馬金馨 Ma Jinxin

Text of Address by Alexander Solzhenitsyn at Harvard Class Day Afternoon Exercises,

索尔仁尼琴于哈佛毕业典礼的致辞

Thursday, June 8, 1978

1978年6月8日，星期四

译者：李嘉，林子劼，吕诗旸，马金馨，毛明超，施娱，袁翀

校对：Cho

以【HFLS阅读】的名义，献给人类的良心——索尔仁尼琴

纪念索老逝世一周年

I am sincerely happy to be here with you on this occasion and to become personally acquainted with this old and most prestigious University. My congratulations and very best wishes to all of today’s graduates.

我十分的高兴，能在这个场合与你们在一起，并且能亲自的接触到这所古老而享誉盛名的大学。我的祝贺与祝愿，送给所有今日的毕业生。

Harvard’s motto is “Veritas.” Many of you have already found out and others will find out in the course of their lives that truth eludes us if we do not concentrate with total attention on its pursuit. And even while it eludes us, the illusion still lingers of knowing it and leads to many misunderstandings. Also, truth is seldom pleasant; it is almost invariably bitter. There is some bitterness in my speech today, too. But I want to stress that it comes not from an adversary but from a friend.

哈佛的箴言是“真理”。你们当中的许多人已经发现，而剩下的人也将发现，在生命长河之中，一旦我们没有全心全意的专注于追求真理，它便会逃离我们而去。甚至，当真理避开之时，幻觉依然游移不去，带来许多的误解。并且，真相几乎从来不是令人愉悦的，而是不变的痛苦。今天在我的演讲中，同样会有一些苦楚。不过我想强调的是，它们不是来自对手，而是来自朋友。

Three years ago in the United States I said certain things which at that time appeared unacceptable. Today, however, many people agree with what I then said…

三年之前，我曾经在美国发表过一些言论，并且在当时显得不合时宜。然而，今天，许多的人同意了那些我当时所说的话……

A World Split Apart

分裂的世界

The split in today’s world is perceptible even to a hasty glance. Any of our contemporaries readily identifies two world powers, each of them already capable of entirely destroying the other. However, understanding of the split often is limited to this political conception, to the illusion that danger may be abolished through successful diplomatic negotiations or by achieving a balance of armed forces. The truth is that the split is a much profounder and a more alienating one, that the rifts are more than one can see at first glance. This deep manifold split bears the danger of manifold disaster for all of us, in accordance with the ancient truth that a Kingdom — in this case, our Earth — divided against itself cannot stand.

即使是匆忙一瞥，当代世界的分裂也是显而易见。与我们同时代的任何人，都已经做好了准备，将这世界看成是两极的力量，每一极都有能力彻底地摧毁对方。然而，对此分裂的理解经常被限制在政治概念的幻想之中，即危险可以通过成功的外交谈判来消除，并且达到武力的平衡。而真相是，这分裂的意义实际上更为深远，那裂缝远远超过一瞥所见。这深刻的、多样的分裂，承载着可能降临到我们每个人头上的各种灾难的危险。这与古老的真理一致，那就是，一个王国——在这里，便是我们的地球——一旦内讧，便无法长久。

Contemporary Worlds

当代诸世界

There is the concept of the Third World: thus, we already have three worlds. Undoubtedly, however, the number is even greater; we are just too far away to see. Any ancient deeply rooted autonomous culture, especially if it is spread on a wide part of the earth’s surface, constitutes an autonomous world, full of riddles and surprises to Western thinking. As a minimum, we must include in this category China, India, the Muslim world and Africa, if indeed we accept the approximation of viewing the latter two as compact units. For one thousand years Russia has belonged to such a category, although Western thinking systematically committed the mistake of denying its autonomous character and therefore never understood it, just as today the West does not understand Russia in communist captivity. It may be that in the past years Japan has increasingly become a distant part of the West, I am no judge here; but as to Israel, for instance, it seems to me that it stands apart from the Western world in that its state system is fundamentally linked to religion.

“第三世界”这个概念意味着：我们起码拥有三个世界。然而毫无疑问，我们拥有的世界还不止三个；只是我们之间相隔太远，以至无法发现。任何一个深厚而久远的独立文明都构成一个独立的世界，尤其是那些于一片广阔地域中得到传播的文明。对西方思维而言，这样的世界充满了谜语和惊喜。我们最起码可以把中国、印度、伊斯兰世界和非洲——若我们将后两者都看作紧密的整体——划入这个范畴。在过去的一千年里，俄罗斯文明也一直是个独立世界。正如今天的西方并不理解共产主义牢笼中的俄国，它也无法理解俄罗斯文明，因为它一直在系统地否认着俄罗斯文明的独特性——这样做是错误的。日本已日益跻身西方之列；而以我之见，以色列并不属于西方，因为从根本上讲其国家制度源自于其宗教。

How short a time ago, relatively, the small new European world was easily seizing colonies everywhere, not only without anticipating any real resistance, but also usually despising any possible values in the conquered peoples’ approach to life. On the face of it, it was an overwhelming success, there were no geographic frontiers to it. Western society expanded in a triumph of human independence and power. And all of a sudden in the twentieth century came the discovery of its fragility and friability. We now see that the conquests proved to be short lived and precarious, and this in turn points to defects in the Western view of the world which led to these conquests. Relations with the former colonial world now have turned into their opposite and the Western world often goes to extremes of obsequiousness, but it is difficult yet to estimate the total size of the bill which former colonial countries will present to the West, and it is difficult to predict whether the surrender not only of its last colonies, but of everything it owns will be sufficient for the West to foot the bill.

然而，就在不久之前，新兴的欧洲世界还在轻易地掠取着一个又一个殖民地。它地域狭小，却无所不在；不仅没有遇到什么真正的抵抗，并且通常对被征服民族的生活中可能蕴有的价值嗤之以鼻。表面上看，这是压倒性的胜利，这种胜利没有地理极限。西方社会在胜利中扩张——这胜利属于人的独立与力量。然而一夜之间，但到了二十世纪，这力量的脆弱被发现。现在事实已很清楚，西方的征服只是昙花一现，不能长久；由此又暴露出那种带来了征服的西方世界观的缺陷。昨日的殖民关系今天似已颠倒；面对昔日的仆人，西方世界时有走上卑躬屈膝的极端。尽管如此，现在还很难估计往日的殖民地会给西方开出多大的帐单；即便西方放弃它仅剩的几块殖民地，甚至放弃它拥有的一切，也未必能抵得上这笔帐。

Convergence

融合

But the blindness of superiority continues in spite of all and upholds the belief that vast regions everywhere on our planet should develop and mature to the level of present day Western systems which in theory are the best and in practice the most attractive. There is this belief that all those other worlds are only being temporarily prevented by wicked governments or by heavy crises or by their own barbarity or incomprehension from taking the way of Western pluralistic democracy and from adopting the Western way of life. Countries are judged on the merit of their progress in this direction. However, it is a conception which developed out of Western incomprehension of the essence of other worlds, out of the mistake of measuring them all with a Western yardstick. The real picture of our planet’s development is quite different.

尽管如此，西方仍然执迷于自己的优越性，并且固执地坚持着这一观点：世界上任何地方都应当发展成熟而至今日西方体制的样式；在理论上，西方体制是最优的，而它的实践结果亦最具吸引力。有人相信，西方以外的各个世界只是一时被耽误了：罪魁祸首是邪恶的政府、深重的危机、其文明本身的暴虐，或是无法理解所采用的西方多元民主及生活方式的意义。人们以西方的标准来衡量国家的进步。可事实上，恰恰是这个观念导致西方不能理解其他文明的本质，让人们陷入了将西方与非西方等量齐观的错误。在这个星球上，发展的真正面目并非如此。

Anguish about our divided world gave birth to the theory of convergence between leading Western countries and the Soviet Union. It is a soothing theory which overlooks the fact that these worlds are not at all developing into similarity; neither one can be transformed into the other without the use of violence. Besides, convergence inevitably means acceptance of the other side’s defects, too, and this is hardly desirable.

人们对当代世界的分裂感到痛苦，因而出现了这样的安慰性理论：西方大国和苏联将走向融合。但这个理论忽视了一个事实：东西方并没有在发展中趋同；任何一方都不可能和平演变。另外，融合的两者也必须接受对方的缺陷，而这实实在在是令人生厌的。

If I were today addressing an audience in my country, examining the overall pattern of the world’s rifts I would have concentrated on the East’s calamities. But since my forced exile in the West has now lasted four years and since my audience is a Western one, I think it may be of greater interest to concentrate on certain aspects of the West in our days, such as I see them.

如果我今天身处祖国，那么在当今世界纷乱的裂痕中我会更关注发生在东方的灾难；但我被强力所挟，去国离乡已有四年，今天又是面对西方的听众，或许我对当代西方的一些观察会更让你们感兴趣。

A Decline in Courage [. . .]

勇气的衰退

may be the most striking feature which an outside observer notices in the West in our days. The Western world has lost its civil courage, both as a whole and separately, in each country, each government, each political party and of course in the United Nations. Such a decline in courage is particularly noticeable among the ruling groups and the intellectual elite, causing an impression of loss of courage by the entire society. Of course there are many courageous individuals but they have no determining influence on public life. Political and intellectual bureaucrats show depression, passivity and perplexity in their actions and in their statements and even more so in theoretical reflections to explain how realistic, reasonable as well as intellectually and even morally warranted it is to base state policies on weakness and cowardice. And decline in courage is ironically emphasized by occasional explosions of anger and inflexibility on the part of the same bureaucrats when dealing with weak governments and weak countries, not supported by anyone, or with currents which cannot offer any resistance. But they get tongue-tied and paralyzed when they deal with powerful governments and threatening forces, with aggressors and international terrorists.

对一个外部的观察者而言，勇气的衰退或许是西方世界最显著的特征。不管是作为社会整体还是公民个人，在每一个国家、每一个政府、每一个政党（更不要说联合国了）中，西方世界都已丧失其公民勇气。这种衰落在统治集团和知识精英中表现得尤为明显，而观察者很容易以此推及整个社会。当然，尚有很多勇敢之士，但他们在公众生活中缺乏决定性的影响力。政府官僚与学术官僚在言行中透露出消沉、被动和迷失，在他们高深的理论中则更是如此：他们不断争辩将国家政策建立在软弱和怯懦之上是多么现实、合理，在理智甚至道德上有多么充足的依据。当这群官僚面对孤立无援的弱小政府、国家或是弱水潺潺似的潮流时，他们每每爆发出愤怒与顽固；但当他们面对强力的政府和威胁性力量，与侵略者和国际恐怖份子打交道时，他们却总是张口结舌、瘫倒在地。这种对比仿佛就是在重重嘲讽勇气的衰退。

Should one point out that from ancient times decline in courage has been considered the beginning of the end?

这难道还需要人来提醒吗？自古而今，勇气的衰退总被认为是没落之始。

Well-Being

福祉

When the modern Western States were created, the following principle was proclaimed: governments are meant to serve man, and man lives to be free to pursue happiness. (See, for example, the American Declaration). Now at last during past decades technical and social progress has permitted the realization of such aspirations: the welfare state. Every citizen has been granted the desired freedom and material goods in such quantity and of such quality as to guarantee in theory the achievement of happiness, in the morally inferior sense which has come into being during those same decades. In the process, however, one psychological detail has been overlooked: the constant desire to have still more things and a still better life and the struggle to obtain them imprints many Western faces with worry and even depression, though it is customary to conceal such feelings. Active and tense competition permeates all human thoughts without opening a way to free spiritual development. The individual’s independence from many types of state pressure has been guaranteed; the majority of people have been granted well-being to an extent their fathers and grandfathers could not even dream about; it has become possible to raise young people according to these ideals, leading them to physical splendor, happiness, possession of material goods, money and leisure, to an almost unlimited freedom of enjoyment. So who should now renounce all this, why and for what should one risk one’s precious life in defense of common values, and particularly in such nebulous cases when the security of one’s nation must be defended in a distant country?

当现代西方国家被创建的时候，以下的准则早已被宣告：政府的意义在于为人类服务，而人类为了自由追求幸福而活（比如，可以参照美国《独立宣言》）。而今，几十年技术和社会的发展终于成就了如此的梦想：即福利国家的可能。每一个公民都被赋予了渴望已久的自由和物质享受，而这些很大程度上已做到了美轮美奂，从而理论上保证了对幸福的获得，虽然与此同时，这几十年来道德水平一直在走下坡路。但在这过程中，一个心理学的细节被忽略了：仍旧保留的对更多东西和更好的生活的持续渴望，和在追逐中的苦苦挣扎在许多西方人身上刻下了苦恼甚至是绝望的印记，尽管人们常常掩饰这样的心理。活跃且紧张的竞争渗透着所有人类的心灵，却没有打开一扇通往自由心灵发展的门。各类来自国家的压力之外的个人独立得到了保障；大多数人被赋予的福祉已到了他们父辈和祖父辈无法想象的程度；按照这些理想培养年轻人已成为可能——给他们创造强壮的体魄，快乐，物质拥有，金钱和休闲，甚至是没有尽头的自由和享受。那么现在，在一个国家的安全尚需要通过去一个遥远的国家防守来实现的荒谬的当今，什么人会应该与所有的保障断绝关系，又为什么要一个人冒着失去宝贵生命的危险，仅仅为了捍卫大众价值观？

Even biology knows that habitual extreme safety and well-being are not advantageous for a living organism. Today, well-being in the life of Western society has begun to reveal its pernicious mask.

甚至连生物都知道当极度安逸和福利的生活对一个生命而言变得习以为常的时候，这将不再有利。如今，西方社会生活的福祉那恶意的面纱已经开始被揭开。

Legalistic Life

尊法的生活

Western society has given itself the organization best suited to its purposes, based, I would say, on the letter of the law. The limits of human rights and righteousness are determined by a system of laws; such limits are very broad. People in the West have acquired considerable skill in using, interpreting and manipulating law, even though laws tend to be too complicated for an average person to understand without the help of an expert. Any conflict is solved according to the letter of the law and this is considered to be the supreme solution. If one is right from a legal point of view, nothing more is required, nobody may mention that one could still not be entirely right, and urge self-restraint, a willingness to renounce such legal rights, sacrifice and selfless risk: it would sound simply absurd. One almost never sees voluntary self-restraint. Everybody operates at the extreme limit of those legal frames. An oil company is legally blameless when it purchases an invention of a new type of energy in order to prevent its use. A food product manufacturer is legally blameless when he poisons his produce to make it last longer: after all, people are free not to buy it.

西方社会给它自己创造了最适合它目的的机构，建立在，我认为的，法律文字上。人权与正义的界限被一套法律制度所决定，尽管这些界限太过宽泛。尽管对于一个普通人而言，如果没有一个专业人士的帮助的话，法律太过复杂而不能被理解，但是西方人们已掌握了相当成熟的对法律使用、解释、掌控的技术。任何争执都可以通过法律来解决，并且这被认为是最至高无上的方法。如果一个人从法律角度来看是正确的，则无需更多的解释，没有人会提出这个人仍然并非完全正确的可能性，且要求自制；那种放弃法律权利的意愿，牺牲和无私的冒险：这听起来只会是荒谬的。人们几乎从来都忽略主动的自制。每一个人都在法律框架的极度边界上生活。石油公司购买一种新能源的发明以防止它的使用，在法律上是无可指责的；食品生产商毒化他的产品以延长保质期同样也是无可指责的：毕竟，人们有不购买的权利。

I have spent all my life under a communist regime and I will tell you that a society without any objective legal scale is a terrible one indeed. But a society with no other scale but the legal one is not quite worthy of man either. A society which is based on the letter of the law and never reaches any higher is taking very scarce advantage of the high level of human possibilities. The letter of the law is too cold and formal to have a beneficial influence on society. Whenever the tissue of life is woven of legalistic relations, there is an atmosphere of moral mediocrity, paralyzing man’s noblest impulses.

我在社会主义的统治下度过了一生，因此我可以告诉你，一个没有客观法律制度的社会的的确确是可怕的，但一个除了法律制度之外没有任何别的制度的社会也同样不值得人类生活。一个社会如果只建立在法律文字之上，而不再有更高的梦想，那是对人类崇高可能性的忽视。法律文字太冷漠而且太正式，因此无法为社会带来有利的影响。一旦生命的薄纱由法律关系织成的，世界就会被平庸道德的气氛所笼罩，从而麻痹人类最崇高的激情。

And it will be simply impossible to stand through the trials of this threatening century with only the support of a legalistic structure.

如果仅剩法制的支撑，在这个充满危险的世纪，我们将完全不可能经受住重重考验。

The Direction of Freedom

自由的方向

In today’s Western society, the inequality has been revealed of freedom for good deeds and freedom for evil deeds. A statesman who wants to achieve something important and highly constructive for his country has to move cautiously and even timidly; there are thousands of hasty and irresponsible critics around him, parliament and the press keep rebuffing him. As he moves ahead, he has to prove that every single step of his is well-founded and absolutely flawless. Actually an outstanding and particularly gifted person who has unusual and unexpected initiatives in mind hardly gets a chance to assert himself; from the very beginning, dozens of traps will be set out for him. Thus mediocrity triumphs with the excuse of restrictions imposed by democracy.

在当今西方社会，不平等已经被披露为求善的自由和求恶的自由。想要有所作为、为国家办实事的政治家不得不谨慎行事，甚至蹑手蹑脚。他的周围有数以千计的感情用事、不付责任的评论家，并长期遭受议会和新闻的冷遇。若要取得进展，他只有证明自己的每一个举动都经过深思熟虑并天衣无缝。实事上一个杰出的独具天赋的个人鲜有机会为心中与众不同、别出心裁的创见争得主动。至一开始就有很多陷阱等候着他。结果，平庸之辈靠着被民主强加的束缚而获得胜利。

It is feasible and easy everywhere to undermine administrative power and, in fact, it has been drastically weakened in all Western countries. The defense of individual rights has reached such extremes as to make society as a whole defenseless against certain individuals. It is time, in the West, to defend not so much human rights as human obligations.

行政力的削弱随处都成为可能，且毫不费力。事实上，所有西方国家的行政力已经被急剧地削弱了。对个体权利的保护已经走向极端，导致社会整体在某些个人面前不堪一击。是时候让西方更多地捍卫个人义务而非人权了。

Destructive and irresponsible freedom has been granted boundless space. Society appears to have little defense against the abyss of human decadence, such as, for example, misuse of liberty for moral violence against young people, motion pictures full of pornography, crime and horror. It is considered to be part of freedom and theoretically counter-balanced by the young people’s right not to look or not to accept. Life organized legalistically has thus shown its inability to defend itself against the corrosion of evil.

破坏性的且不负责任的自由已被给予了无限的空间。在人性堕落的深渊前，社会毫无防备。比如滥用对年轻人道德暴力的放任，电影里充斥着色情、犯罪和恐怖。这种放任被当作自由的一部分，而且成为年轻人不去观看和接受那些元素的选择权的理论对立面。条文主义式的生活已显出对抗恶的侵蚀时的无力。

And what shall we say about the dark realm of criminality as such? Legal frames (especially in the United States) are broad enough to encourage not only individual freedom but also certain individual crimes. The culprit can go unpunished or obtain undeserved leniency with the support of thousands of public defenders. When a government starts an earnest fight against terrorism, public opinion immediately accuses it of violating the terrorists’ civil rights. There are many such cases.

法条（尤其在美国）已经宽松到不但鼓励了个体自由，还鼓励了某一些个体犯罪。对于这片犯罪的黑暗的阴影，我们还有什么可说？罪犯在众多公众保护者的支持下能过逃脱惩罚，获得不应有的宽恕。当一个政府开始对恐怖主义发起战斗，公众意见立刻指责其侵犯了恐怖主义者的公民权。此种事例还有很多。

Such a tilt of freedom in the direction of evil has come about gradually but it was evidently born primarily out of a humanistic and benevolent concept according to which there is no evil inherent to human nature; the world belongs to mankind and all the defects of life are caused by wrong social systems which must be corrected. Strangely enough, though the best social conditions have been achieved in the West, there still is criminality and there even is considerably more of it than in the pauper and lawless Soviet society. (There is a huge number of prisoners in our camps which are termed criminals, but most of them never committed any crime; they merely tried to defend themselves against a lawless state resorting to means outside of a legal framework).

自由向恶的倾斜已逐渐发生，但这不可避免地主要产生于一种人道主义的仁慈的观念—-人性本善。世界属于人类，且所有生活中的瑕疵都是由错误的社会系统导致并必将被纠正。实在奇怪，虽然西方已经演化出最优良的社会环境，但仍旧有犯罪上演，甚至数量更甚于贫穷而无法治的苏联。（我们国家的囚营中有数量巨大的被押者。他们被称作罪犯，但他们中大多数从未犯下过任何罪行；他们只是试图当这个毫无法纪的国家采用法律体系之外的途径对付自己时作出抵抗）。

The Direction of the Press

新闻的方向

The press too, of course, enjoys the widest freedom. (I shall be using the word press to include all media). But what sort of use does it make of this freedom?

新闻也享有最广泛的自由．（我将用新闻这个词来指代所有的媒体）．但新闻把这种自由作何使用呢？

Here again, the main concern is not to infringe the letter of the law. There is no moral responsibility for deformation or disproportion. What sort of responsibility does a journalist have to his readers, or to history? If they have misled public opinion or the government by inaccurate information or wrong conclusions, do we know of any cases of public recognition and rectification of such mistakes by the same journalist or the same newspaper? No, it does not happen, because it would damage sales. A nation may be the victim of such a mistake, but the journalist always gets away with it. One may safely assume that he will start writing the opposite with renewed self-assurance.

同样，这里主要的考虑是不违背法律条文．新闻对事实的扭曲和缩放不负有道德责任．一个新闻工作者对读者或历史负有何种责任？如果他们通过不实的信息或错误的结论误导了公众观点或政府，我们可有过任何公众识别和矫正这种由同样的新闻工作者或同样的报社犯下的错误？没有，这不会发生，因为这会削减销量．一个民族可能成为这样的错误的受害者，但是新闻工作者总能得以逃脱．我们可以轻松地假设，他会重拾自信开始写出相反的内容．

Because instant and credible information has to be given, it becomes necessary to resort to guesswork, rumors and suppositions to fill in the voids, and none of them will ever be rectified, they will stay on in the readers’ memory. How many hasty, immature, superficial and misleading judgments are expressed every day, confusing readers, without any verification. The press can both simulate public opinion and miseducate it. Thus we may see terrorists heroized, or secret matters, pertaining to one’s nation’s defense, publicly revealed, or we may witness shameless intrusion on the privacy of well-known people under the slogan: “everyone is entitled to know everything.” But this is a false slogan, characteristic of a false era: people also have the right not to know, and it is a much more valuable one. The right not to have their divine souls stuffed with gossip, nonsense, vain talk. A person who works and leads a meaningful life does not need this excessive burdening flow of information.

因为必须给出即时和可靠的资讯，有时就需要用臆测、谣言和假设来填满空白，并且从来得不到矫正，而是存在于读者的记忆中。每天有多少仓促、不成熟、肤浅和带误导性的判断得以传播，不经确认而蒙惑读者。新闻既能刺激公众意见，也能误导它。于是我们就看到恐怖主义者被英雄化，或者属于国家防御的秘密事件被公开披露，或者我们可能目睹打着”人人都有权了解一切”的口号无耻侵犯名人的隐私。然而这是一个错误的口号，错误时代的典型：人们同样有不知情权，而且它更为珍贵。这种权利使人们美好的灵魂免受流言蜚语和高谈阔论的骚扰。一种自省的人生不需要过渡信息的羁绊。

Hastiness and superficiality are the psychic disease of the 20th century and more than anywhere else this disease is reflected in the press. In-depth analysis of a problem is anathema to the press. It stops at sensational formulas.

冒失和肤浅是二十世纪的心疾，并在新闻界比其他任何领域都反映得更严重。新闻界对问题的深入分析避之不及，却止于煽情的套话。

Such as it is, however, the press has become the greatest power within the Western countries, more powerful than the legislature, the executive and the judiciary. One would then like to ask: by what law has it been elected and to whom is it responsible? In the communist East a journalist is frankly appointed as a state official. But who has granted Western journalists their power, for how long a time and with what prerogatives?

然而，如其所示，新闻已经成为西方国家内最大的一股力量，超过了立法会和司法官。人们不禁要问：新闻的崛起是依仗什么法律？它又对谁负责？在共产主义的东方，新闻工作者无非是国家职员罢了。但谁赋予了西方新闻工作者权力，这种权力将维持多久，又是怎样的特权？

There is yet another surprise for someone coming from the East where the press is rigorously unified: one gradually discovers a common trend of preferences within the Western press as a whole. It is a fashion; there are generally accepted patterns of judgment and there may be common corporate interests, the sum effect being not competition but unification. Enormous freedom exists for the press, but not for the readership because newspapers mostly give enough stress and emphasis to those opinions which do not too openly contradict their own and the general trend.

来自新闻被严格统一的东方的记者仍有另一种惊讶：他们发现西方新闻界整体内有一种共同偏好的趋势。这是一种潮流；新闻界内有普遍接受的判断模式和共同的利益，其整体效果是联合而非竞争。新闻有极大的自由，但受众没有。因为报纸总是着重强调那些和他们自己的观点和主流不公然抵触的观点。

A Fashion in Thinking

思考的时尚

Without any censorship, in the West fashionable trends of thought and ideas are carefully separated from those which are not fashionable; nothing is forbidden, but what is not fashionable will hardly ever find its way into periodicals or books or be heard in colleges. Legally your researchers are free, but they are conditioned by the fashion of the day. There is no open violence such as in the East; however, a selection dictated by fashion and the need to match mass standards frequently prevent independent-minded people from giving their contribution to public life. There is a dangerous tendency to form a herd, shutting off successful development. I have received letters in America from highly intelligent persons, maybe a teacher in a faraway small college who could do much for the renewal and salvation of his country, but his country cannot hear him because the media are not interested in him. This gives birth to strong mass prejudices, blindness, which is most dangerous in our dynamic era. There is, for instance, a self-deluding interpretation of the contemporary world situation. It works as a sort of petrified armor around people’s minds. Human voices from 17 countries of Eastern Europe and Eastern Asia cannot pierce it. It will only be broken by the pitiless crowbar of events.

没有审查制度，西方的主流思潮被小心地和非主流分离。没有什么被禁，但是不合主流的思想鲜有机会得以在期刊上发表、出版成书或在大学内流通。法律上你的研究是自由的，但也受到时潮的制约。西方没有东方式公然暴力，但思潮的筛选和趋众的需求时常阻碍独立思考的人们把他们的贡献融入公众生活。有一种集群的危险趋势，消减了成功的发展。我已收到一些来自美国的高度智慧的人的来信，也许是某个偏远小学院的教师。假若不是因为媒体对他们不感兴趣而导致他们的声音无法在国内传播，他们可能为国家的复兴和拯救做出更多。这引发了强烈的大众偏见、盲目，在我们这个飞速发展的时代非常危险。比如说有一些对当代世界时局自我欺骗式的阐释。它仿佛僵化的外壳笼罩着人们的思维。东欧和东亚十七个国家的声音都无法洞穿它。只有时局发生重大震荡才能击破它。

I have mentioned a few trends of Western life which surprise and shock a new arrival to this world. The purpose and scope of this speech will not allow me to continue such a review, to look into the influence of these Western characteristics on important aspects on [the] nation’s life, such as elementary education, advanced education in [?…]

我已提及了一些西方生活的潮流给初登西方世界大门的访者带来的惊奇与震动。本次讲演的目的和范围无法允许我继续这样的评述—-西方特征对国民生活重要方面的影响。比如在初等教育、高等教育．．．

Socialism

社会主义

It is almost universally recognized that the West shows all the world a way to successful economic development, even though in the past years it has been strongly disturbed by chaotic inflation. However, many people living in the West are dissatisfied with their own society. They despise it or accuse it of not being up to the level of maturity attained by mankind. A number of such critics turn to socialism, which is a false and dangerous current.

尽管在过去几年西方世界受困于严重的通货膨胀，但其经济发展道路依然是全球公认的典范。然而，西方民众对于他们的社会（状况）并不满意。他们非难甚至鄙视这个未能达到人类自身成熟水平的社会。于是，许多执此观点的批评家转而投向了社会主义，而这样的趋势是相当错误和危险的。

I hope that no one present will suspect me of offering my personal criticism of the Western system to present socialism as an alternative. Having experienced applied socialism in a country where the alternative has been realized, I certainly will not speak for it. The well-known Soviet mathematician Shafarevich, a member of the Soviet Academy of Science, has written a brilliant book under the title Socialism; it is a profound analysis showing that socialism of any type and shade leads to a total destruction of the human spirit and to a leveling of mankind into death. Shafarevich’s book was published in France almost two years ago and so far no one has been found to refute it. It will shortly be published in English in the United States.

但愿在座的各位不要怀疑我对西方体制提出个人批评的动机，这断不是为了让社会主义取而代之。这种取代曾在我的国家变为现实，亲身经历之后，我绝不会为社会主义说话。著名数学家、俄科学院院士伊戈尔?沙法列维奇先生曾著有《社会主义》一书。该书深刻的分析指出：任何性质、任何程度的社会主义都将导致人性的彻底毁灭甚至人类的灭亡。这本好书两年前在法国出版，迄今为止没有任何人对其观点提出异议。此书不久也将在英美面世。

Not a Model

并非模范

But should someone ask me whether I would indicate the West such as it is today as a model to my country, frankly I would have to answer negatively. No, I could not recommend your society in its present state as an ideal for the transformation of ours. Through intense suffering our country has now achieved a spiritual development of such intensity that the Western system in its present state of spiritual exhaustion does not look attractive. Even those characteristics of your life which I have just mentioned are extremely saddening.

但若要问我当今西方能否成为苏联的范式，我必须诚恳地做出否定。不，我不能把眼下你们的社会当作理想模型推荐给祖国的转型。深哀巨痛之后，我的国家所企及的精神高度使得西方世界变得不再诱人。精神资源的枯竭，甚至令那些你们生活中曾经鲜明的特点（包括我前面提到过的）逐渐褪色。

A fact which cannot be disputed is the weakening of human beings in the West while in the East they are becoming firmer and stronger. Six decades for our people and three decades for the people of Eastern Europe; during that time we have been through a spiritual training far in advance of Western experience. Life’s complexity and mortal weight have produced stronger, deeper and more interesting characters than those produced by standardized Western well-being. Therefore if our society were to be transformed into yours, it would mean an improvement in certain aspects, but also a change for the worse on some particularly significant scores. It is true, no doubt, that a society cannot remain in an abyss of lawlessness, as is the case in our country. But it is also demeaning for it to elect such mechanical legalistic smoothness as you have. After the suffering of decades of violence and oppression, the human soul longs for things higher, warmer and purer than those offered by today’s mass living habits, introduced by the revolting invasion of publicity, by TV stupor and by intolerable music.

人性在西方衰落的同时，在东方的扎根和崛起已是不争的事实。我们曾经经受了远远高于西方的精神锻造，对于东欧人民，它长达三十年，而对于苏联人民——六十年。相较于标准的西方式福祉，生命的复杂和沉重在我们身上烙下了更强烈、更深刻也更值得玩味的民族性格。正因为如此，一旦我们的社会转型为你们的模式，那虽然意味着一些方面的进步，但更意味着在更重要的领域中衰落。诚然，毫无疑问，一个社会不能像我们的国家那样陷落于无法治的深渊。但我国若建立起像你们一样机械尊法的稳定社会，那便无异于自取其辱。经受长久的暴力和压迫之后，人的灵魂有了更高级、更热烈、更纯洁的追求。这种追求超越了现今普遍宣扬的生活方式，并不是对公共性令人作呕的侵入、进行精神催眠的电视节目和不堪的音乐所能够满足的。

All this is visible to observers from all the worlds of our planet. The Western way of life is less and less likely to become the leading model.

对这个星球上任何角落的观察家，这一点都显而易见：西方的生活方式越来越不可能成为世界的榜样。

There are meaningful warnings that history gives a threatened or perishing society. Such are, for instance, the decadence of art, or a lack of great statesmen. There are open and evident warnings, too. The center of your democracy and of your culture is left without electric power for a few hours only, and all of a sudden crowds of American citizens start looting and creating havoc. The smooth surface film must be very thin, then, the social system quite unstable and unhealthy.

历史给予将要衰退或濒临灭亡的社会一些意味深长的暗示，艺术的颓败和杰出政治家的稀缺便是个中例证。当然，昭然若揭的警告也同时存在。只要失去电力短短几个小时间，你们的文明和民主的核心将不复存在，美国公民便将在转瞬之间沦为强盗，并制造惊人的破坏。这意味着社会的表面光鲜然而不堪一击，社会体制事实上十分不稳定且不健康。

But the fight for our planet, physical and spiritual, a fight of cosmic proportions, is not a vague matter of the future; it has already started. The forces of Evil have begun their decisive offensive, you can feel their pressure, and yet your screens and publications are full of prescribed smiles and raised glasses. What is the joy about?

然而一场为了这个世界的战争，一场物质上和精神上的大战，并非对未来的臆测 。它，已经打响。邪恶势力的全面进攻早已展开，你能感觉到他们的压力，但你的电视屏幕和报刊杂志里仍然充斥着程式化的微笑和高举的酒杯。这愉悦从何而来?

Shortsightedness

鼠目寸光

Very well known representatives of your society, such as George Kennan, say: we cannot apply moral criteria to politics. Thus we mix good and evil, right and wrong and make space for the absolute triumph of absolute Evil in the world. On the contrary, only moral criteria can help the West against communism’s well planned world strategy. There are no other criteria. Practical or occasional considerations of any kind will inevitably be swept away by strategy. After a certain level of the problem has been reached, legalistic thinking induces paralysis; it prevents one from seeing the size and meaning of events.

许多从你们这个社会涌现出的知名人物，例如乔治-凯南(译者按：George Kennan 美国政治学家，在1946年任驻苏联代办时向美国政府提出”遏制”政策)，说：我们不能把道德准则运用到政治上。于是我们混淆了正与邪，对与错，同时为这个世界上彻头彻尾的邪恶势力之最终胜利开道。而与之相反的是，只有坚守道德准则才能帮助西方世界对抗共产主义缜密的世界战略，舍此无它。任何现实的或偶然的想法都会不可避免地被战略所取代。而当这个问题上升到一定程度之后，循规蹈矩的想法催生麻痹；而它使人无法认识到任何事件的大小与意义。

In spite of the abundance of information, or maybe because of it, the West has difficulties in understanding reality such as it is. There have been naive predictions by some American experts who believed that Angola would become the Soviet Union’s Vietnam or that Cuban expeditions in Africa would best be stopped by special U.S. courtesy to Cuba. Kennan’s advice to his own country — to begin unilateral disarmament — belongs to the same category. If you only knew how the youngest of the Moscow Old Square [1] officials laugh at your political wizards! As to Fidel Castro, he frankly scorns the United States, sending his troops to distant adventures from his country right next to yours.

尽管有着充足的信息（又或许正是因为这样），西方世界很难正确地理解现实。部分美国专家会提出一些极幼稚的揣测：例如认为安哥拉会成为苏联的越南；或者阻止古巴在非洲的远征军的最好办法是特别殷勤地向古巴示好。凯南对他自己国家的建议—-开始单方面裁军—-也是一样。多么希望你们知道克里姆林宫里那些最年轻的官员是如何嘲笑你们的政治奇才的！就像菲德尔-卡斯特罗—-他肆无忌惮地蔑视美国，把军队从你们国家的眼皮底下派遣去远征。

However, the most cruel mistake occurred with the failure to understand the Vietnam war. Some people sincerely wanted all wars to stop just as soon as possible; others believed that there should be room for national, or communist, self-determination in Vietnam, or in Cambodia, as we see today with particular clarity. But members of the U.S. anti-war movement wound up being involved in the betrayal of Far Eastern nations, in a genocide and in the suffering today imposed on 30 million people there. Do those convinced pacifists hear the moans coming from there? Do they understand their responsibility today? Or do they prefer not to hear? The American Intelligentsia lost its [nerve] and as a consequence thereof danger has come much closer to the United States. But there is no awareness of this. Your shortsighted politicians who signed the hasty Vietnam capitulation seemingly gave America a carefree breathing pause; however, a hundredfold Vietnam now looms over you. That small Vietnam had been a warning and an occasion to mobilize the nation’s courage. But if a full-fledged America suffered a real defeat from a small communist half-country, how can the West hope to stand firm in the future?

但是，最残酷的错误随着对越战的误解产生了。有些人渴望所有的战争都能尽快停止；另一些人认为越南或柬埔寨理应有空间实现民族自决（或者共产党自决），正如我们今天特别清晰地看见的那样。但是在一场种族屠杀中、一场置三千万人于痛苦的运动中，美国反战组织的成员们却渐渐开始背叛那些远东国家。听到那儿传来的哭喊了吗，那些狂热的和平主义者们？他们意识到自己今天的责任了吗？或者他们宁愿不听？美国的知识阶层丧失了勇气，导致危险进一步逼近美国。但是没有人意识到这一点。你们那些短视的政治家，草草地在越南签下停战协议书，似乎给美国带来了一刻的无忧无虑；但是现在，一个百倍于越南的阴影正逼近你们。小小的越南已经成为一个警告和一个让这个国家鼓起勇气的机会。但是如果羽翼丰满的美国在共产党控制着的半个越南承受了彻底的失败，西方世界又如何寄望在未来屹立不倒？

I have had occasion already to say that in the 20th century democracy has not won any major war without help and protection from a powerful continental ally whose philosophy and ideology it did not question. In World War II against Hitler, instead of winning that war with its own forces, which would certainly have been sufficient, Western democracy grew and cultivated another enemy who would prove worse and more powerful yet, as Hitler never had so many resources and so many people, nor did he offer any attractive ideas, or have such a large number of supporters in the West — a potential fifth column — as the Soviet Union. At present, some Western voices already have spoken of obtaining protection from a third power against aggression in the next world conflict, if there is one; in this case the shield would be China. But I would not wish such an outcome to any country in the world. First of all, it is again a doomed alliance with Evil; also, it would grant the United States a respite, but when at a later date China with its billion people would turn around armed with American weapons, America itself would fall prey to a genocide similar to the one perpetrated in Cambodia in our days.

我在许多场合都可以说，民主国家在20世纪还没有独自赢得任何重要的胜利；它总要依赖欧陆强有力的盟友,并从未质疑其哲学和意识形态。在二战对抗希特勒中，西方世界的力量显然足以击败希特勒。但他们没有选择这样做，而是为他们自己培养了另外一个敌人。目前看来，这是一个更可怕、更强大的敌人，因为希特勒从来没有像苏联一样有如此多的资源和人口，充满诱惑力的意识形态，以及如此众多来自西方世界的支持者—-他们很可能成为一支新的第五纵队（译者按：Fifth column 意指内奸或叛徒。出自西班牙内战）。

现下西方已经有些声音要求从第三个权力中心获得保护以对抗下一次全球冲突（如果有下一次的话）；这么说来，这面盾牌就是中国。但是无论是哪个国家，我都不希望这种向中国寻求保护的结果会发生。首先，这注定又是一次与邪恶的联盟；另外，虽然这会给美国暂时的安全感，但随后当全幅美式武器装备的中国以及它的十余亿人民一起调转枪口对准美国，美国自己就会成为一次大屠杀的牺牲品，就像柬埔寨一样。

Loss of Willpower

意志的丧失

And yet — no weapons, no matter how powerful, can help the West until it overcomes its loss of willpower. In a state of psychological weakness, weapons become a burden for the capitulating side. To defend oneself, one must also be ready to die; there is little such readiness in a society raised in the cult of material well-being. Nothing is left, then, but concessions, attempts to gain time and betrayal. Thus at the shameful Belgrade conference free Western diplomats in their weakness surrendered the line where enslaved members of Helsinki Watchgroups are sacrificing their lives.

并且—-无论多么强大的武器都不能帮助西方世界，除非它能克服自身意志力的丧失。一旦心理上软弱，武器就会成为失势一方的负担。自我保护就必须有赴死的准备；而在物质条件优越的环境中成长起来的社会内却极少有此种牺牲的准备。什么都不剩了，只有让步、争取时间以及背叛。于是在耻辱的贝尔格莱德会议中，自由西方的外交官们软弱地放弃了他们的底线，这条底线是身陷囹圄的赫尔辛基观察团的成员们即使牺牲也要坚守的。

Western thinking has become conservative: the world situation should stay as it is at any cost, there should be no changes. This debilitating dream of a status quo is the symptom of a society which has come to the end of its development. But one must be blind in order not to see that oceans no longer belong to the West, while land under its domination keeps shrinking. The two so-called world wars (they were by far not on a world scale, not yet) have meant internal self-destruction of the small, progressive West which has thus prepared its own end. The next war (which does not have to be an atomic one and I do not believe it will) may well bury Western civilization forever.

西方的思想正在变得保守：无论代价多大，世界局势必须像现在这样保持下去，不应该有任何变化。对维持现状的幻想令士气低靡，但这是一个社会发展将至尽头的征兆。只有瞎了的人才不会看见那些海洋已经不属于西方，而受西方支配的土地正在缩水。两场所谓的”世界大战”（它们目前看来还算不上世界范围）意味着小而进步着的欧洲从内部自我毁灭，进而成为自己的掘墓人。下一场战争（不一定非得是核战争，我自己就不相信会有核大战[就不相信非核战不可]）很有可能把欧洲文明永远埋葬。

Facing such a danger, with such historical values in your past, at such a high level of realization of freedom and apparently of devotion to freedom, how is it possible to lose to such an extent the will to defend oneself?

你们的历史如此有价值，你们对自由的认识如此之高，并且显然对其投入如此之深，在面对这样巨大的危险时怎么可能丧失自我保护的意志力到如此严重的程度？

Humanism and Its Consequences

人本主义及其诸后果

How has this unfavorable relation of forces come about? How did the West decline from its triumphal march to its present sickness? Have there been fatal turns and losses of direction in its development? It does not seem so. The West kept advancing socially in accordance with its proclaimed intentions, with the help of brilliant technological progress. And all of a sudden it found itself in its present state of weakness.

这些力量之间令人不快的关系是怎样出现的？西方世界如何从曾经的胜利前行衰落到如今的病态？它的发展中是否有过致命的转折点和方向的迷失呢？事情看起来并不如此。西方社会在科技进步的帮助下一直在前行着，向着它曾经向全世界宣告的意图。然后突然之间它发现自己在现今这样一种病态之中。

This means that the mistake must be at the root, at the very basis of human thinking in the past centuries. I refer to the prevailing Western view of the world which was first born during the Renaissance and found its political expression from the period of the Enlightenment. It became the basis for government and social science and could be defined as rationalistic humanism or humanistic autonomy: the proclaimed and enforced autonomy of man from any higher force above him. It could also be called anthropocentricity, with man seen as the center of everything that exists.

The turn introduced by the Renaissance evidently was inevitable historically. The Middle Ages had come to a natural end by exhaustion, becoming an intolerable despotic repression of man’s physical nature in favor of the spiritual one. Then, however, we turned our backs upon the Spirit and embraced all that is material with excessive and unwarranted zeal. This new way of thinking, which had imposed on us its guidance, did not admit the existence of intrinsic evil in man nor did it see any higher task than the attainment of happiness on earth. It based modern Western civilization on the dangerous trend to worship man and his material needs. Everything beyond physical well-being and accumulation of material goods, all other human requirements and characteristics of a subtler and higher nature, were left outside the area of attention of state and social systems, as if human life did not have any superior sense.That provided access for evil, of which in our days there is a free and constant flow. Merely freedom does not in the least solve all the problems of human life and it even adds a number of new ones.

这意味着，问题深及根部，在前几个世纪人类思考的最底层。我指的是当今盛行的西方对世界的看法,它最初诞生于文艺复兴时,自启蒙运动以降登上政治舞台。被宣告和保障的，相对于任何高于个人的力量的个体自治，它成了政府和社会科学的基石,可被称为理性主义的人本主义,或人本主义式的人类自治权,宣称并强调该权天授。这也可以被称为人类中心说，把人看作是现存万物的中心。从历史的角度来看,文艺复兴导入的这一转向显然不可避免。中世纪寿终正寝,成了一种无可忍受的专制，被认为存天理、灭人欲（译者按：原译对中世纪的评价有失公允，讲者并未称中世纪本身专制，而是意指其气数已尽，故显得专制)。但是在那之后，我们背身离开精神追求，继而以一种过度且无来由的热忱，拥抱物质的一切。这种新的思维，把它的指引强加在我们身上，也不承认除汲汲以求在世的幸福外还有更高的追求。它将现代西方文明奠基于这一危险的倾向，即对人及其物质需求的顶礼膜拜。对于超越肉体康健和物质财富积累的事，人那一切更细腻更崇高的要求和特点，国家和社会均视若无睹，仿佛人的生活不存在任何更脱俗的维度。这就为邪恶大开方便之门,在我们这个时代,它已畅通无阻、屡见不鲜。仅仅自由绝不能解决所有关于人类生活的问题，反而会带来许多新的麻烦。

However, in early democracies, as in American democracy at the time of its birth, all individual human rights were granted because man is God’s creature. That is, freedom was given to the individual conditionally, in the assumption of his constant religious responsibility. Such was the heritage of the preceding thousand years. Two hundred or even fifty years ago, it would have seemed quite impossible, in America, that an individual could be granted boundless freedom simply for the satisfaction of his instincts or whims. Subsequently, however, all such limitations were discarded everywhere in the West; a total liberation occurred from the moral heritage of Christian centuries with their great reserves of mercy and sacrifice. State systems were becoming increasingly and totally materialistic. The West ended up by truly enforcing human rights, sometimes even excessively, but man’s sense of responsibility to God and society grew dimmer and dimmer. In the past decades, the legalistically selfish aspect of Western approach and thinking has reached its final dimension and the world wound up in a harsh spiritual crisis and a political impasse. All the glorified technological achievements of Progress, including the conquest of outer space, do not redeem the Twentieth century’s moral poverty which no one could imagine even as late as in the Nineteenth Century.

但是，在一些早期的民主体制下，比如在刚诞生时的美国民主，所有个人人权的赋予是因为人是上帝的创造物。也就是说，自由是在个人会履行他的宗教责任的前提下有条件地赋予个人的。这是之前一千多年的传承。在两百年甚至五十年前的美国，一个人并不是很可能仅仅因为他的直觉或者一时的兴致被满足，而被授予了没有限制的自由。然而随后，在西方所有人权上的限制都被抛弃了；人类彻底自由了，不再受缚于基督教时代的道德遗产，不再受缚于那些时代海量储备的慈悲和牺牲的观念。国家体制愈加物质至上，被彻底地物质化了。西方社会最终真正地，有时甚至过度地，保障了人权，但是人们对于上帝和社会的责任感却越来越淡漠。在过去的几十年里，西方思维里那种唯法式的锱铢必较和自私已经达到了极致，并且给这个世界带来了一场精神危机和政治僵局。所有那些受到追捧的技术成果，它们头顶启蒙运动的进步光环，包括对于外太空的征服，都无法挽回２０世纪的道德破产。这种道德赤贫甚至晚至１９世纪都无人能够想象。

An Unexpected Kinship

意料之外的血缘

As humanism in its development became more and more materialistic, it made itself increasingly accessible to speculation and manipulation at first by socialism and then by communism. So that Karl Marx was able to say in 1844 that “communism is naturalized humanism.”

当人本主义在它发展中变得愈加物质的同时，它也使自己更加得容易被，首先是社会主义，之后是共产主义 ，投机利用和玩弄，所以在1844年，卡尔?马克思可以说共产主义是自然化的人本主义。

This statement turned out not to be entirely senseless. One does see the same stones in the foundations of a despiritualized humanism and of any type of socialism: endless materialism; freedom from religion and religious responsibility, which under communist regimes reach the stage of anti-religious dictatorship; concentration on social structures with a seemingly scientific approach. (This is typical of the Enlightenment in the Eighteenth Century and of Marxism). Not by coincidence all of communism’s meaningless pledges and oaths are about Man, with a capital M, and his earthly happiness. At first glance it seems an ugly parallel: common traits in the thinking and way of life of today’s West and today’s East? But such is the logic of materialistic development.

这个论断后来被证明并非是完全不合情理的。你可以在世俗化的人文主义或者任何种类的社会主义的基座中看到相同的石头：无穷尽的物质主义；自由于宗教以及宗教责任，这种自由在共产主义政权之下发展到了反宗教独裁；注意力以一种看似科学的方法集中在社会架构上（这是18世纪的启蒙运动和马克思主义都有的特征）。果不其然，所有共产主义的无意义誓言和口号都是关于人的，这个带着一个大写M的人（人类的英文单词为man）和人的俗世幸福。初次看，这样的平行显得有些丑陋：现今的西方和东方社会在思考和生活方式中有着共同的特点。但是这就是物质主义发展的逻辑。

The interrelationship is such, too, that the current of materialism which is most to the left always ends up by being stronger, more attractive and victorious, because it is more consistent. Humanism without its Christian heritage cannot resist such competition. We watch this process in the past centuries and especially in the past decades, on a world scale as the situation becomes increasingly dramatic. Liberalism was inevitably displaced by radicalism, radicalism had to surrender to socialism and socialism could never resist communism. The communist regime in the East could stand and grow due to the enthusiastic support from an enormous number of Western intellectuals who felt a kinship and refused to see communism’s crimes. When they no longer could do so, they tried to justify them. In our Eastern countries, communism has suffered a complete ideological defeat; it is zero and less than zero. But Western intellectuals still look at it with interest and with empathy, and this is precisely what makes it so immensely difficult for the West to withstand the East.

人文主义和物质主义的之间的关系也是如此，极左的物质主义潮流常常以变得更强大，更有吸引力和赢取更大的胜利为结局，因为它更始终如一。缺少基督教传承的人文主义不能抵挡这样的竞争。在过去的几个世纪，特别是过去的几十年中，我们目睹这过程的发生；而情况正变得更加有戏剧性，它已蔓延到了世界范围。自由主义不可避免地被激进主义所取代，激进主义必须降伏于社会主义而社会主义却无法阻挡共产主义的到来。东方的共产主义政权之所以能够维系并发展，是因为西方有许多知识分子给予热情的支持，他们感觉和共产主义者们有一种血缘关系并且对共产主义的罪行视而不见。当他们无法再这么做时，他们选择去为共产主义辩护。在我们的东欧国家里，共产主义遭受了一场彻底的意识形态上的失败；其结果是零甚至低于零。但是西方的知识分子们依旧饶有兴趣并带着同情地观望，这就使西方社会抵挡东方社会变得极其困难。

Before the Turn

转折以先

I am not examining here the case of a world war disaster and the changes which it would produce in society. As long as we wake up every morning under a peaceful sun, we have to lead an everyday life. There is a disaster, however, which has already been under way for quite some time. I am referring to the calamity of a despiritualized and irreligious humanistic consciousness.

在这里，我并不是在审视这种发生世界大战灾难的情况，以及它所可能带来的社会变化。只要我们在每天清晨在宁静的太阳下醒来，我们就必须去过我们的日常生活。但是一场灾难已经持续了许久，这灾难就是世俗化的和非宗教的人文主义意识。

To such consciousness, man is the touchstone in judging and evaluating everything on earth. Imperfect man, who is never free of pride, self-interest, envy, vanity, and dozens of other defects. We are now experiencing the consequences of mistakes which had not been noticed at the beginning of the journey. On the way from the Renaissance to our days we have enriched our experience, but we have lost the concept of a Supreme Complete Entity which used to restrain our passions and our irresponsibility. We have placed too much hope in political and social reforms, only to find out that we were being deprived of our most precious possession: our spiritual life. In the East, it is destroyed by the dealings and machinations of the ruling party. In the West, commercial interests tend to suffocate it. This is the real crisis. The split in the world is less terrible than the similarity of the disease plaguing its main sections.

在这样的意识看来，人是判断和评价地球上所有事物的标准。不完美的人类，他从来没有从骄傲，自私，嫉妒，虚荣以及许许多多其他的不完美中解脱出来。我们现在正在经历着错误的结果，这些错误在路途的开始时就没有被注意。从文艺复兴一直到我们现今的时代，我们丰富了自己的经历，却失去了至高完整实体的概念，这个概念曾经约束着我们的激情和不负责任。我们在政治和社会改革中投入了太多的希望，却发现我们被剥夺了最珍贵的财产：我们的精神生活。在东方，它被执政党的交易和阴谋所摧毁。在西方，商业利益正要使它窒息。这是一场真正的危机。这个世界的主要地区正被相似的疾病所折磨，这比世界的分裂更可怕。

If humanism were right in declaring that man is born to be happy, he would not be born to die. Since his body is doomed to die, his task on earth evidently must be of a more spiritual nature. It cannot unrestrained enjoyment of everyday life. It cannot be the search for the best ways to obtain material goods and then cheerfully get the most out of them. It has to be the fulfillment of a permanent, earnest duty so that one’s life journey may become an experience of moral growth, so that one may leave life a better human being than one started it. It is imperative to review the table of widespread human values. Its present incorrectness is astounding. It is not possible that assessment of the President’s performance be reduced to the question of how much money one makes or of unlimited availability of gasoline. Only voluntary, inspired self-restraint can raise man above the world stream of materialism.

It would be retrogression to attach oneself today to the ossified formulas of the Enlightenment. Social dogmatism leaves us completely helpless in front of the trials of our times.

人文主义宣称人的出生是为了快乐，如果这是对的，那么他出生就不会死去；既然他的躯体注定会死，人生在世显然就有更为属灵的追求．它不可能是放纵地享受每天的生活。它不可能是先寻找获得物质财富最佳途径，继而欢乐地最大程度地利用。它必须是对一种永久而真诚的任务的履行，这让一个人的生命旅程有可能变得是一场道德成长的经历，这让一个人在离开自己的生命时能比他开始的时候成为一个更好的人。对普遍的人类价值观进行一番检讨势在必行。这些价值观在现今的错误使人震惊。对一个总统表现的评测不可能简化到一个人可以赚多少钱或者石油是否可以无限量供应。只有自愿的，有创见的自我控制能够使人超越这物欲横流的世界。把如今的自己归属于启蒙运动的僵化公式是一种倒退。在我们的时代的审判前，社会教条主义让我们完全无助。

Even if we are spared destruction by war, our lives will have to change if we want to save life from self-destruction. We cannot avoid revising the fundamental definitions of human life and human society. Is it true that man is above everything? Is there no Superior Spirit above him? Is it right that man’s life and society’s activities have to be determined by material expansion in the first place? Is it permissible to promote such expansion to the detriment of our spiritual integrity?

即使我们逃过了战争的破坏，我们的生活还是需要通过改变来避免自我毁灭。我们不可避免地要修改关于人类生活和人类社会的的基础定义。人真的高于一切吗?真的没有更高级的神灵高于他吗？人类的生活和社会活动是否一定要在一开始就被物质扩张所决定了呢？让这种（物质）扩张来损坏我们的精神正直，这是否是被允许的呢？

If the world has not come to its end, it has approached a major turn in history, equal in importance to the turn from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance. It will exact from us a spiritual upsurge, we shall have to rise to a new height of vision, to a new level of life where our physical nature will not be cursed as in the Middle Ages, but, even more importantly, our spiritual being will not be trampled upon as in the Modern era.

This ascension will be similar to climbing onto the next anthropologic stage. No one on earth has any other way left but — upward.

假如这个世界还未到尽头，那它就已经到达了一个历史的大转折点，这个转折点的重要性相当于中世纪到文艺复兴的转折。这将迫使我们进行一次灵性的飞升，我们必须把视野提高到一个新的高度，我们必须去到一个新的生活层次，在这个层次上我们呢的生理天性不会像在中世纪那样被咒骂，但是更重要的是，我们的精神生命不会像在这摩登时代一样遭受践踏。

这个上升类似于爬到一个新的人类学阶段。人无他路可走，除却——向上。

________________________________________

Source: Texts of Famous Speeches at Harvard

来源：哈佛著名演说文本

Re-formatted in HTML by The Augustine Club at Columbia University, 1997

格式重组：哥伦比亚大学，奥古斯丁俱乐部，augustine@columbia.edu

译者简介：

所有译者来自【HFLS阅读】小组，为杭州外国语学校毕业生自组的网络读书小组。

李嘉：杭外08届毕业生，就读于香港大学政治学与法学专业

林子劼：杭外07届毕业生，就读于新加坡南洋理工大学EEE专业

吕诗旸：杭外08届毕业生，就读于美国哥伦比亚大学

马金馨：杭外05届毕业生，就读于香港大学新闻学专业

毛明超：杭外08届毕业生，就读于北京大学德语与哲学专业

施娱：杭外08届毕业生，就读于北京大学法语与经济学专业

袁翀：杭外06届毕业生，就读于美国Saint Louis University哲学专业