【推文】James Lindsay - America is built around liberty, equality, and individual rights...
這是 James Lindsay 最近寫的長推文串
連結
原推文 - x.com/conceptualjame...
Thread Reader App版本（一頁版本） - threadreaderapp.com/...
原文及個人翻譯
What has always distinguished America as a nation is that it has always worked to reject an ethnonationalist conception of itself, as was encoded in our founding documents. Americans are a people in a place but a people who unite around the idea that ethnos isn't who we are.
一直以來區分美國這個國家的特點是，它一直努力拒絕民族主義（ethnonationalist）的觀念，正如被編碼我們的建國文件的內容。美國人是一個地方的人，但他們團結在一個想法周圍，那就是民族（ethnos）不是我們的定義。
America is exceptional. It's the greatest nation in the history of the world. America is exceptional because it has a completely different conception of itself than every other nation on Earth. It is not an ethnonationalist project but one built on self-evident truths.
美國是獨一無二的。它是世界歷史上最偉大的國家。美國之所以獨特，是因為它對自己的觀念與其他地球上的國家完全不同。它不是民族主義的項目，而是一個建立在不言而喻的真理（self-evident truths）之上的國家。
You can turn to Stalin or Hitler or the 1924 English dictionary or any other sort of source you want and look up "nation" and find that it carries at least ethnonationalist connotations ("a specific people..."), but in so doing you miss America completely.
你可以參考史達林、希特勒、1924年的英語字典或任何其他你想要的來源，查詢「國家」（nation）這個詞，你會發現它至少帶有民族主義的含義（"特定的民族.../a specific people..."），但這樣做你會完全忽略美國。
America in 1776 dared to conceive of itself as a nation that's different than that. It conceived of itself as a people in a place where the people are defined by their commitment to the Cause of Liberty built upon the self-evident, common-sense truths of human existence.
1776年的美國敢於將自己構想成一個與眾不同的國家。它將自己視為一個地方上的人民，這個人民的定義是他們對自由事業的commitment（忠誠;投入;奉獻;承諾），建基於關於人類存在的不言而喻、常識真理（self-evident, common-sense truths of human existence）。
What makes Americans American is that they're American. In other words, Americans accept that if they hold these truths to be self-evident, that they are endowed by their creator (Laws of Nature or Nature's God) with certain unalienable rights, then they're American.
使美國人成為美國人的是他們是美國人。換句話說，美國人接受這樣一個事實：如果他們認為這些真理是不言而喻的，他們被創造者（自然法或自然的神）賦予了某些不可剝奪的權利，那麼他們就是美國人。
Today, heavy pressure is coming in from the "New Right" or "Dissident Right" or "[Muted Term, aka Ostrich Right]" to reconceive of America as an ethnic project when in fact it was a project built around people escaping the tyranny of ethnic and religious demand.
今天，來自「新右翼」（New Right）或「異議右翼」（Dissident Right）的巨大壓力正在重新構想美國為一個民族項目（ethnic project），而事實上，它從一開始是一個圍繞著人們逃離民族和宗教要求的暴政（tyranny of ethnic and religious demand）而建立的項目。
What makes Americans American is rejecting that in favor not of some "higher" truth but in fact of something much more common-sense and down-to-earth. People who want to take responsibility and govern themselves can live together peacefully and profitably regardless of ethnos.
使美國人成為美國人的是他們拒絕了這種觀點，不是為了某種「更高」的真理，而是為了更常識和務實的東西。那些願意承擔責任和自我治理的人，不論民族，都可以和平、有成效地生活在一起。
You might argue that the ethnonationalist wankers have a point here, that what I'm saying demands assimilation. I don't fully disagree. Multiculturalism wasn't just a failed experiment; it was a rebranded Soviet ethnic conflict project called Korenizatsiya in the "Motherland."
你可能會爭辯說，民族主義的狂熱分子在這裡有一點道理，我所說的確實要求同化（demands assimilation）。我並不完全不同意。多元文化主義（Multiculturalism）不僅僅是一個失敗的實驗；它在「祖國」（蘇聯）被稱為「本土化」的蘇聯民族衝突項目的重新包裝。
Americans have to be American for the American experiment to work. That means they have to set aside their ethnos to some degree, though not entirely, in favor of a wholehearted acceptance of the American belief in a set of self-evidently true ideas about human beings.
美國人必須是美國人，美國的實驗才能成功。這意味著他們必須在某種程度上，但並非完全地，擱置他們的民族，而全心全意地接受美國人對一組關於人類的不言而喻的真理的信仰。
Leaning into ethnos and encouraging ethnos versus ethnos cannot improve this situation; it only makes more multiculturalism. When you hear that white people have to incorporate to defend their culture and interests, that's more multiculturalism. The answer is less.
強調民族和鼓勵民族與民族之間的對抗並不能改善這種情況；這只會帶來更多的多元文化主義。當你聽到白人必須融合以保護他們的文化和利益時，這就是更多的多元文化主義。答案是減少它。
It's time for Americans to remember what it means to be American again. It's time to Make America America Again, and America was never built to be an ethnostate. It was built to unlock the power of freedom for all people who believe in freedom, and that's why it's great.
是時候讓美國人再次記住成為美國人的意義了。是時候讓美國重回美國，而美國從未建造成一個民族國家。它建造的是為了解鎖自由的力量，讓所有相信自由的人都能擁有，這就是它偉大的原因。
Definitions of "nation" are fine and technical and whatever, but they also simply miss America and what makes America America in the first place, and what Makes America Great. Nation, in America, is built around its foundational ideas of liberty, equality, and individual rights.
「國家」的定義是精確和技術的，但它們也簡單地忽略了美國和使美國成為美國的本質，以及使美國偉大的因素。在美國，這個「國家」是圍繞著它關於自由、平等和個人權利的基礎思想上建立的。