Rules of Reciprocity
Back when I used to teach undergraduate composition, I would spring this in-class essay assignment on my students:
当我教本科生作文时，我会给我的学生布置这样的课堂论文作业：
Most students wrote that the first law—giving as good as you got—described a less considerate way of treating others than the second.
大多数学生写道，第一条法则——尽己所能——描述了一种比第二条法则更不体贴的对待他人的方式。
Those who’d read a fair amount traced the first law back to the Code of Hammurabi or the Old Testament directive of an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.
那些读过相当多书的人可以将第一条法律追溯到《汉谟拉比法典》或《旧约》中以眼还眼、以牙还牙的指令。
They contrasted it with the New Testament philosophy of turning the other cheek, or loving one’s neighbor as oneself.
他们将其与《新约》中的“把另一边脸也转过去”或“爱人如己”的哲学进行了对比。
Some called this second law the Golden Rule.
有些人将第二条定律称为“黄金法则”。
If they were capable of this level of analysis and wrote well, they got an A.
如果他们有能力进行这种水平的分析并且写得很好，他们就会得到 A。
No one ever questioned the wisdom of the Golden Rule.
没有人质疑黄金法则的智慧。
No one, that is, until a bright student who sat in the middle row appended a curious coda to her essay.
没有人，直到坐在中间一排的一位聪明的学生在她的论文中添加了一个奇怪的尾声。
She went over the two ways of thinking involved in the two laws, then wrote, “Of course, to do unto others as you would have them do unto you also gets it wrong.
她回顾了这两条法律所涉及的两种思维方式，然后写道：“当然，己所不欲，勿施于人，也是错误的。
Other people aren’t you.”
别人不是你。”
Handing back the essay a week later, I talked with her briefly.
一周后把论文交回来，我和她简短地聊了几句。
She wore the pale, dissatisfied look of those for whom life isn’t quite sufficient.
她脸上的表情苍白、不满，就像那些生活不够充实的人一样。
“I liked your essay,” I told her.
“我喜欢你的文章，”我告诉她。
“You’re the only person I know who’s ever taken issue with the Golden Rule.
“你是我认识的唯一一个对黄金法则提出异议的人。
What made you think of it?”
是什么让你想到了这个？”
She smiled painfully.
她痛苦地笑了。
“My boyfriend takes me out to a lot of basketball games.
“我男朋友带我去看很多篮球比赛。
Because that’s what he likes, not me.” In fact, what she’d written coincided with what I’d come to believe myself, that a lot of kindly meant behavior is marred by the egotistical self.
因为那是他喜欢的，不是我。”事实上，她所写的与我自己的想法不谋而合，即许多善意的行为都被自私的自我所破坏。
The point that other people don’t hold the same assumptions that you do is hard to take.
其他人并不持有与你相同的假设，这一点很难接受。
The people close to you may not share your taste in food or opera, and why should they?
您身边的人可能与您在食物或歌剧方面的品味不同，为什么他们应该这样做呢？
Still, if love, as some cynics put it, is a triumph of illusion over reality, then it’s certainly understandable that they should—or should seem to.
尽管如此，如果爱情，正如一些愤世嫉俗者所说，是幻想对现实的胜利，那么他们应该——或者看起来应该——当然是可以理解的。
If you truly love someone, the loved one feels like an extension of yourself.
如果你真正爱一个人，所爱的人就会感觉像是你自己的延伸。
That’s because love is partly a matter of projecting your traits onto someone else and then admiring what’s there.
这是因为爱在一定程度上就是将你的特质投射到别人身上，然后欣赏别人的特质。
Developmentally, we begin by loving ourselves: We are it, the point of everything.
从发展的角度来看，我们从爱自己开始：我们就是一切，一切的重点。
Soon enough, we learn that others surround us and their feelings are also significant.
很快，我们就知道我们周围还有其他人，他们的感受也很重要。
Some of us may even go on to become famous philanthropists or saints, such as Albert Schweitzer or Mother Teresa, loving others as a vocation.
我们中的一些人甚至可能成为著名的慈善家或圣人，例如阿尔伯特·史怀哲或特蕾莎修女，以爱他人为职业。
But the essential filtering through the self never stops, since what other true vantage point do we have?
但对自我的本质过滤永远不会停止，因为我们还有什么其他真正的有利位置呢？
You experience others as yourself.
你体验别人就像体验你自己一样。
Yet as any simile will show, the preposition as is inexact at best.
然而，正如任何明喻都会表明的那样，介词 as 充其量是不精确的。
To be fair, the phrase “as you would have them do unto you” isn’t really about what you’d like.
公平地说，“正如你希望他们对你做的那样”这句话并不是真正关于你想要什么。
It’s meant to be an exercise in empathy.
这是同理心的练习。
Yet if we are all born narcissists, and the projection of the self onto others is second nature to us, then seeing through another’s eyes is impossible, except through a form of wishful guesswork.
然而，如果我们都是天生的自恋者，并且将自我投射到他人身上是我们的第二天性，那么通过他人的眼睛来看待事物是不可能的，除非通过一厢情愿的猜测。
This idea, the inescapability of the self, has implications beyond moral behavior.
这种“自我不可避免”的观念具有超出道德行为的含义。
It threatens the very notion of objectivity.
它威胁到了客观性的概念。
Isn’t one always imposing one’s own standards on others?
人不总是把自己的标准强加给别人吗？
Yes and no. First of all, those selfsame standards inevitably reflect communal values: No one is brought up in a void.
是和不是。首先，这些相同的标准不可避免地反映了共同的价值观：没有人是在虚空中长大的。
Parents and teachers can inculcate the value of tolerance or hard work.
父母和老师可以灌输宽容或努力工作的价值观。
Second, some people’s standards seem more flexible, more empathic than those held by others.
其次，有些人的标准似乎比其他人的标准更灵活、更有同理心。
Consider the person who expresses an opposition to charity but still gives money to a homeless person.
想象一下一个人，他表示反对慈善事业，但仍然向无家可归的人捐钱。
Herein lies some hope for the Golden Rule: If you can walk a mile in someone else’s shoes or at least imagine what it must feel like, you can properly do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
这就是黄金法则的一些希望：如果你能站在别人的立场上走一英里，或者至少想象一下那是什么感觉，你就可以正确地对待别人，就像你希望别人对你那样。
Of course, if you have this kind of empathy, you probably don’t need that kind of guideline.
当然，如果你有这种同理心，你可能就不需要那种指导。
But I’m neglecting the other law (“Do unto others as they do unto you”), which describes a great deal of the events on our planet.
但我忽略了另一条法则（“己所不欲，勿施于人”），它描述了我们星球上发生的大量事件。
For the same writing assignment, another student decided that he favored the “eye for an eye” mode of behavior.
对于同一个写作作业，另一名学生认为他更喜欢“以眼还眼”的行为模式。
“It’s only fair,” he wrote.
“这很公平，”他写道。
“The punishment fits the crime.”
“罪刑相适应。”
I guardedly admired this essay and talked to this student as well.
我很欣赏这篇文章，也和这位学生交谈过。
He was slightly apologetic yet stood his ground.
他略带歉意，但仍坚持自己的立场。
As he explained, he was bullied as a kid till he learned to fight back.
正如他解释的那样，他小时候被欺负，直到他学会反击。
“Nothing else works .” How can one argue with this version of the School of Hard Knocks?
“没有别的办法了。”怎样才能反驳这一版本的“艰苦奋斗学校”呢？
An eye for an eye often is the way of the world, in everything from schoolyard fights to a judge meting out public service to a defendant who has damaged the community.
以眼还眼往往是世界的常态，从校园打架到法官为损害社区的被告提供公共服务。
It also unfortunately describes human nature, as I’ve observed it for more than half a century.
不幸的是，它也描述了人性，正如我半个多世纪以来所观察到的那样。
Despite millennia of so-called civilization, people derive satisfaction from payback.
尽管有几千年的所谓文明，但人们却从回报中获得满足。
As for my other students, who came from many ethnic backgrounds and socioeconomic levels, did any of them advocate a system of rewards and punishments other than the two offered?
至于我的其他来自不同种族背景和社会经济水平的学生，除了这两种奖励和惩罚制度之外，他们中是否有人主张其他奖励和惩罚制度？
That was beyond the scope of the assignment, but a few astute students did try—including one whose last paragraph, a masterwork of social policy, concluded, “Easier said than done.” Another quoted this witticism: “Do unto others before they undo you.”
这超出了作业的范围，但一些精明的学生确实尝试过，其中一位学生的最后一段是社会政策的杰作，他总结道：“说起来容易做起来难。”另一个人引用了这句俏皮话：“在别人毁掉你之前先对其他人做事。”
After a few years, I stopped giving this assignment.
几年后，我不再分配这项任务。
If I found the task too complex, I figured that most students did, too.
如果我发现任务太复杂，我想大多数学生也会这样做。
Eventually I replaced the essay prompt with one about the difference between a good joke and a bad joke—another difficult topic, but one that got more laughs.
最终，我用一个关于好笑话和坏笑话之间区别的提示取代了论文提示——这是另一个困难的话题，但更能带来笑声。