Along with the demand for bigness goes a demand for severe efficiency, often quite rational but not reasonable, therefore alien to Englishness.
伴随着对大规模的要求而出现的是对严格的高效率的要求,这种要求虽然常常是合乎理性的,但却是不合情理的,因而与英国人特性格格不入。
A further necessary demand, to feed the monster with higher and higher figures and larger and larger profits, is for enormous advertising campaigns and brigades of razor-keen salesmen.
为了给那些庞然大物提供越来越高的投资,创造越来越多的利润,还有一个必不可少的要求,这就是需要有声势浩大的广告运动和大批精明强干的推销员。
Finally, from the monster and all its spokesmen comes a message, endlessly repeated. It runs more or less as follows:
最后,从这些庞然大物及其所有代言人那里不断重复地传来这样的信息,其大意为:
You ought to be happy.But you are not happy.
你本该快乐;但你并不快乐。
You can be happy, though, if you buy what we are making for you.
不过,你仍有可能得到快乐,只要你购买我们为你制造的产品。
And a postscript might be added from Iago:Put money in thy purse.
这里也许应该加上一句伊阿古的名言:把钱都装进你的口袋吧。
I like to call this Admass, and will do so from now on. I will also announce what the future of the English hangs upon, while at the same time, unlike almost everybody else, keeping well clear of economics.
我想将这种现象称作商业广告推销,此后将一直采用这一名称。我还要预告一下英国人的未来取决于什么,而同时又几乎与所有的人背道而驰地避免谈及经济问题。
It hangs upon the final result of a battle that has been going on for some years now and that explains why the English seem so odd, eccentric, unsatisfactory, not only abroad but to many persons at home.
英国人的未来取决于一场已进行多年的战斗的最终结局。这场战斗说明了英国人不仅在外国人眼中,而且在国内某些人眼中显得如此稀奇古怪、不令人满意的原因。
It is a battle that is being fought in the minds of the English.
这是一场发生在英国人思想领域的战斗,它在商业广告推销和英国人特性之间展开。
It is between Admass, which has already conquered most of the Western world, and Englishness, ailing and impoverished , in no position to receive vast subsidies of dollars, francs, deutschmarks and the rest, for public relations and advertising campaigns.
商业广告推销业已征服了大半个西方世界,而英国人特性则是贫病交加,无法取得大量美元、法郎、德国马克之类的官方津贴来进行公关和广告宣传活动。