【作文素材】牛津通识读本《The Meaning of Life》摘抄
《人生的意义》The Meaning Of Life
[英]特里 伊格尔顿 /著
第一章 提问与回答
不过问题是值得探究的，因为在判定什么可以充当答案时，问题的本质很重要。
Yet questions are worth examine, since the nature of a question is important in determine what might count as an answer to it.
一个愚蠢的问题只能招来一个同样愚蠢的答案。提出正确的问题能够打开一片崭新的知识领域，并使其他极其重要的问题随之浮现。
It is well known what kind of answer a silly question provokes. Posing the right kind of question can open up a whole new continent of knowledge, bringing other vital queries tumbling in its wake.
只有当我们向现实发问的时候，现实才会按发问的类型回应我们。
Reality will only respond to us in accordance with the kinds of inquiries we put to it.
悲剧乃是诸多无乐观方案的人生意义问题中最有力的之一。在所有艺术形式中，悲剧最彻底、最坚定地直面人生的意义问题，大胆思考那些最恐怖的答案。最好的悲剧是对人类存在之本质的英勇反思，其源流可追溯至古希腊文化，这种文化认为人生脆弱、危险、极易受到打击。
One of most powerful meaning-of-life questions without an up-beat solution is known as tragedy. Of all artistic forms, tragedy is the one that confronts the meaning-of-life question most searchingly and unswervingly, intrepidly prepared as it is to entertain the most horrific of responses to it. Tragedy as its finest is a courageous reflection on the fundamental nature of human existence, and has its origin in an ancient Greek culture in which life is fragile, perilous, and sickeningly vulnerable.
在这片危险地带原本能帮助你站稳脚跟的人性力量，可能经常失去控制，以至于与你敌对并使你堕落。正是在这种令人恐惧的处境下，索福克勒斯《俄狄浦斯王》中的歌队唱出了阴沉的尾章：“没有人是快乐的，直到死亡的最后一刻，人才算摆脱痛苦。”
The very human powers which might allow you to find a foothold in this unstable terrain continually threaten to spin out of control, turning against you and bringing you low. It is in these fearful conditions that the Chorus of Sophocles’ Oedipus the King delivers its final gloomy judgement:‘Count no men happy till he dies, free of pain at last.’
感觉你的人生意义属于一个更大的整体，这和强烈的自我意识并不矛盾。
Feeling that the meaning of your life is a function of a greater whole is not at all incompatible with having a robust sense of selfhood.
置身于发达的后现代资本主义社会的实用主义和市侩气息中，加上它对远大图景和宏大叙事的怀疑、对形而上事物的固执的驱魅，“人生”和许多其他总体性概念一样已经名声扫地。我们被诱使只考虑生活中的小问题，不去思考大问题——讽刺的是，与此同时，那些试图毁灭西方文明的人做法恰恰相反。在西方资本主义与激进的伊斯兰世界的冲突中，信仰的缺乏直面着信仰的过剩。西方世界发现自己正在遭受一种狂热的形而上层面的攻击，而自己却处于可以说是在哲学上被解除了武装的历史时刻。关涉信念之处，后现代主义宁愿轻装上路：后现代主义诚然有各种各样的信念，但没有信仰。
In the pragmatist, streetwise climate of advanced postmodern capitalism, with its scepticism of big pictures and ground narratives, its hard-nosed disenchantment with the metaphysical, ‘life’ is among a series of discredited totalities. We are invited to think small rather than big- ironically, at just the point when some of those out to destroy Western civilization are doing exactly the opposite. In the conflict between Western capitalism and radical Islam, a paucity of believe squares up to an excess of it. The West finds itself faced with a full-blooded metaphysical onslaught at just the historical point that it has, so to speak, philosophically disarmed. As far as belief goes, postmodernism prefers to travel light: it has beliefs, to be sure, but it does not have faith.
20世纪之所以有比以往多数时期更为痛苦的关于存在之意义的思考，一个原因或许在于，这个世纪的人命薄如纸。这是史上最血腥的时代，数以百万计的无辜生命遇害。如果生命在实际生活中如此被贬低，那么，人们自然想要在理论上质问其意义。
One reason why the twentieth century brooded on the meaning existence more agonizedly than most epochs may be because it held human so appallingly cheap. It was by far the bloodiest epoch on historical record, with millions of unnecessary deaths. If life is so drastically devalued in practice, one might well expect its meaning to be questioned in theory.
爱、宗教信仰以及对家族血缘与文化的眷恋：很难找到比这更为根本的生命理由。事实上，许多世纪以来，许多人愿意为了这些理由而献出生命或亮出屠刀。公共领域自身越是日益丧失意义，人们就越是急切地想追求这些价值。事实和价值似乎分离了，前者变成了公共事务，后者则属于私人事务。
Love religious faith, and the preciousness of one’s kin and culture: it was hard to find more fundamental reasons for living than these. In fact, a great many people over the centuries have been ready to die, or prepared to kill, in their name. People turned to these values all the more eagerly as the public domain itself became increasingly drained of meaning. Fact and value seemed to have split apart, leaving the former a public affair and the latter a private one.
但这里有一个讽刺。文化、宗教和性越是被迫充当衰落的公共价值的替身，它们就越无力扮演这种角色。意义越是集中在象征领域，这一领域就越是被意义施加的压力所扭曲。结果，生命的这三个象征领域都开始显出病证。
Yet there was an irony here. The more culture, religion, and asexuality were faced to act as substitutes for fading public value, the less they were able to do so. The more meaning was concentrated in the symbolic realm, the more that realm was twisted out of true by the pressures that this exerted on it. As a result, all three areas of symbolic life began to exhibit pathological symptoms.
事情还有另一面。如果说象征领域已从公共领域中脱离了出来，那么它仍然遭受着后者的侵扰。性被包装成了市场上贩卖的牟利商品，文化则成为逐利的大众媒体的主角。艺术变成了金钱、权力、地位和文化资本的事。各地文化现在成了旅游产业包装和贩售的异域风情。甚至宗教也把自己改造成营利的产业，电视里的福音传道者们从虔诚而天真的穷人手中骗取血汗钱。
There is another aspect to the story. If the symbolic realm was split odd from the public one, it was also invaded by it. Sexuality was packaged as a profitable commodity in the marketplace, while culture meant for the most part profit-hungry mass media. Culture were now exotically packaged and peddled by the tourist industry. Even religion turned itself into a profitable industry, as TV evangelists conned the pious and gullible poor out if their hard-earned dollars.
文明焚毁，历史崩溃之际，你想混混日子，或者摆弄摆弄自己的花园，已经不再像以前那样行之有效了。
Fiddling while civilization burnt, or cultivating one’s garden while history crumbled around you, no longer appeared to be such feasible options as they had been before.
又或许，人生时不时地会改变目的，就像我们所做的那样。我们不应该预设，那些给定的或内在的意义总是固定不变、独一无二。
Or perhaps life changes its purpose from time to time just as we do. We should not suppose that the given or innate must be fixed and singular.
对尼采或王尔德来说，我们所有人（只要有勇气）都能成为以自己为作品的伟大艺术家，手中握着泥土，把自己捏塑成某个精致而独特的形象。关于这一点，我认为传统智慧的观点是，人生的意义不是预先规定好的，而是人为建构出来的；我们每一个人都有极为不同的建构方式.
For Nietzsche or Oscar Wiled, we could all (had we but the daring) be supreme artists of ourselves, clay in our own hands, waiting to fashion ourselves into some exquisitely unique shape. The conventional wisdom on this matter, I take it, is that the meaning of life is not prefabricated but constructed; and that each of us can do this in very different ways.
