本期原文选自The Economist 2016-9-10的Leaders板块Art of the lie，释义来自牛津高阶七版、剑桥高阶学习词典英汉双解第3版、朗文双解词典、柯林斯词典等资源。如果您也在学习The Economist，欢迎订阅我的文集The Economist，一起学习交流。

Art of the lie

Consider how far Donald Trump is estranged from【1】 fact. He inhabits a fantastical realm where Barack Obama’s birth certificate was faked, the president founded Islamic State (IS), the Clintons are killers and the father of a rival was with Lee Harvey Oswald before he shot John F. Kennedy.

【1】estranged from 与（某事）脱离，与（某人）疏远；另外estranged还有分居的意思；名词为estrangement

Mr Trump is the leading exponent【2】 of “post-truth” politics【3】—a reliance on assertions that “feel true” but have no basis in fact. His brazenness is not punished, but taken as evidence of his willingness to stand up to【4】 elite power. And he is not alone. Members of Poland’s government assert that a previous president, who died in a plane crash, was assassinated by Russia. Turkish politicians claim the perpetrators【5】 of the recent bungled【6】 coup were acting on orders issued by the CIA. The successful campaign for Britain to leave the European Union warned of the hordes of immigrants that would result from Turkey’s imminent accession to【7】 the union.

【2】exponent 能手，鼓吹者

【3】“post-truth” politics 后真相政治，根据wikepedia的定义，是指在政治辩论中主要基于情感，脱离政治细节，重复某些论点，却忽视事实反驳的政治文化；该词来源于David Roberts在2010年Grist专栏中的文章Post-truth politics,在2016年美国总统选举和2016年英国脱欧公投中流行起来

【4】stand up to Sb 抵抗、反对某人

【5】perpetrator 犯罪者，作恶者，行凶者；相应动词用法perpetrate sth (against/upon/on sb)，相应名词perpetration

【6】bungle 搞砸，失败

【7】accession to 正式加入

If, like this newspaper, you believe that politics should be based on evidence, this is worrying. Strong democracies can draw on【8】 inbuilt defences against post-truth. Authoritarian countries are more vulnerable.

【8】draw on 利用，依赖

Lord of the lies

That politicians sometimes peddle lies is not news: think of Ronald Reagan’s fib【9】 that his administration had not traded weapons with Iran in order to secure the release of hostages and to fund the efforts of rebels in Nicaragua. Dictators and democrats seeking to deflect blame for their own incompetence have always manipulated the truth; sore losers have always accused the other lot of lying.

【9】fib 无关紧要的小慌

But post-truth politics is more than just an invention of whingeing【10】 elites who have been outflanked【11】. The term picks out the heart of what is new: that truth is not falsified【12】, or contested, but of secondary importance. Once, the purpose of political lying was to create a false view of the world. The lies of men like Mr Trump do not work like that. They are not intended to convince the elites, whom their target voters neither trust nor like, but to reinforce prejudices.

【10】whinge about sb/sth 抱怨某人/某事（英国方言、澳大利亚俚语]= whine）

【11】outflank 占上风（这个词由前缀out-和flank组成，out-表示超过、胜过，flank是侧面的意思，所以outflank的本意是侧翼包抄）

【12】falsified 篡改，伪造，名词形式为falsification；false 错误的，虚假的；falsehood 虚假性，谬误，谎言

Feelings, not facts, are what matter in this sort of campaigning. Their opponents’ disbelief validates the us-versus-them mindset that outsider candidates thrive on【13】. And if your opponents focus on trying to show your facts are wrong, they have to fight on the ground you have chosen. The more Remain campaigners【14】 attacked the Leave campaign’s【15】 exaggerated claim that EU membership cost Britain £350m ($468m) a week, the longer they kept the magnitude of those costs in the spotlight.

【13】thrive on sth 因某事而有成

【14】Remain campaigners留欧派；Remain campaign支持留欧的运动；Remain camp留欧阵营

【15】Leave campaigner 脱欧派；Leave campaign支持脱欧的运动；Leave camp脱欧阵营

Post-truth politics has many parents. Some are noble. The questioning of institutions and received wisdom【16】 is a democratic virtue. A sceptical lack of deference towards leaders is the first step to reform. 

【16】received wisdom 普遍看法

But corrosive forces are also at play【17】. One is anger. Many voters feel let down and left behind, while the elites who are in charge have thrived. They are scornful of the self-serving technocrats【18】 who said that the euro would improve their lives and that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction【19】. Popular trust in expert opinion and established institutions has tumbled across Western democracies.

【17】be at play 起作用，产生影响

【18】technocrat 技术官僚，技术专家官员（这个词由前缀techno-和后缀-crat组成，techno-意思是技术的，-crat或-ocrat意思是官僚）

【19】weapons of mass destruction 大规模杀伤性武器

Post-truth has also been abetted by the evolution of the media (see Briefing). The fragmentation of news sources has created an atomised world in which lies, rumour and gossip spread with alarming speed. Lies that are widely shared online within a network, whose members trust each other more than they trust any mainstream-media source, can quickly take on the appearance of truth. Presented with evidence that contradicts a belief that is dearly held, people have a tendency to ditch the facts first. Well-intentioned journalistic practices bear blame too. The pursuit of “fairness” in reporting often creates phoney【20】 balance at the expense of truth. NASA scientist says Mars is probably uninhabited; Professor Snooks says it is teeming with aliens. It’s really a matter of opinion.

【20】phoney 虚假的；也可作名词，意为骗子

When politics is like pro-wrestling【21】, society pays the cost. Mr Trump’s insistence that Mr Obama founded IS precludes a serious debate over how to deal with violent extremists. Policy is complicated, yet post-truth politics damns complexity as the sleight of hand【22】 experts use to bamboozle【23】 everyone else. Hence Hillary Clinton’s proposals on paid parental leave【24】 go unexamined (see article) and the case for trade liberalisation is drowned out【25】 by “common sense” demands for protection.

【21】pro-wrestling 职业摔跤（词中pro的意思是职业的）；其它类似词语，如pro basketball 职业篮球

【22】sleight of hand 手腕，花招

【23】bamboozle 欺骗，愚弄；名词为bamboozlement

【24】paid parental leave 带薪产假

【25】drown out 淹没

It is tempting to think that, when policies sold on dodgy prospectuses【26】 start to fail, lied-to supporters might see the error of their ways. The worst part of post-truth politics, though, is that this self-correction cannot be relied on. When lies make the political system dysfunctional, its poor results can feed the alienation and lack of trust in institutions that make the post-truth play possible in the first place.

【26】prospectus 本意是（学校的）简介、简章，（企业的）招股章程、募股章程，这里dodgy prospectuses是指带有欺骗性的宣传

Pro-truthers stand and be counted

To counter this, mainstream politicians need to find a language of rebuttal (being called “pro-truth” might be a start). Humility and the acknowledgment of past hubris【27】 would help. The truth has powerful forces on its side. Any politician who makes contradictory promises to different audiences will soon be exposed on Facebook or YouTube. If an official lies about attending a particular meeting or seeking a campaign donation, a trail of e-mails may catch him out【28】.

【27】hubris 狂妄

【28】catch sb out 识破（错误）

Democracies have institutions to help, too. Independent legal systems have mechanisms to establish truth (indeed, Melania Trump has turned to the law to seek redress for【29】 lies about her past). So, in their way, do the independent bodies created to inform policy—especially those that draw on science.

【29】 redress 矫正，补偿；seek redress for 讨回公道，要求赔偿损失

If Mr Trump loses in November, post-truth will seem less menacing, though he has been too successful for it to go away. The deeper worry is for countries like Russia and Turkey, where autocrats use the techniques of post-truth to silence opponents. Cast adrift【30】 on an ocean of lies, the people there will have nothing to cling to. For them the novelty of post-truth may lead back to old-fashioned oppression.

【30】Cast adrift 漂流

【小结】

后真相政治（post-truth politics）来源于David Roberts在2010年Grist专栏中的一篇文章，在2016年美国总统选举和2016年英国脱欧公投中流行起来。Trump是谎言之王（lord of the lies）,后真相政治的能手（exponent）。他的言论与事实相去甚远（estranged from fact）。其厚颜无耻不但没有受到惩罚，反而被视为对于精英势力的抵抗（stand up to elite power）。然而，Trump并非个例。土耳其政客声称在最近失败的政变（bungled coup）中，犯罪者（perpetrator）是奉CIA之命行事。在英国脱欧运动（Brexit）中，留欧派（Remain campaigners）与脱欧派（Leave campaigners）相博弈，人们轻信土耳其将加入欧盟（accession to the union）产生大量移民。政客谎言已经不是新闻。里根总统曾撒了小谎（fib），称没有与伊朗进行武器贸易，以确保释放人质并资助尼加拉瓜的反叛势力。然而，后真相政治不是一群牢骚满腹（whingeing）的挫败（outflanked）精英们杜撰出来的，而是映射了一个新的核心问题：真相没有被篡改（falsified）或质疑，而是显得不那么重要了。比如，Trump的谎言不是为了说服精英，而是为了强化偏见。后真相政治存在积极的一面。对现有体制和普遍信念（received wisdom）的质疑是民主的充分体现。但腐蚀的力量也会产生影响（at play）。当精英阶层蒸蒸日上（thrive），选民却倍感失落、愤怒，他们鄙视那些利用（draw on）科学手段为政策服务的技术官僚（technocrat），也不相信主流媒体。为了追求“公平”，报道中常常牺牲真相以达到虚假（phoney）的平衡。当政治成为一场职业摔跤比赛（pro-wrestling），需要全社会来埋单。一些专家利用政治的复杂性，耍弄花招（sleight of hand）来愚弄（bamboozle）民众。所以，希拉里提出的带薪产假（paid parental leave）最终泡汤，自由贸易提案也被贸易保护需求的“常识”淹没（drowned out）。如果基于欺骗性宣传（dodgy prospectuses）的政策最终失败，被骗的支持者可能恍然大悟。但这种自我修正的作用并不可靠。当谎言导致政治体系功能失调，就会造成疏远感和不信任。为此，主流政治家需要保持谦逊，承认自己过去的狂妄（hubris）。如果某个政客对不同听众作出相互矛盾的承诺，很快就会在Facebook或YouTube遭到曝光。如果某位官员谎称参加某个会议或筹备竞选募捐（campaign donation），就会有人对其邮件进行追踪，最终识破谎言（catch him out）。在独立的法律体系中，可以利用真相挖掘机制来对抗谎言，讨回公道（seek redress for lies）。如果Trump在十一月份失利，后真相政治可能变得不那么猖狂。但更令人担忧的是俄国和土耳其，这两个国家的政客利用后真相手段迫使对手默不发声。漂流（cast drift）在谎言的海洋中，人们将无所依靠。新兴的后真相政治或许将人们拉回了那个饱受压迫的时代。

* 注：本文仅供学习交流之用，不代表作者观点。