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  3. It used to be said that English people take their pleasure sadly. No doubt this would still be true if they had any pleasure to

It used to be said that English people take their pleasure sadly. No doubt this would still be true if they had any pleasure to

admin2012-12-01  63
问题     It used to be said that English people take their pleasure sadly. No doubt this would still be true if they had any pleasure to take, but the price of alcohol and tobacco in my country has provided sufficient external causes for melancholy. I have sometimes thought that the habit of taking pleasure sadly has crossed the Atlantic, and I have wondered what it is that makes so many English-speaking people somber in their outlook in spite of good health and a good income.
    In the course of my travels in America I have been impressed by a kind of fundamental malaise which seems to me extremely common and which poses difficult problems for the social reformer. Most social reformers have held the opinion that, if poverty were abolished and there were no more economic insecurity, the millennium would have arrived. But when I look at the face of people in opulent cars, whether in your country or in mine, I do not see that look of radiant happiness which the aforesaid social reformers had led me to expect. In nine cases out of ten, I see instead a look of boredom and discontent and an almost frantic longing for something that might tickle the jaded palate.
    It is not only the very rich who suffer in this way. Professional men very frequently feel hopelessly thwarted. There is something that they long to do or some public object that they long to work for. But if they were to indulge their wishes in these respects, they fear that they would lose their livelihood. Their wives are equally unsatisfied, for their neighbor, Mrs. So-and-So, has gone ahead more quickly, has a better car, a larger apartment and grander friends.
    When I try to understand what it is that prevents so many American from being as happy as one might expect, it seems to me that there are two causes, of which one goes much deeper than the other. The one that goes least deep is the necessity for subservience in some large organization. If you are an energetic man with strong views as to the right way of doing the job with which you are concerned, you find yourself invariable under the orders of some big man at the top who is elderly, weary and cynical. Whenever you have a bright idea, the boss puts a stopper on it. The more energetic you are and the more vision you have, the more you will suffer from the impossibility of doing any of the things that you feel ought to be done. When you go home and moan to your wife, she tells you that you are a silly fellow and that if you became the proper sort of yes-man, your income would soon be doubled. If you try divorce and remarriage it is very unlikely that there will be any change in this respect. And so you are condemned to gastric ulcers and premature old age.
    It was not always so. When Dr. Johnson compiled his dictionary, he compiled it as he thought fit. When he felt like saying that oats is food for men in Scotland and horses in England, he said so. When he defined a fishing-rod as a stick with a fish at one end and a fool at the other, there was nobody to point out to him that a remark of this sort would damage the sale of his great work among fishermen. But if, in the present day, you are (let us say) a contributor to an encyclopedia, there is an editorial policy which is solemn, wise, and prudent, which allows no room for jokes, no place for personal preferences and no tolerance for idiosyncrasies. Everything has to be flattened out except where the prejudices of the editor are concerned. To these you must conform, however, little you may share them. And so you have to be content with dollars instead of creative satisfaction. And the dollars, alas, leave you sad.
    This brings me to major cause of unhappiness, which is that most people in America act not on impulse but on some principle, and that principles upon which people act are usually based upon a false psychology and a false ethic. There is a general theory as to what makes for happiness and this theory is false. Life is concerned as a competitive struggle in which felicity consists in getting ahead of your neighbor. The joys which are not competitive are forgotten.
What is the main cause of unhappiness for many Americans in the author’s view?
选项 A、The energy and the genius are always confined by someone.
B、Lack of freedom and stimuli makes people unsatisfied with life.
C、People are obsessed by the thought of getting ahead of their neighbors.
D、People tend to act on dubious principles.
答案C
解析 推理判断题。尾段后三句说“他们都有一个大概的看法，而这个看法——生活是一场竞争，快乐就是胜过你的邻居一一是错误的，非竞争性的那些乐趣则被忘得一干二净”，由此可以看出作者认为美国人不快乐的原因就是热衷于和邻居攀比，故答案为[C]。[A]项说的是professional men不快乐的原因，可排除。文章没有提到美国人缺乏自由和动力，故[B]错。尾段指出人们按某种原则行事，紧接着具体阐述了这种原则，故这种原则不是dubious，排除[D]。
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