8
Love or Liberalism
爱情与自由
1. If I can return for a moment to Chloe's shoes, it might be worth mentioning that their inauguration did not end with my negative yet privately formulated analysis of their virtues. I confess that it ended in the second greatest argument of our relationship, in tears, insults, shouting, and the right shoe crashing through a pane of glass onto the pavement of Denbigh Street. The sheer melodramatic intensity of the event aside, the matter sustains philosophical interest because it symbolizes a choice as radical in the personal sphere as in the political: a choice between love and liberalism.让我再回到克洛艾的鞋子上来吧。应该说鞋子事件并不以我持否定态度的个人分析而告终。我承认经过我们认识后第二次最激烈的争吵，经过泪水、伤害、吼叫，以及右脚的那只鞋砸破一块窗玻璃落在登巴尔街的人行道上后，一切才宣告结束。撇开其中情节剧一般的紧张气氛，这鞋子事件还包含了让人产生兴趣的哲理，因为它标志着一个个人生活的选择，一个如同政治生活中那样激烈的选择：爱情与自由的选择。
2. The choice has often been missed in an optimistic equation of the two terms, with the former considered a handmaiden of the latter. But if the terms have been linked, it is always in an implausible marriage, for it seems impossible to talk of love and letting live, and if we are left to live, we are not usually loved. We may well ask why the viciousness witnessed between lovers would not be tolerated anywhere outside conditions of open enmity. Then, to build bridges between shoes and nations, we may ask why countries that have no language of community or citizenship usually leave their members isolated but unmolested and yet why countries that talk most of love, kinship, and brotherhood routinely end up slaughtering great swathes of their populations.这种选择常常因为乐观地把这两个概念等同而被忽略，一个概念被视为另一个的缩影。但是如果将两者联系到一起，却又是不合情理的结合。因为似乎不可能既谈情说爱又拥有自由；而如果能够拥有自由，又并不总能得到爱情。我们也许可以理直气壮地质问，除了公开的敌意，为什么情人之间的残酷行为不能得到宽容（或甚至认为是可以理解的）？同样，由鞋子引申到国家，我们会发出类似的疑问：为什么那些没有公众意识或公民意识的国家让人民隔绝分散，而不是安居乐业？为什么那些把公众意识、爱、兄弟情谊挂在嘴边的国家总是以大批大批地屠杀人民告终？
3. 'How do you mean, did I keep the receipt?' shouted Chloe.
'I just mean if things go wrong with them.'
'They're not televisions.'
'I don't know, the heel might get stuck between two paving stones while you're stepping out of a gondola. Or you might suddenly decide you hated them.'
'Why not just tell me you hate them?'
'I don't hate them. (Pause.) I do hate them.'
'You're just jealous.'
'I've always wanted to look like a pelican.'
'And a bastard.'
'I'm sorry, but I really don't think they're suitable for the party tonight.'
'Why do you have to spoil everything?'
'Because I care for you. Someone has to let you know the truth.'
'Gemma said she liked them. And Leslie would definitely like them. And I can't imagine Abigail having a problem with them either. So what's wrong with you?'
'Your girlfriends don't love you. Not in the proper way. Not in the way that means you have to break bad news to someone even if it pains you terribly.'
'You're not upset.'
'I am.'
'You deserve to be.'
“那么，你喜欢这鞋子吗？”克洛艾又问了一次。
“坦白地说，不喜欢。”
“为什么？”
“我不喜欢这种样子，穿上了像一只鹈鹕。”
“真的？但是我觉得很雅致。”
“不见得。”
“就是这样，你看鞋跟，还有蝴蝶结，漂亮极了。”
“你很难找到与你看法一致的人。”
“那是因为你根本不懂什么是流行。”
“也许我不懂，但是当我看到一双难看的鞋子时，我会知道那叫难看。”
“这双鞋子不难看。”
“承认吧，克洛艾，确定很难看。”
“你只是妒忌我买了一双新鞋。”
“我只是告诉你我的感觉。我真的认为它不适合今晚的派对。”
“很适合，因此我才非要买不可。”
“那就穿上吧。”
“我现在怎么能穿？”
“为什么你又不穿呢？”
“因为你刚才说我穿上了像一只鹈鹕。”
“确实如此。”
“那你想让我像一只鹈鹕一样去参加一个派对？”
“没那个意思，我只是想告诉你鞋有多丑。”
“那好，你为什么要向我说这些呢？”
“因为我很在乎你。你买了一双难看的鞋子，必须有人来告诉你。不过我怎么想有什么关系？”
“因为我想要你也喜欢。我买了它们，希望你也觉得好，而现在你却说我穿上了像个怪物。为什么我做的每一件事都不合你意？”
“喂，别这么说我，你知道不是这样嘛。”
“就是这样，你甚至不喜欢我的鞋。”
“但是除此之外，我几乎喜欢你的一切。”
“那么你又为什么不能不奚落这鞋子？”
“因为你适合穿更好的。”
4. The reader can be spared the full melodrama, it suffices to say that moments later, the tempest that had been brewing reached a climax, Chloe took off one of the offensive shoes, supposedly so as to let me look at it, but more realistically, to murder me with it, I chose to duck the incoming projectile, it crashed through the window behind me and fell down to the street, where it impaled itself in the rubbish area in the remains of a neighbour's chicken madras.读者可以略过整个情节剧。这段对话足以预示，片刻之后，像突如其来的风暴一样，克洛艾脾气大发，把那惹祸的鞋子脱下一只（拉开架势以让我看到），我迅速蹲下身躲避飞来的炮弹，鞋子（也许是愚蠢地）砸穿我身后的玻璃，飞落在街上。
5. Our argument was peppered with the paradoxes of love and liberalism. What did it really matter what Chloe's shoes were like? There were so many other wonderful sides to her, was it not spoiling the game to arrest my gaze on this detail? Why could I not have politely lied to her as I might have done to a friend? My only excuse lay in the claim that I loved her, that she was my ideal ?save for the shoes ?and that I therefore had to point out this blemish, something I would never have done with a friend whose departures from my ideal would have been too numerous to begin with, a friendship in which the concept of an ideal would never even have entered into my thinking. Because I loved her, I told her ?therein lay my sole defence.我们的争吵充满爱情与自由的悖论。克洛艾的鞋子如何又有什么关系？她身上还有诸多方面的优点，我却紧盯住这一点不放，这难道不会破坏了我们的游戏？为什么我就不能像对待一位朋友那样善意地向她撒谎？我惟一的理由就是，我爱她。她是我理想中人——除了这双鞋子——因此我被迫指出这一点小小的瑕疵，而对朋友，我从来不会（他们离我所谓的理想中人相去甚远。而友谊的理想中人，我还没考虑过这种概念）这么做。因为我爱她，所以我直言不讳——这是我惟一的辩词。
6. In our more expansive moments, we imagine romantic love to be akin to Christian love, an uncritical, expansive emotion that declares I will love you for everything that you are, a love that has no conditions, that draws no boundaries, that adores every last shoe, that is the embodiment of acceptance. But the arguments that hound lovers are a reminder that Christian love is not prone to survive a move into the bedroom. Its message seems more suited to the universal than the particular, to the love of all men for all women, to the love of two neighbours who will not hear each other snoring.我们有时更多理想主义地想象，以为浪漫的爱情几近基督之爱，是一种胸怀宽广的情感，这情感宣布：无论你怎样，我都爱你。这是一种无条件的爱，没有界限，欣赏每一只最蹩脚的鞋子，它是接纳的体现。但是爱人之间的争吵又提醒我们，基督的爱并非床第之间的爱情，它似乎更适用于普遍，而不是个别；更适合于所有男人对所有女人的爱；更适合于两个听不到互相嘲笑的邻居之间的爱。
浪漫的爱情不可能如处女一般纯洁，它使用特殊的身体语言，具有惟一性而非普遍性。爱上邻居A是因为他或她有一种笑容或雀斑或笑声或脚踝不为邻居B所有。耶稣拒绝为爱指明标准，从而避开了这个棘手的问题，也避开了这过程中爱情的残酷。因为有了标准，爱情就给打上了痛苦的烙印。当我们企图将邻居A变成邻居B，或将邻居B变成我们想象中完美的B时，鞋子开始买来，离婚申请也被提出。就是在我们想象中的完美和岁月剥蚀出来的真实之间，我们将逐渐失去耐心，苛求完美，直至最终忍无可忍。
7. Though it was not always a matter for glaziers, illiberalism was never one sided. There were a thousand things about me that drove Chloe to distraction: Why was I so bored by the theatre? Why did I insist on wearing a coat that looked a century old? Why did I always knock the duvet off the bed in my sleep? Why did I think Saul Bellow was such a great writer? Why had I not yet learnt how to park a car without leaving most of the wheel on the pavement? Why did I constantly put my feet on the pillows? These were the ingredients of the domestic gulag, the daily attempts to tug each other closer to our ideals.尽管这并不总是装玻璃工人的事，但非自由主义永远都不是片面的。我曾做过成百上千的事把克洛艾惹怒：为什么我总是喜怒无常？为什么我执意要穿那件看上去像穿了一个世纪一样旧的外套？为什么我睡觉时总是把羽绒被蹬下床？为什么我把索尔·贝娄看成那么伟大的作家？为什么我还学不会泊车，不能把车整个儿停在车道里？为什么我经常将脚跷在床上？所有这些都与《新约全书》所说的爱相去甚远，《新约全书》中的爱从来不会对一双丑陋的鞋子、对牙齿间的菜叶说三道四；也不会因为她对《卷发遇劫记》作者的固执而且错误的观点品头论足。然而所有这些都构成了家庭中的古拉格，已经设定好他们应该怎样，每天都想把对方拖进这个框框之中。如果把理想和现实想象成两个部分重叠的圆圈，那么这月牙形的部分就是我们试图通过争论使两个圆圈重叠成一个，从而得以消灭的差别。
8. And what excuse was there for this? Nothing but the old line that parents and politicians will use before taking out their scalpels: I care about you, therefore I will upset you, I have honoured you with a vision of how you should be, therefore I will hurt you.这样做的理由何在？不过是所有的父母、军队里的将军、芝加哥的学院派经济学家在使人苦恼之前惯用的甜言蜜语——我在乎你，所以我将使你心烦意乱；我敬重心中的那个完美的你，因此我将伤害凡尘中的真实的你。
9. Chloe and I would never have been as brutal to our friends as we were to one another. But we equated intimacy with a form of ownership and licence. We may have been kind, yet we were no longer polite. When we started arguing one night about the films of Eric Rohmer (she hated them, I loved them), we forgot there was a chance Rohmer's films could be both good and bad depending on who was watching them. She degenerated into calling me 'a stuffy over-intellectual turd', I reciprocated by judging her 'a degenerate product of modern capitalism' (proving her accusation in the process).克洛艾和我的争论从来都不是朋友式地进行的。朋友之间因为礼貌和客气，建立了一层无形的保护膜，这膜，即身体的生疏，阻止了敌意的产生。但是克洛艾和我已经肌肤相亲：一起睡觉、一起沐浴、观看彼此刷牙以及共同为感伤缠绵的电影流泪，故而我们之间的那一层隔膜撕掉了。于是我们不仅得以相爱，还可以演绎相爱的对立面：吵架辱骂。我们把结识对方等同于一种拥有和许可：我了解你，所以我拥有你。在我们相爱的进程中，肉体交合之后，礼貌客气（朋友间的友谊）就止步了，就此而言，第二天早餐时的第一次争吵并非巧合。
保护膜被撕去后，曾经垄断的物品开始在自由市场里交换了，以前正常地（宽厚地）保留在自我批评领域的想法现在表达出来，制造了紧张的关系。用弗洛伊德的话说，我们不仅自身有“超我——自我”的冲突，两人之间也同样如此。当交叉点仅仅是自我A和自我B时，就产生了爱；当超我A和自我B发生冲突时，鞋子开始飞出窗外。
忍无可忍源于两个方面：其一：是非观念；其二，不能让他人生活在暗昧之中的想法。一天晚上，当克洛艾和我开始争论起埃里克·罗默的电影时（她腻味那些电影，我则爱看），我们忘了罗默的电影既可以好，又可以不好，这完全取决于各人的看法。争论逐渐演变成逼迫对方接受自己的观点，而没有意识到异见存在的合理性。同样，虽然我憎恶克洛艾的鞋子，但我并没有想到：尽管自己不喜欢，但鞋子并非生来就让人讨厌。
当个人的判断被推广，使其为女友或男友（或者整个国家的公民）接受之时，当我认为这很不错成为我认为这对你来说也很不错时，这种从个人观点扩展到众人共识的举动实乃一件专横之事。在有些事情上，克洛艾和我各自相信自己的看法，而由于这种相信，我们以为自己可以命令对方同意我们在所有的方面都正确无误。专横地声言这就是爱情，是迫使对方（假装是出于爱）放弃自己爱看的电影划自己喜欢的鞋子，去接受一个（充其量）只是假冒成普遍真理的个人判断。
10.Politics seems an incongruous field to link to love, but can we not read, in the bloodstained histories of the French, Fascist, or Communist revolutions, something of the same coercive structure, the same impatience with diverging views fuelled by passionate ideals? Amorous politics begins its infamous history with the French Revolution, when it was first proposed (with all the choice of a rape) that the state would not just govern but also love its citizens, who would respond likewise or face the guillotine. The beginning of revolutions is psychologically strikingly akin to that of certain relationships: the stress on unity, the sense of omnipotence, the desire to eliminate secrets (with the fear of the opposite soon leading to lover's paranoia and the creation of a secret police).政治与爱情似乎没有相干之处，然而我们从法国大革命和法西斯主义血迹斑斑的历史中难道看不到同样的一厢情愿吗？难道没有同样的理想模式与存在分歧的现实相对而立，从而如月牙形所代表的差异一样让人们产生厌烦（执牛耳者的厌烦）？法国大革命最先提出（给出所有的选择，只是为了一次洗劫），政府不仅要统治人民，而且要爱他们；人民大概也要同样接受政府的统治，并且爱政府，否则就要被送上断头台。从那时起，一厢情愿的政治就开始了其不光彩的历史。革命的初期，从心理学上看，极其类似于爱情关系——强求合一，相信两人/国家的无所不能，要求抛却先前的自我，消解自我的界限，渴望不再有秘密（对对立面的担忧很快使情人胡思乱想/或建立起秘密警察）。
11. But if the beginnings of love and amorous politics are equally rosy, then the ends are often equally bloody. We're familiar with political love that ends in tyranny, where a ruler's firm conviction that he has the true interests of his nation at heart ends up lending him the confidence to murder without qualms (and 'for their own good') all who disagree with him. Romantic lovers are similarly inclined to vent their frustration on dissenters and heretics.如果爱情 和一厢情愿的政治开头都是同样的美好，那么结局也许会是一样的血淋淋。难道我们还不熟识以专横告终的爱情？以同样的专横，统治者坚定地宣称他们心怀国家的真正利益，但结果不也是以合法化地杀戮那些坚持异议的人而告终吗？如此看来，爱情是一种信念（还有许多其他的内容），是非自由的，因为信念从来避免不了向持异议者的异端发泄自己的挫折感。换一种说法，一旦你对某事产生了信念（祖国、马列主义、国家社会主义），信念的强大力量必然会自动地消灭其他的选择。
12. A few days after the shoe incident, I went to the newsagent to pick up a paper and a carton of milk. Mr Paul told me he'd just run out of the semi-skimmed variety, but that if I could wait a moment, he'd get another crate in from the storeroom. Watching him walk out towards the back of the shop, I noticed that Mr Paul was wearing a pair of thick grey socks and brown leather sandals. They were awe-inspiringly ugly, but curiously enough, wholly inoffensive. Why could I not remain similarly composed in the face of Chloe's shoes? Why could I not enjoy the same cordiality with the woman I loved as with the newsagent who sold me my daily rations?鞋子事件之后过了几天，我到报摊买报纸和牛奶。摊主保罗先生告诉我说牛奶卖完了，如果我愿意等一会儿，他就到贮藏室拿一箱来。望着保罗先生向铺子后面走去，我注意到他穿着一双灰色的厚袜子和褐色的皮凉鞋子。袜子和鞋子都奇丑无比，然而奇怪的是，我却无动于衷。为什么当我看到克洛艾的鞋子时就不能同样如此？为什么我不能友好地对待我爱的这个女子，就像我对待每天卖我面包的报摊摊主一样？
13. The wish to replace the butcher-butchered relationship with a newsagent-customer one has long dominated political thinking. Why could rulers not act politely towards their citizens, tolerating sandals, dissent, and divergence? The answer from liberal thinkers is that cordiality can arise only once rulers give up talk of governing for the love of their citizens, and concentrate instead on ensuring sensible, minimal governance.政治学说中长期有这种愿望，用顾客和报摊摊主的亲切关系代替屠夫和牛羊的杀戮关系。为什么统治者不能客气地对待人民，容忍凉鞋子、异见和分歧？自由主义思想家的答案则是：只有当统治者不再奢谈是出于爱而统治人民，转而关注降低利率和火车准点时，友好的关系才有可能出现。
Liberal politics finds its greatest apologist in John Stuart Mill, who in 1859 published a classic defence of loveless liberalism, On Liberty, a ringing plea that citizens should be left alone by governments, however well meaning they were, and not be told how to lead their personal lives, what gods to worship or books to read. Mill argued that though kingdoms and tyrannies felt themselves entitled to hold 'a deep interest in the whole bodily and mental discipline of every one of its citizens', the modern state should as far as possible stand back and let people govern themselves. Like a harassed partner in a relationship who begs simply to be given space, Mill ventured: The only freedom which deserves the name is that of pursuing our own good, in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it... The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized society against his will is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not sufficient warrant.*
--On Liberty, John Stuart Mill (Cambridge University Press, 1989).
约翰·斯图亚特·弥尔于1859年发表的《论自由》是提倡不以爱的名义制约人民的自由主义经典之作，他毫不含糊地要求政府（无论有多好的意图）不要干涉人民，不要逼迫他们换鞋子、读某些书、清除耳垢或是剔清牙齿。从此非暴力政治找到了最伟大的辩护者。弥尔认为，尽管古代的联邦（不是指罗伯斯庇尔的法国）觉得自己有权力对“每一个公民的身心需合乎法则保持浓厚的兴趣”，但现代政府却应尽可能退后，让人民各行其是。如同爱情中被烦扰的一方请求仅给予一个空间一样，弥尔呼吁政府不要干涉人民：
“只要不妄图褫夺他人之自由，或妨碍他人对自由之求索，吾侪以自己的方式追求自己的好尚即对于违反自己意愿的文明社会成员的妨害。强权势力自身之偏好，不讼是物质方面还是道德方面，皆非侵犯他人的理由。”
14. The wisdom of Mill's thesis is such that one might want to see it applied to relationships as much as to governments. However, on reflection, applied to the former, it seems to lose much of its appeal. It evokes certain marriages, where love has evaporated long ago, where couples sleep in separate bedrooms, exchanging the occasional word when they meet in the kitchen before work, where both partners have long ago given up hope of mutual understanding, settling instead for a tepid friendship based on controlled misunderstanding, politeness while they get through the evening's shepherd's pie, 3 a.m. bitterness at the emotional failure that surrounds them.弥尔的呼吁听起来是那么合理，难道我们不能把这些原则运用于个人生活中？然而如果将之运用于二人世界，那么令人遗憾的是，他的观点似乎失去了精彩之处，必然产生一些徒有其表的婚姻：爱情早就蒸发，夫妻分床而睡，只是上班前在厨房碰见时才偶尔说上几句话。当他们一起吃完晚餐的肉馅土豆泥饼，或在凌晨三点品尝感情失败的苦涩之时，两人早已放弃互相理解的希望，替代以建立在克制住的争执和彬彬有礼之上的不冷不热的友谊。
15. We seem to be thrown back on a choice between love and liberalism. The sandals of the newsagent didn't annoy me because I didn't care for him, I wished to get my paper and milk and leave. I didn't wish to cry on his shoulder or bare my soul, so his footwear remained unobtrusive. But had I fallen in love with Mr Paul, could I really have continued to face his sandals with equanimity, or would there not have come a point when (out of love) I would have cleared my throat and suggested an alternative? 我们又回到爱情和自由的选择上来了，后者看上去只存在于疏远的，或者冷漠出现了的关系当中。报摊主的凉鞋不使我恼怒，是因为我不在乎他，我只希望从他那儿买报纸和牛奶，除此之外，什么都没有。我不会希望向他袒露心迹或在他的肩头哭泣，所以对于他的穿戴，我不会冒昧地说三道四。但是如果我爱上了保罗先生，我真的还能继续对他的凉鞋这样安之若素吗？或者是否总有一天（出于爱）我会清清喉咙，建议他换一双？
16. If my relationship with Chloe never reached the levels of the Terror, it was perhaps because she and I were able to temper the choice between love and liberalism with an ingredient that too few relationships and even fewer amorous politicians (Lenin, Pol Pot, Robespierre) have ever possessed, an ingredient that might just (were there enough of it to go around) save both states and couples from intolerance: a sense of humour.如果我和克洛艾的关系永远达不到恐怖统治的程度，也许是因为我们能够缓和爱情和自由的选择，这缓和的法宝就是幽默感。幽默感很少为恋爱关系所有，更几乎不为一厢情愿的政治家（波尔布特、罗伯斯庇尔）所具备，幽默感能使（如果能够那么广泛的话）政府和夫妻从忍无可忍中解脱出来。
17. It seems significant that revolutionaries share with lovers a tendency towards terrifying earnestness. It is as hard to imagine cracking a joke with Stalin as with Young Werther. Both of them seem desperately, though differently, intense. With the inability to laugh comes an inability to acknowledge the contradictions inherent in every society and relationship, the multiplicity and clash of desires, the need to accept that one's partner will never learn how to park a car, or wash out a bath or give up a taste for Joni Mitchell - but that one cares for them rather a lot nevertheless.革命家和情人似乎都十分倾向于严肃认真。难以想象与斯大林或与少年维特开个玩笑会是怎样的情景——尽管区别难以避免，但两人似乎都极其紧张而认真。缺乏笑的能力就是无法认可事物的相对性、社会和人际关系与生俱来的矛盾性、欲望的复杂性和冲突性；也无法知道必须接受心上人永远学不会泊车，或洗不干净浴缸或改不去对琼尼·米切尔的偏好——而你仍然爱着他们。
18. If Chloe and I overcame certain of our differences, it was because we had the will to make jokes of the impasses we found in each other's characters. I could not stop hating Chloe's shoes, she continued to like them (I was sent down to pick the left one up and give it a clean), but we at least found room to turn the incident into a joke. By threatening to 'defenestrate' ourselves whenever arguments became heated, we were always sure to draw a laugh and neutralize a frustration. My driving techniques could not be improved, but they earned me the name 'Alain Prost'; Chloe's attempts at martyrdom I found wearing, but less so when I could respond to them by calling her 'Joan of Arc'. Humour meant there was no need for a direct confrontation; we could glide over an irrirant, winking at it obliquely, making a criticism without needing to spell it out.如果克洛艾和我能够超越我们之间的一些差别，那是因为我们互相看到性格不投合时，能够用开玩笑来将其解决。我没法不讨厌她的鞋子，而她却继续喜欢，我一如往日地爱她，但（窗户修好后）我们至少为那次事件找到了开玩笑的余地。每当争论激烈起来时，一个会威胁说要把自己“扔出窗外”，另一个听后总是报之以笑，从而化解了恼怒。我的驾驶技术无法提高，却赢得了“阿兰·普罗斯”的名字。我觉得克洛艾偶尔殉难者似的旅行令人厌烦，但是当我能把她当作“圣女贞德”而听从她时，心情就好多了。幽默意味着无须直接的冲突，你就可以轻轻越过一件恼人的事，目成心许，无须明言就做出了一个评判（“通过这个笑话我想让你知道我讨厌X，而不必对你直说——你的笑声说明你接受这个评判”）。
19. It may be a sign that two people have stopped loving one another (or at least stopped wishing to make the effort that constitutes ninety per cent of love) when they are no longer able to spin differences into jokes. Humour lined the walls of irritation between our ideals and the reality: behind every joke, there was a warning of difference, of disappointment even, but it was a difference that had been defused - and could therefore be passed over without the need for a pogrom.当两人不再能把差别化解成玩笑，那么这就是他们停止相爱（或至少不再为爱的维系做出较大的努力）的信号。幽默标示出产生在理想和现实的差别之上的恼怒：每一个玩笑背后，都是一次对差别甚至是失望的警醒，但这已经是无害的差别——因此能够顺利前行，而不必大动干戈。
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