John Gray on Pessimism, Liberalism, and Theism (Ep. 198)

John started his career in the book world with books on Hayek and Mill.

约翰通过有关哈耶克和密尔的书籍开始了他在图书界的职业生涯。

He’s since written numerous books on many topics.

从那时起，他就许多主题写了许多书。

I can tell you that I buy them all and read them all right away.

我可以告诉你，我把它们全部买下来并立即阅读。

It’s very difficult to summarize John, but that’s fine because today I can present you with John Gray himself.

总结约翰是非常困难的，但这没关系，因为今天我可以向你们介绍约翰·格雷本人。

John, welcome.

约翰，欢迎。

When I left academic life, which I did in 2007 — that’s 16 years ago — one of the reasons I did so was in order to address an audience wider and more variegated than that of academic colleagues.

当我于 2007 年（即 16 年前）离开学术生活时，我这样做的原因之一是为了向比学术同事更广泛、更多样化的受众讲话。

I also wanted to be able to write in a way and in formats that were not common or accepted in academic contexts.

我还希望能够以学术环境中不常见或不被接受的方式和格式进行写作。

My current book, like several of my recent books, is not organized in theses or chapters.

我现在的书，就像我最近的几本书一样，并不是按论文或章节来组织的。

There are arguments and facts — I hope plenty — but it’s organized in short sections, some of them vignettes of historical events or persons, some of them arguments from within philosophy itself.

其中有论点和事实——“我希望有很多”——但它被组织成简短的部分，其中一些是历史事件或人物的小插曲，其中一些来自哲学本身的论点。

I don’t seek any school which carries on my way of thinking or writing.

我不寻找任何继承我的思维或写作方式的学校。

I read columnists.

我读专栏作家。

For example, I like Michael Lind’s work.

例如，我喜欢迈克尔·林德的作品。

I always read what he writes.

我总是读他写的东西。

I read novels.

我读小说。

In Britain, I just did a conversation with the novelist Mick Herron, who writes spy thrillers.

在英国，我刚刚与小说家米克·赫伦（Mick Herron）进行了交谈，他写间谍惊悚小说。

I do have conversations with academic theorists.

我确实与学术理论​​家进行过对话。

David Runciman, whom you probably know from Cambridge, has written on a number of themes interesting to me, including Hobbes and artificial intelligence.

大卫·朗西曼（David Runciman），你可能在剑桥认识，他写过许多我感兴趣的主题，包括霍布斯和人工智能。

But I don’t think there’s a single set of writers who could be called political theorists or philosophers that I follow closely.

但我不认为有哪一组作家可以被称为我密切关注的政治理论家或哲学家。

I would include among philosophical writings some liberals.

我会在哲学著作中包括一些自由主义者。

For example, John Stuart Mill, even though I disagree with him profoundly — a very resourceful and intelligent thinker.

例如，约翰·斯图尔特·穆勒（John Stuart Mill），尽管我非常不同意他的观点——他是一位足智多谋、聪明的思想家。

Hayek.

哈耶克。

Another one among conservative thinkers, Michael Oakeshott.

另一位保守派思想家是迈克尔·奥克肖特 (Michael Oakeshott)。

And one by whom I myself have been greatly influenced, although he’s not much read nowadays, George Santayana.

乔治·桑塔亚纳（George Santayana）是一位深受我影响的人，尽管现在他的书读得不多。

He’s one of the big intellectual influences on my life, including another American writer, a poet, Wallace Stevens, who wrote a great poem about George Santayana when Santayana was living, in his old age, in a nunnery in Rome.

他是对我的生活产生重大影响的思想家之一，其中包括另一位美国作家、诗人华莱士·史蒂文斯（Wallace Stevens），当桑塔亚纳晚年住在罗马的一座女修道院时，他写了一首关于乔治·桑塔亚纳的伟大诗。

I would pick great points in our tradition and also other traditions — the Bhagavad Gita, Daoist works like Zhuangzi and Laozi, and I would give them a whole range of those.

我会挑选我们的传统和其他传统中的精华——《薄伽梵歌》、《庄子》和《老子》等道家著作，我会给他们一整套。

I would not teach them a doctrine or an ideology or a religion, though of course, if they wish to be instructed in religion, that’s a different matter.

我不会教他们一种教义、一种意识形态或一种宗教，当然，如果他们希望接受宗教教育，那就是另一回事了。

And Job because I think it’s in the Book of Job that the origin of, if you like, skeptical thinking is, rather than in the Greeks.

还有《约伯记》，因为我认为，如果你愿意的话，怀疑性思维的起源是在《约伯记》中，而不是在希腊人中。

Socrates, for example, is often thought of as a fearless inquirer who doubted everything.

例如，苏格拉底经常被认为是一个无所畏惧的探究者，怀疑一切。

He even said that.

他甚至还这么说过。

“I only know that I know nothing,” he’s supposed to have said, at least in some accounts of him.

“我只知道我一无所知，”他应该这么说，至少在一些关于他的报道中是这样。

But he did believe that the good and the true and the beautiful are one and the same.

但他确实相信善、真、美是同一的。

He believed in the ultimate rationality and justice of the universe.

他相信宇宙的终极理性和正义。

Job didn’t.

约伯没有。

He questioned God.

他质问上帝。

He questioned the rationality and the justice of the universe.

他质疑宇宙的合理性和正义性。

I think Job’s questions — even though he eventually returned to the God he questioned — are more profound.

我认为约伯的问题 ——“尽管他最终回到了他所质疑的上帝”—— 更加深刻。

So definitely, the Bible would be a key text along with other religious texts.

因此，毫无疑问，《圣经》将与其他宗教文本一样成为关键文本。

One of my strong arguments, or at any rate concerns, strong themes of my recent work, is that no one can really understand modern politics who doesn’t really understand religion, because much of modern politics is a succession of footnotes to religion.

我的一个强有力的论点，或者至少是我最近作品的强烈主题，是，如果不真正理解宗教，就没有人能够真正理解现代政治，因为现代政治的大部分内容都是宗教的一系列脚注。

So, what you say is true of that, but my atheists I’m influenced by would include writers like Schopenhauer, who was an atheist and a pessimist, of course.

所以，你说的确实如此，但我受到影响的无神论者包括像叔本华这样的作家，当然，他是一个无神论者和悲观主义者。

And the key kind of atheism I attack in my new book — but I’ve been attacking for 20 or 30 years — is the one which attributes to the human species some of the characteristics that used to be attributed to the deity, to God.

我在我的新书中攻击的无神论的关键类型——“但我已经攻击了 20 或 30 年了”——是将过去归因于神灵、上帝的一些特征归因于人类的无神论。

That’s to say they think that the human history is a narrative with some kind of built-in structure.

也就是说，他们认为人类历史是一部具有某种内在结构的叙事。

Doesn’t necessarily produce inevitable results, but there is a providential move from ignorance to knowledge which has consistently greater benefits over time.

不一定会产生不可避免的结果，但从无知到知识的转变是天赐的，随着时间的推移，这种转变会持续带来更大的好处。

That seems to be a secularization of Christian and other ideas of divine providence in history.

这似乎是基督教和历史上其他神圣天意观念的世俗化。

For me, there’s no providence of any kind in history.

对我来说，历史上没有任何天意。

There’s no logic in history, although particular situations may have a logic of their own.

历史没有逻辑，尽管特定情况可能有其自身的逻辑。

But the logic, of course, may not be benign.

但逻辑当然可能并不好。

It may be, to use your word, absurd.

用你的话来说，这可能是荒谬的。

That’s to say, we may find human beings recurrently trapped in situations in which what they do is bound to produce results different from, or even opposite from, the ones they want.

也就是说，我们可能会发现人类经常陷入这样的境地：他们所做的事情必然会产生与他们想要的结果不同甚至相反的结果。

I think that is a recurring human situation.

我认为这是人类反复出现的情况。

There’s no logic like Hegel thought or Marx thought or even Mill thought, taking that idea from Auguste Comte, the French founder of positivism.

没有任何逻辑像黑格尔思想或马克思思想，甚至是来自法国实证主义创始人奥古斯特·孔德的密尔思想。

There’s no logic in which history develops through a series of successive stages to some higher and higher levels.

历史不存在通过一系列连续阶段发展到越来越高水平的逻辑。

There’s nothing like that.

没有那样的事情。

My atheism and the atheism of Schopenhauer or Samuel Beckett, or a number of other writers I could cite, isn’t the same as the theological atheism to which you refer, which, as I say, that’s been around for an awful long time.

我的无神论和叔本华或塞缪尔·贝克特的无神论，或者我可以引用的其他一些作家的无神论，与你提到的神学无神论不同，正如我所说，神学无神论已经存在了很长时间。

It’s not just recent.

这不仅仅是最近的事。

Of course, you are right in another sense, which is that the highest, I would say the highest point of recent science, recent physics, might be a recognition that the world is finally unintelligible or absurd.

当然，你在另一种意义上是对的，那就是，我想说，近代科学、近代物理学的最高点可能是认识到世界最终是不可理解的或荒谬的。

But that, of course, is a view that an atheist like Samuel Beckett or Schopenhauer and I would endorse, too.

当然，像塞缪尔·贝克特或叔本华这样的无神论者和我也会赞同这种观点。

There is a convergence in that sense, but it’s an anti-theological convergence, not a theological convergence.

从这个意义上说存在一种趋同，但这是一种反神学的趋同，而不是神学的趋同。

I don’t take that view.

我不同意这种观点。

There’s no mind — senile, benign, or otherwise — behind the universe or its events.

宇宙或其事件的背后不存在任何思想——“衰老的、良性的或其他的”。

There might not even be a universe in the sense in which the Greeks or the Romans, the Stoics, Marcus Aurelius — they all talk about a cosmos.

甚至可能不存在希腊人、罗马人、斯多葛学派、马可·奥勒留——他们都谈论宇宙的那种意义上的宇宙。

By a cosmos they mean something unified by a logos, by some kind of reason.

他们所说的宇宙是指通过某种原因由标志统一起来的东西。

That might not exist.

那可能不存在。

There might really, ultimately, only be events of various kinds happening and not happening.

最终，可能真的只有各种各样的事件发生和不发生。

So, no, I don’t think there’s any mind there at all.

所以，不，我认为那里根本没有任何想法。

You might say, I guess, in my view, that there are recurring patterns in history which illustrate some of the flaws of the human species.

你可能会说，我想，在我看来，历史上有一些反复出现的模式说明了人类的一些缺陷。

But as I’ve constantly argued in my work over the last 20 years, the human species isn’t an agent any more than any other biological species is an agent.

但正如我在过去 20 年的工作中不断论证的那样，人类并不是一个代理人，就像任何其他生物物种都不是一个代理人一样。

When people talk about humanity doing, it isn’t that.

当人们谈论人类所做的事情时，事实并非如此。

They’re making a category error.

他们犯了类别错误。

All there is, is the multitudinous human animal with its different groups, different traditions, different ways of life, and even each single person has a variety of purposes and values in conflict with each other.

人类是众多的动物，有着不同的群体、不同的传统、不同的生活方式，甚至每个人都有多种相互冲突的目的和价值观。

There’s no humanity in that sense.

从这个意义上来说，没有人性。

That, by the way, is discussed in my book with relation to Hobbes because he, along with Spinoza, thought that, too.

顺便说一句，我在书中讨论了与霍布斯有关的问题，因为他和斯宾诺莎也这么认为。

He thought all there was in the end were individuals in the world.

他认为世界上最终只有个体。

That applies to humans, too.

这也适用于人类。

Humanity isn’t an agent.

人类不是代理人。

It doesn’t do anything, can’t do anything because it doesn’t exist in that sense.

它不做任何事，也不能做任何事，因为从这个意义上来说它不存在。

The Eastern Orthodox tradition is closer, I would think — if there was anything that could be called original Christianity, it’s closer to it.

我想，东正教传统更接近——如果有什么东西可以被称为原始基督教，那就更接近了。

I am interested in it, but I couldn’t find myself subscribing to it because like all forms of monotheism — or most forms — it’s very anthropocentric.

我对它很感兴趣，但我发现自己无法订阅它，因为就像所有形式的一神论一样——或者大多数形式——它非常以人类为中心。

It assumes that the human story, as it were, has something in it of the divine, whereas the stories of other living species, even those with minds .

它假设人类的故事，可以说，有一些神圣的东西，而其他生物的故事，甚至是那些有思想的生物。

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I’ve written a book on cats, for example.

例如，我写了一本关于猫的书。

They certainly have minds quite different from human minds, but they have minds all right.

他们的思想当然与人类的思想截然不同，但他们的思想是正确的。

The theistic tradition assumes that there is a kind of linkage between the human mind and the divine mind.

有神论传统假设人类心灵和神圣心灵之间存在某种联系。

In that sense, the human mind is superior to the minds of other animals.

从这个意义上说，人类的思想优于其他动物的思想。

I think all forms of Western monotheism think that.

我认为所有形式的西方一神论都这么认为。

I don’t, so I couldn’t.

我不知道，所以我不能。

Even though I do find Eastern Orthodoxy attractive, I can’t imagine myself subscribing to it.

尽管我确实发现东正教很有吸引力，但我无法想象自己会订阅它。

If you think that basically there is beautiful sunlight all the time, but you’re just living in a small patch of it, most of your life will be spent in frustration.

如果你认为基本上一直都有美丽的阳光，但你只是生活在其中的一小部分，那么你的大部分生活都会在挫折中度过。

If you think the other way around, as I do, your life will be peppered, speckled with moments in which what you expect doesn’t happen, but something better happens.

如果你像我一样以相反的方式思考，你的生活就会充满了你所期望的事情没有发生的时刻，但更好的事情发生了。

If the people it interests are people who, either through reading and thinking or through personal experiences, have found themselves in situations in which organized society and the background of stability — which is necessary if you’re to build things in a pragmatic way and be optimistic about them — is absent, which it has been for large stretches of human history and will be again, and is today in large parts of the world .

如果它感兴趣的人是这样的人，无论是通过阅读和思考，还是通过个人经历，发现自己处于有组织的社会和稳定背景的情况下——“如果你想以务实的方式建设事物并对其保持乐观，这是必要的”——则在人类历史的很长一段时间里，这种情况一直存在，而且将会再次出现，今天在世界大部分地区也是如此。

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If you were a Russian, let’s say, and had somehow managed to live till you’re in your 70s or 80s now, you’ve somehow survived what you had lived through.

比方说，如果你是一个俄罗斯人，并且以某种方式设法活到了 70 多岁或 80 多岁，那么你就以某种方式熬过了你所经历的一切。

You would’ve seen not one set of background institutions of banking and money and law and ideology; you would’ve seen several worlds.

你不会看到一套银行、货币、法律和意识形态的背景机构；而是一套银行、货币、法律和意识形态的背景机构。你会看到好几个世界。

You would’ve lived in several worlds, each of which had passed away to bring about another world with some continuities with the past and some recurring features, but in other respects radically different.

你可能生活在几个世界中，每个世界都消逝了，带来了另一个世界，这个世界与过去有一些连续性，有一些反复出现的特征，但在其他方面却截然不同。

It wouldn’t occur to you that there would be long-term back stability in things which would enable you to be pragmatically optimistic.

你不会想到事情会有长期的稳定，这会让你保持务实的乐观。

Let me give you an example, maybe, which is more recent.

让我给你举个例子，也许是最近的例子。

Back in the ’80s, I met some people in California who were engaged at that time in projects of freezing their bodies or their brains in order to resurrect them technologically later on and become thereby, if not immortal, then amortal.

早在八十年代，我在加利福尼亚遇到了一些人，他们当时正在从事冷冻身体或大脑的项目，以便以后通过技术复活他们，从而即使不是永生，也是不朽的。

They wanted to escape death.

他们想要逃避死亡。

I put the following question to them.

我向他们提出了以下问题。

This would be — I can’t remember the exact year, but somewhere in the early to mid ’80s.

这将是 — 我不记得确切的年份，但应该是 80 年代初到中期的某个时候。

I said, well, I understand this, but aren’t you assuming when you make arrangements, you sign a contract to have your body or your brain sent off when you die and frozen in some depository somewhere in Nevada or somewhere else, to be reopened when technologies advance, which they thought might take 50 or 100 years, to the point at which you could be de-frozen without damage to your tissues and your brain cells .

我说，好吧，我明白这一点，但你不是假设当你做出安排时，你会签署一份合同，当你死后，将你的身体或你的大脑送往内华达州或其他地方的某个存放处，并在技术进步时重新开放，他们认为这可能需要 50 或 100 年，直到你可以在不损害你的组织和脑细胞的情况下解冻。

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Aren’t you assuming a high degree of background institutional stability, which actually, not just for the human species, but most of the 20th century up to that point had not exhibited?

你不是假设了高度的背景制度稳定性吗？实际上，不仅对于人类，而且在 20 世纪迄今为止的大部分时间里，这种稳定性都没有表现出来？

In 1985, you could look back at two world wars, the stock market crash of 1929, and that’s just affected America.

1985 年，你可以回顾两次世界大战、1929 年的股市崩盘，而这都影响了美国。

If you’d lived in Russia, you would’ve lived through the collapse of the Romanov empire, a civil war which lasted three or four years, but in which over 10 million people died or fled to different countries with different languages and different ways of life and so on.

如果你生活在俄罗斯，你就会经历过罗曼诺夫帝国的崩溃，一场持续三四年的内战，超过一千万人死亡或逃往不同语言、不同生活方式的国家等等。

You would’ve had Nazism and the Holocaust.

你就会有纳粹主义和大屠杀。

You would’ve had Maoism emerging in China.

毛主义将会在中国兴起。

You would’ve had not any background stability of institutions or values, but almost continuous punctuated equilibrium, if I can use such a paradoxical phrase.

如果我可以使用这样一个自相矛盾的短语，那么你就不会拥有任何制度或价值观的背景稳定性，而是几乎连续的间断均衡。

So, why do you assume that in 100 years from now, in 2085, why do you assume that there will still be a capitalist system in America, that there will still be laws and contracts, and that the firm you’ve put your brain in to be kept in this deposit will still be there?

那么，你为什么会假设100年后，2085年，为什么你会假设美国仍然存在资本主义制度，仍然存在法律和合同，并且你投入大脑放在这笔存款中的公司仍然存在？

They looked at me aghast, and of course, what they said was what everybody always says.

他们惊愕地看着我，当然，他们说的也是每个人都说的。

Now, I find it funnier then; the joke sometimes wears thin.

现在，我觉得那时更有趣；这个笑话有时会变得乏味。

They say, “What a terribly, apocalyptically pessimistic view that is.

他们说：“这是多么可怕的、世界末日般的悲观观点。

How appalling.”

多么可怕啊。”

What I’m saying when I say things like that, or when I criticized Fukuyama in 1989, is I expect human history to be in the future as it has been in the past.

当我说这样的话，或者当我在1989年批评福山时，我想说的是，我期望人类历史在未来会像过去一样。

History and human events will go on as normal with new technologies, maybe new forms of knowledge, but in their ethical and political and civilization respects, they’ll go on pretty much exactly as before.

历史和人类事件将随着新技术、也许是新形式的知识而正常进行，但在道德、政治和文明方面，它们将与以前几乎一模一样。

Now, it seems to me very odd to describe that as a pessimistic view, unless you think that things in the future are going to be radically better.

现在，在我看来，将其描述为悲观观点似乎很奇怪，除非你认为未来的事情会彻底好转。

I don’t think that this attitude of pragmatic optimism is possible except in privileged and rare and relatively brief points in history.

我认为这种务实乐观的态度是不可能的，除非是在历史上享有特权的、罕见的和相对短暂的时刻。

It doesn’t work most of the time.

大多数时候它不起作用。

That, I suppose, you could say is pessimistic, and it could have an effect on people’s motivation.

我想，你可以说这是悲观的，它可能会影响人们的积极性。

Actually, when I write, I’m not pretending.

事实上，当我写作时，我并不是在假装。

I’m not a hot gospeler.

我不是一个热心的福音传道者。

I’m not an evangelist, but I’m not a therapist either.

我不是传道者，但我也不是治疗师。

I’m just trying to tell things the way they are.

我只是想按原样讲述事情。

People can then do what they want if they’re interested enough to read it.

如果人们有足够的兴趣阅读它，就可以做他们想做的事。

Remember, I’m not trying to get people to read me in order to convert them to my view.

请记住，我并不是想让人们阅读我的文章，以便将他们转变为我的观点。

If they stumble on my work and like it for whatever reason, that’s great.

如果他们偶然发现我的作品并出于某种原因喜欢它，那就太好了。

If they throw it against the wall, I don’t mind at all.

如果他们把它扔到墙上，我一点也不介意。

That’s up to them.

这取决于他们。

I’m simply putting forth a view of things which I think might be of interest to a range of people.

我只是提出一些我认为可能会引起很多人感兴趣的事物的观点。

One of my key ideas is that practically all of economics and social theory is based on the last 300 years.

我的主要观点之一是，几乎所有的经济学和社会理论都是基于过去 300 年的。

That’s a very small dataset for human history or human life.

这是人类历史或人类生活的一个非常小的数据集。

If you take a bit longer one, if you include the Aztecs and the Romans, not just the Meiji Empire but Edo Japan, which by the way, I think was incomparably more cultured and civilized than the majority of human cultures are today.

如果你花更长的时间，如果你包括阿兹特克人和罗马人，不仅仅是明治帝国，还有江户日本，顺便说一句，我认为日本比当今大多数人类文化更加有文化和文明。

If you take a broader view, then what you will see is long-term trends will look like blips.

如果你的视野更广阔，那么你会看到长期趋势看起来像是昙花一现。

The other thing is, I have done a bit of investing, and I haven’t always done badly, but it takes too much time, and it’s too boring.

另外就是，我做了一点投资，也不是每次都做得不好，但是太花时间了，而且太无聊了。

As you would call it, there’s an opportunity cost, which is the rest of my life.

正如你所说，这是一个机会成本，这就是我的余生。

I can’t be bothered to get too fixated on it to make money.

我懒得太专注于赚钱。

I have enough money now for my own purposes.

我现在有足够的钱来满足我自己的目的。

I have had cats, not hundreds of cats, but you don’t need hundreds of cats.

我养过猫，不是数百只猫，但你不需要数百只猫。

I’ve had four cats.

我养过四只猫。

It’s quite enough.

已经足够了。

I still love cats, but I’ve lived with four cats for 30 years.

我仍然喜欢猫，但我已经和四只猫一起生活了 30 年。

Over a period of 30 years, they passed away now, all of them, the last one at the age of 23, a good age for a cat.

30年过去了，现在他们都去世了，最后一个去世的时候才23岁，对于一只猫来说是个好年纪。

I don’t need to do that.

我不需要那样做。

Why should I do it?

我为什么要这么做？

I might get more satisfaction, intellectual and aesthetic, from observing what happens without trying to profit from it directly.

通过观察发生的事情而不试图直接从中获利，我可能会获得更多的满足感，无论是智力上的还是审美上的。

Would a world in which a very large number of human beings not only existed but had very high levels of well-being .

是否会有一个世界不仅存在大量人类，而且拥有非常高的福祉。

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In other words, I’m not talking about the famous repugnant conclusion, whereby if you have a vast world, and everybody’s lives are barely worth living, and you add up the utility, it could be better than a smaller world with many fewer human beings whose lives were much higher.

换句话说，我不是在谈论那个著名的令人反感的结论，即如果你有一个广阔的世界，每个人的生命都勉强值得过下去，你把效用加起来，它可能比一个人口少得多但生活要高得多的更小的世界要好。

I’m not talking about that at all.

我根本不是在谈论这个。

I’m thinking of a different thought experiment that he never did, to my knowledge.

据我所知，我正在考虑一个不同的思想实验，但他从未做过。

Never involved himself in, which is, between two worlds, one in which you have an enormous number of people, let’s say human beings, 100 billion, and all their lives are, in most respects at least, very worth living, but in which there are no other species; and a different world in which there’s a much smaller human population but a thriving biosphere around it .

从来没有卷入过，即两个世界之间的世界，其中有大量人口，比如说人类，有1000亿，他们的所有生命，至少在大多数方面，都非常值得生活，但其中没有其他物种；还有一个不同的世界，其中人口少得多，但周围有繁荣的生物圈。

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Now, I’m not trying to judge this because I’m not a utilitarian in terms of desire, satisfaction, or some other utilitarian theory of value.

现在，我不想对此做出判断，因为在欲望、满足或其他功利主义价值理论方面，我不是一个功利主义者。

But the second world, the world in which there are fewer human beings living well, but in what John Stuart Mill — by the way, who tried to be a consistent utilitarian but never was — he said without what he called flowery wastes — this is in his 1848 Principles of Political Economy — he said the world would be barren and, he thought, almost not worth living in, and I share that view.

但在第二个世界中，生活得好的人越来越少，但在约翰·斯图尔特·密尔（John Stuart Mill）——“顺便说一句，他试图成为一个始终如一的功利主义者，但从未做到”——“他说没有他所谓的华丽浪费”——“这是在他 1848 年的《政治经济学原理》中”——他说世界将是贫瘠的，他认为世界几乎不值得居住，我同意这个观点。

The islands where Homer set some of his poems were, at the time of Homer, probably covered by trees, thick trees and forests.

在荷马时代，荷马创作一些诗歌的岛屿可能被树木覆盖，树木茂密，森林茂密。

Now, most of them are not, so throughout human history and prehistory, human beings have damaged or altered their environments.

现在，它们中的大多数都不是，所以在整个人类历史和史前时期，人类已经破坏或改变了他们的环境。

But there hasn’t been a time up till now in which the whole of the biosphere could be damaged and injured.

但迄今为止，还没有出现过整个生物圈受到破坏和伤害的时期。

I prefer to live in a world in which that’s not true.

我宁愿生活在一个不真实的世界里。

Of course, you might say, “Well, we don’t live in that world, so we’ve got to decide.” I just would say, it would be hard to decide.

当然，你可能会说，“好吧，我们不住在那个世界，所以我们必须做出决定。”我只想说，这很难决定。

But what I would not do is make the decision on highly speculative grounds of those proposed by effective altruists and others, which involve making extrapolations into millions and millions of years into the future about what could be the best or worst outcome.

但我不会做的是根据有效的利他主义者和其他人提出的高度推测性的理由做出决定，这涉及到对未来数百万年的最好或最坏结果进行推断。

I think those are very unsound ways of moral reasoning because there’s far too much in them that is speculative and uncertain.

我认为这些都是非常不合理的道德推理方式，因为其中有太多的推测性和不确定性。

I would probably try and make the decisions that could be made for now, in the relatively near future of 50 or 100 years, or even less than that, about which animals .

我可能会尝试做出目前可以做出的决定，在相对不久的将来 50 年或 100 年，甚至更短的时间内，关于哪些动物。

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You see, ants, probably they’re going to survive whatever happens, most kinds of ants.

你看，蚂蚁，无论发生什么，大多数种类的蚂蚁，它们可能都会生存下来。

But gorillas and tigers and highly complex species, which depend upon delicate environments, could be destroyed by wars.

但大猩猩、老虎以及高度复杂的物种依赖于脆弱的环境，可能会被战争摧毁。

They can be destroyed by poaching.

它们可能会因偷猎而被摧毁。

They can be destroyed by diseases that spread more quickly when their environment changes.

当环境发生变化时，它们可能会被传播得更快的疾病所摧毁。

So, I’d probably focus on them.

所以，我可能会关注他们。

religion, actually.

事实上，宗教。

Britain has been, England especially — Scotland and Ireland to some extent, even Wales, are a bit different — it’s been a society for the last maybe 100 years, let’s say, in which religion has not been as life-shaping as it’s been in many parts of the world, and still isn’t, apart from new religions that have grown in the country.

英国，尤其是英格兰，在某种程度上，苏格兰和爱尔兰，甚至威尔士，都有点不同，比如说，在过去的大约一百年里，它一直是一个宗教社会，在这个社会中，宗教并没有像世界上许多地方那样影响生活，而且现在仍然如此，除了在该国兴起的新宗教之外。

Or not new religions — they’re very old religions but are grown in the country because of immigration — Islam and Hinduism and other religions.

或者不是新宗教 ——它们是非常古老的宗教，但由于移民而在这个国家发展起来 —— 伊斯兰教、印度教和其他宗教。

They were just perfectly normal for whom religion was a part of life.

对于他们来说，宗教是生活的一部分，这是完全正常的。

If they read P.G.

如果他们读过 P.G.

Wodehouse, they might have agreed with him.

沃德豪斯，他们可能同意他的观点。

P.G Wodehouse is a comic writer, lived in America a lot.

P.G Wodehouse 是一位漫画作家，经常在美国生活。

He was asked towards the end of his life in an interview — I think he lived on Long Island or somewhere, I can’t remember now — anyway, he was asked, “Do you, Mr. Wodehouse, have any religious beliefs?” To which he replied, “You know, it’s frightfully hard to say.”

在他生命的最后阶段，有人在一次采访中问他“我想他住在长岛或者其他地方，我现在不记得了”，无论如何，他被问到：“沃德豪斯先生，你有宗教信仰吗？”他回答说：“你知道，这很难说。”

I think that’s tremendously clever, much more intelligent than most authors, because what he recognized was that belief — when you get outside of formulating scientific propositions and so on, it’s a very fluid, vaporous thing.

我认为这是非常聪明的，比大多数作者聪明得多，因为他认识到的是这种信念——当你脱离制定科学命题等之外时，它是一种非常流动、飘忽不定的东西。

You can have residues of religious belief, even if you are an atheist, and you might not be able to formulate your beliefs.

即使您是无神论者，您也可能会残留宗教信仰，并且您可能无法形成自己的信仰。

Even if you have strong religious beliefs, you might still not be able to formulate.

即使你有强烈的宗教信仰，你可能仍然无法表述。

I guess they would’ve said that it was not something they spent a lot of time talking about or thinking about.

我想他们会说这不是他们花很多时间谈论或思考的事情。

But they’re simply not interested in us.

但他们根本对我们不感兴趣。

They come and leave some litter like human picnickers do and then leave.

它们像人类野餐者一样过来并留下一些垃圾，然后离开。

To me, although I’m open to the idea of UFOs, which, of course, is a spinoff from the idea, “Can there be intelligent life forms in other planetary systems or other parts of the universe?”

对我来说，尽管我对不明飞行物的想法持开放态度，但这当然是从“其他行星系统或宇宙其他部分是否存在智慧生命形式？”这一想法的衍生内容。

I can’t actually imagine that we are the only living, certainly, or even the only sentient — I find that hard to imagine.

我实际上无法想象我们是唯一的生物，当然，甚至是唯一的有知觉的 —— 我发现这很难想象。

But the distances are so vast that unless technology in other places has developed to extraordinary extents, we might be the only one that ever .

但距离如此之远，除非其他地方的技术已经发展到非凡的程度，否则我们可能是唯一拥有这种技术的国家。

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We might be alone apart from, of course, other intelligent species on the planet — like gorillas and possibly octopuses — that exist alongside us.

当然，除了地球上与我们并存的其他智慧物种——比如大猩猩，可能还有章鱼——之外，我们可能是孤独的。

We might never be in significant contact with these other intelligences if they exist.

如果这些其他智能体存在的话，我们可能永远不会与它们有过重要的接触。

But it doesn’t really matter much to me one way or the other because I think we’ve actually done a rather good job making ourselves more alone already, actually, by crudifying the biosphere through mass extinctions and so on.

但这对我来说其实并不重要，因为我认为我们实际上已经做得相当不错了，实际上，通过大规模灭绝等破坏生物圈，我们已经变得更加孤独了。

I think I was one of the very, very, very few people who were arguing that, because there was a time in which it was supposed to be inevitable.

我想我是极少数持此观点的人之一，因为曾经有一段时间，这被认为是不可避免的。

I never thought it would happen, particularly after Brexit, because after Brexit, breaking away would mean leaving the UK and then having several years in a limbo before the independent Scotland was accepted by the EU again.

我从来没有想过这种情况会发生，尤其是在英国脱欧之后，因为脱欧之后，脱离就意味着离开英国，然后在独立的苏格兰再次被欧盟接受之前陷入数年的困境。

It just wasn’t going to happen, and it won’t happen now.

这本来不会发生，现在也不会发生。

It won’t happen, probably, for 10, 20, 30, 40, or ever.

这可能在 10 年、20 年、30 年、40 年甚至永远都不会发生。

Ireland, I think will happen, partly for demographic reasons, which is that the population balance in the two parts of Ireland is shifting.

我认为爱尔兰会发生这种情况，部分原因是人口原因，即爱尔兰两部分的人口平衡正在发生变化。

I think, long term, partly because of Brexit, partly because it’s proved hard to work out a settlement with the EU for Northern Ireland without diluting the legal sovereignty that Brexit was supposed to achieve — I think it will happen.

我认为，从长远来看，部分是因为英国脱欧，部分是因为事实证明，在不削弱英国脱欧本应实现的法律主权的情况下，很难与欧盟就北爱尔兰问题达成解决方案 ——我认为这将会发生。

Whether it will be good or bad, I think it probably will happen.

无论是好是坏，我认为它很可能会发生。

You wouldn’t have those things if you cut back the number of tourists.

如果你减少游客数量，你就不会有这些东西了。

You could have a tourist tax.

你可能需要缴纳旅游税。

Some countries, or some places at least, do.

有些国家，或者至少有些地方，是这样做的。

I think Bhutan has a tax of $200 a day just to be —

我认为不丹每天要缴纳 200 美元的税，只是为了 ——

But Britain is a very individualistic and multicultural society as it stands.

但英国目前是一个非常个人主义和多元文化的社会。

I don’t think anything much is destroyed.

我不认为有什么东西被破坏了。

Just parking — it’s difficult.

只是停车 —— 很难。

That can be coped with in various ways.

可以通过多种方式应对。

I think, in all of these things, in most countries, at most times, in most places, the aim is to achieve a balance.

我认为，在所有这些事情上，在大多数国家、在大多数时候、在大多数地方，目标是实现平衡。

You see, if it was completely destroyed .

你看，如果它被完全摧毁了。

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To give an example there, you might have had this experience too.

举个例子，你可能也有过这样的经历。

I have been to Italian cities and museums and art galleries where the crowds were so enormous and so permanent and so thick, and the waits were so long, and when you got in to see the pictures, you could hardly get to see them at all.

我去过意大利的城市、博物馆和艺术画廊，那里的人群如此巨大、如此持久、如此密集，等待时间如此之长，当你进去看画时，你几乎根本看不到它们。

At that point, almost it’s not worth going, so I do see your point.

到那时，几乎不值得去，所以我确实明白你的观点。

You’d have to raise the price significantly, probably, of just being there to make it worth being there.

你可能必须大幅提高价格，只是为了让它值得去那里。

You’d have to pay more for it to be worth being there.

你必须付出更多才能值得去那里。

I would go further than that, Tyler.

我会走得更远，泰勒。

You might find this surprising.

你可能会觉得这很令人惊讶。

I’m a great fan of film as an art form.

我非常喜欢电影作为一种艺术形式。

I think even what might be called popular films, even TV is in a golden age, I would say now.

我认为，即使是所谓的流行电影，甚至电视也正处于黄金时代，我现在会说。

If I think of the series I’ve enjoyed in recent years — Breaking Bad, True Detective, British series of various kinds, some of the great historical — I think they weren’t made, couldn’t be made for various reasons.

如果我想到近年来我喜欢的系列 ——《绝命毒师》、《真探》、各种英国系列、一些伟大的历史作品 —— 我认为它们没有被制作出来，由于各种原因无法制作。

New technologies have made them even better in some respects than before, so that is a great thing.

新技术使它们在某些方面比以前更好，所以这是一件很棒的事情。

I’m in the process of shifting over from physical books.

我正在从实体书转向。

I’ll keep a few, but I’m getting rid of thousands of books now for various reasons.

我会保留一些，但由于各种原因，我现在要扔掉数千本书。

Literally thousands to Kindle.

Kindle 确实有数千个。

I’ve got thousands and thousands on Kindle already.

我已经在 Kindle 上收藏了成千上万的内容。

The reason for that is partly practical because I can carry it around with me.

这样做的部分原因是实用的，因为我可以随身携带它。

I can go on holiday and have all these books with me without any difficulty at all.

我可以毫无困难地带着所有这些书去度假。

Also, beyond that, if they’re books connected with my writing, I can search them very easily, rather than spending two hours of a finite lifetime — I’m 75, so it’s more finite than it used to be — searching for a particular phrase or sentence.

此外，除此之外，如果它们是与我的写作相关的书籍，我可以很容易地搜索它们，而不是在有限的一生中花费两个小时 —— 我75岁了，所以比以前更有限了 —— 搜索特定的短语或句子。

I can find it instantly, so that’s a very good thing.

我可以立即找到它，所以这是一件非常好的事情。

Also, now with the quality of the printing and of the formatting and of the illustrations and art, it’s very, very high.

此外，现在印刷、格式、插图和艺术的质量都非常非常高。

That’s progress, too.

这也是进步。

Remember, I’ve never argued that progress doesn’t occur.

请记住，我从来没有说过不会发生进步。

I’ve benefited myself from anesthetic dentistry.

我从麻醉牙科中受益匪浅。

I benefited quite recently, just a few months ago, from cataract surgery.

最近，就在几个月前，我从白内障手术中受益。

Wonderful things.

美妙的事情。

But my argument is that progress, actually, even of the scientific and technological kind, can always be reversed, and often is when there is a general civilizational collapse.

但我的论点是，事实上，即使是科学技术方面的进步，也总是可能被逆转，而且往往是在文明普遍崩溃的时候。

I should say, by the way, I’ve often contrasted science and technological process with ethical and political process, and said that the former — scientific and technological — is exponential in a way that improvement or progress in ethics and politics isn’t.

I should say, by the way, I’ve often contrasted science and technological process with ethical and political process, and said that the former — scientific and technological — is exponential in a way that improvement or progress in ethics and politics isn’t.

That’s more entropic.

这更加熵。

There are people who I respect greatly, like Peter Thiel, who have argued that, even in science and technology, this is more of an age of stagnation than we commonly think, that groupthink and various types of institutional follow-up have limited creativity.

我非常尊敬一些人，比如彼得·蒂尔（Peter Thiel），他们认为，即使在科学技术领域，这也比我们通常想象的更加是一个停滞的时代，群体思维和各种类型的制度跟进都限制了创造力。

That actually, even, you might call the paradigmatic forms of cumulative advance, which is what progress is.

实际上，你甚至可以称之为累积进步的范例形式，这就是进步。

Progress isn’t just a brief period, a blip when things get a bit better, and then they stop being better and get worse.

进步不仅仅是一个短暂的时期，也不仅仅是事情稍微好一点，然后就不再好转而变得更糟的昙花一现。

Progress means that what has been achieved on the past is largely retained as the process of improvement goes on.

进步意味着随着改进过程的继续，过去取得的成就在很大程度上得以保留。

That’s generally true in science and technology.

这在科学和技术领域通常是正确的。

Of course, if you look at the whole span of the last 3,000 years, there have been many periods in which technologies and skills and knowledge have been lost.

Of course, if you look at the whole span of the last 3,000 years, there have been many periods in which technologies and skills and knowledge have been lost.

That could happen again, I think.

我认为这种情况可能会再次发生。

Ethical and political progress is much more fragile than that, but it does occur.

道德和政治进步比这脆弱得多，但它确实发生了。

And sometimes technological progress can improve human lives a lot, not just in medical context or dental context.

有时，技术进步可以极大地改善人类的生活，而不仅仅是在医疗或牙科领域。

By the way, Thomas de Quincey, the celebrated opium addict, writing in his book, said — I can never remember if it’s a quarter or a third — but he said, I think, either a quarter or a third of all human suffering was toothache, which is true.

By the way, Thomas de Quincey, the celebrated opium addict, writing in his book, said — I can never remember if it’s a quarter or a third — but he said, I think, either a quarter or a third of all human suffering was toothache, which is true.

It was probably true at that time, or might have been true anyway.

这在当时可能是真的，或者无论如何都可能是真的。

Definitely not true now.

现在绝对不是真的。

I share that view.

我同意这个观点。

They can even increase new methods of filming and streaming of films and so on, and increase the aesthetic qualities of life, because they’ve made it much easier for someone sitting in a study, as I do, to have access to beautiful forms of film art.

They can even increase new methods of filming and streaming of films and so on, and increase the aesthetic qualities of life, because they’ve made it much easier for someone sitting in a study, as I do, to have access to beautiful forms of film art.

I think, in what people conventionally think of with ethics and politics, it’s always a good idea to expect the worst to come back.

我认为，按照人们对道德和政治的传统看法，期待最坏的情况再次出现总是一个好主意。

It’s always a good idea to think that among the competing memes, it will be the memes that are the most vicious and the most toxic which will win.

It’s always a good idea to think that among the competing memes, it will be the memes that are the most vicious and the most toxic which will win.

I think that’s happening now in the world, actually.

我认为这实际上正在世界上发生。

There’s a wonderful edition by the American — 30 or 40 years ago — Harold Beaver, which has a 200-page set of notes at the end in which all the biblical and other references and allusions are explained.

There’s a wonderful edition by the American — 30 or 40 years ago — Harold Beaver, which has a 200-page set of notes at the end in which all the biblical and other references and allusions are explained.

He’s an incredible writer, and almost not a novelist.

他是一位令人难以置信的作家，但几乎不是小说家。

I don’t know what you would call Moby Dick.

我不知道你会怎么称呼莫比迪克。

By the way, someone I knew well for the last 15 years of his life, J.

顺便说一下，我在生命的最后 15 年里很熟悉的一个人，J.

G.

G。

Ballard, told me that that was one of his favorite books, and he kept recurring to Moby Dick, kept re-reading it and re-reading it.

巴拉德告诉我，那是他最喜欢的书之一，他不断地重复阅读《白鲸》，不断地重读又重读。

If you’re trapped in some situation which is completely hopeless in ordinary naturalistic reasoning — you know you’re not going to get out, you know you’re going to be killed — then you turn to God in those circumstances.

If you’re trapped in some situation which is completely hopeless in ordinary naturalistic reasoning — you know you’re not going to get out, you know you’re going to be killed — then you turn to God in those circumstances.

I guess I’ve been lucky.

我想我很幸运。

I haven’t been in circumstances like that.

我没有遇到过这样的情况。

How would I react?

我会如何反应？

There’s a contrary .

有一个相反的情况。

.

。

.

。

That’s why people say there are no atheists in foxholes.

这就是为什么人们说散兵坑里没有无神论者。

I think there are, actually.

我认为实际上是有的。

I think some of the atheists in foxholes were believers before they got into the foxhole.

我认为散兵坑里的一些无神论者在进入散兵坑之前就是信徒。

But it is true, empirically.

但从经验来看，这是事实。

I’m a great admirer of the Russian writer Varlam Shalamov, who survived, I think it was 16 or even 19 years in the very worst camps in Soviet Russia — gold mining camps, where the average lifespan was three years.

I’m a great admirer of the Russian writer Varlam Shalamov, who survived, I think it was 16 or even 19 years in the very worst camps in Soviet Russia — gold mining camps, where the average lifespan was three years.

But he didn’t want to forget it either, because he thought that something could be written of value about it.

但他也不想忘记它，因为他认为可以写一些有价值的东西。

He says that the people who broke down mentally, and then physically, the quickest were the Communist Party members and hierarchs who came in.

他说，精神上崩溃最快的人，然后是身体上崩溃最快的是进来的共产党员和高层。

The ones who lasted a long time were the professional criminals.

坚持时间较长的是职业犯罪分子。

The ones that lasted the longest were religious believers because they knew, if you’re in a camp where nearly everyone would be dead in three years .

The ones that lasted the longest were religious believers because they knew, if you’re in a camp where nearly everyone would be dead in three years .

.

。

.

。

They weren’t death camps in the way the Nazi camps were, but nearly everyone in a section of camps — it wasn’t true of the whole — would not be there in three years, and could be dead.

They weren’t death camps in the way the Nazi camps were, but nearly everyone in a section of camps — it wasn’t true of the whole — would not be there in three years, and could be dead.

If you knew that — you look around you, and every single day, you see somebody lying in the snow who’s perished, who was in the next bunk to you on the previous night — how do you adapt to that?

If you knew that — you look around you, and every single day, you see somebody lying in the snow who’s perished, who was in the next bunk to you on the previous night — how do you adapt to that?

He thought that religious faith — but he had none himself.

他认为有宗教信仰——但他自己却没有。

He had none at all himself.

他自己根本就没有。

Yet he still did survive, semi-miraculously.

但他仍然奇迹般地活了下来。

Not, I think, in a whole way.

我认为，完全不是。

He was damaged by it, but he did survive, and he did continue writing, even after he escaped, for a long, long time, decades.

他受到了伤害，但他确实活了下来，而且即使在他逃脱之后，他也确实继续写作，持续了很长很长的时间，几十年。

I can understand why people turn to divine power to do what they know to be naturally impossible.

我可以理解为什么人们求助于神圣的力量来完成他们知道自然不可能的事情。

That’s one of the deepest motives, at least, that people turn to religion.

至少，这是人们转向宗教的最深层动机之一。

I’ve been lucky; I haven’t had to do that yet.

我很幸运；我还没有必要这么做。

Traditional Epicureanism and Lucretianism aim for happiness by setting the bar so low that you can’t be disappointed.

传统的伊壁鸠鲁主义和卢克莱修主义的目标是把幸福的标准设置得如此之低，以至于你不会失望。

If you look, and if you think of what’s absent in Lucretius’s view of the good life or in Epicurus’s view, what’s absent?

如果你看一下，如果你想到卢克莱修的美好生活观或伊壁鸠鲁的观点中缺少什么，那么缺少什么？

Anything that causes turbulence of mind.

凡是引起心神不安的事情。

Lucretius says explicitly, “You shouldn’t fall in love with other people.

卢克莱修明确地说：“你不应该爱上别人。

Have lots of promiscuous sex.

有很多乱交的性行为。

Find some slaves, get it out of your system, so you don’t need to fall in love.

找一些奴隶，把它从你的系统中剔除，这样你就不需要坠入爱河了。

If you don’t fall in love, you won’t then be unhappy, because when you fall out of love .

如果你不恋爱，你就不会不快乐，因为当你失恋时。

.

。

.” He says that explicitly.

”。他明确地这么说。

In a gentler way, it also underlies Epicurus’s philosophy.

从更温和的角度来说，它也是伊壁鸠鲁哲学的基础。

Science is not valued, remember, in Epicurus, except as a means for improving the comfort of life.

请记住，在伊壁鸠鲁看来，科学并不被重视，除非它是改善生活舒适度的一种手段。

There isn’t a scientific quest, a semi-mystical scientific quest, as there was in Europe at the start of the Scientific Revolution.

不像科学革命开始时的欧洲那样，存在着一种科学探索，一种半神秘的科学探索。

Most of the leaders of the Scientific Revolution were astrologers or mystics.

科学革命的大多数领导人都是占星家或神秘主义者。

Of course, Newton was a numerologist and a fundamentalist in his reading of the Bible.

当然，牛顿是一位命理学家，在阅读圣经时也是一位原教旨主义者。

They all had attached great spiritual and mystical significance to science.

他们都赋予科学巨大的精神和神秘意义。

Epicurus and Lucretius didn’t.

伊壁鸠鲁和卢克莱修没有。

It was just a tool whereby we could be made more comfortable.

它只是一个让我们变得更舒服的工具。

Highly competitive sports, the virtues of war, the martial virtues — they’re not there either.

竞争激烈的体育运动、战争的美德、尚武的美德——它们也不存在。

It’s very minimal.

这是非常小的。

If you think of what an entirely Epicurean world would look like, there’d be no faith or religion because that’s led to masses of —

如果你想象一个完全享乐主义的世界会是什么样子，那么就不会有信仰或宗教，因为这会导致大量的 ——

What I’m saying is that there are many philosophers — the Epicureans, and to some extent the Stoics as well — who do propose that.

我想说的是，有很多哲学家————伊壁鸠鲁派，在某种程度上还有斯多葛派——确实提出了这一点。

They propose that you cut down the basic demands you put on life.

他们建议你减少对生活的基本要求。

They’re so minimal that they’re less likely to be oughten.

它们是如此之小，以至于不太可能被应用。

I don’t do that.

我不这样做。

I think the opposite.

我认为相反。

I’m much more like Nietzsche in that respect.

在这方面我更像尼采。

I think he’s better, at least to me, aesthetically better and maybe more interesting way of life.

我认为他更好，至少对我来说，在审美上更好，也许生活方式更有趣。

If someone said, “How did you live your life?” and you said, “I successfully avoided all love affairs and, thereby, avoided all disappointments.

如果有人问：“你这一生过得怎么样？”你说：“我成功地避免了所有的爱情，从而避免了所有的失望。

I never attached any great importance to knowledge, only so far as it met my needs for comfort.

我从来不重视知识，只是认为它满足了我舒适的需要。

I never engaged in competitive sports because I might lose.

我从来不参加竞技运动，因为我可能会输。

I never tried.

我从来没有尝试过。

I never invested because I might lose my capital.” I find all of those rather miserable ways of living.

我从来没有投资过，因为我可能会失去本金。”我发现所有这些生活方式都相当悲惨。

Of course, you don’t have to be an optimist.

当然，你不必是一个乐观主义者。

Think of someone like Joseph Conrad, very far from being an optimist in any respect, but he had a fantastically interesting life.

想想像约瑟夫·康拉德这样的人，他在任何方面都远不是一个乐观主义者，但他的生活却非常有趣。

When he was 18 or 20, he was a gun runner for monarchist rebels in Spain.

当他 18 或 20 岁的时候，他是西班牙君主制叛乱分子的军火走私者。

He then became a seaman for 20 years, almost lost his life two or three times in catastrophic shipwrecks, and so on and so forth.

然后他当了20年的海员，有两三次差点在灾难性的海难中丧生，等等。

He wrote his novels — he’d certainly be advised against this by Epicurus if you could bring him back from the grave — in his third language, not his second language.

他用他的第三语言而不是第二语言写小说——“如果你能让他从坟墓里复活，伊壁鸠鲁肯定会建议他不要这样做”。

He didn’t write them even in French.

他甚至没有用法语写它们。

He wrote them in English, which was his third language.

他用英语写的，这是他的第三语言。

Tremendous mental torment went into that.

这造成了巨大的精神折磨。

I’ve read about him suffering for hours to get the right word, which might have been because he was a perfectionist, but also because it was a word in English, which was not one of his early languages, or that he was brought up in.

我读到过他为了找到正确的单词而苦苦挣扎了几个小时，这可能是因为他是一个完美主义者，但也因为这是一个英语单词，而英语不是他早期的语言之一，或者是因为他是在英语中长大的。

He was a tremendous pessimist, but he lived a life of extraordinary adventure.

他是一个极度悲观主义者，但他却过着非凡冒险的生活。

I tend to think that pessimists — the pessimists I’ve known in my life anyway — are more likely to live lives of extraordinary adventure because it doesn’t matter to them as much as it does to optimists whether they win or lose.

我倾向于认为悲观主义者——我一生中认识的悲观主义者更有可能过着非凡冒险的生活，因为对他们来说，输赢对他们来说并不重要，而对乐观主义者来说，输赢则更重要。

What matters to them is whether what they do is interesting, whether what they do enriches their life in the sense that it shows them things, shows them people, shows them worlds, shows them landscapes, gives them experiences, not only that they hadn’t had before, but even maybe that they couldn’t imagine before.

对他们来说重要的是他们所做的事情是否有趣，他们所做的事情是否丰富了他们的生活，因为它向他们展示了事物，向他们展示了人，向他们展示了世界，向他们展示了风景，给了他们经验，不仅是他们以前没有过的，甚至可能是他们以前无法想象的。

If you’re an optimist, you have some kind of clear — otherwise, I think the distinction is really rather silly — but you have an idea of how you want to live, of the successful projects you want to get involved in.

如果你是一个乐观主义者，你就会有某种清晰的认识——否则，我认为这种区别真的相当愚蠢，但你知道自己想要如何生活，知道自己想要参与哪些成功的项目。

If you’re not an optimist — let’s just call it a non-optimist — you’ll settle on what you want to do.

如果你不是一个乐观主义者 ——我们就称其为非乐观主义者 —— 你就会决定你想做的事情。

If it’s at least possible, if it’s at least in broad terms something that you could do or you could actually achieve, you can, if you want, go off on a wild journey into the Amazon.

如果这至少是可能的，如果至少从广义上讲这是你可以做的事情或者你实际上可以实现的事情，那么如果你愿意，你可以去亚马逊进行一次疯狂的旅行。

You might not come back, but you might see a lot of interesting things.

你可能不会回来，但你可能会看到很多有趣的事情。

If you can at least do these things, if they attract you, then if you are non-optimist, you might be very well inclined to do them.

如果你至少可以做这些事情，如果它们吸引你，那么如果你不乐观，你可能会很倾向于做它们。

I like people like that.

我喜欢这样的人。

He thought that I could benefit from a university education, including one from Oxford, so I joined — I wasn’t unique in any way — I joined a group of young people, sixth formers, as we called them.

他认为我可以从大学教育中受益，包括牛津大学的教育，所以我加入了 ——“我在任何方面都不是独一无二的”—— 我加入了一群年轻人，我们称他们为六年级学生。

Five or six or seven or eight — it might have been as many as ten or twelve — who he groomed to apply to universities like Oxford, Cambridge, and some others.

他培养了五、六、七、八——可能多达十或十二——来申请牛津、剑桥等大学。

I joined that group after he noted that, and I was successful in going there.

在他注意到这一点后，我加入了那个小组，并且我成功地去了那里。

That was him.

那就是他。

As a writer, the mixture of calm, companionship, and complete indifference that a cat has for you and your work and your thoughts is very calming.

作为一名作家，猫对你、你的工作和你的思想所表现出的平静、陪伴和完全的冷漠混合在一起，是非常平静的。

I do not know if it’s unusual, but I certainly found that helped my work.

我不知道这是否不寻常，但我确实发现这对我的工作有帮助。

Nowadays, I sometimes play music, or I intersperse it — my work, if I’m working on my computer — with looking at maybe a few moments, 10 or 15 minutes of a film I’ve watched before.

如今，我有时会播放音乐，或者在其中穿插 ——“我的工作，如果我在电脑上工作的话”—— 看看我以前看过的电影的几分钟、10 或 15 分钟。

There may be some passage in the film that I find particularly beautiful or thrilling.

电影中可能有一些段落我觉得特别美丽或惊心动魄。

I use that, too.

我也用那个。

I daresay that would be called slacking, but I don’t think of it as slacking.

我敢说这会被称为偷懒，但我不认为这是偷懒。

I think of it as recharging the mental batteries to go on to work.

我认为这是给精神电池充电以继续工作。

I try to review a wide variety of books.

我尝试评论各种各样的书籍。

I’ll continue doing that, and I may collect them, but I might start trying to write something.

我会继续这样做，我可能会收集它们，但我可能会开始尝试写一些东西。

I might think of writing a book purely of aphorisms.

我可能会考虑写一本纯粹的格言书。

I like aphorisms because, as I say, they’re short and uncluttered and can be beautiful.

我喜欢格言，因为正如我所说，它们简短、整洁，而且很美丽。

A lot of people don’t like aphorisms because if you write an aphorism, you can’t have 10 pages before it explaining what you mean by it, like an academic work.

很多人不喜欢格言，因为如果你写了一句格言，你就不可能像学术著作一样用 10 页的时间来解释你的意思。

A lot of academic works — they say, “I’m not saying this, I’m not saying that.

很多学术著作——他们说：“我不是说这个，我不是说那个。

I don’t think this.

我不这么认为。

I don’t think that.

我不这么认为。

I’m not criticizing professor so and so.

我并不是批评某某教授。

I am criticizing the other.” Three-quarters of the book is a set of digressions about what they’re not doing.

我是在批评别人。”这本书的四分之三都是关于他们没有做什么的题外话。

An aphorism just says something.

格言只是说了一些话。

You don’t have to accept it, but it sounds sometimes dogmatic for that reason.

你不必接受它，但由于这个原因，它有时听起来很教条。

It sounds as if you are trying to impose it on someone.

听起来好像你想把它强加给某人。

I might produce that, or I might do some more essays.

我可能会写出这个，或者我可能会写更多的文章。

I’m more and more interested in theology as a root of many of our present intellectual and other perplexities and dilemmas.

我对神学越来越感兴趣，因为神学是我们当前许多知识分子和其他困惑和困境的根源。

If you think in what are called secular terms, you can’t really understand the world that we now live in, not just because religions come back in as a force in war and a force in politics, but because many of the things that don’t seem religious are actually inspired by, not just religious needs and impulses, but even by religious categories or symbols or myths.

如果你用所谓的世俗术语思考，你就无法真正理解我们现在生活的世界，不仅因为宗教作为战争力量和政治力量重新回归，而且因为许多看似非宗教的事物实际上不仅受到宗教需求和冲动的启发，甚至还受到宗教类别、符号或神话的启发。

The singularity, for example, is obviously something connected with ideas of revelation and of rapture.

例如，奇点显然与启示和狂喜的观念有关。

It’s obviously not an idea that it would be easy to have if you knew nothing about those Christian and Jewish and other traditions in which these ideas of apocalypse and revelations — so, I think I might write something more about that.

如果你对基督教、犹太教和其他传统一无所知，那么这显然不是一个容易产生的想法，在这些传统中，这些启示和启示的想法 ——所以，我想我可能会写更多关于这个的东西。