知心阿姨颂
我们翻译这篇文章的理由
——糖消
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知心阿姨颂
作者：James Parker
译者：邓舒丹
校对：小 刘
策划：宋一 & 糖消
What will it be, the thing that finally makes me write to an advice columnist? A quandary of the heart? An out-of-control kink? A high-stakes issue involving wedding invitations? Deeply schooled as I am in the lore of the problem page, I still don’t know which of the standard cries for help I’ll end up emitting.
什么事情最终会让我给解惑专栏作家写信？挣扎的内心？失控的怪念头？包括婚礼邀请这样的高风险问题？虽然在提问方面，我经验很丰富，但我还是不知道哪一项标准渴求我将询问的帮助。
Because they’re standard---that’s the point. The problems are the same, now and forever. The same dilemmas, the same misunderstandings. Is my boss a pig? Why won’t my stepdaughter say thank you? I married a frog---I thought he was a prince! They loop around, they rhythmically recur, albeit touched with the flavor of the times (“Help, My Pandemic Crush Feels So Real!”). And the problem of all problems, the old chestnut: Why am I doing what I’m doing, when it’s so obviously bad for me? Saint Paul put this one best in his letter to the Romans: “For what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that I do.”
因为它们是平常的---那才是重点。古往今来，都是一样的问题。一样的困境，一样的误解。我的老板为什么这么笨？为什么我的继女不说感谢的话？我嫁了一只青蛙---我以为他是一位王子！它们循坏往复，有规律地出现，尽管带着时代特点（“救命，我在疫情期间的迷恋如此真实！”）所有问题中最常见的，也是最老生常谈的：知道这对我明显是有害的，为什么我还要做现在做的事情？圣徒保罗在给罗马人的信中表述得最好：“能做的，我没有做；憎恨的，我却做了。”
注：old chestnut, a topic, saying or joke that has been repeated so much that it has become boring or irksome.
Agony aunts, we call them in England, and I’ve been reading them forever. I first encountered them in my mother’s magazines: Women’s Own, Woman’s Weekly, Woman’s Realm. Virginia Ironside—what a counselor. With insight and asperity she sliced into the 2000-word soap operettas laid before her, four or five to a page. Remotely, a boy at the keyhole as it were, I took it all in. I became a short-trousered expert in adulterous longing, erotic disharmony, soul-death at the kitchen table. They were an education to me, a widening of my eyes. This world of complication, this world of problems---I couldn’t get enough.
我们英国人称之为“知心阿姨”。很久以来，我一直在阅读这些东西。第一次是在我母亲的杂志里看到的：《女人自己》、《妇女周刊》、《女性领域》。弗吉尼亚·艾恩赛德---好一个顾问，富有洞见同时不失严厉，成功进入了放在她面前长达2000字的肥皂歌剧，大概四五页左右。在远处，一个男孩儿在钥匙孔处，我看到了一切。我成为了一个穿着短裤的专家，深谙通奸的渴望、性生活的不和谐以及厨房餐桌上(指性交场所)灵魂的死亡。这些是一种教育，开阔了我的眼界。复杂的世界-充满困惑的世界---我怎么也看不够。
And I still can’t. “Ask Polly,” “Dear Prudence” … Some of the letters I read with icy snobbery, some with a gush of fellow feeling. How tangled we get. How impossible it is, apparently, to be alive without sitting on somebody, or being sitting on. I sit freedom you want? The swingers have their problems too (“I Love My Poly Lifestyle, but the Constant Sex Has One Big Drawback”).
我还是不能。“询问波莉，”“亲爱的普鲁登斯”……读信的时候，我时而冰冷地蔑视，时而感同身受。我们多么混乱啊。显而易见，只要人活着就不可能不压迫别人或者被别人压迫。我限制了你想要的自由吗？那些性开放者也有他们的烦恼（“我喜欢多样化的生活方式，但是总是做爱也有一个严重弊端”）。
And then, in a different tone, in a different font, the problem is solved. The advice is given. Setup, punch line. Tension, release. One of the purest thrills for the problem-page addict is the discovery of an unreliable narrator: an advice seeker whose own flaws, glaringly revealed in their letter, are somehow obscure to them. We can barely wait for the columnist to straighten them out (Your sister is quite right; you behaved disgracefully).
但是，在另一种语气，另一种字体中，问题解决了。建议。计划，妙语。紧张，释放。对一个痴迷于问题栏的人来说，最纯粹的刺激在于发现一位不可靠的叙述者：一个寻求意见的人，其缺点在来信中暴露无遗，但是却毫无自知之明。我们迫切地等待专栏作者帮他们理清思路（你的妹妹（姐姐）是对的；你的行为很不得体）。
Voyeurism and schadenfreude---we know our own baseness, we who lurk in the problem ages. But we’re also holding out, childlike, for something beautiful: the idea of a consummately wise person who can take us in hand. Who has all the answers. Who will know what to do when the weight of our situation exceeds the load-bearing capacity of our psychological frame. Because it’s much to be anticipated, much to be wished for---the day when our problems are over.
窥阴癖，幸灾乐祸---我们了解自己的卑劣，我们隐藏在糟糕的时代里。但我们同时也天真地伸出双手迎接美好的事物：心想会有一位富有智慧的人拥抱我们，这个人有所有的答案。当我们所面临的困难处境超过我们的心理承受范围时，这个人知道应该怎么做。因为我们期待，渴望---有一天问题会消失。
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本文原载于 The Atlantic
原文链接：https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/11/an-ode-to-agony-aunts/616482/