经济学人下载:回首旧年:如何从"怀旧"潮掇菁撷华(2)

Vaults full of research attest to how emerging-market optimism is more soundly based than rich-country pessimism. People around the world are living longer, healthier lives; fewer fall victim to war and famine; as education spreads, discrimination and prejudice are waning. Similarly, the summers were rarely as idyllic or the nation as glorious as sentiment would have it.
大量研究结果可以证实，新兴市场的乐观主义如何比富裕国家的悲观主义基础更坚实。全世界人民的寿命更长、生活方式更健康；越来越少的人成为战争和饥荒的受害者；随着教育的普及，歧视和偏见正在逐渐减弱。同样，以前的夏季很少像现在这样有诗般田园风光，国家也没有像现在这般有民族自豪感。

But to reject pessimism and nostalgia as simply inaccurate misses the point. They are powerful forces that are shaping politics. To harness them, you must first understand them.
但仅仅因不准确就完全抵制为悲观主义和怀旧情绪，也是不得其道的。这两样是塑造政治格局的强力。欲要驾驭，必先了解。

Nostalgia serves optimists and pessimists alike as an anchor in a world being transformed. New technologies, including artificial intelligence, threaten to disrupt entire industries and to alter the relationship between the state and the citizen. After two centuries power is shifting from the West back to China. The planet is ageing faster than at any time in history. Its climate is changing. It is ever more racially and culturally mixed.
在正在转变的世界，怀旧对于乐观主义者和悲观主义者来说，就像一个锚。包括人工智能在内的新技术，是颠覆各个行业、改变国家和公民关系的威胁。两个世纪后，权力正从西方转移至中国。地球正以史上最快速度老去。地球气候正在变化。种族、文化都更加交融。

At such moments, people are drawn to nostalgia as a source of reassurance and self-esteem. Many Brexiteers hope that leaving the European Union means they will once again belong to a dynamic “global Britain”. Catalans evoke an idealised past in pursuit of a distinctive identity. Alarmed by corruption and recession, Brazilians have elected a president who harks back to the certainties of a military dictatorship they rid themselves of three decades ago. When Mr Trump boosts coal and steel, men who feared that they had been marginalised in dirty, dying industries suddenly feel as if they are worth something again.
在这种时刻，人们都被作为安慰和自尊来源的怀旧情绪所吸引。很多脱欧派希望脱离欧盟，这意味着他们希望再次迎来一个充满活力的“全球化英国”。震惊于腐败和衰退的巴西人选出了一位让人回想起三十年前带领他们摆脱军事独裁统治的总统。特朗普推动煤炭、钢铁业发展，担心在肮脏、有死亡危险的行业被边缘化的人们突然觉得自己又有价值了。

In the rich world, nostalgia also offers a way to rebel against someone else’s idea of progress—to “take back control”. The farright Alternative for Germany has its strongest support in the former East, where voters regret their loss of community and security. In France the gilets jaunes smash shop windows on the Champs-Elysées because they cannot make ends meet. They reject the trade-off offered by their president, Emmanuel Macron, between national prosperity and individual economic security.
在富裕国家，怀旧也提供了一种反抗他人对进步看法的途径——用以“夺回控制权”。德国极右翼政党另类选择党在前东德获得了最强有力的支持，而前东德选民后悔失去社区和安全。在法国，“黄背心运动”者砸碎了香榭丽舍大街上的商店橱窗，因为他们入不敷出。他们拒绝总统埃马纽埃尔·马克龙提出的国家繁荣和个人经济安全之间的折中方案。