U13 Beauty For the Greeks, beauty was a virtue: a kind of excellence. Persons then were assumed to be what we now have to call-lamely, enviously- whole person. If it did occur to the Greeks to distinguish between a persons “inside” and “outside”, they still expected that inner beauty would be matched by beauty of the other kind. The well-born young Athenians who gathered around Socrates found it quite paradoxical that their hero was so intelligent, so brave, so honorable, so seductive - and so ugly. One of Socrates main pedagogical acts was to be ugly - and teach those innocent, no doubt splendid-looking disciples of his how full of paradoxes life really was. 美之于古希腊人是一种德性 一种美德。今天看来 他们就是我们如今所谓的“全面的人”虽然这个称呼有点不理直气壮,并且带有嫉妒之意。倘若让古希腊人区分一个人的“内在”和“外在” 他们仍期望内在美是需要与其他种类之美相匹配的。那些聚集在苏格拉底身边的雅典青年人发现自己的偶像是如此得聪慧、勇敢、正直、充满诱惑力而同时又那么得丑 这是多么自相矛盾啊。而苏格拉底主要的教学手段之一即为“丑”告诉这些天真却拥有毋庸置疑般美貌的门生 真正的人生是充满悖论的。 They may have resisted Socrates lesson. We do not. Several thousand years later, we are more wary of the enchantments of beauty. We not only split off - with the greatest facility - the “inside” (character, intellect) from the “outside” (looks); but we are actually surprised when someone who is beautiful is also intelligent, talented, good. 他们或许能够抗拒苏格拉底的学说。而我们做不到。几千年以后.美的魅惑使我们更加疲惫。我们不仅仅用最容易的方式将“内在”(性格,心智) 和“外在 ”(外貌)割离开来.同时我们也对那些既有美貌亦有智慧天赋之人,感到诧异。It was principally the influence of Christianity that deprived beauty of the central place it had in classical ideals of human excellence. By limiting excellence (virtus in Latin) to moral virtue only, Christianity set beauty adrift - as an alienated, arbitrary, superficial enchantment. And beauty has continued to lose prestige. For close to two centuries it has become a convention to attribute beauty to only one of the two sexes: the sex which, however Fair, is always Second. Associating beauty with women has put beauty even further on the defensive, morally. 美在古典时期是理想的人类美德,而将其从这中心位置赶走的首要原因来自基督教的影响。通过美德(拉丁语为 virtus)的概念限定到仅仅指伦理道德的范畴,基督教放逐了“美” 它成为一种异化的,武断的,肤浅的诱惑。同时美不断丢失了它原本的名声。到二世纪末的时候,美成为一种既定概念,仅用于修饰两性之的一个性别:这个性别虽然是悦目的,但却处于第二位。将美与女性联系起来,使得美的概念在道德层面上更加脆弱。 A beautiful woman, we say in English. But a handsome man. “Handsome” is the masculine equivalent of - and refusal of - a compliment which has accumulated certain demeaning overtones, by being reserved for women only. That one can call a man“beautiful”in French and in Italian suggests that Catholic countries -unlike those countries shaped by the Protestant version of Christianity-still retain some vestiges of the pagan admiration for beauty. But the difference, if one exists,is of degree only. In every modern country that is Christian or post-Christian, women are the beautiful sex - to the detriment of the notion of beauty as well as of women. 在英语里,我们说一位女子是美丽的。但是我们却说一位男子是英俊的。 “英俊”是其阳性的等同词,同时拒绝一种带有某些贬义暗示的赞扬,而这种赞扬是仅用于女性的。在法语和意大利语里,人们可以称男子是“美丽的”,这暗示着这些天主教国家依旧保留了前基督教时期欣赏“美”的痕迹,而这些痕迹在新教国家中已经荡然无存。但即使存在,差别也只是程度不同而已。在任何一个基督教或者后基督教国家里,女性就是那个美丽的性别既损害了美这个概念,也损害了女性这个概念。 To be called beautiful is thought to name something essential to womens character and concerns. (In contrast to men - whose essence is to be strong, or effective, or competent.) It does not take someone in the throes of advanced feminist awareness to perceive that the way women are taught to be involved with beauty encourages narcissism, reinforces dependence and immaturity. Everybody (women and men) knows that. For it is “everybody”, a whole society, that has identified being feminine with caring about how one looks. (In contrast to being masculine - which is identified with caring about what one is and does and only secondarily, if at all, about how one looks.) Given these stereotypes, it is no wonder that beauty enjoys, at best, a rather mixed reputation. 被称为“美”意味着要列举出一些对女性来说必要的特征和她们所关心的事物。(和男性不同,他们的核心是强壮、有效率,或者有能力。)那些拥有超前女性意识的人将很容易就能感受到,让女性和“美”联系起来,会助长她们孤芳自赏的态度 也会让她们更加有依赖性且不成熟。所有人(女性和男性)都认识到这点。因为“所有人 ”,整个社会,都很明确,作为女性就应该关心长相。(作为男性则不同 :他们身份的确认是关注于某人是谁,做什么的,而长相即使并非一无是处,至少也是其次的。)有了这些老套的看法,我们就不难明白,即使从最好的方面来看,为什么“美”也有着褒贬不一的名声。 It is not, of course, the desire to be beautiful that is wrong but the obligation to be - or to try. What is accepted by most women as a flattering idealization of their sex is a way of making women feel inferior to what they actually are - or normally grow to be. For the ideal of beauty is administered as a form of self-oppression. Women are taught to see their bodies in parts, and to evaluate each part separately. Breasts, feet, hips, waistline, neck, eyes, nose, complexion, hair, and so on - each in turn is submitted to an anxious, fretful, often despairing scrutiny. Even if some pass muster, some will always be found wanting. Nothing less than perfection will do. 当然,对美的崇拜并没有什么错,错就错在认为美是一种义务,并且试图想要变美。作为她们性别的一种讨好的理想化状态,大多数女性都可以接受的方式是,让她们觉得自己比实际情况来的差劲。因为美的理想境界就是受制于一种自我对立的状态。人们教导女性要从各部分区看待她们的身体,并且要分别评价每一个部分。胸部、腿、臀部、腰、颈、眼睛、鼻子、肤色、头发等等每一部分都需要一番焦虑、苦恼,甚至绝望的审查。即使有些部分符合要求,但总有地方永远是希望更好一些的。只有完美无瑕了,才能无可挑剔。 In m