Brilliant, yes, but he wasn't an Einstein
才华横溢？是的，但他不是爱因斯坦 President Obama was unequivocal: ‘The world has lost a visionary,’ he said. Who had died? The Pope? A great poet or artist? No. It was the pioneer of Apple.
奥巴马总统说得明白。“世界失去了一个远想家。”他这样说。谁死了？教皇？伟大的诗人还是艺术家？都不是，是苹果的先驱。 The death of any man aged 56 is very sad for his widow and family. And no one would deny that Steve Jobs was a brilliant and highly innovative technician, with great business flair and marketing ability.
任何一个人死于56岁都是对其遗孀和家庭的重大打击。而且没有人能否认乔布斯是一个卓越不凡且创意十足的技术人员，同时还有着巨大的商业天赋及市场营销能力。 It was he, after all, more than anyone else in the world of technology, who saw the potential for developing a computer small enough to have in the home.
毕竟是他，而不是科技世界中众多旁人，发现了开发一个小到能在家中使用的电脑的潜在商机。  But able though he may have been, did Steve Jobs really deserve the kind of veneration he has received from his fans and a fawning media? The BBC, after all, led its news programmes on his death.
尽管如此，虽然他可能确实实力非凡，但乔布斯真的就当之无愧其粉丝们以及亦步亦趋的媒体的歌功颂德吗？BBC可是将新闻节目变成了其死讯中心的。 Or does his elevation to near sainthood say everything about the modern world and our obsession with needless gadgets?
或者说，他被神化这一事实能否反应当代社会以及我们对并不必须的玩意的痴迷程度呢？ There is no doubt that, since 1977 and the launch of Apple II – the first computer it produced for the mass market – many things which used to be done on paper, or on the telephone, have been done easier and faster on a screen.
毫无疑问，自从1977年Apple2号，这一苹果首台针对大众市场的电脑上市后，很多我们曾经都诉诸纸笔、电话传达的东西都可以通过屏幕更方便也更迅速地完成了。 But although many of us have become computer addicts – endlessly checking our emails, constantly surfing the net, going online to buy and sell on eBay – does it actually mean our lives have changed for the better?
然而，虽然我们中很多人都变成了电脑的奴隶——不停地检查电子邮箱、无止尽地上网冲浪、在eBay上买进卖出，但这是否就意味着我们的生活因此变得更好呢？ New York’s mayor, Michael Bloomberg, was typical when he said: ‘America has lost a genius who will be remembered with Edison [the inventor of the light bulb] and Einstein, and whose ideas will shape the world for generations to come.’
纽约市长Michael Bloomberg发表下列言论时应该代表了很多人：“美国失去了一个天才，一个将会像爱迪生以及爱因斯坦一样被铭记的天才，一个其理念改变了我们以及今后数辈人的世界的天才。” But even Bloomberg did not go so far as Stephen Fry, who, when Jobs resigned his post at Apple through ill-health earlier this year, opined: ‘There are few more important people on this planet.’
不过即便是Bloomberg 也赶不上Stephen Fry在乔布斯在今年早些时候因健康原因卸任苹果职务时说的悲壮：“在这个星球上能跟他比肩的重要人物屈指可数。” Steady on! What about Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Tutu who helped to bring apartheid to an end in South Africa? There are oncologists and researchers working behind the scenes who have combated cancer and saved countless lives. The last Pope, Mrs Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, together with former Soviet president Gorbachev, toppled 70 years of communism with little fuss.
等等吧各位。你们把促成南非结束种族隔离制度的曼德拉跟图图大主教放在哪里？那些默默无闻，但拯救了无数生命的肿瘤学家和研究人员呢？一起推翻70年的共产主义的上任教宗、撒切尔夫人、里根总统以及前苏联总统戈尔巴乔夫是不是就不值一提呢？  Those who think that Steve Jobs was in the same league should switch off their computers and get out more. They seem to be making a fundamental mistake about the nature of Steve Jobs’s achievements – and indeed about computers.
那些认为乔布斯能跟这些人相提并论的人应该关掉电脑，出去走走。他们显然是对乔布斯，以及电脑的成就做出了一个本质性的错误判断 Bloomberg says that Jobs changed our ideas about things in the way that Einstein did. But he didn’t.
Bloomberg 说乔布斯和爱因斯坦一样改变了我们对事物的思考方式，但他并没有。 Einstein fundamentally altered how we look at the universe. Jobs merely developed nice-looking gadgetry which enabled us to do things we did already – listening to music, sending messages and garnering information.
爱因斯坦从根本上改变了我们看待宇宙的方式，而乔布斯不过是开发了一些好看的小玩意，让我们可以做些我们本来就已经在做的事情，比如听音乐，比如发信息，比如获取信息。 Whereas we once looked information up in a book, we now search for the (often inaccurate) information online. Whereas we once sent telegrams, we now send emails. Yes, Steve Jobs made shopping online easier and more attractive. But it is still only shopping.
虽然我们曾经需要从书上获取知识，而现在则都是上网搜索（不过常常是些错误知识）。虽然我们曾经需要用电报传递消息，而现在则是Email。确实乔布斯让网络购物更方便，更具吸引力了，但购物依然只是购物。 When Johannes Gutenberg invented printing in the 15th century, he did, indeed, change the world. Literacy spread across the globe when it became possible to produce infinite copies of the same book, rather than laboriously copying manuscripts for the few.
当古腾堡在15实际发明印刷术时，他确实改变了世界。这使得一本书可以无限量地反复复制，迅速将知识传遍世界，而不是耗时耗力地为少数人手抄一些副本。  Similarly, the founding fathers of the Industrial Revolution in Britain changed life beyond imagination.
同样的，英国工业革命的先驱们超乎想象地改变了人类的生活。 In the 18th century, James Hargreaves invented the Spinning Jenny, and Richard Arkwright pioneered the water-propelled spinning frame which led to the mass production of cotton. This was truly revolutionary.
18世纪詹姆斯哈格里夫斯发明珍妮纺纱机，理查德阿克莱特率先推广了导致棉花大规模生产的水力细纱机。这才是真正的革命。 The cotton manufacturers created a whole new class of people – the urban proletariat. The structure of society itself would never be the same. Steve Jobs’ gadgets are simply not in this league.
棉花生产上创造了一整个新型阶层——城市无产阶级。社会的结构本身也就此永久性地改变了。乔布斯的那些玩意跟这根本无法相提并论。 Of course, there are computer-obsessives whose life revolves around screens, Twitter, eBay and Facebook. For them, Steve Jobs may seem like the most important person on the planet. But to call him a visionary is ridiculous. He merely speeded up what we were doing anyway.
当然那些离了计算机就活不了的人们的生活就是绕着屏幕、Twitter、eBay、Facebook这些东西转的。乔布斯对他们来说可能就是世界上最重要的人了。但说他是远见卓识者实在太过无稽了。他不过就是加快了我们本来就在做的东西的进程。 Fundamentally, the world is the same as it was before Steve Jobs. He was simply a clever backroom boy who got lucky. The most important person on the planet? Pull the other one.
从本质上说，世界并没有因乔布斯而有所改变。他不过是个聪明的幕后工作者得到了命运之神的眷顾。要说到世界上最重要的人？还是算了吧。 原文链接：dailymail
作者：A N Wilson（英国作家、评论家）
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