赏析版2011年7-12月经济学人文章(英汉双语对照)汇集

Contents

[2011.12.31] Ron Paul’s big moment 罗恩·保罗的大日子 ......................................... 1

[2011.12.31] Christians and lions 宗教自由：基督徒和狮子 ....................................... 4

[2011.12.31] Foreign languages: The gift of tongues 学习外语的天赋 ........................ 6

[2011.12.31] Kim Jong Il 少帅金正日 .......................................................................... 9

[2011.12.29]NHS reform 英国医改 ........................................................................... 12

[2011.12.27] Vocabulary: Words of the Year 年度词汇 ............................................. 14

[2011.12.26] Rejoice for Utopia is nigh! 庆之，乌托邦已近 ...................................... 15

[2011.12.25] Havel, Hitchens & Kim: Things come in threes 事不过三 ..................... 18

[2011.12.19] The death of North Korea's Kim Jong Il 朝鲜金正日之死 ..................... 20

[2011.12.19] Kim Jong Il: Farewell, earthlings 朝鲜宣布金正日的死讯 ..................... 21

[2011.12.17] Belgian beer: Brewed force 比利时啤酒酝酿实力 ................................ 22

[2011.12.17]Euphemisms委婉语向导 ....................................................................... 29

[2011.12.17] What is the Chinese language? 中文是什么？ ..................................... 36

[2011.12.17] The not-so-naked ape 人类：并非“全裸”的类人猿 ............................... 37

[2011.12.14] Fantasy turned reality 幻想成真 ........................................................... 39

[2011.12.10] The long life of Homo sovieticus 长命的苏维埃人 ................................ 43

[2011.12.05]Inequality street 不平等的大街 .............................................................. 54

[2011.12.03] Tribal Japan 部落日本 .......................................................................... 55

[2011.12.03] The hopeful continent: Africa rising 非洲崛起 ....................................... 58

[2011.12.01] Crazy sexy Teutonic 狂野而又诱人的德国风格 .................................... 62

[2011.11.26] William Turnbull: Art's quiet man 安静的艺术家 .................................... 64

[2011.11.26] Chinese export porcelain中国外销瓷 ................................................... 66

[2011.11.26] Making aircraft: Full throttle 开足马力 ................................................... 67

[2011.11.26] Cosy club or sword of righteousness?惬意的俱乐部，还是正义之剑？ 70

[2011.11.26]Accessories after the fact 事后从犯....................................................... 79

[2011.11.19] The trouble with Newt 纽特的麻烦........................................................ 81

[2011.11.19] Joe Frazier 悼一代重量级拳王 ............................................................. 84

[2011.11.18] THE BEST TIME: EARLY CHILDHOOD 最佳时代6 ............................ 87

[2011.11.18] THE BEST TIME: AMERICA, C.15,000BC 最佳时代4 ........................ 88

[2011.11.18] THE BEST TIME: PRINCETON, 1949 最佳时代3 ............................... 89

[2011.11.18] THE BEST TIME: JAPAN, 784-1185AD 最佳时代2 ............................. 91

[2011.11.15] Thanks but no thanks 谢谢你的提议，不过我们不接受 ........................ 92

[2011.11.09] THE BEST TIME AND PLACE TO BE ALIVE 历史上最好的时间地点 .. 94

[2011.11.08] Snow Flower and the Not-So-Secret Metaphor “雪花秘扇” ................... 98

[2011.11.05] The Republicans: A dangerous game 共和党一场危险的游戏 ............ 100

[2011.11.03]This time they really mean it 这次它们动真格了 .................................. 110

[2011.10.26] Mormons are Christians 摩门教徒是基督教徒 .................................... 111

[2011.10.22] A tale of three islands 三个岛的故事 .................................................. 113

[2011.10.22] Adventures in capitalism 在资本主义中探险 ....................................... 124

[2011.10.21]The benefits of early money-laundering早期“洗钱”的益处 .................. 131

[2011.10.17]The occupy protests:Cross continents跨五大洲的占领抗议 ................ 135

[2011.10.15] Winged words 带翼之语 ..................................................................... 136

[2011.10.13] The editor's inbox 编辑的邮箱 ............................................................ 141

[2011.10.12] The birth of the Black Death 黑死病的诞生 ........................................ 143

[2011.10.11] The Nobel prize in economics诺贝尔经济学奖 ................................... 145

[2011.10.10] Six things a film actor should never do 电影演员六戒 ........................ 148

[2011.10.08] Rajoy’s burden 拉霍伊的负担 ............................................................ 151

[2011.10.08]The machine wins 机器获胜................................................................ 153

[2011.10.08] The inkblot protests 墨迹抗议 ............................................................ 155

[2011.10.01]Beloved bully亲爱的恶棍：狄更斯的一生 ........................................... 160

[2011.09.24]Goodness has nothing to do with it功利主义与善良无关..................... 162

[2011.09.24]Pensions, Ponzis&pyramids老金，是庞氏骗局还是老鼠会 ................. 164

[2011.09.17]Licence to loot 打劫许可证 .................................................................. 167

[2011.09.17]Bargain-hunting 找便宜货 ................................................................... 169

[2011.09.10]Shape-shifting 翻译——文字转换 ....................................................... 171

[2011.09.03]Ground Zero plus ten 原爆点的十年 ................................................... 173

[2011.09.03]Samuel Menashe 纽约吟游诗人辞世 .................................................. 177

[2011.09.03]Game theory in practice 博弈论的应用 ............................................... 180 To Tie and Untie The Knot <原创> .......................................................................... 187

[2011.08.27]End-game in Libya: Going, going…卡扎菲穷途末路 ............................ 190

[2011.08.27]Steve Jobs:The minister of magic steps down魔法部长卸任 .............. 194

[2011.08.20]A burning imagination 伯恩燃烧的想象力 ............................................ 198

[2011.08.20]What's Schadenfreude in Chinese? 幸灾乐祸？ ................................. 201

[2011.08.15]summer fiction(1)夏日小说 (1) ............................................................ 204

[2011.08.13]After the inferno 骚乱之火后 ............................................................... 206

[2011.08.13] Nancy Wake 英国女特工辞世............................................................. 209

[2011.08.13] Politics this week 本周时政 ................................................................ 212

[2011.08.13]Emerald blues 爱尔兰蓝调 .................................................................. 215

[2011.08.06]Sex selection: Cat got your tongue? 性别选择 哑巴啦？ .................... 218

[2011.08.06]An underperforming president 奥巴马的表现不如人意 ........................ 222

[2011.08.06]Gathered in the marketplace 在奴隶市场上聚集 ................................. 225

[2011.08.06] Attack of the clones 克隆人来袭 ......................................................... 227

[2011.08.06]Time for a double dip?二次探底的时候到了吗？ .................................. 231

[2011.08.01]The trouble with democracy—and dictatorship民主与独裁所面临 ...... 234

[2011.07.30]Connubial bliss in America 幸福婚姻在美国 ........................................ 236

[2011.07.30]Lucian Freud 一代奇人画師辞世 ......................................................... 239

[2011.07.23]Betty Ford 美国前第一夫人去世 .......................................................... 241

[2011.07.21]A novel idea 出书新招 ......................................................................... 245

[2011.07.21]Grape gripes 葡萄嚎啕 ........................................................................ 246

[2011.07.19]Rupert & James Murdoch before Parliament 默多克父子 ................... 249

[2011.07.18]Down to the wire 最后一刻 .................................................................. 252

[2011.07.14]Look ahead, not back 向前看，莫回首 ............................................... 254

[2011.07.14]Hacked off 黑客入侵，“大鱼”栽了 ....................................................... 256

[2011.07.07]Of penguins and politics “小企鹅”涉政记 ............................................. 258

[2011.07.07]Julian Assange and the new wave 朱利安·阿桑奇卷起新浪潮 ............ 259

[2011.07.06]Boxing cleverer 更聪明的出击 ............................................................. 265

[2011.12.31] Ron Paul’s big moment 罗恩·保罗的大日子 The obstetrician, numismatist and hater of the Fed and the UN who just might win in Iowa这位仇视美联储和联合国的产科医生兼货币学家可能拿下爱荷华

Dec 31st 2011 | from the print edition

PEOPLE who say that politicians are all the same may be in for a surprise next week. Heading the polls in Iowa, whose caucuses on January 3rd mark the true start of the Republican race for a presidential candidate, is a 76-year-old libertarian from Texas with a worldview so wacky and a programme so radical that he was recently discounted as a no-hoper. Even if he wins in quirky Iowa, Ron Paul will never be America‘s president. But his coming this far tells you something about the mood of Republican voters. A substantial number like a man who wants to abolish the Federal Reserve, introduce a new currency to compete with the dollar, eliminate five departments of the federal government within a year, pull out of the United Nations and close all America‘s foreign bases, which he likens to ―an empire‖.

那些认为天下政客一般样的人们下周可能会大吃一惊。爱荷华州的初选定在1月3日举行，标志了共和党总统候选人竞选的真正开始。而此刻在爱荷华州民意调查榜首的是一位来自得克萨斯州，76岁的自由主义者。由于他的世界观太过古怪，竞选政纲太过极端，直到最近人们都认为他无望获胜而因此忽视他。就算罗恩·保罗成功拿下了怪异的爱荷华州，他永远也不可能被选为美国总统。但是他能走到这一步很大程度上透露了当前共和党选民的心情。有很多选民喜欢这个竞选人，尽管他想要废除美联储，引入一种新货币和美元竞争，上任一年以内取消五个联邦政府部门，让美国退出联合国，关闭美国所有在海外，被他喻为―一个帝国‖的军事基地。

How did such a man rise to the top of the polls? One thing to note is that his support has a ceiling: in no state do more than about a third of Republican voters favour him, though in Iowa‘s crowded race that could be all he needs. Also, liking the man does not require liking his policies. During the candidates‘ debates of 2011, Mr Paul won plaudits for integrity. Where slicker rivals chop, change and pander, the rumpled Mr Paul hews to his principles even when they are unpopular. Unlike Newt Gingrich, who seldom misses a chance to play on fears of Islam, Mr Paul insists on the rule of law and civil liberties and due process for all—including suspected terrorists. Unlike Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum, who adore Israel and can sound impatient to bomb Iran, Mr Paul has no great love for the Jewish state, even though this hurts him with the evangelical voters of Iowa. He opposed the Iraq war from the start and wants America to shun expensive foreign entanglements that make the rest of the world resent it.

这样一个人是怎么上升到民调榜首的呢？值得注意的是他的支持是有上限的，没有一个州支持保罗的共和党选民超过三分之一，不过在爱荷华人满为患的初选中这点支持率可能就足够让他拿下该州了。同样，喜欢一个竞选人并不代表要喜欢他的政策。在2011年的竞选人辩论中，保罗因为其刚直不阿而赢得赞扬。当他的那些更圆滑的对手在见风转舵，逢迎讨好时，满年皱纹的保罗坚守其原则，即使这些原则不受选民欢迎时依然如故。和从不放过任何机会来利用人们对伊斯兰教的恐惧大做文章的纽特·金里奇不同，保罗坚持捍卫法制，公民自由以及所有人，包括恐怖分子疑犯都应经历正当的法律程序。和宠爱以色列，听上去急不可耐要轰炸伊朗的米歇尔·巴克曼以及里克·桑托勒姆不同，保罗对于这个犹太国并没有特别的好感，即使这种态度会影响爱荷华州福音选民对他的支持也还是一样。他从一开始就反对伊拉克战争，想让美国避开那些砸了大钱却又让世界其它国家憎恶的国际纠纷。

These, however, are sideshows compared to the central belief that animates Mr Paul‘s politics. Born in

1935, he remembers the tail-end of the Depression and the shortages during the second world war. At five, he and his brothers were put to work helping their father run a small dairy from their basement. His job was to check that the bottles were clean. For each dirty one he spotted, he received a penny. Thus, he says in ―Ending the Fed‖, the book he wrote after the financial collapse of 2008, was born a fascination with numismatics. This flowered into a preoccupation with the money supply and a lifelong conviction that governments must be prevented from debasing the currency.

不过这些政见和赋予保罗政治理念活力的核心信念相比就小巫见大巫了。出生于1935年，他有对于大萧条时代最后几年的记忆，并经历了第二次世界大战期间的物资短缺。5岁时，他和他的兄弟们开始在家中的地下室工作，帮助他们的父亲经营一家小型奶制品店。他的工作就是检察奶瓶是否干净。他每找到一个脏奶瓶就可以获得1美分的奖励。因此，他在2008年的金融危机之后所著的书《终结美联储》内提到这一经历让他着迷于收集钱币[注1]。这种兴趣后来导致了他对于货币供应非常关注，并且让他产生了一种终生信条－应该阻止政府贬值货币。

Not all of Mr Paul‘s positions are unpopular. Like other conservatives, he defends the God-given right to keep and bear arms, ―the guardian of every other right‖. He is pro-life, which he believes begins at conception. He champions home-schooling. But only he combines a general dislike of the overweening federal government with a particular, obsessive hatred of what he considers the corrupt system of money at its secret heart.

保罗的政见并不是都不受欢迎。和其他保守分子一样，他捍卫上帝赋予的持有及携带枪支权利，称其为―所有其它权利的守护‖。他反对堕胎，相信生命开始于受孕之时。他拥护在家教育[注2]。但是保罗认为在联邦政府那不为人知的中心存在着一个腐败的货币体系，虽然保守分子大多厌恶骄傲自大的联邦政府，只有他把这种厌恶和针对货币系统的特定偏执仇恨结合起来，

Pauline conversion醍醐灌顶[注3]

In 1972, though hard at work as an obstetrician and gynaecologist, he travelled 50 miles to Houston to hear the elderly Ludwig von Mises offer an ―inspiring‖ denunciation of socialism. Several years later he dined with Friedrich Hayek. The good doctor‘s conversion to the Austrian school of economics turned him into a crusader who has come to see the operations of the Fed—indeed the entire banking system, with its reliance on paper money no longer backed by gold—as a dangerous confidence trick. The Fed has ―ominous powers that Congress barely understands,‖ he says. ―Trillions of dollars can be created and injected into the economy with no obligation by the Fed to reveal who benefits.‖ Though ending the Fed would take time, this is his panacea: it would end dollar depreciation, remove America‘s ability to fund endless wars and stop the growth of government.

1972年，即使身为妇产科医生工作繁忙，他还是抽空赶了50英里的路前往休斯敦，专程来倾听年老的路德维希·冯·米塞斯[注4]的一场讲话。这场讲话围绕在对社会主义的批判上，内容―很有启发‖。几年之后他曾和弗里德里希·哈耶克[注5]一起共同就餐过。这位和蔼的医生在皈依奥地利经济学派之后，摇身一变成为了一名理念斗士，将美联储的运作，以至整个依赖不再和黄金挂钩的纸币的银行系统看成是一个危险的骗局。他说，美联储拥有―国会几乎完全不理解的邪恶力量，它可以印制数万亿美元的纸币注入经济，且没有义务透露谁是最终受益者。‖虽然要终结美联储会花时间，他认为这是一贴万能药：这会结束美元贬值，令美国再也不能在无止境的战争上砸钱，也会停止政府的膨胀。

One consequence of Mr Paul‘s rise in the polls has been a flurry of speculation about his true intentions.

Having run for president twice before, he is not naive about politics. He has served a dozen terms in the House of Representatives, failing to find allies for his radical measures. He cannot expect actually to win the nomination, let alone become president. His real aim appears to be didactic: he wants the widest possible hearing for his ideas. And since the financial collapse of 2008, more Americans have indeed been listening. His quest for the Republican nomination that year gave him respectability and an audience he could not reach as the nominee of the Libertarian Party in 1988.

随着保罗在民调中的崛起而来的是大量对于他真正目的的猜测。过去曾两次竞选总统，他在政治上可不天真。他一共被选担任过十几期的众议员，却一直没找到支持他的极端措施的志同道合者。他并不期望自己会赢得总统候选提名，更不要说当选总统了。他的真实目的似乎是教诲民众：他希望能获得最宽广的平台来传播他的思想。而且在2008年金融危机之后，确实有越来越多的美国人开始倾听他的政见了。那一年他竞选共和党总统候选人赋予他广泛的听众群，并赢得了很高的尊重，这是1988年他作为自由党[注6]总统候选人所无法比拟的。

How long will Mr Paul stay in the race? Though the nomination may be out of his reach, he has dedicated supporters and the ability to raise lots of money through small donations. That could keep him going longer than most of his rivals, and perhaps give him enough delegates to shape August‘s nominating convention in Tampa. Or he could run as a third-party candidate. But that would help Barack Obama, embitter a mainstream party on which he has at last made a big impact and damage his like-minded ophthalmologist son, Rand, now a Republican senator.

保罗会在竞选中呆到什么时候？虽然总统候选提名可能不在他力所能及的范围内，他还有一群尽心尽力的支持者，也有能力通过小额捐款集资。这可能会让他在初选中比大部份对手都能走得更远，也许还会让他赢得足够的选举人票，影响8月在坦帕举行的共和党提名大会的结果[注7]。他也可以选择作为第三党人选参加大选。但是那么做将会帮到巴拉克·奥巴马，招致一个他好不容易才对其产生巨大影响的主流政党的怨恨，也会对他儿子兰德·保罗的仕途不利。兰德和他父亲政见相似，原为眼科医生，现在是共和党参议员。

As Mr Gingrich has learned, rising poll numbers bring extra scrutiny. The Christmas period has revived interest in a group of newsletters published under Mr Paul‘s name in the 1990s, some of which included toxic remarks about blacks and Jews. Mr Paul says that he neither wrote nor approved of those words, and that they do not reflect his opinions. That still leaves him with some explaining to do. It is true that in recent years Mr Paul has stuck to his core principles: sound money, small government, individual liberty and bringing the troops home. But the newsletters shed light on some of the unsavoury fellow-travellers he has collected on his long political road. In the end, Mr Paul‘s obsession with the Fed is an anti-government conspiracy theory. And in America, anti-government conspiracy theories attract a lot of wingnuts, some of whom have never read Hayek or von Mises.

正如金里奇已经体验到的，民调上升就会带来更多的详细审查。圣诞节期间一系列90年代以保罗的名字发表的通讯报道重燃了大众的兴趣，这些报道中的一些含有针对黑人和犹太人的恶毒言论。保罗指出他既没有写过这些报道，对其中的言论也不赞同，而且这些言论并不反映他的观点。就算这样他还是得费心给自己解围。确实，最近几年保罗一直恪守他自己的核心原则：合理的货币政策，小政府，个人自由以及海外撤军。但是这些报道中也透露了保罗在他漫长的政治道路上结识的一些令人不敢恭维的志同道合者。说到底，保罗对美联储的执著就是一种反政府阴谋论。而在美国，反政府阴谋论会吸引大量的政治疯子[注8]，他们中的很多可从没读过哈耶克或冯·米塞斯的书。

译者注

1 - numismatics，货币学，虽然numismatist一词通常指钱币研究者或钱币收藏家，但是货币学的真正意义更为广阔，研究纸币，硬币以及一切支付方式的一门学问。对于货币的使用和发展的经济及历史研究是其不可分割的一部份。

2 - home-schooling，在家教育，或译为在家自学，指不送子女去学校，在家教育子女，通常是父母担当教导一职，偶尔也可能是家教。在很多，尤其是发达国家这是一种常见的教育方式，需要占据父母很大的时间精力，在家教育的孩子是否学业较为出色这一点目前还有待进一步考证，正反两面的研究结果都有。在美国一般在家教育覆盖中小学教育，持续到孩子上大学为止。因为这种教育方式避开了政府斥资的学校系统，很大程度上让父母自己作主，所以在政治上受到共和党支持。

3 - Pauline conversion，谚语，指门徒保罗(Paul)在感化前（原名扫罗，Saul）本为一名基督教迫害者，后来在去大马士革（Damscus）路上受到感化，皈依基督教，后来成为基督教早期的重要使徒之一。该谚语因此指突如其来，改变世界观的巨大变故。其它类似谚语如Damascene conversion和road to Damascus也是同一意思。

4 - Ludwig von Mises，经济学家，哲学家，古典自由主义者，是奥地利经济学派的重要人物，1940年逃避纳粹来到美国，代表作为―Human Action‖（《人类行为》）。20世纪中期他对于美国的自由主义发展有着深远的影响。

5 - Friedrich Hayek，是Ludwig von Mises的学生，经济学家，哲学家，以捍卫古典自由主义，自由市场资本主义，反对社会主义和集体主义著称。1974年获得诺贝尔经济学奖，被认为是20世纪最重要的经济学家和政治哲学家之一。对奥地利经济学派影响很大。

6 - Liberty Party，自由党，为美国第三大政党。其政见基本为自由主义，强调最小程度控制的自由放任市场，高度公民自由，最小程度控制移民，外交奉行不干涉主义。2010年1月全美共有151名自由党人身居民选公职。历史上共有12人被选入州立法院，此刻全美只有罗德岛州众议院内有一位自由党人。

7 - 初选参照总统大选方式，每州初选投票推举出一些代表人（delegates），这些代表人可能受到法律约束要投票给某一竞选人（binding），也可能选出的代表人可以自由决定要投票给谁（non-binding），最后在大选前的全国党会（National convention）上所有选出的代表人集结投票选出该党的总统提名竞选人。今年共和党全国党会定于8月27日于佛罗里达州的坦帕举行，届时将定出谁是11月总统大选的共和党代表。

8 - wingnuts，美国政治代名词，指一个持有极端，通常是非理性的政治观点的个人。可理解为―疯子，狂人，极端者‖。在美国政坛，相对左翼该词更常和右翼联系。左翼类似的形容词包括Moonbat和Loony Left。

另注 - 画中描述的是唐吉柯德挑战风车的故事，象征挑战不可能战胜的事物。

译者：nayilus

[2011.12.31] Christians and lions 宗教自由：基督徒和狮子 The world’s most widely followed faith is gathering persecutors. Even non-Christians should worry about that

世界上最流行的宗教信仰正在各处受到压制，即使非基督徒也应对此关切

CHRISTIANITY is growing almost as fast as humanity itself, but its 2.2 billion adherents cannot count on safety in numbers. That is partly because the locus of the world‘s largest religion is shifting to hotter (in several senses) parts of the world. According to a report published by the Pew Forum in December, the Christian share of the population of sub-Saharan Africa has soared over the past century, from 9% to 63%. Meanwhile, the think-tank says, the Christian proportion of Europeans and people in the Americas has

dropped, respectively, from 95% to 76% and from 96% to 86%.

基督教徒的数量几乎和世界人口数量同步增长，但是，22亿信徒的众多数量并不能自然地保障他们的安全。部分原因是，这个世界上最大宗教的地域越益向世界更热的地方扩展（这里―热‖字有多种含义）。据Pew论坛今年12月发表的一份报告，黑非洲（撒哈拉以南）的基督教人口占总人口的比例，在上个世纪中从9%猛增至63%。与此同时，欧洲和美国人口中基督徒的比例却分别从95%和96%降到76%和86%。

But moving from the jaded north to the dynamic south does not portend an easy future. In Nigeria scores of Christians have died in Islamist bomb attacks, targeting Christmas prayers. In Iran and Pakistan Christians are on death row, for ―apostasy‖—quitting Islam—or blasphemy. Dozens of churches in Indonesia have been attacked or shut. Two-thirds of Iraq‘s pre-war Christian population have fled. In Egypt and Syria, where secular despots gave Christianity a shield of sorts, political upheaval and Muslim zeal threaten ancient Christian groups. Not all Christianity‘s woes are down to Muslims. The faith faces harassment in formally communist China and Vietnam. In India Hindu nationalists want to penalise Christians who make converts. In the Holy Land local churches are caught between Israeli encroachment on their property and Islamist bids to monopolise Palestinian life. Followers of Jesus may yet become a rarity in his homeland. 但是，基督教从疲惫的北方向富有活力的南方扩展，并不能预示基督徒在南方的安宁生活。在尼日利亚，几十名基督徒在针对圣诞节祈祷者的伊斯兰炸弹袭击中死亡。在伊朗和巴基斯坦，基督徒因为―变节‖（放弃原来的伊斯兰信仰）或―亵渎‖罪被判死刑。在印尼，几十座教堂被袭击或关闭。在伊拉克，战前基督教人口的三分之二已逃离那里。在埃及和叙利亚，虽然世俗的独裁者多少给了基督徒一些保护，但政治动荡和穆斯林的狂热在威胁着那里历史悠久的基督教团体。此外，穆斯林并不是基督徒遭受磨难的唯一根源。基督教信仰在形式上的共产主义国家中国和越南也受到烦扰。在印度，印度教民族主义者要求惩罚那些变换信仰转为基督徒的人。在耶路撒冷圣地，当地的教堂受到两方面的夹击：以色列人对基督教财产的侵蚀和巴勒斯坦人独占耶路撒冷的要求。耶稣的家乡可能会罕见基督徒了。

Compared both with the wars of religion that once tore Christendom apart and with various modern intra-faith struggles, such as those within Islam, little blood is being spilt. But the brutality matters. Even if Western powers no longer see promoting Christianity‘s interests as a geopolitical priority, it is hard to imagine American evangelicals ignoring a full-scale clampdown on house churches in China. And whatever their own beliefs, Western voters have other reasons to worry about the fate of Christians. Regimes or societies that persecute Christians tend to oppress other minorities too. Sunni Muslims who demonise Christians loathe Shias. Once religion is involved, any conflict becomes harder to solve.

与历史上那些基督教徒之间的宗教战争和现代的宗教内部冲突（如伊斯兰）比较起来，目前对基督教的烦扰还不算太血腥，但仍然是残酷的。即便西方大国已不再把扩展基督教作为地缘政治的优先目标，仍然很难想象美国的传教士们会漠视中国对家庭教堂的全面禁止。不管他们自己的宗教信仰是什么，西方的选民们有其它原因对基督教徒的命运感到关切。因为，压制基督教的政权或社会通常也会压制其他少数人群。把基督徒视为魔鬼的逊尼派穆斯林同样诅咒什叶派穆斯林。只要宗教问题缠绕进来，任何冲突都变得难以化解。

Just don’t call it a crusade

绝非十字军运动[注2]

Among liberal values, the freedom to profess any religion or none has a central place. America‘s

government is bound by law to promote that liberty. In line with its own ideals, America is rightly as concerned by the persecution of Muslims of any stripe as by the travails of Christians in China or Jews and Bahais in Iran. And it objects when Christian lands, like Belarus, practise persecution. Other more secular Western countries should do more to defend that right.

在自由主义的价值观念中，信教或不信教的自由有着极为重要的地位。美国政府有促进宗教自由的法律义务。基于它自己的理念，美国理应对所有形式的宗教压制感到关切：不管是穆斯林受到的迫害，还是中国的基督教徒、伊朗的犹太教徒和巴黑伊教派经受的磨难，都是一样。当基督教占统治地位的国家（如白俄罗斯）发生压制其他宗教现象时，美国同样表示了反对。其它宗教色彩较淡的西方国家也应当在保护宗教自由上承担更多责任。

What about those who see persecuting other religions as part of their calling? No faith is blameless: from Delhi to Jerusalem many of those stirring up hatred are men of God. But there is a specific problem with Islam. Islamic law (though not the Koran) has often mandated death for people leaving the faith. There are signs of change. The 57-member Organisation of Islamic Co-operation has, with American encouragement, toned down its bid to outlaw ―blasphemy‖ in various UN resolutions. It also condemned the attacks in Nigeria. But more Muslim leaders need to accept that changing creed is a legal right. On that one point, the West should not back down. Otherwise believers, whether Christian or not, remain in peril.

有些人把迫害其他宗教看做是自己的使命，这在各个宗教里都不少见：从德里到耶路撒冷，很多煽动宗教仇恨的人自称为神意的执行者。但伊斯兰的问题更大一些。依照伊斯兰法（不是可兰经），对于改变信仰的人通常必须执行死刑。不过，现在已经有改变的迹象。有57个成员国的伊斯兰合作组织，已不再要求把一些联合国决议中的词句视为―亵渎伊斯兰‖和非法，这个态度得到了美国的鼓励。这个组织还谴责了尼日利亚发生的袭击基督教徒的事件。但是，更多的穆斯林领导人需要承认人们改变信仰的权利。在这一点上，西方不应退缩。不然的话，宗教信徒们（不管是不是基督教徒）仍然难以摆脱困境。

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[注1]在基督教早期受到的迫害中，曾有古罗马把基督徒喂给狮子的酷刑。

[注2]这里是说反对迫害基督徒并不是像十字军东征那样站在基督教立场上反对异教，而是要反对一切形式的宗教压制。

译者：西米

[2011.12.31] Foreign languages: The gift of tongues 学习外语的天赋 What makes some people learn language after language?

何者吸引一些人接二连三地学习多门语言?

Babel No More: The Search for the World’s Most Extraordinary Language Learners. 消逝的巴别塔：寻找世间最卓越的语言学习者

By Michael Erard. Free Press; 306 pages; $25.99. Buy from

CARDINAL MEZZOFANTI of Bologna was a secular saint. Though he never performed the kind of miracle needed to be officially canonised, his power was close to unearthly. Mezzofanti was said to speak 72 languages. Or 50. Or to have fully mastered 30. No one was certain of the true figure, but it was a lot. Visitors flocked from all corners of Europe to test him and came away stunned. He could switch between languages with ease. Two condemned prisoners were due to be executed, but no one knew their language to

hear their confession. Mezzofanti learned it in a night, heard their sins the next morning and saved them from hell.

博洛尼亚的Mezzofanti红衣主教是一个身处于俗世的圣人。尽管他从未演示过任何奇迹而被正式册封为圣徒，其能力也近乎超自然了。据说Mezzofanti可以说72抑或50种语言，若说精通则是30种。对此，没人能说得准，但总之很多。成群结队从欧洲各地赶来验证他能力的游客都带着瞠目结舌的神情离去。他可以轻松地任意在几种语言之间切换。曾有两个被定罪的囚犯即将行刑，却因说一口无人知晓的语言使得最后的忏悔无人听得懂。Mezzofanti用一夜学会了这种语言，并于隔天早晨倾听了他们的罪孽，救赎了他们的灵魂以免于沦落地狱。

Or so the legend goes. In ―Babel No More‖, Michael Erard has written the first serious book about the people who master vast numbers of languages—or claim to. A journalist with some linguistics training, Mr Erard is not a hyperpolyglot himself (he speaks some Spanish and Chinese), but he approaches his topic with both wonder and a healthy dash of scepticism.

如此这般，传言之谓。《消逝的巴别塔》是Michael Erard所写的有关于精通或声称自己精通许多种语言之人的第一本严肃书籍。Erard先生虽是个受过些许语言学训练的记者，但却并没有通晓超多种语言的特殊能力（他能说一点西班牙语和中文），不过他在处理论题时，即带着惊奇艳羡，又带着几许健康的怀疑态度。

Mezzofanti, for example, was a high-ranking clergyman born in 1774. In most of his interactions, he would have been the one to pick the topic of conversation, and he could rely on the same formulae he had used many times. He lived in an age when ―knowing‖ a language more often meant reading and translating rather than speaking fluently with natives. Nonetheless, Mezzofanti clearly had speaking talent; his English accent was so good as to be almost too correct, an Irish observer noted.

如Mezzsfanti生于1774年，曾是高级神职人员。多数情况下，他可能正是在与人交流中掌握选择话题主动权的人，如此，他便能够仰仗用过许多次的同一种模式交谈了。他所生活的年代对于―知晓‖一种语言的理解更多的是指能读能译而非能够流利地与母语使用者交流。尽管如此，Mezzofanti显然还是拥有语言天赋的：一个爱尔兰目击者指出，他的英语口音好到几乎过了头。

To find out whether anyone could really learn so many languages, Mr Erard set out to find modern Mezzofantis. The people he meets are certainly interesting. One man with a mental age of nine has a vast memory for foreign words and the use of grammatical endings, but he cannot seem to break free of English word-order. Ken Hale, who was a linguist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and died in 2001, was said to have learned 50 languages, including notoriously difficult Finnish while on a flight to Helsinki. Professional linguists still swear by his talent. But he insisted he spoke only three (English, Spanish and Warlpiri—from Australia‘s Northern Territory) and could merely ―talk in‖ others.

为了弄清是否真有人能够学如此多的语言，Erard先生启程去寻找现代的―Mezzofantis‖。他果真遇到了有趣之人。一个心理年龄仅9岁的男子拥有大量关于外语单词和词尾的记忆，但似乎不能打破英语词序的思维定式。另据说Ken Hale，这位于2011年去世的麻省理工学院的语言学家，生前学习了50种语言，甚至在一架飞往赫尔辛基的航班上学会被公认极难的芬兰语。语言专家们至今仍对他的天赋确信无疑。而他本人确坚称自己只会三门语言（英语，西班牙语和沃匹利语——来自于澳洲北领地），而对于其它语言，聊聊尚可。

Mr Erard says that true hyperpolyglottery begins at about 11 languages, and that while legends abound, tried and tested exemplars are few. Ziad Fazah, raised in Lebanon and now living in Brazil, once held the

Guinness world record for 58 languages. But when surprised on a Chilean television show by native speakers, he utterly flubbed questions in Finnish, Mandarin, Farsi and Russian (including ―What day is it today?‖ in Russian), a failure that lives in infamy on YouTube. Perhaps he was a fraud; perhaps he simply had a miserable day. Hyperpolyglots must warm up or ―prime‖ their weaker languages, with a few hours‘ or days‘ practice, to use them comfortably. Switching quickly between more than around six or seven is near-impossible even for the most gifted.

Erard先生称真正的精通超多语言者应从掌握11门语言算起，而且尽管传言四起，能经受住考验的实例确少之甚少。成长于黎巴嫩现居于巴西的Ziad Fazah曾因会58种语言而被载入吉尼斯世界纪录，却在一台智利的电视节目中在无准备状态下受到母语使用的突袭，以至于完全弄错了用芬兰语、普通话、波斯语和俄语问的问题（包括俄语的―今天周几？‖），这个失败带了的耻辱在因YouTube得以长存。也许Ziad Fazah是个骗子，也许他那天只是特别倒霉。精通超多语言者必须对他较薄弱的语言进行几小时甚至是几天的热身或者说是―事先准备‖，才能自如运用这些语言。而迅速地在六、七种语言之间来回切换，即使对于那些天赋异禀者来说，也几乎是不可能的。

Does that mean they don‘t really know them? Is instant availability of native-like competence the only standard for ―knowing‖ a language? How should partly knowing a tongue be tallied? What if you can only read in it? Mr Erard repeatedly peppers his text with such questions, feeling his way through his story as a thoughtful observer, rather than banging about like an academic with a theory to defend or a pitchman with a technique to sell.

这就意味着他们并非真正知晓这些语言么？拥有与母语使用者那样呼之即来来之能用的能力即是―知晓‖一种语言的唯一标准吗？该如何评估部分知晓一门语言呢？又如果你仅能阅读呢？Erard先生在他的文章中接二连三地提出问题，如一个善思考的观察者根据故事寻找线索，而非言辞激烈地如同一个专家用理论来辩解或像个宣传员以技巧来销售自己的观点。

Hyperpolyglots are more likely to be introverted than extroverted, which may come as a surprise to some. Hale‘s son always said that, in his father‘s case, languages were a cloak for a shy man. Another, Alexander Arguelles, has learned dozens of languages only to read them, saying ―It‘s rare that you have an interesting conversation in English. Why do I think it would be any better in another language?‖ Emil Krebs, an early-20th-century German diplomat who was also credited with knowing dozens of languages, was boorish in all of them. He once refused to speak to his wife for several months because she told him to put on a winter coat.

令很多人感到惊奇的是，精通超多语言者们的性格更趋于内向。Hale的儿子总是说，在他父亲看来，语言是腼腆者的伪装。另一个名为Alexander Arguelles的人会许多种语言却都仅限于阅读，他解释说―如果你对用英语交谈都罕有兴趣的话，又怎会对说其他语言有更多好感呢？‖20世纪上半叶的德国外交官Emil Krebs也被公认会几十种语言，但不管说哪一种都是生硬无礼。他曾有一次几个月都拒绝跟他妻子说话仅因为她让他添一件冬衣。

Different hypotheses may explain part of the language-learner‘s gift. Some hyperpolyglots seem near-autistic. In support, Mr Erard points to the theory of Simon Baron-Cohen, of Cambridge University, that autists have an ―extreme male brain‖ that seeks to master systems. Another hypothesis is the ―Geschwind-Galaburda‖ cluster of traits. Supposedly resulting from abnormal antenatal exposure to hormones, this cluster includes maleness, homosexuality, left-handedness, poor visual-spatial skills, immune disorders, and perhaps also language-learning talent. Brain areas are also keyed to certain skills. The left Heschl‘s gyrus is bigger than average in professional phoneticians. People who learn new

vocabulary quickly show more activity in the hippocampus. Krebs‘s brain, preserved in slices at a laboratory in Düsseldorf, shows various unusual features.

不同的假说也许能够解释语言学习者的部分天赋。有一些精通超多语言者显现出自闭的倾向。Erard先生以剑桥大学Simon Baron-Cohen的理论作为例证，即自闭症患者拥有―极端男性大脑‖以寻求对事物系统性地掌握。另一个假设则是―Geschwind-Galaburda‖的特征簇。这一被推测为因孕期非正常接触到荷尔蒙而导致的特征包括男性向、同性恋、左撇子、立体空间辨别力差、免疫系统紊乱，也可能是学习语言的天赋。大脑的区域与特定的人体机能相联系。专业语音学者的左听皮质区比常人大，而能够快速学习新词汇的人大脑海马区域较常人活跃。Kreb的大脑切片被保存在杜塞尔多夫的一个实验室里，其显示出多种不同寻常的特质。

The discovery of the FOXP2 brain gene, a mutation of which can cause language loss, was met with considerable excitement when it was announced over a decade ago. But the reality is that many parts of the brain work together to produce speech and no single gene, region of the brain or theory can explain successful language-learning. In the end Mr Erard is happy simply to meet interesting characters, tell fascinating tales and round up the research without trying to judge which is the best work.

十多年前，对FOXP2大脑基因突变会导致语言能力丧失这一发现的公布使众人激动不已。事实上，话语能力是大脑的许多部分共同运作而产生的，没有任何单独的基因、大脑区域或理论的不同领域可以成功解释语言学习。最后，Erard先生只能满足于结实有趣之人、叙述精彩故事和搜集科研的喜悦之情，而非对这些研究的优劣妄加评判。

At the end of his story, however, he finds a surprise in Mezzofanti‘s archive: flashcards. Stacks of them, in Georgian, Hungarian, Arabic, Algonquin and nine other tongues. The world‘s most celebrated hyperpolyglot relied on the same tools given to first-year language-learners today. The conclusion? Hyperpolyglots may begin with talent, but they aren‘t geniuses. They simply enjoy tasks that are drudgery to normal people. The talent and enjoyment drive a virtuous cycle that pushes them to feats others simply shake their heads at, admiration mixed with no small amount of incomprehension.

然而，在著述的末尾，他在Messofanti的档案资料中找到令人惊讶的发现：抽认卡——一大堆的抽认卡，格鲁吉亚语，匈牙利语，阿拉伯语，阿尔贡金语以及另外九中语言——举世最著名的通晓超多语言者也要依靠这一现今我们为语言初学者所准备的工具。结论呢？精通超多语言者最初确实可能由能力而起，但他们也并非天才而只是能够对一般人觉得单调乏味的工作感到乐在其中。这一由天赋和兴趣所形成的良性循环驱策着他们成就另他人望而却步的事业，而在得到他人钦佩的同时也伴随着更多的不解。 译者：stella_tang

[2011.12.31] Kim Jong Il 少帅金正日

Kim Jong Il, dictator of North Korea, died on December 17th, aged 69 or 70

朝鲜独裁者金正日少帅12月17日撒手人寰，享年69或70岁

Dec 31st 2011 | from the print edition

IT WAS all bogus, he said once. The gaggle of pretty young women jumping up and down at a state reception, screaming out praises of Kim Jong Il, didn‘t really mean it. It was a lie, too, he said, to show North Korean children on television with plump, rosy cheeks singing hymns to the Motherland. It would have been more truthful to show them in rags and starving. But he preferred to maintain the illusion.

他曾说过，这全都是在造假。一群漂亮的年轻妇女在国宴厅上窜下跳，口中狂呼对少帅的赞美之词，这也只是做做样子而已。他也说，电视上高唱祖国颂歌的朝鲜儿童脸蛋胖嘟嘟、粉嫩嫩，这也是一派谎言。如果人们看到的是他们衣不蔽体、食不果腹的样子，那才与真相相去不远。但他情愿让假象继续。

Had he not been born the son of Kim Il Sung—still North Korea‘s Great Leader and eternal president—and therefore Son of God, Mr Kim might have been a filmmaker. He wrote a book ―On the Art of Cinema‖ and owned perhaps 20,000 films, of which his favourites were ―Friday the 13th‖ and ―Godzilla‖. Because North Korean films seemed perfunctory to him, he kidnapped a South Korean director, Shin Sang-ok, to shoot a ―Godzilla‖ of his own devising. There was really no need. He had inherited his own set, North Korea, on which to shoot his own disaster movie: small fat man, with nuclear capability and supreme indifference to the fate of his own people, runs rings round world.

他的父亲金日成大帅至今还是朝鲜的―伟大领袖‖与不朽主席；如果不是因为生为―神之子‖，他或许会成为一位电影制片人。他写过一本题为《电影艺术》的书，据说还拥有两万部电影拷贝，其中他最欣赏的是《13号星期五》（―Friday the 13th‖）和《怪兽哥斯拉》（―Godzilla‖）。他似乎觉得朝鲜电影难入法眼，就劫持了一位韩国导演申相玉（Shin Sang-ok），让他炮制一部由他设计的《怪兽哥斯拉》。其实这倒大可不必。世袭得来的朝鲜就是他的布景，他可以在上面编导自己的灾难大片：一个肥胖矮小的男人，手挥核武大棒，对自己人民的命运漠不关心，但却力压群雄，冠绝世界。

To many, the plot seemed absurd. The hero was improbable, with Babygro zipped-up suits stretched over his pot belly, oversized sunglasses, platform shoes and bouffant hair, all adding precious height and heft to his five feet two inches. For years, too, he was invisible: not seen by the world until the 1970s, improbably taking English lessons from Dom Mintoff in Malta, and never heard in North Korea until he came briefly to the microphone, at a parade in 1992, to cry ―Glory to the heroic soldiers!‖ Yet since the 1960s he had been a feared force in his father‘s Propaganda and Agitation Department: eliminating internal rivals, possibly plotting foreign assassinations (the Korean Air bombing of 1987, in which 115 died, and the Rangoon bombing of 1983, killing three South Korean ministers, were both attributed to him), building up the cult of his father in statues and birthday celebrations and, incidentally, stoking high the cult of himself. 对许多人来说，这一情节似乎荒谬。他157cm（five feet two inches）的身高被塞进了包裹全身、扣子一直扣到领口的套装，还让啤酒肚把它撑得高高隆起；再加上鼻梁上一副大得离谱的蛤蟆镜，以及脚上的厚底坡跟鞋与蓬松高耸的―云鬓‖：哦，这些对提高他的身高可以说弥足珍贵，但要成就主角？简直荒诞不经。而且他曾多年隐形，直到上世纪70年代才为世人所见，据说是因为一直师从马耳他前总理明托夫（Dom Mintoff）修习英语，但这一说法可信度不高。他的伟大声音只在1992年才初次于朝鲜境内震响，当时他在阅兵式上一下子拿过话筒高呼：―光荣属于英勇的人民战士！‖但从60年代起，他便在大帅的―宣传与煽动部‖（Propaganda and Agitation Department）中成就了令人战栗的威名：排除内部竞争者、可能策划了在国外的暗杀（人们认为，令115人丧生的1987年大韩航空公司（Korean Air）客机爆炸案和令三名韩国部长毙命的1983年仰光（Rangoon）爆炸案都出自他手）、以塑像高筑与生日庆祝铸就了对大帅的个人崇拜、也顺便搭起了对他自己的个人崇拜。

Sun and fog骄阳与迷雾

That fairytale film began with his birth, in 1942 in a log cabin frosted with February snow at a revolutionary training camp on holy Mount Paektu: his coming foretold by a swallow, accompanied by a double rainbow and a new star in the heavens. (His actual birth, in Russia‘s Far East a year earlier, was dull

and forgotten.) He learned to walk in three weeks, to talk in eight; he wrote six operas and 1,500 books while a student at Kim Il Sung University, and scored five holes-in-one in his first game of golf. Apart from being ―the greatest writer who ever lived‖ and ―greatest musical genius‖, he was, by diktat, the Glorious General from Heaven, the Guiding Star of the 21st Century, and more than 200 other things. His bad temper could shake buildings; his cheerier moods could melt ice; and on a visit to South Korea fog shrouded him to keep him safe from snipers.

1942年，朝鲜圣山长白山（Mount Paektu）上的一个革命训练营里，2月的冰凌霜雪覆盖着一间原木小屋，他就诞生于那里，我们这一虚幻的影片也同时开始：展翅春燕飞传喜讯，双重彩虹辉耀蓝天，苍穹新星光灿大地。（他实际上在此一年前出生于俄罗斯远东，过程平淡无奇，没有谁还记得起来。）他出生后三周会走路，八周吐人言；还在―金日成大学‖读书时就谱写了6部歌剧，写下了1500部书籍；在首次打高尔夫球时便有5次一杆进洞。除了―古往今来最伟大的作家‖和―最为超凡的音乐天才‖之外，他还坐拥―天授神传的光荣统帅‖、―21世纪的启明星‖与其他法定头衔200余个。少帅一怒，楼宇摇撼，狼奔豕突；少帅一喜，春风沐雨，冰融雪霁。在去韩国访问期间，他四周迷雾环绕；如斯神佑，狙击手为之怅叹，威胁消弭于无形之间。

The ideas that guided North Korea—from juche, or self-reliance, to songun, or ―military first‖, were also his own great creation, as much as his father‘s. Both were disastrous in a country which, after 1991, had lost its Soviet subsidies and was on the brink of economic collapse. The subsequent famine of the mid-1990s killed perhaps 1m people, or 5% of the population: most from sheer starvation, others from the effects of eating grass. Meanwhile the Dear Leader dined on shark‘s-fin soup, gulped sashimi cut from living fish, sent his chefs to Naples to learn the art of thin-crust pizza, and chose wines from a cellar of 10,000 bottles—as well as deciding, in his ―warm benevolence‖, that the answer to hunger was to breed giant rabbits.

指引朝鲜前进的光辉思想，从―主策‖（juche，即―主体思想‖），到―颂枪‖（songun，即―先军政治‖），都是两帅携手的神来之笔，少帅所做贡献不次于大帅。但这两大思想对在1991年以后丧失了苏联资助、在经济崩溃边缘上苟延残喘的朝鲜来说都是灾难。随后发生于20世纪90年代中叶的饥馑或许让100万人，也就是朝鲜总人口的5%丧生；这些人中大部分是直接被饿死的，其他的是因吃草果腹而亡。与此同时，朝鲜人民的―亲爱领袖‖享用着鱼翅羹，品尝着活鱼身上切下的生鱼片。他派遣厨师远赴那不勒斯学做薄皮比萨饼的艺术，从珍藏1万瓶美酒的酒窖中挑选饮品。同时，出于―温暖的慈爱‖，他给出了―大力喂养巨兔‖ 的战略部署以对抗饥饿。

No one advised him. Where his father had accepted counsel, young Mr Kim saw it as a sign of disloyalty. The groups of extravagantly capped commanders who attended him were there to smile fawningly in the background as he made his minute, tireless inspections of cucumbers, cheese, pipe-valves or barley fields. And they were also there to prove that the army was important to the man who had been made head of it, in 1991, without a shred of military experience—unless you counted the cinematic days when, as a child, he trained alongside his father‘s fighters with a wooden rifle, and dreamed of killing Japanese with it. That was his best toy until, in 2006, he tested a nuclear device, using it to scare the Americans witless and to pressure the world into sending in food.

他用不着顾问。虽然大帅接受劝谏，但少帅将此视为不忠的迹象。当他不辞劳苦地精心视察黄瓜、奶酪、管阀或者大麦田时，那一群群头顶奢华帽子的随侍军官们则带着谄媚的微笑远远地站在一边。他们在那里也是为了证明，军队对这位1991年以来便被委任为最高统帅的人来说是重要的，尽管他没有丝毫军旅经验。如果硬要说有，那只能用一段经历来充数：那就是在我们的虚幻影片开始后不久，他与大帅的士卒一起操练。他当时是一个手持木制步枪的孩童，幻想着用它击毙日本人。直到

2006年，那杆木枪都一直是他最好的玩具。而在那一年，他试爆了一颗核弹，用它把美国人吓得晕头胀脑，逼得全世界都向朝鲜运送食物。

Even as it did so, outsiders mocked him. Inside the country, no one dared. Mr Kim knew exactly how the population lined up: loyal core, 5-25%; wavering, 50-75%; hostile, 8-27%. But those who dissented—even in a whisper, even by hanging his portrait askew—ended in prison camps, subject to forced labour and starvation. Perhaps one in 20 North Koreans passed through Mr Kim‘s gulags. Possibly 200,000 remain there. The rest were either brainwashed or, as he said, pretended to be.

尽管情况如此，外界还是嘲笑他。在朝鲜国内可没有谁敢这么干。少帅清楚地知道朝鲜人民是如何站队的：忠于他的核心，5 – 25%；摇摆不定者，50 – 7 5%；敌对分子，8 – 27%。但那些与他意见相左的人——哪怕只是小声嘀咕过，哪怕只是把他的肖像挂歪了——都会被送入监禁集中营，接受强制劳动、忍受饥饿。或许20个朝鲜人中就有一个曾进过少帅的古拉格群岛[注]。可能有20万人仍在那里。其他的人或者已经被洗脑，或者像他说的那样，假装自己已经被洗脑。

His death, too, might well have been scripted by himself: on one of his beloved trains (he feared flying), as he visited his people to offer ―on-the-spot guidance‖, while a snowstorm paused, and the holy mountain of his birth glowed red with the rising Sun. ―Forgive me,‖ he once said to Shin, as he half-heartedly apologised for kidnapping and imprisoning him. ―I was playing a role.‖ To the bitter end.

他的死亡或许也是煞有介事地根据他自写的脚本发生的：那是在一场暴风雪暂停之际，初升的朝阳将他诞生的圣山染成一片血色，他乘坐他心爱的一辆火车（他有飞机恐惧症）出外视察，对他的子民进行―现场指导‖。―原谅我，‖他曾半心半意地为劫持并监禁申相玉向他道歉：―我是在扮演一个角色。‖他把角色一直演到了苦涩的结尾。

[注] 《古拉格群岛》（俄语原名：Архипелаг Гулаг）是由苏联作家亚历山大·索尔仁尼琴写的一部最有力和最有影响的反映苏联奴隶劳动和集中营故事的书。这里的古拉格群岛代指朝鲜的集中营。 译者：悠悠万事97

[2011.12.29]NHS reform 英国医改

Under the knife: Paying for priority

开刀手术：谁付钱谁优先

Dec 29th 2011, 11:38 by Under the knife

In this series of blog posts, an administrator at a Greater London hospital reports on what life is really like inside the National Health Service

在这个系列的博文中，一个大伦敦医院的管理员报导了在英国国民医疗保健制度下的生活的真实情况。

THE health secretary‘s recent proposal to lift the cap on private patient income for NHS foundation trusts worries me. It is not the economic arguments which I find concerning: a nifty source of extra income for cash-strapped hospitals would be useful, though some seem to think it would cause the death of the National Health Service. Rather I worry that it would lead to NHS patients being seen less promptly in hospitals that took large numbers of paying customers.

卫生福利及食物局长最近提出的提高自费病人的上限，将收入纳入医保信托基金会的建议真正使我担心。我觉得重点不是经济原因：一个稳定的额外收入来源对于缺乏资金的医院来说是很有用的，尽管有些想想可能会引起国民医疗保健制度的终结。我更担心的是这将使公费病人因为医院要接收大量付费病人而更不能及时救治。

Private patients have long been treated alongside NHS ones: my own department sees a few private patients every week, and the care it offers to NHS patients does not suffer as a result. But if the proportion of private patients substantially increased, that could change.

自费病人和公费病人一直是同时治疗的：我的医科部门每周都要看几个自费病人，而这不影响公费病人的诊治。但是如果这个比例大幅提高了，那情况就会有所改变。

The basic problem is that private patients are treated differently (in every sense) to those on the NHS. It doesn‘t matter how stringent the rules are about care being assigned according to need and people not being allowed to jump the queue just because they have money, it doesn‘t work out like that.

基本的问题是自费病人（从各个方面来说）和公费病人是差别对待的。不管这些关于医疗资源按病人需要而分配，以及任何人都不允许因为有钱就插队的规定有多严格都没用，他们不按规定做事。

My department‘s official policy, for example, is simply to see patients as soon as possible, with the most clinically urgent cases given priority. There are some spare appointments to fit in anyone who needs to be seen at short notice (inpatients, for example), and if a doctor wants a private patient seen then we will squeeze them in if we can, but we won‘t bump anyone else down the list so the private patient gets seen quicker. Simple, relatively efficient and fair.

例如，我的部门的办公政策非常简单，看病尽量快，同时优先临床紧急病例。剩下还有一些预约，任何短期需要照看的病人都可以预约（如住院病人）。如果一个医生想看自费病人，我们就会挤压其他病人的时间。但是我们不会裁掉看病名单上的任何人来让自费病人看得更快。很简单，这是效率和公平的相对平衡。

At least, that is the theory. And most of the time, that is what we actually do as well. But when they are treating a private patient doctors are more pushy than they are when treating an NHS patient. I would estimate that consultants are perhaps two or three times more likely to chase up whether a private patient has been given an appointment than if the patient is being treated on the NHS.

起码，那是原则。而且大部分时间里，我们实际上也是按它做的。但是当医生在治疗自费病人时会比治疗公费病人时更有干劲。我可以估计出会诊医生追求是否有自费病人预约的积极性比追求公费病人是否被医治的积极性高两到三倍。

Sometimes, if my department is busy and the waiting time is longer than normal, a consultant will pop into the office and casually mention that they believe we might have a private patient of theirs on our list and they would appreciate it ever so much if we could find a way to get them seen promptly. Only rarely will a doctor overtly say they want a patient to be seen faster because he is a paying customer, but that is the direction I am being nudged in.

有时候，如果我的部门很忙，候诊时间比平时要长，一个会诊医生就会突然进入办公室并且不经意地提到他们相信我们的名单里可能有一个他们的自费病人，如果我们能想办法帮他们得到及时治疗，他们会感激不尽。虽然几乎没有医生会公然地说他们想让自费病人能快点诊治因为他们付了钱，但我一直在被鼓动着朝那个趋势去做。

And sometimes, because it is the path of least resistance, the nudging works and a private patient is seen quicker than would been the case had we been left to our own devices. When the number of private patients is relatively small the impact of this on other patients is minimal, but if private patients constituted a substantial proportion of the people being seen in our department, the pressure to bump NHS patients down the list could be considerable.

因为这么做就不用再受他们的百般阻挠，有时候，这种鼓动就起了效果，于是一个自费病人就能会比按照我们排的看病顺序更快地得到会诊.当自费病人的数量相对较少的时候这种影响对其他病人很小，但是如果我们部门中自费病人在问诊人群中占了很大一部分比例，公费病人从名单中被挤掉的压力就会变得很大。

So if the NHS is to take more paying customers, I think we need to introduce stronger measures to ensure that patients are treated according to clinical need rather than ability to pay. At the moment, when money talks, it is hard not to listen.

所以如果英国国民医疗保健制度要接收更多的付费客户，我想我们需要更多有力的手段来确保病人能按照他们的临床需要得到治疗，而不是按照他们的经济能力。到时候，当钱开了口，恐怕很难有人不听的了。

译者：狐狸耳

[2011.12.27] Vocabulary: Words of the Year 年度词汇

Dec 27th 2011, 13:24 by R.L.G. | NEW YORK

IT'S that time of year. Fretting about pounds put on over the long holiday break. Throwing Christmas wrapping into the fire. Contemplating gift returns. Beginning to wonder how much you really needed a long break with your extended family (though I must say truthfully that my in-laws are dead easy to spend two weeks with). Wondering which New Year's party will be the best. (My tip: low expectations correlate strongly with fun New Year's Eves. Expectations for the Best Party Ever guarantee disappointment.) 每年都免不了有这个时候。为长假中吃喝添的膘而烦躁。收受圣诞节礼物带来的一堆包装纸需要烧掉。盘算下哪些礼物可以拿去―交换‖。还有，我们真的需要这么长的一个假期跟七大姑八大姨厮混吗，这倒是要开始想一想了（不过，天地良心，我的姻亲们不讨厌， 跟他们泡上两周忒容易了。） 另外， 还要考虑参加哪个除夕酒会最好。（我的经验是：无论选择哪个酒会， 都要降低自己的期望，期望越低往往玩的越开心。 抱着非去一个平生最佳的酒会不可的心理， 注定要失望的。）

It's also

the time of the year when dictionary-writers and lexicographers pick a Word of the Year. I've polite and apologetic tip of the hat to a Johnson friend, Ben Zimmer, the New Words supremo at the American Dialect Society. The reason I personally don't get too excited is just how rarely the winners tittilate. A

neologism or new sense of a word catches on, unlike the many neologisms that didn't, and

or that in Britain, the was the top political catchphrase of 2011. Merriam-Webster, being a dictionary maker, picked a word that many people looked up on its website, and so went with "pragmatic" instead of "occupy". Nonetheless, "occupy" is the frontrunner to win the Oscar of WOTYs, that given by the American Dialect Society.

这也是辞典的撰写者和编撰者们开始挑选年度词汇的时候。首先我承认既不热衷于"今日一词"，也不热衷于"年度词汇"。在此，请允许我向Johnson专栏的朋友，美国方言学会的新词权威本·齐默致以礼貌而歉疚的脱帽礼。我个人对此不感兴趣，仅仅因为选出的词很少触动到我。与许多没有流行起来的新词不同，有一个新词或者一个单词的新意流行起来，辞典编撰者们认可了其他人已经知道的：今年有许多人说―占领‖；在英国，―受挤压的中产阶级‖是2011年最热门的政治标语。作为辞典出版社，梅里亚姆-韦伯斯特公司挑选了一个许多人在其网站上查阅的词汇，于是―务实‖一词取代了―占领‖。不过，―占领‖一词依然是赢得美国方言学会承办的―年度词汇奥斯卡‖的热门词选。

But WOTY season does give us a bit of time to talk about what a "word" is. Many people have objected to "squeezed middle" on the grounds that it is a tedious bit of political pandering. But others complain that it "isn't a word", but two words. Two words can be an ordinary phrase, as in "tall tree". Or they can become a compound, with a meaning above and beyond the compositional meaning of the two units. Last month

about the WOTY business—I know many of you are wordniks, even if I'm not—I'll do a good turn and recommend this fascinating discussion about wordness.

不过，―年度词汇‖季给予我们一些时间来讨论什么是―词‖。许多人反对―受挤压的中产阶级‖入围，因为这一词有种政治迎合在里，略显沉闷。而另外一些人抱怨说这根本就―不是一个词‖，这是两个词。两个词可以是一个普通的词组，比如―高高的树‖。或者两个词能够组成一个复合词，意思将超出两个词汇的字面意义。上月，Geoff Pullum在语言日志上写道，年度词汇―应该是一个词‖，而―受挤压的中产阶级‖不过是个合成词组。本·齐默回复时反驳了这一观点。所以，为了不扫―年度词汇‖评选之兴——我知道你们都是单词迷，尽管我不是——我将送个顺水人情，推荐这次关于词汇的有趣讨论。

译者：migmig

[2011.12.26] Rejoice for Utopia is nigh! 庆之，乌托邦已近

Dec 26th 2011, 17:51 by J.D. | NEW YORK

ONE hundred years ago an American immigrant invented science fiction.

100年以前一位美国移民发明了科幻小说。

Okay, that‘s not true. Not even close. People have been building fantastic narratives out of scientific gobbledygook since the days of the Greeks. Lucian of Samosata imagined a trip to the moon over 17 centuries before Jules Verne took a whack at it. And decades before 1911 Verne and H.G. Wells wrote the stories that established the contours of the genre: fantastic voyages in space and time, alien encounters, technology run amok, and so forth. The term ―science fiction‖ wouldn‘t even be invented until 1929.

好吧，这是假话。和事实相去甚远。自从古希腊开始人们就已经在利用晦涩扭曲的科学用语编造一些奇幻有趣的故事了。萨莫萨塔的琉善曾幻想过一趟前往月球的旅行，这比儒勒·凡尔纳尝试这一主题早了整整17个世纪。而且凡尔纳和威尔斯早在1911年之前几十年就已经写下了很多小说，给这一小说体裁打下了基础：例如在时间空间内的奇异旅行，和外星人接触，科技失控等等。―科幻‖一词则是直到1929年才发明出来的。

But the genre as a coherent field of literary endeavour—as the thing that takes up a whole wall at your

local Barnes & Noble or Waterstone‘s—might not have come to be if it weren‘t for a failed inventor-turned-publisher with aesthetic ambitions. Naive, utopian and romantic, a man named Hugo Gernsback ended up establishing a new strand of science fiction, one that helped shape (and was shaped by) the American century.

但是这类小说之所以会变成自成一体的文学体裁，直至现在可以在你家附近的巴诺书店或是沃特斯通书店内占据整整一面墙，可能是因为一个人的缘故。那就是雨果·根斯巴克，他的志向具有审美情趣，先是想当发明家，失败后转行变成了出版商。天真，乐观，浪漫的雨果最终建立了一种新的科幻小说流派，影响了20世纪的发展（同时也受到了其影响）。

Gernsback had come to America in 1904 with the common immigrant dream of striking it rich. He planned to revolutionise battery technology, but when that didn‘t pan out he turned to scientific-magazine publishing. He started out with mail-order catalogues for his imported radio-equipment business, but, as the years went on, his efforts took a more explicitly literary turn. Amazing Stories, which he founded in 1926, has a fair claim to being the first magazine dedicated solely to what he called ―scientifiction‖. It would go on to help define the genre, publishing the debuts of some of its greatest authors. The ever-expanding community of science-fiction readers and fans was so grateful it named its highest honour after him; there isn‘t an science-fiction writer from Asimov to Zelazny who hasn‘t coveted a Hugo trophy. 根斯巴克在1904年来到美国，胸怀一个普通的移民梦，就是在新土地上大捞一票。他计划革新电池技术，但是最终那个梦想破灭了，他转而投入科幻杂志出版业。他一开始印刷自己的进口无线电装置生意的邮购目录，后来他的事业开始向文学方面偏转。他在1926年创刊《惊奇故事》，很有资格宣称这是第一份完全出版他所谓的―科学幻想‖小说的杂志。这本杂志继续为这一体裁的确立作出贡献，并出版了历史上最伟大的几个科幻小说作家的处女作。日渐壮大的科幻小说读者和爱好者群体对他深表感激，将科幻小说的最高荣誉以他命名。只要是科幻小说作家，从阿西莫夫到泽拉兹尼没有一位不曾渴望获得雨果奖。

But in 1911 all that lay in the future—a topic which, to be fair, was something Gernsback was pretty interested in. As a young man of 27, he was witnessing a new century and a newly revitalised country all at once. America‘s can-do spirit involved a gleeful embrace of technology (the trans-continental railroad! The wizard of Menlo Park: Thomas Edison! Henry Ford‘s Model T!). New inventions, discoveries and achievements seemed to be rolling off the brand-new assembly line every day, and the factual articles of Modern Electrics, Gernsback‘s magazine (its name a kind of romantic statement itself), were hardly capacious enough to contain the sense of possibility. And so he turned, diffidently, to fiction.

但是在1911年这些事还都只是未来，当然，根斯巴克对于未来的兴趣可不小。当时27岁的他同时见证了一个新世纪和一个刚刚回复活力的国家。美国的凡事皆有可能的精神中包含有对于科技的乐于接受（越洲铁路，梅隆帕克的巫师：托马斯·爱迪生！亨利·福特的T型号！）。似乎每天从崭新的生产线上都会产生新的发现，发明和成就，而根斯巴克的杂志《现代电气》（其名字本身在当时就带有一种浪漫特质）里面的说明性文字并不足以承载当时那种皆有可能的感觉。因此，他小心翼翼地开始经营小说。

"Ralph 124C 41+: A Romance of the Year 2660", a novel serialised in 12 parts in Modern Electrics, is arguably the first major work of American science fiction. It was avidly read, in later reprints in the 1920s, by the adolescents who would become the first generation of great science-fiction writers. Gernsback‘s story was important and influential, but not without flaws. Jack Williamson, the late, great ―dean of science fiction‖, conceded upon rereading the book seven decades later that ―though Gernsback was not concerned

with literary art‖, the story was more enjoyable than he had expected.

《拉尔夫124C 41＋：2660年罗曼史》，这是一部分成12部份在《现代电气》上连载完成的小说，它可以说是美国科幻小说的第一部大作。它之后在20年代重印，被大批少年们贪婪地争相阅读，这些少年中的一些后来成为了第一代的科幻大师。根斯巴克发表的故事非常重要，也很有影响力，但并不是全无缺点。已故的杰克·威廉森－伟大的―科幻主任‖，在发表70年之后重读该书，承认―虽然根斯巴克并不关心文学艺术‖，这个故事比他预计的还要更有意思。

Williamson was being charitable. ―Ralph 124C 41+‖ is a bad book. Actually, that‘s also charitable. It is, in fact, a terrible book, full of creaky plot concepts, wooden dialogue, flimsy characters and subtle undertones of racism. (The romance between the titular Ralph and a gal named Alice is almost ruined by an evil Martian kidnapper, who flouts the laws preventing inter-racial marriage—laws which, the book implies, aren‘t such a bad idea.) It is worth noting that ―Ralph‖ was produced at almost the same time as ―Birth of a Nation‖.

威廉森是嘴上积德。《拉尔夫124C 41＋》写得并不好。其实，这么说还算是嘴上积德。实际上，这本书糟透了，全书充斥着老套的情节，僵化的对话，肤浅的人物以及微妙的种族主义影射。（全书主人公拉尔夫和一个名叫爱丽丝的女孩的浪漫故事几乎被一个邪恶的火星绑架者所破坏，该绑架者蔑视禁止异族通婚的法律，而该书暗示这样的法律并不坏）。值得注意的是《拉尔夫》成书于和《一个国家的诞生》差不多的时间。

But all that‘s a sideshow to the book‘s appeal: its real ―romance‖ isn‘t between Ralph and Alice, who are kind of drippy anyway, but between science-loving humanity and the bright, shining future created for them by technological innovation. Like much of the most captivating science fiction, ―Ralph‖ suggests a future that combines the entirely plausible and the insanely far-fetched. This is the main reason the book is so significant (if not quite readable) today. The first real invention suggested in the novel is the Telephot, which, it emerges, is basically Skype mixed with a dash of Chatroulette (the latter by accident: a crossed wire connects Ralph with his love interest, a sign of the novel's structural sagginess). And then there's the Newspaper, essentially an iPad that runs on microfilm; and one of Ralph‘s inventions, Permagatol, a gas that helps retrieve people from the jaws of death.

但是对于该书的吸引力来说这些都是浮云：它的真正的―罗曼史‖并不在于拉尔夫和爱丽丝，这两个角色反倒有点烦人，真正的浪漫是在热爱科学的人类和他们通过科技创新建造的明亮灿烂的未来之间。和很多最为扣人心弦的科幻作品一样，《拉尔夫》中的未来既包括了完全合理的事物，也掺杂了极端牵强的事物。这也是该书今天还这么重要（即使可读性不强）的主要原因。小说中提到的第一个已经实现的发明就是―电照‖，本质上来说，这不过是Skype加上了一点聊天轮盘的味道（之所以说像聊天轮盘是因为一次意外的错线把拉尔夫和他的爱人连接在了一起，这正说明了这本小说结构上的松散）。还有就是报纸机，这个不过就是一个用胶片驱动的iPad，以及拉尔夫自己的发明之一，永久气，这是一种可以救回濒死之人的气体。

Permagatol may seem like nonsense now, but who knows? Gernsback, in his introduction to the 1925 edition, made a reasonable point that catches at the heart of every science-fiction fan. ―The author appreciates that many of the predictions and statements appear to verge upon the fantastic,‖ he writes, but he adds that that‘s what readers thought when they read about Jules Verne‘s submarine in ―Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea‖. If anything, Verne had too modest an imagination, Gernsback added; science was progressing so quickly that ―it seems fair to assume that the conception herein described will, 750 years hence, be found to have fallen far short of the actual progress made in the interim.‖ Remember

Telephot, ye Skypers, and rejoice, for Utopia is nigh!

永久气在今天看来可能是无稽之谈，但是天知道以后会怎样？根斯巴克，在他的1925年版本的序言里，提出了一个可以抓住每个科幻迷心的论点。他写道：―作者理解书中很多预言和描述都是接近幻想的‖，但他也补充了读者在读到儒勒·凡尔纳的《海底两万里》中的潜水艇时不也曾做如是想。现在呢？他也说，如果有什么不足的话，凡尔纳的想象力其实太有限了，科学的进步如此之快，―可以很公平地假设书中描述的概念将会远远落后于在未来750年之间的实际科技进步。‖汝等Skype用户，忆电照而庆之，乌托邦已近！

It‘s no coincidence that this gee-whiz, awestruck and optimistic faith in technology is portrayed in the novel as American. A character admiringly remarks, 750 years after Gernsback‘s time, that ―You Americans still lead the world…Upon my word, the old saying that 'nothing is impossible in America' still holds good.‖ Gernsback‘s European predecessors were less sanguine about what the future held, with science fiction that tended towards the dystopian (think about Wells‘s "The Time Machine", with its Morlocks, or, for that matter, Mary Shelley‘s "Frankenstein" with its out-of-control technology). But Gernsback‘s Ralph, however, says confidently that ―Today it is not brute force that counts, but scientific knowledge.‖

这本书内的对技术的那种惊人且又乐观的信心被描述为是属于美国的这也不是巧合。书中一个角色充满崇敬地说道，根斯巴克之后750年，―你们美国人仍然领导着世界……我可以保证，有句老话现在还是没错： 在美国凡事皆有可能。‘‖根特巴克在欧洲的前辈们则对于未来没有那么乐观，他们的科幻小说经常描述反乌托邦（想想威尔斯的《时间机器》里的莫洛克人，或者说玛丽·雪莱所写的《弗兰肯斯坦》中的失控科技）。但是根特巴斯通过拉尔夫之口，很有信心地表明了―今天蛮力不再重要，科学知识才是王道。‖

Within several years, of course, the Great War would show just how scientific mass destruction could be; but in that brief, shining moment, Gernsback, that heir of Ford and Edison, could spin a dream of better living through technology that seemed to breathe particularly American air. It‘s a strain that‘s had remarkable resilience through the century; Gernsback‘s DNA can be seen in Heinlein and in Asimov and in Avatar (well, the good guys in Avatar, anyway).

当然，几年之内，世界大战证明了科学也可以大规模杀伤，但是在当时那短暂，闪烁的几年内，根斯巴克，这位福特和爱迪生的精神传人，编织了一个通过科技更好地生活的梦境，似乎在美国尤为真实。这个梦在20世纪长久不衰的延续了下去：根斯巴克的DNA可以在海因来因，在阿西莫夫，在阿凡达身上看到（至少是阿凡达里面的好人那一方）。

So happy birthday, Ralph. You won't be born for roughly 625 years, but that's no paradox a good work of science fiction can't resolve.

所以祝你生日快乐，拉尔夫。你要再过大约625年才会出生，但是这一点矛盾难不倒一本好科幻小说

译者：nayilus

[2011.12.25] Havel, Hitchens & Kim: Things come in threes 事不过三 Dec 25th 2011, 11:58 by Z.P. | NEW YORK

WHEN two prominent opponents of 20th-century totalitarianism die in the same week, that's tragedy.

When their deaths are joined (and indeed eclipsed) by the death of a 20th-century dictator, perhaps that is comedy. Or maybe it is still tragedy

两位20世纪著名的极权主义反对者在同一星期内相继辞世，这是个悲剧；而他们的逝去跟20世纪的独裁者的离世搅在一起（实际上是被掩盖了），这可能是个喜剧。或者，这依然是个悲剧。

succumbed to oesophageal cancer on December 15th, aged 62, a victim of his vices and DNA (his father died of the same disease). North Korea's ailing "Dear Leader" perished on Saturday, aged 69. And on Sunday Havel, who had been battling various illnesses for over a decade, died aged 75.

克里斯多福·希欽斯、金正日和瓦茨拉夫·哈维尔在数天内相继辞世。先是希欽斯，12月15日，他因食道癌离世，享年62岁。患病原因一是酗酒，二是遗传——他的父亲死于同一种病。星期六，朝鲜有疾在身的―亲爱领袖‖寿终正寝，终年69岁。星期日，哈维尔在与多种疾病抗争十多年以后溘然离世，享年75岁。

But let's forget about North Korea for a second and consider Havel and Hitchens, two singular men, noisy and smart. It would seem there is otherwise little to connect them. In the 1970s and 1980s Havel personally experienced the heavy hand of communism, his time in prison matched only by Hitchens's time in the pub. The Soviet system Havel protested against as absurd was something Hitchens was inclined to romanticise from the safe distance of his perch at the Nation. Havel was a moralist, influential and admired, yet shy and soft-spoken. Hitchens was a skilled and combative rhetorician with an imperious flair. A polarising figure, his support for the war in Iraq (which Havel also supported) ultimately alienated him from the left. Havel was a Czech president; it is amusing to imagine Hitchens running for elected office. 让我们暂时不管朝鲜这茬，来细想下哈维尔和希欽斯，这两位非凡的人——闹腾而聪明。除此以外似乎没有什么能将两人联系起来。上世纪70年代和80年代，哈维尔经历了共产主义的严酷镇压，他身陷囹圄的时间跟希欽在酒馆晃荡的时间有的一拼。哈维尔反抗苏联体制，认为其荒谬不堪；而由于苏联体制苏联鞭长莫及，为《国家》杂志工作的希欽斯却倾向于将其浪漫化。哈维尔是道德主义者，有影响力且受人尊敬，不过他生性害羞，言语温和；而希欽斯则是位老练而好斗的雄辩家，盛气凌人。他还是一个分裂的人，由于支持伊拉克战争（哈维尔也支持），希欽斯最终为左派疏远。哈维尔为一国总统，而想象一下希欽斯竞选公职就会让人发笑。

Yet both men were effective polemicists, united by their faith in the power of language. Both believed in freedom, the rights of the individual and the uncompromising search for truth. Agree with them or not—and Hitchens enjoyed making it hard to agree—they held steadfast to their opinions. Time and age did not weaken them. Even as Hitchens grew increasingly ill, he had himself helped out of bed so that he could sit at his desk to continue his scribbling.

不过哈维尔和希欽斯都是让人印象深刻的辩论家，他们对语言的力量有自己的信仰。两位都相信自由、个人权利以及对真相的不屈探索。不管你同意还是不同意他们，这两人可谓―固执己见‖（而希欽斯对于别人无法认同其观点还特别享受）。岁月与年龄一点也没有影响他们的坚强，即便是病情加重之时，希欽斯也要独自从病榻挣扎起来，坐在书桌前奋笔疾书。

"Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent," Ludwig Wittgenstein observed. In some cases this silence is imposed, politically and aggressively. Speechlessness is often the self-preserving hush of the powerless and oppressed. It is for these people that Havel and Hitchens often spoke. There is much to

本文来源：https://www.bwwdw.com/article/y9hj.html