复旦研究生英语UnitEight.doc

Is Love an Art?Is Love an art? Then it requires knowledge and effort. Or is love a pleasant sensation, which to experiences is a matter of chance, something one falls intro if one is lucky? Undoubtedly, the majority of people today believe in the latter.爱是一门艺术吗？那就需要知识并付出努力。或者爱是一种令人愉悦的情感，只有幸运儿才能“坠入”爱河呢？这本小书是以第一种假设为前提的，而大多数人无疑都相信第二种假设。Not that people think that love is not important. They are starved for it; they watch endless numbers of films about happy and unhappy love stories, they listen to hundreds of trashy songs abut love - yet hardly anyone thinks that there is anything that needs to be learned about love.人们并非认为爱无关紧要。人们对于爱总是如饥似渴，悲欢离合的爱情电影他们百看不厌，百般无聊的爱情歌曲他们百听不烦。但很少有人认为爱需要学习。This peculiar attitude is based on several premises which either singly or combinedly tend to uphold it. Most people see the problem of love primarily as that of “being loved”, rather than that of “loving”, of ones capacity to love. Hence the problem to them is how to be loved, how to be lovable. In pursuit of this aim they follow several paths. One, which is especially used by men, is to be successful, to be as powerful and rich as the social margin of ones position permits. Another, used especially by women, is to make oneself attractive, by cultivating ones body, dress, etc. Other ways of making oneself attractive, used both by men and women, are to develop pleasant manners, interesting conversation, to be helpful, modest, inoffensive. Many of the ways to make oneself lovable are the same as those used to make oneself successful, to win friends and influence people. As a matter of fact, what most people in our culture mean by being lovable is essentially a mixture between being popular and having sex appeal.对爱的这种奇怪观点基于几个错误前提，这些前提或单独或一起支撑着这一观点。多数人认为爱就是“被人爱”，而非“爱别人”，或主动去爱的能力。因此，对他们而言，关键问题就在于如何被爱，如何扮可爱。他们采取各种途径以期达到此目的。一个方法就是成为成功人士，在自己的社会地位所许可的范围内获取最大量的权力和财产。这种方法的效法者多为男性。另一个方法则是通过保持身材和注重打扮使自己富有魅力。女性优为青睐该方法。其他一些让自己魅力四射的方法有：举止得体，谈吐风趣，乐于助人、低调内敛等。这些方式男女均有采用。很多使自己可爱的方式和使自己成功的途径并无区别，那就是“赢得朋友和影响他人”。事实上，社会上大多数人所理解的“可爱”无非是受大众欢迎和对异性有吸引力这两点的综合而已。A second premise behind the attitude that there is nothing to be learned about love is the assumption that the problem of love is the problem of an “object”, not the problem of a “faculty”. People think that to “love” is simple, but that to find the right object to love - or to be loved by - is difficult. This attitude has several reasons rooted in the development of modern society. One reason is the great change which occurred in the 20th century with respect to the choice of a “love object”. In the Victorian age, as in many traditional cultures, love was mostly not a spontaneous personal experience which then might lead to marriage. On the contrary, marriage was contracted by convention - either by the respective families, or by a marriage broker, or without the help of such considerations; it was concluded on the basis of social considerations, and love was supposed to develop once the marriage had been concluded. In the last few generations the concept of romantic love has become almost universal in the Western world. In the United States, while considerations of a conventional nature are not entirely absent, to a vast extent people are in search of “romantic love”, of the personal experience of love which then should lead to marriage. This new concept of freedom in love must have greatly enhanced the importance of the “object” as against the importance of the “function”.导致“爱不需要学习”这种看法的第二个前提是：人们想当然地认为爱的问题是“对象”问题，而不是“能力”问题。人们认为爱是件很简单的事，困难在于要找到爱或被爱的对象。造成这种态度的几大根源基于现代社会的发展。原因之一是：在二十世纪，人们对“恋爱对象”的选择出现了巨大变化。在维多利亚时代，同许多传统文化一样，人们一般认为爱情并非是那种最终走向婚姻的自然产生的个人情感。恰恰相反，人们认为婚姻是按照传统习俗约定的：或为父母之命，或为媒妁之言，也可能无需这些中介撮合；婚姻是按社会习俗的考虑决定的，婚姻既成，爱情随之自然而然地产生。过去几十年以来，西方世界普遍认可自由恋爱。在美国，尽管传统爱情观念并没有完全消失，但人们普遍在寻找“浪漫爱情”，寻找那种最终会走向婚姻的自由恋爱。这种自由恋爱的新概念提升了爱的“对象”的重要性，而不是爱的“能力”的重要性。Closely related to this factor is another feature characteristic of contemporary culture. Our whole culture is based on the appetite for buying, on the idea of mutually favorable exchange. Modern mans happiness consists in the thrill of looking at the shop windows, and in buying all that he can afford to buy, either for cash or on installments. He (or she) looks at people in a similar way. For the man an attractive girl, and for the woman an attractive man, are the prizes they are after. “Attractive” usually means a nice package of qualities which are popular and sought-after on the personality market. What specifically makes a person attractive depends on the fashion of the time, physically as well as mentally. During the twenties, a drinking and smoking girl, tough and sexy, was attractive; today the fashion demands more domesticity and coyness. At the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, a man had to be aggressive and ambitious - today he has to be social and tolerant - in order to be an attractive package. At any rate, the sense of falling in love develops usually only with regard to such human commodities as are within reach of ones own possibilities for exchange. I am out for a bargain; the object should be desirable from the standpoint of its social value, and at the same time should want me, considering my overt and hidden assets and potentialities. Two persons thus fall in love when they feel they have found the best object available on the market, considering the limitations of their own exchange values. Often, as in buying real estate, the hidden potentialities which can be developed play a considerable role in this bargain. In a culture in which the marketing orientation prevails, and in which material success is the outstanding value, there is little reason to be surprised that human love relations follow the same pattern of exchange which governs the commodity and the labor market.与这一因素紧密相关的是当代文化的一大特征。我们整个文化都是以购买欲望和互惠交换为基础的。现代人的幸福在于浏览商店橱窗时的兴奋，在于用现金或分期付款的方式购买力所能及的商品。在对人的观察方面现代人也是采用同样的方式。在男性眼里，魅力女孩是他们追求的目标，而魅力男性则是女性仰慕的对象。“魅力”通常意指择偶市场上那些受人喜爱和推崇的性格特质。什么算有魅力取决于时尚潮流，包括身体条件和精神气质。二十年代的魅力女孩会喝酒、抽烟、强悍、性感，如今则要求女子能操持家务，腼腆羞涩。十九世纪末、本世纪初，男子汉魅力是积极进取、志向远大，如今则要善于交际、心胸开阔才更受欢迎。归根结蒂爱情的产生往往是以权衡双方的交换价值为前提。我想做一笔交易，既要考虑对方的社会价值，值不值得我追求，也要考虑对方是否看得上我，鉴于我现实的以及潜在的资质和实力。在充分考虑自身交换价值的情况下，双方都认为找到了市场提供的最合适对象，于是就开始相爱了。在这笔交易中，如同购买房地产一样，对方的潜力会发挥很大作用。在一个以市场为主导，财富为主要价值的文化中，人类的爱情关系也遵循商品和劳动力市场中同样的交换模式，这也就不足为奇了。The third error leading to the assumption that there is nothing to be learned about love lies in the confusion between the initial experience of “falling” in love, and the permanent state of “being” in love, or as we might better say, of “standing” in love. If two people who have been strangers, as all of us are, suddenly let the wall between them break down, and feel close, feel one, this moment of oneness is one of the most exhilarating, most exciting experiences in life. It is all the more wonderful and miraculous for persons who have been shut off, isolated, without love. This miracle of sudden intimacy is often facilitated if it is combined with, or initiated by, sexual attraction and consummation. However, this type of love is by its very nature not lasting. The two persons become well acquainted, their intimacy loses more and more its miraculous character, until their antagonism, their disappointments, their mutual boredom kill whatever is left of the initial excitement. Yet, in the beginning they do not know all this. In fact, they take the intensity of the infatuation, this being “crazy” about each other, for proof of the intensity of their love, while it may only prove the degree of their preceding loneliness.造成爱无需学习这一谬误的第三个是误区是将“坠入爱河”这种初始体验与“持续相爱”的永久状态混为一谈。和我们一样萍水相逢的两个人刹那间彼此之间隔阂的那堵墙坍塌了，彼此亲近，难舍难分。这融为一体的瞬间称得上是人生最激动和兴奋之时。这一经历对于那些封闭，孤独，缺乏爱的人来说更显美妙神奇。这种突如其来的奇妙感觉，若由异性吸引和相互结合相伴或引发，则会更加美妙。但这种爱情自身的性质决定了其不能长久。两人相互越熟悉，双方的亲近感也就越丧失其神奇特点，直至相互敌视，失望，彼此厌倦，将残存的最初激情扼杀为止。然而双方一开始对此结果一无所知，事实上，他们以为彼此痴狂迷恋对方是爱情炽热的证明，但实际上这也许只能证明他们从前是多么的寂寞。This attitude - that nothing is easier than to love - has continued to be the prevalent idea about love in spite of the overwhelming evidence to the contrary. There is hardly any activity, any enterprise, which is started with such tremendous hopes and expectations, and yet, which fails so regularly, as love. If this were the case with any other activity, people would be eager to know the reasons for the failure, and to learn how one could do better - or they would give up the activity. Since the latter is impossible in the case of love, there seems to be only one adequate way to overcome the failure of love - to examine the reasons for this failure, and to proceed to study the meaning of love.爱再简单不过了这一看法尽管被大量证据证明是错误的，至今却一直很盛行。很难找出哪一种活动或哪一项事业像爱情那样以如此巨大的希望和期待开始，却以如此高比例的失败而告终。如果是别的事情，人们会急于探寻失败的原因，学习如何才能做得更好或者干脆放弃。但因为人们不可能放弃爱情，所以看来只有一种可以解决爱情失败的方法，那就是研究失败的原因，继而探讨爱的意义。The first step to take is to become aware that “love is an art”, just as living is an art; if we want to learn how to love we must proceed in the same way we have to proceed if we want to learn any other art, say music, painting, carpentry, or the art of medicine or engineering.首先，要认识到“爱 ”和生活一样也是一门艺术；如果我们希望学会爱，就必须像学习其 他任何一门艺术，如音乐、绘画、木艺、医疗或工程那样，采取同样的方式。what are the necessary steps in learning any art?什么是学习任何艺术的必要步骤？The process of learning an art can be divided conveniently into two parts: one, the mastery of the theory; the other, the mastery of the practice. If I want to learn the art of medicine, I must first know the facts about the human body, and about various diseases. When I have all this theoretical knowledge, I am by no means competent in the art of medicine. I shall become a master in this art only after a great deal of practice, until eventually the results of my theoretical knowledge and the results of my practice are blended into one - my intuition, the essence of the mastery of any art. but, aside from learning the theory and practice, there is a third factor necessary to becoming a master in any art - the mastery of the art must be a matter of ultimate concern; there must be nothing else in the world more important that the art. This holds true for music, for medicine, for carpentry - and for love. And, maybe, here lies the answer to the question of why people in our culture try so rarely to learn this art, in spite of their obvious failures. In spite of the deep-seated craving for love, almost everything else is considered to be more important than love: success, prestige, money, power - almost all our energy is used for the learning of how to achieve these aims, and almost none to learn of art loving.艺术学习的过程可以简单分成两部分：一、掌握理论；二、精于实践。学医的人首先要了解人体和各种疾病。但即使我掌握所有这些理论知识，也绝不表明我就能熟练行医。只有经过大量实践，直到最后理论知识和实践经验融会贯通在一起，形成我的直觉，即掌握了艺术的真谛后，我才能称得上是这门艺术的行家。要想成为艺术大师，除了理论学习和实践经验之外还有第三个必不可少的因素，那就是要视该门艺术高于一切，世间再无比这门艺术更重要之事。音乐、医疗、木艺都是这样，爱情也是如此。尽管社会上有不少人明明爱情受挫，却仍很少去学习这门艺术，究其原因或在于此；那就是：虽然内心深处渴望爱情，却把其他任何事情，如成就、名望、财富、权力，都看得比爱情更重要，我们几乎把所有的精力都投入追逐上述目标上，而几乎不肯花费任何精力来学习爱的艺术。Could it be that only those things are considered worthy of being learned with which one can earn money or prestige, and that love, which only profits the soul, but is profitless in the modern sense, is a luxury we have no right to spend much energy on?人们认为，只有那些能够带来名和利的东西才值得学习，而爱“仅仅”能够愉悦精神，无法带来现实收益，只能视之为奢望，毫无必要为之耗费精力。难道果真如此吗？