（未完待續...）
Few species have as many natural enemies as the celebrity professor. Other academics envy their money and fame; journalists dislike their cleverer-than-thou airs, and everybody hates their determination to have it all——the security of academic tenure and the glitz of media stardom. So these are happy days for the rest of us. Plagiarism, lying, waffle-mongering: hardly a week goes by without some academic celebrity or other biting the dust, his reputation in tatters.
很少有物種像名人教授那樣樹敵衆多。其他的學者嫉妒他們的金錢和名氣，記者們不喜歡他們高高在上（盛氣淩人）的氣場，其他人則讨厭他們的勢在必得，無論是穩固的學術地位還是在媒體上的頻頻曝光。是以現在我們外人有熱鬧可看了，剽竊，說謊，招搖撞騙，幾乎每周都能看到這個或那個名家身敗名裂，名譽掃地。
cleverer-than-thou thou有you的意思 tenure n. 任期 v. 授予...終身職位 glitz v.使光彩奪目 n. 浮華 waffle-mongering 招搖撞騙 biting the dust 一敗塗地 in tatters（破碎的） 徹底粉碎
Stephen Ambrose was arguably America's favorite historian, a man who wrote bestsellers faster than most people read them. An inspirer of Hollywood blockbusters, he can also claim credit for two of the best presidential biographies around, on Eisenhower and Nixon. But it now turns out that five of his books contain extensive "borrowings" from other historians. ("I'm not writing a PhD", he has offered as an explanation- an unsurprising claim, as he would not get one for somebody else's work.)
斯蒂芬.安布羅斯可能是美國最受歡迎的曆史學家，他寫暢銷書的速度甚至比許多人讀這些暢銷書的速度還快。他是好萊塢大作的靈感來源，他因為兩部最好的總統傳記而名譽傍身，一個是艾森豪威爾另一個是尼克松。但是結果他的五部作品中有大量内容是“借鑒”的其他曆史學家。（“我并非是在寫一篇博士畢業論文”，他用這樣的解釋來為自己開脫，這也并不讓人感到驚訝，因為他不可能通過别人的作品來獲得一個博士學位。）
Mr. Ambrose must be grateful that attention has shifted to another cutter and paster, Doris Kearns Goodwin. She was a fixture on American television, always ready with a telling anecdote on，say, Lyndon Johnson (whom she knew) or Abraham Lincoln (the subject of her next blockbuster). Her handling of the plagiarism charges against her has arguably been worse than the charges themselves. In the last 1980s, she quietly mollified one of her chief victims, paying her some money. Now she explains her behavior by the fact that she relied on handwritten notes——something other historians have managed to do without such dire consequences. Amazingly, Ms. Goodwin remains on Harvard's board of overseers，despite the fact that she committed sins that might get an undergraduate expelled.
安布羅斯先生一定很感謝公衆的注意力轉移到了另一個抄襲者多麗絲.卡恩斯.古德溫身上。她是美國電視節目的常客，對諸如林頓.約翰遜或是亞伯拉罕.林肯的奇聞轶事總是能侃侃而談。其中前者與她熟識，而後者是她下一部巨作的主角。她對于針對她的剽竊指控的處理甚至可能比指控本身更加糟糕。在上世紀80年代，她悄悄地安撫了她的受害者之一，為那個人支付了大量的金錢。如今她解釋她的抄襲行為是因為她依賴于手抄筆記——而一些其他的曆史學家亦是如此，隻是沒有引起軒然大波而已。令人不解的是，盡管她所承認犯的錯足以讓一個大學生被開除，古德溫女士仍然是哈佛的董事會監督員之一。
mollified v. 安撫，使平靜 dire adj. 可怕的，極端的 board of overseers 校董會監督
The hunt is now on for the next serial plagiarist. Meanwhile, other charges are also being hurled at celebrity professors. Take compulsive lying. Joseph Elis, the author of a first-rate study of the Founding Fathers, told the students that he had fought in Vietnam when the closest he came to combat was sitting in a university library. Or take hypocrisy. Paul Krugman, a professor of economics at Princeton University，used his column in the New York Times to Savage the Bush administration for its links to Enron, when the fearless professor had himself received $ 37,500 from the energy firm. Or take general flatulence. A squabble between Larry Summers, Harvard's combative new president, and Cornel West, a professor of black studies，alerted the world to the latter's recent work, which turns out to be a mixture of post-structuralist mumbo jumbo, religious rhetoric, and rap music. More should be expected from one of only 17 people to hold the exalted title of university professor at Harvard.
現在矛頭指向了另類的剽竊者，同時名人教授也遭受了一些其他的指控。比如說謊成性，約瑟夫.艾利斯，創作的有關美國開國元勳的著作堪稱一流，他告訴他的學生他曾在越南參戰，實際上他離戰争最近的時候是他坐在大學圖書館的時刻。又比如虛僞，保羅.克魯格曼是普林斯頓大學的經濟學教授，利用他在紐約時報上的專欄指控布什團隊與安然公司有所勾結，這位無畏的教授同時收取了能源公司37500元的賄賂。還有欺世盜名。最近在哈佛的咄咄逼人的新校長勞倫斯.薩默和黑人問題研究教授康奈爾.韋斯特之間展開了一場争論，這場争論提醒了大衆，康奈爾.韋斯特的最新作品其實隻是關于後現代結構主義晦澀難懂的語言，宗教言論以及黑人音樂的大雜燴。作為被冠以哈佛頂級教授的十七位之一，康奈爾.韋斯特帶給我們的應不僅于此。
Is this a case of a few bad apples? In public intellectual (Harvard University Press) Richard Posner, a federal judge, argues that it is the whole barrel. Although the book looks at all sorts of thinkers(not just whorish academics), Mr. Posner suggests that celebrity professors owe their influence to a fraud. They build their reputations tilling some minuscule academic field and then pontificate on Charlie Rose about everything under the sun.
這僅隻是幾個害群之馬嗎？聯邦作家理查德.波斯納在《公共知識分子》（哈佛大學出版）中說這是整個學術風氣的敗壞。盡管這本書探讨了各種各樣的思想家（不單是無良知識分子），波斯納先生表示名人作家的影響力來源于對公衆的欺騙。他們在某些狹隘的專業領域打拼，一旦功成名就便開始在查利.羅斯訪談秀裡開始誇誇其談。
All true. Yet the judge, himself a leading intellectual for hire, is a little too harsh. Each celebrity professor may be a nauseous beast. Yet there are two big arguments in favor of what they do. Most obviously, they help to circulate ideas. They give educated laypeople a chance to get their information from real authorities rather than mere journalists. They give universities a chance to pay back some of their debt to the societies that nurture them. The fact that America's bestseller lists feature works written by academic authorities amongst the ghost-written memoirs and celebrity suck-up jobs should be cause for rejoicing.
話雖如此，然而法官本人就是受雇的主要知識分子，有一點過于嚴厲了。可能每個名人作家都是一個令人作嘔的野獸，但是至少還有兩點是得益于這些名人作家的存在的。首先很明顯的是他們幫助了思想的傳播。他們給了行業外的人一個機會去從真正的權威擷取資訊而不是僅僅從雜志上擷取。同時他們也給了大學一個機會為養育它們的社會償還債務。相比槍手代寫的自傳以及名家阿谀奉承的作品，美國暢銷書排行榜更加親睐學術權威的著作這是一件令人感到高興的事情。
The second point is that they help to keep talented people in academia. Some noble souls will always be willing to put up with low salaries in exchange for a chance to pursue the truth，it is hard to imagine John Rawls hustling for a bit of extra cash. But others are inevitably attracted to money and bright lights. A bit of moonlighting is a relatively easy way for universities to keep some of their smarter faculty happy.
另一點就是他們幫助學術圈保留人才，一些高尚的靈魂總是願意忍受低廉的工資以換取一個追逐真理的機會。很難想象約翰.羅爾斯會為五鬥米折腰。但是大多數人都不可避免地被金錢以及名利所吸引。一些兼職的機會對大學來說是一個相對有效的方式來使得他們聰明的員工駐留在學校。
What about the costs of this moonlighting? Don't academic superstars short-change their universities? Well, a bit. Yet the ostentatiously ludicrous Mr. West has undoubtedly helped to attract bright students to Harvard in the same way that those rather more serious once did. Surveys suggest that academics who engage in outside activities are actually more likely to do their share of teaching than those who don't. Besides, the link between popular success and lower academic standards is not sharp. Mr. Ambrose and Ms. Goodwin both started "borrowing" other people's work before they hit the big time.
那這些兼職的代價又是什麼呢？這些學術巨星不會有負于校方嗎？然而招搖滑稽的韋斯特先生相較那些更嚴肅的教授，毫無疑問地幫助吸引了聰明學生來就讀于哈弗大學。研究表明那些喜歡參加校外活動地學者比那些不喜歡參加的學者更加樂于分享他們的教學。除此之外，在受歡迎的程度與低級的學術水準之間的聯系并不緊密。安布羅斯先生和古德溫女士都是在他們出名之前就開始借鑒别人的成果。
Fundamentally, the besetting sin of American academia is not celebrity professors but hyper-specialization. Academics have a bit of crawling along the frontier of knowledge with a magnifying glass, blind to the wide vistas opening up before them, and often reducing the most engaging subjects to tedious debates about methodology. By looking at the big picture, populists restore the excitement of intellectual life. Who has done more for literary studies in the United States: Harold Bloom or the thousands of post-structuralists and their insufferable conferences? Who has more to advance the understanding of American business: Peter Drucker, who has never been employed by an Ivy League university, or the entire list of contributors to the Journal of Supply Chain Management?
從根本上來說，美國學術圈的症結并不在于名人教授而是在于過度的專業化。學者們總是手持放大鏡在學術前沿匍步爬行而對眼前廣闊的天地熟視無睹。并且經常将最有價值的課題演變為關于研究方法的乏味的讨論。從大局來看，平民知識分子則能恢複學術生活的活力。相比之下在美國是誰為文學做得更多呢哈德羅.布魯姆還是成千上萬的後結構主義家以及他們令人難以忍受的會議。誰能夠更新美國的商業理念呢是從未被任何常春藤名校所錄用的皮特.杜拉克還是《批量供應連鎖店管理雜志》的無數投稿人？
And the market does work. The same media machine that turned Mr. Ambrose and Ms. Goodwin into superstars is now trashing their reputations. The honest majority of celebrity professors improve the world by spreading the fruits of academic research. The dishonest minority pay for their sins with the loss of their cherished reputations.
市場是一雙無形的手。媒體曾将安布羅森和古德溫推向事業巅峰，現在也正是媒體讓他們名聲掃地。真正的名家積極地傳播學術研究成果來推動社會的發展，而那些欺世盜名之輩最終會喪失他們所重視的名譽，為自己的錯誤買單。