歌词
Lesson 44
第44课
Patterns of culture
文化模式
What influences us from the moment of birth?
从出生之时起，就影响着我们的是什么？
Custom has not commonly been regarded as a subject of any great moment.
至今习俗仍未普遍地被看作一个重要的课题。
The inner workings of our own brains we feel to be uniquely worthy of investigation,
我们一般都有这样一种想法，认为只有我们自己大脑内部的活动才是值得研究的，
but custom, we have a way of thinking, is behaviour at its most commonplace.
而习俗只不过是最平常的行为。
As a matter of fact, it is the other way around.
可实际上的情形恰是相反。
Traditional custom, taken the world over, is a mass of detailed behaviour
世间流行的传统习俗就是大量的琐细行为，
more astonishing than what any one person can ever evolve in individual actions, no matter how aberrant.
这些行为比任何个人在个体行动中（无论他的行为有多么古怪）所能发展出的东西更令人惊讶。
Yet that is a rather trivial aspect of the matter.
然而，这仅仅是问题的无关紧要的一方面。
The fact of first-rate importance is the predominant role that custom plays in experience and in belief,
最为重要的是，习俗在经验和信仰（的形成）方面所起到的主导性作用，
and the very great varieties it may manifest.
以及它所表现出来的极其丰富多彩的形式。
No man ever looks at the world with pristine eyes.
谁也不会以一种质朴原始的眼光来看世界。
He sees it edited by a definite set of customs and institutions and ways of thinking.
他看世界时，总会受到特定的习俗、制度和思考方式的剪裁编排。
Even in his philosophical probings he cannot go behind these stereotypes;
即使在哲学探索中，人们也未能超越这些陈规旧习，
his very concepts of the true and the false will still have reference to his particular traditional customs.
他的是非观仍会被其特有的传统习俗左右。
John Dewey has said in all seriousness that the part played by custom in shaping the behaviour of the individual,
约翰·杜威曾以一种十分严肃的态度讲过，习俗在形成个人行为中所起的作用
as against any way in which he can affect traditional custom,
远超过了个人对传统习俗所能发生的任何影响，
is as the proportion of the total vocabulary of his mother tongue
这就像他的母语所含的全部词汇
against those words of his own baby talk that are taken up into the vernacular of his family.
远远超出了他的家族土语中所含的他儿时戏语的用词。
When one seriously studies the social orders that have had the opportunity to develop autonomously,
如果人们严谨地研究一下那些曾有幸自发地发展的社会秩序，
the figure becomes no more than an exact and matter-of -fact observation.
就会看到，这个比喻是基于精确而合乎事实的观察的说法，丝毫没有夸张。
The life history of the individual is first and foremost an accommodation
个体生活的历史中，首要的就是
to the patterns and standards traditionally handed down in his community.
对他所属的那个社群传统上手把手传下来的那些模式和准则的适应。
From the moment of his birth,
从出生之时起，
the customs into which he is born shape his experience and behaviour.
社群的习俗便开始塑造他的经验和行为。
By the time he can talk, he is the little creature of his culture,
到咿呀学语时，他已是所属文化塑造的小孩子了，
and by the time he is grown and able to take part in its activities,
而到他长大成人并能参加该文化的活动时，
its habits are his habits, its beliefs his beliefs, its impossibilities his impossibilities.
社群的习惯便已是他的习惯，社群的信仰便已是他的信仰，社群的戒律便已是他的戒律。
Every child that is born into his group will share them with him,
每个出生于他那个群体的儿童都将与他共享这个群体的那些习俗，
and no child born into one on the opposite side of the globe can ever achieve the thousandth part.
而出生在地球另一面的那些儿童则不会受到这些习俗的丝毫影响。
There is no social problem it is more incumbent upon us to understand than this of the role of custom.
理解习俗的这种作用对我们来说是责无旁贷的，没有其他哪个社会问题比它来得更为紧迫。
Until we are intelligent as to its laws and varieties,
在我们明了习俗的作用规律和多样性之前，
the main complicating facts of human life must remain unintelligible.
人类生活中那些最重要的复杂事实对我们来说都是不可理解的。
The study of custom can be profitable only after certain preliminary propositions have been accepted,
只有在某些最初的主张被接受了，
and some of these propositions have been violently opposed.
而某些遭到了强烈的反对之后，对习俗的研究才会有收获。
In the first place, any scientific study requires that there be no
首先，任何科学的研究都要求，
preferential weighting of one or another of the items in the series it selects for its consideration.
在这一学科所选择的来加以考虑的系列因素中绝不偏重这一项或那一项。
In all the less controversial fields,
在那些争议较少的领域，
like the study of cacti or termites or the nature of nebulae,
比如有关仙人掌、白蚁或星云本质的研究中，
the necessary method of study is to group the relevant material and to take note of all possible variant forms and conditions.
研究所必须具备的方法就是，先把相关的资料分类，然后考察一切可能的差异形式和条件。
In this way, we have learned all that we know of the laws of astronomy, or of the habits of the social insects, let us say.
例如，用这种方法，我们完全掌握了天文学的规律和昆虫群居的习性。
It is only in the study of man himself that the major social sciences
只有在关于人类自身的研究这一领域中，各主要的社会学科
have substituted the study of one local variation, that of Western civilization.
才用对一个局部地区的各种情况的研究（如对西方文明的研究）来代替对全人类的研究。
Anthropology was by definition impossible,
只要我们自己与原始人、我们自己与野蛮人、我们自己与异教徒之间的差别仍旧支配着我们的头脑，
as long as these distinctions between ourselves and the primitive,
（整句按中文习惯倒序翻译）
ourselves and the barbarian, ourselves and the pagan, held sway over people's minds.
人类学按其定义来说就无法存在。
It was necessary first to arrive at that degree of sophistication
我们确有必要首先修炼到这样一种成熟程度，
where we no longer set our own belief against our neighbour's superstition.
即我们不再认为自己的信仰比邻邦的迷信更加高明。
It was necessary to recognize that
我们必须认识到，
these institutions which are based on the same premises, let us say the supernatural,
对那些基于相同的前提的（可以说是超自然的）习俗，
must be considered together, our own among the rest.
必须要全部加以考察，而我们自己的习俗只是其中之一。
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