时代周刊:反省2020 糟糕的一年(1)

OUR AWFUL YEAR

糟糕的一年

2020 TESTED US BEYOND MEASURE. WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?

2020年对我们的考验无以估量，下一步该怎么走？

THIS IS THE STORY OF A YEAR YOU'LL NEVER WANT TO REVISIT.

这一年发生的事情你绝对不想重温

There have been worse years in U.S. history, and certainly worse years in world history, but most of us alive today have seen nothing like this one. You would need to be over 100 to remember the devastation¹ of World War I and the 1918 flu pandemic; roughly 90 to have a sense of the economic deprivation² wrought³ by the Great Depression; and in your 80s to retain any memory of World War II and its horrors. The rest of us have had no training wheels for this—for the recurrence⁴ of natural disasters that confirm just how much we have betrayed nature; for an election contested on the basis of fantasy; for a virus that originated, possibly, with a bat only to upend the lives of virtually everyone on the planet and end the lives of roughly 1.5 million people around the world.

美国历史上曾有过糟糕的岁月，当然，世界史上也有过糟糕的岁月。然而，大多活在当今时代的我们却从未经历过如今这般糟糕的境地。你需要在100岁以上才能记得第一次世界大战的破坏和1918年的西班牙大流感；你需要在大约90岁才能体会到大萧条时期的经济匮乏；你需要在80多岁才能对第二次世界大战的恐怖为之一颤。剩下的人呢？则对重大变故毫无经验——自然灾害再现，证实了我们对自然的背叛程度；一场基于幻想的选举；一种可能起源于蝙蝠的病毒，打乱了地球上几乎所有人的生活，终结了全球约150万人的生命。

My job as a film critic is to look at movies and tease out their connections both to the greater world and to our lives. If 2020 were a dystopian movie, you'd probably turn it off after 20 minutes. This year wasn't doomily thrilling, like a fictional⁵ apocalypse. It was, in addition to being wrought with pain, maddeningly mundane⁶, the routine of the everyday turned against us.

作为影评人，我的工作就是看电影，梳理出它们与更广阔的世界和我们的生活之间的联系。如果《2020》是一部反乌托邦电影，你可能看了20分钟就会关掉。今年并没有像虚构的世界末日那样惊心动魄，除了被痛苦折磨，它单调得令人发狂，循环往复的日常生活让人难以忍受。

Our most debilitating⁷ threat this year was a sense of helplessness, and it ran unchecked. Although it's universal among humans to believe in their own fortitude⁸, Americans, in particular, are conditioned to believe they can triumph over any crisis. But not since the spread of fascism in the 1930s—a threat America didn't actively⁹ recognize until the dawn of the 1940s—have we been faced with so many abnormal events that have been so egregiously¹⁰ distorted by aberrant¹¹ leadership. We confronted the unspeakable, only to be deviously¹² reassured¹³ that none of it was a big deal. A virus will magically "disappear." Don't worry, every vote will be counted—maybe. America will be great again, if only everybody would just get back to work—and though a mask is optional, wearing one sure makes you look dumb.

今年，我们面临的最令人衰弱的威胁是一种无助感，而且这种无助感一直在蔓延。虽然大多数人类都相信自己的坚韧，尤其是美国人，他们习惯于相信自己能够战胜任何危机。但自从20世纪30年代法西斯主义蔓延以来——美国直到20世纪40年代才真正认识到这一威胁——我们从未面临过如此多的异常事件，这些异常事件被神经质的领导人严重扭曲。我们面对的是不可奉告的事情，只是被间接保证一切安好。病毒会神奇般地“消失”。不用担心，每张选票都会被计算在内——或许吧。只要大家都回去工作，美国就会再次伟大——虽然你可以选择戴不戴口罩，但戴了肯定会显得你很蠢。

Gaslighting has been a major feature of American civic¹⁴ life since 2016, but in 2020 it reached new heights of outlandishness, making many of us feel as if we'd been pushed to the other side of the looking glass. We spent countless¹⁵ hours stuck at home and connected to the often untrustworthy hive mind of social media, wringing¹⁶ our hands and pointing out injustices¹⁷, only to end up feeling even more paralyzed by the very people who are meant to protect us. The enemy sought to divide us, and succeeded.

自2016年以来，“煤气灯效应”一直是美国公民生活的一大特色，但到了2020年，它的离奇程度上升到了新的高度，很多人感觉自己好像被推到了镜子的另一边。我们花了无数个小时呆在家里，与社交媒体上那些通常不值得信任的蜂群思维联系在一起，搓着手对不公正的事情指指点点，结果却被本应保护我们的人搞得更加不知所措。敌人企图分裂我们，并且成功了。

1 devastation   

n.毁坏；荒废；极度震惊或悲伤

参考例句：

• The bomb caused widespread devastation. 炸弹造成大面积破坏。
• There was devastation on every side. 到处都是破坏的创伤。 来自《简明英汉词典》

2 deprivation   

n.匮乏；丧失；夺去，贫困

参考例句：

• Many studies make it clear that sleep deprivation is dangerous.多实验都证实了睡眠被剥夺是危险的。
• Missing the holiday was a great deprivation.错过假日是极大的损失。

3 wrought   

v.引起；以…原料制作；运转；adj.制造的

参考例句：

• Events in Paris wrought a change in British opinion towards France and Germany.巴黎发生的事件改变了英国对法国和德国的看法。
• It's a walking stick with a gold head wrought in the form of a flower.那是一个金质花形包头的拐杖。

4 recurrence   

n.复发，反复，重现

参考例句：

• More care in the future will prevent recurrence of the mistake.将来的小心可防止错误的重现。
• He was aware of the possibility of a recurrence of his illness.他知道他的病有可能复发。

5 fictional   

adj.小说的，虚构的

参考例句：

• The names of the shops are entirely fictional.那些商店的名字完全是虚构的。
• The two authors represent the opposite poles of fictional genius.这两位作者代表了天才小说家两个极端。

6 mundane   

adj.平凡的；尘世的；宇宙的

参考例句：

• I hope I can get an interesting job and not something mundane.我希望我可以得到的是一份有趣的工作，而不是一份平凡无奇的。
• I find it humorous sometimes that even the most mundane occurrences can have an impact on our awareness.我发现生活有时挺诙谐的，即使是最平凡的事情也能影响我们的感知。

7 debilitating   

a.使衰弱的

参考例句：

• The debilitating disease made him too weak to work. 这个令他衰弱的病，使他弱到没有办法工作。
• You may soon leave one debilitating condition or relationship forever. 你即将永远地和这段霉运说拜拜了。

8 fortitude   

n.坚忍不拔；刚毅

参考例句：

• His dauntless fortitude makes him absolutely fearless.他不屈不挠的坚韧让他绝无恐惧。
• He bore the pain with great fortitude.他以极大的毅力忍受了痛苦。

9 actively   

adv.积极地，勤奋地

参考例句：

• During this period all the students were actively participating.在这节课中所有的学生都积极参加。
• We are actively intervening to settle a quarrel.我们正在积极调解争执。

10 egregiously   

adv.过份地，卓越地

参考例句：

• But previous Greek governments egregiously violated those limits. 但之前几届希腊政府都严重违反了这些限制。 来自互联网

11 aberrant   

adj.畸变的，异常的，脱离常轨的

参考例句：

• His aberrant behavior at the party shocked everyone.他在晚会上的异常举止令所有人感到震惊！
• I saw that the insects and spiders were displaying the same kind of aberrant behavior.我看到昆虫和蜘蛛正在表现出相同反常的行为。

12 deviously   

弯曲地，绕道地

参考例句：

• He got the promotion by behaving deviously. 他通过不正当手段才获得了这次晋升。

13 reassured   

adj.使消除疑虑的；使放心的v.再保证，恢复信心( reassure的过去式和过去分词)

参考例句：

• The captain's confidence during the storm reassured the passengers. 在风暴中船长的信念使旅客们恢复了信心。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• The doctor reassured the old lady. 医生叫那位老妇人放心。 来自《简明英汉词典》

14 civic   

adj.城市的，都市的，市民的，公民的

参考例句：

• I feel it is my civic duty to vote.我认为投票选举是我作为公民的义务。
• The civic leaders helped to forward the project.市政府领导者协助促进工程的进展。

15 countless   

adj.无数的，多得不计其数的

参考例句：

• In the war countless innocent people lost their lives.在这场战争中无数无辜的人丧失了性命。
• I've told you countless times.我已经告诉你无数遍了。

16 wringing   

淋湿的，湿透的

参考例句：

• He was wringing wet after working in the field in the hot sun. 烈日下在田里干活使他汗流满面。
• He is wringing out the water from his swimming trunks. 他正在把游泳裤中的水绞出来。

17 injustices   

不公平( injustice的名词复数 )； 非正义； 待…不公正； 冤枉

参考例句：

• One who committed many injustices is doomed to failure. 多行不义必自毙。
• He felt confident that his injustices would be righted. 他相信他的冤屈会受到昭雪的。