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【中圖分类号】I046
我的读者中无论男女如果有渴望成为他们那一代人中的思想领袖，我希望他们要避免我年轻时想得到他人的良好建议而曾犯过的一些错误。曾经，当我希望对一主题形成意见时，我往往先研究，权衡对立双方的观点，然后试图得出中庸的结论。逐渐地我意识到这并不是处理问题的方法。有非凡才能的人不需研究就了解这一切；他的观点不容置疑，无需与人争辩，完全靠文学上华丽的辞藻使人信服。思想上的片面是必要的，因为这有利于激烈情绪的产生，而这也是力量的证明。必须在某种避讳的伦理的名义下去关注人们开始觉得难为情的偏见和激情。我们最好去谴责那些为求得结论而必须寻求证据的迟钝而吹毛求疵的人。最重要的是，任何年代最久远的东西都应该以最时新的面貌呈现。
非凡才能的秘诀并无新颖之处；我们祖父那一代卡莱尔使用过，我们父辈那一代尼采实践过，而在我们这一代，劳伦斯一直践行着这一秘诀。劳伦斯的追随者们认为其详尽地阐述了男女关系中各种人们所不了解的实情；而事实上，劳伦斯却重新提倡会使人联想到的史前石器时代穴居人时期的男性支配权。在他的思想体系里，女性只不过是作为男主人劳作归来供以倚靠休憩的柔软且丰腴的活物存在罢了。文明社会在对待女人的问题上一直在向他学习，甚至有过之而无不及；可劳伦斯的思想并没有任何文明之处。他在全世界搜寻古老而阴暗的东西，钟情于墨西哥阿兹特克人留下的体现其残酷的遗迹。那些曾经一直把劳伦斯作为行事榜样的年轻人们自然会津津有味地阅读他的作品，而且只要文明社会的习俗允许，他们便四处实践穴居人的那套生活理念。
要成为有非凡才能的人，其成功道路上最重要的因素之一是要学会斥责的艺术。你在斥责时总是要让你的读者认为是别人在受斥责而不是他在受斥责；这样的话，他就将你这种高雅的训斥铭记于心。然而，如果他认为你正在斥责的是他，他就会认为你是缺乏教养而大发牢骚。卡莱尔曾说过：“英国人口有两千万，大部分都是傻瓜。”每个看到这句话的人都认为自己是个例外，因此很享受这句话。你不能斥责界限很分明的各类人，例如高过一定收入水平的人，住在某个区域的人，或者信仰某一明确信条的人；因为如果你这样做的话，一些读者就知道你是针对他们在恶言谩骂。你要斥责那些情感退化的人，斥责那些只有通过单调乏味的研究才能看到真理的人，因为我们都知道这些人就是那些该受斥责的人，这样一来，我们就会极富同情地观察你对这个时代邪恶的深刻批判。
不要管事实和理性，完全生活在自己妙不可言的、充满神话的激情世界里；如果你全心全意、满怀信念地这样做，你就会成为你那个时代的先知。
附原文： How to Become a Man of Genius
(1932)
If there are among my readers any young men or women who aspire to become leaders of thought in their generation, I hope they will avoid certain errors into which I feel in youth for want of good advice. When I wished to form an opinion upon a subject, I used to study it, weigh the arguments on different sides, and attempt to reach a balanced conclusion. I have since discovered that this is not the way to do things. A man of genius knows it all without the need of study; his opinions are pontifical and depend for their persuasiveness upon literary style rather than argument. It is necessary to be one-sided, since this facilitates the vehemence that is considered a proof of strength. It is essential to appeal to prejudices and passions of which men have begun to feel ashamed and to do this in the name of some new ineffable ethic. It is well to decry the slow and pettifogging minds which require evidence in order to reach conclusions. Above all, whatever is most ancient should be dished up as the very latest thing.
There is no novelty in this recipe for genius; it was practised by Carlyle in the time of our grandfathers, and by Nietzsche in the time of our fathers, and it has been practised in our own time by D. H. Lawrence. Lawrence is considered by his disciples to have enunciated all sorts of new wisdom about the relations of men and women; in actual fact he has gone back to advocating the domination of the male which one associates with the cave dwellers. Woman exists, in his philosophy, only as something soft and fat to rest the hero when he returns from his labours. Civilised societies have been learning to see something more than this in women; Lawrence will have nothing of civilisation. He scours the world for what is ancient and dark and loves the traces of Aztec cruelty in Mexico. Young men, who had been learning to behave, naturally read him with delight and go round practising cave-man stuff so far as the usages of polite society will permit. One of the most important elements of success in becoming a man of genius is to learn the art of denunciation. You must always denounce in such a way that your reader thinks that it is the other fellow who is being denounced and not himself; in that case he will be impressed by your noble scorn, whereas if he thinks that it is himself that you are denouncing, he will consider that you are guilty of ill-bred peevishness. Carlyle remarked: ``The population of England is twenty millions, mostly fools.' Everybody who read this considered himself one of the exceptions, and therefore enjoyed the remark. You must not denounce well-defined classes, such as persons with more than a certain income, inhabitants of a certain area, or believers in some definite creed; for if you do this, some readers will know that your invective is directed against them. You must denounce persons whose emotions are atrophied, persons to whom only plodding study can reveal the truth, for we all know that these are other people, and we shall therefore view with sympathy your powerful diagnosis of the evils of the age.
Ignore fact and reason, live entirely in the world of your own fantastic and myth-producing passions; do this whole-heartedly and with conviction, and you will become one of the prophets of your age.
我的读者中无论男女如果有渴望成为他们那一代人中的思想领袖，我希望他们要避免我年轻时想得到他人的良好建议而曾犯过的一些错误。曾经，当我希望对一主题形成意见时，我往往先研究，权衡对立双方的观点，然后试图得出中庸的结论。逐渐地我意识到这并不是处理问题的方法。有非凡才能的人不需研究就了解这一切；他的观点不容置疑，无需与人争辩，完全靠文学上华丽的辞藻使人信服。思想上的片面是必要的，因为这有利于激烈情绪的产生，而这也是力量的证明。必须在某种避讳的伦理的名义下去关注人们开始觉得难为情的偏见和激情。我们最好去谴责那些为求得结论而必须寻求证据的迟钝而吹毛求疵的人。最重要的是，任何年代最久远的东西都应该以最时新的面貌呈现。
非凡才能的秘诀并无新颖之处；我们祖父那一代卡莱尔使用过，我们父辈那一代尼采实践过，而在我们这一代，劳伦斯一直践行着这一秘诀。劳伦斯的追随者们认为其详尽地阐述了男女关系中各种人们所不了解的实情；而事实上，劳伦斯却重新提倡会使人联想到的史前石器时代穴居人时期的男性支配权。在他的思想体系里，女性只不过是作为男主人劳作归来供以倚靠休憩的柔软且丰腴的活物存在罢了。文明社会在对待女人的问题上一直在向他学习，甚至有过之而无不及；可劳伦斯的思想并没有任何文明之处。他在全世界搜寻古老而阴暗的东西，钟情于墨西哥阿兹特克人留下的体现其残酷的遗迹。那些曾经一直把劳伦斯作为行事榜样的年轻人们自然会津津有味地阅读他的作品，而且只要文明社会的习俗允许，他们便四处实践穴居人的那套生活理念。
要成为有非凡才能的人，其成功道路上最重要的因素之一是要学会斥责的艺术。你在斥责时总是要让你的读者认为是别人在受斥责而不是他在受斥责；这样的话，他就将你这种高雅的训斥铭记于心。然而，如果他认为你正在斥责的是他，他就会认为你是缺乏教养而大发牢骚。卡莱尔曾说过：“英国人口有两千万，大部分都是傻瓜。”每个看到这句话的人都认为自己是个例外，因此很享受这句话。你不能斥责界限很分明的各类人，例如高过一定收入水平的人，住在某个区域的人，或者信仰某一明确信条的人；因为如果你这样做的话，一些读者就知道你是针对他们在恶言谩骂。你要斥责那些情感退化的人，斥责那些只有通过单调乏味的研究才能看到真理的人，因为我们都知道这些人就是那些该受斥责的人，这样一来，我们就会极富同情地观察你对这个时代邪恶的深刻批判。
不要管事实和理性，完全生活在自己妙不可言的、充满神话的激情世界里；如果你全心全意、满怀信念地这样做，你就会成为你那个时代的先知。
附原文： How to Become a Man of Genius
(1932)
If there are among my readers any young men or women who aspire to become leaders of thought in their generation, I hope they will avoid certain errors into which I feel in youth for want of good advice. When I wished to form an opinion upon a subject, I used to study it, weigh the arguments on different sides, and attempt to reach a balanced conclusion. I have since discovered that this is not the way to do things. A man of genius knows it all without the need of study; his opinions are pontifical and depend for their persuasiveness upon literary style rather than argument. It is necessary to be one-sided, since this facilitates the vehemence that is considered a proof of strength. It is essential to appeal to prejudices and passions of which men have begun to feel ashamed and to do this in the name of some new ineffable ethic. It is well to decry the slow and pettifogging minds which require evidence in order to reach conclusions. Above all, whatever is most ancient should be dished up as the very latest thing.
There is no novelty in this recipe for genius; it was practised by Carlyle in the time of our grandfathers, and by Nietzsche in the time of our fathers, and it has been practised in our own time by D. H. Lawrence. Lawrence is considered by his disciples to have enunciated all sorts of new wisdom about the relations of men and women; in actual fact he has gone back to advocating the domination of the male which one associates with the cave dwellers. Woman exists, in his philosophy, only as something soft and fat to rest the hero when he returns from his labours. Civilised societies have been learning to see something more than this in women; Lawrence will have nothing of civilisation. He scours the world for what is ancient and dark and loves the traces of Aztec cruelty in Mexico. Young men, who had been learning to behave, naturally read him with delight and go round practising cave-man stuff so far as the usages of polite society will permit. One of the most important elements of success in becoming a man of genius is to learn the art of denunciation. You must always denounce in such a way that your reader thinks that it is the other fellow who is being denounced and not himself; in that case he will be impressed by your noble scorn, whereas if he thinks that it is himself that you are denouncing, he will consider that you are guilty of ill-bred peevishness. Carlyle remarked: ``The population of England is twenty millions, mostly fools.' Everybody who read this considered himself one of the exceptions, and therefore enjoyed the remark. You must not denounce well-defined classes, such as persons with more than a certain income, inhabitants of a certain area, or believers in some definite creed; for if you do this, some readers will know that your invective is directed against them. You must denounce persons whose emotions are atrophied, persons to whom only plodding study can reveal the truth, for we all know that these are other people, and we shall therefore view with sympathy your powerful diagnosis of the evils of the age.
Ignore fact and reason, live entirely in the world of your own fantastic and myth-producing passions; do this whole-heartedly and with conviction, and you will become one of the prophets of your age.