雙語暢銷書《艾倫圖靈傳》第8章:面朝大海(264)

E.M. Forster, outdoing the King's heresy with grand bravura, had written in 1938 that if he were faced with the choice between betraying his country and betraying his friends, he hoped he would have the courage to betray his country.

1938年，佛斯特寫道，如果他面臨背叛朋友與背叛國家的選擇，他希望自己有勇氣背叛國家。

He would always put the personal above the political.

他始終把個人置於政治之上。

But for Alan Turing, unlike Forster, or Wittgenstein, or G.H. Hardy, it was more than a theoretical question.

圖靈跟他不一樣，圖靈跟維特根斯坦、哈代都不一樣。

For him not only had the personal become the political, but the political was the personal.

對圖靈來說，個人就是政治的一部分，政治也是個人的一部分。

He had chosen and promised for himself in working for the government. The choice for him therefore was that between betraying one part of himself and betraying another part.

他選擇爲政府效忠，這種選擇對他來說，只是背叛自己的這一部分，還是那一部分。

And however much he wavered between these alternatives, there was a solid logic to the mind of security, one that could not be expected to take an interest in notions of freedom and development. He had no rights to such things, as he would have had to admit.

無論他在這種選擇中如何搖擺，總是存在着一個堅實的邏輯，即絕對的自由是不存在的，他不得不承認這一點。

He might have outwitted the Home Guard, but when it came to questions that mattered, there was no doubt that he had placed himself under military law.

雖然當年他耍過小聰明，戲弄過本土民兵隊，但是當他面臨真正關鍵的問題時，他不可能再有任何理由逃避軍法。

There was a war on; there was always a war on now.

十年前是戰爭時期，可是戰爭何嘗停止過。