【首译】《威廉·詹姆斯的世界观》节选（下）

小编注:

《一位美国哲学家的死后日志——威廉·詹姆斯的世界观》是珍·罗伯茨通灵美国心理学之父威廉·詹姆斯的一部神作。有人说它是除赛斯书之外，珍最好的通灵作品。本书目前还没有中文译本，这里节选的部分内容是由赛斯爱好者欧阳女士首译，并在她自己的微信公众号（整合书）上连载发布，感兴趣的读者可以移步围观。

While democracy sprouted patriotic slogans about the ability of the individual to join in a self-governing society, then，Freudianism let the soul slip away, stripped of its powers. which were delegated to a mechanical reaction of instinctive drives that could be numbered and diagramed in a sort of muddy emotional shorthand. The soul disappeared,becoming instead a psychological chamber of horrors requiring the most expert of guides, for inside there were distorted mirrors that could show the unwary in a flash the grotesque basis for the greatest achievements and the sorriest failures.

民主制度催生了个体自我管理的爱国口号，之后，弗洛伊德的学说却让灵魂溜走，剥夺了它的力量，灵魂被认为是本能驱动的机械反应，能以某种模糊的情感速记进行编号图解。灵魂就此消失，取而代之的是需要最专业向导的恐惧心理空间，其中存在的扭曲之镜，放大地呈现了不经意之间人们荒诞地经历最辉煌成功与最悲惨失败的起伏。

Protestantism was based upon man's right to interpret truth for himself on an individual basis, thus directly challenging the authority of the Roman Catholic Church as the only agency capable of such discrimination; and upon an attempt to put the individual in a one-to-one relationship with God and the universe. In ways, this was a "paganistic” adventure, reviving ancient characteristics of religion that had been buried but not lost when, for example, shamanistic genius was used for the community or tribal good. Freud. however. took that Protestant right away：the individual was seen as incapable of knowing his own motives. much less able to interpret his own relationship with nature or the soul．Freudianism was．then．based upon the less fortunate of Protestantism's concepts. while stringing it of its heroic qualities.

新教的基础在于，它认为人们能够从个人角度为自己翻译理解真理，这无疑直接挑战了罗马天主教的唯一权威，罗马天主教显然歧视个体不具备这个能力，新教则尝试推行个体与神和宇宙的一对一连接关系。这无异于异教式的冒险，也是对于被埋藏但并未失落的古代原始宗教特性的复原，举例来说，有萨满天赋的人，只会为部落与社区的好处而服务。然而，弗洛伊德拿走了那样的新教核心，认为个体无法了解自己的动机，更不用说诠释与自然和灵魂的关系了。于是，新教中一些不那么幸运的概念，奠定了弗洛伊德理论的基础，但是却以一种夸张的特质被串联了起来。

In such framework, men could not take credit for their achievements or be held responsible for their blunders, and self-determination was sorely undermined. Such ideas clashed with all of demoracy's stated ideals, yet were held equally with them.

在这种框架下，人们被剥夺了选择和承担结果的对应关系机制，自我抉择被严重破坏，自己的错误不能也不用承担责任，而自己的成就也无法享受荣誉的喜悦。人们普遍性地持有这种信念，而这一切与民主宣扬的理想却完全冲突与矛盾。

Granted, a shallowness ruled. The good person wore decent clothes and modeled a cheerful countenance, but the democracy hoped to provide those opportunities by which the poverty-stricken could discover employment. In Freudianism，however, the poor could not help being poor, due to neurotic conditioning in infancy, their drives forever frozen, immobilized so that they were robbed, in theory at least, of the self-determination allowed to others--as women were; for all of their drives were assigned to a sexual envy of the male that they could not escape．

自然地，浅薄统治世界。好人总是穿着体面衣服，神情愉快。不过民主制度希望能够为贫困人群提供机会，让他们找到工作。然而在弗洛伊德理论下，穷人的贫穷似乎是不可避免的，由于他们在儿童期的神经质控制表现，他们好像也没有动力，失去了活力，于是至少在理论中，他们被剥夺了其他人拥有的自我决定权。因为女性被认为无可避免的对男性的性别嫉妒，她们也同样被剥夺了自我选择权。

Since no one could be trusted to know the motives for his own actions, and since the democracy was setting the individual free of strong governmental authority to a new degree, psychology set its own standards, providing the "norm,” flattening the peaks of experience while offering society the safety of more or less predictable behavior. In that framework, exuberance, energy, and creativity were acceptable when channeled into the competitive arena of national interests. The rich，for example, were absolved from "normal behavior" and allowed artistic or eccentric activity because their financial interests were considered such a practical investment in national life.

由于没人相信自己能够了解自己行为的动机，由于民主制度让人们从强权政府下释放出来到一个新的程度，心理学于是取而代之，设定了自己的标准，以此提供“准范”，通过或多或少有一定预测性行为，为社会提供了安全，但也让人类的体验被平均化式限制了。在这样的框架下，涉及到国家利益竞争领域时，繁荣/活力/创造性才是可接受的，举例来说，富人脱离了正常行为的限制，被允许进行艺术或古怪活动，因为他们用于进行这些活动的财富投入被视为对国民生活的一种实际投资。

The American saw himself as "blazing ahead.” His immediate ancestors had opened up the continent. Now the new frontier was technology or business, the management of the country's resources and the acquisition of wealth--and as little government control as possible. Robber barons rose in the guise of a good Protestant burgher. No longer did religion's fear of God's  retribution hold sway over men's minds--at least not strongly enough to urge caution; and psychology removed guilt or justified its sting. Guilt had little to do with basic values, therefore justifying crimes committed in the name of competition, since man was considered a confused mixture of primitive drives and needs; yet those drives had to be leashed and directed toward society's goals.

美国人视自己如同勇往直前的典型，是开拓北美大地的始祖，现在则寻求成为世界技术与商业前沿，国家资源管理和财富攫取的模范，同时尽可能少地不让集体政府参与，全赖个人自由。强盗男爵改头换面，以好教徒的名号出现。宗教中神的报应惩罚不能再影响人们，至少不够让人们谨慎行事，心理学则对罪恶感进行了抹除或质疑其正当性，由此基本价值观中看不到内疚的影子，以竞争为名而犯下的罪被视为正当，因为人类是原始冲动与需求的混合造物，需要以集体目标为导向通过竞争来释放这些原始冲动与需求。

Ideals always have to be considered in the light of their practicality. Freudianism and the bleaker aspects of Puritanism merged to give Americans a true inferiority complex on the one hand and, on the other, a compensating determination to succeed as a nation.

理想主义总是必须被考虑其实用性。弗洛伊德理论与清教灰暗的部分，两者融合到一起，一方面造成了美国人真正的自卑感，另一方面也成为补偿性的动力，铸就了美国国家的强大。

In all of this, contemplation of the soul had little place. Myers's theories concerning the subliminal self, after making early inroads, vanished from the mainstream of academic and philosophic life. That concept, stressing the interdependence of individual minds and the availability of superior inner knowledge, could have been used to augment democracy's basic principles to far greater advantage; stressing individuality while bolstering its responsibility and power of achievement, and emphasizing its relationship with interweaving natural and social arenas of activity.

至始至终，人们从未给予灵魂沉思任何立足之地。早期迈尔斯的潜意识自我理论取得突破后，很快就从学术和哲学主流中消失了。迈尔斯的概念强调个人独立心智及与更高内在知识的可能性，本可以用来让民主制度的基础更加完善，从而发挥更大的优势，这一概念也强调个人性，强调其个人性的责任感与成就性，侧重这两者在自然与社会活动中的交织关系。

To this end, I now speak my piece, for the attitudes that finally emerged in the mainstream of American life strongly affected the ways in which individuals viewed themselves and their creativity.

为此，我现在公开说出我的意见：美国主流生活最终暴露的这种矛盾倾向，强烈地影响了人们看待自己和他们的创造性的方式。

编译：欧阳     美编：