网帖翻译

How Bad is American Life? Americans Don’t Even Have Friends Anymore

美国人的生活有多糟糕? 美国人连朋友都没有了

One of the things that I try to teach Americans about is that they’re living in a disintegrating society. When I say that, many think I’m insulting them, or talking down to them. Alas, I’m speaking factually and formally. Let me explain.
Take a look at the chart above. What does it say? A number of things which should never be true in a healthy society.

我想告诉美国人的一件事就是，他们生活在一个分裂的社会中，当我这么说的时候，很多人认为我是在侮辱他们，或者用居高临下的口气对他们说话，唉，我说的是事实，也是很正经的，让我来解释一下。
看看上面的图表。
上面说的是什么？在一个健康的社会里，有一些事情是不应该发生的。

People who’ve lived abroad — or people who aren’t Americans — often note the same strange, upsetting feature of American life. It feels remarkably unfriendly. America’s a weirdly hostile, aggressive place. Everyone seems to be an enemy — and I’m not just speaking politically, but in a broader social context.

在国外生活过的人--或者美国以外的人--会经常注意到美国生活中一个奇怪的、令人不安的特点，那就是美国给人感觉非常不友好，美国是一个奇怪的充满敌意和侵略性的地方，每个人似乎都是敌人-- 我说的不只是政治上，而是在更广泛的社会背景下。

Now, Americans, at least the ones who’ve never lived elsewhere, are baffled by this. Aren’t we polite? Aren’t we nice? Kind of, sometimes, on the surface, is the answer. But on deeper levels America’s, a remarkably unfriendly place. Let me give you a few examples.

美国人，至少是那些从未在其他地方生活过的人，对此感到困惑。我们不是很有礼貌吗？我们不是很好吗？表面上看有些时候确实如此，但在更深层次上，美国是一个非常不友好的地方，让我给你举几个例子。

Simple acts of politeness and friendship are seen as odd in America. Americans don’t treat each other with dignity. My doctor friend once fell down on the subway in a major city…and nobody lifted a finger to help her. In the rest of the world — more or less all of it — that would be a deeply abnormal act. In America, that kind of indifference is completely normal. Who wants to get involved? Weakness is a liability, isn’t it? I can’t afford to be late for work! She’s making me late for work with her weakness! And so on.

在美国，简单的礼貌和友谊在美国被视为奇怪的行为，美国人不尊重彼此，我的医生朋友有一次在一个大城市的地铁上摔倒了...... 没有人伸出一根手指去帮她，在世界其它地方，这会是一种非常不正常的行为，在美国，这种冷漠是完全正常的。
谁会去管？虚弱是一种负担，不是吗？我可不能上班迟到！她的虚弱会让我上班迟到！诸如此类。

When you go to work in America, it’s totally normal for your boss to shout at you, yell at you, demean you, belittle you. In fact, such things are seen as “teamwork” or “team building” and so on. Corporate culture prizes its little aggressive “hard chargers.” But in the rest of the world — again, more or less all of it, especially the rich world — being treated like this called what it is: abuse. If your boss shouts at you or calls you names in Europe or Canada, you can get them fired, because it’s a grave violation of formal codes and social norms both. In America, you have to take it…and thank them.

在美国，当你去工作时，你的老板对你大喊大叫，贬低你，轻视你，这些都是很正常的。
事实上，这样的事情被看作是 "团队工作 "或 "团队建设 "等等，企业文化推崇其积极进取的 "硬汉"，但在世界其他地方——同样，或多或少可以说是所有的地方，尤其是富裕的世界——被这样对待会被视为：虐待。
在欧洲或加拿大，如果你的老板对你大喊大叫或骂你，你可以反炒他的鱿鱼，因为这严重违反了法规和社会规范，但在美国，你必须接受...并且感谢他们。

But without a doubt the weirdest feature of American life, the one that makes it so unfriendly, is the one that’s the simplest, but hardest to explain. Americans don’t have friends. They don’t really have relationships at all very much in the way that a healthy society does. That’s what the chart above says. Half of Americans say they don’t even have four close friends. More than 1 in 10 Americans now reports having no close friends at all.

但毫无疑问，美国生活中最怪异的特征---- 使其如此不友好的特征---- 也是最简单但最难解释的特征。
美国人没有朋友，他们根本不像一个健康的社会那样拥有真正的人际关系，这就是上面的图表所表达出来的内容。
一半的美国人说他们甚至没有四个亲密的朋友，超过十分之一的美国人报告说根本没有亲密的朋友。

That’s completely bizarre. Totally pathological. That’s a really shocking — yet unsurprising — statistic. People in America don’t even have friends anymore? That’s a feature of living in a collapsing society. It’s very Soviet. Very North Korean. Very Iran. Friendship comes to be a luxury — and a liability. Suspicion, aggression, hostility, and cruelty take over, as life becomes a bitter, brutal battle for self-preservation.

这真是太奇怪了，完全病态，这是一个令人震惊但并不令人惊讶的统计数字。
美国人连朋友都没有？这是生活在一个崩溃的社会的一个特征，很有苏联风格，非常朝鲜，非常伊朗。

友谊变成了一种奢侈品ーー也是一种负担，怀疑、侵略、敌意和残忍占据了我们的生活，因为生活变成了一场痛苦的、残酷的自保之战。
Wierder still, Americans have been acculturated to think that all this — not having basic human relationships — is completely normal. As if reality TV and tweets from some dumb celebrity and porn make up for it. They seem to think not even having friends, which means being unfriendly as a way of life, existing in a society without the most basic of social bonds anymore, is just how life is. It’s not. That’s a story that statistics can only partially tell, though, so let me paint you a picture.

更可怕的是，美国人已经被培养成认为这一切--没有基本的人际关系--是完全正常的，仿佛真人秀和一些愚蠢的名人以及色情推特可以弥补这一点。他们似乎不去想没有朋友这个问题，这意味着不友好变成了他们的一种生活方式，生活在一个不再有最基本社会纽带的社会，就是生活本该的样子，但事实并非如此。
不过，这一统计数字只能部分说明问题，所以让我给你描绘一下。

In Paris and Rome, the bistros and piazzas spill over with…friends. People laugh and cheer and smile. They hug each other and embrace and kiss. Life is remarkably social. It’s notably warm. Friendship is what makes life, society, work, every day rituals, go. People exist in this wet and messy and beautiful matrix of sociality. You can’t separate yourself from it. It’s everywhere, the air you breathe. Basic human relationships — the vulnerability, fragility, emotionality of them — abound. People are connected in complex, enduring, deep, and intimate ways, invisible lines cutting through the heart of everything, everywhere. And they like living that way.

在巴黎和罗马，小酒馆和广场上到处都是朋友，人们欢笑，欢呼，微笑，他们互相拥抱，亲吻，生活是非常有社会性的，很温暖，友谊使得生活、社会、工作、每天的仪式得以进行。
人们生活在一个湿漉漉的、凌乱的、温暖和美丽的社会性矩阵中，你不能把自己和它分开，它无处不在，如同呼吸的空气。

基本的人际关系ーー脆弱、脆弱、情绪化ーー比比皆是，人们以复杂的、持久的、深刻的、亲密的方式联系在一起，无形的线条穿透一切事物的心脏，无处不在，他们喜欢这样的生活方式。
America’s completely different. Life is cold. It’s antisocial, asocial. Nobody’s hugging and kissing in the streets — as friends. Those invisible lines don’t connect people. Nobody much seems to feel anything. The smiles are fake and the stares blank. Americans keep their distance from one another, suspicious. They don’t spill out of the bars, really, except at 3AM, dead drunk. They’re not having fun. That European joie de vivre — which is a complex product of a society profoundly rich in social bonds, in friendship, in delight in others’ experiences, in empathy and relationaility, in the emotional wealth and depth and intimacy of living they produce — does not exist in America. All of that wet, messy, warm stuff is a totally foreign, alien concept.

美国则完全不同，生活是冷漠的，是反社会的，非社会的，没有人在街上像朋友般拥抱和亲吻，那些看不见的线并没有把人们联系起来，似乎没有人有感觉，笑容是假的，目光是空洞的，美国人彼此保持着距离，疑神疑鬼。
他们不会从酒吧里走出来，真的，除非是凌晨3点，醉得一塌糊涂，他们没有乐趣，没有欧洲人的生活乐趣--这是一个社会的复杂产物，社会纽带、友谊、对他人经历的喜悦、同情和关系，以及它们所产生的情感财富、深度和生活的亲密性--在美国统统不存在，所有那些湿漉漉的、凌乱的、温暖的东西都是完全陌生的概念、外来的概念。

That’s the first thing the chart above says. I’m drawing what some social scientists would call a “normative conclusion.” People should have friends. Why? Because, well, we’re social creatures. Friendship keeps us sane, grounded, anchored. It might seem like a small thing, but as Derrida pointed out, in fact, it’s the basis of a healthy society. Without friendship — aka social bonds — a social has no fabric weaving it together. America’s a disintegrating society in that broad sense. It is coming undone. It’s social fabric has been unravelled.

这就是上面的图表所说的第一件事，我正在得出一些社会科学家称之为 "规范性结论 "的东西：人们应该有朋友。
为什么？因为，我们是社会动物。
友谊使我们保持理智，接地气，扎根，这可能看起来是一件小事，但正如德里达指出的，事实上，它是一个健康社会的基础。
没有友谊--又称社会纽带--一个社会就没有了编织在一起的织物，从广义上讲，美国是一个正在瓦解的社会，它正在走向解体，它的社会结构已经崩裂了。
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处

The second thing the chart above says is that all the above has gotten worse. There’s been a stunning, catastrophic decline in friendship in America — again, the most basic and elemental and powerful of social bonds. In 1990, a third of Americans had 10 or more close friends. Today, just 13 percent do.

上面的图表说的第二件事是，上述所有情况都在变得更糟。在美国，友谊这最基本、最强大的社会纽带已经出现了惊人的、灾难性的下降--1990年，三分之一的美国人有10个或更多的亲密朋友，而今天，只有13%的人有10个或更多的亲密朋友。

Why is that? Because America’s a collapsing society.
Let me give you a bit of context. America’s always been a disconnected society. Americans have always been bad at friendship. You don’t have to think very hard about why. That’s what they’ve been taught, and then they’ve been taught that competition and acquisitiveness and hostility and greed are the best and correct ways to life.

为什么会这样？因为美国是一个崩溃的社会。
我给你提一点背景，美国一直是一个脱离联系的社会，美国人不善于交友，你不需要很认真地思考原因，因为这就是他们被教导的东西，他们被教导的是，竞争、贪婪、敌意是最好和最正确的生活方式。

So it’s a hyper individualistic, hyper materialistic society. Money and things matter more than people. People are seen as disposable and expendable, commodities to be traded up in a game of status and sex and power the moment they’re no longer useful, thrilling, exciting. People only really have instrumental value in American life — they’re means, not ends.
所以这是一个超个人主义，超物质主义的社会，金钱和物质比人更重要。人被视为可抛弃的和可消耗的，是在地位、性和权力的游戏中被交易的商品，一旦他们不再有用，不再令人激动，不再令人兴奋就会被抛弃，人在美国生活中只有工具性价值ーー他们是手段，而不是目的。
But even in that context, what’s happened is really weird and disturbing and strange. Only in genuinely collapsing societies do we see statistics so bleak — people just don’t have friends. Why is that? Well, because friendship becomes both a liability and a luxury. It becomes a luxury that’s unaffordable. As societies collapse, people grow poorer. They don’t have time or money or energy to “invest” in friendship, as an American might say. A European might just say it’s pretty hard to go to the bistro for a three hour lunch when you’re working three jobs and still can’t pay the bills.

但即使在这种情况下，所发生的事情也非常奇怪，令人不安，只有在真正崩溃的社会中，我们才会看到如此惨淡的统计数据--人们根本没有朋友。
为什么会这样？嗯，因为友谊既是负担，也是一种奢侈品，它成为一种让人无法负担的奢侈品。
随着社会的崩溃，人们变得越来越穷，美国人可能会说，他们没有时间、金钱或精力来 "投资 "友谊，而一个欧洲人可能会说，当你做着三份工作却仍然无法支付账单的时候，就算去小酒馆吃上三个小时的午餐也相当郁闷。

Friendship became a luxury that Americans simply couldn’t afford. America’s a nation of neo-serfs now: people who are indebted for life to billionaires. They never pay off their debts — they die in them. They’re busy working away busily their whole lives long in this weird shell game. What time, energy, money, room, does that leave for friendship? And what emotional space does it leave either?
友谊成了美国人根本负担不起的奢侈品。美国现在是一个新世代农奴国家： 这些人一辈子都欠着亿万富翁的债，他们永远无法还清他们的债务ーー他们在债务中死去，他们在这个诡异的骗局中忙碌地工作一辈子，时间，精力，金钱，空间，这给友谊留下了什么时间、精力、金钱和空间？它还能留下什么情感空间？
That’s why friendship became a liability in America, too. Friendship isn’t just an expensive luxury now. Friends are also something you don’t want. Americans — to the rest of the world — are pathologically suspicious. They don’t seem able to see each other as human beings at all. That’s because they’re made to live in a weird, strange, antisocial way: they have to get up and compete with everyone else for the basics, jobs, healthcare, education, retirement, a little bit of money to pay the bills and put a roof over their heads.

这就是为什么友谊在美国也成为一种负担，友谊现在不仅仅是一种昂贵的奢侈品，朋友也是你不想要的东西。
美国人，相比于世界其他国家来说，病态的多疑，他们似乎根本无法将对方视为人类，这是因为他们被要求以一种奇怪的、陌生的、反社会的方式生活：他们必须一爬起床就与其他人竞争基本的东西，工作、医疗、教育、退休、一点点支付账单的钱，以及在他们头上的屋顶。

They have to do it over and over again, until they die. There’s no letup, it’s relentless. And there’s no room for mercy, because it really is a fight to the death.
Lose that job? There goes your healthcare? Whoops, now you have to pay some crazy million dollar bill. There goes your house and life savings! Out on the street? Too bad! I guess you die.

他们不得不一次又一次地这样做，直到他们死去，没有任何停顿，无情，而且没有怜悯的余地，因为这真的是一场生死之战。
丢了工作？你的医疗保险泡汤了？哎，现在你得付一大笔钱了，你的房子和毕生积蓄都没了！流落街头？太糟糕了！我猜你会死。

When that’s your life, friendship really is a liability. Maybe this friend will impose on you and make you late for work. Maybe that one will call you during a crucial meeting. Maybe this one will take up the time the corporation who owns your life demands. Maybe that one will need a bit of money — and what do you have to give

当这就是你的生活时，友谊真的是一种负担，也许这个朋友会干扰到你，让你上班迟到，也许这个人会在一个关键的会议期间给你打电话，也许这个人会占用你的生存所系的工作时间，也许这个人会要你拿钱——而你有什么可给的。

Let me put that another way. When everyone else is your competitor, rival, adversary, in a contest for the basics of existence — a little money, medicine, food, shelter — the norms of friendship don’t and can’t develop. Instead of the European and Canadian norms of gentleness, humour, dignity, warmth, you get the Americans norms of indifference, enmity, aggression, hostility, cruelty.

让我换一种说法，当其他人都是你的竞争对手、同行、敌人，为了生存的基本需要—— 一点点钱、药品、食物、住所——而竞争时，就不会发展出友谊的标准，也不可能发展出来，与欧洲和加拿大的温柔、幽默、尊严、热情的标准不同，美国的标准是冷漠、侵略、敌意和残忍。

Worse, Americans don’t even get how perverse and backwards such a culture is. They celebrate aggression and hostility as if they were virtues, and look down on gentleness and warmth as forms of weakness. That’s because in American society, materialistic, individualistic, any kind of warmth or gentleness does equal death, or at least comes with a steep price.

更糟糕的是，美国人甚至不知道这样的文化是多么的变态和落后，他们赞美攻击性和敌意，好像它们是美德，而把温柔和温暖看成是软弱，这是因为在美国社会，物质主义、个人主义，任何形式的温暖或温柔都等同于死亡，或者至少要付出高昂的代价。

But the cost is that Americans live badly, badly stunted lives. They don’t have friends, they don’t have basic human relationships anymore, and not having formed social bonds, they can’t invest in public goods and make a working politics. Americans seem to exist as atoms of appetite, little floating animalcules of rage and greed in this weird, blank matrix of aggression and hostility, and they’re taught and told that’s the way life should be and the only way it can be.

但真正的代价是美国人生活得很糟糕，严重发育不良，他们没有朋友，他们不再有基本的人际关系，没有形成社会联系，他们不能投资于公益事业，也不能创造一个有效的政治生态。
美国人似乎像食欲的原子一样存在着，在这个充满侵略和敌意的怪异、空白的矩阵中，充满着愤怒和贪婪的小小的浮动微生物，他们被教导和告知生活就应该是这样的，也是唯一的生活方式。

Americans don’t get how bewildering and strange this is, really, at all, to exist in a society where aggression and hostility are norms, but basic human relationships like friendship are punished, sanctioned, prevented, and broken apart, by institutions who want to keep people socially, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually weak and stunted. They’ve only ever lived, most of them, in the baffling paradox of an antisocial society — a place where people are not really allowed to treat each other like human beings. They don’t really grasp the lixs at work, or how deeply abnormal it is to live like this, in this sad, depressed, isolated, disconnected way.

美国人完全不知道，在一个侵略和敌意成为常态的社会里，这是多么令人困惑和奇怪，在一个社会中，侵略和敌意是规范，但像友谊这样的基本人际关系却被惩罚、制裁、阻止和破坏，这一体系让人们在社会上、心理上、情感上和精神上变得软弱和发育不良。
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处

他们中的大多数人只是生活在一个令人困惑的反社会悖论中ーー在这个社会中，人们不能真正地把彼此当作人来对待，他们并没有真正理解其中的联系，或者说，也不知道以这种悲伤、沮丧、孤立、断绝联系的方式生活是多么的不正常。
But of course European thinkers have excelled at analysing America this way. Marx would have said that all this is alienation and immiseration. Americans are left so poor, so exploited, by the corporations and billionaires who impoverish them, they don’t even have resources left to invest in the most basic of human relationships.

显然，欧洲的思想家们擅长用这种方式分析美国，马克思会说，这些都是异化和贫困带来的结果，美国人是如此贫穷，被让他们贫穷的企业和亿万富翁所剥削，他们甚至没有资源来投资于最基本的人际关系。

Derrida and Baudrillard would have followed up and pointed out that without friendship, a society withers. It rips itself apart. People must regard one another as friends in some basic way for a society to survive, after all — or else fascism, authoritarianism and overt militarism take hold.

德里达和鲍德里亚会进一步指出，没有友谊，一个社会就会枯萎，会把自己撕裂，毕竟，一个社会要想生存，人们必须以某种基本方式把彼此视为朋友——否则法西斯主义、独裁主义和公开的军国主义就会占据上风。

All that, of course, is exactly what is happening in America. Just as there’s been a catastrophic collapse in social bonds, beginning with the most basic of human relationships, friendship, so too, paralleling it, there’s been a startling rise in hate. Fanaticism, superstition, violence, brutality, the overt fascism of Trumpism, the authoritarianism of the modern-day GOP. These are flip sides of a coin. Americans are unable to form social bonds anymore, impoverished, desperate, beaten, abandoned, and in the absence of social bonds, all the many forms of hate rise like cancers.

当然，这一切正是当下美国正在发生的事情，正如社会纽带出现了灾难性的崩溃，从人类最基本的关系--友谊开始，与之平行的是，仇恨也出现了惊人的增长，狂热、迷信、暴力、残暴、特朗普式的公开法西斯主义、现代美国共和党的独裁主义，这些都是同一个硬币的正反面，美国人无法再形成社会纽带，遭受贫穷、绝望、被殴打、被抛弃，在缺乏社会纽带的情况下，所有这些各式各样形式的仇恨像癌症一样上升。

There’s much more to say on the topic. I could talk about, for example, how “social media” emerged to give Americans fake friends — the junk food equivalent of real relationships — just as genuine bonds were imploding. That certainly helped things along. Still, it’s the larger points you should see.

关于这个话题还有很多可以说，例如，我可以谈谈在真正的亲密关系破裂的时候“社交媒体”是如何出现的，如何给美国人提供虚假的朋友 ( 相比真实的朋友就是垃圾) ，这当然有助于事情的发展，不过，你应该看到的是更重要的观点。

America’s a pathologically unhealthy place to be, to live, to exist.
I don’t think Americans will ever really get how strange it is to live without basic human relationships — but the rest of us should take note. This is how societies die.

美国是一个病态的不健康的地方，不适合生活，不适合生存，美国人，越来越多地没有朋友。
我认为美国人永远不会真正明白没有基本人际关系的生活是多么奇怪——但我们其他人应该注意到这一点，社会就是这样灭亡的。

Kathryn Dickel
This is not an exclusive American issue. It’s a capitalism issue and thus can be seen in all societies that are practicing of culture centered around money. That being said it is a also s problem in America. As usual I find your writing thought provoking, but too mired in absolutes.

这不是美国独有的问题，这是资本主义的问题，这在所有实行以金钱为中心的文化的社会都可以看到，这就是说，这也是美国的一个问题，像往常一样，我发现你的文章发人深省，但太过绝对化了。

Laura Kobbeman
I moved to Central America to escape America after 67 years. I see exactly what Umair sees and left the christian MAGAs to their hate and bigotry and destruction of everything I hold dear. Christian charity is not necessary if a government provides and cares for its' people. Charity always comes with strings attached anyway. I prefer to watch the implosion from the outside looking in. It is sad because it didn't need to be this way. Just my 2 cents.

我67年之后搬到了中美洲以逃离美国，我清楚地看到作者所看到的一切，离开了基督教的MAGA们，抛下了他们的仇恨和偏执以及对我所珍视的一切的破坏，如果一个政府真抚育并关心它的人民，基督教的慈善是没有必要的，无论如何，慈善总是有附加条件的，我更愿意站在外面看里面内爆，这很可悲，因为它本不应该变成这样——以上只是我个人的一点浅见。

Albert Calleros
I am now entirely convinced that Canada has now emerged as a people-friendly society.

我现在完全相信，加拿大现在已经成为一个与人为善的友好社会。
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处

Azadehruh Alam
Actually, Iraniansare amonst the most cultured people I have ever met - whatever their politics, their courtesty and hospitality is unmatched; and its through netwroks of friendshps that those in the West survive with senese of self intact.

事实上，伊朗人是我见过的最有文化的人——无论他们的政治立场如何，他们的彬彬有礼和热情好客都是无与伦比的。

James Flanagan
Friends? But they aren’t profit centers . . .

朋友 ? 他们又不能创造利润......
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处

Lane Taylor
Wow, I thought I was depressed and drinking too much before I read this. Sadly the liquor store is now closed. I have to say you hit the mark. I hardly make eye contact with people anymore. Anti maskers, anti vaxxers, Q-anon nut bags, gun toting, itchy trigger finger mad muggers, Kool- aid drinking Trump loving death cultists.
Haters who hate based on one's political view. The list goes on ad nauseum.
I am 70 years old and born in America. Raised in the Baptist Church and self educated. I believe what you have related in this piece rings truer than a lot of Americans are able to admit.
Then again, a very sizable number of us are in chronic denial. I mean we believe a psychopath can 'Make America Great Again' and Jesus is coming back. News flash Jesus ain't about to come back. If he did , I truly believe he would dispatch his most vocal and ardent supporters to Hell. Oh wait, they are already there !

哇，在看到这篇文章之前，我还以为是我抑郁了，喝多了，遗憾的是，现在卖酒的店已经关门了，我不得不说你说到点子上了，我现在几乎不与人进行眼神交流。
反口罩者、反疫苗者、Qanon疯子、持枪者、不扣扳机手指头就发痒的疯狂抢劫者、喝酷爱（Kool- aid，一种饮料）的特朗普死亡崇拜者，基于政治观点的憎恨者，这样的名单不胜枚举。
我已经70岁了，出生在美国，在浸礼会中长大，自学成才，我相信你在这篇文章中提到的比许多美国人能够承认的更真实。
然后，我们中的相当一部分人长期处于否认状态，我们相信一个精神病患者可以 "让美国再次伟大"，而且“耶稣”会回来。
最新消息是，“耶稣”不会回来了，如果他回来了，我真的相信他会把他最热心的支持者打入地狱——哦，等等，他们已经身陷地狱了。