(单词翻译:单击)
I fell in love with conservatism in my 20s.
我在20多岁的时候爱上了保守主义。
As a politics and crime reporter in Chicago, I often found myself around public-housing projects like Cabrini-Green and the Robert Taylor Homes, which had been built with the best of intentions but had become nightmares.
作为一名芝加哥的政治和犯罪新闻记者，我经常发现自己总是围着像卡布里尼-格林和罗伯特·泰勒住宅这样的公共住房项目，这些项目有着最好的建造初衷，但却成为了噩梦。
The urban planners who designed those projects thought they could improve lives by replacing ramshackle old neighborhoods with a series of neatly ordered high-rises.
设计这些项目的城市规划者认为，他们可以用一系列整齐有序的高层建筑取代摇摇欲倒的老社区，从而改善人们的生活。
But, as the sociologist Richard Sennett, who lived in part of the Cabrini-Green complex as a child, noted, the planners never really consulted the residents themselves.
但是，正如社会学家理查德·塞尼特指出的那样，规划者从未真正征求过居民的意见。塞尼特小时候曾在卡布里尼-格林建筑群的片区居住过。
They disrespected the residents by turning them into unseen, passive spectators of their own lives.
他们不尊重当地居民，把他们视为自己生活中看不见的、被动的旁观者。
By the time I encountered the projects they were national symbols of urban decay.
当我遇到这些项目时，这些建筑已经成为城市衰败的国家象征。
Back then I thought of myself as a socialist.
那时候我认为自己是一个社会主义者。
But seeing the fallout from this situation prompted a shocking realization:
但看到这种情况的后果，我震惊地意识到:
This is exactly what that guy I read in college had predicted.
这正是我在大学里读到的那个家伙所预测的景象。
Human society is unalterably complex, Edmund Burke argued.
埃德蒙·伯克认为，人类社会是不可改变的综合体。
If you try to reengineer it based on the simplistic schema of your own reason, you will unintentionally cause significant harm.
如果你试图按照自己的理由，基于简单的模式，重新设计它，您将在无意中造成重大的伤害。
Though Burke was writing as a conservative statesman in Britain some 200 years earlier, the wisdom of his insight was apparent in what I was seeing in the Chicago of the 1980s.
尽管早在200年前，伯克是以英国保守政治家的身份写作的，但我在20世纪80年代的芝加哥所看到的景象，显然彰显了他睿智的洞察力。
I started reading any writer on conservatism whose book I could get my hands on—Willmoore Kendall, Peter Viereck, Shirley Robin Letwin.
我开始阅读任何我能弄到的关于保守主义的作家的书——威尔摩尔·肯德尔、彼得·维雷克、雪莉·罗宾·莱特文。
I can only describe what happened next as a love affair.
我只能把接下来发生的事描述为一场恋爱。
I was enchanted by their way of looking at the world.
我被他们看待世界的方式迷住了。
In conservatism I found not a mere alternative policy agenda, but a deeper and more resonant account of human nature, a more comprehensive understanding of wisdom, an inspiring description of the highest ethical life and the nurturing community.
在保守主义中，我发现的不仅仅是一个可供选择的政策议程，而是对人性的更深刻、更共鸣的描述，对智慧更全面的理解，对最高道德生活和育人社区的鼓舞人心的描述。
What passes for “conservatism” now, however, is nearly the opposite of the Burkean conservatism I encountered then.
然而，现在所谓的“保守主义”几乎与我当时遇到的伯克式保守主义相反。
Today, what passes for the worldview of “the right” is a set of resentful animosities, a partisan attachment to Donald Trump or Tucker Carlson, a sort of mental brutalism.
如今，所谓的“右翼”世界观是一种仇恨，是对唐纳德·特朗普或塔克·卡尔森的党派依恋，是一种精神上的残暴。
The rich philosophical perspective that dazzled me then has been reduced to Fox News and voter suppression.
当时让我眼花缭乱的丰富哲学观点，如今已沦为福克斯新闻和选民压制。
I recently went back and reread the yellowing conservatism books that I have lugged around with me over the decades.
最近，我重新阅读了几十年来一直随身携带的泛黄的保守主义书籍。
I wondered whether I’d be embarrassed or ashamed of them, knowing what conservatism has devolved into.
我不知道自己是否会为他们感到尴尬或羞愧，因为我知道保守主义已经退化到什么程度。
I have to tell you that I wasn’t embarrassed;
我必须告诉你们，我并没有感到尴尬;
I was enthralled all over again, and I came away thinking that conservatism is truer and more profound than ever—and that to be a conservative today, you have to oppose much of what the Republican Party has come to stand for.
我又一次被迷住了，我离开时觉得保守主义比以往任何时候都更真实、更深刻——要想成为今天的保守派，你必须反对共和党所代表的许多东西。
This essay is a reclamation project.
这篇文章是一个矫正工程。
It is an attempt to remember how modern conservatism started, what core wisdom it contains, and why that wisdom is still needed today.
它试图回忆现代保守主义是如何开始的，它包含了什么核心智慧，以及为什么今天仍然需要这种智慧。
Our political categories emerged following the wars of religion of the 16th, 17th, and early 18th centuries.
我们的政治类别是在16、17和18世纪早期的宗教战争之后出现的。
