视点——当民主绑架了自由

英语自学网

概述：20世纪以来人们总习惯将民主和自由相提并论。然而我们发现一个高度民主的国家，往往可能沦为多数人的暴政，从而公民的自由受到限制。因此民主有时并不意味着自由。
Hints:
John Stuart Mill
Bertrand Russell
Second World War
主持：fancyfrances
校对：sighsmile
翻译：baizhixian
注解：baizhixian
答疑：cherryxyrNot long after the start of the 21st century, we like to tell ourselves an uplifting story in which freedom expands whenever tyranny is overthrown. We believe that freedom and democracy are inseparable, so that when a dictator is toppled the result is not only a more accountable type of government but also greater liberty throughout society. This belief forms the justification for the repeated attempts by Western governments to export their own political model to countries such as Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya. In this simple and seemingly compelling story, freedom and democracy are a package that can be delivered anywhere in the world.
An older generation of thinkers recognised that freedom and democracy don't always go hand in hand. The 19th century liberal John Stuart Mill was a lifelong campaigner for greater democracy, but he also worried that personal liberty would shrink once governments could claim to express the will of the majority. Born in 1872 and dying in 1970 at the age of 98, Mill's godson Bertrand Russell agreed and shocked many people when he observed that while Britain after the Second World War was a more democratic society than the one he'd grown up in, it was also in some ways less free. For Russell, as for Mill, liberty was one thing, democracy another. It's a deeply unfashionable view, but I think essentially correct.二十一世纪开始没多久，我们喜欢告诉自己一个振奋人心的故事，即：每当暴政被推翻，社会就会变得更为自由。我们认为自由和民主是休戚与共的，所以当一个独裁者被推翻，其结果不仅仅是一个更负责任政府的出现，更应是社会更加的自由。这一信念形成了正当的理由，西方政府不断地输出他们自己的政治模式到诸如伊拉克、阿富汗和利比亚等国。在这个简单和看似令人信服的故事中，自由和民主是一个包装盒，我们可以将它带到世界上的任何地方。
上一代的思想家认为自由和民主不总是紧密相联。十九世纪自由主义者约翰•斯图亚特•密尔(John Stuart Mill)一生都在为更大的自由而奋斗，但他同时也担心一旦政府能宣称他们可以表达多数人的意愿，那么个人自由将大为降低。生于1872年，死于1970年，享年98岁的密尔的教子伯特兰•罗素(Bertrand Russell)同意这样一种观点，他认为英国在二战之后比起他所成长的年代，社会变得更为民主的社会，但在某些方面却更为不自由，这让很多人惊讶。对罗素也好，对密尔也好，自由是一件事，民主则是另一件事。这是一个不那么迎合时代的观点，但我认为本质上是正确的。