补偿器生产厂家:大胆释放你的欲望[洞察人性最深的一篇文章]

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大胆释放你的欲望[洞察人性最深的一篇文章]

I have chosen this subject for my lecture tonight because I think that most current discussions of politics and political theory take insufficient account of psychology. Economic facts, population statistics, constitutional organization, and so on, are set forth minutely. There is no difficulty in finding out how many South Koreans and how many North Koreans there were when the Korean War began. If you will look into the right books you will be able to ascertain what was their average income per head, and what were the sizes of their respective armies. But if you want to know what sort of person a Korean is, and whether there is any appreciable difference between a North Korean and a South Korean; if you wish to know what they respectively want out of life, what are their discontents, what their hopes and what their fears; in a word, what it is that, as they say, «makes them tick», you will look through the reference books in vain. And so you cannot tell whether the South Koreans are enthusiastic about UNO, or would prefer union with their cousins in the North. Nor can you guess whether they are willing to forgo land reform for the privilege of voting for some politician they have never heard of. It is neglect of such questions by the eminent men who sit in remote capitals, that so frequently causes disappointment. If politics is to become scientific, and if the event is not to be constantly surprising, it is imperative that our political thinking should penetrate more deeply into the springs of human action. What is the influence of hunger upon slogans? How does their effectiveness fluctuate with the number of calories in your diet? If one man offers you democracy and another offers you a bag of grain, at what stage of starvation will you prefer the grain to the vote? Such questions are far too little considered. However, let us, for the present, forget the Koreans, and consider the human race.
  

今晚我之所以选择这个主题来演讲是因为当前关于政治和政治理论的讨论往往缺少对心理学的关注。经济现状、人口统计、宪法组织,以及其他东西是很容易展现出来的。在朝鲜战争开始之际,要说清楚南朝鲜有多少人,北朝鲜有多少人没有任何困难。如果你在这些书里面翻翻,你可以很轻松的弄清双方的军队数目、人均收入。但是,如果你想知道朝鲜人到底是什么样的,南北朝鲜的居民是否有什么显著的区别;他们各自想要什么样的生活,他们的不满,他们的希望,他们的恐惧又是什么;简而言之,他们的各自动机何在;你就是把这些书翻遍,也是徒劳一场。因此,你无法得知南朝鲜的居民到底是盼着联合国介入,还是更想北方的兄弟来完成统一。同样,你也猜不到他们到底会不会为了拥有投票权,投那些他从来没听说过的政治家,而放弃土地改革的诉求。这些问题往往被那些高居庙堂之上的大人物忽视了,从而错失民心。如果要让政治变得科学化,这些事情(指百姓的真实心态导致的各种事,译者注)不再令人吃惊,那么我们的政治考量就必须深入到人类行为的根本出发点。各种政治口号蕴含的内在渴望有多大影响力?在一个人能或者不能吃饱饭的时候,它们的鼓动效果一样大吗?如果一个人给你一张选票,而另一个人给你一块面包,你会在饿到什么程度的时候还会坚持要选票?这些问题很少有人深入考虑。然而,让我们暂且抛开有关朝鲜的事,且从整个人类的角度去思考一下这个问题。


  
All human activity is prompted by desire. There is a wholly fallacious theory advanced by some earnest moralists to the effect that it is possible to resist desire in the interests of duty and moral principle. I say this is fallacious, not because no man ever acts from a sense of duty, but because duty has no hold on him unless he desires to be dutiful. If you wish to know what men will do, you must know not only, or principally, their material circumstances, but rather the whole system of their desires with their relative strengths.
  

所有人的行为都被欲望驱动着。然后有些热心的道德家却异想天开,以为靠责任和道德原则,就可以对抗欲望。我之所以说这是异想天开,不是因为从来没有人表现的很有责任,而是因为如果不是一个人渴望表现的有责任心,则责任一词对他毫无意义。如果你想知道一个人会做什么,你不仅要大致了解他所处的物质环境,更要清楚他整个的欲望和想法,以及它们的强弱对比。


    
There are some desires which, though very powerful, have not, as a rule, any great political importance. Most men at some period of their lives desire to marry, but as a rule they can satisfy this desire without having to take any political action. There are, of course, exceptions; the rape of the Sabine women is a case in point. And the development of northern Australia is seriously impeded by the fact that the vigorous young men who ought to do the work dislike being wholly deprived of female society. But such cases are unusual, and in general the interest that men and women take in each other has little influence upon politics.
  

有一些欲望,虽然很强烈,但通常并没有多大政治上的重要性。大部分的男人在生命中的某些阶段会渴望结婚,但通常他们不需要采取什么政治行动,就能满足这个愿望。当然,也有些例外。罗马人抢掠萨宾族妇女就是最好的例子。澳大利亚北部的发展严重受阻,也是源于本来应该去北部开荒拓土的年轻男子不喜欢自己和女性社会隔离。但这些例子都是少数。一般来说,男人和女人在结婚方面的事在政治上影响甚微。


  
The desires that are politically important may be divided into a primary and a secondary group. In the primary group come the necessities of life: food and shelter and clothing. When these things become very scarce, there is no limit to the efforts that men will make, or to the violence that they will display, in the hope of securing them. It is said by students of the earliest history that, on four separate occasions, drought in Arabia caused the population of that country to overflow into surrounding regions, with immense effects, political, cultural, and religious. The last of these four occasions was the rise of Islam. The gradual spread of Germanic tribes from southern Russia to England, and thence to San Francisco, had similar motives. Undoubtedly the desire for food has been, and still is, one of the main causes of great political events.
  

在政治上影响力巨大的欲望可以划分成两个层次。第一层次来自于对生活的基本需求,包括食物、住所、衣服。当这些东西变得稀缺时,为了生存下来,人们会不遗余力的获取它们,甚至付诸暴力也在所不惜。研究早期人类历史的学者表明,在四次不同时期的干旱年代,阿拉伯半岛上的人口大量外流,给周围地区的政治、文化、宗教带来深远影响。这四次中的最后一次迁徙事件,造就了伊斯兰教的兴起。日耳曼部族从俄罗斯的南部渐渐扩散到英格兰,最后到旧金山,也是出于相同的动机。不用怀疑人类对食物的需求,从前及现在,一直是重大政治事件的一个主要原因.


  
But man differs from other animals in one very important respect, and that is that he has some desires which are, so to speak, infinite, which can never be fully gratified, and which would keep him restless even in Paradise. The boa constrictor, when he has had an adequate meal, goes to sleep, and does not wake until he needs another meal. Human beings, for the most part, are not like this. When the Arabs, who had been used to living sparingly on a few dates, acquired the riches of the Eastern Roman Empire, and dwelt in palaces of almost unbelievable luxury, they did not, on that account, become inactive. Hunger could no longer be a motive, for Greek slaves supplied them with exquisite viands at the slightest nod. But other desires kept them active: four in particular, which we can label acquisitiveness, rivalry, vanity, and love of power.


但是人们区别于其他动物的一个非常重要的细节在于他有欲望.那种欲望可谓之私人的,能够永不满足,甚至让他即使在天堂,也还会永不停歇.蟒蛇吃饱了之后就去睡觉,直到需要下一次进食才再醒来.而人类,绝大部分并不如此.过去习惯了生活地很节俭的阿拉伯人在一些时期得到了西罗马帝国的巨大财富后,定居在几乎奢侈的令人难以置信的宫殿里,他们并没有因此而变得懒散起来.饥饿不再成为一种动力,只要轻轻一点头希腊的奴隶就会供上极精致的食物.但是其他欲望让他们保持积极,尤其是可标签于这四种:占有,竞争,虚荣以及对权力的热爱.

Acquisitiveness - the wish to possess as much as possible of goods, or the title to goods - is a motive which, I suppose, has its origin in a combination of fear with the desire for necessaries. I once befriended two little girls from Estonia, who had narrowly escaped death from starvation in a famine. They lived in my family, and of course had plenty to eat. But they spent all their leisure visiting neighbouring farms and stealing potatoes, which they hoarded. Rockefeller, who in his infancy had experienced great poverty, spent his adult life in a similar manner. Similarly the Arab chieftains on their silken Byzantine divans could not forget the desert, and hoarded riches far beyond any possible physical need. But whatever may be the psychoanalysis of acquisitiveness, no one can deny that it is one of the great motives - especially among the more powerful, for, as I said before, it is one of the infinite motives. However much you may acquire, you will always wish to acquire more; satiety is a dream which will always elude you.

占有欲——想要占有尽可能多的财产以及有财产的标志,我想它的动机是出于恐惧心理和对必需品渴望心理的交杂.我曾经像朋友一样招待过两个从爱沙尼亚来,好不容易才从大饥荒中逃难出来的小女孩.她们生活在我家,自然不愁吃喝.但是他们一有空就溜到邻近的农场去偷土豆储藏起来.洛克菲勒的童年有过非常穷的体验,所以他成年之后依然保持着节俭的习惯.与此相同,阿拉伯的酋长在他们柔软光滑的拜占庭会议室,还是不能忘记沙漠,依然储存着实际上不可能花完的财富.但是任何一种对于占有欲的心理分析,都不能不承认前段所述的是其中非常大的一项动机,尤其是对于那些拥有巨大权力的人来说.因为前文说过,它是人类无穷动机之一.尽管你可以得到很多了,但你永远会想要得到更多.心满意足是一个不可能实现的梦想.

But acquisitiveness, although it is the mainspring of the capitalist system, is by no means the most powerful of the motives that survive the conquest of hunger. Rivalry is a much stronger motive. Over and over again in Mohammedan history, dynasties have come to grief because the sons of a sultan by different mothers could not agree, and in the resulting civil war universal ruin resulted. The same sort of thing happens in modern Europe. When the British Government very unwisely allowed the Kaiser to be present at a naval review at Spithead, the thought which arose in his mind was not the one which we had intended. What he thought was, «I must have a Navy as good as Grandmamma's». And from this thought have sprung all our subsequent troubles. The world would be a happier place than it is if acquisitiveness were always stronger than rivalry. But in fact, a great many men will cheerfully face impoverishment if they can thereby secure complete ruin for their rivals. Hence the present level of taxation.

但是占有欲,虽然是资本主义系统下的主要发动机,但并不意味着是出于克服饥饿而产生的最大动机。相互竞争的动机远超于此。穆斯林的历史一再表明,王朝的毁灭往往是因为不同出身的王子无法统一意见,并最终导致的内战造成了广泛的破坏局面。这相同的是也发生在现代欧洲,当不列颠政府愚蠢的允许德国皇帝出席斯皮特黑德举行的海军演习,这位德国皇帝脑中想的并不是如我们预想的一样,而是想:我也必须有一支跟祖母所拥有的一样好的海军。如果占有欲总是比竞争心更强的话,海上平台倒会更好些。可事实上,非常多的人只要能牢牢的完全毁灭他们的竞争对手,他们会高高兴兴的面对贫穷。税收层级就是这样诞生的。

Vanity is a motive of immense potency. Anyone who has much to do with children knows how they are constantly performing some antic, and saying «Look at me». «Look at me» is one of the most fundamental desires of the human heart. It can take innumerable forms, from buffoonery to the pursuit of posthumous fame. There was a Renaissance Italian princeling who was asked by the priest on his deathbed if he had anything to repent of. «Yes», he said, «there is one thing. On one occasion I had a visit from the Emperor and the Pope simultaneously. I took them to the top of my tower to see the view, and I neglected the opportunity to throw them both down, which would have given me immortal fame». History does not relate whether the priest gave him absolution. One of the troubles about vanity is that it grows with what it feeds on. The more you are talked about, the more you will wish to be talked about. The condemned murderer who is allowed to see the account of his trial in the press is indignant if he finds a newspaper which has reported it inadequately. And the more he finds about himself in other newspapers, the more indignant he will be with the one whose reports are meagre. Politicians and literary men are in the same case. And the more famous they become, the more difficult the press-cutting agency finds it to satisfy them. It is scarcely possible to exaggerate the influence of vanity throughout the range of human life, from the child of three to the potentate at whose frown the world trembles. Mankind have even committed the impiety of attributing similar desires to the Deity, whom they imagine avid for continual praise.
虚荣心是威力巨大的动机,任何人有过很多和孩子相处经历的人都知道,他们有多么坚持不懈的傻傻的表演,以及说着“看我的”。“看我的”是人类心中最基本的需求之一。在文艺复兴时期的意大利,有件可以一再提及的事是:年轻的王子临终前面对神父问他是否有什么事需要忏悔时,他说“是的,在我人生中有一次关键时刻,我同时探望皇帝和教皇,我太迷恋于我自己人生的顶峰,而没有看到更远。我忽略了那次可以同时把他们扔下去的机会,本来我可以流芳百世。史书上没有记载是否神父宽恕了他。虚荣的一个麻烦就在于它是越来越膨胀的。原来说过,被允许在报纸上翻看关于他自己的审判过程的杀人犯,如果发现某个报纸报道的不够详细就会很气愤,如果他发现关于他自己其他报纸报道的很多,他对那些极少报道他的报纸就会更生气。政治家和文学家也是如此,剪报处发现他们越是有名望,就会越难满足。从三岁的小孩到眉头一皱世界振动的君主,对人类虚荣心遍及生活各角落的影响,如何夸大都不为过。人类甚至犯过如此大不敬:觉得他们构想出来的神灵也有相同的需求,渴望得到持续的赞美。
But great as is the influence of the motives we have been considering, there is one which outweighs them all. I mean the love of power. Love of power is closely akin to vanity, but it is not by any means the same thing. What vanity needs for its satisfaction is glory, and it is easy to have glory without power. The people who enjoy the greatest glory in the United States are film stars, but they can be put in their place by the Committee for Un-American Activities, which enjoys no glory whatever. In England, the King has more glory than the Prime Minister, but the Prime Minister has more power than the King. Many people prefer glory to power, but on the whole these people have less effect upon the course of events than those who prefer power to glory. When Blücher, in 1814, saw Napoleon's palaces, he said, «Wasn't he a fool to have all this and to go running after Moscow.» Napoleon, who certainly was not destitute of vanity, preferred power when he had to choose. To Blücher, this choice seemed foolish. Power, like vanity, is insatiable. Nothing short of omnipotence could satisfy it completely. And as it is especially the vice of energetic men, the causal efficacy of love of power is out of all proportion to its frequency. It is, indeed, by far the strongest motive in the lives of important men.
  

还有一种动机也与上述动机一样影响巨大,而且远超它们。我指得是对权力的迷恋。对权力的迷恋有点类似于虚荣,但是它们绝对不是同一种东西。虚荣需要的是赞美,没有权力也很容易得到赞美。在美国,获得赞美最多的是那些电影明星,但是他们很容易就会被“反美运动审查委员会”的委员们打回原形,反正他们无论如何都享受不到赞美。在英国,国王比首相能享受到更多赞美,但是首相拥有更多的权力。很多人更热赞美而不是权力,但是那些人在很多事情上的影响力不如那些迷恋权力者。在1814年,布鲁克(普鲁士元帅,击败了拿破仑,译者注)在参观了拿破仑的宫殿后大叹:他拥有这一切还要去攻打莫斯科,真是个十足的傻瓜。对于拿破仑来说,他当然不是没有虚荣心,只是当他必须做出抉择时,他更向往权力。而对于布鲁克来说,拿破仑的选择无疑是愚蠢的。权力,正如虚荣,是永难满足的。只有全能才能使它完全满足。特别的正如那些精力充沛之人的弱点,对权力迷恋的偶然积极作用,跟它发生的频率完全不匹配。实际上它是那些伟人们最强烈的动机。


  
Love of power is greatly increased by the experience of power, and this applies to petty power as well as to that of potentates. In the happy days before 1914, when well-to-do ladies could acquire a host of servants, their pleasure in exercising power over the domestics steadily increased with age. Similarly, in any autocratic regime, the holders of power become increasingly tyrannical with experience of the delights that power can afford. Since power over human beings is shown in making them do what they would rather not do, the man who is actuated by love of power is more apt to inflict pain than to permit pleasure. If you ask your boss for leave of absence from the office on some legitimate occasion, his love of power will derive more satisfaction from a refusal than from a consent. If you require a building permit, the petty official concerned will obviously get more pleasure from saying «No» than from saying «Yes». It is this sort of thing which makes the love of power such a dangerous motive.
  

对权力的迷恋随着对权力的体验而与日俱增,而且不论这权力是大到君王的,还是小到微不足道。在1914年之前的快乐日子里,当作的好的妇女们能够获得很多仆人,她们从掌控家务方面权力获得的快乐随着年龄而稳定增长。类似的在任何一个独裁制度下,权力的拥有者因为从权力那里得到的快乐体验而变得越发暴君似的。因为权力让人类做他们宁愿不做的事,因为对权力热爱而鼓动起来的男人更倾向于使别人痛苦而不是允许别人快乐。如果你以一些合情合理的理由对老板说要缺席这次会议,他的恋权,会因为拒绝你而不是同意你获得更多的满足。如果你要求一个建筑许可,这个相关的小官员将明显能从说“不”而非“是”获得更多快乐。这是一系列的事让对恋权变成一种危险的动机。

  
But it has other sides which are more desirable. The pursuit of knowledge is, I think, mainly actuated by love of power. And so are all advances in scientific technique. In politics, also, a reformer may have just as strong a love of power as a despot. It would be a complete mistake to decry love of power altogether as a motive. Whether you will be led by this motive to actions which are useful, or to actions which are pernicious, depends upon the social system, and upon your capacities. If your capacities are theoretical or technical, you will contribute to knowledge or technique, and, as a rule, your activity will be useful. If you are a politician you may be actuated by love of power, but as a rule this motive will join itself on to the desire to see some state of affairs realized which, for some reason, you prefer to the status quo. A great general may, like Alcibiades, be quite indifferent as to which side he fights on, but most generals have preferred to fight for their own country, and have, therefore, had other motives besides love of power. The politician may change sides so frequently as to find himself always in the majority, but most politicians have a preference for one party to the other, and subordinate their love of power to this preference. Love of power as nearly pure as possible is to be seen in various different types of men. One type is the soldier of fortune, of whom Napoleon is the supreme example. Napoleon had, I think, no ideological preference for France over Corsica, but if he had become Emperor of Corsica he would not have been so great a man as he became by pretending to be a Frenchman. Such men, however, are not quite pure examples, since they also derive immense satisfaction from vanity. The purest type is that of the eminence grise - the power behind the throne that never appears in public, and merely hugs itself with the secret thought: «How little these puppets know who is pulling the strings.» Baron Holstein, who controlled the foreign policy of the German Empire from 1890 to 1906, illustrates this type to perfection. He lived in a slum; he never appeared in society; he avoided meeting the Emperor, except on one single occasion when the Emperor's importunity could not be resisted; he refused all invitations to Court functions, on the ground that he possessed no court dress. He had acquired secrets which enabled him to blackmail the Chancellor and many of the Kaiser's intimates. He used the power of blackmail, not to acquire wealth, or fame, or any other obvious advantage, but merely to compel the adoption of the foreign policy he preferred. In the East, similar characters were not very uncommon among eunuchs.
  

但是也有另一些可取的方面。我认为对知识的追求也是出于对权力的迷恋,所有科学技术的改进也是源于此。在政治方面也是如此,一位改革者也能拥有强烈如暴君的对权力的迷恋。反对对权力的迷恋是人们的动机之一是个彻底的错误。你将被这种动机引导成对社会有利的行为,还是有害的行为,取决于这个社会的制度,以及你个人的能力。如果你的能力是理论方面或者是技术方面的,你将会在知识或技术方面做出贡献。通常,你的行为有益于社会。如果你是一个政客,你可能会被对权力的迷恋所驱动,但是通常这种动机会表现在:出于某种原因,你希望看到现有局面按照你的个人喜好而改变。一个伟大的将军,比如亚西比德(三次背叛所属阵营,最后死于波斯总督之手),毫不关心他对阵的是哪方,但是大部分将军都会更倾向于为本国作战。也就是说,在对权力迷恋之外,也还是会有别的动机存在。政客有可能会随时变换阵营,以确保自己属于多数派,但是大部分政客会更倾向于某一个党派,而压制他们对权力的迷恋。几乎纯粹出于恋权的现象在各式人等中都有。其中有一类人,就是军事冒险者,最好的例子就是拿破仑。我想,拿破仑对科西嘉(拿破仑的故国,之前拿破仑一直想带领科西嘉摆脱法国的殖民统治,译者注)和法国不会有什么意识形态上的偏好,但是如果他成了科西嘉的皇帝,他不会有现在那么伟大,尽管为此他必须假冒自己是个法国人。然而,这些人都不是最佳的例子。因为他们也同样得到了极大的虚荣心的满足。最纯粹的出于对权力的迷恋的一类人要属于那些幕后操纵者——那些人躲在王位宝座的背后,从来不公开露面。他们仅仅凭着一个念头就足以慰籍平生:那些木偶对到底是谁在指挥着他们都还不知道呢! 荷尔斯泰因男爵,从1890年到1906年一直控制着德意志帝国的外交政策,他把那种对权力的迷恋表现的淋漓尽致。他居住在贫民窟中,从来没出现在社会上,除了有一次皇帝强求要与他见面,他无法拒绝外,从来不与皇帝见面,他拒绝所有的宫廷活动的邀请,因为他说他没有宫廷礼服。他掌握了可以要挟宫中大臣和皇帝亲友的各种秘密。他利用这些作为要挟,不是为了去获得财富、名声或者任何其他显而易见的好处,而仅仅是强迫大家采纳他的外交政策。在东方,在宦官群体中,这种人物也并不罕见。

  
I come now to other motives which, though in a sense less fundamental than those we have been considering, are still of considerable importance. The first of these is love of excitement. Human beings show their superiority to the brutes by their capacity for boredom, though I have sometimes thought, in examining the apes at the zoo, that they, perhaps, have the rudiments of this tiresome emotion. However that may be, experience shows that escape from boredom is one of the really powerful desires of almost all human beings. When white men first effect contact with some unspoilt race of savages, they offer them all kinds of benefits, from the light of the gospel to pumpkin pie. These, however, much as we may regret it, most savages receive with indifference. What they really value among the gifts that we bring to them is intoxicating liquor which enables them, for the first time in their lives, to have the illusion for a few brief moments that it is better to be alive than dead. Red Indians, while they were still unaffected by white men, would smoke their pipes, not calmly as we do, but orgiastically, inhaling so deeply that they sank into a faint. And when excitement by means of nicotine failed, a patriotic orator would stir them up to attack a neighbouring tribe, which would give them all the enjoyment that we (according to our temperament) derive from a horse race or a General Election. The pleasure of gambling consists almost entirely in excitement. Monsieur Huc describes Chinese traders at the Great Wall in winter, gambling until they have lost all their cash, then proceeding to lose all their merchandise, and at last gambling away their clothes and going out naked to die of cold. With civilized men, as with primitive Red Indian tribes, it is, I think, chiefly love of excitement which makes the populace applaud when war breaks out; the emotion is exactly the same as at a football match, although the results are sometimes somewhat more serious.

现在提一些其他的动机,虽然和我们之前考虑过的那些动机相比他们在某种程度上少些重要性,但依然是相当的重要。其中的第一种是对刺激的热爱。人类相比于动物的优越性在于他们容忍无聊的程度。虽然我也多次想过,观察动物园里的猿猴可以得知它们也有这些不甘于枯燥的情绪萌芽。逃避无聊几乎是所有人类都共有的一种影响甚大的欲望。当白人第一次和野蛮的原始部落接触时,他们给那些人几乎所有的好处,从福音书到南瓜派。尽管如此,我们可能还是会很遗憾,因为大部分野蛮人接受那些东西时非常冷淡。在那些礼物中,他们真正重视的是令人沉醉的酒,那些酒可以让他们生平第一次产生纵使很短暂的幻觉,觉得活着比死了要更好。印第安人保持在依然未开化状态时,他们吸他们自己的小管烟,不会跟我们做的一样冷静,而是极度狂欢,在过于兴奋时会陷入昏迷,当尼古丁不能在引起他们激动时,一个“爱国”的演讲家会鼓动他们去袭击临近的部落,那可以给予他们就像我们(按照我们的性情)在平常赛马中能获得的那种享受。对于文明人群体,正如对于早期的印第安部落,我想它是主要出于对刺激的热爱,那种刺激可以使得平民在战争突然爆发时鼓掌;这种激情非常像足球比赛,虽然它的结果在有的时候稍微要更严重些。

It is not altogether easy to decide what is the root cause of the love of excitement. I incline to think that our mental make-up is adapted to the stage when men lived by hunting. When a man spent a long day with very primitive weapons in stalking a deer with the hope of dinner, and when, at the end of the day, he dragged the carcass triumphantly to his cave, he sank down in contented weariness, while his wife dressed and cooked the meat. He was sleepy, and his bones ached, and the smell of cooking filled every nook and cranny of his consciousness. At last, after eating, he sank into deep sleep. In such a life there was neither time nor energy for boredom. But when he took to agriculture, and made his wife do all the heavy work in the fields, he had time to reflect upon the vanity of human life, to invent mythologies and systems of philosophy, and to dream of the life hereafter in which he would perpetually hunt the wild boar of Valhalla. Our mental make-up is suited to a life of very severe physical labor. I used, when I was younger, to take my holidays walking. I would cover twenty-five miles a day, and when the evening came I had no need of anything to keep me from boredom, since the delight of sitting amply sufficed. But modern life cannot be conducted on these physically strenuous principles. A great deal of work is sedentary, and most manual work exercises only a few specialized muscles. When crowds assemble in Trafalgar Square to cheer to the echo an announcement that the government has decided to have them killed, they would not do so if they had all walked twenty-five miles that day. This cure for bellicosity is, however, impracticable, and if the human race is to survive - a thing which is, perhaps, undesirable - other means must be found for securing an innocent outlet for the unused physical energy that produces love of excitement. This is a matter which has been too little considered, both by moralists and by social reformers. The social reformers are of the opinion that they have more serious things to consider. The moralists, on the other hand, are immensely impressed with the seriousness of all the permitted outlets of the love of excitement; the seriousness, however, in their minds, is that of Sin. Dance halls, cinemas, this age of jazz, are all, if we may believe our ears, gateways to Hell, and we should be better employed sitting at home contemplating our sins. I find myself unable to be in entire agreement with the grave men who utter these warnings. The devil has many forms, some designed to deceive the young, some designed to deceive the old and serious. If it is the devil that tempts the young to enjoy themselves, is it not, perhaps, the same personage that persuades the old to condemn their enjoyment? And is not condemnation perhaps merely a form of excitement appropriate to old age? And is it not, perhaps, a drug which - like opium - has to be taken in continually stronger doses to produce the desired effect? Is it not to be feared that, beginning with the wickedness of the cinema, we should be led step by step to condemn the opposite political party, dagoes, wops, Asiatics, and, in short, everybody except the fellow members of our club? And it is from just such condemnations, when widespread, that wars proceed. I have never heard of a war that proceeded from dance halls.

到底什么是人类热爱刺激的根本原因,是很难完全肯定的.我倾向于认为是因为我们精神上的天性为了适应当初主要靠男人打猎为生的那个阶段.当一个男人带着原始落后的武器,带着对晚餐的期望,为了围捕一头鹿而忙了一整天,当日落的时候,他拖着猎物胜利性的回到洞穴,带着疲倦心满意足的躺下,与此同时他的妻子开始整理和烹饪食物,他身体困乏而又骨骼酸痛,烹饪的香味充斥所有他能意识到的场所,最后吃完晚饭过后,他进入沉沉梦乡.在这样一种生活下,他没有时间,也没有精力去厌倦.但是当他进入农耕时期,让他的妻子做田里所有的重活,他就有时间去想着人类生活的虚荣,发明神话和哲学系统,并且梦想从此就过着他将永远在神殿里打猎追逐的生活.我们的精神品质是用来适合繁重的体力劳动的,当我年轻的时候,我经常在假期里每天进行25英里的徒步旅行,夜幕来临时,我不需要任何东西排解无聊,因为坐下的快乐就完全能满足我了.但是现代的提升无法用这些身体上的奋发向上的原则来引导.大量工作都是坐着做的,并且大部分手工工作只用到特定部分的肌肉.当伦敦的人群集聚到特拉法尔加广场大声为政府决定让他们送死的声明而喝彩,如果他们那天步行了25英里之后就不会那样做了.要治愈好战心理,无论如何是不可能的.如果人类要幸存下来——也许一件战争之外大家并不喜欢的事——必须被找到来当作我们富余精力的一个稳定而无害的发泄途径,这样可以引导对刺激的追求。

这是道德家和社会改革者都很少考虑的事,社会改革者觉得他们还有更严重的事需要考虑,另一方面,道德家对所有用来转移人们对刺激的向往的事情,都极其夸大它们的严重性.尽管如此,在他们的意见里,严重性是关于罪恶的严重性,比如舞厅,影院,时代爵士乐都是.如果我们相信耳朵听到的东西通向地狱,那么我们最好花费所有时间坐在家里反思我们的罪恶.我发现自己无法完全同意那些说出这些警告的严肃的人们.魔鬼有很多种样子.一些用来欺骗年轻人,一些用来欺骗年长和严肃的人.如果引诱年轻人享受快乐是魔鬼,那么说服年长者谴责年轻人的快乐,不也可能是同一个魔鬼做的事?而且谴责不也可能仅仅是一种分配给年长者的兴奋的事?而且谴责不可能会如鸦片一样必须持续加大剂量来产生想要的效果?谴责岂不是要担心那所有的,从邪恶的电影院开始,我们要逐步的导致谴责对立的党派,意大利人,南欧的黑裔,亚洲移民,简而言之,每个除了我们一派之外的人.并且它正是广泛存在的导致战争发生的该谴责的事.我从来没听说过因为舞厅而发生的战争.

What is serious about excitement is that so many of its forms are destructive. It is destructive in those who cannot resist excess in alcohol or gambling. It is destructive when it takes the form of mob violence. And above all it is destructive when it leads to war. It is so deep a need that it will find harmful outlets of this kind unless innocent outlets are at hand. There are such innocent outlets at present in sport, and in politics so long as it is kept within constitutional bounds. But these are not sufficient, especially as the kind of politics that is most exciting is also the kind that does most harm. Civilized life has grown altogether too tame, and, if it is to be stable, it must provide harmless outlets for the impulses which our remote ancestors satisfied in hunting. In Australia, where people are few and rabbits are many, I watched a whole populace satisfying the primitive impulse in the primitive manner by the skillful slaughter of many thousands of rabbits. But in London or New York some other means must be found to gratify primitive impulse. I think every big town should contain artificial waterfalls that people could descend in very fragile canoes, and they should contain bathing pools full of mechanical sharks. Any person found advocating a preventive war should be condemned to two hours a day with these ingenious monsters.
  

兴奋的严重性在于它很多种形式都是破坏性的,兴奋对酗酒或沉迷赌博而无自制力的人来说是破坏性的.当它带来群体性暴力时,也是破坏性的.尤其当它导致战争时,更是极具毁灭性.这种需求如此强烈,以至于如果无害的发泄方式不是唾手可得的话,就很可能会把人们引向有害的发泄方式。目前在运动方面有这么多无害的发泄方式,在政治方面也有很多,前提是那些活动要在宪法的框架下进行。但是这还远远不够,尤其那种导致群情激奋的政治活动,经常导致大量伤害事件的发生。

人类城市生活过于乏味了,如果要不生变数的话,必须为冲动提供一些无害的发泄方式——我们远祖只需要打猎就能满足那种冲动.在澳大利亚,人少而兔子多,我看到过一很多百姓用原始的技巧狩猎成千上万只兔子的方式来满足他们原始的冲动.但是在伦敦或纽约,人多而兔子少,必须有其他方式来愉悦大家.我想每一个大一点的地方,都应该有个人造的瀑布,然后人们就可以乘坐脆弱的小舟滑下.并且也应该有放满了凶猛的鲨鱼的游泳池,任何被发现支持预防性战争的人,都应该被投进泳池,罚他们每天与这些灵巧的怪物们共处两个小时。

  

【这篇文章是我觉得对人性的洞察最深最全面的一篇(还没译完),实在忍不住要拿出来与大家分享分享,如果你不嫌烦劳,觉得本文确实不错的话(罗素的功劳),可以点一下文章左下角的“顶”,以表支持,^_^】