2014年考研《经济学人》：电视非同现实 中英文对照
根据历年真题研究发现考研的阅读理解的文章一般都是从国外的期刊上摘抄下来的，像The Economist 《经济学家》、Newsweek 《新闻周刊》、Times《时代周刊》、Now York Times 《纽约时报》等，下面太奇考研英语辅导老师整理了《经济学人》阅读周刊，希望能对同学们的阅读带来更大的视野。Lexington
列克星敦
Unreality television
电视非同现实
Though clever and watchable, a new cult drama about Congress misses an important point
尽管剧情设计精巧，可看性非常高，但是这部关于国会的热捧电视剧在某一点上还是(有重大疏漏)
Feb 23rd 2013 |From the print edition
OVER the 13 episodes of “House of Cards”, a new TV drama about Congress, politicians are shown lying, leaking secrets to lobbyists, framing rivals, indulging in fistfights (one in front of wide-eyed children) and snorting cocaine, as well as sleeping with prostitutes, their own staff and a story-hungry reporter. Without giving too much away, one also commits murder.Real-life members of Congress love the series, as do underlings.
在一部关于国会的13集新剧《纸牌屋》中，政客们欺诈，向说客泄密，给对手设局，沉迷于斗殴(一次是在吃惊的孩子们面前)，吸食可卡因，以及和妓女、和自己的同事、搜寻报道的记者发生性关系的一面呈现给了观众面。其一个政客还犯了谋杀罪，不再继续透露了。(还有政客杀了人确不用付出什么代价。)然而现实中的国会成员和他们的下属都喜欢这部电视剧。
The drama inspires chatter at Washington dinner-tables and in the basement canteens of Capitol Hill. After the internet-TV company behind the show, Netflix, released the whole series on the same day, tales of binge-viewing marathons abound.
这部剧激发了华盛顿晚宴和国会山地下室食堂中的热议。网络电视制作完毕后，Netflix公司同一天发布了全集，引起了比比皆是的马拉松式狂欢观看。
Some obvious factors help explain the show’s success. For one thing, as a drama it is pretty good, combining sometimes-believable plot twists with always-plausible revelations of human frailty. Kevin Spacey stars as the House majority whip, charged with corralling the Democrats who, in this series, control the House of Representatives as well as the presidency. He conveys a sense of a man made whole by power, yet hollowed out by it too. In a nod to Shakespeare (the show’s creators talk of a debt to “Richard III”), Mr Spacey confides directly in the audience at moments of unusual tension or wickedness.
一些明显的因素可以解释这部剧的成功，其中一点是，这是一部非常好的剧，它把某时可信的曲折情节和永恒人性弱点的揭露结合起来。凯文•史派西饰演的国会多数党党鞭，负责民主党的运作，控制了众议院和总统实权。他演绎出了一个权倾天下，也被权利吞噬了掉一切的男人。而在特别紧张或邪恶的时刻，史派西直接向观众吐露了向莎士比亚的致敬(此剧的创作者谈及了其创作受益于《查理三世》)
For another, the very existence of the series flatters Washington, a company town that feels misunderstood by the rest of America. Political toilers are happy to see the hard grind of legislating depicted on screen, from the endless late nights to the subtleties of vote counting. The accuracy of the props—from congressional doorplates to visitors’ badges—is much discussed, and praised. Fans do have some quibbles. In real life, says a Democratic campaign aide, members of Congress are too nannied by staff to stride about hatching plots, one-on-one. In the real Washington, says a Republican staffer, leadership coups take longer to ferment, though the sneaky ambition of journalists depicted in the drama is spot-on, he suggests. Other errors fall under the heading of flattery: the clothes are too elegant for DC, and the ratio of sexual trysts to committee meetings is strikingly high.
另一点，这部剧恰好取悦了华盛顿(政府)，这个为其他美国人所误解的公司城。在政治圈中打拼的人乐于看到漫漫长夜的辛苦工作、细致入微的选票计数这些立法的艰苦过程被搬上屏幕。同时，国会门派和访客证这些精确的道具也被广泛讨论，得到赞誉。影迷们确实有些吹毛求疵。一个民主党竞选助手说，在现实中，国会议员们被工作人员保护的太严密了，难以大刀阔斧的推行他们策划好的一对一的竞选活动。 (在现实中，国会议员受到了工作人员无微不至的“照料”，根本没有办法彼此商量什么密谋。)一位共和党成员说，尽管剧中准确的描绘了记者卑鄙的野心，在现实中的华盛顿，针对领导权的政变需要更多的时间酝酿。其他错误也或多或少存在奉承的意味：服装对于华盛顿特区来说太高雅了，性约会相比委员会会议实在是过多了。
A weightier charge has been levelled: that the series overstates the ability of leaders to control today’s Congress. That charge is fair. The new drama is based on a 1990 BBC tale of political skulduggery, also called “House of Cards”, about an urbane-but-psychotic Conservative chief whip, who plots and kills his way to becoming British prime minister. A transatlantic transfer was bound to be hard. The most brutal American whip, Speaker or president has never had the near-tyrannical powers of a leader of the majority party in Britain’s parliamentary system. Present-day American leaders have still less control over their troops.
指出的更大的指责是电视剧夸大了当今领导人对国会的控制。这个指责是对的。新剧是基于1990年BBC政治欺诈的故事，其也被称之为纸牌屋，这是一部关于一位彬彬有礼但又神经质的保守党党鞭，他设计并扼杀了他的英国首相之路。这部剧在跨大西洋的转变中必然是困难重重的。最残酷的美国党魁，发言人或是总统从没有过英国议会制度中多数党近乎于专制的权利。现在的美国领导人仍然对他的部队有很少的控制权。
Tellingly, the closest model for Mr Spacey’s character that Washington can come up with is from the past: Tom DeLay, a Texan Republican and iron-fisted majority whip from 1995 to 2003. He saw that the loyal were rewarded, while the defiant faced primary challenges, funding droughts and other forms of political extinction. Today conservatives forswear the most visible forms of pork, depriving Republican whips of a reward for loyalists. Many outside groups that promote primary challenges not only work independently of congressional leaders, but also despise seniority and other marks of Washington rank.
很显然，华盛顿能想到的最接近于史派西先生形象的原型是汤姆迪莱，原德克萨斯州共和党人，1995年至2003年的铁腕多数党党魁。他明白忠诚会获得回报，然而反抗面临着大的挑战，切断资金及其他形式的政治灭绝。现今，保守派放弃眼前的好处，剥夺了共和党党魁因忠诚所应得的而回报。许多提出挑战外部群体，不仅独立于国会领导人而工作，而且不顾华盛顿有资历的元老和其他高层的面子。
All that points to the big problem with “House of Cards”, and to an unacknowledged reason why political Washington may love it. It is an exercise in nostalgia: not for the days of Mr DeLay, but for a time when—presiding over a post-war boom and rising prosperity—elected politicians could feel confident that they were in charge of the country’s fate. Today, honest politicians feel something closer to impotence: they are unable to bring the old economy back, and have yet to figure out a sustainable replacement. That leaves much of Washington haunted by a guilty dread of voters, and of the populists who successfully channel the public’s anger, fear and disappointment. In the words of a congressional staffer: “We know how to relate to each other in Washington. We have a harder time relating to voters back home.” That has bipartisan effects. Voter anger fuels the tea-party and anti-government groups that drag the Republican Party to simplistic solutions on the right. On the left, voter expectations tempt Democrats, starting with Barack Obama, to pander and hint that only modest adjustments are needed to entitlement spending.
这些都指明了纸牌屋中的问题和华盛顿可能会喜欢这部剧的并不被承认的原因。这剧不是对迪莱先生执政期间的怀念，而是对选举出政客们自信能掌控国家的命运，主持着战后快速发展和不断上升的繁荣的经济局面怀念。现今，坦诚的政客们有种近乎于无力的感觉，他们无法使经济变得和以前一样好，也没有找出一个可持续的替代方案。那使华盛顿很大程度上被一个有罪恶恐惧感的选民和能成功的疏导公众的愤怒，恐惧和失望的民粹主义者所环绕。用一位国会工作人员的话说，在华盛顿我们知道如何相互关联，关于选民回家我们有一段艰难的时光，(在华盛顿，我们懂得如何去互相理解。但到了自己所在的州，我们却很难去体恤选民的情感)那有着两党效应。选民的愤怒激起了茶党和反政府组织把共和党拖到了右翼的简单方案。左翼，选民期望诱使民主党人，始于奥巴马，开始迎合暗示授权费用需要有适度的调整。(在左翼方面，自奥巴马以下的民主党人受到了选民期望的诱惑，想要迎合他们并暗示福利开支只需要做出一些轻微调整。”)
Politics without the voters
没有选民的政治
The new “House of Cards” is at heart a palace intrigue, unfolding within the Beltway bubble. Politicians are raised up by decisions taken in the White House or the high-ceilinged rooms of congressional leaders. They are cast down by plots and ill-judged broadcast interviews. Whenever actual voters threaten trouble, they are soothed by the elite with improbable ease. In one episode, revellers in evening dress emerge from a party to placate a picket line with plates of free food. A drug-addicted, blue-collar battler of a congressman, facing constituents livid at the closure of a shipyard, tells them that it was beyond saving but that at least he cares about them, unlike other colleagues. “I’m all you’ve got,” he bellows, promising a federally-funded jobs scheme. Their rage vanishes, replaced by grudging acceptance.
新剧纸牌屋其本质是一部宫斗剧，正在环城公路内(指华盛顿地区)上演着。政客的产生是白宫或者是国会领导人奢华客房中的决定。这些政客又被剧情和错误判断的电视采访所抛弃。每当真正的选民威胁制造麻烦时，他们都被精英们用不可能实现的安慰平息。在一集中，从聚会中出现的穿着晚礼服的狂欢者们用一盘盘免费的食物安抚纠察线内的人们。(罢工等时由纠察队员等组成的线)。一个瘾君子，蓝领战斗者的国会议员，面临着选民们愤怒于船厂的关闭，告诉他们这是无法挽回的，但是他至少还是关心他们的。不像其他同僚，他大叫着“你们要相信我”，承诺着联邦资助工作计划。工人们的愤怒消失了，取而代之的是勉强的接受。
In the real world, federal funding is a fast-dwindling resource, and populist pandering a bigger drag on problem-solving than any individual villainy. Richard III is altogether the wrong model for a modern political tragedy: better to try Shakespeare’s Coriolanus and the Roman mob. For it is not the dagger in the back that haunts today’s ruling classes, but the pitchfork in the front, brandished by voters. By skirting that truth, “House of Cards”, for all its dramatic tension and clever dialogue, amounts to a kind of Washingtonian escapism.
在现实世界里，联邦资金是一个迅速减少的资源，迎合的民粹主义者比起个别恶棍在解决问题上的更拖拉。总之，查理三世是现代政治悲剧里一个完全错误的范例：最好看看莎士比亚的《科利奥兰纳斯》和罗马暴徒，因为它不是现在统治阶级的背后匕首，而是他们前面的草叉，选民的挥刀。通过回避事实真相，纸牌屋所有的戏剧冲突和巧妙的对白都算一种华盛顿人的空想。
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