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特朗普的伟大美国梦

America Is Great
特朗普的伟大美国梦

Given all the talk, courtesy of Donald Trump, of making America great again, I’ve been thinking about European greatness. One state, Great Britain, does of course have its greatness built in, but still the idea sits strangely.

拜唐纳德・特朗普(Donald Trump)所赐,到处是关于让美国恢复伟大荣光的说法,导致我也思考起欧洲的伟大来。其中一个国家――大不列颠――当然名字中就自带了这个字眼,不过这个概念还是显得格格不入。

 特朗普的伟大美国梦

Europe is done with greatness. It thinks greatness leads to trouble. It’s been great ― and suffered. The Great War (1914-18) killed about 8.5 million combatants and as many as 13 million civilians ― not so great, really. Before that, a million people or so died in Ireland’s Great Famine.

欧洲对伟大已经没兴趣了。他们认为伟大会通向麻烦。欧洲曾经伟大过,却深受其害。1914年到1918年的第一次世界大战导致850万战斗人员和多达1300万平民殒命――实在不怎么伟大。在那之前,爱尔兰的大饥荒让100万左右的人丧生。

Great European empires unraveled, often in bloodshed. Several hundred thousand were killed before France left Algeria. Not so great, either. No wonder Great Britain is thinking of breaking itself up.

伟大的欧洲帝国接连崩塌,往往是倒在一片血泊之中。法兰西从阿尔及利亚抽身之时,已有数十万人丧命。也称不上什么伟大。难怪大不列颠在考虑自我分裂。

From Sweden to Sicily, greatness is looked at askance. It feels like a code word for bellicosity, self-delusion and shoot-from-the-hip hubris. It has a whiff of danger: far better to curtail ambition and embrace ordinariness. Better to be the face in the crowd than the face on the cover of Time magazine.

从瑞典到西西里,“伟大”遭遇的是满腹狐疑。它看起来像是代表着好斗、妄自尊大和赤裸裸的傲慢,包藏着一丝危险的气息。最好还是遏制野心、享受平凡。最好是泯然众人,而非登上《时代》杂志的封面。

Still, here’s a possible slogan for the 2017 French presidential election: “Make France Great Again!” (I can hear the seismic rumble of dissent on the Rive Gauche already.)

不过,2017年的法国总统大选倒是有个现成的口号:“让法兰西恢复伟大荣光!”(我已然可以听到左岸传来震耳欲聋的反对之声)。

How? By believing in God, to begin with. Belief in God leads to belief in God-given missions, which must be good by definition. Anticlericalism was the start of the unraveling of French greatness.

如何实现呢?首先要信仰上帝。对上帝的信仰会带来对奉上帝旨意的使命的信仰,而这不言自明地是件好事。法兰西伟大荣光的消散就始于对教权主义的否定。

Or perhaps by sending a neo-Napoleonic army out across the Continent (even as far as Moscow but without that painful retreat); by instilling an entrepreneurial spirit; by banning moroseness through decree; by restoring the scandal-tainted presidency to the monarchical splendor envisaged by De Gaulle; by scrapping the 35-hour work week; by getting tough on something (possibly immigration); by manufacturing multicolored campaign hats that say, “La France, Terre Éternelle de Grandeur” ― “France, Eternal land of Greatness.”

或者是派遣一支新拿破仑主义的军队,跋山涉水地远征(乃至跑到莫斯科,不过要避免那痛苦的撤退);塑造创业精神;颁布法令禁绝伤春悲秋;把丑闻迭出的总统府恢复到戴高乐设想的君临天下的模样;废除35小时工作制;在某个议题上强硬起来(比如移民问题);推出色彩艳丽的竞选帽,上书“La France, Terre Éternelle de Grandeur”――“法兰西,永恒的伟大之地。”

That should do it! Would be great.

这样应该就能办到了!肯定伟大。

Or how about, “Let’s Make Italy Great Again!” It’s hard to know where to begin, really. Italian interest in greatness is about as deep as its interest in swapping its cuisine for neighboring Albania’s. Greatness: Been there, done that, a couple of millennia ago.

再要么,“让我们令意大利恢复伟大荣光!”这个倒真是不知该从哪里着手。意大利对伟大的兴趣,就跟与邻国阿尔巴尼亚互换菜式的兴趣差不多。至于伟大:当年这儿试过,那儿玩过,大概2000年前吧。

A first step might be reviving gladiatorial combat at Rome’s Colosseum, or making the trains run on time (again), or abandoning the consolations of style and beauty for the thrill of shock and awe, or, of course, manufacturing chic “La Grandezza Italiana” (“Italian Greatness”) campaign caps.

第一步大概得是恢复在罗马斗兽场的角斗活动,或者让火车(再次)准点,或是抛弃时髦漂亮的虚名,代之以穷兵黩武的威慑。当然了,还可以推出时尚的“La Grandezza Italiana”(“意大利伟大荣光”)的竞选帽。

“Make Italy Great” is going to be a tough sell.

“让意大利恢复伟大荣光”的概念可得花一番功夫推销。

Then, of course, there’s Luxembourg.

接下来,当然了,还有卢森堡。

No, greatness is America’s thing now, the recurrent frisson of a still-frisky power not deflated even by two wars without victory. Ronald Reagan, who also had striking hair, declared more than three decades ago, “Let’s Make America Great Again.” Trump is more peremptory, as befits a man of bullying inclination. “Make America Great Again.”

不,伟大如今可是美国的事了,是这个仍然劲头十足的国度经久不衰的兴奋点,就连两场无功而返的战争都没法打压。30多年前,同样拥有令人印象深刻的头发的罗纳德・里根(Ronald Reagan)宣布,“让我们令美国恢复伟大荣光。”特朗普当下的语气更为逼人,倒是符合他横行霸道的性格。“让美国恢复伟大荣光。”

He’s doing great with it. He’s identified a genuine need. There’s work to do on American greatness.

这让他表现良好。他找到了一种真实的需求。美国的伟大的确有文章可做。

I’m not sure, but I think it was while sitting on the Seventh Avenue express of the New York City subway looking at a map that helpfully showed stops for the Lexington Avenue line, when water started dripping on my head from the subway car ceiling and an inaudible announcement was made, that I realized I was back in the greatest nation on earth.

我也不太肯定,但我想,自己认识到回到了世上最伟大的国家,是坐在纽约地铁上的那一刻:我乘坐的是第七大道快线,看着的一幅地图却贴心地显示着莱克星顿大道线路的沿途站点,水滴开始从车厢天花板上往我头顶上落,广播在用听不清的声音宣告着什么。

Or was it as I gazed at a man channeling his bristling defiance into the occupation of three subway seats rather than one, or as I listened to voices much louder and more assertive than they needed to be, or as I struggled to identify a station with no visible sign naming it, or as the temperature in the subway elevator hit 100 degrees Fahrenheit, that the thought hit me that America was indeed the greatest nation on earth?

要不就是,当我看到一个男人将他的满腔怒火化为霸占三个地铁座位,或是听到了大得离谱的凶巴巴的人声,我费力地想认出没有明显标识的站点,地铁电梯里的气温高达38摄氏度,让我突然感悟到美国的确是世上最伟大的国家?

I cannot say when America being the greatest nation on earth really sunk in. It might have been as I walked along a garbage-strewn street in Queens beneath a bridge so corroded it seemed not of the last century but of the one before that. Or as I peeled small stickers off fruit and vegetables (I’d forgotten in Europe about those pesky little charmers) while listening to Trump confuse Iran’s Quds force with the Kurds. Every foreign war ― and plenty loom if there’s a Trump presidency ― is an American geography lesson.

我无法说出美国是世上最伟大国家的想法是何时在我心中真正扎根的。或许是我沿着皇后区一条街道走的时候。那里垃圾遍地,头顶有一座桥,破旧得仿佛不是上个世纪的产物,而是来自上上个世纪。又或许是我一边从蔬果上撕下小标签(我在欧洲都忘记还有这些讨厌的小玩意了),一边听特朗普混淆了伊朗的圣城军和库尔德人。每一场海外战争――倘若特朗普当了总统恐怕还有很多场――都是给美国人上的地理课。

America may be great, in fact I would argue it is, but it sure doesn’t look great right now. Europe looks better but is shrunken within.

美国可以说是伟大的,实际上我也这样认为,但眼下它看起来并不伟大。欧洲貌似更好,但内里在退缩。

Europe’s divisions, endlessly pored over, amount in the end to what Sigmund Freud called “the narcissism of minor differences.” The Continent is united in the rejection of greatness, while the United States cannot picture itself without it.

欧洲的分歧被人反复咀嚼,最后变成了西格蒙德・弗洛伊德(Sigmund Freud)口中的“微小差异的自恋”。欧洲大陆如今一致将伟大拒之门外,而美国却无法想象自己放弃伟大。