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In refusing to be obsolete, you challenged and defied the evolutionist historians. I had great respect for Spengler in my youth, but even then I couldn’t accept his conclusions, and (with respect and admiration) I mentally told him to get lost.
你拒绝被淘汰，就是对进化论史学家的挑战和蔑视。年轻时我非常尊重斯宾格勒，但即使那个时候，也无法接受他的结论，而（怀着敬慕之情）在心里对他说：你走远点吧。
Sixty years later, in a recent issue of The Wall Street Journal, I come upon the old Spenglerian argument in a contemporary form. Terry Teachout, unlike Spengler, does not dump paralyzing mountains of historical theory upon us, but there are signs that he has weighed, sifted and pondered the evidence.
时隔60年，在最近一期《华尔街日报》上，偶见斯宾格勒式老调新弹。跟斯宾格勒不同，特里?蒂奇奥特并没有将一座座令人窒息的史论大山压在我们身上，但迹象表明，他权衡、筛选、思索过相关证据。
He speaks of our “atomized culture,” and his is a responsible, up-to-date and carefully considered opinion. He speaks of “art forms as technologies.” He tells us that movies will soon be “downloadable”—that is, transferable from one computer to the memory of another device—and predicts that films will soon be marketed like books. He predicts that the near-magical powers of technology are bringing us to the threshold of a new age and concludes, “Once this happens, my guess is that the independent movie will replace the novel as the principal vehicle for serious storytelling in the 21st century.”
他谈到了我们的"原子化文化"，观点新颖可靠，并经过深思熟虑，谈到了 "作为技术的艺术形式"，告诉我们，电影很快就"可以下载"，即从一台电脑转入另一存储设备。他还预测，电影不久会如书籍般销售。他预言近乎魔法的技术之 力将把我们引入一个新时代，并得出结论："一旦这成为现实，我猜想，独立电影会替代小说，成为21世纪严肃故事叙述的主要载体。"
In support of this argument, Mr. Teachout cites the ominous drop in the volume of book sales and the great increase in movie attendance: “For Americans under the age of 30, film has replaced the novel as the dominant mode of artistic expression.” To this Mr. Teachout adds that popular novelists like Tom Clancy and Stephen King “top out at around a million copies per book,” and notes, “The final episode of NBC’s ‘Cheers,’ by contrast, was seen by 42 million people.”
为了支持这一观点，蒂奇奥特先生指出，图书销量不幸下降，而电影观众却大幅上升。"对30岁以下的美国人来说，电影已经取代小说，成为艺术表达的首要模 式。"蒂奇奥特先生补充道，汤姆?克兰西和斯蒂芬?金@等畅销小说家"每本书最多也就卖到一百万册左右，"还说，"相比之下，全国广播公司的《欢乐酒 店》*的最后一集，观众达4200万之多。"
On majoritarian grounds, the movies win. “The power of novels to shape the national conversation has declined,” says Mr. Teachout. But I am not at all certain that in their day “Moby-Dick” or “The Scarlet Letter” had any considerable influence on “the national conversation.” In the mid-19th century it was “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” that impressed the great public. “Moby-Dick” was a small-public novel.
就数量多寡而言，电影赢了。"小说左右国民言谈的力量巳经削弱，"蒂奇奥特先生说。但我丝毫不敢肯定，当初《白鲸》或《红字》对"国民言谈"有过什么重大影响。19世纪中期，打动大众的是《汤姆叔叔的小屋》。《白鲸》是一部小众小说。
