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打印7 The ad pointed out that, yes, it is the insurance companies that pay for stolen goods, but who is going to pay for what the new atmosphere of distrust and fear is doing to our way of life? Who is going to make the psychic payment for the transformation of America from the Land of the Free to the Land of the Lock?
廣告指出，沒錯，確是保險公司理賠失竊物品，但誰來賠償互不信任、擔心害怕這種新氛圍對我們的生活方式所造成的影響呢？誰來對美國從自由之國到鎖之國這一蛻變作出精神賠償呢？
8 For that is what has happened. We have become so used to defending ourselves against the new atmosphere of American life, so used to putting up barriers, that we have not had time to think about what it may mean.
因為那就是現狀。我們已經變得如此習慣于保護自己不受美國生活新氛圍的影響，如此習慣于設置障礙，因而無暇考慮這一切意味著什么。
9 For some reason we are satisfied when we think we are well-protected; it does not occur to us to ask ourselves: Why has this happened? Why are we having to barricade ourselves against our neighbors and fellow citizens, and when, exactly, did this start to take over our lives?
出于某種原因，當我們覺得防范周密時就感到心滿意足；我們沒有問過自己：為什么會出現這種情況？為什么非得把自己與鄰居和同住一城的居民相隔絕，這一切究竟是從什么時候開始主宰我們生活的？
10 And it has taken over. If you work for a medium- to large-size company, chances are that you don't just wander in and out of work. You probably carry some kind of access card, electronic or otherwise, that allows you in and out of your place of work. Maybe the security guard at the front desk knows your face and will wave you in most days, but the fact remains that the business you work for feels threatened enough to keep outsiders away via these "keys."
這一切確是主宰了我們的生活。如果你在一家大中型公司上班，你上下班很可能不好隨意進出。你可能隨身帶著某種出入卡，電子的或別的什么的，因為這卡能讓你進出工作場所。也許前臺的保安認識你這張臉，平日一揮手讓你進去，但事實明擺著，你所任職的公司深感面臨威脅，因此要借助這些“鑰匙”不讓外人靠近。
11 It wasn't always like this. Even a decade ago, most private businesses had a policy of free access. It simply didn't occur to managers that the proper thing to do was to distrust people.
這一現象并非向來有之。即使在十年前，大多數私營公司仍采取自由出入的做法。那時管理人員根本沒想到過恰當的手段是不信任他人。
12 Look at the airports. Parents used to take children out to departure gates to watch planes land and take off. That's all gone. Airports are no longer a place of education and fun; they are the most sophisticated of security sites.
且看各地機場。過去家長常常帶孩子去登機口看飛機起飛降落。這種事再也沒有了。機場不再是一個有趣的學習場所；它們成了擁有最精密的安全檢查系統的場所。
13 With electronic X-ray equipment, we seem finally to have figured out a way to hold the terrorists, real and imagined, at bay; it was such a relief to solve this problem that we did not think much about what such a state of affairs says about the quality of our lives. We now pass through these electronic friskers without so much as a sideways glance; the machines, and what they stand for, have won.
憑借著電子透視裝置，我們似乎終于想出妙計讓恐怖分子無法近身，無論是真的恐怖分子還是憑空臆想的。能解決這一問題真是如釋重負，于是我們不去多想這種狀況對我們的生活質量意味著什么。如今我們走過這些電子搜查器時已經看都不看一眼了，這些裝置，還有它們所代表的一切已經獲勝。
14 Our neighborhoods are bathed in high-intensity light; we do not want to afford ourselves even so much a luxury as a shadow.
我們的居住區處在強光源的照射下；我們連哪怕像陰影這樣小小的享受也不想給自己。
15 Businessmen, in increasing numbers, are purchasing new machines that hook up to the telephone and analyze a caller's voice. The machines are supposed to tell the businessman, with a small margin of error, whether his friend or client is telling lies.
越來越多的商人正購置連接在電話機上、能剖析來電者聲音的新機器。據說那種機器能讓商人知道他的朋友或客戶是否在撒謊，其出錯概率很小。
16 All this is being done in the name of "security"; that is what we tell ourselves. We are fearful, and so we devise ways to lock the fear out, and that, we decide, is what security means.
所有這一切都是以“安全”的名義實施的：我們是這么跟自己說的。我們害怕，于是我們設法把害怕鎖在外面，我們認定，那就是安全的意義。
17 But no; with all this "security," we are perhaps the most insecure nation in the history of civilized man. What better word to describe the way in which we have been forced to live? What sadder reflection on all that we have become in this new and puzzling time?
其實不然；我們雖然有了這一切安全措施，但我們或許是人類文明史上最不安全的國民。還有什么更好的字眼能用來描述我們被迫選擇的生活方式呢？還有什么更為可悲地表明我們在這個令人困惑的新時代所感受到的惶恐之情呢？
18 We trust no one. Suburban housewives wear rape whistles on their station wagon key chains. We have become so smart about self-protection that, in the end, we have all outsmarted ourselves. We may have locked the evils out, but in so doing we have locked ourselves in.
我們不信任任何人。郊區的家庭主婦在客貨兩用車鑰匙鏈上掛著防強暴口哨。我們在自我防衛方面變得如此聰明，最終聰明反被聰明誤。我們或許是把邪惡鎖在了門外，但在這么做的同時我們把自己鎖在里邊了。
19 That may be the legacy we remember best when we look back on this age: In dealing with the unseen horrors among us, we became prisoners of ourselves. All of us prisoners, in this time of our troubles.
那也許是我們將來回顧這一時代時記得最牢的精神遺產：在對付我們中間無形的恐懼之時，我們成了自己的囚徒。在我們這個問題重重的時代，所有的人都是囚徒。
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