"我不是参议员，不是州长，也没有做过内阁部长，"J·D·万斯在《乡下人的悲歌》（Hillbilly Elegy，台版译作《绝望者之歌》。——译注）的第一页写道，以此来建立普通人的人设。这些在2016年都是真的，当时万斯的身份是海军陆战队的退伍军人，毕业于耶鲁大学法学院，"有一份好工作、幸福的婚姻、舒适的家和两只活泼的狗。"现在，他的回忆录读起来有点不一样了。
"I am not a senator, not a governor, and have never been a cabinet secretary," J.D. Vance wrote on the first page of "Hillbilly Elegy," establishing his everyman credentials. All of this was true in 2016, when Vance was a Marine Corps veteran with a Yale Law degree, "a good job, a happy marriage, a comfortable home, and two lively dogs." Now, his memoir reads a bit differently.
这在一定程度上是因为万斯现在已经当上了国会参议员，而且从周一起，他还成为了共和党的副总统候选人。从信奉"永不特朗普"的保守派到忠诚的MAGA党人，从辨析右翼民粹主义到成为右翼民粹主义，在过去八年里，他的政治观念的巨变引起了很大争议。虽然万斯的批评者认为这是厚颜无耻的机会主义，但他解释说（包括最近接受《纽约时报》罗斯·道瑟的采访时），自己在意识形态方面的转变是双重智识觉醒的结果：事实证明，特朗普并不像他之前想像的那样糟糕，而美国自由派人士要糟糕得多。
This is partly because Vance is now a United States senator and, as of Monday, the Republican vice-presidential nominee. The dramatic shift in his political views over the past eight years — from Never Trump conservative to loyal MAGA partisan, from critic of right-wing populism to its embodiment — has been the subject of much controversy. While Vance's critics see shameless opportunism, he has explained (including in a recent interview with Ross Douthat of The New York Times) that his ideological transformation was the result of a double intellectual awakening: Trump turned out to be not as bad as he had thought, and American liberals turned out to be much worse.
这种转变之所以引人注目，是因为《乡下人的悲歌》风靡一时，一定程度上是因为其目标读者和最大的粉丝群体正是自由主义者。这本书由一家大型的大众图书出版机构出版，收获了充满敬意的评价（尽管有时也不无质疑），并引发了广泛的讨论。它既是向建制派喊话，也是一份投名状。
The transformation is noteworthy because "Hillbilly Elegy" was a sensation in part because its intended audience and biggest fan base were liberals. Published by a major trade house, the book garnered respectful (if sometimes skeptical) reviews and sparked widespread discussion. It was both a cri de coeur to the establishment and a letter of introduction.
这本书讲述了两个迁徙的故事。一个是贫困白人的大规模流动，其中包括作者的祖父母，从阿巴拉契亚农村来到铁锈地带的城镇。另一个是万斯从其中一个地方——俄亥俄州米德尔敦，来到地理和人口构成意义上的统治阶级所在地：纽黑文、硅谷，再到华盛顿。
The book tells two migration stories. One is the mass movement of poor whites, including the author's grandparents, from rural Appalachia to Rust Belt towns. The other is Vance's journey from one of those places — Middletown, Ohio — to the geographical and demographic precincts of the ruling class: New Haven, Silicon Valley and Washington.
从某种程度上说，《乡下人的悲歌》是一个关于奋斗的叙事，是一名年轻人在逆境中崛起的编年史，它可以被解读为对现状的辩白。假想的读者安坐于相对优越的位置上，欣慰地得知这个雄心勃勃的俄亥俄州人来到的优越位置上抽出一张椅子坐下，对他一路走来的经历十分着迷。这个故事令人痛苦，但也鼓舞人心。因为母亲阿片类药物上瘾，万斯的童年被这种挣扎所笼罩，但慈爱的祖父母拯救了他，特别是他那言语尖刻、顽强的祖母，对她的刻画是这本书最令人难忘的文学成就。
In some ways, "Hillbilly Elegy" is a narrative of striving, a chronicle of a young man's rise against the odds that can be read as an apologia for the status quo. The imagined reader, comfortably ensconced in relative privilege, is reassured to learn that a seat at the table has been pulled out for this ambitious Ohioan, whose journey is a source of fascination. The story is painful but also inspiring. Vance's childhood was shadowed by his mother's opioid addiction, but he was rescued by loving grandparents, especially his sharp-tongued, resilient grandmother, whose portrait is the book's most memorable literary achievement.
祖母、海军陆战队的从戎生涯和俄亥俄州立大学的求学经历令年轻的万斯摆脱了米德尔敦，并给了他创作《乡下人的悲歌》的信心和技巧。（耶鲁则为他提供了人脉，其中影响最大的要数他的导师、著有《虎妈战歌》等书的约聘教授蔡美儿。）
Grandma, the Marines and Ohio State gave young Vance the means to escape Middletown and the confidence and skills to write "Hillbilly Elegy." (Yale provided the connections, most notably to his mentor, the contract law professor and "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother" author Amy Chua.)
这类回忆录传达的信息总是包括谦逊和抱负：作者的暗示是，如果我能做到，那么任何人都可以做到。不过，在励志的同时，作者也沉痛地承认，很多人其实是做不到的。这位勇敢、幸运的主人公既具有代表性，又与众不同，这种悖论赋予了个体反思社会批评的分量。是什么阻碍了其他人的成功？为什么许多像万斯这样的人似乎注定要失业和就业不足、滥用药物，以及陷入家庭混乱、贫困和绝望？
The message of such memoirs always includes both humility and ambition: The author's implication is that if I can do it, anyone can. But the inspiration is tempered by the rueful acknowledgment that many people in fact can't. The paradox of the brave, lucky protagonist as both representative and exceptional gives individual reflection the weight of social criticism. What is holding other people back? Why do so many people like Vance seem destined for unemployment and underemployment, substance abuse, and lives of family chaos, poverty and despair?
在《乡下人的悲歌》所属的自传体裁中——这种类别的书架上摆满了黑人、美洲原住民和移民作家的书籍——答案往往是系统性的。作者所克服的是不公正、偏见，这是世界组织方式上的一种根本性的不公平。隐含的政治主张通常更像是改革主义而不是激进主义：我们需要解决问题，以便通过消除障碍和扩大机会，让更多这样的孩子能够成功。
In the genre of autobiography to which "Hillbilly Elegy" belongs — a shelf crowded with books by Black, Native American and immigrant writers — the answer is often systemic. What the author has overcome is injustice, bias, a fundamental unfairness in the way the world is organized. The implicit political argument is usually more reformist than radical: We need to fix things so that more kids like this one can make it, by removing obstacles and expanding opportunities.
万斯的观点显然不是这样的。如果他称之为乡下人的美国人——这个概念具有一定的弹性，可以是地域性的（比如阿巴拉契亚地区的美国人），也可以是民族性的（苏格兰-爱尔兰裔美国人）或社会学意义上的（美国白人工人阶级）——正在坠落或者陷入困境，那么在很大程度上是他们自己的错。
Vance's view is clearly not that. If the Americans he calls hillbillies — a flexible concept that can be regional (Appalachians), ethnic (Scots-Irish) or sociological (the white American working class) — are falling or flailing, it's to a large extent their own fault.
好斗、宗派观念强、憎恨权威，正是这些使得万斯的祖母和她的亲戚们在他的书中和生活中如此生动的文化特征让他们陷入贫困和失常。"劳动阶层"可能是一个错误的称谓，"在米德尔敦这样的地方，人们总是说要勤奋工作，"万斯写道。"在一个三成的年轻人每周工作不到20小时的小镇上，你会发现没有一个人意识到自己的懒惰。"
The same combativeness, clannishness and hatred of authority that make Vance's grandmother and her kin such vivid characters in his book and in his life are cultural traits that doom them to poverty and dysfunction. "Working class" may be a misnomer, since "in places like Middletown, where people talk about working hard," Vance writes, "you'll find that no one has realized he's lazy in a town where 30 percent of the young men work fewer than 20 hours a week."
这一严厉的评判及其背后的文化决定论招致了一些批评，包括与万斯有着类似背景的作家。与此同时，边缘或弱势群体的成员造成了自己的不幸这种说法对当权者来说简直是悦耳的音乐。如果这些人就是这样——懒惰、不合作、滥交，那么任何旨在帮助他们的政策都是无用的。
This harsh judgment and the cultural determinism behind it drew some criticism, including from writers with backgrounds similar to Vance's. At the same time, the notion that members of marginalized or disadvantaged groups are the authors of their own misfortune is music to the ears of the powerful. If these people are just like that — lazy, uncooperative, sexually profligate — then any policy aimed at helping them is bound to be futile.
长期以来，保守派一直利用这种观点，反对针对非裔美国人、拉丁裔和城市穷人的社会项目。万斯并不是第一个使用这种论点来反对农村和无产白人群体的右翼作家。查尔斯·默里在2012年出版的《分崩离析：1960～2010年美国白人的现状》一书中，预言了《乡下人的悲歌》的一些主题。在2016年总统竞选期间，凯文·威廉姆逊在《国家评论》上发表了一系列尖刻的文章，将特朗普的崛起与白人工人阶级的衰落联系起来，并且得出结论说，米德尔敦等地苦苦挣扎的民众"辜负了自己"。"并没有发生什么不好的事情，"威廉姆逊写道。"没有发生可怕的灾难。没有战争，没有饥荒，没有瘟疫，也没有外国占领。"
Conservatives have long deployed this view to argue against social programs aimed at Black Americans, Latinos and the urban poor. Vance was not the first right-wing writer to turn the argument against rural and proletarian whites. Charles Murray's 2012 book "Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010" anticipated some of the themes of "Hillbilly Elegy." During the 2016 presidential campaign, Kevin Williamson published a series of scathing articles in National Review linking Trump's rise to white working-class decline and concluding that the struggling citizens of places like Middletown "failed themselves." "Nothing happened to them," Williamson wrote. "There wasn't some awful disaster. There wasn't a war or a famine or a plague or a foreign occupation."
在那之后的几年里，可以肯定地说，这种观点在右翼知识分子中并不受欢迎，相比诊断特朗普主义，他们现在对编写特朗普主义战术手册更感兴趣。这两个项目万斯都有份参与，这涉及基调和方向的改变，而且不仅仅是针对特朗普本人。
In the years since, it's fair to say that this view has fallen out of favor among right-wing intellectuals, who are now more interested in writing the playbook for Trumpism than in diagnosing it. Vance has been involved in both projects, which involves a change in tone and direction that goes beyond his stance on Trump himself.
《乡下人的悲歌》中存在着一种对立，万斯一方面赞美他的家人，另一方面又出卖了他们，为了方便自己那可疑的论证而视他们为陌路人，这是不协调的。我之所以说"可疑"，是因为现在已经很明显，他怀疑美国工人阶级应该为自己的麻烦负责的论点，至少是觉得它在政治上不太好用了。他现在更倾向于指责中国、北美自由贸易协定、墨西哥和某些企业，以及他曾经决心加入的政治和文化建制派。换句话说：他已经背弃了他最忠实的读者。
There is a dissonance in "Hillbilly Elegy" between Vance's celebration of his family and his betrayal of them, his treatment of them as strangers for the convenience of his dubious argument. I say "dubious" because it's now clear that he has doubts about — or at least finds politically less useful — the idea that the American working class is to blame for its own troubles. He is now more inclined to blame China, NAFTA, Mexico and certain corporations, as well as the political and cultural establishment he once set out to join. In other words: He has turned on his most faithful readers.