評論
打印
I now realize that it is naive to estimate the contents of people's hearts on the basis of their political affiliation, but the principle remains valid: if one is to lay any claim to character, he must live his convictions daily, reflexively, in a hundred tiny ways. "I stopped seeing a man because he was rude to waiters, " reported a woman of my acquaintance, and I understood perfectly. Someone without respect for waiters or salesclerks or business subordinates is unquestionably going to be found wanting on all the big issues.
我現在意識到基于人們的政治聯系去評估人們內心的想法是太幼稚了，但原則還是有效的：若想擁有品格，必須踐行自己的信念，每天出于本能地以100種細小的方式去踐行。“我跟一個男的分手了，因為他對侍者很粗魯，”我認識的一個女人說，而我完全理解。對侍者或銷售人員或商務下屬不懷尊重的人無疑在所有大問題上都會有所欠缺的。
But somehow it seems that fewer and fewer of us are able to manage it. Indeed, we seem to behave worse to one another today than we ever have before. There was a time when certain elementary rules of human intercourse were enforced in this society by popular assent. Just a generation or so ago, virtually no citizen over the age of sixty would ever have been obliged to stand on a crowded bus or subway. Today the public conveyances are full of elderly standees while kids and teenagers and lots of young men and women in designer jeans sit staring blankly ahead. We have, quite simply, become a society where lack of consideration is the norm, where it is entirely legitimate to give a damn only about oneself.
然而不知怎么的，我們有越來越少的人能夠做到這一點。實際上，我們現在對彼此的行為似乎要比以前糟糕。曾經有一段時間，一些人際交往的基本禮節因為公眾的輿論而在這個社會得以實行。也就是一代以前吧，基本上不會有60歲以上的公民會被迫站在擁擠的公共汽車或地鐵上。如今公共交通工具上滿是站著的老年人，而小孩、十幾歲的人，還有很多穿著名牌牛仔褲的青年男女坐著，眼睛茫然地盯著前方。說白了，缺乏關愛已經成為我們社會的常態。在這樣的社會里，只在乎自己是完全合理的。
