E.M. Forster, outdoing the King's heresy with grand bravura, had written in 1938 that if he were faced with the choice between betraying his country and betraying his friends, he hoped he would have the courage to betray his country.
1938年,佛斯特写道,如果他面临背叛朋友与背叛国家的选择,他希望自己有勇气背叛国家。
He would always put the personal above the political.
他始终把个人置于政治之上。
But for Alan Turing, unlike Forster, or Wittgenstein, or G.H. Hardy, it was more than a theoretical question.
图灵跟他不一样,图灵跟维特根斯坦、哈代都不一样。
For him not only had the personal become the political, but the political was the personal.
对图灵来说,个人就是政治的一部分,政治也是个人的一部分。
He had chosen and promised for himself in working for the government. The choice for him therefore was that between betraying one part of himself and betraying another part.
他选择为政府效忠,这种选择对他来说,只是背叛自己的这一部分,还是那一部分。
And however much he wavered between these alternatives, there was a solid logic to the mind of security, one that could not be expected to take an interest in notions of freedom and development. He had no rights to such things, as he would have had to admit.
无论他在这种选择中如何摇摆,总是存在着一个坚实的逻辑,即绝对的自由是不存在的,他不得不承认这一点。
He might have outwitted the Home Guard, but when it came to questions that mattered, there was no doubt that he had placed himself under military law.
虽然当年他耍过小聪明,戏弄过本土民兵队,但是当他面临真正关键的问题时,他不可能再有任何理由逃避军法。
There was a war on; there was always a war on now.
十年前是战争时期,可是战争何尝停止过。