A Game of Cards
?诺曼·卡曾斯 / Norman Cousins
Even since I was old enough to read books on philosophy, I have been intrigued by the discussions on the nature of man. The philosophers have been debating for years about whether man is primarily good or primarily evil, whether he is primarily altruistic or selfish, co-operative or competitive, gregarious or self-centered, whether he enjoys free will or whether everything is predetermined.
As far back as the Socratic dialogues in Plato, and even before that, man has been baffled about himself. He knows he is capable of great and noble deeds, but then he is oppressed with the evidence of great wrongdoing.
And so he wonders. I don’t presume to be able to resolve the contradictions. In fact I don’t think we have to. It seems to me that the debate over good and evil in man, over free will and determinism, and over all the other contradictions—that this debate is a futile one. For man is a creature of dualism. He is both good and evil, both altruistic and selfish. He enjoys free will to the extent that he can make decisions in life, but he can’t change his chemistry or his relatives or his physical endowments—all of which were determined for him at birth. And rather than speculate over which side of him is dominant, he might do well to consider what the contradictions and circumstances are that tend to bring out the good or evil, that enable him to be nobler and a responsible member of the human race. And so far as free will and determinism are concerned, something I heard in India on a recent visit to the subcontinent may be worth passing along. Free will and determinism, I was told, are like a game of cards. The hand that is dealt you represents determinism. The way you play your hand represents free will.
Now where does all this leaves us? It seems to me that we ought to attempt to bring about and safeguard those conditions that tend to develop the best in man. We know, for example, that the existence of fear and man’s inability to cope with fear bring about the worst in him. We know that what is true of man on a small scale can be true of society on a large scale. And today the conditions of fear in the world are. I’m afraid, affecting men everywhere. More than twenty-three hundred years ago, the Greek world, which had attained tremendous heights of creative intelligence and achievement, disintegrated under the pressure of fear. Today, too, if I have read the signs correctly in traveling around the world, there is great fear. There is fear that the human race has exhausted its margin for error and that we are sliding into another great conflict that will cancel out thousands of years of human progress. And people are fearful because they don’t want to lose the things that are more important than peace itself—moral, democratic, and spiritual values.
The problem confronting us today is far more serious than the destiny of any political system or even of any nation. The problem is the destiny of man: first, whether we can make this planet safe for man; second, whether we can make it fit for him. This I believe—that man today has all the resources to shatter his fears and go on to the greatest golden age in history, an age which will provide the conditions for human growth and for the development of the good that resides within man, whether in his individual or his collective being. And he has only to mobilize his rational intelligence and his conscience to put these resources to work.
自从能够看懂哲学书开始，有关人性的讨论就激起了我浓厚的兴趣。人性是善还是恶，是利他还是利己，是合作还是竞争，是群居还是以自我为中心，是相信自由意志还是相信宿命，这些是哲学家们多少年来一直争论不休的话题。
人类一直对自身感到困惑，这可以追溯到柏拉图与苏格拉底的对话，甚至更早时期。人类知道自己拥有做出伟大而高尚的事情的能力，然而却又被犯下大罪的证据所压迫。
因此，他困惑不已。对于这种矛盾是否能够解决，我并不敢断言。然而，事实上，人们没有必要非要化解这种矛盾。人是两面性的动物，因此，我认为争论人性善或恶、意志自由或宿命，以及其他一切矛盾都是徒劳无益的。人既有善良的一面，也有邪恶的一面；既有利他的一面，也有利己的一面。人们享受着能够在生活中作出决定的自由意志，然而却无法改变与生俱来的基因、亲属或体征。与其思索哪一方面主导着人性，还不如思索人之所以善良或邪恶的矛盾和环境，从而让人成为人类群体中具有高尚品质和责任感的人。近期访问次大陆期间，我在印度听到了一些事情，它们在自由意志和宿命论方面的价值是值得一提的。当地人告诉我，自由意志和宿命论就像玩纸牌游戏，宿命论就是发牌的手，而自由意志就是打牌的方式。
而今，这一切把我们带到了什么地方？我认为，那些能够培养人类最优秀品质的环境，是我们应该努力去创造和保护的。例如，我们知道恐惧感和无法克服恐惧的意识能够导致人性产生最邪恶的东西；我们同样知道，个人的真实状况经过放大就会成为社会的真实状况。如今，世界各地的人仍然遭受着恐惧因素的影响。恐惧瓦解了希腊文明，然而在两千三百多年前，它创造性的智慧和成就已经达到了非凡的高度。同样，如果我在环球旅行时的所见不虚的话，人类正在滑向一场大战，这场战争将会把人类数千年取得的进步毁于一旦，这是由人类犯错底线被突破而导致的恐惧所引起的。这是因为，对于人类而言，道德、民主和精神比和平更重要。
人类的命运是我们今天所面临的问题，这比任何政治体制和任何民族的命运更为重要。首先，我们是否能够把地球建成人类的安全之所；其次，我们是否能够把地球建成适宜人类居住的地方。我相信，对于消除恐惧并走向历史上最伟大的黄金时代，人类拥有各种各样的办法。不管人是作为个体还是人类群体的一员，这个时代都将会为人类的进步和善良本性的形成提供条件。然后，人类只需要理性地调动智慧和良知，就可以运用这些办法了。
1. As far back as the Socratic dialogues_______Plato, and even before that, man________been baffled about_______. He knows he is capable of great and_______deeds, but then he is oppressed with the_______of great wrongdoing.
2. It_______to me that we ought to attempt to bring_______and safeguard those conditions that tend to_______the best in man. We know, for example, that the existence of_______and man’s inability to cope_______fear bring about the worst in him. We know that_______is true of man on a small scale can be_______of society on a large scale.
1. 我认为，那些能够培养人类最优秀品质的环境，是我们应该努力去创造和保护的。
2. 我们知道恐惧感和无法克服恐惧的意识能够导致人性产生最邪恶的东西。
3. 我们同样知道，个人的真实状况经过放大就会成为社会的真实状况。
1. Be capable of working under pressure...
be capable of：有能力；有能力做……
2. I was still oppressed with an awful foreboding of evil.
be oppressed with：被压迫
