东北林业大学翻译硕士笔译作业及答案

Preface to Culture of NarcissismHardly more than a quarter-century after Henry Luce proclaimed “the American century”, American confidence fallen to low ebb. Those who recently dreamed of world power now despair of governing the city of New York. Defeat in Vietnam, economic stagnation, and the impending exhaustion of natural resources have produced a mood of pessimism in higher circles, which spreads through the rest of society as people lose faith in their leaders. The same crisis of confidence grips other capitalist countries as well. In Europe, the growing strength of communist parties, the revival of fascist movements, and a wave of terrorism all testify, in different ways, to the weakness of established regimes and to the exhaustion of established tradition. Even Canada, long a bastion of stolid bourgeois dependability, now faces in the separatist movement in Quebec a threat to its very existence as a nation.The international dimensions of the current malaise indicate that it can not be attributed to an American failure of nerve. Bourgeois society seems everywhere to have used up its store of constructive ideas. It has lost both the capacity and the will to confront the difficulties that threaten to overwhelm it. The political crisis of capitalism reflects a general crisis of western culture, which reveals itself in a pervasive despair of understanding the course of modern history or of subjecting it to rational direction. Liberalism, the political theory of the ascendant bourgeois, long ago lost the capacity to explain the events in the world of welfare state and the multinational corporation; nothing has taken its place. Politically bankrupt, liberalism is intellectually bankrupt as well. The sciences it has fostered, once confident of their ability to dispel the darkness of the ages, no longer provide satisfactory explanations of the phenomena they profess to elucide. Neoclassical economic theory can not explain the coexistence of unemployment and inflation; sociology retreats from the attempts to outline a general theory of modern society; academic psychology retreats from the challenge of Fraud into the measurement of trivia. The natural sciences, having made exaggerated claims for themselves, now hasten to announce that science offers no miracle cures for social problems.享利卢斯曾经宣称“美国世纪”的到来。

可仅仅二十五年后，美国的自信心已跌至谷底。

曾几何时，有人大做主宰世界的强国梦，而他们现在对于如何管理纽约市却一筹莫展。

越战惨遭失败，经济停滞不前，自然资源枯竭在即，这一切都在上层人士中蕴酿着一种浓重的悲观情绪，随着人们对领导人逐渐失去信心，悲观情绪蔓延到了社会的各个角落。

这种信心危机不仅侵蚀着美国，其它资本主义国家也在劫难逃。

在欧洲，共产党势力与日俱增，法西斯运动死灰复燃，恐布活动此起彼伏，这一切都以不同形式证明现存的制度和传统己如强弩之末。

加拿大长期以来是靠得住的资产阶级坚固堡垒。

可今日魁北克独立运动方兴未艾，直接威胁到加拿大国家的完整。

当今国际社会中的信心危机说明这并非只是美国缺乏勇气的结果。

全球各地的资产阶级社会似乎己经江郎才尽，再也拿不出治病的良方。

它己没有能力，也没有意志面对来势汹汹、令人无法招架的重重困难。

资本主义的政治危机实际上反映了西方文化的总危机。

这种危机主要表现为人们普遍对现代历史的进程茫然不解，或说无法以理性指点迷津。

自由主义曾是上层资产阶级赖以生存的政治理论。

可是在当今这个福利国家和多国公司的世界里，自由主义早己失去解释各种事件的能力了。

然而至今还没有一个新理论可以取而代之。

自由主义不仅在政治上己告破产，而且在思想上也已黔驴技穷。

自由主义曾孕育了科学。

过去科学曾信心十足地驱散黑暗和无知；可现在科学对自己擅长解释的现象再也拿不出令人满意的答案了。

新古典主义经济学理论不能解释失业和通胀共存的现象。

社会学面对勾画现代社会理论的重任己打了退堂鼓。

心理学界的学究们则回避弗洛依德的挑战，去玩弄心理学的细微未节。

自然科学曾夸夸其谈，现在也匆忙宣布没有解决社会问题的灵丹妙药。

(叶子南译)我觉得读书好比串门儿——“隐身”的串门儿。

要参见钦佩的老师或拜谒有名的学者，不必事前打招呼求见，也不怕搅扰主人。

翻开书面就闯进大门，翻过几页就升堂入室；而且可以经常去，时刻去，如果不得要领，还可以不辞而别，或者另找高明，和他对质。

不问我们要拜见的主人住在国内国外，不问他属于现代古代，不问他什么专业，不问他讲正经大道理或聊天说笑，都可以挨近前去听个足够。

我们可以恭恭敬敬旁听孔门弟子追述夫子遗言，也不妨淘气地笑问“言必称‘亦曰仁义而已矣’的孟夫子”，他如果生在我们同一个时代，会不会是一位马列主义老先生呀？我们可以在苏格拉底临刑前守在他身边，听他和一位朋友谈话；也可以对斯多葛派伊匹克悌忒斯的《金玉良言》思考怀疑。

我们可以倾听前朝列代的遗闻逸事，也可以领教当代最奥妙的创新理论或有意惊人的故作高论。

反正话不投机或言不入耳，不妨抽身退场，甚至砰一下推上大门——就是说，拍地合上书面——谁也不会嗔怪。

这是书以外的世界里难得的自由！I would compare reading to visiting friends —in the spiritual rather than physical sense. Visiting a well-respected teacher or paying homage to a renowned scholar doesn't necessarily require appointment in advance and we won't feel as if we were disturbing him. Opening the book is like getting into the door uninvited; and turning a few pages, we may find ourselves in his study. Besides, we can go visit him as frequently as we want and at any time we wish. If we fail to get the pith of his argument, we can just leave without saying "good-bye" or turn to someone else for help, and come back to challenge him. We can get close to the host and listen to every word he has to say, no matter where he resides, at home or abroad, what a person he was or is, a contemporary or a man of the past, whatever field he specializes in, or whether he is talking about a serious subject of importance or simply chatting plus cracking jokes. We can sit in, in due reverence, and listen as Confucius' disciples recount their master's legacy of teachings, or playfully ask Mencius, who likes to prattle about nothing but kindness and justice, whether or not he would become a pious Marxist preacher, should he live in our time. We can stay by the side of Socrates at his execution and listen to him talking to his friend, or harbor doubt as we ponder the truth of Discourse by Epictetus, a Stoic Philosopher. We can indulge ourselves in the anecdotes and amazing tales of the past, and appreciate the profound nouveau theories of our own age or hear sensational arguments meant to shock the world. In a nutshell, we can bang the door shut —closing the book that is —the minute we find anything disagreeable or distasteful, and leave forthwith. No one will blame us. This is the kind of freedom we can hardly expect other than from the books. （集体讨论史志康执笔）。