Meanwhile the axioms of politics held that, granted the existence of an enemy, real or imaginary, any dissension or falling out of line could be regarded as weakening the state, and hence a form of treachery.
同时,政治原理认为,当国家面临敌人时,无论是真实的还是假想的敌人,这种纠缠行为的存在,都是对政府控制力的一种削弱,所以这种行为相当于叛国。
And it was commonly suggested that a man who could do that thing, the worst thing in the world, was capable of anything. He had lost all mental control. He might love the enemy.
此外,还有一种说法广为流传:如果一个人,连同性恋这种事情都能做出来,那他就没有什么坏事做不出来,他彻底丧失了自制力,随时都有可能投奔敌人。
For all these reasons there was life in the ancient myth, or mythette, of the homosexual traitor.
在很多古代传说中,都有同性恋叛徒的角色。
True to its modern approach, grounded in management and the social sciences, the Senate report of 1950 had avoided these potent and persistent archetypes, and had concentrated upon the more reassuring picture of gay men as feeble, helpless victims of blackmail.
令人欣慰的是,美国参议院在1950年的报告中,回避了这些激烈的偏见。他们还是基于管理学和社会学的观点,将同性恋者视为一种弱势群体,这个群体随时面临着被勒索的危险。
It was according to this rationale that after 1950, employees identified as homosexuals were ejected from American government departments?
这样的温和说法,颇令人感到欣慰,但其导致的结果,仍然是很强硬的:从这一年起,美国所有政府部门拒绝雇用同性恋者注。
Scientific language had not, however, entirely exorcised the older ideas, and the fear, amounting to panic, that now surrounded the subject could better be explained by the notion of a invisible cancer in society, transforming an obedient population into unknown, uncontrollable, un-American quantities, than by purely rational appraisals of possible compromise through blackmail.
另外,科学的观点并不能完全消除旧成见,反而把原本秘而不宣的担忧,变成了一种全民的恐慌。人们公开地认为,同性恋是社会的毒瘤,这些人都是怪异的、不受控的、不具有美国精神的人。