Corn-pone Opinions

草根的声音（乡巴佬的见解）

马克 吐温 （著）

王学君 （译）

FIFTY YEARS AGO, when I was a boy of fifteen and helping to inhabit a Missourian village on the banks of the Mississippi, I had a friend whose society was very dear to me because I was forbidden by my mother to partake of it. He was a gay and impudent and satirical and delightful young black man -a slave -who daily preached sermons from the top of his master's woodpile, with me for sole audience. He imitated the pulpit style of the several clergymen of the village, and did it well, and with fine passion and energy. To me he was a wonder. I believed he was the greatest orator in the United States and would some day be heard from. But it did not happen; in the distribution of rewards he was overlooked. It is the way, in this world.

五十年前，我还是一个十五岁的男孩，在密苏里州密西西比河畔的一个村庄里帮工。那时，我有一个朋友，我非常珍惜他的陪伴，因为这是我母亲明令禁止的。我的朋友是一个快乐，粗鲁，爱挖苦人，又讨人喜欢的年轻黑人。他是一个奴隶，每天在他主人的柴垛上布道，而我是他唯一的听众。他布道时，惟妙惟肖地模仿村里几位牧师的风格，慷慨激昂，热情四射。在我看来，他就是一个奇迹。我坚信他是美国最伟大的演说家，总有一天会得到人们的顶礼膜拜，然而，很遗憾这样的结局最终并没有到来，他失去他应得的奖赏，这是这个世界赤裸裸的本相。

He interrupted his preaching, now and then, to saw a stick of wood; but the sawing was a pretense -he did it with his mouth; exactly imitating the sound the bucksaw makes in shrieking its way through the wood. But it served its purpose; it kept his master from coming out to see how the work was getting along. I listened to the sermons from the open window of a lumber room at the back of the house. One of his texts was this:

他时不时暂停他的布道去锯一根木头，但不是真锯，而是用他的嘴表演，他用高超的口技模仿木锯割刺木头时发出的尖叫声。这一招非常灵，他的主人一听到这个声音，就不会多此一举的出来监工巡查。在我家后面一间堆放木材的房子里，打开窗户，就能听到他的精彩布道。我印象深刻的一条布道信息是这样的:

"You tell me whar a man gits his corn pone, en I'll tell you what his 'pinions is."

“如果你告诉我，一个人是从哪儿弄来的玉米饼，我就可以告诉你，他具备怎样的一套见解。”

I can never forget it. It was deeply impressed upon me. By my mother. Not upon my memory, but elsewhere. She had slipped in upon me while I was absorbed and not watching. The black philosopher's idea was that a man is not independent, and cannot afford views which might interfere with his bread and butter. If he would prosper, he must train with the majority; in matters of large moment, like politics and religion, he must think and feel with the bulk of his neighbors, or suffer damage in his social standing and in his business prosperities. He must restrict himself to corn-pone opinions -- at least on the surface. He must get his opinions from other people; he must reason out none for himself; he must have no first-hand views.

他的布道深深吸引着我。然而，我母亲总是在我全神贯注倾听的时候，悄悄地溜了进来，与这位黑人布道者不同，我母亲总是用非语言沟通的方式来教养我。这位黑人哲学家的观点是：人不是独立的思想个体，因为他不可能接受那些妨碍他谋生的观点。他若想要人生亨通，就必须练就大众思维。特别是在原则性问题上，如**和**，他一定要与身边的普罗大众同频思考，共同感受，否则他就有身败名裂的风险。他需要克制自己出格的观点，至少在表面上要做到这样。他还需悉心听取其他人的意见，万万不可按照自己的逻辑分析推理得出标新立异的第一手观点。

I think Jerry was right, in the main, but I think he did not go far enough.

我赞同杰瑞的意见，但我认为他这样的表述还远远不够。

It was his idea that a man conforms to the majority view of his locality by calculation and intention. This happens, but I think it is not the rule.

他的想法是，一个人要与他所在地区的大多数人的观点保持一致，需要经过一番深思熟虑的老谋深算。这样的事情可能会发生，但我认为这不符常规。

It was his idea that there is such a thing as a first-hand opinion; an original opinion; an opinion which is coldly reasoned out in a man's head, by a searching analysis of the facts involved, with the heart unconsulted, and the jury room closed against outside influences. It may be that such an opinion has been born somewhere, at some time or other, but I suppose it got away before they could catch it and stuff it and put it in the museum.

2.  他认为有一种东西叫第一手观点，就是个人的原创意见。这种观点的产生，是一个头脑通过对所涉事实的深入冷静分析，并用安静的灵魂，隔离外界权威的干扰而得出来的结果。其实不然，这种观点可能早在某年某月的某地，某人就已经捷足先登，但我猜想之前得出来的这个观点，却在有人想抓住它放进博物馆之前，它就狡猾地开溜了。

I am persuaded that a coldly-thought-out and independent verdict upon a fashion in clothes, or manners, or literature, or politics, or religion, or any other matter that is projected into the field of our notice and interest, is a most rare thing -- if it has indeed ever existed.

我被一种现象所折服：那就是冷静思考和独立判断的观点完全依附时尚，社会风气，文学，**，**，或任何投射出来会引起我们注意和兴趣的东西。这种现象有点匪夷所思，如果它确实一直存在的话。

A new thing in costume appears -- the flaring hoopskirt, for example -- and the passers-by are shocked, and the irreverent laugh. Six months later everybody is reconciled; the fashion has established itself; it is admired, now, and no one laughs. Public opinion resented it before, public opinion accepts it now, and is happy in it. Why? Was the resentment reasoned out? Was the acceptance reasoned out? No. The instinct that moves to conformity did the work. It is our nature to conform; it is a force which not many can successfully resist. What is its seat? The inborn requirement of self-approval. We all have to bow to that; there are no exceptions. Even the woman who refuses from first to last to wear the hoop skirt comes under that law and is its slave; she could not wear the skirt and have her own approval; and that she must have, she cannot help herself. But as a rule our self-approval has its source in but one place and not elsewhere -- the approval of other people. A person of vast consequences can introduce any kind of novelty in dress and the general world will presently adopt it -- moved to do it, in the first place, by the natural instinct to passively yield to that vague something recognized as authority, and in the second place by the human instinct to train with the multitude and have its approval. An empress introduced the hoopskirt, and we know the result. A nobody introduced the bloomer, and we know the result. If Eve should come again, in her ripe renown, and reintroduce her quaint styles -- well, we know what would happen. And we should be cruelly embarrassed, along at first.

某一新时尚物出现，譬如光彩夺目的箍裙，起初它招摇过市，路人皆震惊诧异，还伴之以冷嘲热讽。六个月之后，大家习以为常了，时尚物就站稳了脚跟。现在，它开始受到大家的恭维，嘲笑早已销声匿迹了。从嗤之以鼻的登场，到欣然接受，并乐在其中，这是什么逻辑? 难道一开始这种厌恶是经过了深思熟虑的吗?后来的接受也是反复斟酌过的吗?当然不是，这是本能顺从的结果！顺从是我们的本性，这种本性力量的攻击，没有多少人能够成功抵御。顺从的意念在哪里掌权? 其根源是我们天生自我肯定的需要，我们不得不向它低头，无力逃脱。就算是从始至终抗拒穿箍裙的女性，也会受到规则的约束，最终成为规则下的奴隶。她不能一边穿箍裙，一边又坚韧不拔地反对箍裙。她一定是有自己想法，但她身不由己。通常来说，我们的自我肯定是有根源的，这个源头不在他处，正是别人的意见。一个有巨大影响力的人物可以引入任何奇装异服，然后让世界将纷纷效仿。首先，当然是大伙服从于自己的自然本能，然后屈服于公认权威的模糊认知。其次，在众多人类直觉的驱使下，跟从大众追捧的意见。一位皇后推出了箍裙，我们可以料事如神地判断接下来将要发生的事。一个无名小卒引入了灯笼裤，我们也能知道后面的结果。如果夏娃以她的威名重振江湖，再次呈现她惊世骇俗的树叶风格时装—我想，我们应该也会准确预见到接下来会发生什么。当然，一开始我们还是会感到尴尬难堪的。

The hoopskirt runs its course and disappears. Nobody reasons about it. One woman abandons the fashion; her neighbor notices this and follows her lead; this influences the next woman; and so on and so on, and presently the skirt has vanished out of the world, no one knows how nor why, nor cares, for that matter. It will come again, by and by and in due course will go again.

箍裙已经走完它的生命历程并且在时尚中消失，没有人对此寻理纠因。一个女人抛弃了时尚，她的邻居很快会注意到了这一点，跟着她走，然后又影响了下一个女人。诸如此类，过不了多久，这条裙子就从世界上消失了，没有人知道它是怎么消失的，也没有人关心它为什么消失。它还会再来，它也会再离去，在合适的时候。

Twenty-five years ago, in England, six or eight wine glasses stood grouped by each person's plate at a dinner party, and they were used, not left idle and empty; to-day there are but three or four in the group, and the average guest sparingly uses about two of them. We have not adopted this new fashion yet, but we shall do it presently. We shall not think it out; we shall merely conform, and let it go at that. We get our notions and habits and opinions from outside influences; we do not have to study them out.

二十五年前，在英国的宴会上，六或八个酒杯被分成一组，摆放在每个人的餐盘旁，这些酒杯都行使他们神圣的职责，而不是无聊地闲置或空着。今天，宴会餐桌上只剩下了三四个酒杯聚在一起，很少有客人会享用其中两杯。我们还暂时没有升级入新的模式，不久的将来，我们可能对杯中物再次改变态度，那就是我们不再去理会它，它就随风而逝了！由此看来，我们的观念，习惯和观点来自外界的影响，我们不需要刻意学习，它会自然地在生长在我们身上。

Our table manners, and company manners, and street manners change from time to time, but the changes are not reasoned out; we merely notice and conform. We are creatures of outside influences; as a rule we do not think, we only imitate. We cannot invent standards that will stick; what we mistake for standards are only fashions, and perishable. We may continue to admire them, but we drop the use of them. We notice this in literature. Shakespeare is a standard, and fifty years ago we used to write tragedies which we couldn't tell from -- from somebody else's; but we don't do it any more, now. Our prose standard, three quarters of a century ago, was ornate and diffuse; some authority or other changed it in the direction of compactness and simplicity, and conformity followed, without argument. The historical novel starts up suddenly, and sweeps the land. Everybody writes one, and the nation is glad. We had historical novels before; but nobody read them, and the rest of us conformed -- without reasoning it out. We are conforming in the other way, now, because it is another case of everybody.

我们的餐桌礼仪，社交礼仪和街头礼仪都在不断发展变化，但这些变化都不是理性思考的结果，而是注意和顺从的俘虏。我们是受外界支配的物种，总体来说，我们不思考，只模仿。我们不能创造出旷日经久的准则，我们错误地认为追求时尚就是准则，而这些准则转瞬即逝。我们可能会继续崇拜它们，但我们会放弃使用它们。我们在文学作品中印证了这一点。莎士比亚是一个标准，五十年前，我们都写悲剧，我们无法区别这些悲剧之间的异同。现在我们已经不再写悲剧。四分之三个世纪以前，我们好散文的标准是辞藻华丽，长篇大论。一旦某个权威或巨匠倡导简洁平实，于是人们就马上见风使舵，调转方向。当历史小说突然平地而起，马上就能席卷全国，人人都成历史小说家，举国激昂。其实我们之前有过历史小说，只不过没有人去读，如今风潮一起，我们又不加质疑地一拥而上。与文学类似，我们现在以另一种方式遵从风尚，只因为周围每个人都在这样做。

The outside influences are always pouring in upon us, and we are always obeying their orders and accepting their verdicts. The Smiths like the new play; the Joneses go to see it, and they copy the Smith verdict. Morals, religions, politics, get their following from surrounding influences and atmospheres, almost entirely; not from study, not from thinking. A man must and will have his own approval first of all, in each and every moment and circumstance of his life -- even if he must repent of a self-approved act the moment after its commission, in order to get his self-approval again: but, speaking in general terms, a man's self-approval in the large concerns of life has its source in the approval of the peoples about him, and not in a searching personal examination of the matter. Mohammedans are Mohammedans because they are born and reared among that sect, not because they have thought it out and can furnish sound reasons for being Mohammedans; we know why Catholics are Catholics; why Presbyterians are Presbyterians; why Baptists are Baptists; why Mormons are Mormons; why thieves are thieves; why monarchists are monarchists; why Republicans are Republicans and Democrats, Democrats. We know it is a matter of association and sympathy, not reasoning and examination; that hardly a man in the world has an opinion upon morals, politics, or religion which he got otherwise than through his associations and sympathies. Broadly speaking, there are none but corn-pone opinions. And broadly speaking, corn-pone stands for self-approval. Self-approval is acquired mainly from the approval of other people. The result is conformity. Sometimes conformity has a sordid business interest -- the bread-and-butter interest -- but not in most cases, I think. I think that in the majority of cases it is unconscious and not calculated; that it is born of the human being's natural yearning to stand well with his fellows and have their inspiring approval and praise -- a yearning which is commonly so strong and so insistent that it cannot be effectually resisted, and must have its way. A political emergency brings out the corn-pone opinion in fine force in its two chief varieties -- the pocketbook variety, which has its origin in self-interest, and the bigger variety, the sentimental variety -- the one which can't bear to be outside the pale; can't bear to be in disfavor; can't endure the averted face and the cold shoulder; wants to stand well with his friends, wants to be smiled upon, wants to be welcome, wants to hear the precious words, "He's on the right track!" Uttered, perhaps by an ass, but still an ass of high degree, an ass whose approval is gold and diamonds to a smaller ass, and confers glory and honor and happiness, and membership in the herd. For these gauds many a man will dump his life-long principles into the street, and his conscience along with them. We have seen it happen. In some millions of instances.

外界的影响总是如瓢泼大雨灌在我们身上，我们被它浇透浸泡，然后乖乖地服从他们的指示，接受它们的判断。史密斯一家喜欢这出新戏，琼斯一家也去看了，他们附庸了史密斯一家的风雅。道德，**，**的追随者几乎完全来自于周边的氛围，他们不学习，也不思考。他们必须首先在自己所生活的圈子和环境中得到自我认同，即使可能刚开始会产生后悔和内疚之意，但也会在浸染之后重新肯定这种自我认同。一般说来，一个人在生活中的重大问题上的自我肯定，其来源是周围人群的赞同，而不是这个人对问题寻根究底的答案。****徒之所以是****徒，是因为他们是在该教派中出生和长大，而不是因为他们经过深入的理性思考，能够提供成为****徒的合理理由。同样，我们知道天主教徒为什么是天主教徒，为什么长老会教徒是长老会教徒，为什么浸信会教徒是浸信会教徒，为什么摩门教徒是摩门教徒，为什么小偷是小偷，为什么君主主义者是君主主义者，为什么共和党是共和党，而**党是**党。我们知道这是一个相感与共情的问题，而不是推理和查验的问题。世界上几乎没有一个人对道德，**，或**的看法不是通过交往与应和而获得的。广义地说，没有超越环境之外的意见，只有基于广大草根们相互依存需要的共同意见。总体而言，草根意见代表自我肯定，而这种自我认同主要是通过他人的认同来获得的，其结果就是雷同。有时，从众是有利可图的交易—为了自己生存的利益。但我认为，大多数情况下并非如此。基本上，它是无意识的，没有经过缜密思想。它来自于人类想要与同伴和睦相处，获得他人鼓舞人心的认可和赞美的自然渴望。这种渴望通常是如此强烈持久，我们全然无法有效抵抗，它必定要彰显出来。**上的突发事件，使草根们的声音在两种主要类型中表现得非常明显。一种是源于自身利益考虑，关心钱袋而产生的立场；另一种观点更举足轻重，是关乎安身立命的情感。人们无法忍受被排斥在人群之外，不甘心被冷落，也不能忍受对方的回避和冷漠，总是想与朋友们和睦相处，渴望大家对他颔首微笑，想要受到欢呼致意，还想听到他们的交口称誉:“他走在光明正道上!”这话也许是由一头驴子发出的，但仍然是一头地位很高的驴子，这头驴子的认可对较小的驴子来说就是黄金和钻石，并赋予了荣耀，荣誉和幸福感，还能帮助他成就加入集体的满足与荣光。为了这些得到这世上华丽耀眼的东西，许多人会把自己一生的原则连同自己的良心一并抛到大街上。我们已经看到了这种情况的发生，当然只是区区千百万个例而已！

Men think they think upon great political questions, and they do; but they think with their party, not independently; they read its literature, but not that of the other side; they arrive at convictions, but they are drawn from a partial view of the matter in hand and are of no particular value. They swarm with their party, they feel with their party, they are happy in their party's approval; and where the party leads they will follow, whether for right and honor, or through blood and dirt and a mush of mutilated morals.

人们总以为他们在忧国忧民，关心重大**问题。确实如此，但他们是与自己的**捆绑在一起思考，而不是以旁观者的态度来理性看待。他们读依附这个**的文学作品，拒绝反对派写的东西，他们对自己**的言论深信不疑，尽管这些观念都是片面地从当前问题中得出的轻浅答案，一文不值。人们坚定地和自己的**万众一心，齐心协力，在行动和思想上保持高度一致。他们因自己在**中的认可而感到快乐，无论**走向何方，他们都会热血追随，不管是为了达到权利和荣誉的目的，还是需要通过血腥，肮脏，和道德沦丧的手段。

In our late canvass half of the nation passionately believed that in silver lay salvation, the other half as passionately believed that that way lay destruction. Do you believe that a tenth part of the people, on either side, had any rational excuse for having an opinion about the matter at all? I studied that mighty question to the bottom -- came out empty. Half of our people passionately believe in high tariff, the other half believe otherwise. Does this mean study and examination, or only feeling? The latter, I think. I have deeply studied that question, too -- and didn't arrive. We all do no end of feeling, and we mistake it for thinking. And out of it we get an aggregation which we consider a boon. Its name is Public Opinion. It is held in reverence. It settles everything. Some think it the Voice of God.

在我们最近的一次征询意见中，全国有一半的人热烈地相信在白银中蕴藏着救赎，而另一半人同样对在白银中蕴藏着毁灭深信不疑。你是否相信，有十分之一的人，无论站在哪一个立场，总有一些看似说得过去的理由来为自己的立场做出合理解释。我把这个伤脑筋的问题从头到脚研究了一遍，希望找出问题的端倪，结果一无所获。我们中间，有半数人坚信政府需要征收高关税，另一半人的看法则截然相反。是学习和调查得出结论，还是仅仅凭感觉？我猜应该是后者。我也曾对此深入研究，但结果仍是百思不得其解。我们都有无尽的感觉，却把它误认为是思考，从中我们形成一个庞大的聚合体，我们认为这样就可以坐收渔翁之利。它的名字叫“公众舆论”。它受到尊敬，它解决一切问题。有人认为这是至高者的声音。