2020年经济学人 白芝浩专栏--戴高乐对鲍里斯·约翰逊的借鉴意义(1)

Britain

英国板块

Bagehot

白芝浩专栏

A certain idea of Britain

对英国的某种看法

General de Gaulle has some important lessons for Boris Johnson

戴高乐将军对鲍里斯·约翰逊的一些重要的借鉴作用

Boris johnson is taking a fortnight’s holiday in Scotland, armed with a volume of Lucretius, William Boyd’s novel “Any Human Heart” and Brendan Simms’s “Britain’s Europe: A Thousand Years of Conflict and Cooperation”. Few would begrudge¹ him his break: he has lived a lifetime in the past year, having got divorced and remarried, had another child, almost died of covid-19 and struggled with the worst crisis since the second world war. But Bagehot would nevertheless suggest adding a fourth book to his pile—Julian Jackson’s “A Certain Idea of France: The Life of De Gaulle”. Though hefty, the book is enthralling², and offers a wealth of ideas with which to fill the empty box labelled “Johnsonism”.

鲍里斯·约翰逊正在苏格兰度假两周，他带着一本卢克莱修的书、还有威廉·博伊德的《赤子之心》、以及布伦丹·西姆斯的《Britain’s Europe: A Thousand Years of Conflict and Cooperation》。几乎没有人会对他的休假感到不满：在过去的一年里，他把自己的一生都给过了，离婚又再婚，又生了一个孩子，几乎死于新冠肺炎，还与二战以来爆发的最严重的危机作斗争。但是笔者还是建议在他的书集里再加上第四本书——朱利安·杰克逊的《法国的一个想法:夏尔·戴高乐的生活》。这本书虽然篇幅宏大，却引人入胜，还蕴含丰富的思想，可以填补“约翰逊主义”的空白。

Mr Johnson is keen on great men. He has written a biography of his hero Churchill and, modesty³ not coming naturally to a man who as a child announced that he would become “world king”, has recently taken to comparing himself to Franklin D. Roosevelt. But in many ways de Gaulle is a better fit than either. The French president saw eye to eye with Britain’s prime minister on the biggest issues.He regarded the nation-state as the basic building-block of civilisation⁴. He opposed Britain’s membership of the EU on the grounds that Britain by its nature “looks to the sea, towards wider horizons”. He devoted⁵ his post-war career to restoring confidence and dynamism to a country that had lost the first in the war and had fallen behind in the second for decades.

约翰逊崇敬伟人。他曾为英雄丘吉尔写了一本传记，约翰逊并不是天性谦逊的的人，他打小就宣称自己将成为“世界之王”，他最近将自己自比为富兰克林·德拉诺·罗斯福。但从很多方面来看，相比这两者，约翰逊更像戴高乐。这位法国总统在一些最大的问题上，与英国首相意见一致。戴高乐认为单一民族的独立国家是文明的基本组成部分。他反对英国加入欧盟，理由是英国本质上“以英吉利海峡为天堑，冷眼旁观于欧陆霸权棋局之外”。二战致使法国丧失了一流大国的地位，并落后沦为二流国家几十年，战后，戴高乐在任时一直致力于恢复法国的信心和活力。

Though Britain’s situation is hardly as desperate as France’s in 1945, there are similarities. The 2016 referendum spoke⁶ of profound dissatisfaction with the old regime. Confidence in national institutions is at a low ebb⁷. Sections of the left identify “Britishness” with slavery and plunder⁸ while sections of the right want to build walls against modernity.

尽管英国并没有像1945年的法国那样处于绝境，但两者的处境也有相似之处。2016年的公投谈到了对旧政权的深刻不满。人们对国家机构的信心沉入低谷。英国的左翼人士将“英国国民性”与奴隶制和掠夺等同起来，而右翼人士则想要建造一堵反对现代性的墙。

1 begrudge   

vt.吝啬，羡慕

参考例句：

• I begrudge spending so much money on train fares.我舍不得把这么多钱花在火车票上。
• We should not begrudge our neighbour's richness.我们不应该嫉妒邻人的富有。

2 enthralling   

迷人的

参考例句：

• There will be an enthralling race tomorrow. 明天会有场吸引人的比赛。
• There was something terribly enthralling in the exercise of influence. 在这样地施加影响时，令人感到销魂夺魄。

3 modesty   

n.谦逊，虚心，端庄，稳重，羞怯，朴素

参考例句：

• Industry and modesty are the chief factors of his success.勤奋和谦虚是他成功的主要因素。
• As conceit makes one lag behind,so modesty helps one make progress.骄傲使人落后，谦虚使人进步。

4 civilisation   

n.文明，文化，开化，教化

参考例句：

• Energy and ideas are the twin bases of our civilisation.能源和思想是我们文明的两大基石。
• This opera is one of the cultural totems of Western civilisation.这部歌剧是西方文明的文化标志物之一。

5 devoted   

adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的

参考例句：

• He devoted his life to the educational cause of the motherland.他为祖国的教育事业贡献了一生。
• We devoted a lengthy and full discussion to this topic.我们对这个题目进行了长时间的充分讨论。

6 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

7 ebb   

vi.衰退，减退；n.处于低潮，处于衰退状态

参考例句：

• The flood and ebb tides alternates with each other.涨潮和落潮交替更迭。
• They swam till the tide began to ebb.他们一直游到开始退潮。

8 plunder   

vt.劫掠财物，掠夺；n.劫掠物，赃物；劫掠

参考例句：

• The thieves hid their plunder in the cave.贼把赃物藏在山洞里。
• Trade should not serve as a means of economic plunder.贸易不应当成为经济掠夺的手段。