评论
打印
It is an impressive list—even if you factor in some formidably depressing data...
这是一份令人印象深刻的清单——即便你把一些极其令人沮丧的数据考虑在内……
The trouble is that a belief in progress is more than a branch of accounting.
问题在于，对进步的判断比会计学的一门分支要复杂得多。
The books are never closed.
这本账册永不结算。
Wouldn't nuclear war or environmental catastrophe tip the balance into the red? And the accounts are full of blank columns.
一场核战争或环境灾难不就会使其陷入赤字的境地么？而且这本账册里满是空白的项目。
How does the unknown bookkeeper reconcile such unknowable quantities as happiness and fulfillment across the ages?
那位未知的会计师怎样才能核算账册里横亘古今的诸如幸福和成就这类无法计量的东西呢？
Even if you show how miserable the past was, the belief in progress is about the future.
即使你能表明过去有多么悲惨，对进步的评判关注的是未来。
People born in the rich world today think they are due a modicum of health, prosperity and equality.
当今出生在富裕国家里的人们认为他们理应得到一定的健康、繁荣和平等。
They advance against that standard, rather than the pestilence, beggary and injustice of serfdom.
他们按照这个标准发展，而不是将对抗瘟疫、贫困和农奴制的不公定为发展的方向。
That's progress.
这就是进步。
The idea of progress has a long history, but it started to flower in the 17th century.
进步这个概念存在已久，但直到17世纪它才开始成熟起来。
Enlightenment thinkers believed that man emancipated by reason would rise to ever greater heights of achievement.
启蒙思想家们相信，被理性所解放的人能创造空前的成就。
The many manifestations of his humanity would be the engines of progress:
而人类的很多特征将成为人类进步的动力：
language, community, science, commerce, moral sensibility and government.
语言、社会群体、科学、商业、道德观念和政府。
Unfortunately, many of those engines have failed.
可惜的是，在这些动力中，许多已经失效了。
