Lesson Fifteen Is America Falling Apart Words and Expressions
Text Explanation
1 a castellated town
This is a town built in the style of a castle.
2the hammer and sickle painted on the rumps of public statues
The hammer and sickle is the symbol of the Communist Party in Italy. It shows that the Communist Party was active at that time.
3 a thousand-lira note shrunk to the slightness of a dollar bill
This tells us that the Italian money was very much depreciated (贬值) at that time.
4the open markets are luscious with esculent color
the open markets are full of delicious fruits and vegetables in mouth-watering color.
5…the human condition is humorously accepted.
Italians accept their difficult living condition with a sense of humor.
6… but the next Wednesday's return of an old Western is something to look forward to.
…but an old American film about cowboys to be re-showed next Wednesday is something the local people look forward to.
7What matters is… the wresting of minimal sweetness of the long-known bitterness of living.
For many years they have been living a bitter life, yet they can still get through effort the least amount of pleasure out of the bitter life. This is what is important to them.
8…prewar, if one thing went wrong the day was ruined; postwar, if one thing went right the day would be made.
…before the war people felt everything was going on fine and they were unprepared for anything to go wrong. So if anything went wrong, they would be in a bad mood, feeling the whole day was spoiled. But after the war, if one thing went right, people would be in high spirits, feeling the whole day was nice.
9…the Kafka feeling that the whole marvelous fabric of American life is coming apart at the seams.
… the feeling that the whole of American society is breaking down fundamentally, which is similar to the feeling described in Kafka's novels.
come apart: fall to pieces 破掉，碎掉
The teapot just came apart in my hands.
10The run-down rail services of America are something I try, vainly, to forget.
The railway services of America are extremely bad, I try to forget them, but I failed to.
11American individualism…wishes to manifest itself in independence of the community.
American individualism…finds its expression in being independent of or being different from other people in the community.
12Once let the acquisitive instinct burgeon, and there was ruggedly individual forces only too ready to make it come to full and monstrous blossom.
As soon as the acquisitive instinct begins to grow, strong individual forces will develop it fully, which is something outrageous.
ruggedly individual forces: often termed rugged individualism, the disguised, hot pursuit of practical and realistic
interests of an didividual
only too ready to make it come to full and monstrous blossom:
very ready to make the acquitive instinct develop fully.
13This self-elected deprivation was a way into the nastier side of the consumer society.
I myself chose not to buy an automobile and that led me to see the more disgusting side of the consumer society.
14The nightmare of filth, outside and in, that enfolds the trip from Springfield, Mass., to Grand Central Station would not be accepted in backward Europe.
The filth inside the trains and along the railway line from Springfield to New York is so horrible that it would not be accepted in backward Europe.
15The more efficiently self-contained the home seems to be, the more dependent it is on the great impersonal corporations…
When the home is efficiently equipped with all sorts of gadgets, it becomes dependent on the great indifferent corporations.
The more the home is thus equipped, the more dependent it is on the latter…
16Skills at the lowest level have to be wooed slavishly and exorbitantly rewarded.
Even workers doing the least skilled jobs have to be begged to come and paid much too high.
17And doctors…know their scarcity value and behave accordingly.
And doctors…know their great value because there are not enough doctors to meet the needs and therefore charge excessive medical fees.
18Planned obsolescence is not conductive to pride in workmanship.
Articles that are designed to break or wear out quickly do not help people to take pride in their work.
19On another level, consumption is turning sour.
… consumption is becoming something unpleasant.
20Indestructible plastic hasn't even the grace to undergo chemical change.
to have the grace to do something means to be polite enough to do something proper.明智地做某事，爽爽快快地做某事He had the grace to say that he was sorry.
Here it is used humorously to refer to the fact that goods made of plastic cannot be recycled.
21Awareness of this is a kind of redemptive grace, but it has not led to repentance and a revolution in consumer habits.
Awareness of this is a kind of compensation for their guilty feelings about consumption. Yet it has not noticeably brought about deep regret for or a drastic change in the way they consume.
22… they don't noticeably clamor for a decrease in the number of owner-vehicles.
…they don't demand loudly a decrease in the number of private cars.
23America has always despised its teachers and, as a consequesnce, it has been granted the teachers it deserves.
America has always looked down upon its teachers, as result, it deserves to have the kind of teachers it gets.
as a consequence: as a result 结果
He's never studied hard, as a consequence, he's never passed examinations.
24The quality of first-grade education…could not…be faulted on the level of dogged conscientiousness.
You could not find fault with the teachers for the quality of first-grade education. The teachers were conscientious and determined to do a good job.
on the level of: in the aspect of, in connection with
25But there seemed to be no spark, no daring, no madness, no readiness to engage the individual child's mind as anything other than raw material for statistical reductions.
但是除了把孩子的头脑当作进行数字计算训练的原料以为，似乎不存在能使孩子开动脑筋的火花，胆识，激情与愿望。
The teachers only prepared the children for working with numbers. They seemed to have no flash of wit, no courage, no enthusiasm, and were not ready to engage the children in other things. The author implies that there were a lot more to teach the children.
anything other than: anything but
26…American technical genius… seems to give the lie to too summary a condemnation of the educational system, but there is more to education than the segmental equipping of the mind.
…the American capacity in technology…seems to show that it is wrong to condemn the educational system in a too direct and prompt way, but there is more to education than providing the children with just a separate section of knowledge.
genius: the great capacity of creation or invention
to give the lie to something: to show something to be worng; to prove something untrue
too summary a condemnation: a too direct and prompt condemnation.
27In the name of this ghastly creed the jungle must be defoliated.
In the name of this horrible creed, any means, however cruel, must be used.
28…you're a load of decadent, gross-lipped, potbellied, callous, overbearing neo-imperialists.
…you are a large group of neo-imperialists who are morally low, rude in speaking, big-belllied for excessive eating and drinking, indifferent to other's sufferings, arrogant and domineering.
你们是一帮腐化堕落的，言语粗俗的，大腹便便的，麻木不仁的，盛气凌人的新帝国主义者。
29When Europe had sunk to the level of a sewer…
Sewer, the underground pipes for carrying off drainage and waste water, is used here metaphorically to give the
idea of the lowest level, the worst condition.
30Original sin was the monopoly of that dirty continent…
Evil was exclusively found in Europe, the Old World…
原罪是大洋彼岸那肮脏的大陆的独有品。
31evil had no place in America
there was no evil in America at all
32The agony that America is undergoing is not to be associated with breakdown as much as with the parturition of self-knowledge.
The great pain that America is undergoing is more associated with the birth of self-knowledge of its evil-doing than with the actual breakdown of the country.
美国现在经历的痛苦与其说是伴随分崩离析而来，还不如说是伴随自我认识的诞生而来。
33The various escapist movements…have commited the gross error of assuming that original sin rested with their elders, their rulers, and that they themselves could manifest their essential innocence by building little neo-Edens.
They were greatly mistaken to assume that evil rested only with their elders because they themselves were also evil-doers.
And they could not demonstrate that they were innocent by building small communities, for they did violence to life in doing so.
然而各式各样的逃避现实的运动，都犯下了这样一个严重的错误，即认为只有他们的长辈，他们的统治者
才有原罪，而他们自己可以用建立小的伊甸园的方法来表明自己本质的清白无辜。
34the paradisal vision
Under the influence of drugs, one experiences a joyful state of feeling like being in paradise.
35Practically all of the crime I encountered in New York was a preying of the opium-eaters on the working community.
As far as the crimes I encountered in New York were concerned, almost all of them were commited by drug takers
against working people.
36There has to be a snake in paradise.
There is evil even in paradise. This implies that it is impossible to get rid of evil no matter how perfect a society is.
There is always evil there.
37You can't escape the heritage of human evil by building communes, usually on an agronomic ignorance that does voilence to life.
When young American escapists built their communes, they rejected the farming experiences of their elders as they
rejected everything that their elders did or believed in. In their ignorance of farming, they made mistakes and did harm to nature by spoiling the ecology. So they could not avoid human evil.
你无法用建立群居组织的办法来逃避承袭人类的邪恶，通常这些群居组织还是建立在侵害生命的对耕作
的无知的基础上。
38…both of whom sometimes look like mirror images of each other.
…the policemen and criminals are sometimes just the same in their behaviors.
二者有时看上去如人和他的镜中映像一样相像。
39The wealth qualification for the aspiring politician is taken for granted…
In the United States, only those who can afford a considerable large sum of money can fun for office in the government
or the Congress. Politics is actually for the wealthy. This is taken as naturally true and no one has raised a doubt about it.
有抱负的政治家拥有财产被视作当然的事情。
40I…home to America as to a country more stimulating than depressing.
I feel like going home when I go to America, which is a country more stimulating than depressing.
我把美国当成家，把它看作一个更给人以激励而不是使人消沉的国家。
41…the wrongs…could be explained away in terms of the rational control of environment necessary for the building of a new Jerusalem.
They could show that they should not be blamed for the wrongs. The purpose of what they did was to control the environment to build a perfect society.
explain away: show why one should not be blamed for a fault, mistake, etc. 辩护，解释
You will find it difficult to explain away your use of such offensive language.
42I…can't spend more than six moths at a stretch in any other European country.
I can't live over six months in any other European country continuously.
at a stretch: continuously 连续不断地
Can you swim for five hours at a stretch?
Hanent整理