english2008
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第19届韩素英翻译汉译英的评论
今年的韩素音揭晓得比较早（9月29日）。本人在连续2年获奖后，今年不幸落榜。现在，我最想看的就是专家评委提供的参考译文。今年还有一等奖，应该错不了吧？！希望大家畅谈今年的韩素音翻译。
不过，现在参考译文还没出来，不过我把自己为获奖但煞费苦心的拙作贴出来，抛砖引玉。
大家畅谈今年的韩素音翻译、
Beyond Righteousness and Gains
“The noble person understands righteousness; the mean person knows nothing but personal gains.”[1] The Chinese people’s philosophy of life often goes around the two words: righteousness and gains. However, what if I were neither noble nor mean?
There was supposed to be a time when everyone was thought to be a noble person and spoke of nothing but righteousness. At that time, perhaps true noble people lived and placed righteousness above personal gains, but more commonly encountered were false noble people who pursued personal gains on the pretext of righteousness, and pedantic noble people who dogmatically believed in righteousness and inflexibly followed it. But that time is now long gone. Soon the moral degeneration of the world changed: the faith in righteousness collapsed; true noble people disappeared; false noble ones revealed their true colors; pedantic noble ones were fully awakened—they all fled after personal gains, like a swarm of bees. It was said that people changed their views on righteousness and gains, resulting in a new interpretation on both: Gains should not have been the special domain for mean people; instead, it should be proper and right for everyone.
“Time is money!” is a popular present-day slogan that has now been adopted by businessmen to urge themselves to greater productivity. There is nothing basically wrong with that. But, if other people adopted it as the guiding principle for their life, replacing human wisdom with commercialism, they would turn their life consequently into a kind of business, and interpersonal relationships, a market.
I used to jeer at human touch as cheap. Today, even human touch has become expensive and rare. Could you get a smile, a greeting and a little compassion for free, I wonder?
However, I don’t mean to be nostalgic. In fact, it is of no help trying to cure current maladies and morals by means of different sorts of preaching righteousness. Beyond righteousness and gains, there exists another attitude towards life, and beyond noble people and mean ones, another character. Imitating Confucius’ way of putting it, we might well say, “the noblest of the noble understands human touch”.
Righteousness and gains seem opposite in appearance, but are the same in essence. “Righteousness” demands people to dedicate themselves in abstract terms to society; “gains” drives people to immerse themselves in material gains. Both neglect the human soul and cover up the true inner “self”. “Righteousness” teaches us devotion, while “gains” lures us towards possession. The former turns people’s life into a fulfillment of obligation, while the latter into a struggle for power and gains, with few people aware that the real value of one’s life is beyond obligation and power. Both righteousness and gains involve calculation; therefore, whether it is the force of justice putting down the traitorous, or the desire for gaining controls over heaven and earth, interpersonal relationships are always strained.
If “righteousness” represents an ethical attitude towards life, and “gains” represents a utilitarian one, then the “human touch” I mentioned represents an aesthetic attitude. It advocates acting according to one’s will, but tempering it with moderation. Everyone should maintain their genuine feelings. You are neither your creed nor your possession. What you are lies in your true self. Life’s value does not rest with dedication or possession, but creation, which is an active development of your genuine feelings and emotional satisfaction when you achieve its natural power. Unlike dedication, which is only to fulfill your outer responsibility, creation is to realize your true self. As for creation and possession, their differences are clear at a glance. Take writing as an example. Possession stresses fame, wealth and status that one’s works bring, while creation only emphasizes the pleasure derived from the process of creation. A person full of his genuine feelings only hopes to exchange true feelings with others and would only appreciate the aesthetic value of art and other objects. It is more commendable that in such a time when most people are busy pursing gains and under the pressure of gains, they treat others and conduct themselves in a leisurely and comfortable mood. By that, I do not mean the ancient Chinese scholar-officials’ carefree mood or small peasants’ contentment and conservatism, but a kind of feeling, by which one does not seek profit and cannot be belabored by trivial matters. Take writing as an example again. I cannot think of any reason why one must produce enough works that can be piled as high as his person. To leave one’s fame through the ages, a short poem is enough. If you have no such desire, living to your own contentment is good enough. After all, writing is just a manifestation of living to your heart’s desire.
Bernard Shaw said, “There are two tragedies in life. One is to lose your heart’s desire; the other is to gain it.” At first, I agreed wholeheartedly and I also admired him for being able to express such miserable lot of human life in such a carefree and witty manner. But having ruminated it over, I find the perspective of his words still anchors on possession, and therefore the result of double tragedies caused by both the failure to fulfil the desire for possessions, and boredom after gaining them. If the perspective is shifted to creativity, we might be able to have the contrary view from an aesthetic perspective: There are two sorts of delights in life: One is to have failed to get what your heart desires, and to go about pursuing and creating it; the other is to have got what you desired the most, and to savour and experience it. Surely, pains in life can never be eliminated. Those who value feelings more than material gains can appreciate the miseries and sorrows, while those who are pursuing gains never dream of those. However, if extricating oneself from the desire for possession, at least one would be free from many trivial vexations and pains, and live with magnanimity. I have no intention of putting forward aesthetics as the panacea for the world’s problems, but only to express a belief: beyond righteousness and personal gains, there is another way of living that is worthwhile. This faith, I hope, will sustain me, for better or for worse, through the years to come.
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