现代大学英语精读第二版（第四册）学习笔记（原文及全文翻译）——1A - Thinking as a Hobby（把思考作为爱好）

黄凌龙

2023-12-01

Unit 1A - Thinking as a Hobby

Thinking as a Hobby

William Golding

While I was still a boy, I came to the conclusion that there were three grades of thinking; and that I myself could not think at all.

It was the headmaster of my grammar school who first brought the subject of thinking before me. He had some statuettes in his study. They stood on a high cupboard behind his desk. One was a lady wearing nothing but a bath towel. She seemed frozen in an eternal panic lest the bath towel slip down any farther; and since she had no arms, she was in an unfortunate position to pull the towel up again. Next to her, crouched the statuette of a leopard, ready to spring down at the top drawer of a filing cabinet. Beyond the leopard was a naked, muscular gentleman, who sat, looking down, with his chin on his fist and his elbow on his knee. He seemed utterly miserable.

Some time later, I learned about these statuettes. The headmaster had placed them where they would face delinquent children, because they symbolized to him the whole of life. The naked lady was Venus. She was Love. She was not worried about the towel. She was just busy being beautiful. The leopard was Nature, and he was being natural. The muscular gentleman was not miserable. He was Rodin's Thinker, an image of pure thought.

I had better explain that I was a frequent visitor to the headmaster's study, because of the latest thing I had done or left undone. As we now say, I was not integrated. I was, if anything, disintegrated. Whenever I found myself in a penal position before the headmaster's desk I would sink my head, and writhe one shoe over the other.

The headmaster would look at me and say,

"What are we going to do with you?"

Well, what were they going to do with me? I would writhe my shoe some more and stare down at the worn rug.

"Look up, boy! Can't you look up?"

Then I would look up at the cupboard, where the naked lady was frozen in her panic and the muscular gentleman contemplated the hindquarters of the leopard in endless gloom. I had nothing to say to the headmaster. His spectacles caught the light so that you could see nothing human behind them. There was no possibility of communication.

"Don't you ever think at all?"

No, I didn't think, wasn't thinking, couldn't think—I was simply waiting in anguish for the interview to stop.

"Then you'd better learn—hadn't you?"

On one occasion the headmaster leaped to his feet, reached up and put Rodin's masterpiece on the desk before me.

"That's what a man looks like when he' really thinking."

Clearly there was something missing in me. Nature had endowed the rest of the human race with a sixth sense and left me out. But like someone born deaf, but bitterly determined to find out about sound, I began to watch my teachers to find out about thought.

There was Mr Houghton. He was always telling me to think. With a modest satisfaction, he would tell me that he had thought a bit himself. Then why did he spend so much time drinking? Or was there more sense in drinking than there appeared to be? But if not, and if drinking were in fact ruinous to health—and Mr Houghton was ruined, there was no doubt about that—why was he always talking about the clean life and the virtues of fresh air?

Sometimes, exalted by his own oratory, he would leap from his desk and hustle us outside into a hideous wind.

"Now, boys! Deep breaths! Feel it right down inside you—huge draughts of God's good air!"

He would stand before us, put his hands on his waist and take a tremendous breath. You could hear the wind, trapped in his chest and struggling with all the unnatural impediments. His body would reel with shock and his face go white at the unaccustomed visitation. He would stagger back to his desk and collapse there, useless for the rest of the morning.

Mr Houghton was given to high-minded monologues about the good life, sexless and full of duty. Yet in the middle of these monologues, if a girl passed the window, his neck would turn of itself and he would watch her out of sight. In this instance, he seemed to me ruled not by thought but by an invisible and irresistible spring in his neck.

His neck was an object of great interest to me. Normally it bulged a bit over his collar. But Mr Houghton had fought in the First World War alongside Americans and French, and had come to a settled detestation of both countries. If either happened to be prominent in current affairs, no argument could make Mr Houghton think well of it. He would bang the desk, his neck would bulge still further and go red. "You can say what you like," he would cry, "but I've thought about this—and I know what I think!"

Mr Houghton thought with his neck.

This was my introduction to the nature of what is commonly called thought. Through him I discovered that thought is often full of unconscious prejudice, ignorance and hypocrisy. It will lecture on disinterested purity while its neck is being remorselessly twisted toward a skirt. Technically, it is about as proficient as most businessmen's golf, as honest as most politicians' intentions, or as coherent as most books that get written. It is what I came to call grade-three thinking, though more properly, it is feeling, rather than thought.

True, often there is a kind of innocence in prejudices, but in those days I viewed grade-three thinking with contempt and mockery. I delighted to confront a pious lady who hated the Germans with the proposition that we should love our enemies. She taught me a great truth in dealing with grade-three thinkers; because of her, I no longer dismiss lightly a mental process which for nine tenths of the population is the nearest they will ever get to thought. They have immense solidarity. We had better respect them, for we are outnumbered and surrounded. A crowd of grade-three thinkers, all shouting the same thing, all warming their hands at the fire of their own prejudices, will not thank you for pointing out the contradictions in their beliefs. Man enjoys agreement as cows will graze all the same way on the side of a hill.

Grade-two thinking is the detection of contradictions. Grade-two thinkers do not stampede easily, though often they fall into the other fault and lag behind. Grade-two thinking is a withdrawal, with eyes and ears open. It destroys without having the power to create. It set me watching the crowds cheering His Majesty the King and asking myself what all the fuss was about, without giving me anything positive to put in the place of that heady patriotism. But there were compensations. To hear people justify their habit of hunting foxes by claiming that the foxes liked it. To hear our Prime Minister talk about the great benefit we conferred on India by jailing people like Nehru and Gandhi. To hear American politicians talk about peace and refuse to join the League of Nations. Yes, there were moments of delight.

But I was growing toward adolescence and had to admit that Mr Houghton was not the only one with an irresistible spring in his neck. I, too, felt the compulsive hand of nature and began to find that pointing out contradiction could be costly as well as fun. There was Ruth, for example, a serious and attractive girl. I was an atheist at the time. And she was a Methodist. But, alas, instead of relying on the Holy Spirit to convert me, Ruth was foolish enough to open her pretty mouth in argument. She claimed that the Bible was literally inspired. I countered by saying that the Catholics believed in the literal inspiration of Saint Jerome's Vulgate, and the two books were different. Argument flagged.

At last she remarked that there were an awful lot of Methodists, and they couldn't be wrong, could they—not all those millions? That was too easy, said I restively (for the nearer you were to Ruth, the nicer she was to be near to) since there were more Roman Catholics than Methodists anyway; and they couldn't be wrong, could they—not all those hundreds of millions? An awful flicker of doubt appeared in her eyes. I slid my arm around her waist and murmured that if we were counting heads, the Buddhists were the boys for my money. She fled. The combination of my arm and those countless Buddhists was too much for her.

That night her father visited my father and left, red-cheeked and indignant. I was given the third degree to find out what had happened. I lost Ruth, and gained an undeserved reputation as a potential libertine.

Grade-two thinking, though it filled life with fun and excitement, did not make for content. To find out the deficiencies of our elders satisfies the young ego but does not make for personal security. It took the swimmer some distance from the shore and left him there, out of his depth. A typical grade-two thinker will say, "What is truth?" There is still a higher grade of thought which says, "What is truth?" and sets out to find it.

But these grade-one thinkers were few and far between. They did not visit my grammar school in the flesh though they were there in books. I aspired to them, because I now saw my hobby as an unsatisfactory thing if it went no further. If you set out to climb a mountain, however high you climb, you have failed if you cannot reach the top.

I therefore decided that I would be a grade-one thinker. I was irreverent at the best of times. Political and religious systems, social customs, loyalties and traditions, they all came tumbling down like so many rotten apples off a tree. I came up in the end with what must always remain the justification for grade-one thinking. I devised a coherent system for living. It was a moral system, which was wholly logical. Of course, as I readily admitted, conversion of the world to my way of thinking might be difficult, since my system did away with a number of trifles, such as big business, centralized government, armies, marriage...

It was Ruth all over again. I had some very good friends who stood by me, and still do. But my acquaintances vanished, taking the girls with them. Young people seemed oddly contented with the world as it was. A young navy officer got as red-necked as Mr Houghton when I proposed a world without any battleships in it.

Had the game gone too far? In those prewar days, I stood to lose a great deal, for the sake of a hobby.

Now you are expecting me to describe how I saw the folly of my ways and came back to the warm nest, where prejudices are called loyalties, pointless actions are turned into customs by repetition, and we are content to say we think when all we do is feel.

But you would be wrong. I dropped my hobby and turned professional.

参考译文——把思考作为爱好

把思考作为爱好

威廉·戈尔丁

当我还是个孩子的时候，我便得出了这样的结论：思考可分为三个层次，而我本人则根本不会思考。

首先把思考这个问题摆在我面前的是我的小学校长。他在书房里有几尊小雕像，放在他书桌后面高高的柜子上。一尊雕像是个女人，她光着身子，只披一条浴巾。她似乎凝固在永久的惶恐之中，唯恐浴巾再向下滑；而由于她没有双臂，根本不可能将浴巾向上拉，因此显得特别狼狈。在她旁边伏卧着一尊豹子的雕像，一副随时都会扑下来跳到文件柜顶层抽屉上的样子。豹子后面是一个肌肉发达的裸体男子的雕像，他坐在那里，目光朝下，一只拳头托着脸颊，胳膊肘撑在膝上。一副痛苦的样子。

后来我才知道这几尊雕像是怎么回事。校长之所以把他们放在那儿，让它们冲着犯了错误的孩子们，是因为这些雕像对于他来说象征着生活的全部。那裸体妇人是女神维纳斯，她是爱的化身。她并不是在为随时可能滑落的浴巾而担忧。她只是忙于展现自己的美。那豹子代表自然，它是在忙着展现自己的自然风采。那肌肉健壮的男子也并不痛苦悲惨，他是罗丹的《思想者》，是纯粹思维的象征。

在这里我得向大家解释一下，由于我不是做了不该做的事情，就是该做的事情没有做，我成了校长办公室的常客。用我们现在的话说，我和周围不是很合拍，实际上，正相反，应该说我是一个出奇调皮的孩子。所以，每当我站在校长办公桌前准备受罚的时候，我就低下头，一只鞋在另一只鞋上不安地蹭来蹭去。

这时校长就会看着我说：

“我们拿你怎么办呢？”

是啊，他们打算拿我怎么办呢？这时我便更使劲地蹭鞋，低头盯着磨损了的地毯。

“抬起头来，小家伙！你不会抬头吗？”

于是，我就抬起头来看那个柜子，看上面停留在永久的恐惧之中的维纳斯，和那肌肉强壮永远在阴郁中望着豹子屁股出神的男子。我对校长无话可说。他的眼镜片反光，我看不见镜片后任何有人情味的东西。我感到交流是不可能的。

“难道你从来就不动脑筋，想想问题吗？”

没有，我平时不想，当时也没想，我根本就不会想——我只是痛苦地等待着训话的结束。

“那么，你最好学学，好吗？”

有一次，校长一跃而起，伸手取下了罗丹的代表作，放在我前面的桌子上。

“当一个人真正思考的时候，就是这个样子。”

显然，我身上缺少了某种东西。大自然赋予了其他人第六感，而唯独把我漏掉了。于是，像一个天生耳聋但又痛下决心要去探索声音的人一样，我开始观察老师的言行举止，想从中发现思考的真谛。

有一位霍顿先生，他总是教导我要思考。他常会带着些许的满足感告诉我他自己就常常思考。我在纳闷，那他为什么要耗费那么多的时间喝酒呢？难道喝酒有着从表面上看不到的意义吗？若不是这样，如果喝酒的确伤身体——毫无疑问，霍顿的身体健康已经受到了损害——那他为什么还总在高谈阔论什么简洁朴素的生活和新鲜空气的好处呢？

有时候，因自己的说教而兴奋不已，他会从讲台上跳下来，把我们赶到外面刺骨的寒风里。

“现在，孩子们！深呼吸！感受气流进入到你的体内——大口呼吸上帝赐予我们的美好空气吧！”

他会站在我们的面前，双手叉腰，深吸一大口气。这时，你可以听到风进入到他的胸腔里，与各种各样非常正常的束缚搏斗的声音。他的身体会由于这种冲击而摇晃，他的脸也会因为这不习惯的情况而变得苍白。然后，他便踉踉跄跄的回到讲桌前，瘫坐在那里，一上午都缓不过劲来。

霍顿先生非常喜欢一人唱高调，将好生活、清心寡欲和尽职尽责常挂在嘴边。然而，谈兴正浓时如果恰巧有个女孩从窗户旁经过，他的脖子会不由自主地转过去，一直望到女孩从视线里消失为止。这时，在我看来他似乎不受思想的支配，而是被他脖子里一根无形但又无法抗拒的弹簧所控制。

我对他的脖子很感兴趣。通常情况下从衣领中稍微伸出一点。霍顿先生曾参加过第一次世界大战，与美国和法国士兵共同参与战斗，但他却对这两个国家产生了一种无法改变的憎恶。如果它们当中的某一个国家碰巧成为新闻焦点，任凭你跟他怎么争都无法让霍顿先生对这一国家产生好感。他会捶着桌子，脸红脖子粗地叫嚷道。“不管你们说什么，但我也深思熟虑过——我对自己的想法再清楚不过了！”

霍顿先生是用他的脖子在思考。

这就是我对人们通常称之为思考的本质的最初体验。透过霍顿先生，我发现思考经常充斥着无意识的偏见、无知和虚伪。这类思考者会一边滔滔不绝于清心寡欲的纯洁，而他们的脖子却不依不饶地扭向外面的短裙。严格地说，他脖子的动作就和大多数生意人打高尔夫一样地熟练，就和大多数政客的用意一样的诚实，就像大多数的图书一样条理清楚。我把这称为第三级思考，然而，更为准确地说是感觉，而非思考。

诚然，偏见里也常包含有一种天真无邪，但在那时，我是用一种轻蔑和嘲笑的态度来对待第三级思考的。我很高兴能当面向一位虔诚的却仇恨德国人的女士指出《圣经》主张我们应该热爱敌人。她让我明白了一个在同第三级思考者打交道时的真理；因为她，我不再轻易放弃第三级的思考过程，而那对十分之九的人来说是他们所能达到的最接近思考的程度。他们惊人的团结。我们最好尊重他们，因为他们的人数超过了我们，我们被他们包围着。这许许多多的第三级思考者们拥有相同的口号，就像在炉火上烤手一样，因为彼此拥有相同的偏见而感到快乐和满足，但并不会因为你指出了他们的信仰中的矛盾之处而感谢你。人类喜欢彼此意见统一，就像牛群会以同样的方式在山坡上吃草一样。

第二级思考是要察觉矛盾。第二级思考者们尽管常常陷入另一个极端，落在他人后面，但他们不会莽撞。第二级思考者是一种退缩或冷漠，但第二级思考者们都看得清楚，听得明白。它能够丢掉错误的观念，但却无法建立正确的观念。它使我看着向国王陛下欢呼的人群，问自己这所有的混乱喧闹到底是为了什么，除了那种狂热的爱国主义之外，似乎没有任何别的理由来加以解释了。但我也从中得到了回报。那就是，我听到了人们通过宣称狐狸喜欢被人捕猎，从而为自己猎狐的习惯来辩护。我听到了我们的首相谈论我们通过监禁像尼赫鲁和甘地这样的人而给予了印度巨大的好处。我听到了美国政客们在大谈和平的同时却拒绝加入国际联盟。是的，的确有快乐的时刻。

但是，当我进入青春期，我不得不承认霍顿先生并非唯一一位脖子被不可抗拒的弹簧所控制的人。我也感觉到了自然之力的不可抗拒，并开始发现指出矛盾既有趣，但又要付出代价。比如那位既严肃又迷人的女孩露丝。那时我是一个无神论者。而她是个循道公会的信徒。可不幸的是，她没有依靠圣灵来规劝我皈依宗教，而是张开那漂亮的小嘴与我争辩，她可真傻到家了。她声称《圣经》确实是受到圣灵的启迪的。我反驳说天主教徒相信圣哲罗姆的拉丁文《圣经》才是受神灵的启示的，而这两本书是不同的。争论一下子变得索然无味了。

最后她说循道公会的教徒人数相当可观，他们不可能错，他们即便可能错——难道几百万人都错了么？那太有可能了，我焦躁不安地说（因为你离露丝越近，就越觉得她可爱），因为不管怎么说，罗马天主教徒的人数要比循道公会的教徒多：因此，这些罗马天主教徒是不会错的，他们可能错——难道几亿人都错了吗？她的眼中闪过一丝疑惑的目光。我用手臂搂住她的腰，喃喃道，如果我们计算人数的话，佛教徒人数恐怕要独占鳌头了。她急忙跑掉了。我手臂亲昵的动作和关于无数佛教徒的话令她难以接受。

那天晚上，露丝的父亲前来拜访了我父亲，结果离开时是面红耳赤并愤愤不平。于是他们逼问我到底发生了什么事情。就这样，我失去了露丝，还背上了这样的冤枉名声：说我很可能将来是个浪荡公子。

第二级思考尽管让人的生活充满了乐趣和激动，但并没有使人满足。找出我们长辈的不足之处满足了年轻人的自我愿望，但并不能给人以安全感。这就好比把游泳者带到离岸较远的地方，让他在超过自己身高的深水里挣扎而无法靠岸一样。一个典型的第二级思考者会问：“什么是真理？”而高级别的思考者也会提出同样的问题：“什么是真理？”并开始着手去探求真理。

但第一级思考者实在是太少了。尽管在书本里能见到他们，他们却不曾光顾我的学校。我渴望成为他们中的一员，这是因为我认为自己现在的爱好如果不能进一步向前发展的话，那将是一件无法令人满意的事情。这就好比你要开始去爬一座山，无论你爬了多高，只要你没能到达山顶，你就是失败者。

因此，我决心要做一个第一级思想者。在情况最好的时候我也并没有表现出足够的敬意。什么政治和宗教体系、社会风俗、忠诚和传统，它们都像树上的烂苹果一样纷纷滚落下来。最后我悟出了如何才能保持第一级思考真谛。我设计了一套完整统一的生活体系，这是一个道德体系，具有完全的逻辑性。当然，我也乐于承认，按照我的思路去改变世界可能是困难的，因为我所设计的体系已抛弃了许多的琐事，比如说大型企业、中央集权政府、军队、婚姻等。

露丝的情况再度发生。我有一些非常要好的朋友，过去支持我，现在仍在支持着我。但我的泛泛之交都带着他们的女朋友离我远去了。说也奇怪，年轻人似乎很满足于当时的世界。当我提议应该建立一个没有军舰的世界时，一位年轻的海军军官竟然像霍顿先生一样怒不可遏。

是不是我的想法太过火了？在战前的那些日子里，就是因为我的这种爱好，使我失去了许多东西。

现在你期盼我来描述一下我如何看待自己的愚蠢行为，并如何重新回到温暖的大家庭中来，在这里偏见被称为忠诚，毫无意义的行为被反复重复后变成了习俗；我们的所作所为都是跟着感觉走，可是我们还是惬意地宣称我们思考了。

不过，你们若是这样想就大错特错了。我不再把思考当成一种爱好了，我成了专业的思考者了。

Key Words:

panic ['pænik]

n. 恐慌

adj. 惊慌的

conclusion [kən'klu:ʒən]

n. 结论

unfortunate [ʌn'fɔ:tʃənit]

adj. 不幸的，令人遗憾的，不成功的

elbow ['elbəu]

n. 手肘，急弯，扶手

v. 用手肘推开，推挤

drawer ['drɔ:ə]

n. 抽屉，拖曳者，制图员，开票人

delinquent [di'liŋkwənt]

n. 行为不良的人，流氓 adj. 怠忽的，有过失的

muscular ['mʌskjulə]

adj. 肌肉的，肌肉发达的

filing ['failiŋ]

n. 锉(文件的整理汇集)

miserable ['mizərəbl]

adj. 悲惨的，痛苦的，贫乏的

slip [slip]

v. 滑倒，溜走，疏忽，滑脱

oratory ['ɔ:rətɔ:ri]

n. 讲演术，演说，祈祷室，小礼拜堂

ruinous ['ruinəs]

adj. 破坏性的，招致毁减的，零落的

prominent ['prɔminənt]

adj. 杰出的，显著的，突出的

bulge [bʌldʒ]

n. 膨胀，优势，暴增

contempt [kən'tempt]

n. 轻视，轻蔑

contradiction [.kɔntrə'dikʃən]

n. 反驳，矛盾，不一致，否认

undeserved ['ʌndi'zə:vd]

adj. 不值得的，不当的

libertine ['libəti:n]

n. 性行为放纵者，浪荡子，持自由思想者

contented [kən'tentid]

adj. 满足的，心安的

参考资料：

现代大学英语精读(第2版)第四册:U1A Thinking as a Hobby(9)_大学教材听力 - 可可英语

现代大学英语精读第二版（第四册）学习笔记（原文及全文翻译）——1A - Thinking as a Hobby（把思考作为爱好）

Unit 1A - Thinking as a Hobby

参考译文——把思考作为爱好

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