伟大辩手

今天外教的英语课上看了一部片子-- Great Debaters -- 中文译名叫做伟大，也有叫做伟大的辩论家。我们花了两节课的时间观看这部片子，虽然外教可能初衷是让我们学习其中的单词，扩充词汇，而我却记住了其中的一句话 -- An unjust law is no law at all -- 一部不公正的法律就是没有法律。

《伟大辩手》这部电影取材于上世纪30年代发生在美国的真实故事,讲的是德州一所黑人学院辩论队成长的故事。影片中有许多精彩的辩论片段。这里选用的与哈佛的辩论是虚构的,它的故事原型是威利学院辩论队与南加州大学的辩论,威利学院取得了这场辩论的胜利。

《伟大辨手》中最后一场辩论全文（中英对照）
正方一辩（威力大学 詹姆士·法默二世）：
　　James Farmer: Resolved: Civil 1)disobedience is a moral weapon in the fight for justice. But how can disobedience ever be moral? Well, I guess that depends on one’s definition of the words. Word.
　　In 1919, in India, 10,000 people gathered in 2)Amritsar to protest the 3)tyranny of British rule. General Reginald Dyer trapped them in a courtyard and ordered his troops to fire into the crowd for ten minutes. Three hundred and seventy-nine died...men, women, children...shot down in cold blood. Dyer said he had taught them a moral lesson. Gandhi and his followers responded not with violence but with an organized campaign of non-cooperation. Government buildings were occupied. Streets were blocked with people who refused to rise, even when beaten by police. Gandhi was arrested, but the British were soon forced to release him. He called it a moral victory. The definition of moral: Dyer’s lesson or Gandhi’s victory? You choose.
辩题：非暴力（civil disobedience）抵抗是维护正义的道德武器。但是抵抗怎么能是道德的呢？我想，那就要取决于这些词汇的定义了。
1919年，印度一万人在阿密萨集会抗议英国的暴君统治,雷吉诺·戴尔将军将他们困在一个院子里然后让军队往群开枪十分钟,379人死亡。男人，女人，孩子……被残酷杀害。戴尔说他给他们上了一堂道德课。甘地和他的追随者没有用暴力反抗，而是一个组织好的不合作活动：政府大楼被占领，道路被不愿起身的人们所堵死，甚至被警察殴打也坚持着。甘地被逮捕了，但是英国人被迫释放了他。他说这是道德的胜利。
道德的定义：戴尔的课还是甘地的胜利？你来选。
反方一辩（哈佛大学）：

　　Harvard Debater A: From 1914 to 1918, for every single minute the world was at war, four men laid down their lives. Just think of it. Two hundred and forty brave young men were4)hurled into eternity every hour of every day, of every night, for four long years. Thirty-five thousand hours. Eight million two hundred and eighty one thousand casualties. Two hundred and forty. Two hundred and forty. Two hundred and forty. 　　
　　Here was a 5)slaughter 6)immeasurably greater than what happened at Amritsar. Can there be anything moral about it? Nothing...except that it stopped Germany from 7)enslaving all of Europe. 　
　　Civil disobedience isn’t moral because it’s non-violent. Fighting for your country with violence can be deeply moral, demanding the greatest sacrifice of all: Life itself. Non-violence is the mask civil disobedience wears to conceal its true face: 8)anarchy.

从1914到1918，世界在战火中的每一分钟，四个人倒下。想想吧，四年内的每一个白天，每一个晚上的每一个小时，240个勇敢的生命都坠入永恒的沉睡。35000小时8,281,000伤亡。240，240，240！这是一个屠杀，比在阿密萨规模大无数倍的屠杀！有何道德可言吗？没有，除了这让德国奴役欧洲的计划完全破产。
非暴力抵抗并非因为是非暴力而成为道德的，为你的国家奋力杀敌可以是非常道德的，这要求最高程度的牺牲：生命。非暴力是消极合作所佩戴的面具，用以遮掩它的真实面目：无政府正义。
正方二辩（威力大学 萨曼莎·布可）：

　　Samantha Booke: Gandhi believes one must always act with love and respect for one’s opponents, even if they are Harvard debaters. Gandhi also believes that lawbreakers must accept the legal consequences for their actions. Does that sound like anarchy? 　　
　　Civil disobedience is not something for us to fear. It is, after all, an American concept. You see, Gandhi draws his inspiration not from a Hindu 9)scripture, but from 10)Henry David Thoreau, who I believe graduated from Harvard and lived by a pond not too far from here.

甘地相信一个人必须对他的对手充满爱和敬意，即使他们是哈佛的辩手。甘地也相信犯法之人需接受他们行为的后果。这是无政府主义吗？
非暴力抵抗不是我们应该恐惧的东西，不管怎么样它都是源于美国的思想。你看，甘地受到的影响并不来自于印度教经典，而是来自亨利·大卫·梭罗。我相信他是哈佛毕业的，曾经住在离这里不远的小池塘边。
反方二辩（哈佛大学）：

　　Harvard Debater B: My opponent is right about one thing. Thoreau was a Harvard grad, and, like many of us, a bit self-righteous. He once said, “Any man more right than his neighbors 11)constitutes a majority of one.” Thoreau the idealist could never know that Adolf Hitler would agree with his words. The beauty and the burden of democracy is this: No idea prevails without the support of the majority. The people decide the moral issues of the day, not a majority of one.

对方辩友一件事说对了，梭罗是哈佛毕业生，也像我们大多数人一样，有点自以为是。他说过，“任何比邻居要更正确的人都构成一个人的大多数”，梭罗这个理想主义者可能永不知希特勒会同意他的观点。民主之美及之重是：任何观点都需获大多数通过。人民判断道德问题，而不是一个人的大多数。
正方二辩（威力大学 萨曼莎·布可）：

　　Samantha: Majorities do not decide what is right or wrong. Your conscience does. So why should a citizen surrender his or her conscience to a legislator? No, we must never, ever kneel down before the tyranny of a majority.

大多数并不决定什么是对或错，你的良心决定这些。为什么一个市民要将他的良知交由立法者支配？不，我们永远不能向一个大多数的暴政屈服。
反方二辩（哈佛大学）：

　　Harvard Debater B: We can’t decide which laws to obey and which to ignore. If we could...I’d never stop for a red light. My father is one of those men that stands between us and chaos: A police officer. I remember the day his partner, his best friend, was gunned down in the line of duty. Most vividly of all, I remember the expression on my dad’s face. Nothing that erodes the rule of law can be moral, no matter what name we give it.

我们不能决定遵守或无视哪部法律，如果我们可以，红灯我就不停。
我的父亲是一个站在我们和混乱之间的人——一个警察。我还记得那天他的搭档——他最好的朋友因公而被枪杀。最生动的是，我记得我爸爸脸上的表情：任何对法律的侵蚀都是不道德的，不管它们的名字多么花哨！
正方一辩（威力大学 詹姆士·法默二世）：

　　James: In Texas...they 12)lynch Negroes. My teammates and I saw a man strung up by his neck and set on fire. We drove through a lynch mob, pressed our faces against the floorboard. I looked at my teammates. I saw the fear in their eyes...and worse...the shame.

　　What was this Negro’s crime that he should be hung, without trial, in a dark forest filled with fog? Was he a thief? Was he a killer? Or just a Negro? Was he a sharecropper? A preacher? Were his children waiting up for him? And who are we to just lie there and do nothing? No matter what he did, the mob was the criminal. But the law did nothing, just left us wondering: “Why?”

　　My opponent says nothing that erodes the rule of law can be moral. But there is no rule of law in the13)Jim Crow South, not when Negroes are denied housing, turned away from schools, hospitals, and not when we are lynched. 14)St. Augustine said, “An unjust law is no law at all,” which means I have a right, even a duty, to resist...with violence or civil disobedience. You should pray I choose the latter.



在德州，人们私刑处死黑人。我的队友和我看到一个男人，在脖子处绑着吊起来，然后被烧死。我们开过一群动私刑的暴民，我们把脸紧紧贴在车子地板上。我看着我的队友，他们眼中我看到了恐惧。更悲哀的是，我看到了羞耻.
那个黑人犯了什么罪，让他没有审判，在一个雾气弥漫的森林中直接被吊死？他是个贼？是个杀人犯？还是只因为他是黑人？他是个佃农？传道者？他的孩子在等着他吗？我们躺着一动不动又成为了什么？不管他做了什么，那群暴民才是罪犯，但是法律什么也没做。
让我们不禁思考对方辩友说：任何对法律的侵蚀都是不道德的。但是在施行种族隔离策略的南方，没有法律；至少在黑人被拒绝居住权的时候，没有法律；在被学校，医院拒收的时候，在我们被私刑处死的时候，没有法律。圣奥古斯丁说：“一个不公正的法律就是没有法律”。这意味着我有权力，甚至责任，去用暴力或者非暴力抵抗来反抗。你们应该庆幸我选择了后者。

七年后，在1942年，詹姆士·法默二世成立了种族平等协会，变成了民权运动的领导人
经历了一生的教书和写作詹姆士·法默一世在1961年逝世，在他死前一天，当时已是律师的萨曼莎·布可
搭上了第一班前往阿拉巴马的自由列车。
亨利·罗进了加州大学，继续进修神学，成了牧师
梅尔文·托森成了世界闻名的诗人，他还是继续和南方佃农工会合作，到了1936年底，工会已有从七个州加入的31000个会员
之后十年，威利大学辩论队所向无敌

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