Unit 8
In Ourselves We
Trust. How do you behave
when you're alone? Late at night when no one else is around, 
do
you burst into spontaneous song and dance? roll around on the grass? make faces
at the Moon? If you're like most of us, you probably don't do any of these
things (very often!) -- in fact you probably don't
even talk to yourself (much!). The unwritten rules and regulations of decent
behavior -- which some people call “the social contract” -- are an amazingly
strong force in our lives. The texts you're
going to read in this unit examine the nature of these rules, speculate about
why we obey them so automatically, and venture on a brief exploration of the
strange territory outside “the social contract”.
Text
C
Andy
Rooney
Last night I
was driving from Harrisburg to Lewisburg, Pa., a distance of about 80 miles. It
was late, I was late, and if anyone asked me how fast I was driving, I'd have to
plead (提出…为理由)
the Fifth Amendment (修正案)
to avoid self-incrimination (自证其罪).
At one
point along an open highway, I came to a crossroads with a traffic light. I was
alone on the road by now, but as I approached the light, it turned red, and I
came to a halt. I looked left, right, and behind me. Nothing. Not a car, no
suggestion of headlights, but there I sat, waiting for the light to change, the
only human being for at least a mile in any direction.
I started wondering
why I refused to run the light. I wasn't afraid of being arrested, because there
was obviously no police car anywhere around, and there certainly would have been
no danger in going through the light.
Much
later that night, after I'd met with a group in Lewisburg and had climbed into
bed near midnight, the question of why I'd stopped for that light came back to
me. I think I
stopped because it's part of a contract we all have with each
other. It's not only the law, but it's an
agreement we have, and we trust each other to honor it:
We don't go through red lights. Like most of us, I'm more likely to be restrained from doing
something bad by the social convention (惯例)
that disapproves (不赞成) of it
than by any law against it.
It's
amazing that we ever trust each other to do the right thing, isn't it? And we
do, too. Trust is our first instinct. We have to make a deliberate decision to
mistrust someone or to be suspicious.
It's
a good thing, too, because the whole structure of our society depends on mutual
(互相的) trust, not
distrust. Society would just
fall apart if we didn't trust each other most of the time.
In Italy they have an awful time getting any money for the government because
many people just plain (完全)
don't pay their income tax. Here, the Internal Revenue Service (国内收入署)
makes some gestures toward enforcing the law, but mostly they just have to trust
that we'll pay what we owe. There has often been talk of a tax revolt (反抗,
暴乱)
in this country, and our government has more or less admitted that if there were
a widespread tax revolt here, they wouldn't be able to do anything about it.
But
we do what we say we'll do. We pay the taxes we owe. We show up when we say
we'll show up.
I was so proud of myself for stopping for that red light. And since no one would
ever have known what a good person I was on the road from Harrisburg to
Lewisburg, I had to tell someone.
(485
words)
我们信任自己
安迪·鲁尼
昨晚我驾车从宾州的哈里斯堡驶往路易斯堡，两地相距约80英里。那时天色已晚，我也要迟到了，如果有人问我当时驾驶有多快的话，我将不得不援用《宪法修正案》第五条，来避免自证其罪。
在一条开阔公路的某处，我来到了一个有红绿灯的十字路口。当时路上只有我一个人，但在我驶近的时候，红灯亮了，于是我刹车停了下来。我往左右及身后看了一下。什么也没有。
没有一辆汽车，也看不到什么汽车前灯的亮光，但我就坐在那儿，等着绿灯亮起，在至少方圆一英里之内我是唯一的一个人。
我开始在想我为什么不闯红灯。我并不害怕被拘捕，因为四周显然没有警车，而穿过红灯也绝无任何危险。
那晚夜深时分，我从路易斯堡与一群朋友见面后回来，将近午夜爬上床后，我为什么在红灯前停下来的问题又回到了我的脑中。我想我之所以停下来，是因为这是我们大家彼此订立的一条契约。它不仅是法律，更是我们达成的一种协议，我们信任对方会去遵守它，那就是：我们不闯红灯。和我们大多数人一样，比起强行禁止的法律条文来，我更会受社会准则的约束而不去干它所不容的坏事。
我们一向彼此信任都会做正确的事，这真令人惊奇，是不是?
我们也的确在做正确的事。信任是我们的第一本能。要不信任或怀疑某人，我们必须作出慎重的决定。
这也是一件好事，因为我们社会的整个结构都依赖于相互信任，而不是互相怀疑。如果我们大多数时候都彼此猜疑，那社会就会崩溃。在意大利，因为许多人就是不缴所得税，税收部门便很难为政府收缴到税金。而在我们这儿，尽管国内收入署在执行税法方面也摆出了一些架式，但他们通常还必须相信我们会支付该付的款项。在我们这个国家经常有关于抗税的传闻，而政府部门多多少少也承认，如果这儿发生一次普遍的抗税运动的话，他们将无计可施。
但是我们是说到做到的。我们总是支付我们该付的税款。
我们如果说来就一定会来。
我为在那晚的红灯前停下来而感到非常自豪。我在从哈里斯堡到路易斯堡的那段路上真是个好人，我不讲就无人知晓，我只好讲出来给什么人听听。
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