The Unhappy American Way
Bertrand Russell
It used to be said that English people take their pleasures sadly. No doubt this would still be true if they had any pleasures to take, but the price of alcohol and tobacco in my country has provided sufficient external causes for melancholy. I have sometimes thought that the habit of taking pleasures sadly has crossed the Atlantic, and I have wondered what it is that makes so many English-speaking people somber in their outlook in spite of good health and a good income.
人们常说英国人哪怕遇上乐事也还是落落寡欢。这一说法无疑是正确的—如果他们还有乐事可遇的话—可如今的酒价烟价，让我的同胞们有的是理由发愁。有时我觉着对乐事落落寡欢这种习惯已经飘洋过海到了美国，我还纳闷到底是什么使得英语国家人士态度消沉，尽管他们身体健康，收入颇丰。
In the course of my travels in America I have been impressed by a kind of fundamental malaise which seems to me extremely common and which poses difficult problems for the social reformer. Most social reformers have held the opinion that, if poverty were abolished and there were no more economic insecurity, the millennium would have arrived. But when I look at the faces of people in opulent cars, whether in your country or in mine, I do not see that look of radiant happiness which the aforesaid social
reformers had led me to expect. In nine cases out of ten, I see instead a look of boredom and discontent and an almost frantic longing for something that might tickle the jaded palate.
在美国期间，给我留下深刻印象的是一种根深蒂固的抑郁；这种抑郁在我看来极为普遍，给社会改革家出了莫大的难题。多数社会改革家认为，一旦摆脱贫困，经济不复动荡，就能迎来黄金盛世。如此说来，那些开着豪华车的人脸上应该洋溢着幸福了，可恰恰相反，十有八九，我在这些人（不论是在我国还是贵国）脸上看到的是厌烦、不满、以及一种近乎疯狂的渴望，渴望有什么东西能刺激他们业已疲惫的兴味。tickle
But it is not only the very rich who suffer in this way. Professional men very frequently feel hopelessly thwarted. There is something that they long to do or some public object that they long to work for. But if they were to indulge their wishes in these respects, they fear that they would lose their livelihood. Their wives are equally unsatisfied, for their neighbor, Mrs
So-and-So, has gone ahead more quickly, has a better car, a larger apartment and grander friends.
不过这种烦恼并非富人所独有。职业人士也时常感到无可救药的沮丧。他们有自己想做的事情或愿意为公众事业出力；但他们若沉溺于这些事情，恐怕生计就成了问题。他们的妻子也会同样不快，因为那样他们的邻居某某太太就会遥遥领先，有更高级的车，更宽敞的住所和更体面的朋友。
Life for almost everybody is a long competitive struggle where very few can win the race, and those who do not win are unhappy. On social occasions when it is derigueur to seem cheerful, the necessary demeanor is stimulated by alcohol. But the gaiety does not ring true and anybody who has just one drink too many is apt to lapse into lachrymose melancholy.
几乎人人都把生活看作一场漫长而艰巨的竞争，胜出的不过寥寥几人，落败的则皆为不幸。在有些场合需要显得兴致高昂，人们就靠酒精来提升情绪。可这种兴致不是出于由衷，只要喝得略微过头，情绪又归于低落。
One finds this sort of thing only among English-speaking people. A Frenchman while he is abusing the Government is as gay as a lark. So is an Italian while he is telling you how his neighbor has swindled him. Mexicans, when they are not actually starving or actually being murdered, sing and dance and enjoy sunshine and food and drink with a gusto which is very rare north of the Mexican frontier. When Andrew Jackson conquered Pensacola from the Spaniards, his wife looked out of the window and saw the population enjoying itself although it was Sunday. She pointed out the scandal to her husband, who decreed that cheerfulness must cease forthwith. And it did.
这种情形只在英语国家人士身上出现。法国人痛骂政府时，如云雀一般快乐。意大利人对你讲述遭邻居
欺骗的经历时也是如此。除非实在饿坏了或是被人谋害，墨西哥人会载歌载舞，尽情享受阳光，大吃大喝；这种情形在墨西哥以北的美国就极为少见了。当安德鲁杰克逊从西班牙人手中夺得彭沙科拉后，他的妻子向窗外望去，发现尽管当时是星期天，当地人民却在尽情享乐。她把这件丑事告诉丈夫，他便下令停止寻欢作乐。于是欢乐结束了。
When I try to understand what it is that prevents so many Americans from being as happy as one might expect, it seems to me that there are two causes, of which one goes much deeper than the other. The one that goes least deep is the necessity for subservience in some
large organization. If you are an energetic man with strong views as to the right way of doing the job with which you are concerned, you find yourself invariably under the orders of some big man at the top who is elderly, weary and cynical. Whenever you have a bright idea, the boss puts a stopper on it. The more energetic you are and the more vision you have, the more you will suffer from the impossibility of doing any of the things that you feel ought to be done. When you go home and moan to your wife, she tells you that you are a silly fellow and that if you became the proper sort of yes-man your income would soon be doubled. If you try divorce and remarriage it is very unlikely that there will be any change in this respect. And so you are condemned to gastric ulcers and premature old age.
我试图了解是什么使美国人无法获得人们预料中的快乐，结果我想到两个原因，其中一个比另一个更为深刻。最浅显的原因是：在大型机构里必须表示服从。假使你精力充沛并对你关注的工作有独到的见解，你肯定要听命于某位顶头上司，而该上司年老力衰，尖酸刻薄/难以取悦。无论何时你提出一个出的想法，你的上司总要使之落空。你越有活力和见解，就越为不能为可为之事而痛苦。你要是回家对妻子抱怨，她会说你是个傻瓜—假如你能学会唯上司之命是从，工资很快就会翻番。若是离婚再娶，多半还是于事无补。所以你注定要得胃溃疡，注定未老先衰。
It was not always so. When Dr. Johnson compiled his dictionary, he compiled it as he thought fit. When he felt like saying that oats is food for men in Scotland and horses in England, he said so. When he defined a fishing-rod as a stick with a fish at one end and a fool at the other, there was nobody to point out to him that a remark of this sort would damage the sale of his great work among fishermen. But if, in the present day, you are (let us say) a contributor to an encyclopedia, there is an editorial policy which is solemn, wise and prudent, which allows no room for jokes, no place for personal preferences and no tolerance for idiosyncrasies. Everything has to be flattened out except where the prejudices of the editor are concerned. To these you must conform, however little you may share them. And so you have to be content with dollars instead of creative satisfaction. And the dollars, alas, leave you sad.
这种情形也不是一成不变。约翰逊博士编字典就是觉得怎么合适就怎么编。他高兴说燕麦在苏格兰为人
食，在英格兰为马食，就真的这么说了。他把钓鱼竿定义为一端是鱼一端是傻子的棍子时，也没人对他说这样的说法会降低字典在渔民中的销量。可要是在如今，你要是（比方说）参与一部百科全书的编纂工作，编纂的原则就会是力求庄重、
明智与谨慎。不能开玩笑，不能有个人喜好，不能有个人特。除了考虑主编的成见，必须千篇一律。主编的意见必须遵从，哪怕你不敢苟同。你应该为钱高兴，而不是为自己的创意满足。而钱这东西，唉，带给你的只有悲哀。
This brings me to the major cause of unhappiness, which is that most people in America act not on impulse but on some principle, and that principles upon which people act are usually based upon a false psychology and a false ethic. There is a general theory as to what makes for happiness and this theory is false. Life is concerned as a competitive struggle in which felicity consists in getting ahead of your neighbor. The joys which are not competitive are forgotten.
这么一来就说到了无法快乐的主要原因，那就是多数美国人都生活得循规蹈矩而非随心所欲，而他们所遵循的规矩又是以错误的心理和伦理准则为基础的。有这么个关于如何得到快乐的基本理论，理论本身却是不对的：生活被看成一场竞赛，能超过自己的邻居才能觉得快乐；与竞争无关的快乐则被抛诸脑后。
Now, I will not for a moment deny that getting ahead of your neighbor is delightful, but it is not the only delight of which human beings are capable. There are innumerable things which are not competitive. It is possible to enjoy food and drink without having to reflect that you have a better cook and a better wine merchant than your former friends whom you are learning to cold shoulder. It is possible to be fond of your wife and your children without reflecting how much better she dresses than Mrs. So-and-So and how much better they are at athletics than the children of that old stick-in-the-mud Mr. Such-and-Such. There are those who can enjoy music without thinking how cultured the other ladies in their women’s club will be thinking them. There are even people who can enjoy a fine day in spite of the fact that the sun shines on everybody. All these simple pleasures are destroyed as soon as competitiveness gets the upper hand.
我从来不否认胜过自己的邻居是一件让人开心的事情，可人并非只有如此才能快乐。有很多事情是不需要跟他人比较的。你完全可以尽情吃喝，而不必想到你的厨师和酒商比你以前一些朋友的强—对这些朋友你已开始日渐冷淡。你完全可以真心喜爱自己的妻子和儿女，而不必想到自己的妻子比某某太太穿着光鲜，不必想到自己的孩子比那个老顽固某某先生的孩子在运动方面远为出。有些人因为喜欢才去听音乐，她们并不会考虑女子俱乐部的其他女士们对她们的教养评价有多高。还有些人能好好享受好天
气，尽管太阳会照在每个人身上。一旦与人比较的意识占了上风，这些单纯的快乐就不复存在。
But it is not only competitiveness that is the trouble. I could imagine a person who has turned against competitiveness and can only enjoy after conscious rejection of the competitive element. Such a person, seeing the sunshine in the morning, says to himself, “Yes, I may enjoy this and indeed I must, for it is a joy open to all.” And however bored he may become with the sunshine he goes on persuading himself that he is enjoying it because he thinks he ought to.
竞争意识其实还不是唯一的症结所在。可以想象有这么一个人，他极其反对与人比较，而且只有在有意排除竞争因素后才能觉得快乐。这个人看见清晨的阳光时会对自己说：“没错，我可以享受阳光，实际上我必须这么做，因为所有人都能享受阳光。”不管他在阳光下觉得多么乏味，他还是不断劝说自己他是乐在其中，因为他觉得应该这么做。
“But,” you will say, “are you maintaining that our actions ought not to be governed by moral principles? Are you suggesting that every whim and every impulse should be given free rein? Do you consider that if So-and-So’s nose annoys you by being too long, that gives you a right to tweak it?” “Sir,” you will continue with indignation,” “your doctrine is one which would uproot all the sources of morality and loosen all the bonds which hold society together. Only self-restraint, self-repression, iron self-control make it possible to endure the abominable beings among whom we have to live. No, sir! Better misery and gastric ulcers than such cha os as your doctrine would produce!”
“可是”，你大概会说，“难不成你认为，我们的行为不应该受道德准则的约束？你的意思是可以放纵所有的任性和冲动？你是不是觉着如果某某人的鼻子太长，让你看着不顺眼，你就可以拧上一把？先生，”你会义愤填膺地说下去，“你的信条会摧毁道德的根源，动摇用以维系社会的根本力量。只有靠自我约束、自我抑制和坚强的自我意志，我们才能忍受那些生活在身旁的怪物。不行，先生！宁可痛苦，宁可得胃溃疡，也比你的信条生出的乱子强！”
I will admit at once that there is force in this objection. I have seen many noses that I should have liked to tweak, but never once have I yielded to the impulse. But this, like everything else, is a matter of degree. If you always yield to impulse, you are mad. If you never yield to impulse, you gradually dry up and very likely become mad to boot. In a life