻板印象。科学与宗教之间的矛盾冲突,便是一个到处都普遍为人所接受的陈词滥调。

In the episode of The Simpsons in which the late Stephen J. Gould was a guest voice, Lisa found a fossil angel and events led to a court order being placed on religion to keep a safe distance from science. Articles in magazines and on the internet all assume that a state of conflict exists between science and religion, always has existed and that science has been winning.

比如在《辛普森一家》Stephen J. Gould客串配音的那一集中,Lisa发现了一具天使化石,这一事件导致法院判令宗教要与科学保持一定的安全距离。杂志、网络文章也都假定宗教和科学间的冲突是存在的,并将一直存在着,而科学总会是获胜的一方。

Most popular histories of science view all the evidence through this lens without ever stop(more...)

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The Mythical conflict between science and Religion 科学与宗教间莫须有的冲突 作者:James Hannam @ 2009-10-17 译者:22(@ 22)     校对:白猫D(@白猫D) 来源:Medieval Science and Philosophy, http://jameshannam.com/conflict.htm Introduction 简介 Newspaper articles thrive on cliché. These are not so much hackneyed phrases but rather the useful shorthand for nuggets of popular perception that allow the journalist to immediately tune his readers to the right wavelength. Yesterday’s clichés are, of course, today’s stereotypes as any perusal of earlier writing will show. The conflict between science and religion is an acceptable cliché that crops up all over the place. 报纸文章充斥着陈词滥调。这些陈词滥调倒不是简单的陈腐语句,而是一个流行见解百宝箱,让记者可以方便趁手地用来将读者调到正确的认知波段上。当然,阅读任何早期文字都将发现,正是昨日的陈词滥调成就了今日的刻板印象。科学与宗教之间的矛盾冲突,便是一个到处都普遍为人所接受的陈词滥调。 In the episode of The Simpsons in which the late Stephen J. Gould was a guest voice, Lisa found a fossil angel and events led to a court order being placed on religion to keep a safe distance from science. Articles in magazines and on the internet all assume that a state of conflict exists between science and religion, always has existed and that science has been winning. 比如在《辛普森一家》Stephen J. Gould客串配音的那一集中,Lisa发现了一具天使化石,这一事件导致法院判令宗教要与科学保持一定的安全距离。杂志、网络文章也都假定宗教和科学间的冲突是存在的,并将一直存在着,而科学总会是获胜的一方。 Most popular histories of science view all the evidence through this lens without ever stopping to think that there might be another side to the story. But let us turn from popular culture to the academy where we find a rather different picture. 大多数通俗科学史将所有证据置于有色棱镜下观看,却从未停下思考过故事是否有另一面。那么,让我们从坊间传闻走向学院考据,或许在那里,我们可以看到另一幅历史景象。 Let’ s have a look at the comments of a few leading historians of science: 让我们来看几位主流科学史家的评论吧: John Hedley Brooke was the Andreas Idreos Professor of Science and Religion at the University of Oxford. He is a leading historian of science in England and the author of Science and Religion - Some Historical Perspectives (1991). In this book, he writes of the conflict hypothesis “In its traditional forms, the thesis has been largely discredited”. John Hedley Brooke是牛津大学科学与宗教学Andreas Idreos讲席教授。他是英国科学史的领军人物,著有《科学与宗教:历史学观点》(1991)。在该书中,他谈及冲突假说“以其一直以来的形式而言,是不足信的”。 David Lindberg is Hilldale Professor Emeritus of the History of Science at the University of Wisconsin - Madison. He is the author of many books on medieval science and also on religion. With Ronald Numbers, the current Hilldale and William Coleman Professor of the History of Science and Medicine at the same university, he writes “Despite a developing consensus among scholars that science and Christianity have not been at war, the notion of conflict has refused to die”. David Lindberg是威斯康辛大学麦迪逊分校科学史Hilldale讲席荣休教授,撰写了多本关于中世纪科学和宗教的著作。他和同校的Ronald Numbers,现任科学和医学史Hilldale & William Coleman讲席教授,都认为,“尽管学者已就科学和基督教间并未水火不容这点达成共识,但有关两者冲突的观念仍未消失”。 Steven Shapin is Professor of Sociology at the University of California, San Diego. He writes "In the late Victorian period it was common to write about the "warfare between science and religion" and to presume that the two bodies of culture must always have been in conflict. However, it is a very long time since these attitudes have been held by historians of science." Steven Shapin是加州大学圣地亚哥分校的社会学教授,他认为,“‘科学与宗教间的战争’是维多利亚时代晚期被反复书写的一个话题,大众也因而假定这两个文化团体一直以来都处于冲突之中”。 Finally, we come to the dean of medieval science, Edward Grant, Professor Emeritus of the History and Philosophy of Science at Indiana University who writes of that most slandered of periods, the Middle Ages, when faith was supposed to have snuffed out all forms of reason “If revolutionary rational thoughts were expressed in the Age of Reason [the 18th century], they were only made possible because of the long medieval tradition that established the use of reason as one of the most important of human activities”. 最后,让我们听听印第安纳大学中世纪科学系主任、历史与科学哲学荣休教授Edward Grant是如何评价这个一直被严重抹黑的、据认为在此期间信仰抹杀了所有形式理性的中世纪。Grant教授指出,“革命性的理性思想之所以能出现在理性时代(18世纪),正是因为在中世纪建立起来的运用理性作为人类最重要活动的悠久传统”。 So, as a theory believed by working historians, the conflict hypothesis is dead. In this article, I want to examine two questions that follow from this. Firstly, if the conflict hypothesis has been rejected by practically every scholar in the field, why is there such a rift between academic opinion and popular perception? And secondly, what has been the real relationship between science and religion? 因此,“冲突假设已经过时了”——这是一个被当今历史学家普遍接受的观点。在本文中,我将检验由此引出的两个问题。第一,如果冲突假说实际上真的被每一个业内学者抛弃,那么学院派观点和大众认知见的巨大分歧又是从何而来的?第二,科学与宗教间的真实关系到底是怎样的? The conflict hypothesis 冲突假说 Science is the triumph of Western civilisation which has made all its other achievements possible. The enormity of this triumph has very often been reflected onto the historiography of science to produce a story akin to a triumphal progress. From Copernicus onwards, we are told, each generation built on the discoveries of their forerunners to produce a parade of successes with barely a backwards step. 科学是西方文明的胜利,它使得一切其他成就变为可能。这项胜利如此巨大,以至于反映到科学编史学中,就被谱成了一曲不断进步最终迈向胜利的凯旋之歌。我们被告知,从哥白尼开始,每一代人都在前人发现的基础上不断成功前进而少有退步。 This history has been built on two assumptions: that there is something epistemologically unique about science and that reason and rationality are what causes progress in science. Scientists themselves have generally been keen on these ideas and been happy to promote them. 这样的历史描述基于两点假设。第一,科学在认识论上有独一无二的优势;第二,理性与理性能力促进了科学的进步。科学家普遍热心于这些想法,也乐于传播它们。 Such has been status of science in modern society that this self description, promulgated by writers like Carl Sagan and Jacob Bronowski, has generally been respected by the general public who have been less interested in the more nuanced views historians. 这一对科学在现代社会中所居地位的自我描述,经由像卡尔·萨根(Carl Sagan)和雅各布·布朗劳斯基(Jacob Bronowski)这样的作家传播,逐渐为一般大众所接受,而这些大众却往往对历史学家们更细致入微的观点缺少兴趣。 The myth of conflict first really got going during the Enlightenment (itself a description intended to derogate earlier eras) with the fiercely anti-clerical French philosophes. In his Discours Preliminaire, Jean d’Alembert paints a picture of men of the Renaissance finally throwing off the shackles of church domination so that rational enquiry can at last begin. This idea was carried through the nineteenth century with historians like John William Draper and Andrew Dickson White. 这个冲突虚构的最初流行肇始于启蒙运动(这个词本身就是对先前时代的贬低)时期的一位激进反教权法国哲学家朗达贝尔(Jean d’Alembert)。在他的《百科全书序论》中,他将文艺复兴时期描绘为人们最终挣脱教会统治的枷锁,并开始理性思考的一个时代。这个想法持续到了19世纪被威廉·H·德雷珀(John William Draper)和安德鲁·D·怀特(Andrew Dickson White)等历史学家继承。 White was the most famous and successful exponent of the conflict hypothesis. He is commonly quoted at the start of modern books on science and religion as representing the soon-to-be-debunked traditional view. It is worth briefly examining whether White was being entirely honest in his work as no one doubts that Draper was engaged in nothing more that polemic. 怀特是冲突假说最著名、也是最成功的鼓吹者。他通常在有关科学与宗教的现代书籍中开篇即被援引,作为即将被我们揭穿的传统观点之代表而出现。我们有必要简要检验一下,怀特在捍卫其观点时是否完全诚实,因为没有人会怀疑德雷珀对这场论战的投入只有简单的争吵。 Neither of them were professional historians and both did seem to sincerely believe in the warfare theory they were expounding. Unfortunately, this meant that they set out to prove what they already believed rather than take their conclusions from the facts. White is quite explicit about this when he writes how he felt before he began his research, “I saw... the conflict between two epochs in the evolution of human thought - the theological and the scientific.” 他们两人都不是专业历史学家,但都坚信着他们提出的冲突理论。不幸的是,这意味着他们要去证明他们已经相信的观点,而不是从事实中提取结论。怀特对他在研究之前是如何想的这一点非常坦诚:“我先看到了人类思想发展中两个时代间的冲突——神学时代的和科学时代的”。 Any such statement should immediately set off alarm bells which grow louder as we look at his work The Warfare of Science with Theology. His usual tactics are to scour the sources for some stick-in-the-mud reactionary and claim this represents the consensus of religious opinion and then find another thinker (who is usually just as faithful a Christian as the reactionary) who turned out to be right, and claim that they represent reason. 任何此类的论述都应立即敲响我们的警钟。当我们读他的《科学与神学的战争》时,更要提高警惕。怀特惯用的手法是搜罗一些极端保守人士的观点,并声称这些人的观点代表了宗教人士的共识;接着又找到另一位思想家(通常是和那位极端保守分子一样也是忠实基督徒)证明他的观点是对的,并声称他们代表了理性。 Hence using anachronism and claiming obscure figures were in fact influential, he is able to manufacture a conflict where none exists. A detailed critique of his work from Lindberg and Numbers can be read here but I would like to point out a few errors in the specific area of religious persecution of scientists. 因此,利用这种时代错位、吹嘘一些名不见经传人士的重要性,怀特成功捏造了一个其实不曾存在的冲突。Lindberg和Numbers对他作品的更多详细批评可以在这里读到,但是我更想先澄清有关宗教迫害科学家这件事情的一些误解。 White's examples of actual prosecution are few and far between which is not very surprising as the only scientist the Christian Church ever prosecuted for scientific ideas per se was Galileo and even here historians doubt that was the major reason he got into trouble. 怀特提及迫害的例子屈指可数且多远离事实。这并不出人意料,因为唯一一个因为科学观点而被教会迫害的科学家便是伽利略,而历史学家甚至怀疑这并不是他惹上麻烦的真正原因。 This is an embarrassment for White as he thought that in the Middle Ages especially, the Church was burning freethinkers left, right and centre. The lack of any examples of this at all is a serious problem so he is forced to draft in non-scientists or else to claim that prosecutions on non-scientific matters were scientific persecutions after all. Here are some examples: 这一情形对怀特来说很尴尬,因为他认为教会,特别是中世纪教会,会烧死左、中、右派的所有自由思想家。缺乏证据对他来说是个大问题,因此他被迫加入一些非科学家的例子来证明针对非科学事物的迫害归根到底也是针对科学的迫害。这里有一些例子: Roger Bacon has been a popular martyr for science since the nineteenth century. He was a scholastic theologian who was keen to claim Aristotle for the Christian faith. He was not a scientist in any way we would recognise and his ideas are not nearly so revolutionary as they are often painted. 罗杰·培根 (Roger Bacon)从19世纪以来就是一个被人熟知的科学殉道者。他其实是一个热衷于宣传亚里士多德拥有基督教信仰的经院哲学家。他从任何一方面来说都不是科学家,他的想法也不像宣传的那样具有革命性。 In chapter 12 of his book, White writes of Roger “the charges on which St. Bonaventura silenced him, and Jerome of Ascoli imprisoned him, and successive popes kept him in prison for fourteen years, were "dangerous novelties" and suspected sorcery.” 怀特在他的书的第十二章中这样描写Roger,“圣波纳文图拉迫使他噤声,阿斯克利的杰罗姆监禁了他,继任的教皇们又关了他十四年,所有这些指控都是因为他‘危险的创新’和可疑的巫术。” This is untrue. As Lindberg says “his imprisonment, if it occurred at all (which I doubt) probably resulted with his sympathies for the radical “poverty” wing of the Franciscans (a wholly theological matter) rather than from any scientific novelties which he may have proposed.” 这不是真的。正如Lindberg所说,“他的监禁,如果是真的话(我很怀疑),很可能是因为他对于主张苦修的方济各会的同情(完全是神学原因),而不是因为他提倡的一些科学新思想”。 In chapter 2, White informs us “In 1327 Cecco d’Ascoli, noted as an astronomer, was for this [the doctrine of antipodes] and other results of thought, which brought him under suspicion of sorcery, driven from his professorship at Bologna and burned alive at Florence.” 在第二章里,怀特告诉我们,“在1327年,天文学家切科·达斯克利由于‘对跖点’学说和一些其他思想,被怀疑为行使巫术。他因此被剥夺了在博洛尼亚大学的教职,并在佛罗伦萨被活活烧死。” Cecco D’Ascoli was indeed burnt at the stake in 1327 in Florence. He is the only natural philosopher in the entire Middle Ages to pay this penalty and was executed for breaking parole after a previous trial when he had been convicted of heresy for, apparently, claiming Jesus Christ was subject to the stars. 切科·达斯克利确实在1327年被烧死在佛罗伦萨的木桩上。他是整个中世纪时期里唯一一个死于火刑的自然哲学家:而他被判死刑是因为,在他因为宣称耶稣基督受控于他的星座命宫而被判异端的假释期间,违反了假释条例。 This is not enough for White who claims, entirely without foundation, that Cecco met his fate partly for the scientific view that the antipodes were inhabited as well as dishonestly calling him an ‘astronomer’ rather than an ‘astrologer’ to strengthen his scientific credentials. 这显然不足以让怀特声称(完全是毫无根据),他的死部分是因为他“对跖点适宜居住”的科学观点。更不必说怀特不诚实将达斯克利称为“天文学家”而不是“占星家”来增强他的科学可信度了。 In the same chapter White claims “In 1316 Peter of Abano, famous as a physician, having promulgated this [the habitation of the antipodes] with other obnoxious doctrines in science, only escaped the Inquisition by death.” We have no good evidence that d’Abano was under investigation from the inquisition at his death. 在同一章里,怀特声称“在1316年,外科医生达巴诺的彼得因传播对跖点和其他有害的科学学说而受到审判,但在审判结束之前意外死亡”。我们没有明确的证据可以表明达巴诺死于审判期间。 However, he did gain a posthumous reputation as a sorcerer when spurious works were attributed to him. This may have led to the reports of his bones being dug up and burnt after his death. There is again, no evidence whatsoever that the antipodes debate or science had anything to do with the matter. 然后,他确实在死后由于一些归于其名下的伪造作品而得到了巫师的名声。这可能也导致了他死后骨头被挖出焚烧的传闻。但是,我们要再一次声明,没有任何证据可以表明对于科学或“对跖点”的争论和他的死有关系。 It is hard to confirm some of White’s victims existed at all. “The chemist John Barrillon was thrown into prison,” he says in chapter 12 “and it was only by the greatest effort that his life was saved.” The great historian of science, George Sarton, with a better knowledge of the sources of anyone before or since, says this episode is ‘completely unknown’ to him. Needless to say, White gives no reference. 我们很难确定怀特所说的一些受害者是否存在。他在第十二章里谈到,“化学家John Barrillon被投入狱,任何努力都救不了他”。而掌握史料前无古人后无来者的杰出历史学家乔治·萨顿(George Sarton)对这件事的回应是,“从未听说过”。不用说,怀特没有给出任何出处。 Vesalius, the founder of modern anatomy, is also held up as a martyr to science. White explains in chapter 13 “Vesalius was charged with dissecting a living man, and, either from direct persecution, as the great majority of authors assert, or from indirect influences, as the recent apologists for Philip II admit, he became a wanderer: on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, apparently undertaken to atone for his sin, he was shipwrecked, and in the prime of his life and strength he was lost to the world…. His death was hastened, if not caused, by men who conscientiously supposed that he was injuring religion.” 现代解剖学的奠基人维萨里(Vesalius)也常常被认为是科学殉道者。怀特在第十三章中解释道,“维萨里被指控解剖活人。无论是因为绝大多数学者确信的直接迫害,还是因为最近西班牙的腓力二世的辩护者承认的间接迫害,他实际上成了一个要被流放到圣地为自己赎罪的流浪汉。最终正值壮年的他在一次船难中去世。如果说他不是被那些认为他危害宗教的人害死的,也至少是因为他们而少活了很多年。” The trouble is that hardly a word of this has any basis in historical fact. Vesalius did go on a pilgrimage and was drowned on the way back. But there is no hint he was ever prosecuted and the idea his death was hastened by those who supposed he was injuring religion is simply wrong. 这段话的问题在于,没有哪一处是基于历史事实的。维萨里确实去朝圣了,并且在归途中溺水身亡,但是没有任何证据证明他是被害死的。那些认为他的英年早逝是由于他危害宗教的观点是错误的。 Discussing the heliocentric system, White goes on “Many minds had received it [the doctrine of Copernicus], but within the hearing of the papacy only one tongue appears to have dared to utter it clearly. This new warrior was that strange mortal, Giordano Bruno. He was hunted from land to land, until at last he turned on his pursuers with fearful invectives. For this he was entrapped at Venice, imprisoned during six years in the dungeons of the Inquisition at Rome, then burned alive, and his ashes scattered to the winds.” 当讨论到日心说时,怀特接着说,“虽然当时很多人接受了哥白尼的学说,但在教皇的威严下,只有一个人敢于发出自己的声音。这位新勇士是一个奇怪的凡人——乔尔丹诺·布鲁诺(Giordano Bruno),他在各地都被追捕,直到最后,他向对自己恶言相向的追捕者发出还击。为此,他在威尼斯被诱捕入狱,随后被囚禁在罗马地牢里,在审讯中度过了六年。最后他遭受火刑而死,他的骨灰散落在空中。 ” In fact, we do not know the exact reasons Bruno was prosecuted but modern scholars like Frances Yates suggest it was because he was a magus who was trying to start a new neo-Platonic religion. He did believe the earth revolved around the sun but this was purely for religious reasons as he effectively worshipped it. In any case, it was incidental to his fate as were his other pseudo-scientific ideas. 事实上,我们现在仍然不清楚布鲁诺被迫害的具体原因。现代学者如弗朗西斯·耶茨(Frances Yates)认为,那是因为他是一位尝试建立一个新柏拉图主义宗教的术士。他确实相信地球绕着太阳转,但那纯粹是因为他自身的宗教信仰让他相信的。无论如何,日心说跟他的其他伪科学想法一样,都不对他的命运负主要责任。 One would like to take the charitable view that White really believed his theory and was not making up evidence to support a position he knew to be false. Instead, he skews the evidence by accepting that which agrees with his hypothesis while being sceptical of what does not. This means that he has included falsehoods that he would have noticed if he had taken a properly objective attitude towards all his evidence. 我们应该采取一个比较宽厚的看法,相信怀特确实笃信自己的理论,而不是为了维护自己明知错误的立场刻意编造证据。然而,他歪曲了证据,仅接受那些符合他假说的,而质疑那些不符合的。这意味着,如果他以客观的态度对待所有证据,那他就可以避免引入那些他本可发现的错误。 The points given above together with Numbers and Lindberg’s criticisms noted in their article are sufficient, however, to prove White’s work as utterly worthless as history. 以上几点,连同Lindberg和Numbers的批评,已足以证明怀特的作品和普通历史一样是没有价值的。 Draper, with no footnotes or references cannot even claim to give an illusion of scholarship. Colin Russell, in a recent summary of the historiography of the alleged warfare, sums up the views of modern scholarship, saying “Draper takes such liberty with history, perpetuating legends as fact that he is rightly avoided today in serious historical study. The same is nearly as true of White, though his prominent apparatus of prolific footnotes may create a misleading impression of meticulous scholarship”. 至于Drape,他的作品根本没有脚注或者引用来源,我们很难称他是一个学者。Colin Russell在最近一份关于科学与宗教莫须有战争的历史编纂学综述中,总结了现代学者的观点,他说,“Drape解读历史的随意性很大,常常将传说当作史实。这也是他被当今严肃史学研究忽略的原因。White也同样很难被称作是一个合格的学者,尽管他通过丰富的脚注让我们产生了一种严谨学术的错觉”。 But even today, historians who should know better, like Daniel Boorstin, Charles Freeman and William Manchester, have produced popular books that wheel out all the old misconceptions and prejudices. 但即使在今天,像Daniel Boorstin,Charles Freeman还有William Manchester这些本应对此了解更多的历史学家,却还是将老旧的误解和偏见带进自己的通俗作品中。 Another reason for the myth of conflict continuing is because at the moment there is undoubtedly a conflict between one wing of Christianity and modern science. This is the battle over evolution. Although the Catholic Church and mainline protestants long ago reconciled themselves to Darwin’s theory and modified their theology accordingly, many conservative Christians remain deeply suspicious about evolution and its alleged metaphysical implications. 冲突假说持续流行的另一个原因是,当时确实有一支基督教信仰与现代科学产生了一场激烈冲突——关于演化论的争斗。虽然天主教会与主流新教徒在很久之前就调解了神学与达尔文理论之间的矛盾,但很多保守的基督徒仍对演化论及其背后的形而上学暗示表示深深的怀疑。 Unfortunately, many who are defending evolution try to widen the gap between religion and science and use it to push non-scientific but anti-religious philosophical agendas. This can be seen clearly in the work of Richard Dawkins and many writers on the internet. 不幸的是,很多为演化论辩护的人扩大了宗教与科学之间的分歧,并利用它推进了非科学但却反宗教的议程。这可以很明显地在网上从理查德·道金斯(Richard Dawkins)和其他作家的作品中看到。 Some observers would claim that now science holds the whip hand it is being no less intolerant of dissent as the church supposedly once was. This would not be an accurate view as instead the argument over evolution is carried on vehemently by a small number of extremists on both sides while the rest of the community looks on rather bemused. 一些观察者声称,如今处于支配地位的科学执鞭于手、厉对异己的不宽容做派,和人们设想中教会的表现相比,毫不逊色。这当然不是一个准确的看法,因为关于演化论的激烈争论仅仅在一些科学与宗教的极端群体中进行,而大众对于这些讨论则是相当茫然的。 Occasionally, it spills over in a public arena such as when pressure groups gain control of previously obscure bodies that set school curricula, but in general it does not have the slightest effect. Most of the occasions when there have been conflicts between science and religion were caused by someone seeking publicity and fame when the problem could much more easily be sorted by patient discussion. 偶尔,当某个压力集团控制了以前不起眼的学校机构并开始设置课程时,争论会溢出到公共领域,但在一般情况下,这些争论不会对公众有丝毫影响。很多情况下,那些本可通过耐心讨论解决的冲突是由那些寻求名气与曝光度的人引起的。 This is the case both of Galileo publishing his inflammatory popular tracts that provoked the church and John Scopes volunteering to be charged with teaching evolution. Even so, Galileo himself blamed jealous scientific rivals and professional spite for his predicament. 伽利略散发他煽动性的流行小册子从而激怒教会,约翰·斯科普斯(John Scopes)故意去违反法规教授演化论,都是这种情况。即使如此,伽利略仍将自己的困境归咎于那些嫉妒他的科学对手和来自同行的怨恨。 The reasons for the continuing popular belief in the historical conflict can probably be summed up as follows: 有关历史上宗教与科学间冲突的流行信念长盛不衰的原因,大概可以总结如下:
  • The writings of an earlier generation of historians have yet to be eclipsed by modern scholarship;
  • 早期历史学家的著作,其光芒仍未被现代学者掩盖;
  • Some popular writers of today continue to recycle the old myths rather than using up to date research;
  • 当今部分通俗作家不断重复过去的传说而没有采用最新的研究成果;
  • A few famous events have given a misleading impression to people unfamiliar with their context;
  • 一些著名的历史事件给不熟悉历史背景的大众产生了误导;
  • The idea of a conflict makes for a better story than more multi-faceted truth.
  • 冲突观念比多面相的事实更适合写成动听故事。
The real historical relationship between science and religion 历史上科学与宗教间的真实关系 Through out history the real situation has been complicated and changeable. It has not proven possible, and nor is it ever likely to, for a single theory to explain the interaction of all forms of science and all forms of religion. It is certainly true that certain science (say, neo-Darwinist theory) is in conflict with certain kinds of religion (say, literalist Christianity) but even in an environment where both are present the effect is pretty negligible. 纵观历史,真正的局面是复杂且多变的,用某种单一理论来解释所有形式的科学与宗教之间的互动,从未被证明是可能的,或貌似可能的。确实,某些科学分支(比如新达尔文主义理论)与某些宗教派别(比如基督教经律主义)是有冲突的。但即使在它们两者都在场的情况下,这种冲突的影响也是微乎其微的。 For all the sound and fury over the teaching of evolution it is difficult to make any sort of case that science in the US has been adversely effected by creationism. If it means that scientists need to explain the theory of evolution better to suspicious laymen (which is something they are usually poor at doing), creationism could even serve an occasionally useful purpose. 面对演化论教学的喧哗与骚动,神创论很难以任何方式对美国的科学产生不利的影响。甚至有时候神创论可以让科学家们更好地向有疑虑的外行人解释演化论(这件事他们常常做得很差)。 Conversely, cosmology has found itself agreeing with religion rather more than some anti-religious thinkers would like. A hundred years ago nearly all non-religious thinkers took it for granted that the universe had always existed and always would. Despite the opposition of theologians claiming a real infinite in time was logically impossible (sometime called the Kalam cosmological argument), atheists seemed quite happy with an uncreated, eternal universe. 相反,不像某些反宗教思想家所认为的那样,宇宙学则与宗教远更相容。一百年前,几乎所有的非宗教思想家都将宇宙一直存在并且会一直存在下去视作理所当然。尽管持相反意见的神学家声称,真正无限的时间在逻辑上是不可能的(有时被称为卡拉姆宇宙论),无神论者似乎更乐于见到一个非创生的、永恒的宇宙。 When the Big Bang model was first suggested by the Jesuit priest Georges Le Maître, it was greeted with a certain amount of scepticism and the atheist Fred Hoyle coined the phrase ‘Big Bang’ intending it to be derogatory. 当大爆炸模型首次被耶稣会教士勒梅特(Georges Le Maître)提出时,受到了很多质疑,无神论者费雷德·霍伊尔(Fred Hoyle)杜撰“大爆炸”(Big Bang)一词来贬低这个发现。 His atheism also blinded him to the inadequacies of his steady state theory which one suspects he only came up with to avoid the uncomfortable metaphysical implications of a universe with a beginning. Atheist scientists have now come to terms with the big bang and adjusted their metaphysics accordingly, much like most Christians, after some debate, accepted evolution and twiddled their theology. 霍伊尔的无神论思想也使他看不到自己稳恒状态理论(steady state theory)的不足之处。有人怀疑这仅是因为霍伊尔要避免宇宙存在一个开端所带来的令他不舒服的形而上学暗示。如今,无神论科学家已经接受了“大爆炸”这个词,并且相应地调整了他们的形而上学假设;这非常像很多基督徒在经过一番辩论后,接受了进化论并且调整了自己的神学。 However, it is interesting to hear today’s atheists declaring that God must have a creator when their predecessors were quite happy for the universe not to have one. All this seems to demonstrate that when it comes to science, both sides find things they do not like and both sides argue against them until the evidence becomes impossible to deny. 但有趣的是,现在我们听见无神论者声称上帝本身必须有一个创造者,而他们的前辈们却为宇宙没有创造者而感到庆幸。所有这些似乎都表明了当涉及到科学时,双方都找出并反对自己不喜欢的一面,直到证据确凿到实在难以否认为止。 Today popular histories do try and recognise this variety. The people we want to eulogise as the great heroes of science rarely had such clear cut views as was once thought. This has led to what I call the 'examination' school of historical writing that can sometimes read like a series of end of term report cards where the figures of the past are praised or scolded according to how much the modern writer thinks they got right. 今天,通俗史确实在尝试并认可这些多样性。许多为我们所赞扬的科学英雄,很少像人们曾经以为的那样,提出过清晰明确的观点。这就会导致我称之为“考试”学派的历史著述。这些著述有时读起来就像一叠期末汇报卡片,上面写着当今作者认为应该会做的题目,然后他们根据一位历史人物答对了多少,来决定赞美还是贬斥他。 A good example of this approach is John Gribbin’s recent Science: A History 1543 - 2001 (published as The Scientists in the US) which is really just an entertaining collection of anecdotes covered in a positivist gloss. But at least he largely avoids the conflict myth and admits that neither Giordano Bruno nor the anti-Trinitarian Michael Servetus can be described as martyrs for science. 约翰·格里宾(John Gribbin)最近出版的《科学史:1543—2001》(美国版书名为《科学家》)就是一个很好的例子。该书披着实证主义的光彩外衣,其实只是本读起来令人愉悦的奇闻轶事集。但至少,格里宾也很大程度上避免了上述冲突神话,并且承认布鲁诺和反三位一体的米迦勒·塞尔维特(Michael Servetus)都很难称得上是科学殉道者。 Full-on confrontations between science and religion are reasonably rare. Even when such encounters occur, they are usually arguments between co-religionists with shared concerns about how new discoveries affect faith. We find this during the debate that followed the publication of Darwin’s Origin of Species where Christians such as Asa Gray defended both the theory of evolution and Christianity’s accommodation with it. 科学与宗教间的全面冲突是相当罕见的。即使冲突发生了,往往也只是发生在拥有共同信仰的信徒中,他们对于这些新发现将如何影响信仰而展开争论。在达尔文的《物种起源》出版之后便产生了类似的讨论。基督徒阿萨·格雷(Asa Gray)便同时为基督教教义与演化论辩护,并努力使两者协调起来。 Another cause of confusion is when people seeking to attack religion seek to co-opt science onto their side. For instance, whether one is pro-life or not has nothing to do with science, but is often portrayed as such. Concerns about experiments on stem cells also arise from ethics. 混淆的另外一个原因是,当人们攻击宗教的时候,他们往往团结科学站到他们这一边。一个人支持堕胎与否无关科学,但往往就被描述为与科学相关。同样的例子还包括因为伦理道德而引发的对干细胞实验的忧虑。 This leads us straight to the real conflict which is between religion and naturalism. And here the warfare is real enough. Science is partly characterised by methodological naturalism which was used by natural philosophers of the Middle Ages and fully approved by the Church. 这把我们引向宗教与自然主义之间的真实冲突,这里才是交锋真正发生的地方。科学部分地带有方法论自然主义的色彩,这种方法论自然主义在中世纪时期被自然哲学家使用,并且得到了教会的支持。 They realised, as modern naturalists do not, that it is an error of logic to assume that because science assumes naturalism to simplify and explain, it follows that science shows naturalism is true. 当时他们认为(现代自然主义者没有意识到),仅仅因为科学假定自然主义解释简洁就得到“科学证明了自然主义是正确”的这个结论,逻辑上是不正确的。 It is not the purpose of this article to attack the naturalistic fallacy, merely to observe that many of the alleged battles between science and religion are actually being fought by proxy between naturalism and religion, with science as the weapon of both. And, as the defeats of naturalism over the big bang and spontaneous generation showed, the traffic is by no means all one way. 本文的目的不是要攻击自然主义谬误,而是想让人们看到,所谓的科学与宗教之间的冲突,其实是自然主义与宗教双方都利用科学而在他们之间进行的代理战争。而正如自然主义在大爆炸理论和自然发生学说上的失败所显示的,发展进程并非一条单向道。 Most academic historians, while rejecting outright conflict, would refuse to be drawn on whether or not the contribution of religion to science was broadly positive or negative citing the enormous amount of data that would have to be assimilated to give a sensible answer. Most are happy to say that the relationship has been positive in some ways and negative in others with an overall effect that is probably too subtle to be measured. 现在,大多数学院派历史学家并不认为科学与宗教完全站在对立面,也拒绝投身于这样一件事情:通过引证大量数据,从而给出一个敏感答案,并最终在宗教对科学的影响到底大致上是正面的还是负面的这个问题上站队表态。相反,他们会乐于承认两者的关系在某些方面是积极的,在另外一些方面是消极的;总体来说影响微妙,难以估算。 While I respect that cautious view, I believe it is wrong and that a very strong case can be made for the Christian religion be a specific factor in the rise of modern science in Western Europe. This is one of the ideas that I address in my new book God's Philosophers: How the Medieval World Laid the Foundations of Modern Science. 虽然我尊重这个审慎的观点,但我仍相信它是错误的,并认为,我们可以在很强的意义上说:基督教信仰是西欧现代科学兴起的一个重要因素。这也是我在新书《上帝的哲学家:中世纪世界是如何为现代科学奠定基础的》中要表达的一个观点。 (编辑:@whigzhou) *注:本译文未经原作者授权,本站对原文不持有也不主张任何权利,如果你恰好对原文拥有权益并希望我们移除相关内容,请私信联系,我们会立即作出响应。

——海德沙龙·翻译组,致力于将英文世界的好文章搬进中文世界——

政治风向与代际更替

【2015-09-26】

@海德沙龙 【历史钩沉】反法西斯胜利纪念年年有,揭露纳粹暴行的学术和文艺作品也层出不穷,可是另一个远比纳粹更邪恶的系统,却很少得到展示和审视,人们要么假装不记得,要么真的忘了,或者压根没听说过,幸好,还有一小撮历史学家没忘记,Conquest便是其中之一 追忆红色恐怖 http://t.cn/RySY5zn

@whigzhou: 当前英美左风大盛,新工党和新民主党双双埋葬,自称社会主义者已不再是政治自杀,(more...)

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【2015-09-26】 @海德沙龙 【历史钩沉】反法西斯胜利纪念年年有,揭露纳粹暴行的学术和文艺作品也层出不穷,可是另一个远比纳粹更邪恶的系统,却很少得到展示和审视,人们要么假装不记得,要么真的忘了,或者压根没听说过,幸好,还有一小撮历史学家没忘记,Conquest便是其中之一 追忆红色恐怖 http://t.cn/RySY5zn @whigzhou: 当前英美左风大盛,新工党和新民主党双双埋葬,自称社会主义者已不再是政治自杀,这一转向,有人说是金融危机的后果,但依我看,更可能是因为:1975年后出生的人已经成为投票主力,他们1990年时还不懂事,大多没被苏联崩溃前后的场面震惊过…… @whigzhou: 1990年后的全球自由化浪潮中,左派丧失底气,除了某些机构拿不到卢布了这个原因之外,主要还是意识形态全面破产,但有意思的是,这套意识形态在完全没添加什么新鲜玩意儿的情况下,却大有复兴之势,可见,和直观场面相比,道理在政治纷争中确实没多少用  
[译文]追忆红色恐怖

The Great Terror at 40
《大恐怖》四十周年

作者:Robert Conquest @ 2008-04-16
译者:Eartha(@王小贰_Eartha)   校对:沈沉(@你在何地-sxy)
来源:Hoover Digest, http://www.hoover.org/research/great-terror-40

In the late Sixties when my book The Great Terror came out, it was still true that, as the great historian François Furet noted, after the war and the demise of fascism, “all the major debates on postwar ideas revolved round a single question: the nature of the Soviet regime.” He adds the paradox that communism had two main embodiments—as a backward despotism and as a constituency in the West that had to be kept unaware of the other’s reality. And, up to the last, this was often accompanied by a view of the Cold War as an even exchange—with the imputation that any denigration of the Soviet regime was due to peace-hating prejudice.

上世纪六十年代后期,我的书《大恐怖》(The Great Terror)刚出版之际,有个论断还是正确的。如著名历史学家弗朗索瓦·傅勒所言,在二战结束与法西斯主义消亡之后,“战后所有的重大理念之争都只围绕着一个问题:苏联政权的本质。”他补充道,共产主义的两大现实是相互矛盾的:一个是落后的专制统治;另一个则是它在西方世界所获得的支持,这些支持者必须对前一项现实保持无知。直到最后,这一悖论通常还伴随了另一种观念,认为冷战是一场公平对抗,将任何对苏联政权的贬斥都归罪于厌恶和平的偏见。

What was the condition of our previous knowledge of Stalinist actuality before, let us say, 1956? We had for decades had a large amount of real information about the purges, all often rejected or ignored, while little truth and much falsehood had emerged from Moscow. However, since 1956, starting with the revelations of Nikita Khrushchev’s Secret Speech it was (or(more...)

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The Great Terror at 40 《大恐怖》四十周年 作者:Robert Conquest @ 2008-04-16 译者:Eartha(@王小贰_Eartha)   校对:沈沉(@你在何地-sxy) 来源:Hoover Digest, http://www.hoover.org/research/great-terror-40 In the late Sixties when my book The Great Terror came out, it was still true that, as the great historian François Furet noted, after the war and the demise of fascism, “all the major debates on postwar ideas revolved round a single question: the nature of the Soviet regime.” He adds the paradox that communism had two main embodiments—as a backward despotism and as a constituency in the West that had to be kept unaware of the other’s reality. And, up to the last, this was often accompanied by a view of the Cold War as an even exchange—with the imputation that any denigration of the Soviet regime was due to peace-hating prejudice. 上世纪六十年代后期,我的书《大恐怖》(The Great Terror)刚出版之际,有个论断还是正确的。如著名历史学家弗朗索瓦·傅勒所言,在二战结束与法西斯主义消亡之后,“战后所有的重大理念之争都只围绕着一个问题:苏联政权的本质。”他补充道,共产主义的两大现实是相互矛盾的:一个是落后的专制统治;另一个则是它在西方世界所获得的支持,这些支持者必须对前一项现实保持无知。直到最后,这一悖论通常还伴随了另一种观念,认为冷战是一场公平对抗,将任何对苏联政权的贬斥都归罪于厌恶和平的偏见。 What was the condition of our previous knowledge of Stalinist actuality before, let us say, 1956? We had for decades had a large amount of real information about the purges, all often rejected or ignored, while little truth and much falsehood had emerged from Moscow. However, since 1956, starting with the revelations of Nikita Khrushchev’s Secret Speech it was (or seemed) indisputable that a regime of lies and terror had indeed been in existence. Over the years that followed came the publication of One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, which, as Galina Vishnevskaya put it, “let the genie out of the bottle, and however hard they tried later, they couldn’t put it back in.” 比如说,1956年之前,我们对斯大林主义的真实状况到底知道多少呢?几十年来,我们拥有大量关于苏联政治清洗的真实资料,却大都不被认可或者被忽视,与此同时只有零星真相和大量谎言从莫斯科传来。但是,自1956年起,以尼基塔•赫鲁晓夫“秘密演讲”所揭露的为开端,这样一个事实已变得(或至少看起来)无可争议:那里早已存在一个由谎言和恐怖维持的政权。之后的数年间,《伊凡·杰尼索维奇的一天》【译注:索尔仁尼琴的一部中篇小说,以作者自己的劳改营生活为素材写成。】出版了,借用卡丽娜·维许涅芙丝卡雅的评价,这本书“将妖怪放出了魔瓶,不管当局之后多么努力,都已无可挽回。” So by 1964 or 1965 it had gradually become plain that a huge gap in history needed to be filled, and that the facts released over the past few years, plus the often denied testimony of some of the regime’s hostile but increasingly justified witnesses, could be put together, if carefully done, to produce a veridical story, a real history. 所以,到1964或1965年,一项清楚的共识逐渐形成:历史有一道鸿沟需要填补,如果将过去几年间揭露的真相,和过去遭否认但现在渐渐变得可信的苏联政权敌对证人的证言放在一起,足够仔细的话,就能呈现出一个真实的故事,一段真实的历史。 1 When my book came out in 1968, the publishers were surprised to have to reprint it time and time again to meet demand. Reviews, from left and right, were almost all very favorable. And it was soon published in most Western languages—and also Hindi, Arabic, Japanese, and Turkish. 我的书于1968年出版之后,出版商们吃惊地发现,需要不停地再版才能满足读者的需求。从左派到右派,几乎所有的书评都表示了赞赏。不久,这本书的译本也纷纷出版,不仅大多数西方语言有译本,还有印地语、阿拉伯语、日语以及土耳其语的译本。 Over the decades that followed, “the period of stagnation” as it became known in Russia, there was little further public addition to our knowledge—or to that of the Soviet citizen. But in those years came many breaches of the official silence. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn “illegally” gave us The Gulag Archipelago. From Andrei Sakharov came striking interviews and interventions. There was a flowering of samizdat and, to counter it, many arrests (and confinement in penal “psychiatric” wards— as reported by my friend Vladimir Bukovsky and others—as well as the Gulag). 在接下来的几十年中,俄国进入了一个此后被称为“停滞期”的阶段,我们几乎再没得到更多关于苏联政权的公开消息,苏联人民也是如此。但是在那些年间,官方的沉默也几次三番被打破。亚历山大·索尔仁尼琴 “非法地”将《古拉格群岛》传递出来。安德烈·萨哈罗夫【译注:苏联 “苏联氢弹之父”,人权运动家,1975年获诺贝尔和平奖。】则让我们看到了令人震惊的警察询问和干涉【编注:此句原文颇费解,姑作此译】。地下文学出版发行曾经历了一段兴盛期,与之相应的,有很多人因此被逮捕(以及被监禁在刑罚性的“精神病院”——由我的朋友Vladimir Bukovsky及其他人所报道——还有古拉格)。 And there was Roy Medvedev’s Let History Judge—from, what is more, a devoted Leninist: a deeply detailed blow at the Stalin terror. There was a liberalism of the catacombs. Above all, the old falsifications lost credibility among anything describable as an educated class in Russia. The public acceptance of what they knew to be not merely falsehoods, but stupid and long-exposed falsehoods—the mere disgrace of it ate into the morale of even the official intelligentsia, as I remember noting in conversations with Soviet diplomats. Meanwhile, the original 1968 edition of The Great Terror had been published in a Russian version (in Florence, in 1972) and was soon being smuggled into the USSR, where it was welcomed by many outside—and, as we now know, inside—official circles. 还有罗易·梅德韦杰夫的著作《让历史来审判》——特别是它来自一位真挚的列宁主义者,这是对斯大林恐怖统治沉重而细节详尽的一记重击。墓室里也藏着自由主义。尤其是,过去的弄虚作假已在俄国任何可称为受过教育的阶层中丢尽信誉。人们公开接受那些他们明知为错,而且还是愚蠢至极、久已揭露的错误——仅仅是由此产生的耻辱就能侵蚀掉甚至身在朝堂的知识阶层的士气,我记得自己在与苏联外交官的交谈中就有此观感。在此期间,1968初版的《大恐怖》也发行了俄文译本(1972年,在佛罗伦萨),并且不久就被走私到苏联,受到了官员圈子以外的热烈追捧——还有,如我们现在所知,也包括了官圈内部成员。 In the early 1980s came the realization by some in Moscow that the whole regime had become nonviable economically, ecologically, intellectually— and even militarily—largely because of its rejection of reality. When it came to Soviet history, and Stalin’s Terror, there was, as on other themes, some sharp disagreement in the Politburo—later to produce the attempted coup of 1991. The highest leadership itself had not managed to find the facts about the fate of its own relatives! It is only years later that records of these disputes have been published. 1980年代初期,莫斯科的一些人终于意识到,整个政权在经济层面、生态层面、智力层面——甚至是军事层面——无法继续维持下去的主要原因是它自身对现实的拒绝。当谈及苏联历史和斯大林的恐怖统治时,如同谈及其它一些议题一样,政治局中存在着尖锐的分歧——后来还曾引发了1991年的未遂政变。甚至连苏联最高领导层都弄不清楚有关其亲属下落的事实!数年后,有关这些争论的记录才被公开出版。 One finds Mikhail Gorbachev telling his colleagues, “Millions rehabilitated— that is the great service done by Nikita Khrushchev.” Why did this “stop short?” he asked. “Because Khrushchev too had blood on his hands.” As to his successors, they had done their best to keep the truth unknown: “Under Brezhnev, under Andropov, under Chernenko, even members of the Politburo had no information.” As to what followed, Stalin’s “use of the Kirov murder to bring in repression,” the only motive was “the struggle for power.” And Gorbachev adds: “Plots against him—that’s all rubbish (chepukkha).” 我们看到,米哈伊尔·戈尔巴乔夫曾对他的同僚说,“数百万人被平反了——这是由尼基塔•赫鲁晓夫完成的伟大贡献。”但为什么又“突然停下了呢?”他问道。“因为赫鲁晓夫的双手也沾满鲜血。”而他的继任者们则尽其所能隐瞒真相:在勃列日涅夫、安德罗波夫、契尔年科治下,甚至连某些政治局成员都不知道相关信息。”正如戈尔巴乔夫接下来所说的,斯大林“借基洛夫谋杀案实行镇压”的唯一动机就是“夺取权力”。”他还补充道:“针对他的阴谋——那全是胡说八道(chepukkha)。” “And this was Stalin,” Gorbachev told his colleagues. “How can that be accepted, let alone forgiven?” “这就是斯大林,”戈尔巴乔夫对他的同僚们说道。“这怎么可能被接受,更何谈原谅?” He then speaks of “3 million sentenced, and that the most active part of the nation. A million shot. And that is not counting the share of dekulakization and the fate of people at the time of deportations. And this was Stalin. How can that be accepted, let alone forgiven?” 他接着谈到了,“三百万人被判刑,而这些人正是这个国家最有活力的那部分。一百万人被枪毙了,这还没算上反富农斗争所造成的死亡人数和当时被流放者的命运。这就是斯大林。这怎么可能被接受,更何谈原谅?” This was not for publication. But the whole direction of glasnost, amongst other things, brought a mass of officially banned knowledge out of hiding. The first public mention in Russia of my book was when Katrina vanden Heuvel interviewed me for Moskovskie Novosti in April 1989. 这些本不会被公开。但是,在公开性政策等的大方向指引之下,大量官方封禁的内幕得见天日。俄国对我的著作的首次公开提及,是在1989年4月,《莫斯科新闻报》发表了记者Katrina vanden Heuvel对我的采访。 When I was in Moscow later that year, it was all over. Through the decade there had been little reply to the book from the party establishment. But now the Stalinist writer Aleksandr Chakovsky called me “anti-Sovietchik number one” at the last plenum of the Central Committee. By that time the Russian edition was being serialized (in a million copies each month) in Neva. 那一年再晚些时候,我正呆在莫斯科,一切都结束了。十年来,当权政党对这本书的回应微乎其微。但是现在,斯大林主义作家Aleksandr Chakovsky在中央委员会最后一次全体会议把我称作的“头号反苏联者”。那时候,俄文版《大恐怖》正在《涅瓦》杂志上连载(该刊月发行量一百万份)。 The new openness had produced so much new material that it became possible, and even necessary, to produce a new edition of this book. The Great Terror: A Reassessment was published in 1990. Over the next four or five years, I was welcomed in Russia, making many friends, speaking to cultural and other groups and at conferences hosted by the Soviet Foreign Ministry. 新采取的公开性政策带来了如此多的新材料,使得为这本书重写一个新版本不仅是可能的,也是必须的。《大恐怖:重新评估》于1990年出版。在接下来的四、五年间,我受到了俄国的欢迎,结交了新朋友,向文化类与其它性质的团体发表讲话,还参与了由苏联外交部主办的研讨会。 Going into Izvestiya to collect payment for a contribution to a Moscow journal, I saw a portrait of Nikolai Bukharin (purged and executed in 1938) hanging alongside those of the other former editors. I spent some weeks being filmed there for the documentary series Red Empire, made by Granada Television. As I encountered those I had met earlier abroad, it was hard not to relish Andrei Voznesensky’s saying he could hardly believe I was there: could he pinch me to make sure? 在我前往《消息报》为我向莫斯科一家刊物的投稿领取稿酬时,我看到尼古拉·布哈林的画像(于1938年遭清洗、处决)与历任主编的画像挂在一起。我在莫斯科停留了几周,参与摄制了由格拉纳达电视台制作的系列纪录片《红色帝国》。当我在那儿与此前曾在国外见过的人相见时,安德烈·沃兹涅先斯基的说法就很容易引起我的回味,他说他真不敢相信我会出现在那里:他能够打我几拳来确认吗? The information now available established the story clearly as to historical essentials, and in a generally correct way as to almost all crucial details. But we were soon like modern historians of an ancient empire who have had to rely on a few inscriptions, some only recently deciphered, when a huge store of firsthand records is discovered under some pyramid. It was enough for generations of archaeologists. . . . So eventually we come to the 2008 edition. 现在,可用的资料已然建构起整个故事,基础史实清晰,几乎所有的重要细节总体上都是正确的。但是很快,我们就像是研究古代帝国的现代历史学家了,本来一直依赖着一点点的碑文,其中一些还是最近才被破译的,忽然有天却从某个金字塔底下发现了大量的一手记录。这些记录足够好几代的考古学家去研究了……所以最后我们看到了2008版的《大恐怖》。 2 By far the most substantial additions, or amendments, to our knowledge have been the set of decrees on “Mass Operations” in 1937–38. The lists of those sentenced by the Military Collegium were sent to Stalin, and given his approval, with only a few Politburo members also signing. 到目前为止,对我们的认知产生了最实质的补充或者修正的,就是1937-1938“集体处决”的一系列判决了【编注:这次“大行动”是指1936-1938年大清洗期间由苏联内务人民委员会(NKVD)实施的一系列针对特定类别人群(比如富农、少数民族、外国人)的行动,共导致一百多万人被逮捕,数十万人被处决】。被苏联最高法院军事委员会审判的人,人员名单会递交给斯大林,获得他的批准和仅少许几个政治局成员的签字。【编注:大清洗期间经斯大林亲自签令处决的,据统计有681,692人。】 Nor did this informal leadership group have much time to spare. Records show that they had to make so many decisions on other urgent matters of policy that these terror orders were usually handled in twenty or thirty minutes. But when it comes to the Mass Operations, one finds that the number of victims in these accounted for nearly twenty times the number of victims of the Military Collegium and other lesser tribunals. 但这个非正式的领导小组也抽不出太多时间。记录显示,还有很多紧迫的其他政策事项需要他们做出决定,以至于这些恐怖命令通常在二、三十分钟内就被解决了。但到了“集体处决”阶段,我们发现,受难者的数量几乎是被军事委员会或其他次级法庭判刑的受难者的二十倍。 The mass terror was ordered in detail from the top, and was directed, with the numbers to be repressed laid down for each province and republic, for each stratum of the population—with individual crimes of terrorism, espionage, and so on added later by the local troika—and the lists of names then submitted to Moscow for final approval. 大恐怖是细致地自上而下要求的,各省、各共和国和各个阶层都受指定的镇压人数指导——个人犯下的恐怖主义活动罪、间谍罪及后来由当地三人领导小组增加的罪行——接着,罪犯名单就会递交给莫斯科以获得最终批准。 That is to say, the strata were condemned as such, and the mass terror was seen as a removal of all that seemed unassimilable to the Stalinist order. Stalin’s mass action against a section of the population was thus taken on “ideological” grounds, merely disguising it as a purge of terrorists, spies, and saboteurs necessary to the safety and survival of the regime. 换言之,社会阶层是因其存在本身而被定罪的,大恐怖行动可以看做是一项清除所有被认为无法被斯大林秩序同化的群体的行动。因此,斯大林针对该国人口的一部分所采取的大规模行动是出于“意识形态”基础,只是伪装成了为保证政权的安全和生存,对恐怖分子、间谍和破坏分子的肃清。 In the 2008 edition we have much new material on the personalities and activities of the key secret police operators and of the whole mechanism of terror. 2008年的版本中,我们增加了许多新材料,主要是关于秘密警察中核心人物的活动与性格,以及大恐怖的整体运作机制。 My book has been faulted for giving too little attention to the context of Russia and of the Russian historical and mental backgrounds. We find what seem to be contradictions. Any reader of the country’s great literature may feel an especially Russian humanism arising from the depths of the “national character.” 我的书有所不足,对俄国当时所处的历史情境、俄国的历史背景与精神背景给予的关注太少。我们发现了其中的一些矛盾。读过该国伟大文学的读者也许能从他们的“民族性格”深处感受到一种俄式人文主义。 On the other hand, Ronald Hingley (in his classic The Russian Mind) saw the fictional and the real Russian as living in great dullness interspersed with, or accompanying, extreme outbursts, but also possessed by a view of the country’s past and present as deplorable yet containing as recompense a wonderful future with some sort of national glory compensating for everything. A complementary trait often reported is the fear that a Russian, or Russia, is being deceived or cheated—the sort of thing we see in Nikolai Gogol’s Dead Souls and in Soviet xenophobia. 但另一方面,罗纳德·辛格雷(在他的杰作《俄罗斯心智》中)看见的却是虚构的、真实的俄国人生活在极度的无聊之中,点缀或伴随着极端的爆发。不仅如此,他们的头脑中同时也有一种观念,认为整个国家的过去和现在是恶劣的,但也相信会有个美好的未来作为补偿,那时某种国家荣誉将能弥补一切。而经常报道的一种相关特性是,一种对俄罗斯人或俄罗斯正在遭受欺骗的恐惧——从尼古莱·果戈理的《死魂灵》和苏联的仇外主义中可见一斑。 But this does downgrade Russia’s other options—liberalism or pluralism. As Boris Pasternak put it, in the 1880s came “the birth of an enlightened and affluent middle class, open to occidental influences, progressive, intelligent, artistic.” There are many historical and modern examples of this more “Western” style of thought in Russia, deep-set, and though often disenchanted continuing to present a more viable and civilized future. The present leadership has, at least to a large extent, given up Soviet-type economics. 但这的确低估了俄罗斯的其他选择——自由主义或者多元主义。举Boris Pasternak所言为例,1880年代“开化、富裕的中产阶级开始出现,他们愿意接纳西方影响,进步、睿智并且富有艺术气息。”纵观俄罗斯古今历史,这样的例子能够举出很多。这种更为“西式”的思想风格是根深蒂固的,尽管经常幻灭,但仍持续代表着一个具有更高可行性与文明度的未来。现在的领导层,至少在很大程度上,已经放弃了苏联模式的经济。 But one can have “reform” without liberalism— as with Peter the Great and Pyotr Stolypin. Above all, we are still far from the rule of law—much more important than “democracy.” As elsewhere, the problem seems to be to free the idea of the “nation” from both archaic barbarism and from the more recently bankrupted verbalisms that have partly melded into it. 但是,一个政权是可以不走自由主义道路而完成改革的——比如彼得大帝与彼得·斯托雷平所做的那样。毕竟,现今的俄罗斯还远没有做到法治——这比“民主”更为重要。和别处一样,问题似乎在于要将“国家”这一观念从陈旧的野蛮中解放出来,同时也从已部分融入其中、但不久前已破产的空洞教条中解放出来。 The history of the period covered by The Great Terror sees the enforcement of Stalin’s totally intolerant belief system—with terror as the decisive argument. Terror means terrorizing. Mass terror means terrorizing the whole population, and must be accompanied by the most complete public exposure of the worst enemies of the people, of the party line, and so of the truth. We know the results. One of the strangest notions put forward about Stalinism is that in the interests of “objectivity” we must be—wait for it—“nonjudgmental.” But to ignore, or downplay, the realities of Soviet history is itself a judgment, and a very misleading one. 《大恐怖》中提及的历史时期,见证了斯大林彻底不容异己的思想体制的贯彻过程——恐怖就是这一体制的硬道理。恐怖意味着施加恐吓,大恐怖则意味着对全体国民施加恐吓,同时必然伴随着对人民和政党的死敌,因此也是真理的死敌的最全面、公开的揭露。我们知道这样做的后果。对于斯大林主义,人们提出的最怪异的概念之一是,为了“客观性”,我们必须做到——听好了——“不加评判”。但是,刻意忽视或淡化苏联历史的实情,这本身就是一个评判,并且还是极具误导性的那种。 (编辑:@whigzhou) *注:本译文未经原作者授权,本站对原文不持有也不主张任何权利,如果你恰好对原文拥有权益并希望我们移除相关内容,请私信联系,我们会立即作出响应。

——海德沙龙·翻译组,致力于将英文世界的好文章搬进中文世界——

用科学去塑造人

【2015-09-23】

@Ent_evo “用科学去塑造人,而不是让他们自然成长,这种想法让我们震惊……但这种想法当然是非理性的。……孩子所聆听的道德训诫,可能因为不科学而没有成效,但其意图也是塑造性格,就像赫胥黎笔下的耳语机器一样。因此,看起来我们并不反对塑造人,只要它很低效就行;我们反对的只是高效的塑造。”-罗素

@whigzhou: 罗素一谈社会就幼稚的一塌糊涂,也不想想,谁有资格塑造人?怎么算高效?目标不明怎么算效率?“用科学塑造人”又是什么意思?把(more...)

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【2015-09-23】 @Ent_evo “用科学去塑造人,而不是让他们自然成长,这种想法让我们震惊……但这种想法当然是非理性的。……孩子所聆听的道德训诫,可能因为不科学而没有成效,但其意图也是塑造性格,就像赫胥黎笔下的耳语机器一样。因此,看起来我们并不反对塑造人,只要它很低效就行;我们反对的只是高效的塑造。”-罗素 @whigzhou: 罗素一谈社会就幼稚的一塌糊涂,也不想想,谁有资格塑造人?怎么算高效?目标不明怎么算效率?“用科学塑造人”又是什么意思?把孩子泡在一堆论文里?万一科学研究发现泡在传统里更“高效”呢? @陈胡子伯爵:感觉你没明白罗素的意思,科学的培养是指用科学的方法培养而不是让孩子读科学论文。 @whigzhou: 1)你的脑补是你的,我不喜欢替人脑补,2)假设你的脑补成立,那么,将“科学方法”和传统方法对立起来之前,你先得证明“把孩子泡在传统/习俗/宗教里”的培养方法是不科学的 @whigzhou: 我尤其不喜欢替分析哲学家脑补,作为分析哲学家,有义务自己把话说清楚  
[译文]德国就业率何以独步欧洲?

German success is surprisingly recent
德国的就业奇迹其实很晚才出现

作者: Scott Sumner @ 2014­-4-­22
译者:bear     校对:小册子
来源:Economics Liberty, http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2014/04/german_success.html

Many people assume that Germany has long been an economic success story. It was certainly successful back in the 1950s and 1960s. But as recently as 2004 it was widely viewed as the “sick man of Europe” despite all those sleek BMWs and Mercedes they churn out each year.

许多人认为德国经济长期以来都很成功。在上世纪五十年代和六十年代,它的确是成功的。但近至2004年,德国还被广泛认为是“欧洲病人”,尽管它每年都大量产出豪华的宝马和奔驰。

The normally reliable Matt Yglesias falls into the trap of (implicitly) assuming long term German success in a piece on youth unemployment. Yglesias tries to explain the low rate of youth unemployment by pointing to their system of technical training for students that are not college bound. That certainly seems like a fine system, but it’s been around for decades, and thus can hardly explain the amazing post-2004 German jobs miracle. Why do I use the term ‘miracle’? Consider:

  1. Germany was hit roughly as hard by the 2008-09 recession as the US.
  2. Unlike the US, the German working age population is not growing.

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German success is surprisingly recent 德国的就业奇迹其实很晚才出现 作者: Scott Sumner @ 2014­-4-­22 译者:bear     校对:小册子 来源:Economics Liberty, http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2014/04/german_success.html Many people assume that Germany has long been an economic success story. It was certainly successful back in the 1950s and 1960s. But as recently as 2004 it was widely viewed as the "sick man of Europe" despite all those sleek BMWs and Mercedes they churn out each year. 许多人认为德国经济长期以来都很成功。在上世纪五十年代和六十年代,它的确是成功的。但近至2004年,德国还被广泛认为是“欧洲病人”,尽管它每年都大量产出豪华的宝马和奔驰。 The normally reliable Matt Yglesias falls into the trap of (implicitly) assuming long term German success in a piece on youth unemployment. Yglesias tries to explain the low rate of youth unemployment by pointing to their system of technical training for students that are not college bound. That certainly seems like a fine system, but it's been around for decades, and thus can hardly explain the amazing post-2004 German jobs miracle. Why do I use the term 'miracle'? Consider:
  1. Germany was hit roughly as hard by the 2008-09 recession as the US.
  2. Unlike the US, the German working age population is not growing.
连通常比较靠谱的Matthew Yglesias【译注:著名博客作家,擅长写经济和政治话题】也掉进了这个圈套,他在一篇描写年轻人失业问题的文章里(隐含地)预设了德国长期成功这一前提。Yglesias试图将(德国)年轻人的低失业率归功于不以升读大学为目标的学生技术培训系统。这个系统看上去当然很好,但它已经运作了几十年了,因此很难用它来解释2004年以后德国令人惊讶的就业奇迹。为什么我用“奇迹”这词? 试想:
  1. 德国在2008-09年的经济衰退中受到的沉重打击和美国大致相当。
  2. 不同于美国,德国就业适龄人口并没有增长。
Put those two together and you'd expect very little German job creation in recent years. And yet German employment has risen by 6% over the past 6 years, whereas American employment has declined, despite a RGDP recovery that is far more brisk than the eurozone, indeed faster than in Germany. That's pretty amazing. 考虑到这两点,你会预期近年来德国的新增职位会很少。但德国的雇佣人数在过去六年已经提升了6%,而美国的雇佣数则在下降,尽管美国实际GDP的复苏比欧元区快得多——确实比德国快。这是非常令人惊奇的。 I sometimes wonder how progressive readers would filter Yglesias's message. The type that thinks that if a program works in Sweden it would certainly work over here. The ones that Paul Krugman insists are "reality based" in their thinking. German job training seems good, and Obama has recommended some programs for America. The highly inegalitarian German high school system might make American progressives squirm, but Yglesias reassures them that this approach would be hard to implement in a country that lacks the tight cooperation between companies, unions and local governments. 我有时会怀疑进步主义读者是怎样看待Yglesias的看法的。这类人认为如果一套方案在瑞典奏效,那它在别处也会,Paul Krugman坚定地认为这些人是“基于事实”来思考的。德国的职业培训看上去做得不错,奥巴马也已经建议在美国施行一些类似的方案。德国那种高度分化、区别对待的高中教育系统可能会让美国进步主义者不舒服,但Yglesias向他们担保,德国的做法在公司、工会和地方政府缺乏紧密合作的国家很难实施。 Of course none of this has anything to do with explaining how Germany went from being the sick man of Europe to its shining star, all in a period of 10 years. Here's the German unemployment rate since 1960. Notice that Germany had 8% unemployment as far back as the mid-1980s, during the Reagan boom in America. Things had been getting worse for decades, and the 1980s figures suggest that the problem wasn't just German reunification. 当然这些都无法解释德国是怎样在十年间从欧洲病人转变成璀璨明星的。下图显示的是德国自1960年以来的失业率。在里根振兴美国的八十年代中期,德国的失业率为8%。数十年来每况愈下,而八十年代的数据说明,这个问题并非仅仅是两德统一导致的。 Screen Shot 2014-04-20 at 9.48.17 AM So what's the real explanation for the German success? That's pretty obvious; the Hartz reforms of 2003 sharply reduced the incentive to not work, and sharply increased the incentive to take low wage jobs. As a result, today Germany has lots of very low wage jobs of the type that would be illegal in France or California. (Germany has no minimum wage.) Here is the Guardian: 那德国成功的真正原因是什么呢?显然是因为:2003年的哈茨改革方案急剧减低了鼓励人们不工作的诱因,同时急剧增加了接受低薪工作的激励。【译注:哈茨方案是德国政府于2002-2005年逐步推行的,针对失业人口调整救济内容、培训和促进再就业的社会改革方案,共有哈茨一号到哈茨四号四个方案。其中哈茨四号凶残地削减了失业者的福利。】结果今天德国有大量非常低薪的工作,低到在法国或加州会被视为违法的程度(德国没有最低工资法)。下面是《卫报》的报道:
Exactly 10 years ago today, Germany's labour market was subjected to the first of the so-called Hartz IV reforms. Brought about by the smooth centre-left chancellor Gerhard Schröder, it was a watershed moment that changed the way the German government deals with poverty. 正好是十年前的今天,德国的劳动市场施行了所谓哈茨四段改革的第一阶段。改革由作风温和、中间偏左的德国总理施罗德推行,这是德国政府处理贫困问题的政策分水岭。 The changes were riddled with the kind of Anglicisms that German officialdom likes to deploy for any modernisation. In the past decade, unemployed Germans have been bewildered with a kaleidoscope of new "Denglish" terms, from "Jobcenter" to "Personal Service Agentur" to "Mini-Job" to "BridgeSystem". But the measures recommended by the Hartz commission - named after its chairman, former Volkswagen executive Peter Hartz - boiled to down to this: the bundling of unemployment benefits and social welfare benefits into one neat package. 这些变化充满了英国范儿——德国官僚总喜欢为现代化搞点花样。在过去十年里,德国的失业者们被五花八门的新德式英语名词搞得晕头转向,从“就业中心”("Jobcenter")到“个人服务中介”("Personal Service Agentur")到“迷你工作”("Mini-Job")到“桥接系统”("BridgeSystem")。但这些由哈茨委员会推荐的措施——以该委员会主席、前大众汽车公司执行官Peter Hartz命名——可归结为:把失业津贴和社会福利捆绑到一个简洁的方案中。 The immediate effect was to leave those living on benefits worse off (as of 2013, the standard rate for a single person is €382 a month, plus the cost of "adequate housing" and healthcare). But the new element that brought the most profound change was the contract, drawn up between the "jobseeker" and the "Jobcenter", which defined what each party promised to do to get the jobseeker back on somebody's payroll. This was coupled with "sanctions" - in other words, benefit cuts - if the jobseeker failed to keep up his or her side of the bargain. With those two measures, Germany came to accept the modern interpretation of the word "incentive" in the job market: the doctrine that poor people will only work if they are they are not given money. 该措施的直接效果是令那些靠社会保障过活的人生活水平恶化(到2013年,个人的标准社会保障是每月382欧元,再加上“适宜居所”和医保的补贴)。但带来最深远影响的是待业者和“就业中心”之间的合同,这份合同订明了为让当事人能回到工作岗位上,双方承诺履行的义务。当一个待业者没有履行承诺的时候是有惩罚措施的——也就是减少福利。凭着这两项措施,德国开始接受“激励”在劳动市场上的现代解释:穷人拿不到钱才会去工作的学说。 There are myriad debates about the net results or benefits of the Hartz reforms. Unemployment, both long-term and short-term, has certainly dropped considerably in Germany since 1 January 2003, but critics say that's only because most jobless people are forced to accept the next job they can find - and often they end up in one so low-paid and part-time that they were still dependent on some sort of state welfare anyway. Then again, the flexibility that allows employers - especially major industrial companies - to take on and lay off part-time shift workers depending on the state of the export market has certainly helped Germany to ride out the global economic crisis in the past three years. 关于哈茨改革方案的最终结果或效益有着无数争论。自从2003年1月1日以来,德国的长期和短期失业率肯定都显著下降了,但批评者说这仅仅是因为失业者被迫接受他们所能找到的下一份工作,这往往是一份低薪的兼职工作,因此他们多少还是要靠政府救济。但是需要再次强调的是,这使得雇主——尤其是大型的实业公司——可以根据出口市场的状况灵活地雇佣或解雇兼职轮班职工。这肯定对德国安然度过过去三年的经济危机有帮助。 But what is hard to overlook is that the Hartz reforms have had two social effects. First, they have helped to accelerate inequality in Germany. According to an April 2012 OECD report, "Germany is the only [EU] country that has seen an increase in labour earnings inequality from the mid 1990s to the end 2000s driven by increasing inequality in the bottom half of the distribution." The report goes on to point to "a set of reforms in 2003 meant to increase the flexibility of the labour market" which help to explain the "wage moderation". 但是哈茨方案的两个社会影响也很难被忽视。首先,方案加速了德国的收入不均。根据一份经合组织(OECD)在2012年4月发布的报告,“从1990年代中期到2000年代末,德国是欧洲唯一一个劳动收入不均在扩大的国家,这是由社会下半层的收入不均等加剧导致的。”这份报告继续指出,“2003年的一系列改革旨在令劳动市场的灵活性增加”,这部分解释了“工资停滞”。
So the one major success story among developed countries has achieved its success by doing essentially the exact opposite of what progressives want. Germany has no minimum wage, reduced its incentives to live off welfare, and has a level of wage inequality that is increasing even faster than in the US. It's no wonder that progressives prefer to focus on things like "vocational training programs," which were just as common during the 30-year period of steadily rising German unemployment. 所以,这一发达国家中最重大的成功故事之一,恰恰是通过和进步主义的愿望完全相反的方式做到的。德国没有最低工资法,降低了靠福利过活的激励,而且工资不均等的扩大比美国还快。进步主义者倾向于关注“职业培训计划”这类事一点也不让人奇怪,尽管这个计划在德国失业率稳定上升的30年间也一样存在。 And yet Paul Krugman can say the following without blushing: 然而,Paul Krugman还是可以脸不红心不跳地说这样的话:
Just to be clear: Yes, you can find examples where *some* liberals got off on a hobbyhorse of one kind or another, or where the liberal conventional wisdom turned out wrong. But you don't see the kind of lockstep rejection of evidence that we see over and over again on the right. Where is the liberal equivalent of the near-uniform conservative rejection of climate science, or the refusal to admit that Obamacare is in fact reaching a lot of previously uninsured Americans? 要说清楚的是:是的,你可以找到一些自由派这样那样老调重弹的例子,或是自由派的传统看法被证明是错误的例子。但你不会看到我们全体一致地否定右派不断强调的那些证据。哪里有自由派做过保守派那样几乎统一地反对气象科学的这种事,或是他们拒绝承认奥巴马医改事实上帮助了很多原本没有医保的美国人的这种事?
Here's an example for Krugman. Much of the progressive movement seems entranced by a pied piper from France who thinks inequality can be reduced almost costlessly, and that even France needs to be much more socialist. Meanwhile they almost totally ignore a highly successful social market economy. The biggest economy in Europe. What would Al Gore call German labor market policy success? An inconvenient truth? 现在我就给了Krugman一个这样的例子。似乎很多进步主义运动都是受来自法国的彩衣魔笛手 (Pied Piper)【译注:彩衣魔笛手源自于一个德国民间故事,他的笛声带有魔力,可以诱使孩子们跟着他走。】鼓动,认为不均等的改善几乎没有成本,认为连法国都需要变得更加社会主义。与此同时,他们几乎完全无视一个政府积极干预的社会市场经济的高度成功案例。那可是欧洲最大的经济体。Al Gore会怎么看待德国劳动市场政策的成功呢?一个讨厌的真相? (编辑:@whigzhou) *注:本译文未经原作者授权,本站对原文不持有也不主张任何权利,如果你恰好对原文拥有权益并希望我们移除相关内容,请私信联系,我们会立即作出响应。

——海德沙龙·翻译组,致力于将英文世界的好文章搬进中文世界——

人体冷冻与贩卖虚假希望

【2015-09-22】

@果壳网 【人体冷冻:冻存是技术,复苏则是信仰】把人冻起来,到未来再复苏,这是1931年科幻小说中出现的想法,也是《飞出个未来》主人公Fry的遭遇,更是现实中许多公司提供的商业服务。单从冷冻这头说,目前最大进展是复苏了兔子的肾。就算未来技术会进步,但,这真的只是技术问题吗?O人体冷冻:冻存是一项技术,复苏是一套信仰 http://www.guokr.com/article/440746/

@Ent_evo: 关于人体冷冻,我的两毛钱想法……这是一个(more...)

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【2015-09-22】 @果壳网 【人体冷冻:冻存是技术,复苏则是信仰】把人冻起来,到未来再复苏,这是1931年科幻小说中出现的想法,也是《飞出个未来》主人公Fry的遭遇,更是现实中许多公司提供的商业服务。单从冷冻这头说,目前最大进展是复苏了兔子的肾。就算未来技术会进步,但,这真的只是技术问题吗?O人体冷冻:冻存是一项技术,复苏是一套信仰 http://www.guokr.com/article/440746/ @Ent_evo: 关于人体冷冻,我的两毛钱想法……这是一个帕斯卡赌注,这是相信人类将永远进步、未来将全方位好于过去,这和相信乌托邦、相信天国并无本质区别。 @whigzhou: 呵呵,这就愚蠢了?若某人死前还有一大笔钱,在他看来没有其他更有价值的用途,那怎么就非理性了? @whigzhou: “贩卖可能为假的希望是道德的吗?”——什么叫“可能为假的希望”?“真的希望”是必定会出现的结果?那么拯救大熊猫基金会向大众募捐是道德的吗?卖彩票呢? @whigzhou: 再后面那一大串问题,你们要是真替当事人那么着急,通过遗嘱信托都可以一点点解决,至于由此引出的制度和福利问题,个体决策难道还得把整个社会都安排好了再做才算理性啊? @whigzhou: 后半篇槽点实在太多,满眼not even wrong  
[译文]德国小企业面临的接班问题

The Graying of Germany’s Small Business Managers
德国小企业管理者的老龄化

作者:MONICA HOUSTON-WAESCH @ 2015-07-28
译者:史祥莆(微博:@史祥莆)   校对:带菜刀的诗人
来源:The Wall Street Journal, http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-graying-of-germanys-small-business-managers-1438075800

Quickly aging group raises concerns about succession planning, stalled investments

管理层的迅速老龄化关系到企业接班计划,投资亦会陷于停滞。

Investor Gerd Fricke last year took over PEKU Folien, a Bavarian printing and packaging-material business, from its octogenarian owner.PHOTO: PEKU FOLIEN 投资人Gerd Fricke去年从耄耋之年的前所有者手中接手了一家名为PEKU Folien的巴伐利亚印刷和包装材料生产企业。照片来自:PEKU Folien

Investor Gerd Fricke last year took over PEKU Folien, a Bavarian printing and packaging-material business, from its octogenarian owner.PHOTO: PEKU FOLIEN
投资人Gerd Fricke去年从耄耋之年的前所有者手中接手了一家名为PEKU Folien的巴伐利亚印刷和包装材料生产企业。照片来自:PEKU Folien

FRANKFURT—At the midsize companies that form Germany’s industrial backbone, managers are literally a dying breed.

法兰克福——这里的中型企业构成了德国工业的主干,可以毫不夸张地说,它们的管理者们正青黄不接。

The executives who helped fuel the country’s economic boom in recent decades are aging quickly, entering the 55-and-over age group four times as fast a(more...)

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The Graying of Germany’s Small Business Managers 德国小企业管理者的老龄化 作者:MONICA HOUSTON-WAESCH @ 2015-07-28 译者:史祥莆(微博:@史祥莆)   校对:带菜刀的诗人 来源:The Wall Street Journal, http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-graying-of-germanys-small-business-managers-1438075800 Quickly aging group raises concerns about succession planning, stalled investments 管理层的迅速老龄化关系到企业接班计划,投资亦会陷于停滞。 [caption id="attachment_6021" align="alignnone" width="300"]Investor Gerd Fricke last year took over PEKU Folien, a Bavarian printing and packaging-material business, from its octogenarian owner.PHOTO: PEKU FOLIEN 投资人Gerd Fricke去年从耄耋之年的前所有者手中接手了一家名为PEKU Folien的巴伐利亚印刷和包装材料生产企业。照片来自:PEKU Folien Investor Gerd Fricke last year took over PEKU Folien, a Bavarian printing and packaging-material business, from its octogenarian owner.PHOTO: PEKU FOLIEN
投资人Gerd Fricke去年从耄耋之年的前所有者手中接手了一家名为PEKU Folien的巴伐利亚印刷和包装材料生产企业。照片来自:PEKU Folien[/caption] FRANKFURT—At the midsize companies that form Germany’s industrial backbone, managers are literally a dying breed. 法兰克福——这里的中型企业构成了德国工业的主干,可以毫不夸张地说,它们的管理者们正青黄不接。 The executives who helped fuel the country’s economic boom in recent decades are aging quickly, entering the 55-and-over age group four times as fast as Germans as a whole, according to a survey by development bank KfW. That disparity is particularly striking given how swiftly the overall population is aging: Germany now has the world’s lowest birthrate, slipping below Japan, according to a study this year by the Hamburg Institute of International Economics and audit firm BDO AG. 助推国家经济繁荣的企业高层们近几十年来正在快速衰老,根据KfW发展银行的调查,他们中进入55岁以上年龄段的速度相当于德国人整体水平的四倍。这种不一致在德国整体人口迅速老龄化的背景下更加显著:根据汉堡国际经济研究所和BDO AG审计公司的研究,德国的婴儿出生率目前落到了日本后面,有着全世界最低的婴儿出生率。 The graying executive corps could have a significant economic impact. Germany’s more than 3.5 million small and midsize businesses, known collectively as the Mittelstand, account for about 60% of its workforce and more than half of its economic output. 经理团队的老龄化会产生显著的经济影响。超过350万家的德国中小企业被统称为Mittelstand,它们贡献了超过60%的就业岗位和超过一半的经济产出。 Older bosses at these companies, many of whom are also the owners, are less eager to invest in their own business than younger ones, the KfW survey found. They also frequently delay succession planning, even though handoffs can take an average of three years, experts say. KfW的调查发现,这些企业的年长老板很多同时还是企业的所有者,它们比年轻人更不情愿投资于自己的企业。专家说,他们还经常延迟接班计划,尽管交接平均只需要三年。 That’s largely because “dealing with succession is like facing your own death,” said Alexander Koeberle-Schmid, a family-business consultant at KPMG in Düsseldorf. “You try to avoid it as long as possible.” 这很大程度上是因为“处理接班问题意味着面对自己的死亡”,Alexander Koeberle-Schmid,这位来自杜塞尔多夫的毕马威会计事务家族企业顾问说道,“人们竭尽所能的避免这种情况。” 1 By 2017, according to KfW, the jobs of four million employees at 580,000 midsize companies will depend on a successful leadership transition. 根据KfW的调查,到2017年时,58万家中型企业的400万员工的职位能否保住,将取决于领导权的顺利交接。 Chambers of commerce here are concerned enough to have started warning members that they need to begin planning for an orderly succession, or face the risk of having to close when the day arrives. 商会非常担心这个问题,并且开始警告其成员,他们需要开始为接班做计划,不然等那一天来临时,企业就要冒倒闭的风险。 Autohaus Ochs GmbH, a Volkswagen dealership near Stuttgart, had eight employees when Martin Häussermann took it over in 2006. The previous owner, who was 69 years old, had been seeking a buyer for years and hadn’t made any significant investment in the company for a decade. “It would have been liquidated,” said Mr. Häussermann, who was 31 years old at the time. Under Mr. Häussermann, who quickly started investing in the business, it has grown to 100 employees. 2006年,Martin Häussermann接手了斯图加特附近一个只有八名员工的大众汽车经销商Autohaus Ochs GmbH。它69岁的前主人寻找买家数年,并且在十年中没有进行任何明显的投资。“要不是我接手,当时它可能已经被清算了”,Häussermann说。Mr. Häussermann当时31岁,他迅速对业务进行了投资,在他管理之下,该企业成长到了拥有100名员工的规模。 Closures, however, are becoming increasingly common. Germany’s annual rate of business liquidations has outpaced business openings only four times since the mid-1970s, and three of those were in the past three years, according to IfM, a Mittelstand research institute. It expects the pattern to continue this year. 然而,关门却越来越普遍了。根据中小企业研究机构IfM的研究,自1970年代中期以来,德国企业破产率仅有四次超越其企业的新创办率,而其中的三次是在过去三年发生的。它预计这种趋势今年还会继续。 “Liquidations do happen, often when company know-how is closely tied to a single owner,” said Jürgen Becker, a succession expert at the regional business chamber that advised Mr. Häussermann. Older managers are frequently hesitant about investing and innovation, Mr. Becker added. “企业倒闭确实在发生,当公司知道它多么紧密地和单个所有者绑在一起时,则更经常如此,”地区商会的接班专家Jürgen Becker这样忠告Häussermann。年老的经理人们通常会在投资和创新方面犹豫不决,Becker补充道。 Last year, investor Gerd Fricke took over 100-employee PEKU Folien GmbH, a Bavarian printing and packaging-material business, from its octogenarian owner. Investment had stalled in some areas, “particularly in building up employees’ management skills,” he said. 去年,投资人Gerd Fricke从年迈的前所有者手中接过了拥有100名员工的巴伐利亚印刷和包装材料企业PEKU Folien GmbH。企业一些领域的投资陷于停滞,“尤其在提高员工管理能力方面”,他说。 Mr. Fricke shortened the company’s name and is flattening its hierarchical management structure as he converts it from a contract manufacturer to a more innovative supplier. In recent years, he said, PEKU skimped on spending that could have boosted productivity, such as having replacement tools ready when worn ones required servicing. Fricke在将公司从订单承接制造商转变为更具创新能力的供应商时,缩短了公司名称并且扁平化了层级管理结构。他说,近年来PEKU对可能提高生产力的方面投入不够,比如在机器需要维修时提前备好配件。 “Often it was a matter of being thrifty in the wrong places,” he added. “物不能尽其用是件麻烦事,”他补充说。 About 73% of senior managers advised by Germany’s industry and trade groups haven’t assembled the basic documents needed for a handover, such as a power of attorney, supplier and client information, bank-access data or a will, according to business-chamber association DIHK. 根据商会联合组织德国工商总会的说法,得到德国工业和贸易团体建议的大约73%的高级管理者还没有积累接班需要的基本文件,例如代理委托书,供应商和客户信息,银行账户访问权限数据或生前遗嘱。 When companies change hands after the owner dies and heirs aren’t familiar with the company, they “can’t make the best decisions,” said Mr. Koeberle-Schmid at KPMG. When heirs disagree on strategy, they don’t agree on money or power either, he added. 当公司在所有者去世之后被转手而继任者并不熟悉公司时,他们将“无法作出最佳决策,”毕马威的Koeberle-Schmid认为。当他们无法认同公司战略时,他们也无法对金钱或权力达成一致,他补充道。 “The bulk of our clients have a demographic problem, but few are aware enough to devote the needed resources,” said Uwe Berndt, who runs Mainblick, a public-relations agency for midsize logistics businesses. “我们的大多数客户都有人口统计学方面的问题,但是他们很少意识到这一点并为此投入必要的资源,” 物流业中型企业公关机构Mainblick 的经营者Uwe Berndt说道。 Handovers can be tricky even when a family member is involved. 即使有家庭成员参与,移交也可能很棘手。 By the time Caspar Brockhaus took over management of Brockhaus Group from his father six years ago, suppliers of the roughly 150-employee steel, environmental and measurement-technology company had become some of its fiercest competitors. With guidance from his father, he shed operations that accounted for half the company’s sales and staff. Within four years, sales at the remaining operations had risen roughly 50%. 六年前,Caspar Brockhaus从他父亲手中接过Brockhaus集团的管理权时,这家拥有大约150名员工的钢铁、环保和测量技术公司的供应商们已经变成了它最凶猛的竞争对手。在他父亲指导下,他采取措施裁减了涉及公司一半员工和销售量的业务。在四年之内,剩余业务的销售量提高了大约50%。 The move made financial sense, but was “a great emotional hurdle,” said Mr. Brockhaus, since it meant selling a traditional part of the business, whose family roots date back to 1864. 这项措施在财务上是说得通的,但却是“一个很大的情感障碍,” Brockhaus说,因为这意味着卖掉一块家族1864年起家时的传统业务。 “In retrospect, you could say we should’ve done it earlier,” Mr. Brockhaus said. But succession “had to be cleared up first, so my father waited to implement and invest in the new strategy.” “回想起来,你可能会说我们应该早点这么做,” Brockhaus说。但接班工作“必须先彻底解决,所以我父亲一直在等待实施新策略并投资于其中的时机。” (编辑:@whigzhou) *注:本译文未经原作者授权,本站对原文不持有也不主张任何权利,如果你恰好对原文拥有权益并希望我们移除相关内容,请私信联系,我们会立即作出响应。

——海德沙龙·翻译组,致力于将英文世界的好文章搬进中文世界——

趋势与倾向

【2015-09-20】

@whigzhou: “进化”还是“演化”? http://t.cn/R2gro9g

@whigzhou: 突然想到一点,任何有关“趋势”或“倾向”的谈论,和因果关系一样,必须假定某种程度上的条件稳定性,否则任何趋势都没法说,所以,对复杂化趋势的一种反驳,同样可以用来反驳“发育倾向”,因为任何发育过程都可能在任何阶段被环境变动所打断

@whigzhou: 比如有人说,陆生脊椎动物针对陆地环境所积累的任何适应性,一旦来一场环境大变故,陆地全部消失,就(more...)

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【2015-09-20】 @whigzhou: “进化”还是“演化”? http://t.cn/R2gro9g @whigzhou: 突然想到一点,任何有关“趋势”或“倾向”的谈论,和因果关系一样,必须假定某种程度上的条件稳定性,否则任何趋势都没法说,所以,对复杂化趋势的一种反驳,同样可以用来反驳“发育倾向”,因为任何发育过程都可能在任何阶段被环境变动所打断 @whigzhou: 比如有人说,陆生脊椎动物针对陆地环境所积累的任何适应性,一旦来一场环境大变故,陆地全部消失,就全都没有卵用了,所以你谈论方向性(或高级低级)没有意义,按此逻辑,任何个体发育过程中都可能被雷劈死,或中毒致畸,所以谈论“正常”发育,或“典型成熟形态”没有意义。 @whigzhou: 当然,这个类比并不暗示复杂性进化和个体发育有着类似的确定性(有时你必须说点废话) @whigzhou: 比如这个帖子里便可见到类似论调 http://t.cn/R2ktCU8 @tertio:不过进化有一种完全与环境无关的倾向,陆地变海洋,再变回陆地,生物也绝对不会再退回到第一阶段的状态。 @whigzhou: 方向性的意思(之一)就是这个嘛  
[译文]市场正在让教育挣脱枷锁

Learning unleashed
挣脱枷锁的教育

来源:The Economist @ 2015-8-1
译者:sheperdmt([email protected]),易海([email protected]
校对:沈沉(@你在何地-sxy)
网址:http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21660063-where-governments-are-failing-provide-youngsters-decent-education-private-sector

Where governments are failing to provide youngsters with a decent education, the private sector is stepping in

在政府不能为青少年提供像样教育的地方,私人力量正着手发挥作用。

cover

THE Ken Ade Private School is not much to look at. Its classrooms are corrugated tin shacks scattered through the stinking streets of Makoko, Lagos’s best-known slum, two grades to a room. The windows are glassless; the light sockets without bulbs. The ceiling fans are still.

Ken Ade私立学校并不起眼,他们的教室是波纹铁皮窝棚,分布在拉各斯最为知名的贫民窟Makoko的发臭街道上,一个教室里有两个年级。窗户上没有玻璃,灯座上没有灯泡,吊扇也不转动。

But by mid-morning deafening chants rise above the mess, as teachers lead gingham-clad pupils in educational games and dance. Chalk-boards spell out the A-B-Cs for the day. A smart, two-storey government school looms over its ramshackle private neighbour. Its children sit twiddling their thumbs. The teachers have not shown up.

但每到上午,这堆烂摊子里会传来震耳欲聋的声音,因为老师们会带着那些穿着方格花布衣服的学生进行有教育意义的游戏和舞蹈。教室的黑板上会写明当日的功课。一个整洁的两层公立学校就矗立在这家摇摇欲坠的私立学校旁边。公立学校的孩子在那坐着摆弄他们的手指,老师并没有出现。

Recent estimates put the number of low-cost private schools in Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial capital, as high as 18,000. Hundreds more open each year. Fees average around 7,000 naira ($35) per term, and can be as low as 3,000 naira. By comparison, in 2010-11 the city had just 1,600 government schools. Some districts, including the “floating” half of Makoko, where wooden shacks stand on stilts above the water, contain not a single one.

最近的调查估计,尼日利亚商业之都拉各斯有将近1.8万所低成本的私立学校,而且每年会新增几百所。学费平均为每学期7000奈拉(约合35美元),有时甚至低至3000 奈拉。与此形成鲜明对比的是,在2010-11年,这个城市只有1600所公立学校。在有些地区,包括 Makoko 的“漂浮区”——搭在水中立柱之上的木棚子——一所公立学校也没有。

In the developed world private schools charge high fees and teach the elite. But Ken Ade is more typical of the sector, not just in Nigeria but worldwide. In 2010 there were an estimated 1m private schools in the developi(more...)

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Learning unleashed 挣脱枷锁的教育 来源:The Economist @ 2015-8-1 译者:sheperdmt([email protected]),易海([email protected]) 校对:沈沉(@你在何地-sxy) 网址:http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21660063-where-governments-are-failing-provide-youngsters-decent-education-private-sector Where governments are failing to provide youngsters with a decent education, the private sector is stepping in 在政府不能为青少年提供像样教育的地方,私人力量正着手发挥作用。 cover THE Ken Ade Private School is not much to look at. Its classrooms are corrugated tin shacks scattered through the stinking streets of Makoko, Lagos’s best-known slum, two grades to a room. The windows are glassless; the light sockets without bulbs. The ceiling fans are still. Ken Ade私立学校并不起眼,他们的教室是波纹铁皮窝棚,分布在拉各斯最为知名的贫民窟Makoko的发臭街道上,一个教室里有两个年级。窗户上没有玻璃,灯座上没有灯泡,吊扇也不转动。 But by mid-morning deafening chants rise above the mess, as teachers lead gingham-clad pupils in educational games and dance. Chalk-boards spell out the A-B-Cs for the day. A smart, two-storey government school looms over its ramshackle private neighbour. Its children sit twiddling their thumbs. The teachers have not shown up. 但每到上午,这堆烂摊子里会传来震耳欲聋的声音,因为老师们会带着那些穿着方格花布衣服的学生进行有教育意义的游戏和舞蹈。教室的黑板上会写明当日的功课。一个整洁的两层公立学校就矗立在这家摇摇欲坠的私立学校旁边。公立学校的孩子在那坐着摆弄他们的手指,老师并没有出现。 Recent estimates put the number of low-cost private schools in Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial capital, as high as 18,000. Hundreds more open each year. Fees average around 7,000 naira ($35) per term, and can be as low as 3,000 naira. By comparison, in 2010-11 the city had just 1,600 government schools. Some districts, including the “floating” half of Makoko, where wooden shacks stand on stilts above the water, contain not a single one. 最近的调查估计,尼日利亚商业之都拉各斯有将近1.8万所低成本的私立学校,而且每年会新增几百所。学费平均为每学期7000奈拉(约合35美元),有时甚至低至3000 奈拉。与此形成鲜明对比的是,在2010-11年,这个城市只有1600所公立学校。在有些地区,包括 Makoko 的“漂浮区”——搭在水中立柱之上的木棚子——一所公立学校也没有。 In the developed world private schools charge high fees and teach the elite. But Ken Ade is more typical of the sector, not just in Nigeria but worldwide. In 2010 there were an estimated 1m private schools in the developing world. Some are run by charities and churches, or rely on state subsidies. But the fastest-growing group are small low-cost schools, run by entrepreneurs in poor areas, that cater to those living on less than $2 a day. 在发达国家,私立学校会收取高昂的学费,并且学生多为精英。但是Ken Ade在私立学校中更为典型,不仅在尼日利亚是这样,在全世界范围内都是如此。据估计,2010年发展中国家有大约一百万所私立学校,其中有些由慈善机构和教会运营,或者依靠国家补贴。但增长最快的部分,是由贫困地区的企业家经营的低成本小型学校,服务于那些每日生活费低于两美元的人。 Private schools enroll a much bigger share of primary-school pupils in poor countries than in rich ones: a fifth, according to data compiled from official sources, up from a tenth two decades ago (see chart 1). Since they are often unregistered, this is sure to be an underestimate. 私立学校在贫穷国家招收到小学生(占学生总数)的比重远高于富裕国家的相应比例:根据官方统计数据,这一数字为五分之一,20年前为二十分之一(见图一)。由于很多私立学校并未登记注册,所以这一数据存在低估。 1 A school census in Lagos in 2010-11, for example, found four times as many private schools as in government records. UNESCO, the UN agency responsible for education, estimates that half of all spending on education in poor countries comes out of parents’ pockets (see chart 2). In rich countries the share is much lower. 例如,2010-11年拉各斯的一项学校普查表明,实际存在的私立学校数量是政府登记数量的四倍。负责教育的联合国机构UNESCO估计,在贫穷国家,全部教育经费中有一半由孩子的父母承担(见图二)。而在富裕国家,这一比率要低很多。 2 One reason for the developing world’s boom in private education is that aspirational parents are increasingly seeking alternatives to dismal state schools. In south and west Asian countries half of children who have finished four years of school cannot read at the minimum expected standard (see chart 3). In Africa the share is a third. 私立教育在发展中国家迅速兴起的一个原因是很多父母望子成龙,越来越多地在无能的公立学校之外寻找替代选择。在南亚和西亚国家,半数上了四年学的学生阅读能力达不到最低的预期标准(见图3)。在非洲这一比率为三分之一。 3 In 2012 Kaushik Basu, now at the World Bank but then an adviser to India’s government, argued that India’s rapidly rising literacy rate was mostly propelled by parents spending on education to help their children get ahead. “Ordinary people realised that, in a more globalised economy, they could gain quickly if they were better educated,” he said. 2012年,当时身为印度政府顾问的Kaushik Basu(现供职于世界银行)认为,印度的识字率迅速上升得益于印度父母为帮助孩子取得成功而在教育上花费的投入。他说:“普通民众意识到,在一个更加全球化的经济环境下,得到更好的教育赚钱就会更快”。 Many poor countries have failed to build enough schools or train enough teachers to keep up with the growth in their populations. Half have more than 50 school-age children per qualified teacher. And though quite a few dedicate a big share of their government budgets to education, this is from a low tax base. 许多贫穷国家没能建立起足够多的学校或者培养出足够多的老师,以跟上其人口增长。其中的半数国家中,每位合格教师需要带超过50个学龄儿童。尽管有少数国家在教育方面投入了很大部分的政府预算,但其税收基础本来就不高。 Some money is siphoned off in scams such as salaries for teachers who have moved or died, or funding for non-existent schools. Since 2009 Sierra Leone has struck 6,000 fake teachers off its payroll by checking identities before paying salaries. A national survey in Pakistan recently found that over 8,000 state schools did not actually exist. 有些钱还被骗走了,比如发放给了离职或已过世的教师当薪水,或者对一些根本不存在的学校提供资金支持。从2009年至今,通过发薪前的身份核查,塞拉利昂已经从其工资名册上砍掉了600名假老师。巴基斯坦的一项全国调查最近发现,有8000多所公立学校实际上根本不存在。 State schools are often plagued by teacher strikes and absenteeism. In a slum in eastern Delhi where migrants from north-east India cluster, pupils split their days between lessons in small private schools in abandoned warehouses that charge 80-150 rupees ($1.25-2.35) a month, and a free government school around the corner, which supplies cooked midday meals and a few books, but little teaching. When researchers visited rural schools in India in 2010 they found that a quarter of teachers were absent. 教师罢工和缺勤经常困扰着公立学校。在德里东部有一个由来自印度东北部的移民聚居的贫民窟,学生们在一个小型私立学校与一个免费公立学校之间穿梭。私立学校建在一个废弃工厂里,每月学费是80-150卢比(约合1.25-2.35美元);而公立学校就在附近拐角处,提供午饭和一些书,但几乎没什么教学。2010年当调查人员访问印度乡村学校时,发现有四分之一的教师缺勤。 A study by the World Bank found that teachers in state-run primary schools in some African countries were absent 15-25% of the time. “The public teachers don’t feel obligated coming to school,” says Emmanuel Essien, a driver who hustles day and night to send his youngsters to a private school in Alimosho, a suburb of Lagos. “If they come, they might just tell the student to go hawking. They tell you that your children have to attend an extra class, or buy an extra book, just so they can make money in their own pocket.” 世界银行的一项研究发现,非洲一些国家的公立小学教师有15-25%的时间缺勤。Emmanuel Essien是一名司机,他日夜奔忙、拼命赚钱来把他的孩子送到位于拉各斯郊区Alimosho的一所私立学校,他说,“公立学校的教师对于去学校并没有很强的责任感。如果他们去了,或许会让学生出去兜售东西。他们会说你的孩子必须参加额外的补习,或者额外买一些书,只是为了从你身上赚更多的钱。” Privatising Parnassus 教育私有化 Given the choice between a free state school where little teaching happens and a private school where their children might actually learn something, parents who can scrape together the fees will plump for the latter. In a properly functioning market, the need to attract their custom would unleash competition and over time improve quality for all. 公立学校免费但几乎学不到东西,而在私立学校上学的孩子或许可以真真正正地学到一些东西,当面临这两种选择时,那些能凑够学费的家长会坚决选择后者。在一个运转正常的市场里,为了吸引顾客,会引起竞争,随着时间推移可以提高所有服务者的质量。 But as a paper by Tahir Andrabi, Jishnu Das and Asim Ijaz Khwaja published by the World Bank explains, market failures can stop that happening. Choosing a private school can be a perfectly rational personal choice, but have only a limited effect on overall results. 但世界银行发表的一篇由Tahir Andrabi, Jishnu Das 和Asim Ijaz Khwaja三人撰写的论文显示,市场失灵会阻止上述情况的发生。选择私立学校对于个人来说也许是完全理性的选择,但对于整体来说只有很有限的影响。 One such failure is that parents often lack objective information about standards. Countries where state schools are weak rarely have trustworthy national exam systems. To attract clients, private schools may exaggerate their performance by marking generously. Mr Essien says he has taken to testing his children himself to cross-check their progress. Though paying customers like him can hold private-school teachers to account, making them more likely to turn up and try hard, good teachers cannot be conjured out of thin air. 其中的一个失灵是,父母通常缺乏关于评价标准的客观信息。公立学校较弱的国家很少有值得信任的国家考试系统。为了吸引到学生,私立学校也许会通过宽松评分的方式来夸大学生的成绩。Essien说他已经开始自己动手测试他的孩子,以便对学习成效进行交叉评测。尽管像他这样的付费家长可以促使私立学校的老师承担责任,让他们更有可能勤快并努力地教学,但好老师不是凭空就能变出来的。 Matters are further complicated by the fact that education is to a great extent a “positional good”: the aim is to get a job or university place, for which it is enough to beat the other candidates, rather than reach the highest possible absolute standard. Especially in rural areas where there is unlikely to be much choice, being just a bit better than public schools is enough to keep the clients coming, says Joanna Harma of the Centre for International Education at the University of Sussex. And sheltered from market forces, those public schools have no incentive to improve. 实际上问题要更复杂一点,因为教育在很大程度上是一种“排位商品”:它的目的是找到一份工作或者考上一所大学,因此只要能击败其他候选人就足够了,而不是去达到可能的最高绝对标准。特别是在乡村地区,那里没有更多的选择,只要比公立学校好一点就足够吸引到学生了,Sussex大学国际教育中心的Joanna Harma说道。由于避开了市场的力量,这些公立学校没有动力去提高自身的教学水平。 That means school choice can “sort” children into different types of schools: the most informed and committed parents colonise the better ones, which may then rely on their reputations to keep their position in the pecking order. 这意味着择校过程会把学生“分到”不同的学校中去,那些消息最灵通和最负责任的家长蜂集于好学校,然后这些学校就可以依靠它们的名声来保持其在等级排序中的位置。 Research from several parts of Africa and south Asia finds that children in low-cost private schools are from families that are better-off, get more help from parents with homework and have spent more time in pre-school. 非洲和南亚的一些研究发现,低成本私立学校的学生多来自富裕家庭,他们在家庭作业上能得到父母更多的帮助,并在学前教育方面花费了更多时间。 A round-up of research, much of it from south Asia, found that their pupils did better in assessments, though often only in some subjects. In the few studies that accounted for differences in family background and so on, their lead shrank. 一项主要在南亚进行的汇总研究显示,那里的学生在考核中成绩更好,尽管通常只是在几个学科。在少量将家庭背景差异等因素考虑进去的研究中,这种优势就缩小了。 Chile’s voucher scheme, which started in 1981 under the dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet, aimed to enable poor students to move from bad public schools to good private ones and to raise standards by generating competition between the two. Today 38% of pupils are in state schools, 53% in private ones that accept vouchers and 7% in elite institutions that charge full fees. In the 1990s a post-Pinochet centre-left government allowed subsidised schools to charge top-up fees. They can also select their pupils by ability. 智利的教育券计划,开始于1981年奥古斯托·皮诺切特将军独裁时期,目的是让贫穷的孩子有机会从差劲的公立学校转移到好一点的私立学校,并通过两者间的竞争来提高标准。现在38%的孩子在公立学校,53%的孩子在可以用教育券的私立学校,7%在收取全额费用的精英机构。在1990年代,后皮诺切特的中左派政府允许受补贴的学校收取“补充”学费。他们还可以根据能力来选择学生。 Chile does better than any other Latin American country in PISA, an international assessment of 15-year-olds in literacy, mathematics and science, suggesting a positive overall effect. But that is hardly a ringing endorsement: all the region’s countries come in the bottom third globally. 智利在PISA中比其他拉美国家做得都好,PISA是一份针对15岁学生的读写、数学和科学能力的国际评估,这显示智利政策整体效果积极。但这并非什么强有力的证据,因为这一地区的国家排名都在全球的倒数第三位。 And once the relatively privileged background of private-school pupils is taken into account, says Emiliana Vegas of the Inter-American Development Bank, state schools do better, especially since they serve the hardest-to-teach children. 美洲开发银行的 Emiliana Vegas说,一旦把私立学校学生相对优越的家庭背景考虑在内,公立学校做得更好,特别还要考虑到,他们教的是最难教的学生。 Where private schools trounce state ones is in cost-effectiveness. A recent study in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh gave vouchers for low-cost private schools to around 6,000 randomly chosen pupils. Four years later they were compared with applicants who did not receive the vouchers. Both groups did equally well in mathematics and Telugu, the local language. But private schools had spent less time on these subjects in order to make space in the curriculum for English and Hindi, in which their pupils did better. And spending on each pupil was only around a third that in the state sector. Lagos state spent at least $230 on each child it put through primary school between 2011 and 2013, public data suggest, around twice as much as a typical private school charges. 私立学校稳胜于公立学校的地方是在成本效益方面。在印度安得拉邦进行的一项调查,给随机挑选的约6000学生发放了可用于低成本私立学校的教育券。四年之后,把他们和没拿到教育券的学生进行对比。两组人在数学和Telugu(一种当地语言)上表现得一样好。但是私立学校的学生在这些学科上花费的时间更少,以便腾出时间来学习英语和印地语,在这两个学科上私立学校的学生做的更好。每个孩子的培养费用仅为公立学校的三分之一。公开数据显示,在2011至2013年间,(尼日利亚)拉各斯州在每个完成小学学业的孩子身上花费了约230美元,大约是一个典型的私立学校索费的两倍。 Marks for effort 努力的成绩 A centre-left government in Chile is now unwinding Pinochet’s reforms. One of its changes is to bar for-profit schools from the voucher scheme. The new standard-bearer for market-based education reform is the Pakistani province of Punjab. Nationally, 25m children are out of school, and reformist politicians are turning to the private sector to expand capacity quickly and cheaply. To make the market work better, they are exploring ways to give parents more information about standards and to help successful schools grow. 智利现有的中左政府正在颠覆皮诺切特改革,其举措之一是将盈利性学校踢出教育券计划。于是,这场教育市场化改革中的旗手角色,已让位于巴基斯坦的旁遮普省。巴基斯坦全国共有2500万名失学儿童,改革派政治家把目光投向私人部门,以期快速而廉价地扩大教育容量。为帮助市场更好运行,他们正采取措施,给予学生家长更多学业水平的相关信息,并帮助已获成功的学校良好发展。 Authority over education is devolved to Pakistan’s four provinces, and Punjab’s energetic chief minister, Shahbaz Sharif, the brother of the prime minister, Nawaz, has decreed that the government will not build any of the new schools needed to achieve its 100% enrolment target for school-age children by 2018. Instead money is being funnelled to the private sector via the Punjab Education Foundation (PEF), an independent body with a focus on extremely poor families. 巴基斯坦已将教育事务的管理权下放给四省的地方政府。精力旺盛的旁遮普省首席部长,总理纳瓦兹·谢里夫的弟弟沙巴兹·谢里夫宣布,实现2018年前学龄儿童100%入学目标所需的学校,政府一座都不会修建。相反,借由关注极端贫困家庭的独立组织旁遮普教育基金会(PEF),资金会被输送至私人部门。 One scheme helps entrepreneurs set up new schools, particularly in rural areas. Another gives vouchers to parents living in slums to send children who are not in school to PEF-approved institutions. All the places in some schools have also been bought up. Those schools cannot charge fees and must submit to monitoring and teacher training. 其中一项计划旨在帮助企业家开办新学校,特别是在乡村地区办学。另一项计划则通过向家长分发教育券,使贫民窟的失学儿童能够进入PEF认可的机构学习。一些学校的招生名额被全部买断。这些学校不能收费,且必须接受教学管理和教师培训。 Although the funding per pupil is less than half of what is spent by state schools, results are at least as good, says Aneela Salman, PEF’s managing director. “The private sector can be much more flexible about who it hires, and can set up schools quickly in rented buildings and hire teachers from the local community.” 据PEF总经理Aneela Salman说,尽管这些学校在每位学生身上花费的资金不足公立学校的一半,结果却并不比公立学校差。“私人领域的雇用更具弹性,可以租用校舍快速组建学校,还可从当地居民中招募教师。” Crucially, the province is also improving oversight and working out how to inform parents about standards. It has dispatched 1,000 inspectors armed with tablet computers to conduct basic checks on whether schools are operating and staff and children are turning up. They have begun quizzing teachers, using questions from the exams they are meant to be teaching their pupils to pass. The early results, says one official grimly, are “not good”. 殊为关键的是,旁遮普省还在改善监管,并想方设法告知家长学业水平。全省派出了1000名配备平板电脑的检查员,针对学校是否正常运行、员工与学生是否在校的问题进行基本的检查。他们使用本应由教师教授并用于测试学生的考试题目,开始对教师进行测试。一位官员阴沉地表示,早期结果“并不乐观”。 In a joint study by the World Bank, Harvard University and Punjab’s government, parents in some villages were given report cards showing the test scores of their children and the average for schools nearby, both public and private. A year later participating villages had more children in school and their test scores in maths, English and Urdu were higher than in comparable villages where the cards were not distributed. The scheme was very cheap, and the improvement in results larger than that from some much pricier interventions, such as paying parents to send their children to school. 在由世界银行、哈佛大学和旁遮普省政府联合开展的一项研究中,学生的成绩报告被分发到一些村庄的家长手中,与之一同下发的还有附近各公私立学校的平均成绩。一年后,与没有分发成绩报告的可比村庄相比,受调查村庄的入学率得到了提高,当地学生的数学、英语和乌尔都语成绩也都更高。这些举措花费很少,但相比其他昂贵的干预措施,比如付钱要求家长送子女入学,其结果却更优。 PEF now educates 2m of Punjab’s 25m children, a share likely to grow by another million by 2018. Meanwhile the number of state schools has fallen by around 2,000 as some have been merged and others closed. 在旁遮普省2500万名儿童中,已有200万人通过PEF获得了教育,到2018年,这个人数很可能再增加100万。与此同时,公立学校的数量已减少了约2000家,一些被合并,还有些已经关门。 Such a wholesale shift to private-sector provision would create a storm of protest in Britain, whose Department for International Development is backing Punjab’s reforms. But there are few signs of anxiety in a country where many parents aspire to send their children to a private school and the country’s recent Nobel laureate, the education activist Malala Yousafzai, is the daughter of a private-school owner. 尽管英国国际发展部是旁遮普改革的幕后推手,但如此大规模地转向私人部门如果发生于英国,结果只会是一场抗议浪潮。然而在巴基斯坦,焦虑情绪则几乎看不到,因为该国的许多父母正在为将子女送入私立学校积极努力。这个国家最近的诺贝尔奖得主,教育活动家马拉拉·优素福扎伊本人,就是一名私立学校老板之女。 Schooling on tick 贷款办学 NGOs and education activists often oppose the spread of private schools, sometimes because they fear the poorest will be left behind, but often because of ideology. In October Kishore Singh, the UN special rapporteur on the right to education, told the UN General Assembly that for-profit education “should not be allowed in order to safeguard the noble cause of education”. Others, seemingly more reasonably, demand greater oversight of the sector: in a resolution on July 1st the UN Human Rights Council urged countries to regulate and monitor private schools. NGO和教育活动家群体往往反对私立学校扩张,部分出于对底层人群无法获得入学机会的担心,更多则是观念差异。十月,联合国受教育权特别调查员Kishore Singh向联合国大会报告称,盈利性教育“应被禁止,否则将无法保卫崇高的教育事业。”另外一些貌似更为合理的意见,则提出对这一部门开展更严厉的监管:在7月1日的一份决议中,联合国人权理事会要求各国监管私立学校。 [caption id="attachment_6013" align="alignnone" width="290"]Crammed in, cramming Crammed in, cramming[/caption] But where governments are hostile to private schools, regulation is often a pretext to harass them. And many of the criteria commonly used, such as the quality of facilities, or teachers’ qualifications and pay, have been shown by research in several countries to have no bearing on a school’s effectiveness. In recent years many poor countries staffed state schools with unqualified teachers on temporary contracts, paying them much less than permanent staff. In India, Kenya, Pakistan and Mali their pupils learn at least as much as those taught by permanent teachers. 然而,如果一地政府对私立学校持否定态度,此时的监管就成为了骚扰的借口。数国开展的研究显示,许多常用的评价标准,诸如设施质量、教师资格和收入,与教学成果之间无甚关联。近年来,许多贫困国家为填补公立学校的人员短缺,与资历不足者签订临时合同,以远低于编内员工的薪水雇用了一批教师。在印度、肯尼亚、巴基斯坦和马里,相比编内教师,由临时教师教授的学生并未产生知识短缺的问题。 Many small private schools do not try to get on any official register, knowing that they have no chance of succeeding, not least because of widespread corruption. A federal law from 2009 means that all private schools in India must be registered. This means satisfying onerous conditions, to which states have added their own. 许多小型私立学校已知没有可能得到官方注册,干脆放弃尝试,这其中,腐败是一个很重要的原因。印度2009年颁布的一项联邦法律规定,所有私立学校都必须注册。这意味着各式各样的苛刻条件,以及各邦独特的额外规定。 They must have access to playgrounds (immediately barring almost all those in urban slums), and qualified teachers who are paid salaries that match government-run schools. The state of Uttar Pradesh limits tuition-fee increases to 10% every three years. The main effect of this blizzard of bureaucracy has been to provide corrupt officials with a new excuse to seek bribes. 注册条件之一是有能力提供操场(几乎所有城市贫民区的学校都被立即排除),另一条则要求已获资格认证、薪酬达到公立学校水平的教员。北方邦规定三年内学费增长不得超过10%。这场官僚风暴的主要成就,是为腐败官员提供了索贿的新途径。 The need to fly under the radar means that schools lack access to credit and cannot grow or reap economies of scale. One small study in rural India found that a quarter of private schools visited by researchers had closed down when they returned a year later. Some will have been sound businesses brought down by cash-flow problems, as parents with precarious, low-paid jobs struggled to pay the fees. Others will have been run by people with an enthusiasm for education, but no business acumen. 被迫在监管刀口下求存,使得学校无从取得贷款,无力发展,更难以实现规模经济。一项针对印度乡村的小型研究显示,受调查的私立学校中有四分之一在一年后关门。一些本应健康发展的学校因现金流问题而倒闭,其资金来源是无稳定工作、收入颇低的学生家长。另一些学校的经营者空有投身教育的热情,却无商业头脑。 Another study in Punjab shows how much the lack of credit hamstrings private schools. All those in some randomly selected villages were given a $500 grant and asked to submit proposals for using the money to improve, just as a bank might demand a business plan in return for a small loan. Audits a year later found that the grants had been entirely spent on school improvements and test scores had risen more than in a control group of villages. 开展于旁遮普省的另一项研究则显示了,贷款短缺如何妨碍私立学校的发展。随机选择一些村庄,向其中所有私立学校给予500美元的赞助,然后如同银行提供小额贷款时索要商业计划书一样,要求其提供这笔钱的用途。一年后,审计发现赞助金完全被用于改善学校条件,考试成绩也与作为对照组的另一村庄相比有更大进步。 A promising development is the spread of low-cost for-profit school chains in big cities in Africa and south Asia. Some started by catering to better-off families and are now moving into the mass market. Their founders have more in common with the highly educated young enthusiasts who start charter schools in America than the owners of the single institutions that dominate the sector, says Julia Moffett of the Future of Learning Fund, which backs education entrepreneurs in Africa. 在非洲和南亚,一些大城市出现了廉价的盈利性连锁学校,这让人看到了未来的希望。其中一些学校一开始以富裕家庭为受众,现在也已进入大众市场。“学习的未来”基金会的Julia Moffett说,与在该领域内占主导地位的独体机构的拥有者相比,这些学校的创办者更像在美国创办特许学校的年轻人,他们受过高等教育,对教育事业充满热忱。“学习的未来”基金会旨在向非洲的教育企业家提供援助。 Bridge International Academies, which runs around 400 primary schools in Kenya and Uganda, and plans to open more in Nigeria and India, is the biggest, with backers including Facebook’s chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, and Bill Gates. Omega Schools has 38 institutions in Ghana. (Pearson, which owns 50% of The Economist, has stakes in both Bridge and Omega.) Low-cost chains with a dozen schools or fewer have recently been established in India, Nigeria, the Philippines and South Africa. 桥国际连锁学院在肯尼亚和乌干达经营有约400家小学,正打算进军尼日利亚和印度。这是诸多廉价连锁学校中规模最大的一家,其支持者包括Facebook首席执行官马克·扎克伯格以及比尔·盖茨。Omega Schools在加纳拥有38家机构。(拥有《经济学人》50%股份的Pearson集团,在上述两家企业都有股份。)近来,一些连锁数量在10个左右甚至更少的廉价连锁学校,已经在印度、尼日利亚、菲律宾和南非出现。 Bridge’s cost-cutting strategies include using standardised buildings made of unfinished wooden beams, corrugated steel and iron mesh, and scripted lessons that teachers recite from hand-held computers linked to a central system. That saves on teacher training and monitoring. 在桥国际学院,校舍以半成品木梁、波纹钢和铁网为建筑材料,依照标准统一建造;教师使用手持电脑连通中央系统,下载预定的课程内容背诵备用。这些举措不仅缩减了开支,还省去了对教师的培训和监管。 An independent evaluation is under way to find out whether such robo-teaching is better than the alternative—too often ill-educated teachers struggling through material they do not understand themselves. The potential of technology to transform education is unlikely to be realised in state institutions, where teachers and unions resist anything that might increase oversight or reduce the need for staff. 学业不精的老师为了备课费尽心思,这种情况常有;与其如此,是否照本宣科的教学方式更为优越?为了解答这一问题,一项独立研究正在进行当中。在公立学校,任何加强监管或减少人员需求的举措,都会遭到教师和工会的抵制,因此技术改变教育的潜能难以在公立学校发挥。 Another trend, says Prachi Srivastava of the University of Ottawa, is the emergence of providers of auxiliary services for private schools, including curriculum development, science kits and school-management training. Credit facilities are also cropping up. The Indian School Finance Company, funded by Grey Ghost Ventures, an Atlanta-based impact investor, has expanded to six Indian states since it started in 2009. 渥太华大学的Prachi Srivastava说,面向私立学校提供辅助服务的行业正在兴起,服务内容包括课程安排、教学用具以及学校管理方面的训练。信贷服务也在悄然出现。创立于2009年的印度学校金融公司,由总部位于亚特兰大的影响力投资商Grey Ghost Ventures投资,现已扩展至印度六个邦。 The IDP Rising Schools Programme, a small-loans programme in Ghana, also offers its clients teacher training. Private schooling may turn out to be good business for these firms and their investors—and, if governments allow it to flourish, for pupils, too. 出现于加纳的一项小额借贷项目,IDP Rising Schools Programme,同时也向其客户提供教师培训服务。对于企业和投资者来说,私立学校这一行可能前途光明;如果各国政府允许其充分发展,学生群体也将从中受惠。 (编辑:@whigzhou) *注:本译文未经原作者授权,本站对原文不持有也不主张任何权利,如果你恰好对原文拥有权益并希望我们移除相关内容,请私信联系,我们会立即作出响应。

——海德沙龙·翻译组,致力于将英文世界的好文章搬进中文世界——

[译文]坟墓竟然不是永久的?

Losing the plot: death is permanent, but your grave isn’t
青山难留:死亡是永恒的,但你的坟墓不是

作者:Lynley Wallis ; Alice Gorman ; Heather Burke @2014-11-6
译者:Drunkplane
校对:带菜刀的诗人(@带菜刀的诗人_),林翠(@cwlinnil)
来源:The Conversation, https://theconversation.com/losing-the-plot-death-is-permanent-but-your-grave-isnt-33459

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Space can be at a premium in cemeteries … and when it runs out, reusing old graves is an option.

Headstones at the Dudley Park cemetery in Payneham, South Australia, were recently bulldozed as part of the ongoing “recycling” of more than 400 graves. Some people were shocked to realise that gravesites are not permanent and many have expressed their “disgust” and concern over the practice.

南澳大利亚佩纳姆镇,达德利公园墓地里的墓碑最近全被推土机清理掉了。这只是400多个正被“循环利用”的墓地之一。有些人震惊地发现墓地居然不是永久的,许多人感到“恶心”并表达了对此种做法的关切。

The reuse of graves is far from a modern phenomenon, caused by exponential population growth and overcrowding in towns and cities. Reusing the same place for burials is a tradition that has been repeated time and again in different cultures across the world, for thousands of years.

因为人口指数式增长,城镇过度拥挤,重复利用墓地早已不是什么现代才有的现象。几千年来,在全世界不同的文化里,重复利用墓地时常可见,成了一种传统。

Over the entirety of human history, around 108 billion people have lived – and died. That’s a lot of bodies that need disposing of in some way.

整个人类历史上,大约一千零八十亿人曾降临人世——又死去。那可是许许多多的尸体,总得以某种方式处理。

In the early centuries of the Common Era (AD), people in northern Europe reused burial mounds from the earlier Bronze Age and Neolithic periods. The catacombs beneath Paris were an 18th century solution to cemeteries that were so overcrowded bodies were stacked on top of one another.

在公历纪元的最初几个世纪,北欧人将早前青铜时代和旧石器时代留下的坟冢重新利用。18世纪巴黎的地下墓穴,便是为了解决地上墓地过度拥挤,尸体层叠堆放的难题。

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In the 19th century, the garden cemetery movement arose to create more spacious burial grounds — usually on what were then the outskirts of towns and cities. These new cemeteries doubled as places where one could picnic on a Sunday, with children playing games amon(more...)

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Losing the plot: death is permanent, but your grave isn’t 青山难留:死亡是永恒的,但你的坟墓不是 作者:Lynley Wallis ; Alice Gorman ; Heather Burke @2014-11-6 译者:Drunkplane 校对:带菜刀的诗人(@带菜刀的诗人_),林翠(@cwlinnil) 来源:The Conversation, https://theconversation.com/losing-the-plot-death-is-permanent-but-your-grave-isnt-33459 [caption id="attachment_6004" align="alignnone" width="335"]SONY DSC Space can be at a premium in cemeteries ... and when it runs out, reusing old graves is an option.[/caption] Headstones at the Dudley Park cemetery in Payneham, South Australia, were recently bulldozed as part of the ongoing “recycling” of more than 400 graves. Some people were shocked to realise that gravesites are not permanent and many have expressed their “disgust” and concern over the practice. 南澳大利亚佩纳姆镇,达德利公园墓地里的墓碑最近全被推土机清理掉了。这只是400多个正被“循环利用”的墓地之一。有些人震惊地发现墓地居然不是永久的,许多人感到“恶心”并表达了对此种做法的关切。 The reuse of graves is far from a modern phenomenon, caused by exponential population growth and overcrowding in towns and cities. Reusing the same place for burials is a tradition that has been repeated time and again in different cultures across the world, for thousands of years. 因为人口指数式增长,城镇过度拥挤,重复利用墓地早已不是什么现代才有的现象。几千年来,在全世界不同的文化里,重复利用墓地时常可见,成了一种传统。 Over the entirety of human history, around 108 billion people have lived – and died. That’s a lot of bodies that need disposing of in some way. 整个人类历史上,大约一千零八十亿人曾降临人世——又死去。那可是许许多多的尸体,总得以某种方式处理。 In the early centuries of the Common Era (AD), people in northern Europe reused burial mounds from the earlier Bronze Age and Neolithic periods. The catacombs beneath Paris were an 18th century solution to cemeteries that were so overcrowded bodies were stacked on top of one another. 在公历纪元的最初几个世纪,北欧人将早前青铜时代和旧石器时代留下的坟冢重新利用。18世纪巴黎的地下墓穴,便是为了解决地上墓地过度拥挤,尸体层叠堆放的难题。 2 In the 19th century, the garden cemetery movement arose to create more spacious burial grounds — usually on what were then the outskirts of towns and cities. These new cemeteries doubled as places where one could picnic on a Sunday, with children playing games among the headstones and elegant ladies and gentlemen promenading along the avenues. 到了19世纪,花园墓地运动兴起,促使更多宽敞墓园出现——这些墓园往往坐落于城镇的郊区。新式墓园同时也成了一个你可以周日来野餐的地方,孩子们在墓碑间玩耍,优雅的淑女和绅士在大道上徜徉。 By romanticising the relationship between the living and the dead the Victorians repurposed the idea of a graveyard from a functional to a recreational space that allowed for continual remembrance of loved ones as part of everyday activities. 通过柔化生者和死者之间的关系,维多利亚那代人重塑了墓地的概念,将之从一个功能性地点变成了一个休闲场所。在这里每天都可以缅怀自己爱的人。 Grave concerns 墓园的隐忧 In the contemporary world grave recycling is often driven by economic imperatives rather than purely spatial concerns. If the sole source of a cemetery’s income derives from the leasing of plots — as is the case with many independent cemetery trusts — how are they to remain financially viable when all the spaces are filled? 现如今,经济利益的需要取代了单纯的空间考量,成为驱动墓地回收利用的强大动力。如果场地租赁是墓园的唯一收入来源——许多独立墓园信托公司正是如此——当墓园的所有空间都填满了,它们还怎么保持盈利? Cemeteries must serve the burial needs of contemporary local communities, and often this can only be accomplished through destroying older graves so that newer interments can take place. 墓园必须满足当代地方社群的丧葬需求,而这往往只能通过毁掉旧的墓地才能实现。只有这样,后来者才能得以埋葬。 But what is the boundary between a “grave” and a “heritage site”? This varies across jurisdictions. Under the Burial and Cremations Act 2013 of South Australia, a site may be reused once an interment right expires — usually after a set period has elapsed and if no relative or other party can be found to take on the right (and the payment for it). 但是,又如何区分普通墓地和遗迹呢?不同的司法辖区有不同规定。依照南澳州于2013年颁布的《丧葬与火化法案》,当一处墓地的安葬权到期,则该地便可被重新利用。这种情况往往发生在一段时间后仍无亲属或其他当事人被找来行使该权利(并为之付费)时。【译注:有别于对安葬地的所有权,安葬权特指一个人被安葬于此地的权利。】 In such a case the burial and its headstone are given the “lift and deepen” treatment. The existing burial is removed and replaced lower down in the grave so that another burial can be included on top. The headstone is either smashed and buried with them, or removed to an inconspicuous place. 当这种情况发生时,坟墓和墓碑便会被作“挖起-深埋”处理。现有的坟墓被重新安置到墓地下方更深的地方,这样新的坟墓才能被放在上面。而墓碑要么一并粉碎深埋,要么就被移到一个隐秘的地方。 [embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmwFB-bUf2E[/embed] Before reusing any site, though, the Act requires that details of both the grave and the memorial are recorded photographically and in writing for posterity. Technological advances in recent years means that laser scanning is now a viable option for the recording process and, in all cases, digitisation of the data enables it to be easily made publicly available. 按照该法案的规定,在重复利用墓园前,都必须将坟墓和墓碑的细节拍照和记录,以留给墓主人的子孙。近些年,科技的进步让激光扫描成为了一种可能的记录方式,不管什么情况吧,数字化总是让数据更易于被公众获得。 This, at least, retains some of the historical information that contributes to the heritage and social value of these places that would otherwise be destroyed. 这样,那些经历了历史风霜,有传承和社会价值的信息至少有一部分被保留了下来,否则就只能眼看它们灰飞烟灭了。 If a grave is considered a heritage site, however, different legislation takes precedence. Section 27 of the South Australian Heritage Places Act 1993 affords blanket protection for all archaeological artefacts, whether known or unknown. Any disturbance then requires a permit. Sometimes archaeologists become involved in the process of reclaiming land in cemeteries. 然而,如果一个墓地被当作遗迹,那不同的法律都会给予优先保护。1993年颁布的《南澳遗迹法案》第27节为所有有考古价值的文物提供了全面的保护,无论它们是否为人熟知,且任何扰动都必须得到批准。有时考古学家会加入到对墓地的改造进程中来。 Reuse, recycle, research 再利用,循环使用,研究 Famous Australian examples of the reuse of historical cemeteries in conjunction with archaeological excavation and analysis include the site of Lang Park in Brisbane, the Queen Victoria Market in Melbourne and Town Hall in Sydney. 对有历史价值墓园的再利用,结合了考古挖掘和研究分析,澳大利亚的著名例子包括布里斯班的Lang Park、墨尔本的Queen Victoria Market和悉尼的Town Hall。 In Adelaide, the archaeological study of the Maesbury cemetery in Kensington, and the St Mary’s cemetery in the suburb of St Mary’s, have led to unique insights into the burial practices and lifestyles of South Australia’s earliest European settlers. 在阿德莱德,对肯辛顿的梅斯布里墓园和位于圣玛丽郊区的圣玛丽墓园的考古研究,赋予我们独特的视角,让我们对南澳大利亚最早一批欧洲移居者的丧葬情况和生活方式能一探究竟。 [caption id="attachment_6006" align="alignnone" width="112"]3 The Kippist headstone.[/caption] At Maesbury, only one headstone remained to mark hundreds of bodies now under parkland. This was before a Flinders University archaeology team began work at the site. 弗林德斯大学考古队来到梅斯布里墓园开展工作之前,只有一座墓碑被保留了下来,这座墓碑是地底下数百具尸体唯一的标示。 It was an exciting day when a neighbour came forth with a headstone they had found while digging in their garden (pictured right) making it only the second headstone to survive. 考古队在墓园挖出另一块墓碑的当天令人振奋,这意味着发现了死者们的旧邻,于是它就成了侥幸被保存下来的第二块墓碑。 Research revealed that it had marked the grave of three children from one family who died between 1850 and 1863, in the first few decades of the settlement of South Australia. 研究显示,这块墓碑属于来自同一个家庭的三个孩子,他们死于1850年至1863年之间,那正是南澳大利亚刚刚被开拓的一段岁月。 Infant mortality was scandalously high in 19th century Adelaide but the causes were mysterious. The gravestone speaks to a grief both public and private, when thousands of children died from the vague disease of “debility”. 19世纪的阿德莱德有着骇人的婴儿死亡率,但具体原因仍是个谜。当成百上千的孩子因为说不清的“虚弱”症而死去,墓碑悲伤地述说着往事,既是对世人也是对亲人。 At the St Mary’s Anglican Cemetery, archaeologists from Flinders University were invited by the Church to carry out excavations to recover the bodies from a pauper’s area before the land was reused. 弗林德斯大学的考古学家当初受教堂邀请参与了圣玛丽的圣公会墓园的挖掘,以便在土地再利用前恢复贫民区墓地的骸骨。 This study told us much about the nutritional and health standards of the urban poor. Contrary to expectations, they ate lots of meat (approximately 60% of their diet), but hardly any carbohydrates (wheat or barley). The majority were younger than 15 when they died, probably from infections. Most adult skeletons indicated a hard-working, physically active lifestyle. 考古学家的研究向我们揭示了许多有关城市贫民的营养和健康状况的信息。同原有估计相反的是,当时的城市贫民摄入了大量的肉(大约占到他们饮食的60%),但却很少摄入碳水化合物(小麦和大麦)。死去的人多数不到15岁,也许是因为传染病。大部分成年人的骸骨表明他们依靠艰苦的体力劳动而生活。 As the only study of its kind in South Australia, St Mary’s also highlighted how little we know about the living conditions and lifestyles of South Australia’s early settlers more generally. 作为南澳州唯一此类研究,圣玛丽墓园也向我们强调了,我们对于南澳早期开拓者的生活条件和生活方式是多么的无知。 All graves contain a story; some touch us more than others, but none of them should be subject to the disrespect of a bulldozer. As George Eliot reminds us, our dead are never dead to us until we have forgotten them. 每块墓地都藏着一个故事,有些故事更能打动我们,但没有哪个应该被交给那不敬的推土机。正如乔治·艾略特提醒我们的:逝去者并未真正死去,除非我们已将他们遗忘。 (编辑:@whigzhou) *注:本译文未经原作者授权,本站对原文不持有也不主张任何权利,如果你恰好对原文拥有权益并希望我们移除相关内容,请私信联系,我们会立即作出响应。

——海德沙龙·翻译组,致力于将英文世界的好文章搬进中文世界——

[译文]神奇的肯尼亚长跑部落

KENYA’S RUNNING TRIBE
肯尼亚长跑部落

作者:John Manners @ 1997-11
译者:黑色枪骑兵
校对:陈小乖(@lion_kittyyyyy) ,沈沉(@你在何地-sxy)
来源:The Sports Historian No. 17 (2),  http://library.la84.org/SportsLibrary/SportsHistorian/1997/sh172d.pdf

This article is about a tribe in Kenya that has a remarkable faculty for turning out world class distance runners. The people are called the Kalenjin. They occupy an area about the size of Wales and they number something under 3 million, or about 10 % of Kenya’s population. But this group has earned about 75% of Kenya’s distance running honors.

本文讲述的是一个位于肯尼亚的部落,那儿产出了数量惊人的世界级长跑运动员。这个民族被称作卡伦津人,他们占据着一个和威尔士差不多大小的区域,人口不到300万,约占肯尼亚人口的10%。但是,在肯尼亚赢得的长跑荣誉中,这个群体占了75%。

That number is impressive enough, in view of the degree to which Kenya now dominates the sport, but looked at another way, the figures are even more remarkable: over the past 10 years, athletes from this small tribe have won close to 40% of all the biggest international honors available in men’s distance running.

考虑到目前肯尼亚在这项运动中的统治地位,这个数字已足够引人注目,但是从另一个角度看的话,这个数字显得更加出类拔萃:在过去的十年里,从这个小部落里走出来的运动员赢得了男子长跑界所有大型国际性荣誉的40%。

Most of this article will be a discussion of various notions that have been advanced to account for this phenomenon, but before going into that I want to throw out a few more numbers to show what I mean by that 40% figure. First, I want to make it clear that I am talking about men’s distance running. Kalenjin women – African women in general – have lagged behind their male counterparts for reasons I am afraid I will not have time to get into.

本文大部分篇幅都会用来讨论那些为解释这一现象而提出的各种观点,但是在此之前,我想要列出更多数字,以表明我想通过40%这个数据表达的意思。首先需要明确的是,我讨论的只是男子长跑。卡伦津女性——以及总体而言的非洲女性——在这方面落后于她们的男性同胞。至于其原因,恐怕我没有时间去一探究竟。

Now, the Kalenjin excel in varying degrees in all three of distance running’s disciplines: cross country, road racing and track. I will take them one at a time, starting with cross country.

现在,卡伦津人在三种长跑项目中都不同程度地处于领先地位,他们分别是越野跑、公路跑和径赛。我会逐一对他们进行分析,首先说越野跑。

Three weeks ago, the annual World Cross Country Championships were held in Turin. I do not know how much coverage the press here gave the event, but from an international perspective, the World Cross Country Championships are a big deal.

三周以前,国际田联年度世界越野锦标赛在意大利都灵举行。我不知道当地新闻界给了这个活动多少报道,但是从国际视角来看,这是一次大事件。

In fact, it is often said that the men’s championship is the toughest of all foot races to win because it attracts the world’s best at distances from the mile to the marathon, and each country can enter not just three runners, but nine.

事实上,这项赛事的男子冠军通常被认为是所有跑步比赛中最难赢得的。因为它吸引了全世界最好的中长跑运动员,从英里跑到马拉松。并且,每个国家能入选的选手不是三名,而是九名。

In this year’s men’s race there were 280 competitors from 60 different countries, most of them hoping somehow to upset the Kenyan juggernaut, but in the end, out of those 280 runners, five of the first seven to finish were Kenyans – and four of those five were Kalenjin.

今年的男子比赛共有来自60个不同国家的280名选手,他们当中的绝大多数都希望能多多少少打破一点肯尼亚人的主宰格局,但是最终,前七名中五人是肯尼亚人,而这五人中有四人是卡伦津人。

Remarkable as it may seem, this result is fairly typical. Since 1986, when Kenya began taking these championships seriously, the country has yet to lose the men’s team race. And Kalenjin athletes have made up fully three quarters of the scoring runners on those 12 winning Kenyan teams.

这看起来可能挺惹人注目,但是这个结果其实很典型。自从1986年肯尼亚真正参与这些锦标赛开始,该国在男子组团体赛中战无不胜。12支获胜的肯尼亚队伍中,取得名次的运动员里,卡伦津运动员足足占了四分之三。

In fact, in eight of the 12 winning years, if only the Kalenjin runners had competed, they would still have taken the team title. What is more, of the 36 individual medals awarded in the men’s competition in those 12 years, Kalenjin runners have won 18, precisely half the total.

事实上,在12个取胜年头中的8个,即使只有卡伦津运动员参加了比赛,他们仍会把团体冠军拿下。此外,在这12年中,男子比赛的36块个人奖牌,卡伦津人拿走了18块,刚好占了一半。

In road racing, Kalenjin participation has been comparatively limited until recent years, but they have had a perceptible impact at the top – the unofficial “world best” times for the standard road race distances.

直到近几年之前,卡伦津选手在公路赛上的参与度相对有限,但是他们对比赛顶端的影响是显而易见的——即对标准公路赛的非官方“世界最佳”成绩的影响。

Kalenjin men own the world bests at five of the eight commonly run distances shorter than the marathon, and in two of the remaining three, Kalenjin runners have bettered the listed world best while running in longer races. As for the marathon itself, a Kalenjin claims history’s second fastest time – 2 hours, 7 minutes, 2 seconds – and Kalenjin runners have won the Boston Marathon, the world’s oldest and most remunerative road race, four times since 1988.

在八项距离小于马拉松的常规项目中,卡伦津人拥有其中五项的世界最好成绩,另外三项中的两项,卡伦津人在进行更长距离的比赛时刷新了其既有世界纪录。至于马拉松,一个卡伦津人跑出了世界第二好成绩——两小时七分两秒,而且,自1988年以来,卡伦津人赢得了四次波士顿马拉松赛,它是世界上历史最悠久、奖金最丰厚的公路赛。

In fact, at last year’s Centennial Boston Marathon, the richest road race in history, Kalenjin runners took the first two places, three of the top five, five of the top eight and 12 of the top 18.

事实上,去年,在有史以来奖金最高的公路赛——百年波士顿马拉松赛上,卡伦津运动员取得了冠亚军,而且在前五名里占据了三席,在前八名里占据了五席,在前十八名里占据了十二席。

But nowhere in road racing do Kalenjin achievements compare with the record they have built up in the more exacting discipline of track. Here we are talking about distances from 800 meters to 1(more...)

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KENYA’S RUNNING TRIBE 肯尼亚长跑部落 作者:John Manners @ 1997-11 译者:黑色枪骑兵 校对:陈小乖(@lion_kittyyyyy) ,沈沉(@你在何地-sxy) 来源:The Sports Historian No. 17 (2),  http://library.la84.org/SportsLibrary/SportsHistorian/1997/sh172d.pdf This article is about a tribe in Kenya that has a remarkable faculty for turning out world class distance runners. The people are called the Kalenjin. They occupy an area about the size of Wales and they number something under 3 million, or about 10 % of Kenya’s population. But this group has earned about 75% of Kenya’s distance running honors. 本文讲述的是一个位于肯尼亚的部落,那儿产出了数量惊人的世界级长跑运动员。这个民族被称作卡伦津人,他们占据着一个和威尔士差不多大小的区域,人口不到300万,约占肯尼亚人口的10%。但是,在肯尼亚赢得的长跑荣誉中,这个群体占了75%。 That number is impressive enough, in view of the degree to which Kenya now dominates the sport, but looked at another way, the figures are even more remarkable: over the past 10 years, athletes from this small tribe have won close to 40% of all the biggest international honors available in men’s distance running. 考虑到目前肯尼亚在这项运动中的统治地位,这个数字已足够引人注目,但是从另一个角度看的话,这个数字显得更加出类拔萃:在过去的十年里,从这个小部落里走出来的运动员赢得了男子长跑界所有大型国际性荣誉的40%。 Most of this article will be a discussion of various notions that have been advanced to account for this phenomenon, but before going into that I want to throw out a few more numbers to show what I mean by that 40% figure. First, I want to make it clear that I am talking about men’s distance running. Kalenjin women - African women in general - have lagged behind their male counterparts for reasons I am afraid I will not have time to get into. 本文大部分篇幅都会用来讨论那些为解释这一现象而提出的各种观点,但是在此之前,我想要列出更多数字,以表明我想通过40%这个数据表达的意思。首先需要明确的是,我讨论的只是男子长跑。卡伦津女性——以及总体而言的非洲女性——在这方面落后于她们的男性同胞。至于其原因,恐怕我没有时间去一探究竟。 Now, the Kalenjin excel in varying degrees in all three of distance running’s disciplines: cross country, road racing and track. I will take them one at a time, starting with cross country. 现在,卡伦津人在三种长跑项目中都不同程度地处于领先地位,他们分别是越野跑、公路跑和径赛。我会逐一对他们进行分析,首先说越野跑。 Three weeks ago, the annual World Cross Country Championships were held in Turin. I do not know how much coverage the press here gave the event, but from an international perspective, the World Cross Country Championships are a big deal. 三周以前,国际田联年度世界越野锦标赛在意大利都灵举行。我不知道当地新闻界给了这个活动多少报道,但是从国际视角来看,这是一次大事件。 In fact, it is often said that the men’s championship is the toughest of all foot races to win because it attracts the world’s best at distances from the mile to the marathon, and each country can enter not just three runners, but nine. 事实上,这项赛事的男子冠军通常被认为是所有跑步比赛中最难赢得的。因为它吸引了全世界最好的中长跑运动员,从英里跑到马拉松。并且,每个国家能入选的选手不是三名,而是九名。 In this year’s men’s race there were 280 competitors from 60 different countries, most of them hoping somehow to upset the Kenyan juggernaut, but in the end, out of those 280 runners, five of the first seven to finish were Kenyans - and four of those five were Kalenjin. 今年的男子比赛共有来自60个不同国家的280名选手,他们当中的绝大多数都希望能多多少少打破一点肯尼亚人的主宰格局,但是最终,前七名中五人是肯尼亚人,而这五人中有四人是卡伦津人。 Remarkable as it may seem, this result is fairly typical. Since 1986, when Kenya began taking these championships seriously, the country has yet to lose the men’s team race. And Kalenjin athletes have made up fully three quarters of the scoring runners on those 12 winning Kenyan teams. 这看起来可能挺惹人注目,但是这个结果其实很典型。自从1986年肯尼亚真正参与这些锦标赛开始,该国在男子组团体赛中战无不胜。12支获胜的肯尼亚队伍中,取得名次的运动员里,卡伦津运动员足足占了四分之三。 In fact, in eight of the 12 winning years, if only the Kalenjin runners had competed, they would still have taken the team title. What is more, of the 36 individual medals awarded in the men’s competition in those 12 years, Kalenjin runners have won 18, precisely half the total. 事实上,在12个取胜年头中的8个,即使只有卡伦津运动员参加了比赛,他们仍会把团体冠军拿下。此外,在这12年中,男子比赛的36块个人奖牌,卡伦津人拿走了18块,刚好占了一半。 In road racing, Kalenjin participation has been comparatively limited until recent years, but they have had a perceptible impact at the top - the unofficial “world best” times for the standard road race distances. 直到近几年之前,卡伦津选手在公路赛上的参与度相对有限,但是他们对比赛顶端的影响是显而易见的——即对标准公路赛的非官方“世界最佳”成绩的影响。 Kalenjin men own the world bests at five of the eight commonly run distances shorter than the marathon, and in two of the remaining three, Kalenjin runners have bettered the listed world best while running in longer races. As for the marathon itself, a Kalenjin claims history’s second fastest time - 2 hours, 7 minutes, 2 seconds - and Kalenjin runners have won the Boston Marathon, the world’s oldest and most remunerative road race, four times since 1988. 在八项距离小于马拉松的常规项目中,卡伦津人拥有其中五项的世界最好成绩,另外三项中的两项,卡伦津人在进行更长距离的比赛时刷新了其既有世界纪录。至于马拉松,一个卡伦津人跑出了世界第二好成绩——两小时七分两秒,而且,自1988年以来,卡伦津人赢得了四次波士顿马拉松赛,它是世界上历史最悠久、奖金最丰厚的公路赛。 In fact, at last year’s Centennial Boston Marathon, the richest road race in history, Kalenjin runners took the first two places, three of the top five, five of the top eight and 12 of the top 18. 事实上,去年,在有史以来奖金最高的公路赛——百年波士顿马拉松赛上,卡伦津运动员取得了冠亚军,而且在前五名里占据了三席,在前八名里占据了五席,在前十八名里占据了十二席。 But nowhere in road racing do Kalenjin achievements compare with the record they have built up in the more exacting discipline of track. Here we are talking about distances from 800 meters to 10,000 meters, and success in these events is measured mainly in two ways: medals and times. 但是,与卡伦津人在要求更严格的径赛中取得的成就相比,他们的公路赛成绩不值一提。这里我们说的是从800米到10000米的比赛,在这些赛事中,成就主要是从两方面来衡量:奖牌数和用时。 I will start with medals. First, Olympic medals.Kalenjin distance runners have won 26, eight of them gold. The only meaningful numbers to compare this to are medals won in men’s distance events by whole countries during approximately the same period. 我先说奖牌数。首先是奥运奖牌,卡伦津人一共获得了26块,其中8块是金牌。唯一能和这个数据进行有意义比较的,是同期其他国家在男子长跑项目上整国所获得的奖牌数。 If we begin in 1964, the first Olympics to which Kenya sent more than a token contingent, and if we exclude the two Olympics that Kenya boycotted - 1976 and 1980 - the nearest national total is the 10 medals won by the U.S. Next, I am happy to tell you, is Britain, with eight. Fourth place, seven medals, is a tie between Morocco and non-Kalenjin Kenya. 如果我们从1964年算起(这一年开始肯尼亚不像过去那样只派出了一支象征性的代表队参加奥运会),再除去1976和1980这两届肯尼亚所抵制的奥运会的话,奖牌总数与卡伦津人最接近的国家是美国,它取得了10块奖牌。我很乐意告诉你,下一位是英国,获得了8块奖牌。摩洛哥和去除卡伦津人后的肯尼亚并列第四,分获7块奖牌。 Here are the leading national totals, medals and gold medals. As you can see, in the Olympics in which they have fully participated, Kalenjin distance men have won nearly three times as many medals and three times as many golds as rivals from any whole country. 以下是在奖牌和金牌数处于领先地位的国家。你可以看到,在卡伦津人正式参与的奥运会上,他们的男子长跑选手获得的奖牌数和金牌数都是其他任何国家一整国的竞争者所获数量的近三倍。
MEDALS, MEN’S TRACK EVENTS 800m TO 10,000m 奖牌数,男子径赛项目800米到10,000米
Olympic Games, 1964-96 (excluding boycotted Games of 1976 & 1980) 奥运会,1964-96(除遭到抵制的1976届和1980届)
All Medals 奖牌数 Gold           金牌数
Kalenjin 卡伦津 26 8
USA 美国 10 3
GB 英国 8 1
Non-Kalenjin Kenya 非卡伦津肯尼亚 7 4
Morocco 摩洛哥 7 3
Germany (East & West) 德国(东德和西德) 6 1
Ethiopia 埃塞俄比亚 5 1
Finland 芬兰 4 3
New Zealand 新西兰 4 2
Tunisia 突尼斯 4 1
Until 1983, the Olympics were the only worldwide open competition in track and field. But in that year the sport’s governing body introduced the Athletics World Championships, which provide Olympic-level competition without the Olympics’ political baggage. 1983年以前,奥运会是仅有的世界性田径公开赛。但是在1983年,该项运动的管理组织引入了世界田径锦标赛,这项赛事既能提供奥林匹克级别的比赛,又没有奥运会的政治包袱。 Kenya has participated in each of the five World Championships so far, and Kalenjin distance men have built a record much like the one they have established in the Olympics: 17 medals and nine golds. The countries that come closest are Germany (East plus West), with eight medals and two golds, Morocco with seven medals and one gold, and non-Kalenjin Kenya, with five and three. 肯尼亚迄今为止参与了五次世界田径锦标赛,卡伦津男子长跑选手取得了和在奥运会一样瞩目的成绩:17块奖牌和9块金牌。成绩和他们最为接近的国家有德国(东德和西德),8块奖牌,2块金牌;摩洛哥,7块奖牌,1块金牌;非卡伦津肯尼亚,5块奖牌,3块金牌。 If we concentrate on more recent worldwide competition - say, in the last 10 years - the medal totals become altogether lopsided. In three Olympics and three World Championships, Kalenjin distance runners have won 31 medals and 12 golds in men’s track events - 34% and 40%, respectively, of the available totals. 如果我们把目光聚焦到最近的世界级赛事上,比如说最近十年,奖牌总数完全是一边倒的情况。在三届奥运会和三届世锦赛上,卡伦津长跑选手在男子径赛项目上赢得了31块奖牌和12块金牌,分别占总数的34%和40%。 The nearest whole countries are Morocco with 11 medals and Algeria with four golds (all won by NoureddineMorceli), each total equal to about one-third that of the single Kenyan tribe. So much for medals. 与他们的成绩最接近的国家是获得11块奖牌的摩洛哥和获得4块金牌(均由Noureddine Morceli赢得)的阿尔及利亚,这些成绩相当于肯尼亚一个部落(卡伦津)取得的大约三分之一。关于奖牌的问题先说到这里。 The other gauges of success on the track involve recorded times. The most comprehensive of these are what are called all-time lists, which set out in order the top performers in the whole history of an event, strictly on the basis of their best recorded times. As you might expect, Kalenjin runners are well represented. Here are the number of Kalenjin appearing in the all-time lists for the five Olympic distance events at three different levels–top 10, top 20 and top 50: 径赛成绩好的另一个标准是时间记录。其中最全面的被叫做全时间排名,这个表严格按照最好成绩的顺序列出了一个项目历史上所有的顶尖选手。如你所料,卡伦津选手在这个表上大放异彩。这里列出了卡伦津人在五个奥运会长跑项目中在全时间排名上出现的次数,分为三个档次,前十、前二十和前五十:
NUMBER OF KALENJIN IN MEN’S ALL-TIME LISTS 卡伦津人在男子全时间排名上出现的次数
Event 项目 Number of Kalenjin 卡伦津出现人次
Top 10 前十 Top 20 前二十 Top 50 前五十
800 2 7 13
1500 0 4 13
5,000 3 6 13
10,000 5 7 13
3,000米障碍赛 9 13 20
19/50 37/100 72/250
38% 37% 29%
If we tally up these figures for all five events, we find that members of the tribe make up 38% of the all-time top 10, 37% of the top 20 and 29% of the top 50. But even these numbers do not quite convey Kalenjin runners’enormous recent impact. 如果我们把所有五个项目的数据加总,会发现这个部落的成员占据了全时间序列列表前十名的38%,前二十名的37%,前五十名的29%。但是,甚至这些数字都不能很好地展现卡伦津长跑运动员近年来所带来的巨大影响。 That shows up more clearly in annual rankings from the last several years. These are also based solely on recorded times. Here are the numbers of Kalenjin in the top 10 in the five years from 1992 to ’96: 这些影响在最近几年的年度排名上得以更好地体现。这些排名也是完全基于时间记录。这里列出了卡伦津人在1992到1996年这五年间占据前十名的人数:
NUMBER OF KALENJIN IN ANNUAL TOP TEN LISTS 年度前十排名表中的卡伦津人
Event 项目 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996
800 4 5 4 5 5
1500 4 2 2 2 6
5,000 3 3 3 5 3
10,000 2 4 3 4 5
3,000米障碍赛 7 4 6 9 9
20 18 18 25 28
40% 36% 36% 50% 56%
Another quick tally reveals that in the last five years Kalenjin runners occupied 43.6% of the top ten spots in the five men’s endurance events. Take this together with their 38% of the top-ten spots on the all-time lists for those events, and the 34% of all Olympic and World Championship medals they have won in those events since 1988. Then throw in their collection of world bests in road racing and the incredible 50% of all men’s medals that they have won at the World Cross Country Championships since 1986, and you can boil this down to the generalization I made at the beginning: in recent years, of the biggest worldwide honors available in men’s distance running, Kalenjin runners have won something like 40%. 又一个简单的加总显示,在最近五年里,卡伦津选手占据了五个男子耐力项目前十名的43.6%。把这个数据加上其全时间排名中这些项目前十名的比例——38%,再加上自从1988年以来他们在这些项目上获得的奥运会和世锦赛奖牌的比例——34%,再算上他们在公路跑中所获得的世界纪录,以及自1986年以来获得的国际田联世界越野锦标赛的男子奖牌总数——不可思议的50%,然后,你就能得出我在文章开头所给出的概括:近些年,卡伦津跑步运动员获得了世界上所有男子长跑重量级荣誉的大约40%。 I contend that this record marks the greatest geographical concentration of achievement in the annals of sport, and if we had time I would welcome arguments to the contrary, but for now, let us look at what makes these people so good. There has been a fair amount of published speculation on this subject. I am going to look at a few of these ideas, and then I am going to offer a couple of suggestions of my own. 我坚信这个记录是运动史上最大规模的成就地理集中现象。如果有时间的话我很欢迎有人提出反对意见,但是现在,让我们看看是什么让这些人的表现如此优异。关于这个问题已经发表过很多观点。我将分析其中一部分,然后提出一些我自己的看法。 Altitude is most people’s first thought, and with reason. 2,000 meter elevations are common in Kalenjin country, and leading a vigorous outdoor life in the thin air at such altitudes has been shown to help create the high aerobic capacity that is vital to distance running success. 海拔是多数人首先想到的解释,不无道理。海拔2000米在卡伦津是非常普遍的,在这种海拔高、空气稀薄的环境下过一种十分活跃的户外生活,被证实有助于增强供氧能力,这种能力对于长跑来说至关重要。 Every athletics fan has heard stories of runners’ childhoods in these highlands spent covering mile upon mile chasing cattle or - to cite the contemporary chestnut - jogging back and forth to school. 每一个田径迷都听过流传于坊间的关于这些长跑选手在高地度过童年的轶事,故事里他们跑了一英里又一英里去追赶牛群,或者是在学校和家之间来回奔波,后者已成为一种当代的老调。 The question is, why have these circumstances been so much more helpful to the Kalenjin than to other high-altitude dwellers? Where are the world-class athletes from Nepal, Peru and Lesotho? And what about elsewhere in Kenya? A dozen tribes around the country lead similar lives at comparable altitudes and have produced no notable runners. 问题是,为什么这些环境对卡伦津人的影响要远远大于其他高海拔地区的居民呢?尼泊尔、秘鲁和莱索托的世界级运动员在哪呢?肯尼亚其他地区的世界级运动员又在哪呢?该国境内有许多部落都在近似海拔过着相似的生活,但是没有诞生任何著名长跑运动员。 How about diet? When I first wrote about Kalenjin runners 20 years ago, nutritional theories of the time ascribed benefits to the relatively high proportion of protein in their diet (from cow’s milk and blood) compared with the diets of other African peoples. 那么饮食呢?20年前,当我第一次撰写有关卡伦津长跑运动员的文章时,当时的营养学理论认为,较之其他非洲人的饮食,卡伦津人饮食中相对较高的蛋白质含量(来自牛奶和牛血)给他们带来了优势。 Actually, by Western standards, Kalenjin protein intake was pretty low - lower still among mess-fed soldiers and school boys,from whose ranks most of the athletes come. 事实上,按照西方标准,卡伦津人的蛋白质摄入非常低。吃大食堂的军人和学生比一般人又要更低,而大部分运动员来自这群体。 These days, however, conventional dietary wisdom touts “complex carbohydrates,” and Kenyans’ starchy fare has been cited as a possible source of runners’ strength in several recent TV programs and articles in the consumer press. There is no question that the Kalenjin do live on a starchy diet. But then so do most Third World peoples. Starch, after all, is what subsistence farmers produce. 然而,最近,传统营养学已在宣扬“复合碳水化合物”,肯尼亚人的高淀粉饮食也被近期一些电视节目和消费者杂志文章认为可能是跑步运动员的力量之源。诚然,卡伦津人的饮食确实以淀粉类为主,但是,第三世界的人民绝大多数都是这样。不管怎么说,勉强糊口的农民也只能生产淀粉类食物。 Material incentives are the time-honored explanation for ethnic disproportion in professional sports - the classic examples in my country being the succession of Irish, Italian, Black and Latino boxers from the wrong side of the tracks. By this line of thinking, the downtrodden groups’ inordinate success results from hordes of boys taking up boxing because they see it as an escape route from their desperate poverty. 物质激励是对专业运动员中种族比例不均衡的一个历史悠久的解释——在我国,典型的例子是一系列贫民窟出身的爱尔兰裔、意大利裔、非裔和拉丁裔拳击手。按照这种思路,这些受压迫群体的极度成功源自大批小伙子把练习拳击当作逃离极端贫困的一条出路。 The same reasoning is often applied to running in Kenya today. The availability, first of U.S. college scholarships and now prize money and appearance fees, has had a demonstrable effect in boosting interest and participation throughout the country. But the Kalenjin were turning out world-class runners long before such rewards became available, and they continue to turn out three times as many as the rest of Kenya’s tribes combined, incentives or no incentives. 同样的推理现在也经常被安在肯尼亚的长跑成就上。起先是可以获得美国的大学奖学金,现在是可以获得奖金和出场费,这对于激发全国性的兴趣和参与有着显而易见的影响。但是卡伦津人早在这些奖励出现之前就诞生了许多世界级的长跑选手,并且无论有没有物质激励,它现在产出的优秀长跑运动运数量仍是其他肯尼亚部落总和的三倍。 Clearly, none of these factors is a sufficient explanation for Kalenjin success, but neither can they be dismissed out of hand. Altitude by itself, for example, does not account for much. But when you combine 2,000 meter elevations with equatorial latitudes, you get an ideal climate for sustained outdoor activity - comfortably warm days, cool nights, low humidity. 显然,这些因素都不能充分解释卡伦津人的成功,但也没有一条能被排除在外。举例来说,单就海拔而言,它并没有起太大作用,但是当你把2000米的海拔高度与赤道纬度相结合,就得到了持续户外活动的理想气候——温暖舒适的白天、凉爽的夜晚、较低的湿度。 That, together with altitude’s aerobic benefits, begins to show why Kenya’s highlands as a whole are an ideal home for distance running. And it is worth pointing out that while about a quarter of Kenya’s population lives in comparatively sultry conditions at altitudes below 1,200 meters, every one of the country’s world class runners is a highlander. 这和高海拔对供氧能力的益处结合在一起,初步解释了为什么整个肯尼亚高地地区是长跑运动员的理想家园。值得指出的是,尽管有大约四分之一的肯尼亚人生活在海拔低于1200米,且相对闷热的环境里,但这个国家的每一个世界级长跑运动员都是高地人。 Diet, too, has some significance, though I doubt if it has much to do with complex carbohydrates. Rather, it is that, like most Kenyans, and unlike many of the world’s poor, the Kalenjin have enough to eat. The simple fact that Western Kenya has a lot of excellent farm land and a reliable food supply sets the country apart from many places that might otherwise be breeding grounds for runners. 饮食同样具有一些重要的影响,尽管我对复合碳水化合物是否真有那么大的影响持怀疑态度。其实,就像大部分肯尼亚人一样,卡伦津人跟世界上其他穷人不同,他们有足够的食物。一个简单的事实就是肯尼亚西部有许多非常好的农田,有稳定的食物供给,使得这个国家在众多可能成为长跑运动员温床的国家中独树一帜。 That brings me back to poverty, which is also an important factor, but not quite in the clichéd sense of an oppressively grim environment that drives young men to train maniacally as they dream of escape. Rural western Kenya, where almost all the runners come from, is a far cry from a teeming slum or a grimy coal field. It is a land of beautiful green hills, not unlike Somerset or Wiltshire. 这使我回到对贫穷问题的关注。贫穷也是一个重要的因素,但是我想说的不是诸如残酷的环境让年轻人期盼着逃离这个地方而狂热地训练这种陈词滥调。西肯尼亚的农村地区,也就是几乎所有长跑运动员的家乡,是一个和拥挤的贫民窟或者肮脏的煤矿相去甚远的地方。这片土地遍布美丽的绿色山丘,和萨默塞特郡或威尔特郡倒是挺像。 And compared with other African countries, Kenya is fairly well supplied with basic necessities. Malnutrition is rare, infant mortality is among the lowest in Africa, life expectancy and literacy among the highest. More than 85% of all children attend at least a few years of primary school. And the country has been able to support the institutions - schools, uniformed services - that provide a fairly solid athletic infrastructure. So Kenya is at least prosperous enough to provide athletic opportunities. 与其他非洲国家相比,肯尼亚在基本生活必需品方面供给良好。营养不良很少见,婴儿死亡率是非洲最低的,预期寿命和识字率是非洲最高的。超过85%的儿童至少能上几年小学。而且,这个国家能够供养学校和各种公共服务机构,这为运动员的出现提供了相当雄厚的基础。因此肯尼亚的繁荣程度至少足够支撑体育发展机会。 Yet the people are poor, and unemployment is high. Kenya’s per capita Gross Domestic Product is about $1,200 a year, less than 1/20th the figure of a prosperous Western country. This means that to the average Kenyan, even the meager winnings brought in by most professional or semiprofessional runners look pretty lavish. 然而,肯尼亚人生活贫困,失业率高。肯尼亚人均国内生产总值大约是1200美元,不足西方富裕国家的1/20。这意味着对于普通肯尼亚人来说,绝大多数职业或半职业长跑运动员再微不足道的比赛奖金也是相当丰厚的。 The prospect of earning, say, $10,000 a year as a second- or third-rank road racer is a powerful incentive, and in view of the hundreds of Kenyans now making that kind of money, not an unrealistic ambition. Someone who thinks he has potential as a runner might quite reasonably devote a year or two to intensive training in the hope of attracting the attention of an agent and landing an invitation to a foreign road race or track meet. 比如,做一个二流或者三流的长跑运动员,预期年收入10000美元,是一种相当强的激励,而且现在就有数百肯尼亚运动员能挣到这样的收入,这样看来,这至少不是一个不切实际的野心。那些认为自己有当长跑运动员天赋的人,可能会自然而然地实施一两年的大强度训练,希望获得经纪人的注意,然后被邀请参加国外的公路赛或者田径运动会。 Still, while there is something in each of these - altitude, diet, poverty - that helps explain the phenomenon of Kenyan running as a whole, none of them begins to account for the hugely disproportionate success of the Kalenjin. For that, we have to look more closely at circumstances unique to the tribe. 然而,尽管海拔、饮食、贫穷这三个因素都对解释肯尼亚全国的长跑奇迹有所帮助,但是其中任何一个都不足以解释卡伦津人在这一成就中所占的奇高比例。为此,我们必须更详尽地观察这个部落的所处环境的独特之处。 An obvious thought is that the Kalenjin might be endowed with some sort of collective genetic gift. This is touchy stuff, of course, and there is nothing like replicable scientific data to support the idea. But the prima facie case for a genetic explanation makes some sense: the Kalenjin marry mainly among themselves; they have lived for centuries at altitudes of 2,000 meters or more; and, at least by tradition, they spend their days chasing up and down hills after livestock. So it is not unreasonable to suggest that over time some sort of genetic adaptation has taken place that has turned out to be helpful in competitive distance running. 一个容易想到的观点是,卡伦津人可能天生就具有某种集体性的遗传优势。当然,这是个敏感话题,而且目前还没有可复现的科学数据来支持这个观点。但是遗传解释初看起来确实有一定合理性:卡伦津人主要是族内通婚;他们已经在海拔2000米或更高的地方生存了几个世纪;并且至少从传统上来说,他们成天在山丘上跑上跑下,追逐牲畜。所以,随着时间推移,发生了某种有助于竞争性长跑项目表现的遗传适应,这样的说法并非没有道理。 This notion gets some flimsy support from the fact that linguistic data link the Kalenjin to tribes elsewhere in East Africa that have turned out a majority of their countries’ world class runners: these groups, all of them historically pastoral as opposed to agricultural, include the Oromo in Ethiopia, the Iraqw and Barabaig in Tanzania and the Tutsi in Burundi. There is a temptation to imagine a race of lean, cattle-herding uebermenschen wandering up and down the Rift Valley. 这种观点得到了一些语言学资料的支持,但不是特别牢靠。这些资料显示,卡伦津人和东非其它出现过许多世界级长跑选手的部落有关联:这些群体历史上以畜牧而非农业为生,包括埃塞俄比亚的奥罗莫人,坦桑尼亚的伊拉奎人和巴拉拜格人,以及布隆迪的图西人。人们不禁会想象出一个由精壮的牧牛超人组成的种族上下漫游于东非大裂谷的景象。 What I find more intriguing, however, is the possibility that some of these peoples’ customs might have functioned indirectly as genetic selection mechanisms favoring strong runners. I am thinking specifically of the practice of cattle theft - euphemistically known as cattle raiding. It was common to all these pastoral peoples, but in Kenya, at least, the Kalenjin were it is foremost practitioners. Of course they did not regard it as theft; they were merely repossessing cattle that were theirs by divine right and happened to have fallen into other hands. 然而,让我感觉更奇妙的是,这些民族的某些习俗可能间接地提供了有利于优秀长跑选手的基因选择机制。我想到的是偷牲畜行为——委婉地说就是牲畜突袭。对于这些畜牧民族来说这是件很寻常的事情,但是至少在肯尼亚,卡伦津人是最主要的从事此道者。当然他们不认为这是盗窃;他们只是拿回上天赋予他们的却又碰巧落入他人之手的牲畜。 Never mind that those into whose hands the cattle had fallen often felt the same way. Anyway, Kalenjin raids often called for treks of more than 100 miles to capture livestock and drive them home before their former owners could catch up. The better a young man was at raiding – in large part, a function of his speed and endurance - the more cattle he accumulated. 那些手里碰巧捡到牲畜的人也是这么想的,但是此处不必考虑这一点。不管怎么说,卡伦津式的突袭经常需要跋涉100英里以上,来抓住牲畜并且在前任主人追上之前把牲畜赶回家。一个年轻人越是善于“突袭”,他能积累的牲畜就越多,而在突袭中很大程度上就是他的速度和耐力在起作用。 And since cattle were what a prospective husband needed to pay for a bride, the more a young man had, the more wives he could buy, and the more children he was likely to father. It is not hard to imagine that such a reproductive advantage might cause a significant shift in a group’s genetic makeup over the course of a few centuries. 而且,牲畜就是未来新郎需要支付给新娘的聘礼,因此一个年轻人拥有的牲畜越多,他能买下的妻子也就越多,进而就能有更多的孩子。不难想象,在数百年的时间里,这种生殖优势可能使一个种群的基因组成发生巨大变化。 Much as I enjoy this sort of speculation, however, a different kind of data is needed to substantiate anything approaching a scientific genetic theory, and so far none exists. 尽管我对这种推测乐在其中,但是我们需要其他类型的数据来证实这种现象可以用科学的遗传理论来解释,不过迄今为止这种数据并不存在。 The most rigorous work to date has been done by the Swedish exercise physiologist Bengt Saltin, who took a team of researchers to western Kenya in 1990 and conducted elaborate treadmill tests and muscle biopsies on several dozen Kenyan men, all of whom happened to be Kalenjin. 目前最为严谨的实验是由瑞典运动生理学家Bengt Saltin于1990年带领一队研究人员在西肯尼亚实施的。实验对几十个肯尼亚男子进行了细致的跑步机上运动测试和肌肉活检,而这些实验对象恰巧都是卡伦津人。 He discovered unusual features in his subjects’ muscle tissue and response to physical exertion, but he concluded that these were probably the result of the Kenyans’ lifetime of vigorous activity at altitude. 他发现,实验对象的肌肉组织和对体能消耗的反应模式有一些非同寻常的特征,但他认为这些很可能是肯尼亚人终生都在高海拔地区剧烈活动的结果。 One of his findings does suggest the possibility that the Kalenjin evince uncommon “trainability” - the capacity to increase aerobic efficiency with training - and research by the Canadian geneticist Claude Bouchard has shown this trait to be largely hereditary. 他的调查结果之一确实表明,卡伦津人展现出了非同寻常的“可训练性” ——即能通过训练提升供氧能力。同时,加拿大遗传学家Claude Bouchard的研究则表明,这种特征很大程度上来自遗传。 Before drawing any firm conclusions about Kalenjin gifts, however, further studies would have to determine that trainability - or any other heritable trait - was truly instrumental in distance running success and that ordinary Kalenjin exhibit the trait to an unusual degree. 然而,在对卡伦津人的天赋作出任何确切结论之前,需要进一步研究以便确定这种可训练性或者任何其他遗传特性真的在长跑的成功方面起了作用,而且普通卡伦津人身上这一特征也表现出了已不同寻常的水平。 Without such evidence, notions of Kalenjin genetic superiority rest onanecdotal data - and as you might imagine, there is an abundance of that, some of it surprisingly persuasive. My favorite data of this sort are a dozen brief “case studies” I have collected of Kalenjin young men in their 20s who had never thought of themselves as runners at all until they wound up in circumstances that more or less obliged them to take up the sport. 没有这种证据佐证,卡伦津人有基因优势这种说法就只是停留在坊间传闻罢了——你可能会觉得,这种传闻还挺多的,一些还非常有说服力。这种类型的资料中,我最喜欢的是我收集的十几个简短个案研究。这些研究的主要对象是一些二十多岁的卡伦津年轻人,在多多少少受境况所迫而参与这项运动之前,他们从没想过自己能是长跑运动员。 Most often this was because friends who were runners helped them to secure American track scholarships under false pretenses, and once on campus,the non-runners had to run in order to stay. In each case, what happened when they started training is quite remarkable. I will give one example. 大多数情况都是,他们的跑步运动员朋友通过作假的手段帮他们拿到了美国的径赛运动员奖学金,一旦他们进入校园,为了留在学校,这些非运动员不得不硬着头皮开始跑步。在每个案例中,当他们开始训练之后,结果都十分优秀。我在这里举个例子。 Paul Rotich is the son of a prosperous Kalenjin farmer. The father wanted his son to go to college in the U.S., and in 1988, when Paul was 22, he was packed off to South Plains Junior College in Texas, where there were several other Kalenjin already enrolled, all of them on track scholarships. Paul Rotich是一个富裕的卡伦津农民的儿子,这位父亲想要让他的儿子去美国念大学。1988年,当Paul 22岁时,他被送到了位于德克萨斯的南方平原专科学校。当时已经有其他一些卡伦津人入读这所学校,都拿着径赛运动员奖学金。 Rotich, however, went with no scholarship but with $10,000 his father had managed to collect, a sum that should have been plenty to pay his tuition, room and board for two years. By the end of the first year, though, Paul found that he had spent $8,000, and he realized he had to do something to get himself through the next year. 然而,Rotich去的时候没有奖学金,而是带着他父亲筹集到的10,000美元。这笔钱本该足够负担他两年的学费和食宿费。但是第一年结束的时候,Paul发现他已经花了8000美元,他意识到他必须做点什么来让他度过下一年。 Under the circumstances, the first thing that came to mind was a track scholarship. Trouble was, he had never run a race in his life, and he was fat – 85 kilos (13 and 1/2 stone) at a height of 1.73 meters (5 ft. 8 in.). He began training - running at night because he was embarrassed to be seen lumbering around the track. In the autumn hemanaged to make the cross-country team, and by the end of the season he finished in the top 50 in the national junior college championships. 在这种情况下,他能想到的第一件就是径赛运动员奖学金。问题是他一生中从未参加过赛跑,而且他很胖——身高1.73米(5英尺8寸),体重85公斤(13.5英石)。他开始实施训练,他通常在晚上跑步,因为羞于让人看到他在跑道上笨拙的姿态。秋天的时候他设法加入了越野跑队,赛季临近尾声时他进入了全国专科学校锦标赛前50名。 But that was just the beginning. He landed a track scholarship - to nearby Lubbock Christian University - and over the next two years he earned “All- American” honors 10 times in cross country and various track events. When he went back to Kenya and told his cousin what he had done, the cousin replied, “So, it is true. If you can run, any Kalenjin can run.” 但这还只是个开始。他得到了径赛运动员奖学金,并进入了附近的拉伯克基督教大学。在随后的两年中,他还在越野赛和其他径赛项目上取得了10次“全美最佳”的荣誉。当他回到肯尼亚,把他的事迹告诉他堂兄之后,他堂兄说:“所以,这都是真的。要是你都能跑,那任何卡伦津人就都能跑。” It may be true, and if it is, it may be because of some as yet unspecified genetic endowment. But even if the Kalenjinare blessed with an innate physical gift, that does not account for their astonishing record in major championships. To succeed in those circumstances, an athlete must not only be able to run fast, but to run fastest when it matters most. And in this, the ability to rise to the occasion, to perform under pressure, the Kalenjinare supreme. 这可能是真的,而且如果真是这样的话,可能是因为某些尚未查清的遗传天赋。但是即使卡伦津人被赐予了这种先天身体优势,这也不能解释他们在重大比赛中的惊人记录。想要在这些比赛中取得胜利,运动员必须不仅能跑得快,还需要在重要时刻能发挥出最佳成绩。在这方面,应对自如的能力、在压力之下的表现,卡伦津人都是其中的佼佼者。 I have tried to quantify this ability by evaluating performances in the most pressure-laden of all athletic events, the Olympic Games, and to compare Kalenjin performances with those of their rivals in the distance events. The aim was to rate performances not just in terms of medals or finishing places but in comparison to each athlete’s pre-Olympic personal best. 奥运会是所有体育赛事中压力最大的比赛,我曾试着通过评估运动员在其中的表现来量化这种能力,并且把卡伦津人在长跑项目中的表现和其竞争对手进行比较。这样做的目的是,不仅仅通过奖牌数或者最终排名来评估他们的表现,而是通过与每位运动员奥运会前个人最好成绩进行对比来评估。 The base line, 0, was what I judged to be a respectable but undistinguished Olympic performance: not getting a medal, not reaching the final but coming close - within half a percent - of the pre-Olympic PB. In the 1500 meters, that means within about a second. I gave positive points for reaching the final, finishing in the top eight and for winning medals, and also for improving a personal best by various percentages, negative points for failing to finish and for falling short of a personal best by various percentages. Here is a summary of the scoring system: 基准线为0,表示我认为该运动员在奥运会上的表现值得尊敬但不出众:没能获得奖牌,没有进入决赛,但是成绩和参加奥运会之前的个人最好成绩接近——相差0.5%以内。在1500米的比赛中,这意味着不到一秒。进入决赛、得到前八名、赢得奖牌以及提升了个人最好成绩的(无论多少百分点)我都会给予正分;没能完成比赛、未能达到个人最佳成绩的(无论多少百分点)我都会给负分。以下是这个打分系统的概要:
PERFORMANCE UNDER PRESSURE – Point System 压力下的表现——积分系统
Base line: 0 = <0.5% slower than pre-Olympic PB, not finalist, not medalist. 基准线:0分标准:参赛成绩较之参加奥运会之前个人最佳成绩降幅不大于0.5%,未进入决赛,未获得奖牌
Positive points: 正分项
+1 for reaching final 进入决赛 +1 +1 for PR by <1 % 超过个人记录小于1% +1
+2 for reaching top eight 进入前八 +2 +2 for PR by >1 % but <2 %...etc. 超过个人记录大于1%小于2% +2以此类推
+3 for bronze 获得铜牌 +3 +1 additional for PR in final 在决赛破个人记录额外+1
+4 for silver 获得银牌 +4 +1 additional for OR (no WRs in sample) 破奥运记录额外+1(没有世界纪录样本)
+6 for gold 获得金牌 +6
Negative points for times slower than pre-Olympic PB by >0.5% (e.g. — 1 for time >0.5% but <1% below PB; —2 for time >1 % but <2 % below PB, etc.) 负分是给予较之参加奥运会之前的个人最佳成绩下降幅度大于0.5%的比赛成绩(例如降幅大于0.5%小于1%计负一分,大于1%小于2%计负二分,等等) I evaluated every performance of every Kenyan in men’s track events from 800 m to 10,000 m, for every Olympics from 1964 to 1996, and I did the same for the two countries with the next best records in terms of medals, the U.S. and Britain. I paid special attention to first Olympic appearances, figuring that’s when the athletes felt the greatest pressure. Here’s a briefrundown of the aggregate scores: 我对每一位肯尼亚男子选手在1964-1996奥运会上从800米到10000米径赛的每一次表现都进行了评估,并且对奖牌榜上紧随肯尼亚之后的两个国家:美国和英国进行了同样的评估。我尤其注意运动员第一次参加奥运会表现,因为我认为这是运动员压力最大的时刻。下列是总分概要: USA – aggregate score 美国——总分 —107 for 82 men in 104 appearances in 7 OG 七届奥运会82人(男性)出场104次,共负107分 —120 for 75 men in first OG appearances 75人(男性)第一次参加奥运会,共负120分 Avg. per man: —1.30 个人平均分:负1.3 Avg. per man – first appearance: —1.60 奥运首秀个人平均分:负1.6 Avg. per appearance —1.03 出场平均分:负1.03 9 PBs; 7 PBs in finals 9项个人记录;决赛中出现7次个人记录 Great Britain - aggregate score 英国——总分 —95 for 76 men in 92 appearances in 7 OG 七届奥运会76人(男性)出场92次,共负95分 —76 for 67 men in their first OG appearances 67人(男性)第一次参加奥运会,共负76分 Avg. per man: —1.25 个人平均分:负1.25 Avg. per man – first appearance: —1.13 奥运首秀个人平均分:负1.13 Avg. per appearance —1.03 出场平均分:负1.03 6 PBs; 5 PBs in finals 6项个人记录;决赛中出现5次个人记录 Non-Kalenjin Kenya – aggregate score 非卡伦津肯尼亚人——总分 +49 for 18 men in 24 appearances in 7 OG 七届奥运会18人(男性)出场24次,共正49分 +30 for 17 men in first OG appearances. 17人(男性)第一次参加奥运会,共正30分 Avg. per man: +2.72 个人平均分:正1.25 Avg. per man – first appearance: +1.76 奥运首秀个人平均分:正1.13 Avg. per appearance +2.04 出场平均分:正2.04 9 PBs; 7 PBs in finals 9项个人记录;决赛中出现7次个人记录 Kalenjin 卡伦津人——总分 +175 for 41 men in 59 appearances in 7 OG 七届奥运会41人(男性)出场59次,共正175分 +122 for 41 men in first OG appearances. 41人(男性)第一次参加奥运会,共正122分 Avg. per man: +4.27 个人平均分:正4.27 Avg. per man – first appearance: +2.98 奥运首秀个人平均分:正2.98 Avg. per appearance +2.97 出场平均分:正2.97 25 PBs; 15 PBs in finals 25项个人记录;决赛中出现15次个人记录 What accounts for this extraordinary difference? What is it that gives seemingly every Kalenjin runner the ability to summon a supreme effort when it matters most? We tend to think of such emotional strengths as acquired rather than inherited, though of course there’s the possibility that cattle raiding or some other custom might have conferred a reproductive advantage upon, say, individuals who stood firm in crises, and that that faculty was somehow passed on. But I am inclined to believe this ability is the result of conditioning - that the tribe’s austere warrior culture prepares young Kalenjin almost from birth not to quail under pressure. 是什么导致了这种巨大的差异?是什么赐予了几乎每一位卡伦津选手越是重要场合越能唤起最强斗志的能力?我们倾向于认为这种情感力量是习得的而不是天生的,尽管突袭牲畜或者其他一些风俗当然有可能赋予那些临危不倒的人以生殖优势,并且这种能力会以某种方式遗传了下来。但是我倾向于相信这种能力来自于条件作用——这个部落严酷的武士文化让年轻的卡伦津人几乎从出生开始就做好了不向任何压力低头的准备。 The most obvious and probably the most significant set of customs in this regard is the series of escalating physical ordeals each child undergoes while growing up, culminating in circumcision, which marks initiation into adulthood. Circumcision is the central event in the life of every Kalenjin youth, anticipated for years with dread, and suffered with unblinking stoicism under the eyes of watchful elders, who are ready to brand a boy a coward for life if he so much as winces. It is not hard to see how this rite might help develop a capacity to put up with pain, which, of course, is vital in running long races. 最明显且可能最重要的风俗,是每个孩子在成长中都会经历的一系列逐渐加剧的生理折磨,这种折磨在标志着成人生涯开始的割礼中达到顶峰。对于每个肯尼亚年轻人来说,割礼是生命中的核心事件。他们在满怀恐惧地等待多年后,在长者的监视下无声地忍受巨大的痛苦。如果年轻人畏缩的话,这些成年人时刻准备着给他们终生打上懦夫的烙印。不难明白这个仪式是如何帮助他们建立起对于长跑比赛至关重要的对痛苦的忍耐能力的。 But circumcision is far from unique to the Kalenjin. Dozens of societies in Kenya and hundreds elsewhere in Africa use more or less the same operation for more or less the same purpose; in many the rite has much the same significance and is accompanied by comparable community-wide commotion. 但是割礼并非是卡伦津人独有的。许多肯尼亚社群和成百上千的其他非洲社群都或多或少地出于相似目的而采取这个手术。许多情况下这个仪式有相同的重要性,而且会伴有相当程度的全体骚动。 For this reason, I was at first inclined to look beyond circumcision for whatever it was in Kalenjin culture that gave the runners their special strength. I changed my mind after going to a couple of circumcision ceremonies. 出于这个原因,我最初倾向于在割礼之外,从卡伦津文化的其它要素中,去寻找长跑选手的特殊能力来源。但是在参加了几次割礼仪式之后,我改变了这一想法。 I do not have time now to give a detailed account of what I saw, but when I compared it to what I was able to glean about other initiation rites from standard ethnographies and cross-cultural studies, I found what I think are significant differences. 我现在没有时间详述我的见闻,但是当我将之和我能收集到的标准民族志和跨文化研究中记载的成年礼进行比较时,我发现了我认为极为显著的差异。 They are not in kind, but in degree. In general, the Kalenjin rite and the long recovery period that follows are invested with greater secrecy and solemnity, and with greater importance as a means of inculcating standards of behavior. The operation itself is more physically arduous and the sanctions for failure more severe (flinching in fear or pain can result in what amounts to a kind of permanent internal banishment). 这种差异不在于仪式的种类,而在于程度上。总的来说,卡伦津的仪式和随之而来的漫长恢复期被赋予了更多的私密性和庄重性。作为一种行为准则的灌输方式,它有着更重要的意义。手术本身带来的生理痛苦更大,而且对于失败的惩罚更为严重(源于恐惧或疼痛的退缩,可能导致的后果相当于永久的内部放逐)。 Perhaps most important is the pervasive sense among adults, children and initiates that the traits of character tested in the ritual - courage, endurance, determination, restraint - are the ones the tribe values above all, and that to pass the test is to affirm those values, to fail it is to betray them. 也许最重要的是在成人、孩子、以及新青年心中蕴含的普遍观念,即在仪式中所检验的性格特征——勇气、忍耐、决心、克制,是整个部落最珍视的价值。通过测试就是认可这些价值,而失败则意味着背叛。 Thus as the initiates approach the predawn ceremony, they’re quite conscious of bearing the weight not only of their own fears and hopes and those of their family and friends, but also those of the whole community, the tribe and centuries of Kalenjin tradition. 因此,当这些新青年临近这种黎明前的仪式的时候,他们非常清楚地意识到他们背负的不仅仅是自己的恐惧和希望,此外还有家人和朋友的,他们甚至还背负了整个社群,整个部落以及卡伦津数百年传统的恐惧和希望。 A boy who stands up under that kind of pressure at 14 or 15 is unlikely at 25 to be anything but invigorated by the comparatively benign tensions accompanying an Olympic final. And if he was able as a boy to muster the strength to endure the excruciating pain of circumcision, what must he be able to do as a man when faced with nothing more than the aches and fatigue of the closing laps of a tough race. 一个在十四五岁时就承受过这种压力的男孩,在二十五岁面临奥运会决赛的相对良性的压力时,不可能会被击垮,这种压力反而会让他们更加斗志昂扬。而且如果当他是个小男孩的时候,他能调动所有力量忍受割礼的剧痛,那么成年之后当他面临艰难赛事的最后一圈带来的痛苦和疲劳时,他也一定能够度过这一关。 Now, as a final note, since this is a gathering of British sports historians, I would like to bring up another possible reason for Kalenjin success that has to do with a British colonial law enforcement policy. I once had high hopes for this idea, but up to now I have not had much luck finding evidence to support it. 最后,由于这是一本英国运动史学家的文集,我想要提出卡伦津人成功的另一个可能原因,即和英国殖民法律实施政策相关。我曾经对这个观点抱有很大期望,但是至今我还没有发现足够的证据来支持它。 I have talked about cattle raiding. In the early part of the century, it was endemic in Western Kenya, and the colonial administration went to some lengths to stamp it out. Because the Kalenjin were the most frequent offenders, they got more than their share of attention from the British in this regard. Raiders who were caught were jailed, and prisoners were sent out as laborers on public works projects; among these were the leveling and marking out of running tracks. Thus rustling and running seemed to be connected in an odd kind of symbiosis. 我已经谈到过偷牲畜的问题。在本世纪初,这是肯尼亚西部的普遍问题,殖民政府曾想方设法要解决这个问题。因为卡伦津犯罪人数最多,在这方面他们也得到了英国方面高度关注。牲畜盗窃犯一旦被抓就会被送进监狱,囚犯们会被派去建设公共工程。这些工程包括为跑道做水平度测量和画道线。因此偷家畜和跑步似乎以一种古怪的共生方式被联系起来。 This connection was confirmed in a letter I have from a former colonial officer - now dead - who recalled a campaign he conducted in one part of Kalenjin territory in the 1930s, promoting athletics as a surrogate for cattle raiding with a slogan that translates roughly as, “Show your valor in sports and games, not in war.” 这个联系从我收到的一封已故前殖民官员的信中得到了证实。他在信中回忆了他1930年代在卡伦津某地区推行的以体育活动代替偷家畜行为的运动。当时的口号翻译过来大概就是“在运动中展现你的英勇,而不是在战争中。” So it seemed that the Kalenjin fondness for raiding earned them an extra push from the colonial administration to take up racing instead. But try as I may, I haven’t been able to find any evidence in colonial records that my correspondent’s approach was ever applied throughout Kalenjin country. 所以,卡伦津人钟爱的偷家畜活动似乎发挥了一种助推作用,促使殖民当局推进长跑活动。但是尽管我做出了尝试,我还是没能在殖民纪录里找到任何证据来证明我的通信人提到的方法曾被用于卡伦津全境。 There are lots of references to Kalenjin cattle raiding, some with a detectable note of admiration, but none that mention the promotion of sport as a surrogate. I have looked through some of the literature on sport as a mechanism of social control, and there’s certainly evidence that it was used this way among another Kenyan tribe, the Kikuyu, after the Mau Mau rebellion in the ’50s. 提到卡伦津人偷家畜的地方有很多,有些还是以一种明显可见的钦佩语气,但是那些记录都没有提到把长跑作为替代品推广的做法。我也查阅了一些有关把运动作为社会控制手段的文献,里面有明确的证据表明50年代茅茅叛乱之后,这种方式曾被用于另一个肯尼亚部落——基库尤。 But I have found nothing about the Kalenjin. I have even looked at the encouragement of cricket as a surrogate for ritual warfare among Trobriand Islanders to see if I could in some way argue that this sort of thing was a common policy throughout the Empire. But that argument seemed a little thin. 但是我没找到关于卡伦津的任何此类记录。我甚至查阅了在特罗布里恩群岛中推行板球作为宗教战争替代品的资料,我想试试能否以某种方式来证明这是一项大英帝国通行的政策。但是论据似乎有些单薄。 And in any event, if athletics was encouraged disproportionately among the Kalenjin in the ’30s, the effects of the policy were long delayed: Kalenjin names do not start turning up with any frequency on the rolls of national champions until after World War II, when the tribe began to join the mainstream of rapidly Westernizing Kenya. Still, I am eager to pursue this idea further if anyone here can suggest sources that I may have overlooked on colonial law enforcement or the use of sport as a means of social control. 而且不管怎样,如果30年代确曾在卡伦津地区着力推广,其效果出现的也有些太晚:直到二战后,卡伦津逐渐融入快速西化的肯尼亚主流之后,这个名字才在国家冠军名单上有所体现。尽管如此,如果有人能提供可能被我忽视的有关殖民地法律实施或者是把体育运动当做社会控制手段的信息源,我还是热切地希望能深入研究这个观点。 (编辑:@whigzhou) *注:本译文未经原作者授权,本站对原文不持有也不主张任何权利,如果你恰好对原文拥有权益并希望我们移除相关内容,请私信联系,我们会立即作出响应。

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