纽约英语口语网新版
特别广播英语
第 83 课:You Can't Do It Because It Hurts Nobody
并不能因为没有伤害到任何人,你就可以干坏事-2

In addition to breaking the law themselves, people tolerate various levels of crime. 人们除了自己会犯法,一般也能容忍程度不同的罪行。

Why are we tolerant of some crimes? It may be that, by seeing others do something, we accept it more easily. 人们为什么会容忍某些罪行呢?这可能是因为看看其他人干了某件事,我们就轻易接受。

We may even start committing that crime ourselves. 我们自己甚至会开始犯那种罪行。

For instance, most people will find it easier to speed on a highway when everybody else is driving over the speed limit. 例如,在公路上大家都超速行驶时,大多数人都会发现自己也比较容易超速行驶。

When people celebrate a sports championship, if they see someone breaking store windows, they might start breaking windows themselves or even steal from the store. 当人们在庆贺某项体育冠军时,如果他们看见某人正在砸烂商店的橱窗,也许他们自己也会开始动手去砸橱窗,甚至会从商店里偷东西。

So the people around us influence how much law-breaking we can tolerate. 所以我们周围的人会影响到我们对违法行为的容忍程度。

We must also wonder whether seeing violence on television or reading about it in the newspapers every day makes us tolerate crime more than we should. 我们也可能会怀疑,是否因为我们每天都看到电视上的暴力场面,每天都读报报纸上的暴力新闻,这一切都使得我们对本来不应容忍的犯罪行为变得更加能够容忍了。

We become used to seeing blood on the news on television, or in full color in newspapers and magazines. 看到电视新闻中的血腥场面或看到报刊上的五颜六色的血腥图片,我们现在已经习以为常了。

Because we see thousands of dead people on TV, maybe we just try to ignore the situation behind the violence. 因为我们在电视上看到了成千上万的死人,也许我们就不大理会在这些暴行场面背后的情况了。

If so many citizens tolerate violence and crime, or even commit crimes themselves, it may simply be because of the human mind. 如果有非常多的市民能容忍暴力和犯罪行为,甚至这些市民自己就在搞犯罪活动,这很可能只是因为人的思想在作怪。

Our minds may not care about specific laws. Instead, our minds may have a system of values that usually prevents us from hurting other people to improve our own lives. 我们思想对某些具体的法律条文可能不够重视,代替这些法律条文的是我们思想中有一套自己的是非价值观念。