Unit_2_Individuals_and_Masses

Unit_2_Individuals_and_MassesA man or woman makes direct contact with society in two ways:as a member of some familial, professional or religious group,or as a member of a crowd.Groups are capable of being as moral and intelligent as the individuals who form them;a crowd is chaotic,has no purpose of its own and is capable of anything except intelligent action and realistic thinking.Assembled in a crowd,people lose their powers of reasoning and their capacity for moral choice.Their suggestibility is increased to the point where they cease to have any judgement or will of their own.They become very excitable,they lose all sense of individual or collective responsibility,they are subject to sudden excesses of rage,enthusiasm and panic.In a word,a man in a crowd behaves as though he had swallowed a large dose of some powerful intoxicant. He is a victim of what I have called'herd-poisoning'.Like alcohol,herd-poison is an active,extravagant drug. The crowd-intoxicated individual escapes from responsibility,intelligence and morality into a kind of frantic, animal mindlessness.一个人通过以下两种方式与社会直接接触：作为某个家庭、职业或宗教组织的成员，或者仅仅是隶属于某个群体。

一个组织所表现出来的智慧和道义是与其成员的一致的，而一个群体却是无秩序的，没有特定的目的并且无法进行明智的行为和现实性的思考。

在一个群体里，人们失去了用逻辑思维来推论和选择对与错的能力，取而代之的是那个群体的集体思维的选择。

他们因此也变得极为亢奋，将作为个人和大众的责任全都抛之脑后，易受到意想不到的过多怒气、狂热以及恐惧而极度情绪化。

总之，一个人身处某个群体里就好像吃了大量的烈性致醉药物，他自己便是这种有毒药物的牺牲品。

和酒精一样，这种药物能使人兴奋，并且是极度兴奋。

被这种群体药物麻醉的人逃避责任，不愿动脑子，失去道德感，变得和疯子、动物没两样。

Reading is a private,not a collective activity.The writer speaks only to individuals,sitting by themselves in a state of normal sobriety.The orator speaks to masses of individuals,already well-primed with herd-poison.They are at his mercy and,if he knows his business,he can do what he likes with them.阅读是一种个人而不是集体的思维活动。

作者叙述的对象是处于清醒状态的个人，而演讲家讲演的对象是由一个个被麻醉的个人组成的群体。

这个群体已经处在他的控制当中，如果他知道这种情况的话，如果他愿意的话他可以随意的煽动这些人。

Unlike the masses,intellectuals have a taste for rationality and an interest in facts.Their critical habit of mind makes them resistant to the kind of propaganda that works so well on the majority.Intellectuals are the kind of people who demand evidence and are shocked by logical inconsistencies and fallacies.They regard over-simplification as the original sin of the mind and have no use for the slogans,the unqualified assertions and sweeping generalizations which are the propagandist's stock-in-trade.和大多数人不一样，知识分子崇尚理性，讲究事实。

对大多数人都有影响的宣传在他们这失去了应有的效果便是得益于这种思维方式。

知识分子就是这么一些注重证据以及对逻辑的不一致与欺骗性感到震惊的人。

他们认为过于简单化是思想的原罪，标语、毫无道理的断言和大量的概括性用语等宣传家们常用的伎俩对他们毫无作用。

Philosophy teaches us to feel uncertain about the things that seem to us self-evident.Propaganda,on the other hand,teaches us to accept as self-evident matters about which it would be reasonable to suspend our judgement or to feel doubt.The propagandist must therefore be consistently dogmatic.All his statements are made without qualifications.There are no greys in his picture of the world;everything is either diabolically black or celestially white.He must never admit that he might be wrong or that people with a different point of view might be even partially right.Opponents should not be argued with;they should be attacked,shouted down,or if they become too much of a nuisance,liquidated.哲学告诉我们要对那些不证自明的事情进行怀疑。

而宣传家们却恰恰相反，他们教我们要无条件的接受这些本应该受到质疑东西。

因此他们是始终如一的教条主义分子，说的话都是不允许他人质疑的。

在他们的世界里，只存在邪恶的黑色和崇高的白色而没有处于中间的灰色。

他们从不承认自己有一点点的错误，也决不会认为别人有部分是对的，更不会和对手讲道理，只会用蛮力对对手进行攻击压制，一旦他们感到这些反对者太过讨厌就把这些人终结了。

Virtue and intelligence belong to human beings as individuals freely associating with other individuals in small groups.So do sin and stupidity.But the subhuman mindlessness to which the demagogue makes his appeal,the moral imbecility on which he relies when he goads his victims into action,are characteristic not of men and women as individuals,but of men and women in masses.Mindlessness and moral idiocy are not characteristically human attributes;they are symptoms of herd-poisoning.In all the world's higher religions,salvation and enlightenment are for individuals.The kingdom of heaven is within the mind of a person,not within the collective mindlessness of a crowd.在小组织里，人与人作为个体而进行自由交往时美德和智慧就会成为他们个人的特点，罪孽和愚钝也是一样。

但是煽动分子经常依靠的低人类的盲目和他们进行煽动时所凭借的被煽动者的道德障碍是人在群体里表现的特征而不是人本身的特征。

盲目和道德障碍不是人的本性，而是被药物麻醉后的症状。

在世界所有有更高宗教信仰的地区，超度和启蒙的对象都是个人。

因知道上帝而获得的安详和快乐只会存在于个人的心里，而不是集体无知的群体里。

In an age of accelerating over-population,of accelerating over-organization and ever more efficient means of mass communication,how can we preserve the integrity and reassert the value of the human individual?This is a question that can still be asked and perhaps effectively answered.A generation from now it may be too late to find an answer and perhaps impossible,in the stifling collective climate of that future time,even to ask the question.在一个人口和社会组织急剧膨胀以及公众交流方式前所未有多的年代，我们要如何保护人类个体的完整性，重申人类个体的价值呢？这是一个仍需解答的也是一直被深刻探询的问题。