英文自修77：“政治正确”与言语冒犯

本系列内容英文原文取自BBC Thought for the Day节目网站，朋友们也可以下载节目录音收听。

译者：默谦

审读：武太白

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Thought for the Day - 13/05/2014 - Rhidian Brook

The recent resignation of a local radio DJ who unwittingly played a song containing an offensive word, highlighted a confusion we have about how we deal with offence in general, and the phrase political correctness in particular.

当地一个电台广播员最近辞职了，他之前无意间播放了一首含有攻击性词汇的歌曲。他的离职凸显了通常情况下我们在应对攻击时会有的困惑，尤其是“政治正确性”这个词。

It’s become such a pejorative term. I’ve not yet met anyone who would gladly describe themselves as politically correct. How often do we hear the phrase ‘It’s political correctness gone mad’ whenever someone has deliberately (or innocently) said something that might cause offence and is then punished for it. To its detractors it’s become a euphemism for some controlling, invisible state apparatus that wants to reduce our every utterance to bland, meaningless nothings.

它已经成为了一个贬义词。我从没遇到有人高兴地称自己是个政治正确的人。无论何时当有人想故意（或无意地）说一些会冒犯别人并会因此受罚的话时，我们总能听到“这是政治正确过了头”的说法。对它的诋毁者而言，这已经成为某些具有掌控权的隐形国家机器的委婉称呼了，他们想让我们的话语变得平淡无奇，毫无意义。

The phrase was born of good intentions. First used by socialists in the former Soviet Union as a put down to over-zealous members whose loyalty to the party overrode their compassion for people. It was a mild rebuke with a serious intent. And those same good intentions arguably lay behind an encouragement to use language that minimized social and institutional offence, especially in matters of gender, race, sexual orientation, disability and religious beliefs. (I’m sorry, if I’ve I missed anyone there).

这个短语的初衷是好的。它最初为前苏联的社会主义者使用，用来抑制那些过于热情的成员，他们对党派的忠诚远胜于他们对人民的同情。这个短语用词温和，却带有严肃的目的性。它鼓励使用那些能把社会和制度层面的攻击最小化的语言，特别是性别、种族、性向、残疾和宗教信仰方面（如果漏掉了某些方面，我很抱歉）的攻击，那些同样好的初衷便隐藏在这样的鼓励之后。

But if the term began life as a mild rebuke it’s become an easy slur. It’s seen as a form of suppressing free speech, used as a standard means of discrediting political enemies or, worse, as a coded cover for those who want to offend people for the sake of it. In fact, it has such shrill, negative associations maybe it’s time to ditch the phrase altogether. Although I’m not sure what would replace it: moral correctness? Spiritual correctness? Being nice?

但如果这个词始于温和的训斥，那么它如今已经变成了一个轻易诋毁别人的词。它已经成为镇压言论自由的形式，成为使政敌失去威望的好方法，更糟的是，成为了想要攻击别人的言语伪装。事实上，它有如此尖锐负面的关联意义，是时候彻底丢弃这个短语了。尽管我不确定什么词会取代它：道德正确性，精神正确性还是行为准确?

The key lies with the word offence. There seems to be a broad consensus about what is offensive in our society. Most of us can agree that offending people – especially the defenseless – for little more than the satisfaction of hurting them is wrong. But what if the intention behind an offense is constructive or even corrective? Is it possible that something offensive can be good? Offence can be funny – a lot of comedians would have to deliver much shorter sets without it - but as they know it’s also a way to subvert prejudice and challenge people’s own sense of being right.’

关键在于冒犯这个词。在我们社会，似乎关于什么具有攻击性已经达成了广泛共识。大部分的人都赞同为了那一点伤害别人的满足感而去冒犯别人，尤其是毫无防备的人，是错误的。但如果冒犯行为背后的目的是有助益的甚至是纠正性的呢？有攻击性的事情可能是好的吗？冒犯行为可以很有趣——没有这种行为许多喜剧演员可演的就有限了——但正如他们所了解的，这也是一个颠覆偏见，挑战人们自身正义感的方式。

It’s tempting to see Jesus as a paragon of political correctness for the way he embraced the marginalized. But he was also the absolute master of the constructively offensive. It’s notable that he saved his choicest put-downs for the people who needed to hear them most i.e. those in power. But he wasn’t doing this to court popularity and his gauntlet was thrown down for all of us to pick up. For in the end, this was a man who claimed that a belief in His correctness (rather than that of the religious or political establishments) was the true measure of goodness. Words that still sound offensive – even to those who believe them.

因为耶稣接受被边缘化的人，将他看作政治正确的模范是很吸引人的。但他也完全掌控着有益的冒犯行为。值得注意的是，他为那些非常需要听到贬斥的人们保留了自己最挑剔的奚落言辞，比如说那些掌权者。但他并不借此来赢取大众的认同，他提出了挑战，我们所有人都要面对。因为最后，他宣称对耶稣正确性的信仰（而不是宗教或政治机构的正确性）是善良的真实量度。这些话听起来依然具有攻击性——即便是对那些深信不疑的人而言。