【龙腾网】葡萄牙是一个很糟糕的国家吗？

正文翻译

Anonymous
I live in Portugal and have a very rare name so have decided to go anonymous for that reason. I live on the Silver Coast with the animals I brought from the UK. I have mobility issues which caused me to become very overweight as I simply couldn't cope with hauling myself around in UK mud for 6-7mths of the year and I knew I had to make big changes. So I moved here for 2 reasons, the weather and the dreadful food - I'm a vegetarian. That has worked brilliantly, I'm far more active and I've lost 23kg since I arrived 20 mths ago. I just wanted to set the scene.

我住在葡萄牙，由于我的名字非常罕见，因此决定匿名。我和我从英国带来的动物住在银色海岸。我的行动不便，导致我变得非常超重，而在英国，1年中有6-7个月都是雨天，我根本无法在这种情况下行动，因此我知道我必须要做出很大的改变。所以我搬到这里有两个原因：天气和糟糕的食物。我是素食主义者。搬过来的确有效，我感到更有活力了，自从我20个月前来到这里，我已经减掉了23公斤。我只是想交代一下背景。

评论翻译

Jorge Barbosa, studied Journalism & Philosophy at University of South Africa 在南非大学攻读新闻学与哲学

Natural beauty? Well…, it does have it. But many other places have it too. Just think of the natural beauty in the Cape, South Africa. Or the farmlands in New South Wales, Australia, and so on.
The one thing that defines Portugal as good or bad for me is the informed knowledge or “frx of reference” inhabiting the minds of the Portuguese. The mindset of the Portuguese today is the result of local education, social constructs and customs, public media and the very constraints imposed by archaic laws and political thought.

自然美景？嗯，它确实有。但其他很多地方也有。想想南非开普敦的自然美景，或者是澳大利亚新南威尔士州的农田，等等。
对我来说，可以定义葡萄牙是好是坏的一个标准就是葡萄牙人头脑中的知识或“参照系”。如今葡萄牙人的心态是受当地教育、社会结构和风俗习惯、公共媒体宣传以及来自于古典法律和政治思想的结果。

Am I being too abstract? What do you mean, you may ask. To put it bluntly the Portuguese expect too much, instead of aspiring to much. I am not denying there are exceptional people in Portugal (and many more outside of Portugal). What I am saying is that the net result of the sum of all the parts of Portuguese residing IN Portugal is negative. I lay the blame on that net result mostly on the tradition inherited from the centuries of corruption by church and state that centralised power into a singular or network of authority. And, most importantly, the constructs of a very bloated system of authority that persists to this day.

我是不是太抽象了？你可能会问，你的意思是什么。说白了，葡萄牙人期望过高，但抱负心不强。我不否认在在葡萄牙有杰出的人（在葡萄牙以外还有更多的人）。我要说的是，居住在葡萄牙的葡萄牙人总体来说心态是偏负面的。我把这一结果归咎于教会和国家几个世纪以来的腐败传统，即把权力集中到一个单一的或权威的网络中。而且，最重要的是，这一庞大权威体系的结构一直持续到今天。

Portugal shares this tradition with other roman countries like Spain, France, and Italy. That is, the tradition of foregoing responsibility for one’s own thought and actions (the affect of aspirations) and ascribing that responsibility to an authority (the church or state). Unlike northern Europe, where a strong protestant and Lutheran spirit evolved to invoke self-responsibility and self-realisation, the Catholic tradition in the roman countries stymied any evolution of the self to achieve its own desired goals and fulfillment. Instead, the goal was to serve the community (governed by powerful-and-always-corruptible institutions of church and state). Some people view the strong “socialist” politics in these roman countries as a subtle stealth version of centralised command communism states….

葡萄牙与其他古罗马国家如西班牙、法国和意大利有着相同的传统。即对自己的思想和行为（抱负的影响）承担责任，并将这种责任归于权威（教会或国家）的传统。与北欧不同，在那里，强烈的新教和路德教的精神逐渐唤醒了自我责任和自我实现的意识，而古罗马国家的天主教传统阻碍了自我的任何发展，也阻碍了自我目标的实现。相反，人们的目标是为社区（由强大且始终处于腐败状态的教会和国家机构管理）服务。有些人把这些古罗马国家强大的“社会主义”政治视为集中指挥的共产主义国家的隐蔽形式。

..........

It is not uncommon in the sociology of the Portuguese to always seek the advice of some “authority”. Indeed, authority would be awarded (as was very much the case in the past) to somebody who had, or pretended to have, let’s say a doctoral thesis in any field. So that, for example, somebody who had written a thesis on some obscure medical problem would suddenly also become an authority on political themes and psychological phenomena. “No way José” say the English or Americans (heirs to the strong protestant and Lutheran traditions) to those individuals seeking authority to speak in fields they were not specialised in. (Isn’t it peculiar that they use a typically Portuguese or Spanish name as “José” for the well know retort?)
To those nations who inherited the “Magna Carta” (google this - worth a read), which restricted the power of authority, and in particular to only allow that person or institution to exercise authority in their own domain, whomever says they are an authority on a particular subject better be ready to be tested. This is what is “good” about Northen European cultures, the inverse of which, as is seen in Southern European countries, is what is “bad” in Portugal. So that, say you might be a dentist, this does not in turn portend you be an authority in, for example, linguistics or politics. This culture of testing authority and legitimacy is not prent in the Portuguese. Or rather, not prent in the “majority” of the Portuguese. You see exceptions come to the surface. (Arguably, those exceptions are products of education and stints from persons who exercised time outside Portugal…).

在葡萄牙人的社会学中，他们总是会寻求某个“权威”的建议，这并不少见。事实上，权威会被授予给那些在某个领域拥有或假装拥有博士论文的人。例如，一个人写了一篇关于某个模糊的医学问题的论文，突然间也会成为讲述政治主题和心理现象的权威。英国人或美国人（强烈的新教和路德教传统的继承人）会对那些在他们不擅长的领域发表言论并寻求权威的人说“没门儿”。（他们用一个典型的葡萄牙语或西班牙语名字“José”作为众所周知的反驳语，这不是很奇怪吗？）
对于那些继承了《大宪章》（谷歌查一下，值得一读）的国家，它限制了权威的权力，特别是只允许那个人或机构在自己的领域行使权力，无论是谁说他们是某个特定主题的权威，他们最好做好接受质疑的准备。这就是北欧文化“好”的地方，而南欧国家的文化恰恰相反，这就是葡萄牙的 “糟糕”之处。因此，假设你可能是一名牙医，但这并不意味着你是语言学或政治学领域的权威。这种质疑权威以及合法性的文化在葡萄牙人中并不普遍。或者更确切地说，在“大多数”葡萄牙人中并不普遍。你会发现一些例外。（可以说，这些例外原因在于他们有在葡萄牙境外接受教育和工作的经历）。

I reiterated the theme of “call to authority” several times, maybe too many times, above. I may have become to verbose. But this theme, or my battle against this theme, is something I am passionate about and do not hesitate to talk and write about. In Portugal we have a bloated public system occupied by too many bureaucrats that affect the mind set of too many sectors of the Portuguese culture and economy. Its a disease that centuries ago the Catholic Church took to the extreme with the inquisition, a disease perpetuated during the Salazar years of authoritarianism in Portugal, and more subtly today by the stranglehold public institutions still have over most sectors of the Portuguese economy, including radio and television.
Decentralisation of power and authority is anathema to the majority of the Portuguese. Self-realization and self-responsibility is not a comfortable theme to explore for most Portuguese. Those that do venture down that path find themselves booking a ticket for themselves and their family to places outside of Portugal.

上面我多次重申了“呼唤权威”的主题，也许次数太多了。我可能已经变得啰嗦了。但是这个主题，或者说我与这个主题的斗争，能让我充满激情并且毫不犹豫地为之谈论和写作。在葡萄牙，我们臃肿的公共体系，被太多官僚占据，影响了葡萄牙文化和经济等众多部门的思维定势。这是一个世纪以来天主教的一种毒瘤，宗教裁判所将这种毒瘤推向了极致，这种毒瘤在葡萄牙萨拉查独裁统治时期长期存在，而今天更为微妙的是，公共机构仍然控制着葡萄牙经济的大部分部门，包括广播和电视。
权威和权力的下放为大多数葡萄牙人所憎恶。对于大多数葡萄牙人来说，自我实现和自我责任感并不是一个轻松的主题。那些在这条道路上冒险的人都为自己和家人预订了去葡萄牙境外的机票。

There is an attraction to this for many outside observers though. Usually these “outside-of-Portugal-observers” want to leave the stresses of self-responsibility and self-reliance from whence they come from to enjoy, what they perceive, the joys of communal (read socialist) support systems and the necessary subsequent discarding of the “heavy lifting” of the thinking and management of society to central authorities. These outside observers refer to this notion as the “friendly smiles of the Portuguese people”. That is how they describe it. Yes, really. To put it another way, what they are really saying is that they want to ascribe to extrapolations of the oft-used anthem of “ignorance is bliss”. It is common for them to want somebody else to do the hard work (managing society) for them.
But…, they do have to realise there is a price to pay. When your children grow up wanting to aspire to be Elon Musk or Bill Gates they will be punished for thinking themselves better than the rest and be rushed for mental reeducation….
That is what is “bad” about Portugal.

不过，这对许多外部观察家是有吸引力的。通常，这些“葡萄牙以外的观察者”希望摆脱自我责任感和自力更生的压力，从他们的源头出发，去享受他们所感知到东西、社会（即社会主义）支持系统的乐趣，以及随后必要地将对社会的思想和管理的“繁重工作”抛弃给中央政府。这些外部观察家将这种观念称为“葡萄牙人民友好的微笑”。他们就是这么形容的。是的，这是真的。换言之，他们真正想说的是，他们想将其归因于我们常说的“无知就是幸福”。他们通常希望别人为他们做艰苦的社会管理工作。
但是，他们必须意识到要付出代价。当你的孩子长大后想要成为埃隆·马斯克或比尔·盖茨的时候，他们会受到惩罚，因为他们把自己想得比别人好，并且要被迫进行心理教育。
这就是葡萄牙“糟糕”的地方。