Patrick Stewart taught us what good men do with power

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当新闻发生时，你需要了解什么才是真正重要的，以及该如何应对。在 Vox，我们帮助你理解这个世界的使命从未像现在这样至关重要。但我们无法独自完成。

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Great leaders, and great nations, need role models like Jean-Luc Picard.

伟大的领导者和伟大的国家，需要像让-卢克·皮卡德这样的榜样。

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When Patrick Stewart, who died on Wednesday, first stepped onto the bridge of the Enterprise in 1987 in his defining role as Captain Jean-Luc Picard, the Berlin Wall still stood. The Soviet Union would not fall until the fourth season of that show, Star Trek: The Next Generation, had already begun. Yet Picard’s generation of Star Trek franchise anticipated both events, portraying a post-Cold War world just as the Cold War was ending. It was the quintessential show for an age of American hegemony.

当周三去世的帕特里克·斯图尔特于 1987 年首次以其标志性角色让-卢克·皮卡德船长的身份踏上“进取号”舰桥时，柏林墙依然屹立。直到该剧《星际迷航：下一代》第四季开始后，苏联才最终解体。然而，皮卡德这一代的《星际迷航》系列预见了这两个事件，在冷战即将结束时描绘了一个后冷战时代的世界。这是美国霸权时代最典型的剧集。

For those unfamiliar with the franchise, Star Trek is primarily a story about Starfleet, which serves as both the military arm and as a kind of diplomatic corps for the United Federation of Planets, a benevolent, democratic union of more than a hundred worlds. In Star Trek’s Original Series, the 1960s episodes featuring Kirk and Spock, the Federation stands in the same shoes as the Cold War United States — vast and powerful, but also harried by other galactic superpowers like the Klingon Empire.

对于不熟悉该系列的人来说，《星际迷航》主要讲述的是星际舰队的故事，它既是星际联邦的军事部门，也是其外交机构。星际联邦是一个由一百多个世界组成的仁慈、民主的联盟。在 20 世纪 60 年代由柯克和斯波克主演的《星际迷航》原初系列中，联邦的处境与冷战时期的美国如出一辙——广阔而强大，但也受到克林贡帝国等其他银河超级大国的困扰。

Get the latest developments on the US Supreme Court from senior correspondent Ian Millhiser.

获取资深记者伊恩·米尔海瑟关于美国最高法院的最新动态。

Picard’s Federation, by contrast, is the sole dominant power in Earth’s quadrant of the galaxy. The Evil Empire is now an ally. The Original Series’s writers conceived of the Klingons as thinly veiled stand-ins for the Soviet Union, but on Picard’s Enterprise there was a Klingon, Lieutenant Worf, serving directly behind Picard on the Enterprise’s bridge.

相比之下，皮卡德时代的联邦是地球所在银河象限中唯一的统治力量。曾经的邪恶帝国如今已成为盟友。原初系列的编剧将克林贡人构思为苏联的隐晦代指，但在皮卡德的“进取号”上，却有一位克林贡人——沃尔夫中尉，直接在“进取号”舰桥上皮卡德的身后服役。

Yet, while the Federation was a metaphor for an American empire victorious after the Cold War, it was also an idealized vision of the United States. The Enterprise spent far more time rescuing people from environmental catastrophes or shuttling ambassadors to peace negotiations than it did battling aliens in space. Picard flew around the galaxy in a ship packed with enough armaments to destroy entire planets. But he more often used that ship to distribute vaccines.

然而，虽然联邦是冷战后胜利的美国帝国的隐喻，但它也是美国的一种理想化愿景。“进取号”花费了更多时间从环境灾难中拯救民众，或运送大使参加和平谈判，而不是在太空中与外星人作战。皮卡德驾驶着一艘装备足以摧毁整个行星的飞船在银河系中航行，但他更多时候是用这艘飞船来分发疫苗。

In its best moments, The Next Generation was a meditation on the just use of power. And Picard, as Enterprise’s captain, was the voice of 1990s liberalism — known as much for his eloquent soliloquies in defense of universal rights as for his tactical prowess as commander of the Federation’s most advanced weapon.

在最精彩的时刻，《下一代》是对权力正当使用的一次沉思。而作为“进取号”船长的皮卡德，是 20 世纪 90 年代自由主义的代言人——他既以捍卫普世权利的雄辩独白而闻名，也以作为联邦最先进武器指挥官的战术才能而著称。

Looking back, it’s easy to see Picard’s liberalism as a vestige of a lost era. The Next Generation showcased a just and highly capable Federation that bears no resemblance whatsoever to the current United States government. But, while America has fallen far short of Star Trek’s Clinton-era aspirations, it would be a mistake to abandon those aspirations today.

回首往事，很容易将皮卡德的自由主义视为一个逝去时代的遗迹。《下一代》展示了一个公正且能力极强的联邦，这与当前的美国政府毫无相似之处。但是，尽管美国远未达到《星际迷航》克林顿时代的愿景，但在今天放弃这些愿景将是一个错误。

The children of nearly four decades ago watched Stewart’s portrayal of Picard and saw a role model for how the most powerful people in society should behave. Those lessons are just as relevant today as they were then.

近四十年前的孩子们看着斯图尔特饰演的皮卡德，看到了社会中最有权势的人应该如何行事的榜样。这些教训在今天依然像当时一样具有现实意义。

The decision to cast Stewart, one of the preeminent Shakespearean actors of his generation, as the Enterprise’s captain was an inspired choice. Though the show often burdened its actors with heavy-handed dialogue, Stewart delivered his lines with the same aplomb and gravitas he would bring if he were playing Macbeth.

决定由斯图尔特——他那一代最杰出的莎士比亚戏剧演员之一——来饰演“进取号”船长，是一个充满灵感的选择。尽管该剧经常让演员背负生硬的台词，但斯图尔特在念台词时，展现出了他饰演麦克白时所具备的同样的沉着与庄重。

Consider, for example, Stewart’s performance in The Measure of a Man, an early episode focused on the legal status of Lieutenant Commander Data, an android who serves as one of the Enterprise’s senior officers. In it, Data is ordered to report to an expert on artificial life forms who wishes to dismantle and study him in order to learn how to construct more, similar androids, and Picard is tasked with defending Data’s right to refuse this order before a judge that he personally loathes.

以斯图尔特在《人的尺度》中的表演为例，这是一集早期剧集，重点关注了数据少校的法律地位，他是一名担任“进取号”高级军官之一的仿生人。在剧中，数据被命令向一位人造生命专家报到，该专家希望拆解并研究他，以学习如何制造更多类似的仿生人。皮卡德的任务是在一位他个人非常厌恶的法官面前，捍卫数据拒绝这一命令的权利。

The turning point in the episode comes when Picard realizes that he is arguing, not just to save one android’s life, but to prevent the creation of an entire class of people with no more rights than a toaster. “A single Data,” Picard says in the trial that will determine the android officer’s future, “is a curiosity, a wonder even. But thousands of Datas, isn’t that becoming a race?”

这一集的转折点在于皮卡德意识到，他所争辩的不仅仅是为了挽救一个仿生人的生命，而是为了防止创造出一个权利仅相当于烤面包机的阶级。在决定这位仿生人军官未来的审判中，皮卡德说道：“一个数据，是一个奇迹，甚至是一个奇观。但成千上万个数据，这难道不是正在成为一个种族吗？”

“Are you prepared to condemn him and all who come after him to servitude and slavery?” Picard asks the judge in his closing argument.

“你准备好判处他和所有后来者沦为奴仆和奴隶了吗？”皮卡德在结案陈词中质问法官。

When this episode first aired in 1989, democracy was ascendant. The Berlin Wall would stand for only a few more months. And the United States had emerged from the 1960s and even escaped the Reagan administration with its commitment to civil rights intact. Just a few years earlier, American liberals outmaneuvered opponents of the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965 — the law that probably did more than any other to dismantle Jim Crow — and persuaded President Ronald Reagan to sign legislation expanding its scope.

当这一集于 1989 年首次播出时，民主正处于上升期。柏林墙仅剩几个月的寿命。美国走出了 20 世纪 60 年代，甚至在里根政府时期依然保持着对民权的承诺。就在几年前，美国自由派成功挫败了 1965 年具有里程碑意义的《投票权法案》的反对者——该法案在废除吉姆·克劳法方面可能比任何其他法律都更有效——并说服罗纳德·里根总统签署了扩大其适用范围的立法。

And so the conclusion of The Measure of a Man mirrors this optimistic reality. At the end of Picard’s courtroom defense of his android officer, the judge concludes that Data has the “freedom to choose” not to be dismantled and studied. In the liberal universe imagined by The Next Generation’s writers, institutions are trustworthy and responsive to reasoned argument.

因此，《人的尺度》的结局反映了这种乐观的现实。在皮卡德为他的仿生人军官进行法庭辩护后，法官裁定数据拥有“选择的自由”，可以拒绝被拆解和研究。在《下一代》编剧所构想的自由主义宇宙中，体制是值得信赖的，并且会对理性的论证做出回应。

Indeed, for a show about naval officers tasked with securing a hegemonic power, Star Trek spends a surprising amount of time on courtroom drama. In another episode, The Drumhead, Picard battles an admiral who is pulled out of retirement to investigate allegations of sabotage aboard the Enterprise — and who eventually leads a witch hunt into a largely innocent crewman whose only crime is hiding his Romulan ancestry (the Romulans, like the Original Series’s Klin

事实上，对于一部讲述海军军官负责维护霸权力量的剧集来说，《星际迷航》花费了惊人的时间在法庭剧上。在另一集《鼓声》中，皮卡德与一位被从退休中召回调查“进取号”破坏指控的海军上将进行了斗争——这位上将最终对一名基本无辜的船员发动了猎巫行动，而该船员唯一的罪行是隐瞒了自己的罗慕伦血统（罗慕伦人，就像原初系列的克林贡人一样……）