英文自修130：言论自由与文明（20140718）
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：Young
审读：武太白
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Thought for the Day 20140718 Anne Atkins
“They were not completely round the bend.” This common sense was from Belinda Lang, director of Noel’s Coward’s This was a Man, being performed for the first time since it was censored in 1926 for fear of inciting 煽动 Soviet sympathy, riots and anarchy... because of its upper class adultery.
“他们并非彻底疯狂。”这一箴言来自于贝琳达·朗执导的诺埃尔·科沃德作品《这是一个男人》（This was a Man）。为了避免该剧中上层阶级的通奸行为引起对苏联的同情、暴动和混乱状态，1926年该剧遭到审查，这是自那以来的首次上演。
Belinda Lang
Every society has taboos 禁忌 which look quaint 奇怪的 to others. At a Victorian dinner party you’d never have dreamt of asking your hostess about her sex life. How coy they were! Try asking a modern hostess about her death and see if that goes down any better. Dying being a more universal experience, we’re shy about an arguably more important topic.
每个社会都有着在别人看来很奇怪的禁忌。在维多利亚女王时代，在宴会上询问女主人的性生活这样的事是无法想象的。那时的人是那么羞涩！在现代社会，问问女主人关于死亡的问题，看结果会不会好些。死亡是普遍现象，按理说它是一个重大的问题，我们却回避它。
Some of the contemporary censorship of Shakespeare seems to us almost bizarre. Malvolio, living in an obviously Christian context, oddly exclaims: “Jove and my stars be praised!” And yet Shakespeare luxuriated in sexual innuendo 讽刺which had to be bowderlised 删改from our school texts four centuries on.
当代对莎士比亚作品的审查制度在我们看来几乎是匪夷所思。令人奇怪的是，明显生活在基督教环境之中的马伏里奥大呼：“朱庇特主神和我的众星应受到颂扬！”几百年来，莎士比亚作品中充斥着性暗示，不得不在删改后才选入教科书。
Taboos can change swiftly. A word so innocent that it gave name to the dog in the fifties family viewing Dam Busters is now so toxic that I was cut off on air when I merely tried to explain its Latin origin. Sensibilities can even vary between generations living contemporaneously. My father was far more shocked by the Anglo Saxon Andrew Mitchel never denied, than by the Latin he never uttered.
禁忌会迅速变化。1950年代，电影《敌后大爆破》中忠犬“Nigger”的名字曾被观影的家庭用来称呼自家的狗，正是这么一个无辜的词，现在却骇人听闻，以至于我在广播中才要解释它的拉丁语出处（指“黑色”）就被“BEE”了。即便是同住在一起的不同世代，对事物的敏感性也有不同。我父亲对英国内阁大臣安德鲁·米切尔感到极度震惊的是他本人绝不否认说过的盎格鲁萨克逊言语（承认出过plebgate这回事），而不是他从未说过的拉丁单词（plebs，愚民）。
dambusters剧照
Like societies everywhere, we mock 嘲笑the taboos of others and fail to see the absurdities of our own. We like to censor censorship. But a certain amount of reticence 沉默寡言 is essential for a courteous and civilised society. Some words are simply offensive. It's no more than good manners to refrain from language which gratuitously insults those of other faiths, ethnicities or backgrounds.
如同各地的社会一样，我们都在嘲笑别人的禁忌却看不到我们自家禁忌之荒唐。我们喜欢对审查制度加以审查。对一个文明礼貌的社会来说，一定的沉默也是必要的。一些词语就是冒犯性的。避免使用那些会平白无故地侮辱他人的信仰、种族或历史的语言，其实只不过是一种礼貌。
Some however are dangerous. The n-word represents racism which, at its worst, is not merely offensive but violent and even murderous: yet again, this week, we’ve been reminded of an aspiring young man killed at a bus stop simply because he was black.
然而，有些词语很危险。代表种族主义的N-字词语，最坏的结果不仅仅是冒犯性的，而是暴力的甚至是凶残的。本周我们再次想起那个仅仅因为自己是黑人而在公交车站被杀害的有志青年（Stephen Lawrence，译注）。
And it was partly violence which the 1926 censors feared if Coward’s play was performed. Who are we, who were not there, to judge that they were overreacting to the instabilities of the time? Even if they were, what of adultery itself? Twee though this sounds, as a teenager I caught myself considering extra marital flirtation cool, because of Coward’s glamorous characters. How can we, in an age with no social deference, know the effect of such heady 兴奋的 role models, and their possible contribution to the breakdown in adult relationships which now causes misery to so many vulnerable 易受伤害的 children?
1926年审查人员对科沃德的戏剧上映之后的担忧，一部分就是暴力。没有亲历当时的我们，怎么能判断他们对时代的动荡反应过度？即使他们反应过度，那通奸行为本身呢？尽管这些听起来有些矫饰其词，科沃德笔下的人物光鲜亮丽，以致青少年时的我认为婚外情很酷。在没有社会尊重的时代，我们怎么能知道这些令人晕眩的榜样的影响力？他们可能导致婚姻关系破裂，这种事件如今给许许多多脆弱无辜的儿童带来痛苦.
A tiny bit can control a vast and powerful horse: a small rudder steers a huge ship. And the tongue, the Apostle James writes in his epistle to the first Christians, has sway way beyond its size and strength.
小小嚼子能御烈马，小小船舵能掌巨轮。使徒詹姆斯在给最初的那些基督教徒的信中写道，舌头的影响远远超过它本身的大小和力量。
They were not round the bend. Freedom of speech is very precious. But a little respectful restraint is also a sign of enlightenment, not just for individuals but for society.
他们并未疯狂。言论自由固然非常宝贵。但是尊重与克制也是文明的象征，对个人如此，对社会亦然。