A red light for_scofflaws中英对照版(免费)

参考译文

对违反法律者亮红灯A Red Light for Scofflaws

弗兰克·特立皮德

1

Law-and-order is the longest-running and probably the best-loved political is

sue in U.S. history. Yet it is painfully apparent 2 that millions of Americans who wo

uld never think of themselves as lawbreakers, let alone criminals, are taking increa

sing liberties with the legal codes that are designed to protect and nourish their s

ociety. 3 Indeed, there are moments today — amid outlaw litter, tax cheating, illici

t noise and motorized anarchy — when it seems as though the scofflaw represent

s the wave of the future. 4 Harvard Sociologist David Riesman suspects that a maj

ority of Americans have blithely taken to committing supposedly minor derelictio

ns as a matter of course. Already, Riesman says, the ethic of U.S. society is in dang

er of becoming this: “You're a fool if you obey the rules.”

[1] 法律和秩序是美国历史上持续时间最长的、也可能是政治上的最热门的话题。然

而，显然令人烦恼的是，数以百万计的美国人尽管从没有认为自己会违反法律，更不用说

会成为罪犯了，却正在越来越随便地对待那些专为保护与造福他们的社会所制定的法规。

当然，现今确实有些时候似乎无视法律代表了未来的潮流。哈佛大学的社会学家大卫·莱斯

曼怀疑，大多数美国人喜欢犯那种他们认为是无关紧要的玩忽职守的错误。莱斯曼说，美

国社会的伦理道德已经处于这样的危险之中：即，“如果你遵纪守法，你就是个傻瓜”。

Nothing could be more obvious than the evidence supporting Riesman. Scoff

laws abound in amazing variety. 5 The graffiti-prone turn public surfaces into visu

al rubbish. Bicyclists often ride as though two-wheeled vehicles are exempt from

all traffic laws. 6 Litterbugs convert their communities into trash dumps. Widespr

ead flurries of ordinances have failed to clear public places of high-decibel portab

le radios, just as earlier laws failed to wipe out the beer-soaked hooliganism that

plagues many parks. 7 Tobacco 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 scan

dal in middle and upper-class life. And then there are (hello, everybody!) 8 the jay

walkers.

[2] 支持莱斯曼观点的证据是再明显不过的。违法乱纪者屡见不鲜、无奇不有，达到

了惊人的程度。墙上的乱涂乱画把公共场所的外观糟塌得不堪人目。骑自行车的人横冲直

闯，似乎两个车轮的交通工具可以不受任何交通法规的束缚。乱丢垃圾的人把他们的生活

区域变成了垃圾场。正如以前的法令未能扫除危害公园的满身酒气的流氓阿飞一样，广泛

宣传的法规也未能消除公共场所的高分贝便携式收音机。吸烟成瘾的人们对“不准吸烟”

的告示牌熟视无睹。衣冠楚楚的吸大麻的人再也不像从前那样躲开公众的视线偷偷摸摸地

传递带大麻的香烟了。在中上层人士中毫无顾忌地使用可卡因已成为令人烦恼的丑闻。而

且，(好家伙，人数真不少啊!)还有随意横穿马路的人呢。

The dangers of scofflawry vary widely. The person who illegally spits on the si

dewalk remains disgusting, but clearly poses less risk to others than the company

that illegally buries hazardous chemical waste in an unauthorized location. The fa

re beater on the subway presents less threat to life than the landlord who ignores

fire safety statutes. 9 The most immediately and measurably dangerous scofflawr

y, however, also happens to be the most visible. The culprit is the American driver,

whose lawless activities today add up to a colossal public nuisance. 10 The hazar

ds range from routine double parking 11 that jams city streets to the drunk drivin

g that kills some 25,000 people and injures at least 650,000 others yearly. 12 Illeg

al speeding on open highways? New surveys show that on some interstate highw

ays 83% of all drivers are currently ignoring the federal 55 m .p. h. speed limit.

3] 违法行为的危害差别极大。在人行道上随地吐痰当然令人厌恶，但是很明显，比起

那些违法地在未经许可的地区掩埋危险化学废料的公司对他人造成的危害要小得多。忽视

防火安全法规的房主对人生命的危害当然要比在地铁逃票的人大得多。然而，最直接和最

引人注目的违法行为恰恰就是最常见的一种社会现象。首当其冲者就是美国的司机们。今

天，他们无法无天的行为给公众造成了极大的灾难。其危害既有日常多见的造成城市街道

堵塞的并排违章停车，也有司机酒后开车造成的每年死亡大约25,000人，伤残至少

650,000人。那么高速公路上的违章超速行驶呢？最新调查显示，在一些州际公路上83%

的司机现在根本无视联邦法定的每小时55英里的时速限制。

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 cab

by who insists that red lights are “ just for decoration ” .The power of the stopli

ght to control traffic seems to be waning everywhere. In Los Angeles, red-light ru

nning has become perhaps the city's most common traffic violation. In New York

City, going through an intersection is like Russian roulette. Admits Police Commis

sioner Robert J. Mc Guire: “Today it's a 50-50 tossup as to whether people will st

op for a red light.” Meanwhile, his own police largely ignore the lawbreaking.

[4] 所有违章行为中最厚颜无耻的要数闯红灯了。在波士顿，人们对这种停止通行的

信号的藐视已经到了这样的程度，以至在当地人中竟然流传着这种笑话：一名出租汽车司

机居然坚持说，红灯信号仅仅起装饰作用。禁止通行的红灯控制交通的效力在各地都在削

弱。在洛杉矾，闯红灯似乎已经成为最常见的违反交通法规的行为。在纽约，过十字路口

就像俄国轮盘赌一样。警察局长罗伯特·杰·麦克盖尔承认，“现在人们在红灯面前是否停下

来是50%对50%的抛硬币的概率。”同时，他自己属下的警察们也大都对这种违章行为熟

视无睹。

Red-light running has always been ranked as a minor wrong, and so it may b

e in individual instances. 13 When the violation becomes habitual, widespread an

d incessant, however, a great deal more than a traffic management problem is inv

olved. 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, inconveni

ence and outrage, not to mention a justified sense of mortal peril. The significanc

e of

red-light running is magnified by its high visibility. If hypocrisy is the tribute t

hat vice pays to virtue, then furtiveness is the true outlaw's salute to the force of l

aw-and-order. The red-light runner, however, shows no respect whatever for the s

ocial rules, and society cannot help being harmed by any repetitious and brazen

display of contempt for the fundamentals of order.

[5] 闯红灯一直被认为是微不足道的小错，所以这可能是个人的小事。但是当这种违

章行为成为习惯性的、广泛的和没完没了的时候，那么所涉及的问题就远远不仅是一个交

通管理的问题了。这种对道路基本交通法规的无视极大地危害了社会风气。无辜的司机和

行人们一而再、再而三地为所遭受的挫折、不便和伤害而付出很大代价，更不用说他们无

法摆脱不安全感了。闯红灯之所以成为重大问题，就是因为这种现象比比皆是。如果说虚

伪是邪恶向美德呈献的赞美，那么偷偷摸摸就是违法者向法律和秩序的威力所表示的衷心

的敬意了。然而，闯红灯的人却连这点对社会法规的起码的尊重也没有，而这种一再厚颜

无耻地蔑视秩序的基本准则不能不极大地危害社会。

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 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.

[6] 这种无视法律的风气无处不在。所以当有些学校发现，孩子们人学时经常连最起

码的集体生活规则都不懂时，就不足为奇了(有些学校的确是这样认为)。尽管无视法律的

人各种各样，但是他们都是社会基本道德败坏症候的一种表现——一个人失去了为了他人

的利益而约束自己的能力。

The prospect of the collapse of public manners is not merely a matter of etiq

uette. Society’s first concern will remain major crime, but a foretaste of the seri

ousness of incivility is suggested by what has been happening in Houston. Drivers

on Houston freeways have been showing an increasing tendency to replace the r

ules of the road with violent outbreaks. Items from the Houston police departme

nt’

s new statistical category_freeway traffic violence: 1) Driver flashes high-beam lig

hts at car that cut in front of him, whose occupants then hurl a beer can at his win

dshield, kick out his tail lights, slug him eight stitches’

worth.2) Dump-truck driver annoyed by delay batters trunk of stalled car ahead a

nd its driver was trying to stay within 55 m. p. h. limit. The Houston Freeway syn

drome has fortunately not spread everywhere. But the question is: Will it?

Americans are used to thinking that law-and-order is threatened mainly by st

ereotypical violent crime. When the foundations of U.S. law have actually been sh

aken, however, it has always been because ordinary law-abiding citizens took to s

kirting the law. Major instance:

Prohibition. Recalls Donald Barr Chidsey in On and Off the Wagon:” Law bre

aking proved to be not painful, not even uncomfortable, but, in a mild and perfec

tly safe way, exhilarating.” People wiped out Prohibition at last not only because

of the alcohol issue but because scofflawry was seriously undermining the authori

ty and legitimacy of government. Ironically, today’

s scofflaw spirit, whatever its undetermined origins, is being encouraged unwittin

gly 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 co

nstituents they serve. Worse, most state legislatures have helped subvert popular

compliance with the federal 55 m. p. h. law, some of them by enacting puny fines

that trivialize transgressions. On a higher level, the Administration in Washington

has dramatized its wish to nullify civil rights laws simply by opposing instead of s

upporting certain court ordered desegregation rulings. With considerable justific

ation, environmental groups, in the words of Wilderness magazine, accuse the Ad

ministration of “destroying

environmental laws by failing to enforce them, or by enforcing them in ways t

hat deliberately encourage noncompliance.” Translation: scofflawry at the top.

[7] 美国人习惯于认为，固定形式的暴力犯罪是对法律和秩序的主要威胁。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基础。主要例子：禁酒令。唐纳德·巴·契德斯在《上下马车》

一书中回忆道：“违法事实上是不痛苦的，甚至都没有令人不舒服的感觉，反而以一种柔和

的、完全安全的方式令人欢喜。”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和合法地位。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。警察未能强制实行某些法

律仅仅是问题的表面，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。更高一

级的华盛顿政府则用反对(而不是支持)某些已成为法律条文的取消种族隔离的规定的办

法，来实现其取消民权法律的效力的愿望，这真是令人啼笑皆非。据《荒原》杂志报导，

环保组织以相当正当的理由指责当局破坏环境保护法，因为它未能推行该法规，或是虽然

推行但却故意怂恿人们违反法规。这解释为：最高一级的违法行为。

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.

[8] 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。