Bertrand Russel
1. Undoubtedly the desire for food has been, and still is, one of the main causes of great political events. But man differs from other animals in one very important respect, and that is that he has desires which are, so to speak, infinite, which can never be fully gratified, and which would keep him restless even in Paradise. The boa constrictor, when he has had an adequate meal, goes to sleep, and does not wake until he needs another meal. Human beings, for the most part, are not like this. When the Arabs, who had been used to living sparingly on a few dates, acquired the riches of the Eastern Roman Empire and dwelt in palaces of almost unbelievable luxury, they did not, on that account, become inactive. Hunger could no longer be a motive, for Greek slaves supplied them with exquisite viands at the slightest nod. But other desires kept them active: four in particular, which we can label acquisitiveness, rivalry, vanity and love of power.
无疑，要得到食物的强烈欲望一直是并仍然是导致巨大政治事件的主要原因之一。但人与其它动物有一个很重要的区别，那就是他有着可谓无尽头的欲望，永远不可能完全得到满足，即使到了天堂也会使他不得安宁。巨蟒饱吃一顿后就睡觉，不到需要再吃一顿时不醒。多不是这样。当惯于靠吃几个椰枣节俭为生的阿拉伯人获得东罗马帝国的财富，居住在几乎令人难以置信的豪华宫殿中时，他们并未因此就闲居不动了。饥饿不可能再是一个动机了，因为只需稍一颔首，希腊奴隶便奉上精美佳肴。但是别的欲望使他们继续活动，主要有四种欲望，我们可称之为：占有欲，竞争欲，虚荣心，权力欲。
2. Acquisitiveness -- the wish to possess as much as possible of goods, or the title to goods -- is a motive which, I suppose, has its origin in a combination of fear with the desire for necessaries.
占有欲——占有尽可能多的财产或财产的所有权——这一动机想来根源在于恐惧和拥有生活必需品的愿望的结合。
3. I once befriended two little girls from Esthonia, who had narrowly escaped death from starvation in a famine. They lived in my family, and of course had plenty to eat. But they spent all their leisure visiting neighbouring farms and stealing potatoes, which they hoarded. Rockefeller, who in his infancy had experienced great poverty, spent his adult life in a similar manner. Similarly the Arab chieftains on their silken Byzantine divans could not forget the desert, and hoarded riches far beyond any possible physical need. But whatever the psychoanalysis of acquisitiveness, no one can deny that it is one of the great motives -- especially among the more powerful, for, as I said before, it is one of the infinite motives. However much you may acquire you will always wish to acquire more; satiety is a dream which will always elude you.
我曾经帮助过两个爱沙尼亚来的小姑娘，她们在一场饥荒中九死一生幸免饿死。她们住在我家中，当然有足够的东西吃，但是她们却把闲暇时间用在到邻近的农场去偷土豆，然后贮藏起来。洛克菲勒在童年时经受过极度的贫困，也以与此类似的方式度过他的成年岁月。同样，坐在拜占庭帝国柔软光滑的长沙发上的阿拉伯酋长们也无法忘记沙漠，贮藏起远远超过肉体可能需要的财富。但不论对占有欲作怎样的精神分析，没有人能够否认这是巨大的动机中的一个——特别是对较有权势的人更是如此，因为如前所说，这是一个无尽头的动机，不论你获得的有多么多，你永远还希望获得更多，完全的满足是一个你永远无法实现的梦。
4. But acquisitiveness, although it is the mainspring of the capitalist system, is by no means the most powerful of the motives that survive the conquest of hunger. Rivalry is a much stronger motive. Over and over again in Muhammadan history, dynasties have come to grief because the sons of a sultan by different mothers could not agree, and in the resulting civil war universal ruin resulted. The same sort of thing happens in modern Europe. When the British Government very unwisely allowed the Kaiser to be present at a naval review at Spithead, the thought which arose in his mind was not the one which we had intended. What he thought was, "I must have a Navy as good as Grandmamma's. And from this thought have sprung all our subsequent troubles. The world would be a happier place than it is if acquisitiveness were always stronger than rivalry. But in fact, a great many men will cheerfully face impoverishment if they can thereby secure complete ruin for their rivals. Hence the present level of taxation.
虽然占有欲是资本主义制度的主要动力，但它却远不是征服了饥饿以后诸动机中最强大的一个。竞争欲是一个强大得多的动机。在教的历史上，一次又一次由于苏丹的不同妻子所生之子意见相左，·王朝遭难，在因此而生的内战中造成普遍的破坏。同样一类的事情也在现代欧洲发生，当英国极不明智地允许德皇出席在斯匹特海德举行的检阅时，在德皇脑子里出现的想法并不是我们想要他有的想法。他想的是：“我必须有一支与老奶奶的一样优秀的海军。”我们此后的一切麻烦都来自这个想法。如果占有欲总是强于竞争欲的话，世界将是一个比现在幸福的地方。事实上，许多人会心甘情愿地去面对穷困，只要这样做能招致对手的彻底毁灭。因此有了目前的税制。
5. Vanity is a motive of immense potency. Anyone who has much to do with children knows how they are constantly performing some antic and saying "Look at me". "Look at me" is one of the most fundamental desires of the human heart. It can take innumerable forms, from buffoonery to the pursuit of posthumous fame. There was a Renaissance Italian princeling who was asked by the priest on his deathbed if he had anything to repent of. "Yes," he said. "There is one thing. On one occasion I had a visit from the Emperor and the Pope simultaneously. I took them to the top of my tower to see the view, and I neglected the opportunity to throw them both down, which would have given me immortal fame." History does not relate whether the priest gave him absolution. One of the troubles about vanity is that it grows with what it feeds on. The more you are talked about, the more you will wish to be talked about. The condemned murderer who is allowed to see the account of his trial in the Press is indignant if he finds a newspaper which has reported it inadequately. And the more he finds about himself in other newspapers, the more indignant he will be with those whose reports are meagre. Politicians and literary men are in the same case. And the more famous they become, the more difficult the presscutting agency finds it to satisfy them. It is scarcely possible to exaggerate the influence of vanity throughout the range of human life, from the child of three to the potentate at whose frown the world trembles. Mankind have even committed the impiety of attributing similar desires to the deity, whom they imagine avid for continual praise.
虚荣心是一个有着极大潜在力的动机。任何和孩子们打交道多的人都知道他们是怎样不断地做个什么怪动作然后说“看我”。“看我”是人类内心最基本的愿望之一，它可以有无数的表现形式，从插科打诨到追求死后的声名。意大利文艺复兴时代有个小王公，在临死时神父问他有没有什么要忏悔的，他说，“有，有一件事。有一次皇上和教皇同时到我这里来访问，我把他们带到我的塔顶观赏景色，我没有利用能把他们二人推下去的机会，否则就会使我流芳百世了。”历史并未叙说神父是否赦免了他。虚荣心的问题之一是，越是有鼓励它的东西虚荣心就越强。人们越谈论你，你就越希望被人们谈论。被判了刑的杀人犯得到允许阅读报纸对他审判的报导，如果发现一家报纸对此报导不足，他会感到十分气愤，他在其它报纸上读到的有关自己的报导越多，便会对报导不够的报纸越气愤。政治家和文人也属此列。他们越有名气，剪报机构就感到越难满足他们。在人类的一生中虚荣心影响之大是怎么夸张也不会过分的，从三岁的稚子到蹙眉震天下的君主无一例外。人类甚至犯了大不敬之罪，往神明身上加上了相同的欲望，料想神明也渴望得到永不止息的赞颂。
6. But great as is the influence of the motives we have been considering, there is one which outweighs them all....Power, like vanity, is insatiable. Nothing short of omnipotence could satisfy it completely. And as it is especially the v. ice of energetic men, the casual efficacy of love of power is out of all proportion to its frequency. It is, indeed, by far the strongest motive in the lives of important men. Love of power is greatly increased by the experience of power, and this applies to petty power as well as to that of poten- tates. In the happy days before 1914, when well-to-do ladies could acquire a host of servants, their pleasure in exercising power over the domestics steadily increased with age. Similarly, in any autocratic regime, the holders of power become increasingly tyrannical with experience of the delights that power can afford. Since power over human beings is shown in making them do what they would rather not do, the man who is actuated by love of power is more apt to inflict pain than to permit pleasure. If you ask your boss for leave of absence from the office on some legitimate occasion, his love of power will derive more satisfaction from refusal than from consent. If you require a building permit, the petty official concerned will obviously get more pleasure from saying "No" than from saying "Yes". It is this sort of thing which makes the love of power such a dangerous motive. But it has other sides which are more desirable. The pursuit of knowledge is, I think, mainly actuated by love of power. And so are all advances in scientific technique. In polities, also, a reformer may have just as strong a love of power as a despot. It would be a complete mistake to decry love of power altogether as a motive. Whether you will be led by this motive to actions which are useful, or to actions which are pernicious, depends upon the social system, and upon your capacities.
不过，虽然我们上面讨论过的动机都有极大的影响，还有一种动机影响却胜过它们。…权力欲如同虚荣心，是永远无法满足的，除非是无限权力，别的什么也不能使他完全满足。由于这特别是精力旺盛的人的恶癖，权欲的偶而实现与权欲的频繁滋生二者完全不成比例。这确实是大人物生活中最最强烈的动机，享有权力后更增加了对权力的爱，无论是芝麻小权还是国君大权，统统如此。在1914年以前的幸福日子里，家境富裕的太太们可以雇上一群佣人，她们从对仆人行使权力中得到的乐趣与岁月俱增。同样，在任何政权中，掌权者体验到权能赋予他的快乐后变得越来越专横残暴。既然对人的权力表现在使他们做不情愿做的事情上，被权欲驱使的人就更容易制造痛苦而不是允许人们得到欢乐。如果你有合理的原因向上司请假不上班，拒绝你比答应你更能满足他们的权欲。 如果你申请建筑许可证，管事的芝麻官显然能从回答“不行”中得到比说“行”更大的乐趣。正是这类情况使权欲成为如此危险的一个动机。但它也有其它较为可取的方面。我认为，追求知识主要就是在权欲的驱使下进行的，科学技术的一切进步也是如此。在政治上也是如此，改革者可能与暴君有着同样强烈的权欲，对权欲作为一个动机全盘攻击否定会完全是一个错误。这一动机究竟引导你做出有益的行动还是有害的行动，取决于社会制度，以及你个人的能力才干。
7. I come now to other motives which, though in a sense less fundamental than those we have been considering, are still of considerable importance. The first of these is love of excitement. Human beings show their superiority to the brutes by their capacity for boredom, though I have sometimes thought, in examining the apes at the Zoo, that they, perhaps, have the rudiments of this tiresome emotion. However that may be, experience shows that escape from boredom is one of the really powerful desires of almost all human beings.
现在我来谈谈其它的动机，尽管在某种意义上这些没有我们已讨论过的动机那么要紧，但仍然有着相当的重要性。其中第一个是追求刺激。人优越于畜生之处表现在他们会感到厌倦，虽说在观察动物园的猿类时我有时会想它们也许也有着这种讨厌的感情的萌芽。不管怎样，经验表明，几乎所有的人都具有真正强有力的欲望之一就是摆脱厌倦状态。
8. When white men first effect contact with some unspoilt race of savages, they offer them all kinds of benefits, from the light of the Gospel to pumpkin pie. These, however, much as we may regret it, most savages receive with indifference. What they really value among the gifts that we bring to them is intoxicating liquor, which enables them, for the first time in their lives, to have the illusion, for a few brief moments, that it is better to be alive than dead.
当白人最初和某个在大自然中生活的野蛮民族产生接触时，他们提供给他们各种好处，从教福音书的教导到南瓜饼都有。然而尽管我们可能感到很遗憾，但多数野蛮人冷淡地接受下一切。我们带给他们的赠品中他们真正看重的是醉人的烈性酒，这使他们平生第一次能产生片刻的幻觉，感到活着比死了强。
9. Red Indians, while they were still unaffected by white men, would smoke their pipes, not calmly as we do, but orgiastically, inhaling so deeply that they sank into a faint. And when excitement by means of nicotine failed, a patriotic orator would stir them up to attack a neighbouring tribe, which would give them all the enjoyment that we (according to our temperament) derive from a hors race or a General Election.
红种印第安人在他们还未被白人影响时，吸烟斗时不像我们这样平平静静地吸，而是放任地深深地吸，以致于昏过去。在尼古丁不再能造成刺激后，一个爱国的演说家就会鼓动他们去攻击邻近的一个部落，这就会带给他们我们(根据我们的不同性格)从赛马或大选中得到的一切乐趣。
10. With civilized men, as with primitive Red Indian tribes, it is, I think, chiefly love of excitement which makes the populace applaud when war breaks out; the emotion is exactly the same as at a football match, although the results are sometimes somewhat more serious.
对文明人来说，和原始的红种印第安人部落一样，我认为主要是出于追求刺激才会使老百姓在战争爆发时鼓掌欢呼。这种感情和看足球赛时的感情完全一样，尽管其结果有时要稍稍严重一些。
11. It is not altogether easy to decide what is the root cause of the love of excitement. I incline to think that our mental make-up is adapted to the stage when men lived by hunting. When a man spent a long day with very primitive weapons in stalking a deer with the hope of dinner and when, at the end of the day, he dragged the carcase triumphantly to his cave, he sank down in contented weariness, while his wife dressed and cooked the meat. He was sleepy, and his bones ached, and the smell of cooking filled every nook and cranny of his consciousness. At last after eating, he sank into deep sleep. In such a life there was neither time nor energy for boredom. But when he took to agriculture, and made his wife do all the heavy work in the fields, he had time to reflect upon the vanity of human life, to invent mythologies and systems of philosophy, and to dream of the life hereafter in which he would perpetually hunt the wild boar of Valhalla.
要断定追求刺激的根源何在不是件容易的事，我倾向于认为我们的心理构成适应于人类靠狩猪为生的阶段。当一个男子花了长长的一天，使用十分原始的武器，潜行跟踪一头鹿，希望能美餐一顿，当他到晚上胜利地把死鹿拖回洞穴后，他心满意足地疲倦地倒下，他的妻子收拾猎物、烧鹿肉。他昏昏欲睡，骨头酸痛，煮肉的香味充满着他意识的每一个角落。饱餐以后他终于沉入睡乡。在这样的生活中他既无时间又无精力去感到厌倦。但当他开始从事于农业生产，让妻子干地里的一切重活以后，他便有了时间去思考人生的空虚，去创造神话和哲学体系，去梦想来世的生活，在那里他可以永远不断地捕猎天堂的野猪
8. It has been estimated that at least 30 percent of the elderly live in substandard housing. Many more must deprive themselves of essentials to keep their homes in repair.
估计至少有30％的老人住在不合法定标准的房屋中，更多的人为了保持房子适于居住进行维修而不得不牺牲一些必需品。
9. The American dream promised older people that if they worked hard enough all their lives, things would turn out well for them. Today's elderly were brought up to believe in pride, self-reliance and independence. Many are tough, determined individuals who manage to survive against adversity. But even the tough ones reach a point where help should be available to them.
美国梦给老人这样的期望，只要他们一生勤恳工作，一切终会好的。今天的老人在成长过程中受到的教育是信奉自尊、自立、自主。许多都是能在逆境中生存下来的顽强的有决断的人物，但即使是顽强的人有朝一日也会需要得到帮助的。
10. Age discrimination in employment is unrestrained, with arbitrary retirement practices and bias against hiring older people for available jobs. Social Security penalizes the old by reducing their in- come checks as soon as they earn more than $ 2 400 a year. Job- training programs don' t want the elderly (or the middle-aged, for that matter), so there is no opportunity to learn new skills. Employers rarely make concessions for the possible physical limitations of otherwise valuable older employees, and instead they are fired, retired or forced to resign.
就业方面的年龄歧视没有受到任何，任意规定退休的具体做法，在雇用人时歧视上年纪的人。一旦老年人工作一年挣得2400美元以上，社会福利便用减低福利金的办法来惩罚他们。职业训练项目不愿收老年人 (连中年人也不要)，因此没有机会学新技能。雇主对于除了可能有体力上的局限外其它方面很有用的年长职工很少做些照顾，而是将他们解雇，要他们退休或强迫他们辞职
14. What is serious about excitement is that so many of its forms are destructive. It is destructive in those who cannot resist excess in alcohol or gambling. It is destructive when it takes the form of mob violence. And above all it is destructive when it leads to war. It is so deep a need that it will find harmful outlets of this kind unless innocent outlets are at hand. There are such innocent outlets at present in sport, and in politics so long as it is kept in constitutional bounds. But these are not sufficient, especially as the kind of politics that is most exciting is also the kind that does most harm.
追求刺激的严重之处在于它的许多形式是有破坏性的。在不能抵制过度饮烈性酒或过度的人身上它有破坏性，当它以暴民的形式出现时有破坏性，尤其当它导致战争时有破坏性。寻找刺激是如此深刻的需要，如果手边没有无害途径，它便会找到这类有害途径来发泄。目前在体育运动上有这样的无害途径，在政治上只要在容许的范围之内也有无害途径。但这些还不够，特别是最有刺激性的那类政治也是造成最大危害的政治。
15. Civilized life has grown altogether too tame, and, if it is to be stable, it must provide harmless outlets for the impulses which our remote ancestors satisfied in hunting. In Australia, where people are few and rabbits are many, I watched a whole populace satisfying the primitive impulse in the primitive manner by the skilful slaughter of many thousands of rabbits. But in London or New York, where people are many and rabbits are few, some other means must be found to gratify primitive impulse. I think every big town should contain artificial waterfalls that people could descend in very fragile canoes, and they should contain bathing pools full of mechanical sharks. Any persons found advocating a preventive war should be condemned to two hours a day with these ingenious monsters.
文明生活整个地变得太沉闷了，如果要使之稳定，就必须为我们的远祖从狩猎中得到满足的那种冲动提供无害的发泄途径。在人少兔多的澳大利亚，我看着整个一群老百姓熟练地了几千只兔子，他们用这种原始的方法来满足这原始的冲动。但是在伦敦或纽约，人多兔少，必需找到别的一些办法来满足原始的冲动。我认为每一个大城市都应该有使人们能乘着极不结实的独木舟冲下来的人造瀑布，应该有充满了机械鲨鱼的游泳池。发现有任何人鼓吹打一场防御战，就应判他每天在这些巧妙的怪物中生活两个小时。下载本文
