OUR LIVES AS ANIMALS AND OUR HUMAN VERSATILITY AT BEING AGGRESSIVE
我们作为动物的生活和我们人类所具有侵略性的多样性
So we have a first intellectual challenge, which is to always think in this interdisciplinary way.
所以我们面临的第一个智力挑战，就是总是以跨学科的方式思考。
The second challenge is to make sense of humans as apes, primates, mammals. Oh, that’s right, we’re a kind of animal. And it will be a challenge to figure out when we’re just like other animals and when we are utterly different.
第二个挑战是理解人类是类人猿、灵长类动物和哺乳动物。对了，我们是一种动物。要弄清楚什么时候我们和其他动物一样，什么时候我们完全不同，这将是一个挑战。
Some of the time we are indeed just like any other animal. When we’re scared, we secrete the same hormone as would some subordinate fish getting hassled by a bully.
有些时候，我们确实和其他动物没什么两样。当我们害怕的时候，我们分泌的荷尔蒙就像一些食物链底层的鱼被猎食者惊吓一样。
The biology of pleasure involves the same brain chemicals in us as in a capybara. Neurons from humans and brine shrimp work the same way.
我们关于快乐的生物学原理，大脑化学物质和水豚一样。人类和盐水虾的神经元以同样的方式工作。
House two female rats together, and over the course of weeks they will synchronize their reproductive cycles so that they wind up ovulating within a few hours of each other.
把两只雌鼠放在一起，经过几周的时间，它们的生殖周期将同步，这样它们排卵就会在前后几小时内发生。
Try the same with two human females (as reported in some but not all studies), and something similar occurs.It’s called the Wellesley effect, first shown with roommates at all women’s Wellesley College.
在两个人类女性身上尝试同样的方法(在一些但不是所有的研究中都有报道)，类似的情况也会发生。这种现象被称为“韦尔斯利效应”，首先在韦尔斯利女子学院的室友中被发现。
It’s called the Wellesley effect, first shown with roommates at all women’s Wellesley College.And when it comes to violence, we can be just like some other apes—we pummel, we cudgel, we throw rocks, we kill with our bare hands.
当涉及到暴力时，我们可以像其他猿类一样——我们击打、棍棒、扔石头、赤手空拳杀人。
So some of the time an intellectual challenge is to assimilate how similar we can be to other species. In other cases the challenge is to appreciate how, though human physiology resembles that of other species, we use the physiology in novel ways.
所以有时候一个智力上的挑战就是同化我们与其他物种的相似程度。在其他情况下，我们面临的挑战是，尽管人类的生理机能与其他物种相似，但我们如何以新颖的方式使用生理机能。
We activate the classical physiology of vigilance while watching a scary movie. We activate a stress response when thinking about mortality. We secrete hormones related to nurturing and social bonding, but in response to an adorable baby panda. And this certainly applies to aggression—we use the same muscles as does a male chimp attacking a sexual competitor, but we use them to harm someone because of their ideology.Finally, sometimes the only way to understand our humanness is to consider solely humans, because the things we do are unique.
我们在看恐怖电影时激活了经典的警觉生理。一想到死亡，我们就会产生应激反应。我们分泌与抚养和社会联系相关的激素，但这是对可爱的熊猫宝宝的反应。
这当然也适用于攻击性——我们使用的肌肉和雄性黑猩猩攻击性竞争对手时使用的肌肉一样，但我们使用它们来伤害别人是因为他们的意识形态。最后，有时理解我们人性的唯一方法是只考虑人类，因为我们所做的事情是独一无二的。
While a few other species have regular nonreproductive sex, we’re the only ones to talk afterward about how it was.
虽然其他一些物种也有规律的非生殖性行为，但我们是唯一一个事后谈论它是如何发生的物种。
We construct cultures premised on beliefs concerning the nature of life and can transmit those beliefs multigenerationally, even between two individuals separated by millennia—just consider that perennial best seller, the Bible. Consonant with that, wecan harm by doing things as unprecedented as and no more physicallytaxing than pulling a trigger, or nodding consent, or looking the other way.
我们构建的文化以关于生命本质的信仰为前提，并且可以在几代人之间传递这些信仰，甚至是在相隔数千年的两个人之间——只要想想那本经久不衰的畅销书《圣经》就知道了。与之相一致的是，我们可以做一些前所未有的事情，而这些事情并不比扣动扳机、点头同意或视而不见更耗费体力。
We can be passive-aggressive, damn with faint praise, cut with scorn, express contempt with patronizing concern. All species are unique, but we are unique in some pretty unique ways.
我们可以消极对抗，阴阳怪气，用轻蔑来攻击，用居高临下的关心来表达轻蔑。所有的物种都是独一无二的，但我们在一些非常独特的方面是独一无二的。
Here are two examples of just how strange and unique humans can be when they go about harming one another and caring for one another.
这里有两个例子，说明了当人类互相伤害、互相照顾时，人类是多么的奇怪和独特。
The first example involves, well, my wife. So we’re in the minivan, our kids in the back, my wife driving. And this complete jerk cuts us off, almost causing an accident, and in a way that makes it clear that it wasn’t distractedness on his part, just sheer selfishness. My wife honks at him, and he flips us off.
第一个例子涉及我的妻子。我们在小货车里，孩子们在后面，我妻子开车。有个混蛋別车，几乎造成了一场事故，在某种程度上，这表明他不是分心，只是纯粹的自私。我妻子对他按喇叭，他就朝我们竖中指。
We’re livid, incensed. Asshole-where’s-the-cops-when-you need-them, etc. And suddenly my wife announces that we’re going to follow him, make him a little nervous. I’m still furious, but this doesn’t strike me as the most prudent thing in the world. Nonetheless, my wife starts trailing him, right on his rear.
我们愤怒，愤怒。
混蛋——警察在哪里——当你需要他们的时候——等等。突然我妻子宣布我们要跟着他，这让他有点紧张。我仍然很愤怒，但我并不觉得这是世界上最打击我事情。尽管如此，我的妻子开始尾随他，就在他的后面。
After a few minutes the guy’s driving evasively, but my wife’s on him.
几分钟后，那家伙开始躲闪，但我妻子盯着他。
Finally both cars stop at a red light, one that we know is a long one.
最后两辆车都停在红灯前，我们知道其中一个红灯很长。
Another car is stopped in front of the villain. He’s not going anywhere.
另一辆车停在了坏蛋的前面。他哪也去不了。
Suddenly my wife grabs something from the front seat divider, opens her door, and says, “Now he’s going to be sorry.”
突然，我妻子从前座隔板上拿起什么东西，打开车门，说:“现在他要后悔了。”
I rouse myself feebly—“Uh, honey, do you really think this is such a goo—” But she’s out of the car, starts pounding on his window.
我无力地唤醒自己——“呃，亲爱的，你真的认为这是一个好……?”但她已经下了车，开始敲打他的窗户。
I hurry over just in time to hear my wife say, “If you could do something that mean to another person, you probably need this,” in a venomous voice. She then flings something in the window.
我赶紧跑过去，正好听到我的妻子说:“如果你要引起别人注意，你可能需要这个，”语气很恶毒。然后她往窗户里扔了些东西。
She returns to the car triumphant, just glorious.
她得意洋洋地回到车里。
“What did you throw in there!?”
“你往里面扔了什么!?”
She’s not talking yet. The light turns green, there’s no one behind us, and we just sit there. The thug’s car starts to blink a very sensible turnindicator, makes a slow turn, and heads down a side street into the dark at, like, five miles an hour.
她还没开口。绿灯亮了，后面没有人，我们就坐在那里。那人的车开始闪烁着一个非常明智的转向灯，慢慢地转了个弯，然后以大约每小时五英里的速度沿着一条小街进入黑暗中。
If it’s possible for a car to look ashamed, this car was doing it.
如果说一辆车有可能看起来很惭愧，那就是这辆车。
“Honey, what did you throw in there, tell me?”
“亲爱的，你在里面放了什么，告诉我?”
She allows herself a small, malicious grin.
她露出一丝恶意的微笑。
“A grape lollipop.” I was awed by her savage passive-aggressiveness—
“You’re such a mean, awful human that something must have gone really wrong in your childhood, and maybe this lollipop will help correct that just a little.” That guy was going to think twice before screwing with us again.
“葡萄棒棒糖。”我对她野蛮的讽刺感到敬畏——
“你是一个如此刻薄、可怕的人，你的童年一定出了什么问题，也许这个棒棒糖会帮助你纠正一点。”那家伙在再惹我们之前会三思而后行。
I swelled with pride and love.
我充满了骄傲和爱。
And the second example: In the mid-1960s, a rightist military coup overthrew the government of Indonesia, instituting the thirty-year dictatorship of Suharto known as the New Order. Following the coup, government-sponsored purges of communists, leftists, intellectuals, unionists, and ethnic Chinese left about a half million dead. Mass executions, torture, villages torched with inhabitants trapped inside.
第二个例子: 在20世纪60年代中期，一场右翼军事政变推翻了印尼的政府，开始了苏哈托长达30年的独裁统治，被称为“新秩序”。政变之后，政府发起了对共产主义者、左派、知识分子、联合主义者和华人的清洗，导致大约50万人死亡，大规模处决。酷刑，居民被困在村庄里烧死。
V. S. Naipaul, in his book Among the Believers: An Islamic Journey, describes hearing rumors while in Indonesia that when a paramilitary group would arrive to exterminate every person in some village, they would, incongruously, bring along a traditional gamelan orchestra.
V. S.奈保尔(V. S. Naipaul)在他的书《在信徒中:伊斯兰之旅》(Among the Believers: An Islamic Journey)中描述，他在印尼听到的流言称，当一个准军事组织到来，要消灭某个村庄的所有人时，他们会很不协调的带来一支传统的加美兰乐队。
Eventually Naipaul encountered an unrepentant veteran of a massacre, and he asked him about the rumor. Yes, it is true. We would bring along gamelan musicians, singers, flutes, gongs, the whole shebang. Why? Why would you possibly do that? The man looked puzzled and gave what seemed to him a self-evident answer: “Well, to make it more beautiful.”
最终，奈保尔遇到了一名经历过大屠杀的顽固不化的老兵，他向他询问了这个谣言。
是的，这是真的。我们会带来佳美兰乐手，歌手，笛子，锣，所有的东西。为什么?你为什么要这么做?那人一脸迷惑，给出了一个似乎不言自明的答案:“嗯，为了让它更漂亮。”
Bamboo flutes, burning villages, the lollipop ballistics of maternal love. We have our work cut out for us, trying to understand the virtuosity with which we humans harm or care for one another, and how deeply intertwined the biology of the two can be.
竹笛，燃烧村庄，棒棒糖弹射母爱。我们有自己的工作要做，试图理解我们人类伤害或照顾彼此的技巧，以及这两者的生物学可以有多么紧密地交织在一起。
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