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(单词翻译:双击或拖选)
The Rich Aren’t Like You and Me…
They’re worse. Or at least that’s what a lot of people think. Until, of course, their own ship comes in
What is it about money? We envy it, some of us kill for it, we look down our noses at it, some of us won’t have anything to do with it, and yet its place in the cultural consciousness is assured. Money, that is, can’t be overlooked, pro2 or con1. Freud, who had his own complex relationship with money, cultivating some patients solely3 in the hope of their endowing his psychoanalytic endeavor, thought that wealth could never bring happiness because it didn’t answer an infantile wish—that its roots lay later on in human development. Still, while blithely4 equating5 money with feces in the unconscious, he himself was not immune to its power: “My mood also depends very strongly on my earnings,” he wrote to a colleague. “Money is laughing gas for me.”
One might argue that money is laughing gas for most of us in its ability to dissipate anxiety and send our spirits soaring. It speaks to our sense of freedom, to our wish not to be hemmed6 in by the prosaic7 circumstances of our lives. Although you can travel on $5 a day (or used to be able to), it is far less taxing and more cushy to travel by private jet. Among money’s less overtly8 acknowledged uses, which is implicitly9 addressed by purveyors of luxury brands, is separating one from the masses, ensuring that one feels like a king or queen for a day—or a week, or a lifetime.
But here’s the odd thing: Although money in itself arouses many emotions, including admiration10, we tend to despise the people in possession of it. We suspect them of having come by it unfairly, of somehow not being “worthy” of their own wealth. The popular animus11 against the rich is inscribed12 in our cultural narrative13 as surely as is our curiosity about them; indeed, the critic Lionel Trilling observed that “the novel is born with the appearance of money as a social element.” Perhaps the most comprehending “insider” novel ever written about the damage money can do is The Great Gatsby, in which F. Scott Fitzgerald observes of the immensely rich Tom and Daisy Buchanan: “They were careless people, Tom and Daisy—they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.”
I’ve experienced firsthand the barely veiled hostility14 that being rich—or merely being perceived as rich—can elicit15 from veritable strangers, even those who are themselves well-off. As a writer who draws on personal material, I’ve been candid16 about the vexed17 issue of money in my life in a way that few writers are; in a piece published in The New Yorker more than a dec ade ago, I noted18 that money, “far more than sex, lingers as our deepest collective secret, our last taboo,” and that I had little idea of how even my closest friends managed to live in an expensive city like New York (and send their children to private school to boot). My honesty about my own affluent19 background has left me vulnerable to various jabs. I remember, for instance, going to lunch with a friend, a writer who happened to come from a family far wealthier than mine but who was generally silent on this aspect of his lineage, and another writer, an Upper West Side liberal type of more modest means, who had the usual clichéd disdain20 for businessmen and anything that smacked21 of a pecuniary22 imperative23. We were discussing the difficulties of supporting oneself as a writer, the unspoken but snobby24 assumption for both of them being that it was beneath their principles to write out of anything but the most pure and nonremunerative of impulses. (I refrained from pointing out that no less a literary light than Samuel Johnson had said, “No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money.”) Instead, I offered up that I actually liked writing for the sort of magazines that paid well since they came with a larger readership and required more of a populist touch.
I might as well have announced that I’d taken up bank robbery as a sideline. My friend, heir to a real estate fortune, bowed his head as though to avoid the palpable tension in the air that my happy embrace of profitmaking had produced. After a brief pause, the other writer, who had enjoyed a degree of commercial success years earlier, turned to me and said in the chilliest25 of tones, “I didn’t think you had to write for money.” I was too flustered26 to do anything but lamely27 smile, although I was actually furious at her condescending28 and somewhat juvenile29 attitude toward the reality of economic considerations, even for people like me. How, for one thing, did she know if my family wealth had translated into something substantial down the line? And, for another, had she never heard of the need to stake out one’s own turf? Come to think of it, where did her pose of moral superiority come from in the first place? Since when did middle-class origins render you a better human being than upper-class roots?
I grew up with a complicated and somewhat opaque30 relationship to money, fueled by my mother’s unease about having married a man who made a lot of it. My mother, who wasn’t given much to introspection, succeeded in passing off to her children any guilt31 she felt about marrying a successful businessman (my father began as a fur rier but went on to work on Wall Street) instead of an idealistic professional (her own father having been a lawyer and Zionist leader). My siblings32 and I were instilled33 with the notion that there was something problematic, even shameful34, about having a rich father. Beyond this, we were also taught that the money we saw around us didn’t belong to us. Just because my mother employed a staff that included a cook, a nanny, a laundress, and a chauffeur35 didn’t mean that we were to expect any of the usual perks36. My two sisters and I weren’t bought expensive clothes or jewelry37; my three brothers weren’t bought cars. Instead, we were made to understand that the money was my parents’ to do with as they saw fit, which in their case included enormous amounts of philanthropy. My father’s wealth went to supporting my mother’s large family in Israel and to Jewish causes of all sorts. We, meanwhile, were brought up as unentitled—and as a result, wholly undemanding—beneficiaries of whatever largesse38 happened to come our way. Compared with how I see children of the rich brought up today, this approach surely had its benefits, but it also created an unreality of its own, in which I was viewed one way while my experience proved otherwise.
Of course, these days, what with the tanked economy, the growing number of unemployed39, and the ever more brazen40 Wall Street scandals, it’s even less popular to waste any sympathy—much less understanding—on the rich. It’s too easy to believe that they deserve the opprobrium41 that’s thrown at them, even if some of them create jobs and invent things to make our lives easier. What strikes me as paradoxical is that, notwithstanding this negative bias42, we as a society remain fascinated by the gilded43 life. Articles about financial trickster Bernie Madoff never failed to include details about the houses and watches he collected or the jewelry he bought his wife. Similarly, the Real Housewives of… shows, which play to an addicted44 following (a cat egory in which I shamefacedly include myself) uniformly feature women of means, mostly by virtue45 of marriage, although one or two of them—like Bethenny Frankel—appear to have made it on their own. A bonus of watching these shows is getting to see gobs of money thrown at handbags, shoes, interior decor, and even the most minor46 of celebrations. (When Ramona on The Real Housewives of New York reaffirmed her marriage vows47, she rented a yacht for her girlfriends to loll about on.) We are drawn48 to the parade of bling with an almost furtive49 fascination50, in the recognition that there is something narcissistic51 and morally questionable52 about this inflamed53 level of expenditure54, while at the same time vicar iously enjoying the “Let them eat cake” consumerism of it. Perhaps, at heart, none of us accepts that money can’t buy happiness, and we keep pressing our noses to the glass in the belief that the rich are genuinely cushioned from ordinary suffering by the immense scale of their toys. While it is undoubtedly55 true that money provides certain comforts that may make emotional pain easier to bear—surely it is better to be depressed56 and provided for than depressed and also tormented57 by the stress of wondering how you’ll ever manage to put food on the table—you’d think by now we’d know money’s limits.
So where do we go from here? Are we destined58 to become a society of plutocrats, ensnared by the lure59 of filthy60 lucre61 even as we hold our noses at the stench of ill-gotten gains? Amid all the talk of the subprime mortgage debacle, the shattered dreams of home owners, and the need to transform Wall Street, I’d bet that the culture of excess hasn’t disappeared so much as gone into hiding. Frugality62 fatigue63 seems to set in almost as quickly as you can say recession, which would help explain why Barneys, that mecca of the monied and whimsical, sold out of a $1,700 Azzedine Ala?a sandal this past summer as Main Street continued to tighten64 its belt. It would take nothing less than a radical65 rethinking of values—a reconsideration of our entire aspirational66, bigger-is- better American way of life—for money to stop making “the world go round,” as Joel Grey sang in Cabaret. Meanwhile, the rich will continue to be unreflectively condemned67 and their swanky playgrounds will continue to hold our voyeuristic68 interest in a love-hate dynamic that has been going on since time immemorial.
点击收听单词发音
1 con | |
n.反对的观点,反对者,反对票,肺病;vt.精读,学习,默记;adv.反对地,从反面;adj.欺诈的 | |
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2 pro | |
n.赞成,赞成的意见,赞成者 | |
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3 solely | |
adv.仅仅,唯一地 | |
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4 blithely | |
adv.欢乐地,快活地,无挂虑地 | |
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5 equating | |
v.认为某事物(与另一事物)相等或相仿( equate的现在分词 );相当于;等于;把(一事物) 和(另一事物)等同看待 | |
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6 hemmed | |
缝…的褶边( hem的过去式和过去分词 ); 包围 | |
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7 prosaic | |
adj.单调的,无趣的 | |
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8 overtly | |
ad.公开地 | |
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9 implicitly | |
adv. 含蓄地, 暗中地, 毫不保留地 | |
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10 admiration | |
n.钦佩,赞美,羡慕 | |
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11 animus | |
n.恶意;意图 | |
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12 inscribed | |
v.写,刻( inscribe的过去式和过去分词 );内接 | |
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13 narrative | |
n.叙述,故事;adj.叙事的,故事体的 | |
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14 hostility | |
n.敌对,敌意;抵制[pl.]交战,战争 | |
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15 elicit | |
v.引出,抽出,引起 | |
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16 candid | |
adj.公正的,正直的;坦率的 | |
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17 vexed | |
adj.争论不休的;(指问题等)棘手的;争论不休的问题;烦恼的v.使烦恼( vex的过去式和过去分词 );使苦恼;使生气;详细讨论 | |
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18 noted | |
adj.著名的,知名的 | |
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19 affluent | |
adj.富裕的,富有的,丰富的,富饶的 | |
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20 disdain | |
n.鄙视,轻视;v.轻视,鄙视,不屑 | |
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21 smacked | |
拍,打,掴( smack的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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22 pecuniary | |
adj.金钱的;金钱上的 | |
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23 imperative | |
n.命令,需要;规则;祈使语气;adj.强制的;紧急的 | |
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24 snobby | |
a.虚荣的 | |
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25 chilliest | |
adj.寒冷的,冷得难受的( chilly的最高级 ) | |
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26 flustered | |
adj.慌张的;激动不安的v.使慌乱,使不安( fluster的过去式和过去分词) | |
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27 lamely | |
一瘸一拐地,不完全地 | |
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28 condescending | |
adj.谦逊的,故意屈尊的 | |
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29 juvenile | |
n.青少年,少年读物;adj.青少年的,幼稚的 | |
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30 opaque | |
adj.不透光的;不反光的,不传导的;晦涩的 | |
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31 guilt | |
n.犯罪;内疚;过失,罪责 | |
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32 siblings | |
n.兄弟,姐妹( sibling的名词复数 ) | |
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33 instilled | |
v.逐渐使某人获得(某种可取的品质),逐步灌输( instill的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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34 shameful | |
adj.可耻的,不道德的 | |
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35 chauffeur | |
n.(受雇于私人或公司的)司机;v.为…开车 | |
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36 perks | |
额外津贴,附带福利,外快( perk的名词复数 ) | |
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37 jewelry | |
n.(jewllery)(总称)珠宝 | |
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38 largesse | |
n.慷慨援助,施舍 | |
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39 unemployed | |
adj.失业的,没有工作的;未动用的,闲置的 | |
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40 brazen | |
adj.厚脸皮的,无耻的,坚硬的 | |
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41 opprobrium | |
n.耻辱,责难 | |
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42 bias | |
n.偏见,偏心,偏袒;vt.使有偏见 | |
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43 gilded | |
a.镀金的,富有的 | |
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44 addicted | |
adj.沉溺于....的,对...上瘾的 | |
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45 virtue | |
n.德行,美德;贞操;优点;功效,效力 | |
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46 minor | |
adj.较小(少)的,较次要的;n.辅修学科;vi.辅修 | |
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47 vows | |
誓言( vow的名词复数 ); 郑重宣布,许愿 | |
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48 drawn | |
v.拖,拉,拔出;adj.憔悴的,紧张的 | |
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49 furtive | |
adj.鬼鬼崇崇的,偷偷摸摸的 | |
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50 fascination | |
n.令人着迷的事物,魅力,迷恋 | |
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51 narcissistic | |
adj.自我陶醉的,自恋的,自我崇拜的 | |
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52 questionable | |
adj.可疑的,有问题的 | |
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53 inflamed | |
adj.发炎的,红肿的v.(使)变红,发怒,过热( inflame的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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54 expenditure | |
n.(时间、劳力、金钱等)支出;使用,消耗 | |
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55 undoubtedly | |
adv.确实地,无疑地 | |
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56 depressed | |
adj.沮丧的,抑郁的,不景气的,萧条的 | |
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57 tormented | |
饱受折磨的 | |
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58 destined | |
adj.命中注定的;(for)以…为目的地的 | |
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59 lure | |
n.吸引人的东西,诱惑物;vt.引诱,吸引 | |
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60 filthy | |
adj.卑劣的;恶劣的,肮脏的 | |
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61 lucre | |
n.金钱,财富 | |
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62 frugality | |
n.节约,节俭 | |
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63 fatigue | |
n.疲劳,劳累 | |
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64 tighten | |
v.(使)变紧;(使)绷紧 | |
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65 radical | |
n.激进份子,原子团,根号;adj.根本的,激进的,彻底的 | |
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66 aspirational | |
志同的,有抱负的 | |
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67 condemned | |
adj. 被责难的, 被宣告有罪的 动词condemn的过去式和过去分词 | |
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68 voyeuristic | |
adj.喜好窥阴的 | |
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