人类的文明与历史 C.E.M.Joad
2009-07-28 10:15阅读：
人类的文明与历史
C.E.M.Joad
题记：
我们这一代人，上大学较早，但英语普通不是很好。前几天在书柜前随便翻翻，无意中看到当年上研究生时的一本英语阅读材料：English
through
reading。其第一篇课文给我的印象很深，当年英语并不太好的我曾多次读这篇课文。这篇课文不只是教我们学习英语，更主要的是教会我们理解人类的历史。今天外面下面，百无聊赖，遂把它译出来，帮助自己学习历史。
若哪位网友看到这篇文章的其它译文，请发给我地址，我也想从别人的译文中学习一下。
——龙城飞将
在历史上获得最多荣耀，最经常出现在历史教科书中的是那些征服者、将军以及士兵，真正推动人类文明发展的人却始终不被提及。我们不知道谁第一个医好受伤人的断腿，谁第一次用小船到深海远航，谁第一个发明了日历，谁第一次开垦农田，相反，我们只知道那些屠杀别人的人和摧毁人类文明的人。人们总是想到这些人，以致于在世界上大城市里最高的柱子上到处都可以看到这些征服者、将军和士兵的雕像。
大多数人相信最伟大的国家是那些打败了其它国家，并作为征服者统治它们的国家。在人类历史上，它们确实是这样的，但它们并不是创造人类文明。
动物只会打斗，野蛮人也是只会打斗，所以善于打斗就是与动物和野蛮人一样，这样做并不是创造人类文明。
进一步讲，如果某人能够很好地与别人相处，最终能驱使别人为他效命打斗，教会别人如何打斗更有效率，就是征服者和将军们所为，这也不是创造文明。
文明的人应当是能够找到某种方法平息人们之间的争议，而不是通过一方杀掉另一方很多人来证明杀人多的一方获胜。
在历史上，人们通过打斗来解决争端。打斗意味着杀戮。而且，不仅一方已经获胜，而且由于它这一方已经获胜，所以它这一方是正义的。杀戮意味着胜利，胜利又成为下一次战争的借口，这个借口就是：实力就是正义。
以上所述就是人类过去的历史。
在我们生活的时代曾发生过两次世界大战，几千万人被杀戮、被伤残。与此形成对照的是，今天的人们不再战争，不再互相残杀，彼此和平共处，共同走在大街上。这就是说，我们人类已经到了这样一个阶段，人们在日常生活中秩序井然，行为得体。
但是民族与国家之间却还没有学会这一点，仍然像野蛮人一样彼此不断地进行着战争。
我们不可能期望太高。人类的行程才刚刚开始。从进化论的观点看，人类还处于非常幼小的婴儿时代，几个月大的襁褓中的婴儿。科学家们指出，12亿年前地球上已经有了海蜇类生物，人类才产生100多万年，进入文明时代最多只有8000年。
这些数字有点难以把握，现在把这些数字按比例缩小来考量。假定把地球上出现生物的时间为100年，人类产生就只有1个月，进入文明时代只有7-8个小时。所以可以看到，人类只学习了极少的时间，还有更多的时间有待于人们去学习得更好一点。
假定人类进入文明时代只有7-8小时，我们可以估计一下它的未来。这就是说，从现在起到将来太阳变冷不能再使地球上的生命生存为止的这个阶段，大约是10万年。这就是说，人类现在仅仅处于它文明生活的开端，所以不能对它期望太高。
人类的过去是一部野兽般残忍的历史，一部持续战争杀戮、争斗伤害、以强凌弱、吞并征服的历史。我们不能指望今后这些“文明的人类”不再做这样的事情。我们所能希望的就是人类有时做一点野蛮征战之外的事情。
From The Story of Civilization
(A.D.Peter & Co.
1962)
转自：English through reading
Civilization and History
C.E.M.Joad
Most of
the people who appear most often and most gloriously in the history
books are great conquerors and generals and soldiers, whereas the
people who really helped civilization forward are often never
mentioned at all. We do not know who first set a broken leg, or
launched a seaworthy boat, or calculated the length of the year, or
manured a field; but we know all about the killers and destroyers.
People think a great deal of them, so much so that on all the
highest pillars in the great cities of the world you will find the
figure of a conqueror or a general or a soldier. And I think most
people believe that the greatest countries are those that have
beaten in battle the greatest number of other countries and ruled
over them as conquerors. It is just possible they are, but they are
not the most civilized. Animals fight; so do savages; hence to be
good at fighting is to be good in the way in which an animal or a
savage is good, but it is not to be civilized. Even being good at
getting other people to fight for you and telling them how to do it
most efficiently - this, after all, is what conquerors and generals
have done - is not being civilized. People fight to settle
quarrels. Fighting means killing, and civilized peoples ought to be
able to find some way of settling their disputes other than by
seeing which side can kill off the greater number of the other
side, and then saying that that side which has killed most has won.
And not only has won, but, because it has won, has been in the
right. For that is what going to war means; it means saying that
might is right.
That is
what the story of mankind has on the whole been like. Even our own
age has fought the two greatest wars in history, in which millions
of people were killed or mutilated. And while today it is true that
people do not fight and kill each other in the streets - while,
that is to say, we have got to the stage of keeping the rules and
behaving properly to each other in daily life - nations and
countries have not learnt to do this yet, and still behave like
savages.
But we
must not expect too much. After all, the race of men has only just
started. From the point of view of evolution, human beings are very
young children indeed, babies, in fact, of a few months old.
Scientists reckon that there has been life of some sort on the
earth in the form of jellyfish and that kind of creature for about
twelve hundred million years; but there have been men for only one
million years, and there have been civilized men for about eight
thousand years at the outside. These figures are difficult to
grasp; so let us scale them down. Suppose that we reckon the whole
past of living creatures on the earth as one hundred years; then
the whole past of man works out at about one month, and during that
month there have been civilizations for between seven and eight
hours. So you see there has been little time to learn in, but there
will be oceans of time in which to learn better. Taking man's
civilized past at about seven or eight hours, we may estimate his
future, that is to say, the whole period between now and when the
sun grows too cold to maintain life any longer on the earth, at
about one hundred thousand years. Thus mankind is only at the
beginning of its civilized life, and as I say, we must not expect
too much. The past of man has been on the whole a pretty beastly
business, a business of fighting and bullying and gorging and
grabbing and hurting. We must not expect even civilized peoples not
to have done these things. All we can ask is that they will
sometimes have done something else.
From The Story of Civilization by C. E. M. Joad (A.
D. Peters & Co. 1962)
