Why Merkel dreams in black and white?
In black and white: 白纸黑字，以书面的形式
为什么说安格拉·默克尔以白纸黑字的形式展开梦想叫做没有“德国梦”?
因为梦想毕竟不是现实，她事事落实到细节，用实际行动说话，就不能说有德国梦。文章标题确实以独到之处吸引人眼球。
Who is Angela Merkel?
German Chancellor Angela Merkel continues her reign as the most powerful woman on the planet for 10 years running. Why? She clinched a third four-year termof Europe's most vibrant economy in December 2014, making her the longest-serving elected EU head of state. She fought off a national recession during the global economic crisis with stimulus packages and government subsidies for companies that cut hours for workers, and she is in the thick of trying to help Greece revive its economy.
Even when she suddenly opened Germany’s borders to more than one million people last summer, she phrased this quixotic act in pragmatic language: “Wir schaffen das,” “We can do this.” Germany’s centre has largely held since, despite big advances for the anti-immigrant Alternative für Deutschland in last Sunday’s regional elections. Even amid the migrant crisis, most mainstream German politicians have remained boring pragmatists. Their aim: very slowly improve most people’s lives a little, while averting disaster.Quixotic actmeans impragmatic act.
Don Quixote：a paradox. He hankers for a new system and life while utilizing out-of-date chivalry； he looks forward to getting approved while keeps sneering and satirising at others；he wants to change the society by himself while showing impotence in face of many unfairness.
唐吉诃德:一个矛盾的结合体。他向往新的制度和生活，但是运用的是旧的骑士道；他渴望得到别人的认同，但是却总是挖苦和讥讽；他想通过自己的力量改变社会，但是却在许多的不平面前却无能为力。
That distinguishes Germany from other large countries. In the US, France and Russia, politics is couched in the language of dreams, greatness, heroes and utopia. There are pragmatic political cultures and utopian ones, and, oddly, it’s the pragmatists who get closer to utopia.
be couched in
看到couch我第一眼想到的就是名词长沙发
当动词（in）=express，以...形式表达
美国，法国和俄国的政治都是以梦想、伟大、英雄和乌托邦的形式表达。
It is... that... 强调句型,强调it is 和that 中间的人事物，很奇怪的是务实者才是最接近乌托邦的人，可这两类人明明是截然相反的。
Utopian politicians raise high expectations that they can only disappoint. Every American president campaigns as a great leader who will restore the American dream but then governs in prose. Pretty soon people start complaining that he hasn’t delivered the American dream, but of course he hasn’t: by definition, dreams are not reality.乌托邦主义的政治人士提出了很高的期望，但他们只会让人们失望。每个美国总统在竞选时都将自己宣扬为能够重建美国梦的伟大领袖，然而施政时还得回归现实。很快人们开始抱怨他没有兑现美国梦——但他当然没有：顾名思义，梦想不是现实。
in prose
Mario Cuomo Quote: “You campaign in poetry. You govern in prose.”
That means if the candidates campaign in poetry instead of good hard specifics, and win, they may wind up governing in vain.
Utopians rarely improve people’s lives a little. That’s partly because they are guided by hallowed old documents rather than by modern best practice. A daft old document such as the Communist Manifesto is particularly damaging but even a wise one such as the American constitution often misleads. For instance, the main reason the US has more than 30,000 gun deaths a year is the second amendment, adopted in 1791.The Communist Manifesto (originally Manifesto of the Communist Party) is an 1848 political pamphlet by German philosophers Karl MarxandFriedrich Engels. Commissioned by theCommunist Leagueand originally published in London just as the revolutions of 1848began to erupt, theManifestowas later recognised as one of the world's most influential political manuscripts. It presents an analytical approach to the class struggle(historical and then-present) and the problems of capitalism and the capitalist mode of production, rather than a prediction of communism's potential future forms.
For instance（1）for example一般只举同类人或物中的一个为例，作插入语，可置于句首、句中或句末。for example 和 for instance的区别很小。即使外国人也很难说清楚区别，通常看个人的喜好。但是在读书和日常交流的时候，会发现for instance更加书面话和学究话。在严谨的学术上用的更多些。
（2）such as一般用来列举同类人或物中的几个例子，插在被列举的例子和前面的名词之间，as后没有逗号。在使用such as时应注意后面列举事物的数量不能等于前面所提事物的总和，若相等时用namely或that is.
French politics, too, is packed withmisleading old verities. One — derived from the French Revolution— is that “the people” should always be mounting the barricades to thwart the government. .be packed with
其实很形象，pack可以表示动词包装，被...包装衍生过来可以译为被...塞满或充斥着...
derive from 起源于，来自
The French Revolution was a period of far-reaching social and political upheaval in Francethat lasted from 1789 until 1799, and was partially carried forward byNapoleonduring the later expansion of theFrench Empire. The Revolution overthrew the monarchy, established a republic, experienced violent periods of political turmoil, and finally culminated in a dictatorship under Napoleon that rapidly brought many of its principles to Western Europe and beyond.
Most utopians don’t even strive toimprove people’s lives. They aim forsomething greater. Russia annexed the Crimea to regain imperial greatness, and no matter that western sanctions then made Russian lives worse.strive to努力...，力图...
aim for 以...为目标，瞄准
衍生：aim at sth针对，瞄准
aim to do sth旨在做某事
annexe ['æneks]
n. 附属建筑；附加物
V. 附加；并吞（merge/ swallow up）
In Germany, by contrast, dreams of greatness have been taboo since 1945. The first postwar chancellor Konrad Adenauer campaigned under the slogan: “No Experiments”. A later successor, Helmut Schmidt, famously advised: “Anyone who has visions should go to the doctor.”by contrast
相比之下=in contrast (to)
联想到on the contrary相反地
Merkel got an additional anti-utopian inoculation: she spent her first 35 years in a failed utopia, East Germany. She rarely tells her own story, perhaps for fear of sounding inspirational, but she graduated from Karl Marx University in Leipzig, and later, for her physics PhD, had to write an additional “Marxist-Leninist” thesis. Her topic: the farmer-worker relationship in the farmer-worker state. She got a bad grade for overemphasising the farmers.for fear of
为了避免，唯恐
“Marxist-Leninist”
马克思列宁主义，学习哲学或党政的童鞋们有福了，我就记得自己高中被政治虐死，到了大学还要继续被马列主义毛泽东思想等等折磨。
Overemphasise=overemphasize 过分强调
构词法：over- = 过度...; 超过；越过
例如：over+act = overact 行动过火，夸张表演
over+ride =override 推翻
over+time =overtime 超时的，加班
Britain has shuffled towardsthis boring pragmatic tradition. Quietly and gradually, the country has dropped “Great” from its name. Even Brexit campaigners aren’t selling imperial dreams; instead, they depict a plucky little England signing trade deals alone. Luckily, the UK has an escape valvethat American politics lacks: all British fairytale fantasies can be projected on to the royals. That allows the prime minister to be just a functionary.
shuffle['ʃʌf(ə)l]
n. 洗牌，洗纸牌；混乱，蒙混；拖着脚走
v. 洗牌；推诿，推卸；拖曳，慢吞吞地走；搅乱
shuffle towards 朝着...慢慢地走
valve[vælv]
n. 阀；[解剖] 瓣膜；真空管；活门
vt. 装阀于；以活门调节
escape valve 可以用来逃脱的阀门=安全阀
functionary['fʌn(k)ʃ(ə)n(ə)rɪ]
n. 官员，公务员
adj. 官员的，公务员的；职务上的
可以联想：行使职责的人=公职人员
衍生function ['fʌŋ(k)ʃ(ə)n]
n. 功能；[数] 函数；职责；盛大的集会
vi. 运行；活动；行使职责
-ary是名词后缀，表示场所，从事.........的人或物；形容词后缀，属于......的，与......有关的，如：
diary (di[=day 日]+-ary 名词后缀，表示物→ 与每日事情有关的东西→ 日记) n. 日记；日记本
library (libr书+-ary名词后缀，表示场所→ 藏书、放书之处→ 图书馆) n. 图书馆；图书室
ordinary (ordin平常+-ary 形容词后缀, ......的) adj. 普通的；平常的
secretary (secret秘密+-ary 名词后缀，表示从事........人→ 为自己保管秘密文件的人→ 秘书) n. 秘书
But the pragmatists’ greatest achievement goes unseen: averting disaster.
go unseen: be neglected不为所见，被无视
go用作连系动词时，通常表示主语处于某种状态或由某种状态向另一种状态转变，后面多接形容词作其表语，此类形容词往往意义不佳，如：go hungry（挨饿），go thirsty（忍受口渴），go mad（发狂）等。这种“go+形容词”的结构在表达上实用而简明，现就其使用规律和意义归纳如下：1．常与有关颜色的形容词连用，大多表示情况变化的结果或程度。
2. 当某人或某物的情况变坏时（一般来说，这种变化是不可逆的或永久性的），也常用“go+形容词”来表示，即由正常情况变为不正常或特殊情况。如go bad可以表示变质。
3．此外，在科技英语中，也不乏go的这类用法，如：go critical（达到临界），go solid（变成固体），go negative（变成负值），go nuclear（核力量化），go metric（实行公制）。
Germans understand the sentiment. They experienced complete collapse in 1945, and then again under Merkel’s eyes in East Germany in 1989. She once said she possessed “competence in the early detection of collapsing systems”. When it looked as if the euro would collapse she told Bulgaria’s prime minister Boyko Borisov that the “Maya and other civilisations” had disappeared. In other words, today’s Europe could too. Her heroic task: keep politics boring.
competence['kɒmpɪt(ə)ns]
反 imcompetence
联想到 n. impotence 无能 adj. Impotent 无力的，无效的
反n. potence 潜能；权力 adj. Potent 强有力的，有权势的
名次变形容词，通常都是-ce 变 -t
以p- 开头的形容词的反义词通常都是加im-
例如：possible 反 impossible
practical反 impractical
pragmatic反 impragmatic
文章开篇以德国政坛现状入手引出默克尔的执政方式，通过正反两面对比，包括自身历史对比和与他国对比进行分析得出乏味务实的官员往往让人们生活得更幸福，结尾再次申明默克尔的英雄使命——继续让政治乏味务实，进一步强调了她的执政方式的有效性。其文章布局结构也很值得我们学习。
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