Unit-9-What-is-happiness课文翻译

What-is-happiness课文翻译

Unit 9 What Is Happiness?

The right to pursue happiness is issued to Americans with their birth certificates, but no one seems quite sure which way it runs. It may be we are issued a hunting license but offered no game. Jonathan Swift seemed to think so when he attacked the idea of happiness as “the possession of being well-deceived,” the felicity of being “a fool among knaves.” For Swift saw society as Vanity Fair, the land of false goals.

自从呱呱坠地，美国人就被赋予了追求幸福的权利，但似乎没人确信幸福究竟在哪里。正如它发给我们狩猎证，却不给我们提供猎物。乔纳森 斯威福特似乎持此观点，他抨击幸福的想法是“鬼迷心窍的上当，”是“骗子堆中的傻瓜”的自鸣得意。因为他视社会为虚妄目标聚集的名利场。

It is, of course, un-American to think in terms of fools and knaves. We do, however, seem to be dedicated to the idea of buying our way to happiness. We shall all have made it to Heaven when we possess enough.

当然用傻子、骗子这样的字眼来形容是不合美国的人的风俗习惯的，然后我们似乎确实沉溺于用金钱购买幸福的想法：只要有足够的钱，我们百年后就能上天堂。

And at the same time the forces of American commercialism are hugely dedicated to making us deliberately unhappy. Advertising is one of our major industries, and advertising exists not to satisfy desires but to create them — and to create them faster than any man’s budget can satisfy them. For that matter, our whole economy is based on a dedicated insatiability. We are taught that to possess is to be happy, and then we are made to want. We are even told it is our duty to want. It was only a few years ago, to cite a single example, that car dealers across the country were flying banners that read "You Auto Buy Now." They were calling upon Americans, as an act approaching patriotism, to buy at once, with money they did not have, automobiles they did not really need, and which they would be required to grow tired of by the time the next year’s models were released.

同时，美国的商业主义却又殚精竟虑故意使我们得不到幸福。广告是我们的支柱产业之一，其存在不是为了满足欲望。而是为了制造欲望——其制造速度之快，使我们的腰包应接不暇。就此而言，我们的整个经济是基于一种无法自拔的贪求无厌。我们受到的教育是“占有却为幸福”，然后我们就被迫产生贪欲。我们甚至被告知欲望是我们的义务。引用一个简单的例子为证：仅仅几年前，全国的汽车销售商还打着“你应该立即购买汽车”的横幅。他们号召美国人民：作为一种爱国主义行为，他们应该立即按揭购买他们并不真正需要的汽车，并且在次年新款汽车发布后他们会对原来这些汽车心生厌倦。

Or look at any of the women’s magazines. There, as Bernard De Voto once pointed out, advertising begins as poetry in the front pages and ends as pharmacopoeia and therapy in the back pages. The poetry of the front matter is the dream of perfect beauty. This is the baby skin that must be hers. These, the flawless teeth. This, the perfumed breath she must exhale. This, the

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