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点击上方“武太白金星人”或长按文末二维码识别后可选择关注，点击右上角按钮可选择分享到朋友圈、发送给微信群，那里是微信阅读的重要场所，恳请帮转。文末有系统广告，请点击进去，这样系统会给我们一点费用，等于是您支持了我们的发展。感谢！ ------------------------ 本篇选自BBC Reith Lectures，是1948年讲座开篇邀请到的英国哲学家、数学家伯特兰·罗素（Bertrand Russell）就“权威与个体”所做的演讲的第四讲。全篇长近半小时，为方便朋友利用零星时间收听，我把这篇分成上下两部分，这样文章也不会显得太长。每周放出上下两篇，这样就是完整的一场讲座，一周能够把这场讲座听好、听透，高级英语学习就有了基本保障。另外，请您把本篇文章分享到您朋友圈，让更多的朋友看到，这也是对我最大的支持。感谢！ 如需对应的、播放时可暂停的单独MP3文件，请关注“武太白金星人”微信订阅号（长按本文末二维码图片选择“识别图中的二维码”后即可轻松关注）后把本文转发到您的朋友圈，然后回复“304”（引号不要的），即可获得相应的分享链接。  In Britain, in recent years, a gallant attempt has been made to appeal to the sense of duty. Austerity is, for the present, unavoidable, and increase of production is the only way out. This is undeniable, and an appeal of this sort is no, doubt necessary during a time of crisis. But sense of duty, valuable and indispensable as it may sometimes be, is not a permanent solution, and is not likely to be successful over a long period. It involves a sense of strain, and a constant resistance so natural impulses, which, if continued, must be exhausting and productive of a diminution of natural energy. If it is urged, not on the basis of some simple traditional ethic, such as the Ten Commandments, but on complicated economic and political grounds, weariness will lead to scepticism as to the arguments involved, and many people will either become simply indifferent or adopt some probably untrue theory suggesting that there is a short cut to prosperity. Men can be stimulated by hope or driven by fear, but the hope and the fear must be vivid and immediate if they are to be effective without producing weariness. It is partly for this reason that hysterical propaganda, or at least propaganda intended to cause hysteria, has such widespread influence in the modern world. People are aware, in a general way, that their daily lives are affected by things that happen in distant parts of the world, hut they have not the knowledge to understand how this happens, except in the case of a small number of experts. Why is there no rice? Why are bananas so rare? Why have hens apparently ceased to lay eggs? If you lay the blame on India, or red tape, or the capitalist system, or socialism, you conjure up in people’s minds a mythical personified devil whom it is easy to hate. In every misfortune it is a natural impulse to look for an enemy upon whom to lay the blame; savages attribute all illness to hostile magic. Whenever the causes of our troubles are too difficult to be understood, we tend to fall back upon this primitive kind of explanation. A newspaper which offers us a villain to hate is much more appealing than one which goes into all the intricacies of dollar shortages. When the Germans suffered after the First World War, many of them were easily persuaded that the Jews were to blame. The Destructive Appeal to Hatred The appeal to hatred of a supposed enemy as the explanation of whatever is painful in our lives is usually destructive and disastrous; it stimulates primitive instinctive energy, but in ways the effects of which are catastrophic. There are various ways of diminishing the potency of appeals to hatred. The best way, where it is possible, is to cure the evils which cause us to look out for an enemy. Where this cannot be achieved, it may sometimes be possible to disseminate widely a true understanding of the causes that are producing our misfortunes. But this is difficult so long as there are powerful forces in politics and in the press which flourish by the encouragement of hysteria. I do not think that misfortune, by itself, produces the kind of hysterical hatred that led, for example, to the rise of the Nazis. There has to be a sense of frustration as well as misfortune. A Swiss Family Robinson, finding plenty to do on their island, will not waste time on hatred. But in a more complex situation the activities that are in face necessary may be far less capable of making an immediate appeal to individuals. In the present difficult state of British national economy, we know collectively what is needed: increased production, diminished consumption, and stimulation of exports. But these are large general matters, not very visibly related to the welfare of particular men and women. If the activities that are needed on such apparently remote grounds are to be carried out vigorously and cheerfully, ways must be devised of creating some more immediate reason for doing what the national economy requires. This, I think, demands controlled devolution, and opportunities for desirable more or less independent action by individuals or by groups that are not very large. Democracy, as it exists in large modem states, does not give adequate scope for political initiative except to a tiny minority. We are accustomed to pointing out that what the Greeks called ‘democracy’ fell short through the exclusion of women and slaves, but we do not always realise that in same important respects it was more democratic than anything that is possible when the governmental area is extensive. Every citizen could vote on every issue; he did not have to delegate his power to a representative. He could elect executive officers, including generals, and could get them condemned if they displeased a majority. The number of citizens was small enough for each man to feel that he counted, and that he could have a significant influence by discussion with his acquaintance. I am not suggesting that this system was good on the whole; it had, in fact, very grave disadvantages. But in the one respect of allowing for individual initiative it was very greatly superior to anything that exists in the modern world. Consider, for purposes of illustration, the relation of an ordinary taxpayer to an admiral. The taxpayers collectively are the admiral’s employers. Their agents in Parliament vote his pay, and choose the government which sanctions the authority which appoints the admiral. But if the individual taxpayer were to attempt to assume towards the admiral the attitude of authority which is customary from employer to employee, he would soon be put in his place. The admiral is a great man, accustomed to exercising authority; the ordinary taxpayer is not. In a lesser degree the same sort of thing is true throughout the public services. Even if you only wish to register a letter at a post office, the official is in a position of momentary power; he can at least decide when to notice that you desire attention. If you want anything more complicated, he can, if he happens to be in a bad humour, cause you considerable annoyance; he can send you to another man, who may send you back to the first man; and yet both are reckoned ‘servants’ of the public. The ordinary voter, so far from finding himself the source of all the power of army, navy, police, and civil service, feels himself their humble subject, whose duty is, as the Chinese used to say, to ‘tremble and obey’. So long as democratic control is remote and rare, while public administration is centralised and authority is delegated from the centre to the circumference, this sense of individual impotence before the powers that be is difficult to avoid. And yet it must be avoided if democracy is to be a reality in feeling and not merely in governmental machinery. Most of the evils that we have been concerned with in this lecture are no new thing. Ever since the dawn of civilisation most people in civilised communities have led lives full of misery; glory, adventure, initiative were for the privileged few, while for the multitude there was a life of severe toil with occasional harsh cruelty. But the western nations first, and gradually the whole world, have awakened to a new ideal. We are no longer content that the few should enjoy all the good things while the many are wretched. The evils of early industrialism caused a thrill of horror which they would not have caused in Roman times. Slavery was abolished because it was felt that no human being should be regarded merely as an instrument to the prosperity of another. We no longer attempt, at least in theory, to defend the exploitation of coloured races by white conquerors. Socialism was inspired by the wish to diminish the gap between rich and poor. In all directions, there has been a revolt against injustice and inequality, and an unwillingness to build a brilliant superstructure on a foundation of suffering and degradation. This new belief is now so generally taken for granted that it is not sufficiently realised how revolutionary it is in the long history of mankind. In this perspective the last 160 years appear as a continuous revolution inspired by this idea. Like all new beliefs that are influential, it is uncomfortable, and demands difficult adjustments. There is a danger—as there has been with other gospels—lest means should be mistaken for ends, with the result that ends are forgotten. There is a risk that, in the pursuit of equality, good things which there is difficulty in distributing evenly may not be admitted to be good. Some of the unjust societies of the past gave to a minority opportunities which, if we are not careful, the new society that we seek to build may give to no one. When I speak of the evils of the present day, I do so, not to suggest that they are greater than those of the past, but only to make sure that what was good lit the past should be carried over into the future, as far as possible unharmed by the transition. But if this is to be achieved, some things must be remembered which are apt to be forgotten in blueprints of Utopia. Among the things which are in danger of being unnecessarily sacrificed to democratic equality perhaps the most important is self-respect. By self-respect I mean the good half of pride—what is called ‘proper pride’. The bad half is a sense of superiority. Self-respect will keep a man from being abject when he is in the power of enemies, and will enable him to feel that he may be in the right when the world is against him. If a man has not this quality, he will feel that majority opinion, or governmental opinion is to be treated as infallible, and such a way of feeling, if it is general, makes both moral and intellectual progress impossible. The old load of poverty and suffering and cruelty, from which mankind has suffered since history began, is no longer necessary to the existence of civilisation; it can be removed by the help of modern science and modem technique, provided these are used in a humane spirit and with an understanding of the springs of happiness and life. Without such understanding, we may inadvertently create a new prison just, perhaps, since none will be outside it, but dreary and joyless and spiritually dead. How such a disaster is so be averted, I shall consider in my last two lectures. ------------------------ 长按此处二维码即可识别并轻松关注“武太白金星人”微信订阅号。 |
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来自： 昵称70926123 > 《待分类》
