关于黄河的俗语-中大奖

参考译文

对违反法律者亮红灯
A Red Light for Scofflaws
弗兰克·特立皮德

1
Law-and-order is the longest-running and probably the best-loved political issue in U.S. histor
y. Yet it is painfully apparent 2 that millions of Americans who would never think of themselves as
lawbreakers, let alone criminals, are taking increasing liberties with the legal codes that are desig
ned to protect and nourish their society. 3 Indeed, there are moments today — amid outlaw litter, t
ax cheating, illicit noise and motorized anarchy — when it seems as though the scofflaw represent
s the wave of the future. 4 Harvard Sociologist David Riesman suspects that a majority of America
ns have blithely taken to committing supposedly minor derelictions as a matter of course. Already,
Riesman says, the ethic of U.S. society is in danger of becoming this: “You're a fool if you obey
the rules.”
[1] 法律和秩序是美国历史上持续时间最长的、也可能是政治上的最热门的
话题。然而，显 然令人烦恼的是，数以百万计的美国人尽管从没有认为自己会违
反法律，更不用说会成为罪犯了，却正在 越来越随便地对待那些专为保护与造福
他们的社会所制定的法规。当然，现今确实有些时候似乎无视法律 代表了未来的
潮流。哈佛大学的社会学家大卫·莱斯曼怀疑，大多数美国人喜欢犯那种他们认
为 是无关紧要的玩忽职守的错误。莱斯曼说，美国社会的伦理道德已经处于这样
的危险之中：即，“如果你 遵纪守法，你就是个傻瓜”。

Nothing could be more obvious than the evidence supporting Riesman. Scofflaws
abound in amazing variety. 5 The graffiti-prone turn public surfaces into visual rubbis
h. Bicyclists often ride as though two- wheeled vehicles are exempt from all traffic law
s. 6 Litterbugs convert their communities into trash dumps. Widespread flurries of ord
inances have failed to clear public places of high-decibel portable radios, just as earlie
r laws failed to wipe out the beer- soaked hooliganism that plagues many parks. 7 Toba
cco addicts remain hopelessly blind to signs that say NO SMOKING. Respectably dre

ssed pot smokers no longer bother to duck out of public sight to pass around a joint. T
he flagrant use of cocaine is a festering scandal in middle and upper-class life. And th
en there are (hello, everybody!) 8 the jaywalkers.
[2] 支持莱斯曼观点的证据是再明显不过的。违法乱纪者屡见 不鲜、无
奇不有，达到了惊人的程度。墙上的乱涂乱画把公共场所的外观糟塌得不堪人目。
骑自 行车的人横冲直闯，似乎两个车轮的交通工具可以不受任何交通法规的束
缚。乱丢垃圾的人把他们的生活 区域变成了垃圾场。正如以前的法令未能扫除危
害公园的满身酒气的流氓阿飞一样，广泛宣传的法规也未 能消除公共场所的高分
贝便携式收音机。吸烟成瘾的人们对“不准吸烟”的告示牌熟视无睹。衣冠楚楚< br>的吸大麻的人再也不像从前那样躲开公众的视线偷偷摸摸地传递带大麻的香烟
了。在中上层人士中 毫无顾忌地使用可卡因已成为令人烦恼的丑闻。而且，(好
家伙，人数真不少啊!)还有随意横穿马路的 人呢。

The dangers of scofflawry vary widely. The person who illegally spits on the side
walk remains disgusting, but clearly poses less risk to others than the company that ill
egally buries hazardous chemical waste in an unauthorized location. The fare beater o
n the subway presents less threat to life than the landlord who ignores fire safety statut
es. 9 The most immediately and measurably dangerous scofflawry, however, also hap
pens to be the most visible. The culprit is the American driver, whose lawless activitie
s today add up to a colossal public nuisance. 10 The hazards range from routine doubl
e parking 11 that jams city streets to the drunk driving that kills some 25,000 people a
nd injures at least 650,000 others yearly. 12 Illegal speeding on open highways? New
surveys show that on some interstate highways 83% of all drivers are currently ignori
ng the federal 55 m .p. h. speed limit.

3] 违法行为的危害差别极大。在人行道上随地吐痰当然令 人厌恶，但是很
明显，比起那些违法地在未经许可的地区掩埋危险化学废料的公司对他人造成的
危害要小得多。忽视防火安全法规的房主对人生命的危害当然要比在地铁逃票的
人大得多。然而，最直接 和最引人注目的违法行为恰恰就是最常见的一种社会现

象。首当其冲者就是美国的司机们 。今天，他们无法无天的行为给公众造成了极
大的灾难。其危害既有日常多见的造成城市街道堵塞的并排 违章停车，也有司机
酒后开车造成的每年死亡大约25,000人，伤残至少650,000人。那么高 速公路上
的违章超速行驶呢？最新调查显示，在一些州际公路上83%的司机现在根本无视
联邦 法定的每小时55英里的时速限制。

The most flagrant scofflaw of them all is the red-light runner. The flouting of stop sig
nals has got so bad in Boston that residents tell an anecdote about a cabby who insists
that red lights are “ just for decoration ” .The power of the stoplight to control traffi
c seems to be waning everywhere. In Los Angeles, red-light running has become perh
aps the city's most common traffic violation. In New York City, going through an inter
section is like Russian roulette. Admits Police Commissioner Robert J. Mc Guire: “T
oday it's a 50-50 tossup as to whether people will stop for a red light.” Meanwhile, h
is own police largely ignore the lawbreaking.

[4] 所有违章 行为中最厚颜无耻的要数闯红灯了。在波士顿，人们对这种停
止通行的信号的藐视已经到了这样的程度， 以至在当地人中竟然流传着这种笑
话：一名出租汽车司机居然坚持说，红灯信号仅仅起装饰作用。禁止通 行的红灯
控制交通的效力在各地都在削弱。在洛杉矾，闯红灯似乎已经成为最常见的违反
交通法 规的行为。在纽约，过十字路口就像俄国轮盘赌一样。警察局长罗伯
特·杰·麦克盖尔承认，“现在人们 在红灯面前是否停下来是50%对50%的抛硬
币的概率。”同时，他自己属下的警察们也大都对这种违 章行为熟视无睹。


Red-light running has always been ranked as a minor wrong, and so it may be in indiv
idual instances. 13 When the violation becomes habitual, widespread and incessant, h
owever, a great deal more than a traffic management problem is involved. The floutin
g of basic rules of the road leaves deep dents in the social mood. Innocent drivers and
pedestrians pay a repetitious price in frustration, inconvenience and outrage, not to me
ntion a justified sense of mortal peril. The significance of

red-light running is magnified by its high visibility. If hypocrisy is the tribute that
vice pays to virtue, then furtiveness is the true outlaw's salute to the force of law-and-
order. The red-light runner, however, shows no respect whatever for the social rules, a
nd society cannot help being harmed by any repetitious and brazen display of contem
pt for the fundamentals of order.
[5] 闯红灯一直被认为是微不 足道的小错，所以这可能是个人的小事。但是
当这种违章行为成为习惯性的、广泛的和没完没了的时候， 那么所涉及的问题就
远远不仅是一个交通管理的问题了。这种对道路基本交通法规的无视极大地危害了社会风气。无辜的司机和行人们一而再、再而三地为所遭受的挫折、不便和伤
害而付出很大代价， 更不用说他们无法摆脱不安全感了。闯红灯之所以成为重大
问题，就是因为这种现象比比皆是。如果说虚 伪是邪恶向美德呈献的赞美，那么
偷偷摸摸就是违法者向法律和秩序的威力所表示的衷心的敬意了。然而 ，闯红灯
的人却连这点对社会法规的起码的尊重也没有，而这种一再厚颜无耻地蔑视秩序
的基本 准则不能不极大地危害社会。


The scofflaw spirit is pervasive. It is not really surprising when schools find, as some
do, that their children frequently enter not knowing some of the basic rules of living to
all their differences, today’
s scofflaws are of a piece as a symptom of elementary social demoralization ---the loss
by individuals of the capacity to govern their own behavior in the interest of others.
[6] 这种无视法律的风气无处不在。所以当有些学校发现，孩子们人学时经< br>常连最起码的集体生活规则都不懂时，就不足为奇了(有些学校的确是这样认
为)。尽管无视法律 的人各种各样，但是他们都是社会基本道德败坏症候的一种
表现——一个人失去了为了他人的利益而约束 自己的能力。

The prospect of the collapse of public manners is not merely a matter of etiquette. Soc
iety’s first concern will remain major crime, but a foretaste of the seriousness of inci
vility is suggested by what has been happening in Houston. Drivers on Houston freew
ays have been showing an increasing tendency to replace the rules of the road with vi

olent outbreaks. Items from the Houston police department’
s new statistical category_freeway traffic violence: 1) Driver flashes high-beam lights
at car that cut in front of him, whose occupants then hurl a beer can at his windshield,
kick out his tail lights, slug him eight stitches’
worth.2) Dump-truck driver annoyed by delay batters trunk of stalled car ahead and i
ts driver was trying to stay within 55 m. p. h. limit. The Houston Freeway syndrome h
as fortunately not spread everywhere. But the question is: Will it?

Americans are used to thinking that law-and- order is threatened mainly by stereot
ypical violent crime. When the foundations of U.S. law have actually been shaken, ho
wever, it has always been because ordinary law-abiding citizens took to skirting the la
w. Major instance:
Prohibition. Recalls Donald Barr Chidsey in On and Off the Wagon:” Law breaki
ng proved to be not painful, not even uncomfortable, but, in a mild and perfectly safe
way, exhilarating.” People wiped out Prohibition at last not only because of the alco
hol issue but because scofflawry was seriously undermining the authority and legitima
cy of government. Ironically, today’
s scofflaw spirit, whatever its undetermined origins, is being encouraged unwittingly
by government at many levels. The failure of police to enforce certain laws is only the
surface of the problem: they take their mandate from the officials and constituents the
y serve. Worse, most state legislatures have helped subvert popular compliance with t
he federal 55 m. p. h. law, some of them by enacting puny fines that trivialize transgre
ssions. On a higher level, the Administration in Washington has dramatized its wish to
nullify civil rights laws simply by opposing instead of supporting certain court ordere
d desegregation rulings. With considerable justification, environmental groups, in the
words of Wilderness magazine, accuse the Administration of “destroying
environmental laws by failing to enforce them, or by enforcing them in ways that
deliberately encourage noncompliance.” Translation: scofflawry at the top.

[7] 美国人习惯于认为，固定形式的暴力犯罪 是对法律和秩序的主要威胁。
然而，却正是出于普通的遵纪守法的公民设法钻法律的空子
才真 正动摇了美国法律的基础。主要例子：禁酒令。唐纳德·巴·契德斯在
《上下马车》一书中回忆道：“违 法事实上是不痛苦的，甚至都没有令人不舒服
的感觉，反而以一种柔和的、完全安全的方式令人欢喜。” 人们终于废除了禁酒
令，不仅是因为酒的问题，而且因为违法行为严重地损害了政府的威信和合法地位。具有讽刺意味的是，不管今天这种无视法律的风气源于何处，它却受到各级
政府官员的无可奈何 的鼓励。警察未能强制实行某些法律仅仅是问题的表面，他
们只不过是从他们为之服务的官员和选民那里 接受命令。更糟糕的是，大多数的
州立法机构在公众遵守联邦法律规定的车速不得超过每小时55英里的 规定时却
帮了倒忙，其中一些州甚至擅自规定超速仅处以很少的罚款以使大事化小。更高
一级的 华盛顿政府则用反对(而不是支持)某些已成为法律条文的取消种族隔离
的规定的办法，来实现其取消民 权法律的效力的愿望，这真是令人啼笑皆非。据
《荒原》杂志报导，环保组织以相当正当的理由指责当局 破坏环境保护法，因为
它未能推行该法规，或是虽然推行但却故意怂恿人们违反法规。这解释为：最高< br>一级的违法行为。

The most disquieting thing about the scofflaw spirit is its extreme infectiousness. Onl
y a terminally foolish society would sit still and allow it to spread indefinitely.
[8] 无视法律之风最令人不安之处在于它的极端传染性。只有最愚蠢的社会才
会坐视不管、任其蔓延。