大城市,拼搏者的天下?

It may be the defining London sight: people walking up escalators at Tube stations. In this city only tourists stand goggling blankly into space. That's because London — like Manhattan, Hong Kong and other great cities — has fallen into the hands of strivers. They are driving everyone else out of town.

这也许算是伦敦的标志性景象：人们沿着地铁站的自动扶梯向上爬。在这个城市，只有游客才会傻站着发呆。这是因为伦敦和曼哈顿、香港以及其他大城市一样，已经成为拼搏者的天下。他们正把所有其他人赶出城中心。

Philosophers and pop psychologists spent centuries trying to explain humankind, but only in 1996 did the South African novelist Jo-Anne Richards and I finally identify the three basic human types: strivers, slackers and fantasists.

哲学家和大众心理学家花费了数百年时间，试图理解人类，但直到1996年，南非小说家约-安妮•理查兹(Jo-Anne Richards)和我才终于确定，人类有三种基本类型：拼搏者、游手好闲者和幻想者。

Strivers are restless overachievers who walk up escalators. Their habitats include the City of London and Davos. Almost all political leaders are strivers, except ones who inherited their position, such as George W. Bush. As Richards explains in a now-dead book proposal: "Strivers start companies, build skyscrapers and finish marathons. But not all strivers rule the world. They also make the trains run on time, and organise charities." A working-class female striver might become a head nurse. If the job market sidelines women altogether, she will strive vicariously, through her children. "Strivers," writes Richards, "have the energy and discipline to make other people's dreams come true." Strivers make every minute count, and devote their leisure-time to self-improvement. Their drugs of choice are accelerators: coffee and cocaine.

拼搏者是那些沿着自动扶梯向上爬的、不知疲倦的“过分上进者”。他们的聚集地包括伦敦金融城(City of London)和达沃斯。几乎所有的政治领导人都是拼搏者，除了那些靠继承得到职位的人，比如乔治•W•布什(George W. Bush)。正如理查兹在一份已被否决的图书计划中所写的：“拼搏者创立公司、修建摩天大楼、跑完马拉松。但并不是所有的拼搏者都在统治世界。他们也保证列车准点和组织慈善活动。”一名工人阶级的女拼搏者可能成为护士长。如果就业市场彻底排除女性，她会通过她的子女间接地拼搏。“拼搏者，”理查兹写道，“拥有使其他人梦想成真的活力和自制力。”拼搏者使每一分钟都过得充实，并把他们的闲暇时光都用来完善自己。他们最喜欢的是兴奋剂：咖啡和可卡因。

By contrast, slackers do nothing. "They prefer to avoid effort rather than pursue pleasure," writes Richards. "This in itself can be exhausting." It's hard to name any well-known slackers, because by definition slackers rarely become famous, except by accident. Sometimes a slacker will get an idea for a novel or for creating world peace, but then she sinks back into the sofa and the moment passes. Whereas business newspapers celebrate strivers, slacker newspapers celebrate lottery winners. Andrew Lamprecht, in his seminal article on slackers, writes that although they have "no idea what they want from life" they often compensate with "a catholic knowledge of television".

相比之下，游手好闲者什么也不做。“他们更喜欢逃避劳动，而不是追求幸福，”理查兹写道。“这本身就可能使人精疲力尽。”人们很难说出有名的游手好闲者，因为从定义上讲，游手好闲者很难出名，除非是意外情况。有时，游手好闲者也会迸发出写小说或缔造世界和平的灵感，但随即她又会窝到沙发里，时光就这样虚度。尽管财经报纸在不停地赞美拼搏者，休闲报纸却为彩票中奖者大唱赞歌。安德鲁•兰普雷克特(Andrew Lamprecht)在他那篇影响巨大的关于游手好闲者的文章中写道，尽管他们“不知道想从生活中得到什么”，但他们却经常以“从电视中获得的广博的知识面”作为弥补。

If slackers devote their leisure time to anything, it's extended adolescent hobbies such as surfing or collecting comics. Their drugs of choice are anaesthetics: vodka or cigarettes.

如果游手好闲者把闲暇时光用来做些什么的话，那一定是青春期爱好的延续，比如网上冲浪或收集漫画。他们最喜欢的是麻醉剂：伏特加或香烟。The third human type, the fantasist, lives inside his imagination. Fantasists have little desire to impose themselves on the world. A fantasist might spend years writing a short story, then discard it. Fantasists are never efficient and always miss deadlines. They are suckers for new age fads such as crystals. They do create a lot of art, which strivers buy. Fantasist drugs of choice stimulate fantasy: marijuana or ecstasy. When people are presented with the three human archetypes, most claim to be fantasists.

第三类人是幻想者，他们活在自己的想象里。幻想者对于投身现实世界没什么兴趣。他们可能花费数年的时间写一篇短篇小说，然后丢到一旁。幻想者从来没有效率，总是错过最后期限。他们很容易对水晶这类新世纪的时尚着迷。他们确实创造了许多艺术作品，被拼搏者购买。幻想者最喜爱的是能刺激幻想的东西：大麻或摇头丸。当人们面对这三种类型时，大部分人都自称是幻想者。

In truth, real people are usually a mix of the three archetypes. For instance, successful artists such as Steven Spielberg or Damien Hirst are generally striver-fantasists. However, most people tend towards one particular type: for instance, someone might be slacker-dominant, with fantasist streaks.

实际上，真实的人通常是三者的结合。例如，像史蒂文•斯皮尔伯格(Steven Spielberg)和达米安•赫斯特(Damien Hirst)这样的成功艺术家，通常是拼搏型幻想家。不过，大部分人都偏向一种类型，比如，一个人可能主要是游手好闲者，同时具有一些幻想者的特点。

Naturally the three types irritate each other. A fantasist friend once told me an idea he had for a book. Being a striver, I began to strategise about finding a publisher. The more I talked, the less enthusiastic my friend became. Eventually, he changed the subject. He never intended to write the book. He just liked imagining it.

自然，这三类人互相不适应。一位幻想型朋友曾经告诉我，他想写一本书。作为拼搏者，我开始筹划寻找出版商。我说得越多，我的朋友越没有热情。最终，他改变了想法。他再也不想写这本书了。他只是喜欢幻想它。

We strivers are even more at odds with slackers. Our force fields clash with theirs: our very presence makes them stressed, as if we were human deadlines. You see this clash in politics, where striver rulers are always exhorting slacker populations to pull their socks up: in Nicolas Sarkozy's formulation: "Work harder to earn more." Rulers hate the notion that someone somewhere might be slacking. Soviet leaders were forever promoting brick-laying contests or rationing vodka, unaware that they were fighting human nature. But slackers rarely revolt against striver rule. Instead, they dream up conspiracy theories.

我们拼搏者与游手好闲者要更加格格不入。我们与他们气场不合：我们的存在使他们感到压力，仿佛我们就是人性的终结者。你可以在政治中看到这种冲突，拼搏型统治者总是在劝诫游手好闲型的民众更加努力地工作，用尼古拉•萨科齐(Nicolas Sarkozy)的话说就是，“更努力地工作，赚更多的钱”。一想到有某人在某处游手好闲，统治者就会不高兴。苏联领导人从来都在提倡砌砖比赛或定量配给伏特加，而对自己是在与人性为敌毫无知觉。但游手好闲者很少会反抗拼搏者的统治。相反，他们会幻想阴谋论。

No wonder the three archetypes have tended to segregate themselves. In big cities, strivers gravitate to financial districts, whereas fantasists establish enclaves such as Greenwich Village in 1950s New York or Belleville in today's Paris. When strivers discover these enclaves and drive up prices, fantasists create more distant enclaves. Slackers generally avoid big cities, often preferring the parental home, writes Richards.

无怪乎这三类人会倾向于互相隔离。在大城市中，拼搏者向金融区聚集，幻想者则建立起像20世纪50年代纽约的格林威治村(Greenwich Village)和当今巴黎贝尔维尔(Belleville)这样的小天地。当拼搏者发现这些小天地，并推高物价后，幻想者就会在更偏远的地方建立小天地。理查兹写道，游手好闲者通常会避开大城市，更偏爱父母的家乡。

In the US, with its great geographic mobility, the separation of the three types was always marked. Strivers headed for Manhattan and Washington, whereas slackers preferred places such as Miami. You sense each city's dominant mode the minute you arrive: at JFK airport in New York, the lady running the cab rank bellows, "Move it along, people! You, sir, take this cab." She's on her way up. At Miami airport, you can't even find cabs.

在美国，由于地理上的巨大流动性，这三类人的分离一直十分明显。拼搏者向曼哈顿和华盛顿聚集，游手好闲者则偏爱迈阿密这样的地方。抵达每座城市的第一分钟，你就能感觉出它的主导类型：在纽约肯尼迪机场(JFK airport)，管理出租车站的女士喊着，“排队向前走，大家！你，先生，上这辆车”。她在她的拼搏路上。在迈阿密机场，你甚至找不到出租车。

However, segregation of the three human types is now proceeding faster than ever before. Rising house prices and growing inequality are driving non-strivers out of big cities, and even out of previously fantasist coastal towns such as Cape Town and San Francisco. Slackers and fantasists must be upset, but unless you read blogs their voices go unheard, and they certainly won't do anything about it.

然而，现在这三类人的分离比以往任何时候都更快了。攀升的房屋价格和日益拉大的贫富分化正把非拼搏者赶出大城市，甚至赶出开普敦和旧金山这些曾经属于幻想者的海滨城市。游手好闲者和幻想者一定满腹怨言，但除非你阅读他们的博客，否则他们的声音不会有人听到，而他们自己显然不会对此采取任何行动。

译者:方舟