01 文章选材

02 文章脉络

【Para. 1】历史故事1：迈达斯国王询问森林之神的故事

【Para. 2】历史故事2：亚当偷吃禁果的故事

【Para. 3】总结上述两则故事：西方世界认为，知识与死亡之间存在紧密且神秘的联系

【Para. 4】马克·利拉的新作及定位：聚焦人类求知与拒知矛盾的思想游记

【Para. 5-6】书籍内容：借用尼采的观点，探讨人们“甘于无知”的心态及自我欺骗行为

【Para. 7】作者的研究选择：探讨“无知的力量”却回避从政治权力层面进行讨论

【Para. 8】当前的民主危机与知识、无知紧密相关，从未有如此多专业知识被用于制造规模如此大的无知

Uncomfortable truths about ourselves are the hardest to accept

【Para.1】According to an ancient story, King Midas hunted in the forest for the wise Silenus, Dionysus’ companion. It took the king a while to capture the god of the forest, but eventually he did. He burnt to know what was “the best and most desirable of all things for man”, and pressed Silenus for an answer. The god was reluctant at first, but after some royal arm-twisting he talked. The answer, though, may have made Midas regret the question: “Oh, wretched, ephemeral race, children of chance and misery”, Silenus started, “why do you compel me to tell you what it would be most expedient for you not to hear? What is best of all is utterly beyond your reach: not to be born, not to be, to be nothing. But the second best for you is—to die soon”. Live with that knowledge, now, if you can.
【Para.1】根据一个古老的故事，迈达斯国王在森林里寻找狄俄尼索斯的同伴——聪明的西勒努斯。国王花了一段时间才抓住了森林之神，但最终他还是做到了。他急切地想知道什么是“人类所有事物中最好和最令人向往的”，并追问西勒努斯要一个答案。这位神起初很不情愿，但在一番皇室般的扭动之后，他开口了。然而，这个答案可能让迈达斯对这个问题感到遗憾：“哦，可怜的，转瞬即逝的种族，充满机会和痛苦的孩子”，西勒努斯开始说，“你为什么强迫我告诉你什么你不听是最合适的呢？最好的是你完全无法企及的：不是出生，不是成为，什么都不是。但对你来说，第二好的办法是——快点死去。如果可以的话，现在就带着这些知识生活。

【Para.2】Elsewhere in the ancient world, it was written in a holy scripture that the “Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, ‘You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die’”. But, of course, Adam did precisely that: he ate from the tree. In so doing, he—like King Midas—showed that he was too curious for his own good. He also demonstrated that distinctive aspect of human nature: all too often, a prohibition is an invitation to transgression in disguise. Much of the history that followed Adam’s affair of the apple would be incomprehensible without this particular reading of prohibition.
【第 2 段】在古代世界的其他地方，有一段神圣的经文写道：“主神把那人放在伊甸园里，耕种看守它。耶和华神吩咐那人说：园中各样树上的果子，你们都可以随意吃;惟有分别善恶树上的果子，你不可吃，因为你吃的日子就必死'”。但是，当然，亚当正是这样做的：他吃了树上的果子。他这样做——就像迈达斯国王一样——表明他太好奇了。他还展示了人性的这一独特方面：很多时候，禁令是变相的越界邀请。如果没有这种对禁令的特殊解读，亚当与苹果的婚外情之后的大部分历史将是不可理解的。

【Para.3】Each of these stories points, in its own way, to an intimate, uncanny connection, in the western mind, between knowledge and death. To know or not to know, to seek knowledge or to abstain from it, understanding (of oneself, of the others, of the world around) or lack thereof-these are no trifles, but matters of life and death. You can lose your soul or you can save it, depending on your relationship with knowledge.  
【第 3 段】这些故事中的每一个都以自己的方式指向了西方人心目中知识与死亡之间一种亲密而不可思议的联系。知道或不知道，寻求知识或放弃知识，理解（对自己、他人、周围的世界）或缺乏知识——这些都不是小事，而是生死攸关的问题。你可以失去你的灵魂，也可以拯救它，这取决于你与知识的关系。

【Para.4】This is, roughly, the thematic niche where Mark Lilla’s latest book could be placed. “How is it that we are creatures who want to know and not to know?” he asks. In search of an answer to the book’s central question, the author takes us on a tour. His project, he writes, “can perhaps best be described as an intellectual travelogue retracing my own circuitous and somewhat episodic excursions in reading and thinking about the will not to know”. 
【Para.4】这大致是 Mark Lilla 的最新著作的主题领域。他问道：“我们怎么会是想了解而不想知道的生物呢？为了寻找本书中心问题的答案，作者带我们参观了一番。他写道，他的项目“也许最好被描述为一篇知识分子游记，追溯我自己在阅读和思考不知意愿方面的迂回而又有点情节性的短途旅行”。

【Para.5】Lilla borrows his notion of the “will to ignorance” from Friedrich Nietzsche, who describes it—in inimitable style—as a “suddenly erupting decision in favour of ignorance, of deliberate exclusion”. Like Nietzsche, Lilla is not persuaded by the pious lies with which we tend to surround ourselves, and often looks for the deeper, more obscure motivations beneath much of what we think or say or do. We deceive ourselves continuously, more often and more energetically than we deceive others. And we have good reasons for doing so.
【第 5 段】里拉从弗里德里希·尼采（Friedrich Nietzsche）那里借用了他的“无知意志”概念，尼采以独特的风格将其描述为“突然爆发的决定，支持无知，故意排斥”。和尼采一样，莉拉并不被我们身边的虔诚谎言所说服，她经常在我们思考、所说或所做的许多事情背后寻找更深层次、更模糊的动机。我们不断地欺骗自己，比欺骗他人更频繁、更有力。我们这样做有充分的理由。

【Para.6】“The world is a recalcitrant place”, Lilla writes, and “there are things about it we would prefer not to have to recognize.” These beliefs and feelings are part of a broader web of self-deceptions that we weave constantly, and through which we prefer to glimpse at the world, rather than facing it in all its immediacy. As we grow older, we become ever more dependent on, if not addicted to, the use of this optical device. If someone were to take it suddenly away from us, thus forcing us to see everything—the world and ourselves in it—as it really is, we would count ourselves the most unfortunate of mortals. Yet that would be our biggest chance-the truth would make us not just free, but properly human.
【第 6 段】“世界是一个顽固的地方”，Lilla 写道，“有些事情我们宁愿不必承认。这些信念和感受是我们不断编织的更广泛的自我欺骗网络的一部分，我们更喜欢通过它来瞥见世界，而不是直接面对它。随着年龄的增长，我们越来越依赖这种光学设备的使用，如果不是上瘾的话。如果有人突然把它从我们身边拿走，从而迫使我们看到一切——世界和我们自己——如实相处，我们会认为自己是最不幸的凡人。然而，这将是我们最大的机会——真理不仅会让我们自由，而且会让我们成为真正的人。

【Para.7】Ignorance and Bliss is remarkable not just for what the author covers, but equally for that which he doesn’t: for what he chooses to ignore. For the epigraph, the author uses a quote from George Eliot’s Daniel Deronda: “It is a common sentence that Knowledge is power; but who hath duly considered or set forth the power of ignorance?” The haunting quote then resurfaces in the body of the text, with the added emphasis that it’s precisely “the power of ignorance” that the author “proposes to examine here”. Yet, puzzlingly, he chooses to ignore one of the most brutally obvious senses of the word “power”: political power.
【第 7 段】《无知与极乐》的非凡之处不仅在于作者所涵盖的内容，还在于他所没有涵盖的内容：他选择忽略的内容。在题词中，作者引用了乔治·艾略特 （George Eliot） 的丹尼尔·德隆达 （Daniel Deronda） 中的一句话：“众所周知，知识就是力量;但是，谁适当地考虑或阐明了无知的力量呢？“然后，这句令人难以忘怀的引述再次出现在正文中，并进一步强调作者”提议在这里研究“正是”无知的力量”。然而，令人费解的是，他选择忽略了“权力”这个词最残酷明显的含义之一：政治权力。

【Para.8】The current crisis in democracy has much to do with knowledge and especially with ignorance: the deepening problem of civic literacy in our societies; the growing use of AI-driven platforms to shape public opinion and condition political behaviour; the manipulation of voters’choices through stealth use of their data; the increasing use of conspiracy theories to harness and control collective ignorance; the fatal collusion of populism with big money, and big tech. It must be a record of sorts: never before has so much expert knowledge been deployed to produce such large-scale ignorance. 
【第 8 段】当前的民主危机与知识有很大关系，尤其是与无知有关：我们社会中不断加深的公民素养问题;越来越多地使用 AI 驱动的平台来塑造公众舆论和调节政治行为;通过秘密使用选民的数据来纵选民的选择;越来越多地使用阴谋论来驾驭和控制集体无知;民粹主义与大资金和大型科技公司的致命勾结。它一定是某种记录：以前从未有过如此多的专业知识被用于产生如此大规模的无知。

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