(单词翻译:单击)
Normally, we hate being made to feel small.
通常，我们不喜欢有人让我们感觉自己很渺小。
We can't stand being humbled, or reminded of our own insignificance; we get affronted and resentful.
我们不能忍受被羞辱，或者被提醒我们自己的渺小；我们会受到冒犯、感到怨恨。
The 18th century Anglo-Irish philosopher, Edmund Burke, however, thought that these experiences could be rather wonderful, and quite important too.
然而，18世纪英裔爱尔兰哲学家埃德蒙·伯克认为，这些经历可能相当美妙，也相当重要。
To explain what he meant he developed the idea of the sublime in a beautiful book called, "A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful", first published in England in 1757.
为了解释自己的意思，他在一本书中提出了崇高的概念，这本书名叫《论崇高与美丽概念起源的哲学探究》，1757年在英国首次出版。
In modern use, sublime just means "very, very nice": "a sublime glass of chambertin", "a sublime plate of scrambled eggs with truffles".
在现代用法中，“sublime”的意思是“非常非常好”：“一杯醇厚的香贝坦红葡萄酒”、“一盘美味的松露炒鸡蛋”。
But, this wasn't at all what Burke was interested in, although there is a slight connection.
但这根本不是伯克感兴趣的，尽管它们有一点联系。
For Burke, a sublime experience is indeed one that's really nice, but it's nice for a very strange reason: it makes us feel insignificant.
对伯克来说，一次崇高的经历确实是一次非常美好的经历，但它之所以美好，是因为一个非常奇怪的原因：它让我们感到无足轻重。
Burke was obsessed with a range of experiences, that is, sublime experiences, in which being slightly humiliated is actually something we relish.
伯克沉迷于一系列的经历，也就是崇高的经历，在这些经历中，被轻微的羞辱其实是我们所津津乐道的。
He was picking up on a sector of human experience that, up to then, had been totally ignored.
他正在学习人类经验的一个部分，到那时为止，这个部分完全被忽视了。
One of his key examples is storms, the vast dark skies oppressive, the wind is horribly powerful, large trees are overturned, we feel we're nothing in the face of the violence of nature.
他的一个重要例子是风暴，广阔黑暗的天空令人压抑，风是可怕的强大，大树被推翻，我们觉得自己在大自然的暴力面前什么都不是。
But, this helps put things in perspective: in comparison with the storm, the familiar irritants of daily life seem less significant.
但是，这有助于正确看待问题：与风暴相比，日常生活中常见的刺激似乎不那么重要。
Something similar happens when we contemplate a huge mountain, or view the enormous frozen wilderness of the Labrador Coast from the window of an Airbus A380.
当我们从空中客车A380的窗口俯瞰一座大山，或是观看拉布拉多海岸巨大的冰冻荒野时，也会发生类似的事情。
Burke also liked vast, momentous stories.
伯克也喜欢宏大而重要的故事。
He loved Milton's "Paradise Lost", which describes the cosmic struggle between God and Satan, because stories like these also make the irksome details of ordinary life seem, for a moment, almost idiotically minor.
他喜欢弥尔顿的《失乐园》，这本书描述了上帝和撒旦之间无穷尽的斗争，因为这样的故事也使日常生活中令人讨厌的细节在一瞬间看起来几乎是白痴般的微不足道。
Burke is latching onto a good way of being made to feel small.
伯克正在寻找一种让自己感觉渺小的好方法。
He's noticing that when we feel small in some ways, we become good and large in other dimensions: bits of our egoism and pride seem less impressive, so we might be moved to be more tolerant – less wrapped up in our own concerns.
他注意到，当我们在某些方面感到渺小时，我们就会在其他方面变得善良和伟大：我们的利己主义和自豪感似乎没有那么令人印象深刻，因此，我们可能会变得更加宽容，不再拘泥于自己的担忧。
Burke saw the sublime as a useful corrective; it restores perspective, and that's why we like it.
伯克认为崇高是一种有用的矫正；它恢复了我们的观点，这就是我们喜欢它的原因。
It's a psychological maneuver that can benefit us in many ways, and shows its utility whenever there's an excessive tendency to get caught up in the details of an immediate situation.
这是一种心理上的策略，它可以在很多方面对我们有益，并且在任何时候，当有一种过度的倾向被眼前的情况的细节所吸引时，它都会显示出它的效用。
Thanks to Edmund Burke, a little, but valuable area of experience gained a name.
多亏了埃德蒙·伯克，这一点宝贵的经验有了一席之地。
It became possible to focus on it, and see its role in life more clearly.
我们有可能关注它，更清楚地看到它在生活中的作用。
The sublime emerged, at first, in connection with nature and the arts, but its contribution to existence is actually quite broad:
崇高最初是与自然和艺术有关的，但它对存在的贡献实际上是相当广泛的：
we don't just need the sublime on holiday, or in an art gallery, which are, unfortunately, the places we're liable to encounter it; it's something we need to build into our lives on a daily basis.
我们不只是需要在假日或美术馆里，不幸的是，那里是我们容易遇到它的地方；这是我们每天都需要在生活中建立起来的东西。
In the Utopia, there would be deliberate strategies to ensure we encounter the sublime on a regular basis.
在乌托邦，会有深思熟虑的策略，以确保我们经常遇到崇高。
In the past, religions were quite careful to set up a meeting with the sublime every Sunday.
在过去，宗教非常谨慎，每个星期天都会与崇高会面。
After a week in a factory, or the office, or caught up in domestic life, everyone would be confronted with ideas of internal grandeur:
在工厂、办公室或家庭生活中待了一个星期后，每个人都会面临内心宏伟的想法：
a God who loves the world so much that he sacrifices his only son for our salvation, architecture that asserted the heritage of a thousand years and music calculated to make us feel part of the whole of humanity.
一位为了拯救我们牺牲了自己独生子的、如此热爱这个世界的神；代表了一千年的遗产的建筑；使我们感到自己是整个人类的一部分的音乐。
But, for almost everyone that resource is no longer available.
但是，对于几乎所有人来说，这种资源已经不可用了。
We're collectively in need of new occasions to meet the sublime in a reliable frequent way so that we can be made to feel small in the most helpful way on a regular basis.
我们共同需要新的机会，以可靠的方式频繁地与崇高相遇，这样我们才能经常以最有帮助的方式感到渺小。
