book6 Unit 4_A_Red_Light_for_Scofflaws中英对照
广东省考试人事局-中大奖
A Red Light for Scofflaws
给轻微违法行为亮红灯 1
take liberties with:
misinterpret;
treat something freely, without strict observance
of
the fact (随意对待)
behave in a bold or
impolite way towards，
2．Outlaw
litter：
unlawful stewing (a place) with
rubbish
t noise：
very loud noise which
is not permitted
4. motorized
anarchy：
disorder or chaos created by motorists
5. take to: to be pleased by or attracted
to; begin to do sth. as a regular habit
ction：deliberate eglect；
a tendency to be
negligent
from: not affected or bound
by (=excused)
: porfusion.
abundance;
great quantity
nce:
authoritative
law，command or order; a regulation
10.
pot smoker：
One who smokes marijuana.大麻烟客
out of: avoid doing, esp. by making an excuse
(=back out)
beater：
one who evades paying
the fare on a public vehicle. “Beat” is U.S. slang
meaning “cheat”
13. public
nuisance：
sth. offensive to the community, esp.
in violation of others’ legal
rights
-up：
the tossing-up of a coin to decide
something by its fall
15. mortal
peril：
danger that causes or is liable to cause
death
16.
brazen: shameless
.
：
ignore; avoid; evade
t: destroy the power and influence
19．nullify: make ineffective; invalidate
1
Law-and-order is
the longest-running and probably the best-loved
political issue in U.S. history. Yet it is
painfully apparent 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 designed to protect and nourish their society.
法律和秩序，可以说是美国历史上历时最久、或许还是人们最爱谈论的政治问
题。然而，说来痛
心，显然有成百万从来没有想过自己会违法——更不用说犯罪
——的美国人，对于遵守那些旨在保护和维
持他们的社会的法律条文，却愈来愈
表现得放肆起来。
Indeed, there are moments today — amid outlaw
litter, tax cheating,
illicit noise and
motorized anarchy — when it seems as though the
scofflaw
represents the wave of the future.
Harvard Sociologist David Riesman
suspects
that a majority of Americans 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.”
今天，随处乱扔拉圾、逃税、违禁噪音，以及开汽车的无序状态，真是比比皆
是；有时简直使人
觉得，践踏法令者似乎代表了未来的潮流。哈佛大学的社会学
者戴维•里斯曼认为，大多数美国人都不以
为然、毫无顾忌地喜欢犯些所谓的小
过失。里期曼说，今天美国社会的道德规范已差不多快变成“谁守法
谁就是傻瓜”
了。
2
Nothing could be more
obvious than the evidence supporting Riesman.
Scofflaws abound in amazing graffiti-prone
turn public
surfaces into visual rubbish.
Bicyclists often ride as though two-wheeled
vehicles are exempt from all traffic laws.
Litterbugs convert their
communities into
trash dumps.
里斯曼的论断，随处都可得到极为充分的证实。玩忽法令者形形色色，令
人
吃惊。喜欢在公共场所乱涂乱写的人，把这些地方弄得满目疮痍。骑自行车无拘
无束，仿佛两
轮车就可以不遵守交通规则似的。随处乱扔拉圾的人把他们的居住
区变成了拉圾堆。
Widespread flurries of ordinances
have failed to clear public places
of high-
decibel portable radios, just as earlier laws
failed to wipe out
the beer-soaked hooliganism
that plagues many o addicts
remain hopelessly
blind to signs that say NO SMOKING. Respectably
dressed
pot smokers no longer bother to duck
out of public sight to pass around
a joint.
The flagrant use of cocaine is a festering scandal
in middle and
upper-class life. And then there
are (hello, everybody!) the jaywalkers.
到处张贴的
禁令，也未能使公共场所免于手提收音机的高分贝噪音的污染，正
如早先颁布禁令，禁止喝饱啤酒的流氓
滋扰公园，竟毫无作用一样。烟草瘾君子
对那些“禁止吸烟”的布告牌熟视无睹。衣冠楚楚的大麻烟客传
递毒品也不再躲
躲闪闪，避人耳目。可卡因毒品泛滥，成了中上层社会中愈来愈恼人的丑闻。当
然，还有那些不遵守交通规则，乱穿马路的人
3
The dangers of
scofflawry vary widely. The person who illegally
spits
on the sidewalk remains disgusting, but
clearly poses less risk to others
than the
company that illegally buries hazardous chemical
waste in an
unauthorized location. The fare
beater on the subway presents less threat
to
life than the landlord who ignores fire safety
statutes. The most
immediately and measurably
dangerous scofflawry, however, also happens
to
be the most visible.
践踏法令的危害有轻有重。在人行道上随地吐痰，当然
是令人讨厌的；但与那
些大工厂在非指定地点违法掩埋危险的化学废料的作法相比，其对公众的危害则<
br>要小多了。乘地铁不买票，当然不会像房东老板无视防火安全条文那样会危及人
的生命安全。然而
正是这些极常见的践踏法令行为的危害却最直接最明显。
The
culprit is the American driver, whose lawless
activities today add
up to a colossal public
hazards range from routine double
parking that
jams city streets to the drunk driving that kills
some 25,000
people and injures at least
650,000 others yearly. Illegal speeding on
open highways? New surveys show that on some
interstate highways 83% of
all drivers are
currently ignoring the federal 55 mph speed limit.
罪魁祸首要算那些无法无天的美国司机，其所做所为积累成今天的巨大公害。
这种危害包括致使
交通阻塞的常见的路边双排停车和导致每年车祸死亡 25,000
人、受伤至少 65
万人的酒后开车。高速公路上超速行驶的情况又是怎样呢 ?
据
近期统计，某些州际高速公路上，有83%的司机们都常常无视联邦政府关于最高
时速 55
英里的限速
4
The most flagrant scofflaw of
them all is the
red-light runner. The flouting
of stop signals 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
traffic seems to be waning everywhere.
In Los Angeles,
red-light running has become
perhaps the city's most
common traffic
violation.
最明目张胆的违法的行径要算闯红灯了。在波士顿，无视
停车信号的
状况已经严重到了如此程度，以至在当地居民中
流传着这样一个趣闻：一位出租汽车司机竟然坚信：红灯
只
不过是“街头的装饰品而已”。红色停车指示灯控制交通的
能力似乎处处都在减弱。在洛杉矶
，闯红灯恐怕要算该市最
常见的交通违章现象。
5
In New York City, going through
an intersection is
like Russian roulette.
Admits Police Commissioner
Robert J. Mc Guire:
“Today it's a 50-50 toss-up as to
whether
people will stop for a red light.” Meanwhile,
his own police largely ignore the lawbreaking.
在纽约市，通过交叉路口就象玩俄国手枪轮盘赌。警察局
长罗伯特•麦克盖尔承认：“如今红灯
亮了是否停车，就像
玩掷币游戏，机会各一半。”而他麾下的警察，对这种违章
行为大都视而不
见。
5 Red-light running has always
been ranked as a minor wrong, and
so it may be
in individual instances. When the violation
becomes habitual,
widespread and incessant,
however, a great deal more than a traffic
management problem is involved. The flouting
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
mention a justified sense of mortal peril.
闯红
灯常常被列为小错误，属于个案。然而，一旦人们违章形成习惯，而且
不断违章、随处违章，那就远远超
越了交通管理问题了。藐视交通法规的现象
给公众心理造成深深的创伤。无辜的开车人和无辜的行人一次
次地感到沮丧，
忍受种种不便和愤怒，更不用说他们对危及他人生命行为的应有责任感了。
6
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, and
society cannot help being harmed by any
repetitious and brazen
display of contempt for
the fundamentals of order.
闯红灯现象比比皆是，更增强了其危害性。
如果说伪善是邪恶对美德所表示
的敬意，那么鬼鬼崇崇便是犯罪分子对法律与制序的真心实意的敬礼了。
然而，
闯红灯的人对社会规章却毫无敬意可言，而任何屡禁不止、厚颜无耻的藐视社
会秩序基本
要求的行径，都会使社会无法免受其害。是个别情况。”
6 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 together.
For 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.
这种无视法律的风气会四处蔓延的。所以当
学校发现孩子们入学时经常连最
起码的集体生活规则都不懂时，此类现象就不足为奇了(有些学校的确发
现此
事)。尽管无视法律的人各种各样，但是他们的违法都是社会基本道德败坏症候
的一种表现
——个体失去了为了他人的利益而约束自己的能力。
7
7
The prospect of the collapse of public manners is
not merely a
matter of etiquette. Society’s
first concern will remain major crime,
but a
foretaste of the seriousness of incivility is
suggested by what
has been happening in
Houston. Drivers on Houston freeways have been
showing an increasing tendency to replace the
rules of the road with
violent 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 its driver was trying to
stay within 55
m. p. h. limit. The Houston
Freeway syndrome has fortunately not spread
everywhere. But the question is: Will it?
公众礼仪坍塌的未来景象并不只是一个礼仪问题。社会最关心的将仍然是
严重犯罪。粗鲁无礼的严酷性的
预判可以从发生在休斯顿的事件中得以揭示。
在休斯敦的高速公路上，驾驶员展示了聚变的趋势：暴力犯
罪取代了的道路规
则。休斯敦警察局的新的统计分类的——高速公路交通的暴力行为包括：1）司
机对挡住自己前面道路的车辆开大灯照射，另一司机用啤酒罐子打砸自己车辆
的挡风玻璃，踢自己车辆
的尾灯，把对手打得能缝他8针大伤口。 2）自卸卡
车司机因被延误击打前面熄火车辆的司机停滞以及
驾驶车辆时速不超过55英里
的司机。值得庆幸地是，休斯顿高速公路综合症尚未蔓延全国。但问题是，
未
来会蔓延吗？
8 Americans are used to thinking
that law-and-order is threatened
mainly by
stereotypical violent crime. When the foundations
of U.S. law
have actually been shaken,
however, it has always been because ordinary
law-abiding citizens took to skirting the law.
Major instance:
Prohibition. Recalls Donald
Barr Chidsey in
On and Off the Wagon
:” Law
breaking 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
alcohol issue but because scofflawry was
seriously undermining the authority and
legitimacy of government.
[8] 美国人习惯于认为，老一套的暴力
犯罪是对法律秩序的主要威胁。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
根基。主要例子有：禁酒令。唐纳德·巴·契德斯在《上下车》一书中回忆道：“违
法显得不痛苦的，甚至都没有令人不舒服的感觉，反而以温和的、完全安全的方
式令人欢喜鼓舞。”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性和合法性。
8
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 they
serve. Worse,
most state legislatures have helped subvert（破坏）
popular
compliance with the federal 55 m. p.
h. law, some of them by enacting puny
fines
that trivialize transgressions.
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。警察未能执法仅仅是问题的表面
，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。
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 ordered 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.
更高一级的华盛顿当局则用反对（而不是支持）某些已成为法律条文的废除
种族隔离
法，来实现其取消民权法案的愿望，这真是令人啼笑皆非。据《荒原》
杂志报道， 环保组织以相当正当
的理由指责当局破坏环境保护法，或者是不执
法此法，或是虽然执行了但却故意怂恿人们违反此法规。这
解释为：违法行为在
高层。
The most
disquieting thing about the scofflaw spirit is its
extreme
infectiousness. Only a terminally
foolish society would sit still and
allow it
to spread indefinitely.
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。
9