The Sad Young Men
By Rod W.Horton and Herbert W. Edwards
1 No aspect of life in the Twenties has been more commented upon and sensationally romanticized than the so-called Revolt of the Younger Generation. The slightest mention of the decade brings nostalgic recollections to the middle-aged and curious questionings by the young: memories of the deliciously illicit thrill of the first visit to a speakeasy, of the brave denunciation of Puritan morality, and of the fashionable experimentations in amour in the parked sedan on a country road; questions about the naughty, jazzy parties, the flask-toting \and the moral and stylistic vagaries of the \and the \cowboy.\\Younger Generation problem?\The answers to such inquiries must of necessity be \and \because the business of growing up is always accompanied by a Younger Generation Problem; \what seemed so wild, irresponsible, and immoral in social behavior at the time can now be seen in perspective as being something considerably less sensational than the degeneration of our jazz mad youth.
二十年代社会生活的各个方面中，被人们评论得最多、渲染得最厉害的，莫过于青年一代的叛逆之行了。只要有只言片语提到那个时期，就会勾起中年人怀旧的回忆和青年人好奇的提问。中年人会回忆起第一次光顾非法酒店时的那种既高兴又不安的违法犯罪的刺激感，回忆起对清教徒式的道德规范的勇猛抨击，回忆起停在乡间小路上的小轿车里颠鸾倒凤的时髦爱情试验方式；青年人则会问起有关那时的一些纵情狂欢的爵士舞会，问起那成天背着酒葫芦、勾引得女人团团转的“美男子”，问起那些“时髦少女”和“闲荡牛仔”的奇装异服和古怪行为等等的情况。“那时的青年果真这样狂放不羁吗?”今天的青年学生们不禁好奇地向他们的师长问起这样的问题。“那时真的有过青年一代的问题吗?”对这类问题的回答必然只能是既“对”又“不对”——说“对，，是因为人的成长过程中一贯就存在着所谓青年一代的问题；说“不对”是因为在当时的社会看来似乎是那么狂野。那么不负责任，那么不讲道德的行为，若是用今天的正确眼光去看的话，却远远没有今天的一些迷恋爵士乐的狂荡青年的堕落行为那么耸人听闻。
2 Actually, the revolt of the young people was a logical outcome of conditions in the age: First of all, it must be remembered that the rebellion was not confined to the Unit- ed States, but affected the entire
Western world as a result of the aftermath of the first serious war in a century. Second, in the United States it was reluctantly realized by some- subconsciously if not openly -- that our country was no longer isolated in either politics or tradition and that we had reached an international stature that would forever prevent us from retreating behind the artificial walls of a provincial morality or the geographical protection of our two bordering oceans.
实际上，青年一代的叛逆行为是当时的时代条件的必然结果。首先，值得记住的是，这种叛逆行为并不局限于美国，而是作为百年之中第一次惨烈的战争的后遗症影响到整个西方世界。其次，在美国，有一些人已经很不情愿地认识到——如果不是明明白白地认识到，至少是下意识地认识到——无论在政治方面还是在传统方面，我们的国家已不再是与世隔绝的了；我们所取得的国际地位使我们永远也不能再退缩到狭隘道德规范的人造围墙之后，或是躲在相邻的两大洋的地理保护之中了。 3 The rejection of Victorian gentility was, in any case, inevitable. The booming of American industry, with its gigantic, roaring factories, its corporate impersonality, and its large-scale aggressiveness, no longer left any room for the code of polite behavior and well-bred morality fashioned in a quieter and less
competitive age. War or no war, as the generations passed, it became increasingly difficult for our young people to accept standards of behavior that bore no relationship to the bustling business medium in which they were expected to battle for success. The war acted merely as a catalytic agent in this breakdown of the Victorian social structure, and by precipitating our young people into a pattern of mass murder it released their inhibited violent energies which, after the shooting was over, were turned in both Europe and America to the destruction of an obsolescent nineteenth-century society.
在当时的美国，摒弃维多利亚式的温文尔雅无论如何都已经是无可避免的了。美国工业的飞速发展及其所带来的庞大的、机器轰鸣的工厂的出现，社会化大生产的非人格性，以及争强好胜意识的空前高涨，使得在较为平静而少竞争的年代里所形成的温文尔雅的礼貌行为和谦谦忍让的道德风范完全没有半点栖身之地。不论是否发生战争，随着时代的变化．要我们的年轻一代接受与他们必须在其中拼搏求胜的这个喧嚣的商业化社会格格不入的行为准则已经变得越来越难了。战争只不过起了一种催化剂的作用，加速了维多利亚式社会结构的崩溃。战争把年轻一代一下子推向一种大规模的屠杀战场，从而使他们体内潜藏的压抑已久的狂暴力量得以释放出来，待到战争一结束，这些被释放出来的狂暴力量便在欧洲和美国掉转矛头，去摧毁那日渐衰朽的十九世纪的社会了。
4 Thus in a changing world youth was faced with the challenge of bringing our mores up to date. But at the same time it was tempted, in America at least, to escape its responsibilities and retreat behind an air of naughty alcoholic sophistication and a pose of Bohemian immorality. The faddishness , the wild spending of money on transitory pleasures and momentary novelties , the hectic air of gaiety, the experimentation in sensation -- sex, drugs, alcohol, perversions -- were all part of the pattern of escape, an escape made possible by a general prosperity and a post-war fatigue with politics, economic restrictions, and international responsibilities. Prohibition afforded the young the additional opportunity of making their pleasures illicit , and the much-publicized orgies and defiant manifestoes of the intellectuals crowding into Greenwich Village gave them a pattern and a philosophic defense for their escapism. And like most escapist sprees, this one lasted until the money ran out, until the crash of the world economic structure at the end of the decade called the party to a halt and forced the revelers to sober up and face the problems of the new age.
这样一来，在一个千变万化的世界中，青年一代便面临着使我们的道德习惯与时代合拍这一挑战。而与此同时，青年人。——至少美国的青年人——又表现出这样一种倾向：他们试图逃避自己的责任。沉溺于一种老于世故、以酒自娱的生活作风之中，装出一副波希米亚式的放荡不羁的样子。追求时尚，