欧洲：失去的中心（下）
IF THE ECLIPSE of the official centrist consensus causes puzzlement as well as widespread dismay, its origins take less explaining. When the European democracies were reborn—or reinvented—after 1945, there was a crystal-clear mission, not only to be peaceable and constitutional, but also to thwart extreme politics on either side.
如果官方中间主义共识的衰落导致了困惑和普遍的灰心，其源头无需更多解释。1945年后欧洲民主国家重生或再造时，有一个明确的使命，即不仅要求和平和宪政，还消解左右极端政治。
Among other legacies, the French Revolution bequeathed to us the potent and beguiling—but often misleading—political metaphor of Left and Right, from when the meeting of the National Assembly the radical bourgeois took their seats to the left of the conservative aristos. This image has always had limited application, and maybe very little in American politics, with its sundry peculiar institutions.
法国大革命赠予我们的遗产——有效且迷人却每每令人误入歧途。在国民大会上极端的资产阶级坐在保守贵族的右边，因此带来左和右的政治隐喻。这一分野的实际意义有限，可能在美国政治中就没有用处，后者有形形色色独有的政治构造。
If we still do use that metaphor, every important conservative party in Western Europe today stands to the left of the Democrats. But were the Democrats ever a left-wing party in the European sense? In its Rooseveltian heyday the Democrats were a truly weird alliance of organized labor, city bosses, intellectual liberals, the ethnic urban working class and Southern segregationists.
如果我们仍用这个隐喻，当今西欧所有重要的保守党都应站在美国民主党的左侧。可在欧洲意义上，民主党曾是个左翼政党吗？在罗斯福主义的全盛时期，民主党的确是工会、城市老板、自由派知识分子、城市少数族裔工人阶级和南部隔离主义者组成的怪异联盟。
By midcentury, American politics had a Tweedledum and Tweedledee aspect, so that it was hard to distinguish the parties. Dwight Eisenhower was nominated by the Republicans and elected president in 1952, but he might just as well have been nominated by the Democrats. It wasn’t until the conservative movement rose up and conquered the GOP that a truly vivid distinction could be made between the two parties.
到上世纪中叶，美国诸政党变得半斤八两，难以辨别。1952年的艾森豪威尔被共和党提名当选总统，可他完全也可以被民主党提名。一直到保守主义运动兴起，征服了共和党，才能在两党间发现鲜明的区别。
In Europe, the journey has if anything been in the opposite direction over the second half of the last century. Conservative parties moved towards the center from the right as socialist parties did from the left. This was a reaction to the events of the first half of the century, when polarization between Left and Right had had such catastrophic consequences.
在欧洲，上世纪后半叶的变化则正相反。保守主义政党从右向中靠拢，社会主义政党从左向中靠拢。这是对上半叶的反拨，当时左右的极端对立导致了灾难性后果。
Modern European democracy was a repudiation of all species of totalitarianism, nurtured by two traditions in harness, Christian Democracy and Social Democracy. They both altered their positions or tone after the horrors between 1914 and 1945 that shouldered Right and Left with so much historical baggage to shed, in the form of fascism and Communism.
现代欧洲民主抛弃了一切极权主义，它蒙受两种传统的滋养，基督教民主主义和社会民主主义。在1914年和1915年两次浩劫让两者都改变了立场或风格，这段历史让双方有巨大的历史包袱需要抛弃，一方是法西斯主义，一方是共产主义。
If what is now the European Union has one underlying tendency it’s not socialism (or Social Democracy) but Christian Democracy, a very distinctive tradition dating back to the early years of the last century and partly inspired by the social and political teaching of the Roman Catholic Church—in particular of Pope Leo XIII and his 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum condemning not only Marxian socialism, but also the unrestrained free-market capitalism that bred it.
要说如今欧盟存在某种内在的趋势，那并非社会主义（或社会民主主义）而是基督教民主主义，这一鲜明的传统可以追溯到上世纪早期，其受到罗马天主教社会和政治教义的启发，尤其是教皇利奥十三世，他1891年发布的通谕《新事物》不仅谴责了马克思社会主义，也谴责了孕育它的不加节制的自由市场资本主义。
In Austria it had been the “Christian Socialist” or Christian Social party of Karl Lueger, who was elected mayor of Vienna in 1897 after being vetoed three times by the Emperor Franz Joseph, on a distinctive platform echoed across Europe: anti-Marxist but also anticapitalist, antiliberal and, of course, anti-Semitic.
在奥地利，“基督教社会党人”或卡尔-卢埃格尔领导的基督教社会党，其鲜明的政纲在全欧洲得到响应：既反马克思主义，又反资本主义，反自由派，当然反犹太人。遭到奥地利约瑟夫皇帝三次否决后，卢埃格尔于1897年当选维也纳市长。
This was the same pitch as was heard in France from the Anti-Dreyfusards, Charles Maurras and the Action Française. In Germany, it was infused with extreme nationalism and metastasized into National Socialism. Adolf Hitler lived in Vienna during the Lueger era and liked what he heard. Der schöne Karl, as Lueger was known, became an inspiration for the Führer.
在法国，反德雷福斯支持者、夏尔-莫拉斯和法兰西行动也如出一辙。在德国，它被注入极端民族主义之中，弥漫升级为国家社会主义。卢埃格尔时代，希特勒就生活在维也纳，喜欢那些说法。卢埃格尔当时以Der schöne Karl闻名，他成为元首的导师。
After the defeat of the Third Reich, Christian Democracy thus had to clean up its act, and it did so very successfully, eschewing violence and racial hatred while sublimating nationalism into “the European idea.”
第三帝国失败后，基督教民主主义不得不清算其行为，结果也非常成功，远离暴力和种族仇恨，并将民主主义升华成“欧洲理念”。
A brilliant period of economic growth meant that greatly increased material prosperity could be combined with a high degree of state-sponsored social security. And this went hand in hand with a “moderate” political consensus.
经济一度高速增长意味着物质的极大繁荣可以和由国家支撑的高水平社会保障相结合，和“温和”的政治共识携手并进。
NOWHERE DID that consensus seem more stable than in Germany. For the sixty-seven years of its existence, two parties have dominated the German Federal Republic, the Christian Democrats (CDU) and the Social Democrats (SPD), with a third party, the Free Democrats, invited after dinner, as it were. More accurately, it was dominated by the first of those.
在德国这种共识看起来最为稳定。六十七年来，基督教民主党和社会民主党主导西德，自由民主党打打酱油。更准确的说，基督教民主党主导了德国政坛。
To begin with, Christian Democrats and Social Democrats were neck and neck, a couple of percentage points apart in the 1949 election, but gradually the CDU, under the guileful leadership of Konrad Adenauer, pulled ahead to a clear lead.
首先，基督教民主党和社会民主党势均力敌，在1949年的大选中，只相差几个百分点，可在阿登纳的精明领导下，基民党实现明显领先。
By the 1957 election, his party was almost twenty points ahead of the SPD and, for the only time in the history of the republic, won an absolute majority in the Bundestag, despite an electoral system deliberately designed to prevent such an outcome, as well as to keep out extremist parties.
1957年大选中，基民党领先社民党20个百分点，在联邦议会获得大胜，即便选举制度的设计有意避免如是结果，以防极端主义政党胜出，这在西德历史上还是首次。
The patriarchal style of der Alte helped shape western Germany into a stable democracy that avoided the fate of Weimar. And yet so strong was the spirit of compromise and consensus that Adenauer asked the centrist Free Democrats to join him in a coalition, even though he didn’t need their parliamentary support.
阿登纳的家长作风帮助德国成为稳定的民主国家，避免魏玛共和国的命运。但妥协和共识的精神如此强烈，阿登纳邀请中间派自由民族党联合组阁，事实上他并不需要后者在议会的支持。
There was an echo of that spirit at the last election in 2013. It was an outright victory for Angela Merkel and the CDU, with 42 percent of the vote to the SPD’s 26 percent, and again despite the electoral system, they very nearly gained control of the Bundestag, just five seats shy of an absolute majority.
这种精神在2013年大选中也表现出来。默克尔和基民党获得全胜，拿下42%的的选票，社民党只有26%，尽管选举制度规定不得如此，但基民党几乎控制了联邦议会，距离绝对多数仅五个席位。
She couldn’t form a coalition, since the Free Democrats had plummeted below the 5 percent level (which meant that they could not be represented in the Bundestag), and the third-largest party was the bluntly named Die Linke (“The Left”), made up of disaffected refugees from the left of the SPD and recovering Stalinists from the former East Germany.
默克尔不能和自民党联合组阁，因为自民党支持率不足5%，这意味着它在联邦议会没有席位。第三大党干脆就叫左翼，由社民党的左翼中不满的流亡者组成，他们要恢复斯大林主义在前东德的统治。
And so she asked the SPD to join her in a “grand coalition.” This is the ultimate expression of centrist consensus, though one which makes some Germans wonder what the point was of voting at all.
于是她邀请社民党加入“大联合政府”。这是中间派共识的终极表达，尽管这难免让德国人疑惑，既然如此投票的意义是什么？
THEN THERE is England. There’s always been a healthy skepticism about parliamentary government in England, exemplified by Lewis Namier’s acidulous remark that “men no more dreamt of a seat in the House in order to benefit humanity than a child dreams of a birthday cake that others may eat it.”
此外还有英国。在英格兰，对议会政府一直有健康的质疑精神，正如刘易斯-内米尔尖刻的评论：“有人梦想得到一个议会的席位以造福人类，这就好比一个小孩想要一个生日蛋糕让其他人吃。”
And maybe the United Kingdom is a slightly misleading example when discussing European politics, because of its dubious “European” identity, about which the British, or more exactly the English, are so neuralgic. It’s at least possible that in a referendum this year the British (or the English) will vote to leave the Union.
或许以英国为例谈论欧洲政治有点偏题，因为其“欧洲”身份可疑，英国人，或更准确的说英格兰人，对这一身份很伤脑筋。至少今年的公投英国人或英格兰人有可能投票退出欧盟。
Nevertheless, the British case is illustrative of several trends seen elsewhere in Europe. The truly interesting thing about British politics in my lifetime is less the changing balance between the larger parties than their joint eclipse, along with the decline of political participation.
然而，英国的情况也反应了欧洲其他地方的某些趋势。我生平所见，英国政治真正有意思之处并非大党间变化的平衡，而是他们共同的衰落以及政治参与的衰落。
At the 1950 general election, turnout was 84 percent, the highest it has ever been. It fluctuated and declined, to 72 percent in 1997, a figure that I among others lamented at the time as a regrettable failure of democracy.
1950年大选中，投票者达84%，创历史记录。起起伏伏，到1997年，这一比例是72%，我和许多人当时都哀叹这是民主制度令人惋惜的失败。
That was Tony Blair’s first victory, and we hadn’t yet realized the nature of his dark mastery, which was not so much to move the Labour Party to the right, true as that was, as to invent a politics which was neither ideologically left-wing nor right-wing, but simply empty of any ideological content at all: to void politics of its content, or take the politics out of politics.
这是布莱尔的首次胜利，我们当时还没意识到他糟糕执政能力的本质，与其说他把工党推向右翼，这的确是事实，不如说他发明了一种在意识形态上既不左也不右的政治，布莱尔的政治恰恰毫无意识形态内容：掏空了政治，让政治不再政治。
A perfectly natural consequence was the collapse in voter participation, from 72 percent turnout in 1997 to 59 percent only four years later.
这一趋势的自然结果是选民参与度的崩溃，从1997年的72%下降到四年后的59%。
But just as significant was the eclipse of the larger or mainstream parties. At the 1951 election (called precipitately, and unnecessarily, less than two years after the last one) Tories and Labour nearly tied for the popular vote. More to the point, they shared 97 percent of the total vote between them.
同样重要的是大党或主流政党的衰落。在1951年选举中——这次选举突然且没有必要，距离上次大选不足两年，保守党和工党势均力敌。更准确地说，他们平分了97%的总投票数。
By 2010, that share of the popular vote enjoyed by the two larger parties had fallen to 65 percent: a change of kind rather than degree. Formal party membership has also collapsed, as has party affiliation.
到2010年，两个大党的普通选民支持率下降到65%：质变而非量变。正式党员数量也大幅减少，一般党员数量也是如此。
This example must be treated with care, since British politics are really so unlike continental politics. The Tories do not much resemble a European Christian Democratic party, any more than Labour does a European Social Democratic party. And yet British politics have foreshadowed European, notably German, politics in important respects.
这必须小心看待，英国政治和大陆政治并不相同，保守党和欧洲的基督教民主党不同，工党和欧洲的社会民主党也不一样。但英国政治在许多重要方面预示着欧洲尤其是德国政治的未来。
In Germany too, though more recently, political participation has fallen: turnout was 79 percent at the 2002 general election, but dropped to 71 percent in 2009. Likewise the two big parties shared 77 percent of the vote in 1990, but only 57 percent in 2009.
在德国，政治参与度在进来也有所下降：从2002年大选的79%下滑到2009年的71%。同样，两个大党1990年共享了77%的选票，2009年只有57%。
Even if the CDU-SPD duopoly has been remarkably stable by continental standards, it is now cracking. The SPD in particular can barely be called a mass party any longer; it won slightly over 25 percent of the vote in the 2013 Bundestag election.
就算基民-社民双簧统治以欧洲大陆标准看相当稳定，现在也出现裂隙。社民党不能再被称为民众党了，2013年德国议会选举中，它只赢得25%多一点的选票。
The centrist Free Democratic Party may revive; it represents, after all, a strong and admirable tradition, “liberalism” in its original sense of social and economic freedom from an overly mighty state.
中间派自由民主党可能在复兴，它毕竟代表了强大且令人尊敬的传统“自由主义”，其本意主张社会和经济自由，反对过分强大的国家。
But its fortunes are menaced by the Alternative für Deutschland (AFD) party (a party whose name scarcely needs translating, even for those who know no German!), which appeals to many of the same voters as the classical-liberal Free Democrats.
但其优势受到德国选择党（AFD）的威胁，对于懂德语的人而言，这个名字无需翻译，该党派吸引了不少信奉古典自由主义的自由民主党选民。
Die Linke will continue attracting support, all the more since leftist voters feel frustrated and disappointed with the SPD and the compromises it has made in coalition with Merkel.
左翼党将获得更多支持，尤其左翼选民对社民党和社民党与默克尔组阁感到挫败和失望。
But her most serious challenge will come from the right, notably in the form of the AFD, sometimes labeled “Far Right,” although that is inadequate if not misleading. The AFD began with vigorous opposition to the European single currency.
但默克尔最严重的的挑战来自右翼，也就是德国选择党，后者有时被称为极右翼，尽管这有点夸大，但方向是对的。德国选择党的原则是坚决反对欧洲统一货币。
It may now be denounced for veering towards demagoguery, as when it as “the result of uncontrolled migration.” But that’s what many Germans think and it does appear that a number of the assailants were, in fact, asylum seekers, a phenomenon that is creating an uproar in the Bundesrepublik and directly threatens Merkel’s continued popularity.
现在该党被斥为诉诸煽动群众，它指责科隆性侵案是“对移民不加控制”的结果。可这正是很多德国人所思所想，一些袭击者也的确是申请避难者，这在联邦德国引发轩然大波，直接威胁到默克尔能否持续赢得民意。
If anything a more intellectually coherent version of UKIP, the United Kingdom Independence Party, AFD was founded by a number of serious figures, including Konrad Adam, a former editor at the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, and was supported by an array of academic economists, in response to the Eurozone crisis.
如果说它比做英国独立党，那么德国选择党在智识上更明晰，且由一些正经人物组建，包括《法兰克福汇报》前主编科纳德-亚当，还得到一干学院派经济学家的支持，他们旨在应对欧元区危机。
It was the anguished response by Berlin and Brussels to that collapse, and the utterly unconvincing insistence that the Euro was be protected at all costs, however much suffering that might mean in Greece and Spain.
这不啻为柏林和布鲁塞尔对欧元崩溃的痛苦反应，他们坚持不论希腊和西班牙的遭遇如何，都不惜一切代价保卫欧元，这难以令人信服。
Maybe the truth is that this cozy centrist consensus which for so long governed Europe, and which in many ways was once truly benevolent, was always more vulnerable than it seemed. It worked in good times, but has proved helpless in bad ones.
或许真相在于，一直以来管理欧洲的中间派共识比看起来更脆弱，这一温和的共识在许多方面的确曾带来益处。它在顺风顺水时，一切顺利，可遭遇挑战后，则显得无可奈何。
The soi-disant elites dreamed up a single currency, which was always fraught with risk, if boom ever turned to bust or the bubble burst. At the same time, they were lamentably complacent about a level of immigration with which European countries had just about managed, or seemed to manage, but has now becoming a problem on a scale which now threatens the whole edifice of democratic politics, and the consensus of center-right and center-left politics.
自诩的精英们梦想着统一货币，可当繁荣转为萧条或泡沫破裂，这总是风险重重。同时，他们在移民问题上过于自信，欧洲国家过去能够设法或看起来设法加以应对，可现在这威胁到整个民主政治大厦以及中右和中左政治达成的共识。
Across Europe that consensus is cracking; the center is not holding; the ceremony of “moderate” innocence is drowned. We have to pray that no blood-dimmed tide is loosed.
在欧洲各处，共识都在崩裂，中间派难以为继，“温和者”纯真的仪规正被淹没。我们不得不祈祷血染的大潮不会泛滥。