英美报刊选读 passage 13 the decline of neatness（含翻译）

The Decline of Neatness

行为标准的蜕化

By Norman Cousins

Anyone with a passion for hanging labels on people or things should have little difficulty in recognizing that an apt tag for our time is the “Unkempt Generation”. 任何一个喜欢给别人或事物贴标签的人应该不难发现我们这个时代合适的标签是“邋遢的一代”。

I am not referring solely to college kids. The sloppiness virus has spread to all sectors of society,\People go to all sorts of trouble and expense to look uncombed, unshaved. unpressed.3 我说这话不仅仅是针对大学生。邋遢这种病毒已经蔓延到社会各个部分。人们刻意呈现一幅蓬头散发、边幅不修、衣着不整的形象。

The symbol of the times is blue jeans—not just blue jeans in good condition but jeans that are frayed, torn, discolored. They don't get that way naturally. No one wants blue jeans that are crisply clean or spanking new. 如今时代潮流的象征是穿蓝色牛仔裤--不是完好的牛仔裤，而是打磨过的，撕裂开的，和褪色了的牛仔裤。正常穿着磨损很难达到上述效果。没有人喜欢穿干净崭新的牛仔裤。

Manufacturers recognize a big market when they see it, and they compete with one another to offer jeans（ that are made to look as though they've just been discarded by clumsy house painters after ten years of wear. ）生产商意识到这将是个潜力巨大的市场，于是展开了激烈地竞争，生产出的

牛仔裤好像是笨拙的油漆工人穿了十年之后扔掉的一样。

The more faded and seemingly ancient the garment- the higher the cost. Disheveled is in fashion; neatness is obsolete.

衣服看上去越褪色越旧，成本越高。时下流行的是衣冠不整，服饰整洁已不合时宜。

Nothing is wrong with comfortable clothing. It's just that current usage is more reflective of a slavish conformity than a desire for ease. 穿着追求舒适原本并无过错。问题是目前人们的着装习惯与其说是为了寻求舒适，倒不如说盲目追求单调一致。No generation has strained harder than ours to affect a casual, relaxed, cool look; none has succeeded more spectacularly in looking as though it had been stamped out by cookie cutters.6没有哪一代人像我们这一代这样努力装出一付随便、轻松、酷的样子，没有哪一代人如此出奇成功地塑造出看出犹如饼干模子压出来一样的形象。 The attempt to avoid any appearance of being well groomed or even neat has a quality of desperation(处心积虑) about it and suggests a calculated and phony deprivation.7这种避免服饰考究、衣着整洁形象的努力真是煞费苦心，显出故意装出的虚假穷酸相。

We shun (avoid) conventionality, but we put on a uniform to do it.8 An appearance of alienation is the triumphant goal, to be pursued in oversize sweaters and muddy sneakers. 我们避免落入俗套，但是我们却穿上制服来实现该目标。树立标新立异的形象是最终目标，为了成功塑造这种形象，各个都穿上了超大号的毛衣和沾满泥巴的运动鞋。

Slovenly speech comes off the same spool.10 Vocabulary, like blue jeans, is being drained of color and distinction. 言语杂乱如出一辙。词汇就象蓝色牛仔裤正失去色彩和特性。

A complete sentence in everyday speech is as rare as a man's tie in the

swank Polo Lounge of the Beverly Hills Hotel.日常生活中很难听到一句完整的句子，就好像贝弗利山庄酒店的豪华水球休闲厅里很难见到打领带的绅士。

People communicate in chopped-up phrases, relying on grunts and chants of \人们在交流的时候，说的话老是支离破碎，全靠“你知道吧”“我是说”等口头禅来掩盖该死的语无伦次

Neatness should be no less important in language than it is in dress. But spew and sprawl are taking over.。其实语言利落和穿衣整洁一样重要。但现在肆意辱骂和衣着懒散之风却尘嚣日上。

The English language is one of the greatest sources of wealth in the world. In the midst of accessible riches, we are linguistic paupers (beggars). 英语是世界最大的语言财富之一。富饶的语言资源触手可及，我们却宁愿成为语言的乞丐。

Violence in language has become almost as casual as the possession of handguns. The curious notion has taken hold that emphasis in communication is impossible without the incessant use of four-letter words. (crap, damn, slut，shit, fuck, ) 语言粗野几乎就象拥有枪支一样随便。这种古怪的观念已经根深蒂固，以至于有些人在言谈中必需借助连篇脏话才能表达自己的想法。

Some screenwriters openly admit that they are careful not to turn in scripts that are devoid of foul language lest the classification office impose the curse of a G (general) rating15. 很多电影剧本作家都坦白说他们会尽量避免递交上的剧本中没有一些污言秽语，以防电影分级办公室把该剧本定为G级电影片。（这对电影来说无疑是施加了紧箍咒）

Motion-picture exhibitors have a strong preference for the R (restricted) rating, probably on the theory of forbidden fruit.16 电影院老板非常偏爱R级电影，很可能是根据禁果理论。

(G, PG( parental guidance ) PG-13, R, NC-17) Hence writers and pro-ducers have every incentive to employ tasteless language and gory scenes. 因此剧本作家和制片人总是不遗余力地在影片中加入低俗的对白和血腥的镜头。

The effect is to foster attitudes of casualness toward violence and brutality not just in entertainment but in everyday life. 结果势必导致人们不仅对影视作品中的血腥暴力无动于衷，就连日常生活中出现了类似事件，很多人也会漠然处之。

People are not as uncomfortable as they ought to be about the glamorization of human hurt.民众在看到歌颂宣扬暴力残杀的画面时，并没有表现出应有的不安和同情。

The ability to react instinctively to suffering seems to be atrophying. 民众看到别人痛苦时本能的同情反应功能似乎日益萎缩。

Youngsters sit transfixed in front of television or motion-picture screens, munching popcorn while human beings are battered or mutilated.青少年们呆坐在电视机或者电影荧屏前，一边惬意地嚼着爆米花，一边悠哉悠哉地看着屏幕上残暴的搏击和凶杀画面。

Nothing is more essential in education than respect for the frailty of human beings;17 nothing is more characteristic of the age than mindless violence. 在教育方面培养对人的脆弱性的意识比其它一切都重要，但是如今随意施暴却成了这个时代的特征。

Everything I have learned about the educational process convinces me that the notion（idea） that children can outgrow casual attitudes toward

brutality is wrong.18 通过我自己对教育过程的研究和观察，我确信那种认为孩子长大便会放弃对暴行持无所谓态度的想法是错误的。

Count on it: if you saturate young minds with materials showing that human beings are fit subjects for debasement or dismembering, the result will be desensitization to everything that should produce revulsion or resistance. 绝对是真的：如果经常给这些年轻人灌输一些人类可以被用来进行肢解和辱没的思想，结果势必会使得他们对一些本该产生抵抗或排斥的行为麻木不仁。

The first aim of education is to develop respect for life, just as the highest expression of civilization is the supreme tenderness that people are strong enough to feel and manifest toward one another. 教育的首要目的就是要教育大家尊重生命，正如人类文明的最高体现就是人与人之间都能感受到并表现出无微不至的关爱。

If society is breaking down, as it too often appears to be, it is not because we lack the brainpower to meet its demands but because our feelings are so dulled that we don't recognize we have a problem.有时社会好像要崩溃了一样，如果果真如此，原因绝不是我们缺乏先进的智慧满足社会的需求，反而是因为我们思想麻木根本没有意识到自身存在的问题。

Untidiness in dress, speech and emotions is readily connected to human relationships. 着装，语言和情感等方面的蜕化和人际关系的变化也是息息相通的。

The problem with the casual sex so fashionable in films is not that it arouses lust but that it deadens feelings and annihilates privacy.放纵的性生活问题在影视作品中蔓延泛滥，这不仅诱导人们发泄私欲，还会泯灭真情，暴露隐私。

The danger is not that sexual exploitation will create sex fiends but that it

may spawn eunuchs.

危险在于，性开发不仅是多了几个性伴侣，过度的性开发会导致新的太监的产生。

People who have the habit of seeing everything and doing anything run the risk of feeling nothing.那些习惯于看破红尘，做绝万事的人很有能会经历“曾经沧海难为水”的尴尬。

My purpose here is not to make a case for a Victorian decorum or for namby-pambyism.

我的目的不是提倡维多利亚式的礼仪，也不是要大家多愁伤感。 The argument is directed to bad dress, bad manners, bad speech, bad human relationships. The hope has to be that calculated sloppiness will run its course(finish).谈论的话题是针对衣衫不整，行为不雅，出言不逊，以及处事不周。我所希望的是那种处心积虑的颓废将即刻寿终正寝。 Who knows, perhaps some of the hip designers22 may discover they can make a fortune by creating fashions （that are unfrayed and that grace the human form）.23 谁能料到或许某些新潮设计师能发现他们可以通过设计一些没有磨损的能够增加身体美感的时装从而大赚一笔。

Similarly, motion-picture and television producers and exhibitors may realize that a substantial （a large amount of ）audience exists for sth. more appealing (attractive) to the human eye and spirit than the sight of a human being hurled (throw vilontly)through a store-front window or tossed off a penthouse terrace. 同样，电影电视制片人和老板们或许能够意识到有很多观众希望看到一些赏心悦目的影视作品，而不是那些把一个人从橱窗玻璃扔出去或从阳台上抛下来的残暴场面。

There might even be a salutary (beneficial, good, warm) response to films (that dare to show people expressing genuine love and respect for one

another) in more convincing (make believe, credible) ways than anonymous clutching and thrashing about24.

或许人们会对那些敢于通过捕捉一些比莫名其妙地搂在一起，滚成一团更有说服力的心路历程的场景来揭示人们相互表达真爱和尊重的影片产生更加热烈的共鸣（或者热烈反响）

Finally, our schools might encourage the notion that few things are more rewarding than genuine creativity, whether in the clothes we wear, the way we communicate, the nurturing( developing) of human relationships, or how we locate the best in ourselves and put it to work.

最后，我们的学校应该强化这样一个理念：不论在穿衣款式，交际方法，与人相处或者发现自己的长处并将其发扬光大方面，没有什么能比真心创造（真实创造力）更有益处。

From Time, April 2, 1990

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