Obituary | The pilgrim from Plains
訃告 | 來自普萊恩斯鎮的清教徒
英文部分選自經濟學人20241221期訃告板塊
Obituary | The pilgrim from Plains
Jimmy Carter was perhaps the most virtuous of all America’s presidents
The humblepeanut farmer who went to the White House died on December 29th, aged 100
這位花生農場主出身的美國前總統於12月29日去世，享年100歲
To their confusion, and often to their regret, Americans seemed faced with two Jimmy Carters. One was the man whose presidency, won by a squeak and relinquished amid the humiliation of the Tehran hostage crisis, seemed an essay in naivety. This was the chief executive who once addressed the nation in a grey cardigan, sitting by a guttering fire; who, at the peak of the energy crisis in 1979, as Americans queued miserably for petrol, wanly criticised their malaise; who, at the peak of the cold war, attempted to effect a thaw by writing a personal letter to the exiled nuclear physicist Andrei Sakharov; and whose bid to rescue the hostages ended with a helicopter crash in the desert. This was also the manwho, out fishing, was said to have been assailed by a “killer rabbit”; and who admitted to Playboy magazine that he had often committed “adultery in my heart”, inciting a wave of mockery from sophisticates on both coasts.
美國人似乎面對著兩個吉米・卡特（Jimmy Carter），這讓他們困惑且時常感到惋惜。一個是看起來不諳世事的卡特總統，他以微弱優勢贏得大選而後在德黑蘭人質危機的屈辱中黯然卸任。正是這位總統，曾身著灰色羊毛開衫，坐在忽明忽暗的爐火旁，向全國發表講話；在能源危機最嚴重的1979年，美國民眾為了買到石油排起長隊，苦不堪言，他委婉地批評民眾萎靡不振；在冷戰最激烈之時，他給流放的核物理學家安德烈·薩哈羅夫（Andrei Sakharov）寫親筆信力圖緩和局勢；德黑蘭人質危機中，他傾盡全力營救美國人質，最終卻以救援直升機墜毀沙漠收場。也正是這位總統，據說在外出釣魚時曾遭到一隻“殺手兔”的攻擊；還向《花花公子》（Playboy）雜誌坦承自己常心生“通姦之念”，招來美國東西海岸的精英們陣陣嘲笑。
Like Bill Clinton after him, he was southern through and through, brought up in the woods and swamps around Plains, Georgia. Unlike Mr Clinton, he was unintellectual, a peanut-farmer and one-term governor of Georgia whose formation had been in the navy, not university. In a crowded Democratic primary field in 1976 his country freshness, like his drawl and his grin, marked him out, as did his surprising ambition; but Cartermania barely survived the novelty of his inauguration walk to the White House.
和後來的比爾·克林頓（Bill Clinton）一樣，卡特也是個徹頭徹尾的南方人，在佐治亞州普萊恩斯鎮周邊的樹林和沼澤地裡長大。與知識分子氣質的克林頓不同，卡特是個花生農場主，只擔任過一屆佐治亞州州長，年少時在海軍服役而非上大學。1976年民主黨初選競爭激烈，他身上那股質樸的鄉村氣息，比如他的南方口音和露齒笑容，以及他那出人意料的雄心壯志，讓他脫穎而出；然而，“卡特熱”在他入主白宮後便難以為繼。
To his supporters he represented the confident, booming New South, at last emerging from segregation; to the doubters he was a hick with straw in his hair, soon floundering in the quagmires of Washington and the world. The “Georgia mafia” who came with him were also an amateurish bunch, typified by his tubby, venal budget director, Bert Lance; his good ol’ boy chief of staff, Hamilton Jordan; and his younger brother Billy, who traded on his high connection to promote a brand of beer and, from his service stationin Plains, dispensed the sort of mischievous platitudes that presidents can do without.
對支持者來說，卡特代表著充滿信心、蓬勃發展的新南方，終於走出了種族隔離的陰霾；而對持疑者而言，他不過是個頭髮裡還插著稻草的鄉巴佬，很快會在華盛頓和國際事務的泥潭中舉步維艱。卡特的團隊“佐治亞幫”也不過是個草臺班子，典型人物包括他那矮胖又貪財的預算辦公室主任伯特·蘭斯（Bert Lance）；他那老好人式的幕僚長漢密爾頓·喬丹（Hamilton Jordan）；還有他的弟弟比利（Billy），利用自己和總統的關係推銷某牌啤酒，還在普萊恩斯鎮的加油站散佈“總統可有可無”之類的閒言碎語。
Yet scarcely had Mr Carter left the job than he seemed completely different: both effective and impressive. He threw himself into Habitat for Humanity, a charity that builds houses for the poor, raising the roof-beams himself with hammer and nails. Through his Carter Centre, set up in 1982, he became a tireless advocate for peace and democracy, travelling the world to monitor elections, end wars and promote human rights. In short order, he became America’s conscience and its moral ambassador. When he disagreed with his successors—as with George W. Bush over Iraq—he said so loudly. In 2002 he won the Nobel peace prize, gaining a stature he had never had in his brief troubled spell at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
然而，卡特一卸任，就彷彿脫胎換骨，事業有聲有色，令人欽佩。他投身於“仁人家園”（為窮人建設房屋的慈善機構），親自揮錘釘釘，搭建屋樑。1982年成立“卡特中心”後，他孜孜不倦提倡和平民主，四處奔走，監督選舉、結束戰爭、促進人權。很快，卡特便成為美國的“良知”和道德大使。當他和繼任總統意見相左時，就直抒己見，例如和喬治·W·布什（George W. Bush）在伊拉克問題上的分歧。2002年，他榮獲諾貝爾和平獎，聲望遠超他主政白宮（賓夕法尼亞大街1600號）那幾年的坎坷時光。
Yet these were the same man. There wasno side to Mr Carter, and no dissembling. The landmarks of his foreign policy—the Camp David accords between Egypt and Israel in 1978, the Salt II disarmament treaty with the Soviet Union and the return of the Panama Canal to Panama, all criticised by many as giveaways at the time—were typical of a man intent on peace for its own sake. Almost his first act as president, after all, had been to pardon all those who had evaded the Vietnam draft, an attempt to heal one of the deepest fissures in America. He believed, with equal conviction, in the union of all men as brothers. In the Jim Crow years he had not hesitated to play with the black farm boys who lived on the same dirt road; as governor of Georgia he had made a point of choosing black candidates as judges and putting black portraits in the state Capitol. Now, prickly foreign leaders were invited to sit with him on the Truman Balcony in rocking chairs and talk about their grandchildren.
但這實際上是同一個人。卡特既不擺架子，也不偽裝自己。他外交政策的里程碑，如1978年埃及和以色列的《戴維營協議》，與蘇聯簽訂的《第二階段限制戰略武器條約》，以及將巴拿馬運河歸屬權交還給巴拿馬，在當時都備受詬病，被看作是軟弱退讓，卻也是他心繫和平的具體表現。他上任後做的第一件事就是赦免所有逃避越戰徵兵的人，試圖彌合美國最深的創傷之一。同樣，他堅信天下大同。在《吉姆克勞法》（Jim Crow）實施期間，他毫不猶豫地和住在同一條土路上的黑人農場少年玩耍；作為佐治亞州州長，他特意選擇黑人候選人作為審判員，並在州議會大廈裡張貼黑人肖像。如今，那些愛挑刺的外國領導人受邀同他一起，坐在白宮杜魯門陽臺上的搖椅裡談論孫輩的事情。
Working with Congress seemed harder. He did not understand the arts of schmoozing and doing favours, and offended Capitol Hill with attacks on pork-barrel spending. As a result, although he managed to set up the Department of Energy in 1977 to deal with the energy crisis, he struggled to get either an energy reform bill or petrol rationing passed. On the economy, in years dogged by stagflation and unemployment as well as soaring oil prices, he seemed torn between charity and frugality, and neither worked. As inflation shot up into double digits, he imposed price controls; later he brought in credit controls and austerity, which drove America into recession. As someone who had experienced poverty and failed harvests, his uncomplicated aim was to help those in need; but he never found a consistent way to do so while in office.
與國會合作似乎更加艱難。卡特不懂交際手腕，也不會做人情，還因抨擊政治分肥開支而得罪國會。因此，儘管他為處理能源危機，想方設法於1977年成立了能源部，但他推行的能源改革法案和汽油定額配給政策都沒能獲批。經濟上，在受滯脹、失業和油價飆升困擾的年份裡，他似乎在慷慨救助和節儉緊縮之間舉棋不定，但兩種辦法都不奏效。當通膨率飆升到兩位數時，他採取了物價管控措施；後來，他又實施了信貸管制和緊縮政策，導致美國經濟衰退。和那些經歷過貧困和歉收的人一樣，他的目的很單純，就是幫助有需要的人；但在執政期內他卻未能找到一以貫之的方法來實現。
Surrounded by the high life of Washington, he kept his lifelong predilection for woodworking and quiet fishing, for introspection and making things from scratch. In the same way, amid a maelstrom of clashing policy advice, simple Christianity was his guide: to walk humbly, love his neighbour and do right by him.
身處華盛頓的燈紅酒綠，他卻畢生醉心於做木工活、靜謐垂釣、內省自身，親手製作東西。同樣，身處紛繁複雜的政策建議大漩渦，他以樸素的基督教教義為指引：存謙卑、愛鄰里、行正義。
America was not used to this. Religious as the country was (and is), presidents usually came in the safe, muted colours of Episcopalianism or Presbyterianism. God could be turned on or off, to suit the times. A Southern Baptist who had preached and taught Sunday school, whose Bible was kept to hand and whose God was permanently present, was a curiosity and an embarrassment to more secular types. Mr Carter did not proselytise as president, but behaved as he believed: his autobiography was called “Keeping Faith”. Nor was he doctrinaire, severing his ties with the Southern Baptist Convention because it would not grant equality to women. His last act in the Oval Office was to pray for the freedom of his people; his last visitor there reminded him that no citizen had been killed in war during his administration. That was, for him, sufficient consolation.
美國人對此並不習慣。雖然美國過去是（現在也是）宗教氛圍濃厚的國家，但總統們通常都以聖公會或長老會那種穩妥、低調的形象示人。他們會順應時代的需要，決定是顯化上帝，還是閉口不談。而作為南方浸信會教徒，卡特曾在主日學校傳道並授課，他手不離聖經，主永相伴隨。對世俗人士而言，這既新奇又彆扭。卡特並不曾借其總統身份進行傳教，而是遵從“所做即所信”，他的自傳就叫《保持信心》。他並非教條主義者，曾因南方浸信會未賦予婦女平等權利而與其斷絕關係。他在白宮橢圓辦公室做的最後一件事，是為人民的自由而祈禱；他在白宮的最後一位客人提醒他，在他任內，沒有美國公民在戰爭中身亡。對他來說，這已是足夠的慰藉。
In Russia, he might have been called a holy fool. In America, his career raised the disturbing thought that it might be impossible for a really effective president to also be a really good man.
在俄羅斯，他可能會被稱作“聖愚”。在美國，他的職業生涯引發了令人不安的思考：辦事高效的總統可能無法同時是個好人。
Jack Jan，實踐出真知
Alex，不務正業的理工男Crystal ，SISU小菜雞，紮根生長也自然流淌
Shulin，非上上智，無了了心
Rachel，心有懵虎，細嗅烏龜
Yu Yang，架一艘譯艦巡航無數內心的曲折宇宙
本週感想
相較於卡特，也許我們對於同時期的勳宗更加熟悉，特別是他那些令人回味無窮的笑話。但是，最近再聽這些笑話時，似乎另有一番滋味。
對於歷史的細節，尤其是那些看似邏輯上存在很大漏洞的部分，我們總是百思不得其解。我們有時會認為這是勝利者為自己書寫的讚歌，所以邏輯上的問題大機率就是讚歌與事實之間的差值。有時我們會覺得這是史官以一種略帶誇張又幾乎能顧及到體面的智慧方式進行倔強的表達。最近，我卻覺得，這也許就是事實，但大機率是隻表述了事實的一部分，故看起來就似乎邏輯錯誤，就好像某一年底的某事件的人數統計，等等之類。
所以我們應該以哪種方式來解讀這種表述呢？結合一些野史，或是民間的傳說，卻是一種不得已但很好的方式來接近事實。在這兩者之間利用想象的翅膀構思出一座平衡的橋樑，連線兩端的邏輯脈絡。當然這只是一種愛好者對於歷史細節的無責任的猜測，無關事實，無關真假，無關好壞，無關立場，只是圖一快樂。
很多時候，面對如今的周遭，我會想，若干年以後的歷史將會如何描述這個時代：是好是壞，是正確還是錯誤，是誤入歧途還是閃亮的流星。這種未來考古史的研究真是一門令人心潮澎湃的學問，更重要的是，這門學問比起其它學問來有個無可比擬的優勢，那就是一定會有一個正確的答案，就好像小朋友的作業一般，正確答案一定會寫在書本的後面，我們只不過是那些還沒答完題就在偷偷翻看後面答案的調皮鬼而已。
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