時事新聞:大城市,拼搏者的天下?
It may be the defining London sight: people walking up escalators at Tube stations. In this city only tourists stand goggling blankly into space. That's because London — like Manhattan, Hong Kong and other great cities — has fallen into the hands of strivers. They are driving everyone else out of town.
這也許算是倫敦的標誌性景象：人們沿着地鐵站的自動扶梯向上爬。在這個城市，只有遊客纔會傻站着發呆。這是因爲倫敦和曼哈頓、香港以及其他大城市一樣，已經成爲拼搏者的天下。他們正把所有其他人趕出城中心。
Philosophers and pop psychologists spent centuries trying to explain humankind, but only in 1996 did the South African novelist Jo-Anne Richards and I finally identify the three basic human types: strivers, slackers and fantasists.
哲學家和大衆心理學家花費了數百年時間，試圖理解人類，但直到1996年，南非小說家約-安妮•理查茲(Jo-Anne Richards)和我才終於確定，人類有三種基本類型：拼搏者、遊手好閒者和幻想者。
Strivers are restless overachievers who walk up escalators. Their habitats include the City of London and Davos. Almost all political leaders are strivers, except ones who inherited their position, such as George W. Bush. As Richards explains in a now-dead book proposal: "Strivers start companies, build skyscrapers and finish marathons. But not all strivers Rule the world. They also make the trains run on time, and organise charities." A working-class female striver might become a head nurse. If the job market sidelines women altogether, she will strive vicariously, through her children. "Strivers," writes Richards, "have the energy and discipline to make other people's dreams come true." Strivers make every minute count, and devote their leisure-time to self-improvement. Their drugs of choice are accelerators: coffee and cocaine.
拼搏者是那些沿着自動扶梯向上爬的、不知疲倦的“過分上進者”。他們的聚集地包括倫敦金融城(City of London)和達沃斯。幾乎所有的政治領導人都是拼搏者，除了那些靠繼承得到職位的人，比如喬治•W•布什(George W. Bush)。正如理查茲在一份已被否決的圖書計劃中所寫的：“拼搏者創立公司、修建摩天大樓、跑完馬拉松。但並不是所有的拼搏者都在統治世界。他們也保證列車準點和組織慈善活動。”一名工人階級的女拼搏者可能成爲護士長。如果就業市場徹底排除女性，她會通過她的子女間接地拼搏。“拼搏者，”理查茲寫道，“擁有使其他人夢想成真的活力和自制力。”拼搏者使每一分鐘都過得充實，並把他們的閒暇時光都用來完善自己。他們最喜歡的是興奮劑：咖啡和可卡因。
By contrast, slackers do nothing. "They prefer to avoid effort rather than pursue pleasure," writes Richards. "This in itself can be exhausting." It's hard to name any well-known slackers, because by definition slackers rarely become famous, except by accident. Sometimes a slacker will get an idea for a novel or for creating world peace, but then she sinks back into the sofa and the moment passes. Whereas business newspapers celebrate strivers, slacker newspapers celebrate lottery winners. Andrew Lamprecht, in his seminal article on slackers, writes that although they have "no idea what they want from life" they often compensate with "a catholic knowledge of television".
相比之下，遊手好閒者什麼也不做。“他們更喜歡逃避勞動，而不是追求幸福，”理查茲寫道。“這本身就可能使人精疲力盡。”人們很難說出有名的遊手好閒者，因爲從定義上講，遊手好閒者很難出名，除非是意外情況。有時，遊手好閒者也會迸發出寫小說或締造世界和平的靈感，但隨即她又會窩到沙發裏，時光就這樣虛度。儘管財經報紙在不停地讚美拼搏者，休閒報紙卻爲彩票中獎者大唱讚歌。安德魯•蘭普雷克特(Andrew Lamprecht)在他那篇影響巨大的關於遊手好閒者的文章中寫道，儘管他們“不知道想從生活中得到什麼”，但他們卻經常以“從電視中獲得的廣博的知識面”作爲彌補。
If slackers devote their leisure time to anything, it's extended adolescent hobbies such as surfing or collecting comics. Their drugs of choice are anaesthetics: vodka or cigarettes.
如果遊手好閒者把閒暇時光用來做些什麼的話，那一定是青春期愛好的延續，比如網上衝浪或收集漫畫。他們最喜歡的是麻醉劑：伏特加或香菸。
The third human type, the fantasist, lives inside his imagination. Fantasists have little desire to impose themselves on the world. A fantasist might spend years writing a short story, then discard it. Fantasists are never efficient and always miss deadlines. They are suckers for new age fads such as crystals. They do create a lot of art, which strivers buy. Fantasist drugs of choice stimulate fantasy: marijuana or ecstasy. When people are presented with the three human archetypes, most claim to be fantasists.
第三類人是幻想者，他們活在自己的想象裏。幻想者對於投身現實世界沒什麼興趣。他們可能花費數年的時間寫一篇短篇小說，然後丟到一旁。幻想者從來沒有效率，總是錯過最後期限。他們很容易對水晶這類新世紀的時尚着迷。他們確實創造了許多藝術作品，被拼搏者購買。幻想者最喜愛的是能刺激幻想的東西：大麻或搖頭丸。當人們面對這三種類型時，大部分人都自稱是幻想者。
In truth, real people are usually a mix of the three archetypes. For instance, successful artists such as Steven Spielberg or Damien Hirst are generally striver-fantasists. However, most people tend towards one particular type: for instance, someone might be slacker-dominant, with fantasist streaks.
實際上，真實的人通常是三者的結合。例如，像史蒂文•斯皮爾伯格(Steven Spielberg)和達米安•赫斯特(Damien Hirst)這樣的成功藝術家，通常是拼搏型幻想家。不過，大部分人都偏向一種類型，比如，一個人可能主要是遊手好閒者，同時具有一些幻想者的特點。
Naturally the three types irritate each other. A fantasist friend once told me an idea he had for a book. Being a striver, I began to strategise about finding a publisher. The more I talked, the less enthusiastic my friend became. Eventually, he changed the subject. He never intended to write the book. He just liked imagining it.
自然，這三類人互相不適應。一位幻想型朋友曾經告訴我，他想寫一本書。作爲拼搏者，我開始籌劃尋找出版商。我說得越多，我的朋友越沒有熱情。最終，他改變了想法。他再也不想寫這本書了。他只是喜歡幻想它。
We strivers are even more at odds with slackers. Our force fields clash with theirs: our very presence makes them stressed, as if we were human deadlines. You see this clash in politics, where striver rulers are always exhorting slacker populations to pull their socks up: in Nicolas Sarkozy's formulation: "Work harder to earn more." Rulers hate the notion that someone somewhere might be slacking. Soviet leaders were forever promoting brick-laying contests or rationing vodka, unaware that they were fighting human nature. But slackers rarely revolt against striver rule. Instead, they dream up conspiracy theories.
我們拼搏者與遊手好閒者要更加格格不入。我們與他們氣場不合：我們的存在使他們感到壓力，彷彿我們就是人性的終結者。你可以在政治中看到這種衝突，拼搏型統治者總是在勸誡遊手好閒型的民衆更加努力地工作，用尼古拉•薩科齊(Nicolas Sarkozy)的話說就是，“更努力地工作，賺更多的錢”。一想到有某人在某處遊手好閒，統治者就會不高興。蘇聯領導人從來都在提倡砌磚比賽或定量配給伏特加，而對自己是在與人性爲敵毫無知覺。但遊手好閒者很少會反抗拼搏者的統治。相反，他們會幻想陰謀論。
No wonder the three archetypes have tended to segregate themselves. In big cities, strivers gravitate to financial districts, whereas fantasists establish enclaves such as Greenwich Village in 1950s New York or Belleville in today's Paris. When strivers discover these enclaves and drive up prices, fantasists create more distant enclaves. Slackers generally avoid big cities, often preferring the parental home, writes Richards.
無怪乎這三類人會傾向於互相隔離。在大城市中，拼搏者向金融區聚集，幻想者則建立起像20世紀50年代紐約的格林威治村(Greenwich Village)和當今巴黎貝爾維爾(Belleville)這樣的小天地。當拼搏者發現這些小天地，並推高物價後，幻想者就會在更偏遠的地方建立小天地。理查茲寫道，遊手好閒者通常會避開大城市，更偏愛父母的家鄉。
In the US, with its great geographic mobility, the separation of the three types was always marked. Strivers headed for Manhattan and Washington, whereas slackers preferred places such as Miami. You sense each city's dominant mode the minute you arrive: at JFK airport in New York, the lady running the cab rank bellows, "Move it along, people! You, sir, take this cab." She's on her way up. At Miami airport, you can't even find cabs.
在美國，由於地理上的巨大流動性，這三類人的分離一直十分明顯。拼搏者向曼哈頓和華盛頓聚集，遊手好閒者則偏愛邁阿密這樣的地方。抵達每座城市的第一分鐘，你就能感覺出它的主導類型：在紐約肯尼迪機場(JFK airport)，管理出租車站的女士喊着，“排隊向前走，大家！你，先生，上這輛車”。她在她的拼搏路上。在邁阿密機場，你甚至找不到出租車。
However, segregation of the three human types is now proceeding faster than ever before. Rising house prices and growing inequality are driving non-strivers out of big cities, and even out of previously fantasist coastal towns such as Cape Town and San Francisco. Slackers and fantasists must be upset, but unless you read blogs their voices go unheard, and they certainly won't do anything about it.
然而，現在這三類人的分離比以往任何時候都更快了。攀升的房屋價格和日益拉大的貧富分化正把非拼搏者趕出大城市，甚至趕出開普敦和舊金山這些曾經屬於幻想者的海濱城市。遊手好閒者和幻想者一定滿腹怨言，但除非你閱讀他們的博客，否則他們的聲音不會有人聽到，而他們自己顯然不會對此採取任何行動。
譯者:方舟
