正文
We often imagine that the wealthy are unconflicted about their advantages and in fact eager to display them. Since Thorstein Veblen coined the term “conspicuous consumption” more than a century ago, the rich have typically been represented as competing for status by showing off their wealth. Our current president is the conspicuous consumer in chief, the epitome of the rich person who displays his wealth in the glitziest way possible.
在我们的想象中，富人往往对他们具有的优势毫不避讳，并其实恨不得秀给别人看。自从一个多世纪前托斯丹·范伯伦（
冬天毛注：美国
著名
经济学家，著有《有闲阶级论》
）发明“炫耀性消费”这个词以来，人们往往将富人塑造成攀比炫富的形象。我们的现任总统就是一位“总炫耀消费者”，他是富人极尽大张旗鼓之能事炫富的典型代表。
Yet we believe that wealthy people seek visibility because those we see are, by definition, visible. In contrast, the people I spoke with expressed a deep ambivalence about identifying as affluent. Rather than brag about their money or show it off, they kept quiet about their advantages. They described themselves as “normal” people who worked hard and spent prudently, distancing themselves from common stereotypes of the wealthy as ostentatious, selfish, snobby and entitled. Ultimately, their accounts illuminate a moral stigma of privilege.
然而我们之所以相信有钱人都生怕别人不知道自己有钱，仅仅是因为我们所了解的那些有钱人是如此，但这是有必然性的，否则我们从一开始就不会听说他们。恰恰相反的是，我采访的这些富人都对露富一事表达了深深的矛盾感。他们对自己的钱既不吹嘘也不炫耀，而是在人前对自己的优越绝口不提。他们将自己标榜为努力工作、审慎消费的“普通”人，远离一般人对富人具有的铺张、自私、势利和自以为是的印象。到头来，他们的这些说法反映出的，是特权阶层被打上的道德烙印。
The ways these wealthy New Yorkers identify and avoid stigma matter not because we should feel sorry for uncomfortable rich people, but because they tell us something about how economic inequality is hidden, justified and maintained in American life.
这些有钱的纽约人们意识到，并试图避免这种道德烙印，而我之所以提出这一点，不是为了号召大家来同情这些心怀不安的有钱人，而是因为它揭示了贫富差距在美国式生活中是如何被掩盖、辩护，继而维系的。
Keeping silent about social class, a norm that goes far beyond the affluent, can make Americans feel that class doesn’t, or shouldn’t, matter. And judging wealthy people on the basis of their individual behaviors — do they work hard enough, do they consume reasonably enough, do they give back enough — distracts us from other kinds of questions about the morality of vastly unequal distributions of wealth.
对特定社会阶层的存在保持沉默，能够让美国人们觉得该社会阶层不重要，或者说没必要在乎；这一习俗所应用于的远不仅仅是富人阶级。基于富人的个人行为来对他们进行评判——他们工作努不努力？消费合不合理？是否回馈社会？——会转移我们对其他问题的注意力，使我们忽略财富分配严重不均等的道德问题。
To hide the price tags is not to hide the privilege; the nanny is no doubt aware of the class gap whether or not she knows the price of her employer’s bread. Instead, such moves help wealthy people manage their discomfort with inequality, which in turn makes that inequality impossible to talk honestly about — or to change.
即使藏起价签，也藏不住特权；不管保姆知不知道雇主吃的面包值多少钱，她都无疑清楚双方的阶层差距。这种行为只会帮助有钱人抑制自己内心对贫富差距感到的不安，并使人们再也无法坦诚地谈论这种不平等，遑论求变。
The stigma of wealth showed up in my interviews first in literal silences about money. When I asked one very wealthy stay-at-home mother what her family’s assets were, she was taken aback. “No one’s ever asked me that, honestly,” she said. “No one asks that question. It’s up there with, like, ‘Do you masturbate?’ ”
财富的恶名第一次在我的采访中浮现，是在一位受访者面对金钱问题选择了彻底的沉默时。当我询问一位非常富有的全职妈妈她家有多少资产时，她大吃一惊。她说：“从来没人问过我这个问题，真的。没人问这种问题。这就像是问人家：‘你手淫吗？’”
Another woman, speaking of her wealth of over $50 million, which she and her husband generated through work in finance, and her home value of over $10 million, told me: “There’s nobody who knows how much we spend. You’re the only person I ever said those numbers to out loud.” She was so uncomfortable with having shared this information that she contacted me later the same day to confirm exactly how I was going to maintain her anonymity. Several women I talked with mentioned that they would not tell their husbands that they had spoken to me at all, saying, “He would kill me,” or “He’s more private.”
另外一位妇女表示，她和丈夫在金融界工作，积累了超过5000万美元的财富，房子的价值也超过1000万美元。她对我说：“没人知道我们平时怎么花钱。我开诚布公地把数字告诉别人，你还是唯一一个。”她对于透露这些经济信息感到极为不安，当天晚些时候还联系我，以确保我不会泄露她的身份。有几位我采访的妇女均提到，自己不会将接受我采访一事告诉丈夫，还说：“他知道了非杀了我不可。”或是“他比我隐私意识更强。”
These conflicts often extended to a deep discomfort with displaying wealth. Scott, who had inherited wealth of more than $50 million, told me he and his wife were ambivalent about the Manhattan apartment they had recently bought for over $4 million. Asked why, he responded: “Do we want to live in such a fancy place? Do we want to deal with the person coming in and being like, ‘Wow!’ That wears on you. We’re just not the type of people who wear it on our sleeve. We don’t want that ‘Wow.’ ” His wife, whom I interviewed separately, was so uneasy with the fact that they lived in a penthouse that she had asked the post office to change their mailing address so that it would include the floor number instead of “PH,” a term she found “elite and snobby.”
这种矛盾心态往往使人们对露富深感不安。斯考特继承了超过5000万美元的财富，他告诉我，他和妻子对两人最近花400多万美元在曼哈顿买下的公寓感到心情矛盾。我问他为什么，他回答说：“我们真的想住这种高端场所吗？我们真的受得了别人来访时‘哇’的一声惊叹吗？那只会让你疲于应对。我们就不是那种乐于显摆的人。我们就不想听那声‘哇’。”我也单独采访了他的妻子，她对他们住顶楼公寓这件事感到很不自在，以至于还请求邮局改写他们的邮寄地址，把顶楼标识（PH）改成具体的楼层号，因为她觉得顶楼标识有一股子“精英阶层的势利劲儿”。
My interviewees never talked about themselves as “rich” or “upper class,” often preferring terms like “comfortable” or “fortunate.” Some even identified as “middle class” or “in the middle,” typically comparing themselves with the super-wealthy, who are especially prominent in New York City, rather than to those with less.
我这些受访者们从来不说自己是“富人”或“上流阶级”，而往往更偏好“安康”或“富足”之类的说法。有些人甚至自称“中产阶级”或“中不溜”，这种结论一般是通过刻意和超级富人们对比而来，后者在纽约市里尤其显眼。
When I used the word “affluent” in an email to a stay-at-home mom with a $2.5 million household income, a house in the Hamptons and a child in private school, she almost canceled the interview, she told me later. Real affluence, she said, belonged to her friends who traveled on a private plane.
一位家庭年收入250万美元、在汉普顿地区（
冬天毛注：位于纽约长岛东部，为海滩度假胜地，2016年平均房价850万美元
）有房、孩子上私立学校的全职母亲在接受采访后告诉我，就因为我在电子邮件里提了“富裕”这个词，她差点把访谈给取消了。她说：真正的富裕，说的是她那些坐私人飞机旅行的朋友。
Others said that affluence meant never having to worry about money, which many of them, especially those in single-earner families dependent on work in finance, said they did, because earnings fluctuate and jobs are impermanent.
也有人说，富裕的意义是永远不用担心钱，而他们中很多人，尤其是那些家里全靠一个人在金融业挣钱的，是做不到这一点的，因为收入总有起伏，工作也不是铁饭碗。
American culture has long been marked by questions about the moral caliber of wealthy people. Capitalist entrepreneurs are often celebrated, but they are also represented as greedy and ruthless. Inheritors of fortunes, especially women, are portrayed as glamorous, but also as self-indulgent.
对有钱人道德水准的质疑一直是美国文化的特征之一。资本型企业家受到人们的追捧，但他们同时也被打造成贪婪、无情的形象。财富的继承者往往被塑造得魅力四射，但同时也被看成是自我放纵的——尤其是女性。
