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。