文/爱德华·卢斯 译/陈岩

What is in a word? When it is packed with1be packed with挤满，富含。as much moral zeal as “meritocracy”, the answer is a lot.A meritocrat owes his success to effort and talent. Luck has nothing to do with it—or so he tells himself. He shares his view with everyone else, including those too slow or indolent to follow his example. Things only go wrong when the others dispute it.

[2] Now magnify that to a nation of 320m people—one that prides itself on being a meritocracy. Imagine that between a half and two-thirds of its people, depending on how the question is framed, disagree. They believe the system’s divisions are self-perpetuating.They used not to think that way.

[3] Imagine, also, that the meritocrats are too enamoured of their just rewards to see it. The fact that they are split—one group calling itself Democratic, the other Republican—is detail. They are two sides of a debased coin. Sooner or later something will give.

一个词能有多少含义？若是像“精英体制”一样道德色彩浓厚，答案则是“很多”。精英把成功归因于努力与天分。他的成功与运气没有任何关系，或者说他是这么告诉自己的。他同所有人分享这个观点，其中有些人太笨、太懒，根本无法以他为榜样。只有当其他人对此产生质疑时，事情才会变糟。

[2]现在将情况放大到一个有着3.2亿人口、以精英体制为傲的国家。想象一下，有二分之一到三分之二的人（取决于问题怎么表述）持不同意见。他们认为体制的分歧是永恒存在的。过去他们不这么想。

[3]再想象一下，精英们沉醉于自己应得的回报中而看不到这些。他们分裂的事实很清楚，一派自称为民主党，另一派为共和党。他们是一枚劣币的两面，迟早会露馅。

[4] Since the late 1960s both parties, in different ways, have turned a blind eye to the economic interests of the middle class. In 1972 the McGovern-Fraser Commission revamped the Democratic party’s rules for selecting its nominee after the disastrous 1968 convention2这次党代会时值越战期间，党内总统提名人的角逐非常激烈，进而导致争议，触发了暴力示威。in Chicago. The overhaul changed the party’s course. It included obligatory seats for women, ethnic minorities and young people—but left out3leave out忽略，没有考虑。working males altogether. “We aren’t going to let these Camelot Harvard-Berkeley types take over our party,” said the head of the AFL-CIO, the largest American union federation. That is precisely what happened. Democrats cemented the shift from a class-based party to an ethnic coalition by enshrining affirmative action for non-whites. Getting a leg up to university, the ultimate meritocratic vehicle,was based on your skin colour rather than your economic situation.

[5] Unsurprisingly, swaths4swath长而宽的一条或一行。of the white middle class turned Republican.Forty years on, many Democrats, not least Bernie Sanders’ supporters, are suffering buyer’s remorse. Before he became president, Barack Obama argued it would be fairer to base af firmative action on income not colour. “My daughters should probably be treated by any admissions of ficer as folks who are pretty advantaged,” he said.

[4]自从20世纪60年代后期，两党便开始以不同方式忽视中产阶级的经济利益。1968年在芝加哥召开的民主党党代会像一场灾难，之后，1972年麦戈文-弗雷泽委员会便修订了民主党候选人推选规则。这次修改改变了民主党的道路，规定必须给妇女、少数族裔和年轻人留有席位，却把男性劳动者整体忽略了。“我们不会让这些高高在上的哈佛人、伯克利人掌控我们的政党。”美国最大的工会组织劳联-产联主席这么说。而这确实发生了。民主党把推动有色人口平权法案作为宗旨，强化了从一个基于阶级的政党向族裔联盟的转变。能否一只脚踏进大学，搭上精英教育的终极快车，基于肤色而不是经济水平。

[5]毫无意外，大量的白人中产阶级转向了共和党。40年后，很多民主党人，尤其是伯尼·桑德斯的支持者们，都尝到了“买家懊悔”的滋味。巴拉克·奥巴马成为总统之前，曾呼吁平权运动应该基于收入而不是肤色才更公平。“任何招生官都应该把我的女儿当作优势群体来对待。”他说。

[6] Last week it was announced that Malia Obama had been accepted into Harvard, her father’s alma mater. About a third of legacy applicants, those whose parent attended, are accepted into Harvard. No one suggests she is not deserving of her place. However, there are plenty of lower-income black and white children who do not bene fit from the advantages Malia Obama or Chelsea Clinton (Stanford and Oxford) had from birth.

[7] The US labour market remains impressively meritocratic. But what happens to a worker in the 25 years before he or she enters it is anything but.Hence the term “hereditary meritocracy”. Richard Reeves of the Brookings Institution calls them “dream hoarders”.

[8] Judged by aptitude, almost half those in America’s top two-fifths income bracket are there because of the luck of family background. Think of the value of those unpaid internships. A big share of those in the bottom fifth would be in the top if they had the same life chances.

[9] Middle-class whites derived no greater benefit from voting Republican.For years strategists such as Karl Rove played on cultural fears—often stoking racial resentment—to galvanise the vote.

[10] Once in of fice, Republicans pursued tax cuts for the rich. Ignored by both parties and disproportionately hit by the downsides of globalisation, bluecollar whites fell into depression. For the first time, life expectancy among American whites is falling.

[6]上周有消息称玛利亚·奥巴马已经被她父亲的母校哈佛大学录取。父母曾是哈佛校友的申请者有大约三分之一会被哈佛录取。并不是说玛利亚·奥巴马不够格被录取，然而有太多低收入家庭的孩子，白人也好黑人也罢，从未享受过她或切尔西·克林顿（曾就读斯坦福和牛津）生来就拥有的这些优势。

[7]美国劳动力市场的精英化特征仍旧十分明显。但是劳动者进入劳动力市场之前的25年里，经历的却并非如此。这样便有了“世袭精英制”这么个词。布鲁金斯学会的理查德·里夫斯将他们称为“囤梦者”。

[8]论天资，收入排在全美前五分之二的人中，有近一半是因为家庭背景带来的运气。想想那些没有酬劳的实习机会吧。如果拥有同样的人生机遇，收入处在底层五分之一的人里有很多都能进入顶层。

[9]中产阶级白人没能因为支持共和党而多获益。多年来，诸如卡尔·罗夫这样的战略家为了刺激投票，常常煽动种族仇恨，拿文化担忧做文章。

[10]共和党人一旦上台就会为富人谋求减税政策。被两党忽略的白人蓝领群体，受到全球化负面影响的剧烈冲击，生活陷入苦闷。美国白人的预期寿命首次下降。

[11] To add insult to injury, poor whites alone are still fair game for ridicule. They are excluded from the rules of political correctness. This is the demographic that eats itself into obesity in front of bad TV reality shows such as The Apprentice, which brought Mr Trump into their lives. Here was a man who spoke his mind and fired people.He may have been a schmuck but he was an open book. “I love the poorly educated,” he said after one primary victory. Mr Trump knows his market.

[12] Which brings us back to that supercharged word. Michael Young, the British sociologist who coined it in his 1958 book, The Rise of the Meritocracy,would feel vindicated. Though the term soon lost its irony, Young meant it as a satire on the imagined ruling classes of the future. Meritocratic elites “can be insufferably smug”, he said in a 2001 critique of Prime Minister Tony Blair’s misuse of the word. The rest, meanwhile, “can easily become demoralised by being looked down on so woundingly by people who have done well for themselves”. ■

[12]雪上加霜的是，只有贫困的白人群体仍是被嘲笑的对象。他们被排除在政治正确原则之外。这是一个看着无聊电视节目把自己吃成胖子的群体，节目就包括《学徒》这种把特朗普带进他们生活的真人秀。这个人直言不讳，会炒人鱿鱼。他可能是个蠢货，却十分坦率。“我爱那些没怎么受过教育的人。”一次初选获胜后他这么说。特朗普先生知道自己的市场所在。

[13]这又把我们带回到那个感情色彩浓烈的词语。迈克尔·扬在其1958年出版的《精英统治的崛起》一书中创造出这个词，这位英国社会学家会觉得自己很有先见之明。尽管词中的讽刺意味很快就消失了，扬的确是以此来讽刺想象中的未来统治阶层。2001年，他在一篇批评英国时任首相托尼·布莱尔误用该词的文章中说，精英制下的精英“令人难以容忍的自大”，同时，其他人“很容易因为被成功人士轻视鄙夷，受到伤害而一蹶不振”。 □