The idea of progress　　关于进步的观点　　　　Onwards and upwards　　勇往直前，天天向上　　Dec 17th 2009　　From The Economist print edition　　
译者：Jessieshi（经济学人中文论坛）　　
http://www.ecocn.org/bbs/　　　　Why is the modern view of progress so impoverished?　　为什么现代进步观贫乏至此呢？　　　　THE best modern parable of progress was, aptly, ahead of its time. In 1861 Imre Madach published “The Tragedy of Man”, a “Paradise Lost” for the industrial age. The verse drama, still a cornerstone of Hungarian literature, describes how Adam is cast out of the Garden with Eve, renounces God and determines to recreate Eden through his own efforts. “My God is me,” he boasts, “whatever I regain is mine by right. This is the source of all my strength and pride.”　　　　这本关于人类进步的现代最杰出的寓言以高度的智慧和敏感超越了它的时代。1861年，利姆雷.马达可出版了《人类的悲剧》，被誉为工业时代的“失乐园”。这部现在仍是匈牙利文学基石的诗剧，描述了亚当如何与夏娃一起被逐出伊甸园，和上帝断绝关系并决心通过自己的努力再造伊甸园。“我的上帝就是我自己，”他自豪地说“我重获的一切理应属我。此乃我全部力量和自豪的源泉。”　　　　Adam gets the chance to see how much of Eden he will “regain”. He starts in Ancient Egypt and travels in time through 11 tableaux, ending in the icebound twilight of humanity. It is a cautionary tale. Adam glories in the Egyptian pyramids, but he discovers that they are built on the misery of slaves. So he rejects slavery and instead advances to Greek democracy. But when the Athenians condemn a hero, much as they condemned Socrates, Adam forsakes democracy and moves on to harmless, worldly pleasure. Sated and miserable in hedonistic Rome, he looks to the chivalry of the knights crusader. Yet each new reforming principle crumbles before him. Adam replaces 17th-century Prague’s courtly hypocrisy with the rights of man. When equality curdles into Terror under Robespierre, he embraces individual liberty—which is in turn corrupted on the money-grabbing streets of Georgian London. In the future a scientific Utopia has Michelangelo making chair-legs and Plato herding cows, because art and philosophy have no utility. At the end of time, having encountered the savage man who has no guiding principle except violence, Adam is downcast—and understandably so. Suicidal, he pleads with Lucifer: “Let me see no more of my harsh fate: this useless struggle.”　　　　亚当有机会看到他“重新得到”多少伊甸园。他从古埃及出发，穿越了时空的11个场景，最终到达了人类的冰天雪地垂暮苍茫的时分。这是一个警示的故事。亚当为埃及的金字塔而荣耀，但是他发现它们是建立在奴隶的不幸之上的。因此他抛弃了奴隶制度转而向希腊的民主制度。可是当雅典人像当年判苏格拉底死刑那样判决一个英雄有罪时，亚当放弃了民主，继续转向无害的，世俗的欢乐。厌倦了快乐主义的罗马，他向往十字军骑士精神。但是每一项改新革面的信条在他面前都土崩瓦解。亚当以人权取代17世纪布拉格宫廷的伪善。当平等凝结成罗伯斯庇尔( 译者注:罗伯斯庇尔（）.法国革命家，雅各宾派领导人，恐怖统治的创始人，作风俭朴清廉。他的法律允许私人财产充公并逮捕有叛国嫌疑的人，很多人被送上断头台。最终也导致自己被逮捕并不经审判直接处决）的恐怖统治，亚当开始信奉个人自由——而个人自由随后又堕落于乔治王时代贪欲横流的伦敦街头。后来，科学的乌托邦让米开朗基罗做椅子腿，让柏拉图放牛，因为艺术家和哲学家最无用。最后，亚当遇见了拜暴力为唯一行为准则的野蛮人，他终于气馁了——这可以理解。他以自杀恳求黎明之星说 （撒旦未堕落前是黎明之星）“别让我再看我那严酷的命运了：尽是无用的挣扎”。　　　　Things today are not quite that bad. But Madach’s 19th-century verse contains an insight that belongs slap bang in the 21st. In the rich world the idea of progress has become impoverished. Through complacency and bitter experience, the scope of progress has narrowed. The popular view is that, although technology and GDP advance, morals and society are treading water or, depending on your choice of newspaper, sinking back into decadence and barbarism. On the left of politics these days, “progress” comes with a pair of ironic quot on the right, “progressive” is a term of abuse.　　　　今天情况还不至于那么糟糕。但是十九世纪马达可的诗体寓言包含了一个恰巧能适用于21世纪的洞见。在一个富裕的世界，关于进步的观念则变得贫困。 现状引起的自满和经历带来的痛苦都使得进步的视野越变越狭窄。取决于你爱看哪种立场的报纸， 流行的看法是：尽管科技和GDP发展了，道德与社会却停滞不前，甚至可说是， 正在向颓废和野蛮沉沦。在当今政治的左翼，“进步”这两个字必定带有讽刺性的引号； 而对于政治的右翼，“进步人士”也是一个被滥用的术语。 　　　　It was not always like that. There has long been a tension between seeking perfection in life or in the afterlife. Optimists in the Enlightenment and the 19th century came to believe that the mass of humanity could one day lead happy and worthy lives here on Earth. Like Madach’s Adam, they were bursting with ideas for how the world might become a better place.　　　　情况也并非一直都是这样糟糕。 长久以来， 是求今生圆满， 还是求来世完美，一直是不可得兼的难题。18世纪启蒙运动和19世纪中的乐观主义者相信在全人类总有一天能够在地球上过上幸福和有价值的生活。正如马达可笔下的亚当，他们对如何改进世界充满了各种想法。　　　　Some thought God would bring about the New Jerusalem, others looked to history or evolution. Some thought people would improve if left to themselves, others thought they should
some believed in the nation, others i some wanted a perfect language, others some put their hope in science, some had faith in wise legislation, others in anarchy. Intellectual life was teeming with grand ideas. For most people, the question was not whether progress would happen, but how.　　　　一些人认为上帝应该带来一个新的耶路撒冷，另一些人则想从历史或进化论里查找答案。有些人认为人民在放任的状态下会自求改善， 另一些人则认为只有施加压力人民才会去争取自由； 有些人寄希望于民族国家， 另一些人则希望民族国家的终结；一些人想要一种完美的语言，另一些人则看重全民教育；一些人将希望寄托于科学，另一些则寄托于商业；有人忠于英明的立法，有人则倾向无政府主义。智慧的人生伴随伟大的思想倾泻而出。对于大多数人，问题不是进步是否发生，而是怎如何发生。　　　　The idea of progress forms the backdrop to a society. In the extreme, without the possibility of progress of any sort, your gain is someone else’s loss. If human behaviour is unreformable, social policy can only ever be about trying to cage the ape within. Society must in principle be able to move towards its ideals, such as equality and freedom, or they are no more than cant and self-delusion. So it matters if people lose their faith in progress. And it is worth thinking about how to restore it.　　　　关于进步的观念形成了一个社会的大背景。推到极端，如果一点进步都做不到， 利己就必损人。如果人类的行为不可改造， （那么人同猿人并无差别）， 社会政策就永远只能是为了把这个猿人关在笼子里。 　　。原则上讲，社会必须能够朝着完美典范前进，诸如自由和平等，否则那些典范就是伪善和自欺欺人。因此， 如果人们对进步失去信念，问题就大了。如何拾回失去的信念就很值得思考。　　　　Cain and cant　　该隐(译者注:圣经中亚当和夏娃的长子，出于嫉妒杀害了他的兄弟亚伯，最后被流放) 和伪善　　　　By now, some of you will hardly be able to contain your protests. Surely the evidence of progress is all around us? That is the case put forward in “It’s Getting Better All the Time”, by the late Julian Simon and Stephen Moore then at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think-tank in Washington, DC. Over almost 300 pages they show how vastly everyday life has improved in every way.　　　　行文至此，你们中很多人会忍不住反对。难道我们周围不都是进步的明证吗？这就是“情况一直变得越来越好”这本书提出的论点。这本书的作者是已故的Julian Simon and Stephen Moore， 当时被聘于华盛顿自由主义者智库卡托研究所。他们用了几乎300页来描写日常生活如何在各方面都取得巨大的进步。　　　　For aeons people lived to the age of just 25 or 30 and most parents could expect to mourn at least one of their children. Today people live to 65 and, in countries such as Japan and Canada, over 80; outside Africa, a child’s death is mercifully rare. Global average income was for centuries about $200 a typical inhabitant of one of the world’s richer countries now earns that much in a day. In the Middle Ages about one in ten E today, with a few exceptions, such as India and parts of Africa, the global rate is comfortably above eight out of ten. In much of the world, ordinary men and women can vote and find work, regardless of their race. In large parts of it they can think and say what they choose. If they fall ill, they will be treated. If they are innocent, they will generally walk free.　　　　古代人类只能活到25-30岁，绝大多数父母都会失去至少一个孩子。而今天人类能活到65岁，在有些国家如日本和加拿大，平均寿命超过了80岁；非洲以外的地区，鲜有儿童死亡。几个世纪以来全球年人均收入为200美元；而如今这个数字仅仅是典型富国居民一天的收入。中世纪，十个欧洲人里有一个能够阅读；今天，除了印度和非洲的一些地区极个别例外，全球识字率在80%以上。世界上多数地区，一般的公民无论种族都有投票和工作的权利。他们中的大多数有言论自由。病人能够获得医疗，无罪的人拥有人身自由。　　　　　　--------------------------------------------------------------------------------　　It is good to go up in the world, but much less so if everyone around you is going up in it too. 在社会上获得更高的地位是好的，但是如果你身边的每个人都这样，就不那么好了.　　　　--------------------------------------------------------------------------------　　　　　　It is an impressive list—even if you factor in some formidably depressing data. (In the gently dissenting foreword to her husband’s book Simon’s widow quotes statistics claiming that, outside warfare, 20th-century governments murdered 7.3% of their people, through needless famine, labour camps, genocide and other crimes. That compares with 3.7% in the 19th century and 4.7% in the 17th.) Mr Moore and Simon show that health and wealth have never been so abundant. And for the part of humanity that is even now shedding poverty, many gains still lie ahead. 　　　　这是一份令人印象深刻的清单——即使是考虑到一些极其令人沮丧的数据。（西蒙的遗孀在给其丈夫的书所写的序言中引用数据婉转地表示了异议，除了战争杀人外，20世界的政府通过不必要的饥荒，劳动集中营，种族灭绝和其他罪行谋杀了他们7.3%的人民。这与19世纪3.7%和17世纪4.7%的比例形成对比）莫尔和西蒙展示出健康和财富从来没有像现在这样充裕。对那些现在才刚刚进行脱贫的人类而言，很多好东西还在等着他们。　　　　The trouble is that a belief in progress is more than just a branch of accounting. The books are never closed. Wouldn’t nuclear war or environmental catastrophe tip the balance into the red? And the accounts are full of blank columns. How does the unknown book-keeper reconcile such unknowable quantities as happiness and fulfilment across the ages? As Adam traverses history, he sees material progress combined with spiritual decline. 　　　　问题就在于不能只把对进步的信念当作一门会计学处理，其意义不止如此。 进步信念这门会计从无结算清账之日。难道核子战争或环境巨灾不会把资产负债表搞出赤字来？而且这个账本上有很多竖栏是空白未填数字的。那位不知姓名的簿记员又将如何横亘古今核算那些本就无从知晓的数量，比如幸福和成就？亚当的历史之旅，看到了物质的进步伴以精神的堕落。　　　　Even if you can show how miserable the past was, the belief in progress is about the future. People born in the rich world today think they are due a modicum of health, prosperity and equality. They advance against that standard, rather than the pestilence, beggary and injustice of serfdom. That’s progress.　　　　即使你能够展示过去是多么的悲惨，对于进步的信念则是关于未来。今天，出生在富国的人们会认为，小小的一份健康、财富和平等都是他们人人理所应得。因而，他们努力的目标就是要反对这个低标准以求更高，而不是（象他们的先辈那样）反对瘟疫、赤贫和奴隶制的不义。这就是进步。　　　　Every day, in every way…　　每一天，以各种方式…　　　　The idea of progress has a long history, but it started to flower in the 17th century. Enlightenment thinkers believed that man emancipated by reason would rise to ever greater heights of achievement. The many manifestations of his humanity would be the engines of progress: language, community, science, commerce, moral sensibility and government. Unfortunately, many of those engines have failed. 　　　　关于进步的观点有着悠久的历史，但是直到17世纪才开始繁荣。启蒙思想将相信被理性解放的人将会获得前所未有的成就。很多人性的表征将会是进步的引擎：诸如语言，社会，科学，商业，道德感性和政府。但不幸的是，这些引擎中，许多都出现了故障。　　　　Some supposed sources of progress now appear almost quaint. Take language: many 18th-century thinkers believed that superstitions and past errors were imprinted in words. “Hysteria”, for example, comes from the Greek for “womb”, on the mistaken idea that panic was a seizure of the uterus. Purge the language of rotten thinking, they believed, and truth and reason would prevail at last. The impulse survives, much diminished, in the vocabulary of political correctness. But these days few people outside North Korea believe in language as an agent of social change.　　　　一些被称为进步的源泉现在看起来几乎有点奇怪。以语言为例：18世纪的思想家认为迷信和过去的一些错误已经成为语言的烙印。比如“歇斯底里”这个词是从希腊语里的“子宫”，这是基于人们错误地认为恐惧来自子宫发生癫痫。 他们相信， 通过对语言的清洗， 扫除腐朽的思想， 真理和理性就会最终取得胜利。这种清理语言以求进步的冲动， 如今力量锐减，存在于“政治正确”的词汇表里（译者注：比如chairperson， black president， undocumented aliens 代替chairman， Negro president， illegal aliens）。但是，现在被朝鲜以外，很少有人相信语言是社会变革的代言人。　　　　　　--------------------------------------------------------------------------------　　Every time someone tells you to “be realistic” they are asking you to compromise your ideals每当有人劝你“现实一点”，他们其实是要你放弃理想.　　　　--------------------------------------------------------------------------------　　　　（未完待续）　　
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