2021年经济学人 英国私立学校还在培养情感侏儒吗？(2)

Updating these criticisms, Mr Beard makes some striking points about the way “total institutions” (a phrase he borrows from the sociologist¹ Erving Goffman) can reconstruct the human personality.

比尔德对这些批评进行了更新，他提出了一些关于“整体制度”（他借用了社会学家欧文·戈夫曼的说法）重建人类人格的不同寻常的观点。

The aim of public schools is to make people fit in effortlessly with the changing rules and rituals of the tribe.

私校的目的是让人们毫不费力地适应部落不断变化的规则和仪式。

They do this by removing children from their natural environments, then forcing them to play a succession of different roles.

他们把孩子从自然环境中带走，然后强迫他们扮演一系列不同的角色。

“We were post-modernism come to life,” he writes. “We had our different ‘I’s’, some more made-up than others, customised as required because we didn’t have the peace or privacy to become ourselves in our own time.”

“我们是苏醒的后现代主义，”他写道。“我们有不同的‘我’，有些是编造出来的，有些是根据需要定制的，因为我们没有那种能让我们在自己的时间做自己的安宁和隐私。”

Thus Alexander Johnson became Boris, Eric Blair became George Orwell, and Philby, Burgess and Maclean became Soviet² agents.

于是，亚历山大·约翰逊成了鲍里斯·约翰逊，埃里克·布莱尔成了乔治·奥威尔，菲尔比、伯吉斯和麦克林成了苏联特工。

The author also makes good use of his own memories at Radley College.

作者还很好地利用了自己在拉德里学院的回忆。

The school was trapped in the past, both the 1940s and 1950s — playground games were an endless fight against the Germans — and to some extent the late Victorian era, when the British Empire encompassed⁴ much of the globe.

这所学校被困在了过去，1940年代和1950年代——操场游戏就是与德国人无休止的打斗——在某种程度上也是维多利亚时代晚期，当时大英帝国占领了全球大部分地区。

Mr Beard writes movingly about being sent away from home at eight.

比尔德先生动情地描写了他在八岁时被送出家门的经历。

One boy in his year had to be dragged out of the family car, kicking and screaming, as his mother sat sobbing⁵ in the front.

一个和他同龄的男孩从家里的车上被拖下来，他又踢又叫，而他的母亲坐在前面哭泣。

All the same, he sometimes tries too hard to condemn⁶ the institutions that evidently caused him much misery⁷.

尽管如此，他有时还是过于强烈地谴责了那个显然给他带来了巨大痛苦的体系。

He presents Mr Johnson as the archetype of a public-school man — an entitled and unprincipled bloviator on the surface but, inside, a sad little boy crying for his mother.

他把约翰逊描绘成私校男生的典型——表面上是一个有资格、无原则的傲慢吹嘘者，但内心却是一个哭着要找妈妈的可怜小男孩。

But there is a range of other public-school types, including dutiful swots like Rishi Sunak, Britain’s chancellor⁸ of the exchequer⁹.

但是还有其他类型的私校学生，包括像英国财政大臣里什·苏纳克这样尽职尽责的人。

And Mr Beard fails to notice the way public schools have reinvented themselves to serve a new plutocratic¹⁰ elite¹¹, a group both more sentimental¹² about its children and less tied to the nation state.

比尔德先生没有注意到私校是如何进行自我改造，来为新的财阀精英们服务的，这个群体对自己的孩子更富有感情，与国家的连结更弱。

Today’s public schools are much softer places than Mr Beard remembers.

如今的私学比比尔德先生记忆中的要温和得多。

They pamper¹³ their pupils with first-class facilities and are hyper-alert to signs of bullying¹⁴ and emotional distress¹⁵.

他们为学生提供一流的设施，并对欺凌和情感抑郁的迹象保持高度警惕。

With the notable exception of Eton College, most now take girls.

除了著名的伊顿公学，大多数学校现在都招收女生。

They are also highly globalised (a third of today’s boarders are born abroad) and increasingly enlightened (Eton has a director of inclusion).

它们也变得高度全球化（如今三分之一的寄宿学生出生在国外），并且越来越开明（伊顿公学有一位包容性主管）。

The most pressing question about them today is not whether they produce emotional pygmies who will nevertheless go on to run — and ruin — Britain.

如今，有关私学最紧迫的问题，不是它们是否会培养出继续统治并毁灭英国的情感侏儒。

It is whether they are producing well-adjusted members of the global meritocracy who don’t give a fig³ for public service.

而是他们是否在培养适应性良好、对公职毫不在意的全球化精英成员。

1 sociologist   

n.研究社会学的人，社会学家

参考例句：

• His mother was a sociologist,researching socialism.他的母亲是个社会学家，研究社会主义。
• Max Weber is a great and outstanding sociologist.马克斯·韦伯是一位伟大的、杰出的社会学家。

2 Soviet   

adj.苏联的，苏维埃的；n.苏维埃

参考例句：

• Zhukov was a marshal of the former Soviet Union.朱可夫是前苏联的一位元帅。
• Germany began to attack the Soviet Union in 1941.德国在1941年开始进攻苏联。

3 fig   

n.无花果(树)

参考例句：

• The doctor finished the fig he had been eating and selected another.这位医生吃完了嘴里的无花果，又挑了一个。
• You can't find a person who doesn't know fig in the United States.你找不到任何一个在美国的人不知道无花果的。

4 encompassed   

v.围绕( encompass的过去式和过去分词 )；包围；包含；包括

参考例句：

• The enemy encompassed the city. 敌人包围了城市。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• I have encompassed him with every protection. 我已经把他保护得严严实实。 来自英汉文学 - 双城记

5 sobbing   

<主方>Ⅰ adj.湿透的

参考例句：

• I heard a child sobbing loudly. 我听见有个孩子在呜呜地哭。
• Her eyes were red with recent sobbing. 她的眼睛因刚哭过而发红。

6 condemn   

vt.谴责，指责；宣判(罪犯)，判刑

参考例句：

• Some praise him,whereas others condemn him.有些人赞扬他，而有些人谴责他。
• We mustn't condemn him on mere suppositions.我们不可全凭臆测来指责他。

7 misery   

n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦

参考例句：

• Business depression usually causes misery among the working class.商业不景气常使工薪阶层受苦。
• He has rescued me from the mire of misery.他把我从苦海里救了出来。

8 chancellor   

n.(英)大臣；法官；(德、奥)总理；大学校长

参考例句：

• They submitted their reports to the Chancellor yesterday.他们昨天向财政大臣递交了报告。
• He was regarded as the most successful Chancellor of modern times.他被认为是现代最成功的财政大臣。

9 exchequer   

n.财政部；国库

参考例句：

• In Britain the Chancellor of the Exchequer deals with taxes and government spending.英国的财政大臣负责税务和政府的开支。
• This resulted in a considerable loss to the exchequer.这使国库遭受了重大损失。

10 plutocratic   

adj.富豪的，有钱的

参考例句：

11 elite   

n.精英阶层；实力集团；adj.杰出的，卓越的

参考例句：

• The power elite inside the government is controlling foreign policy.政府内部的一群握有实权的精英控制着对外政策。
• We have a political elite in this country.我们国家有一群政治精英。

12 sentimental   

adj.多愁善感的，感伤的

参考例句：

• She's a sentimental woman who believes marriage comes by destiny.她是多愁善感的人，她相信姻缘命中注定。
• We were deeply touched by the sentimental movie.我们深深被那感伤的电影所感动。

13 pamper   

v.纵容，过分关怀

参考例句：

• Don't pamper your little daughter.别把你的小女儿娇坏了！
• You need to pamper yourself and let your charm come through.你需要对自己放纵一些来表现你的魅力。

14 bullying   

v.恐吓，威逼( bully的现在分词 )；豪；跋扈

参考例句：

• Many cases of bullying go unreported . 很多恐吓案件都没有人告发。
• All cases of bullying will be severely dealt with. 所有以大欺小的情况都将受到严肃处理。 来自《简明英汉词典》

15 distress   

n.苦恼，痛苦，不舒适；不幸；vt.使悲痛

参考例句：

• Nothing could alleviate his distress.什么都不能减轻他的痛苦。
• Please don't distress yourself.请你不要忧愁了。