巴克利：改变美国的生活与革命|Buckley: The Life and the Revolution That Changed America

下面是这篇文章的中文总结

一、整体概览

  • 文章主题：这是对新传记《Buckley：The Life and the Revolution That Changed America》的解读，重点展示威廉·F·巴克利（William F. Buckley Jr.）作为现代美国保守主义奠基人之一的复杂人生与深远影响。
  • 主要观点：作者强调巴克利不仅是政治革命者，更是一个多面手，在文学、宗教、家庭和生活情趣上也极具魅力。
  • 关键看点：
    • 巴克利在保守派阵营中促成对话，展现了对敌人的倾听能力；
    • 他丰富的个人生活和爱好（如航行、滑雪、音乐）并未被政治完全吞没；
    • 对其早期支持隔离的批评与后期反思形成鲜明对比；
    • 文章认为，巴克利虽推动了一场“革命”，但更准确地说，是塑造了一种文化身份和持久的运动精神。

二、文章内容

（1）多面生活 — 不仅是政治人

  • 文章指出，巴克利“never lost those very traits as he grew older”——他在私人生活中仍保有“thoughtful, kind, tender in feeling”（体贴、温柔）的一面 (theimaginativeconservative.org)。
  • 他热爱航行、滑雪、音乐写作等，不只是政治舞台上的激辩者，也是真正享受生活的人 。

（2）倾听“敌人” — 公私之别

（3）早期支持隔离 → 后期反思

  • 文章补充，尽管他后来承认联邦反对种族隔离是正当的，但早年的巴克利确曾资助支持隔离的《Camden News》 (washingtonpost.com)。
  • 这段经历揭示其早期政治立场与后期成长之间的张力。

（4）政治为“防御战”，非全面革命

  • 巴克利在其政治生涯中多扮“后卫角色”：反对共产主义、反对联邦政府越权 。
  • 文章认为，他虽被称作“革命者”，但其核心其实是一个“文化防御者”和“运动建设者”。

（5）家庭、信仰与个人魅力

  • 他深爱家庭、宗教（天主教），同时热爱邀请朋友共享他的兴趣 (theimaginativeconservative.org)。
  • 文章形容他对“apostates”（政治异端）也有“rueful pleasure”，即对那些从他手下转向左派的旧徒，仍抱有一种复杂的情感 (theimaginativeconservative.org)。

-----原文：

The revolution that William F. Buckley, Jr., set into motion itself remains far from complete. In truth, and in Buckley’s mind, the main idea was actually to create a counter-establishment that would eventually produce not a revolution, but a “counter-revolution.”
威廉·F·巴克利（William F. Buckley, Jr.）引发的革命本身仍远未完成。事实上，在巴克利看来，主要的想法实际上是要创建一个反建制派，最终产生的不是革命，而是“反革命”。
Buckley: The Life and the Revolution That Changed America, by Sam Tanenhaus (1018 pages, Random House, 2025) 巴克利：改变美国的生活与革命，作者：山姆·塔嫩豪斯（1018 页，随机出版社，2025 年）

An accounting of the “life and revolution that changed America” might well have justified nearly 900 pages of text, but that was not the life of William F. Buckley, Jr. To be sure, his was a very consequential life, as well as an entirely fascinating life, not to mention a very full, if sometimes frustrating life to boot.
对“改变美国的生活与革命”的描述或许本可以写成近 900 页的文字，但那并不是威廉·F·巴克利， Jr.的生活。可以肯定的是，他的生活非常重要，也非常引人入胜，更不用说充实，虽然有时也令人沮丧。

The result here is itself thoroughly fascinating, quite full, but occasionally frustrating as well. The phrase “if only” seems to apply, as in “if only” Buckley’s had actually been a revolutionary life….
这里的结果本身也非常引人入胜，内容相当丰富，但有时也令人沮丧。“如果只有”这个短语似乎适用，就像“如果只有”巴克利的生活实际上是一场革命……

To be sure, this is the life of a brash thirty-year-old conservative who founded a magazine that insisted that it was time to “stand athwart history yelling stop.” And yet here we are seventy years later, conservatives of all ages, still standing—or reeling—against history, while still yelling—or at least pleading—stop.
当然，这就是一个鲁莽的三十岁保守派的生活，他创办了一本坚持“站在历史的对立面大喊停止”的杂志。然而，七十年过去了，各个年龄段的保守派仍然站立——或摇摇欲坠——反对历史，同时仍在大喊——或者至少在恳求——停止。

For that matter, Buckleyite conservatives are still waiting for, and working toward, the peaceful revolution that is both very much needed and might yet come, or the revolution that might well change America and renew and restore America all at the same time.
就此而言，Buckleyite 保守派仍在等待并为那场既非常需要又可能到来的和平革命而努力，或者那场可能彻底改变美国、同时使美国焕然一新、恢复旧貌的革命。

Did Buckley himself think that his had been a revolutionary life? If so, he either didn’t tell Sam Tanenhaus or Tanenhaus prefers to remain silent on the subject. Does Tanenhaus think so? Once again silence reigns. Would Tanenhaus have approved of such a revolution? Silence still reigns.
Buckley 本人是否认为自己过着一场革命性的生活？如果是，他要么没有告诉山姆·塔内豪斯，要么塔内豪斯选择保持沉默。塔内豪斯是否也这么认为？再次沉默占据了主导地位。塔内豪斯会赞成这样的革命吗？仍然沉默。

That said, the author of a generally sympathetic biography of Whittaker Chambers has given us a generally sympathetic biography of William F. Buckley. Clearly, Tanenhaus likes Buckley. And just as clearly Buckley liked a lot of people, including many, if not all, of his political opponents, Gore Vidal being a glaring, and in many ways a very singular, exception.
话虽如此，一位对威廉·F·巴克利的传记作者——一位总体上持同情态度的传记作者——也为我们提供了一本对威廉·F·巴克利的总体上持同情态度的传记。显然，塔内豪斯喜欢巴克利。而且，巴克利也非常喜欢很多人，包括许多甚至所有的政治对手，戈尔·维达尔是一个明显的例外，而且在许多方面是一个非常特殊的例外。

The Buckley predisposition to like people was an endearing Buckley quality, if a less than revolutionary one. The same goes for his liking of various things, not to mention the money—or the prospect of money to come–that things could buy. Yes, his was a highly political life, but his was never a life that was fully consumed by and with politics.
巴克利倾向于喜欢人们，这是一种令人喜爱的巴克利品质，虽然说不上是革命性的。对他喜欢各种事物也是如此，更不用说那些事物能带来的金钱——或者未来可能获得的金钱了。是的，他的生活高度政治化，但他的生活从未完全被政治所吞噬或占据。

He also liked good writing, no matter its source. Buckley ally William Rusher once joked that it was a “good thing The Communist Manifesto wasn’t well-written or we would have lost Buckley.”
他也喜欢好的写作，不论其来源。巴克利的盟友威廉·拉舍曾开玩笑说：“幸好《共产党宣言》写得不好，否则我们就会输给巴克利了。”

While it’s true that Buckley possessed what Tanenhaus calls an “inborn talent” for arguing about politics, he also had a well-developed talent for listening to what his opponents had to say. In fact, the headmaster of his prep school described the youthful Buckley as “thoughtful, kind, tender in feeling and closely attuned to others.” In other words, this unusual youngster was not exactly a budding Leninist, even if he might well have been a television host/combatant in the making.
虽然布克利确实拥有坦恩豪斯所称的“天生的才能”来辩论政治，但他也具有善于倾听对手所说话的成熟才能。事实上，他的预备学校校长描述年轻的布克利为“思想深邃、善良、感情细腻、善于体察他人”。换句话说，这个不同寻常的年轻人并不完全是一个萌芽的列宁主义者，尽管他很可能会成为一个电视主持人/战斗者。

For that matter, Buckley never lost those very traits as he grew older. Throughout the book Tanenhaus seems to feel a need to remain on hand to remind the reader of the difference between the public Buckley and the private Buckley. In truth, the private Buckley was “utterly different” from his public counterpart, and in any case he was always able to “detach personal feelings from ideological passions.”
就此而言，巴克利在变老的过程中从未失去那些特质。整本书中，塔内豪斯似乎觉得需要不断提醒读者公众的巴克利和私人的巴克利之间的区别。事实上，私人的巴克利“完全不同”于他的公众形象，无论如何，他总是能够“将个人感情与意识形态的激情区分开来。”

If it could be said that Buckley was sometimes consumed by politics, it might also be said that he could also be consumed with sailing or skiing or music (for which he had a “profound passion”) or writing–or celebrityhood. In other words, this so-called revolutionary had many lives beyond politics. And Sam Tanenhaus gives a good deal of attention to all of them.
如果说巴克利有时被政治所左右，也可以说他同样沉迷于航海、滑雪、音乐（他对此有“深厚的热情”）、写作——或者名人身份。换句话说，这个所谓的革命者在政治之外还有许多生活。山姆·塔内豪斯也对他们都给予了相当多的关注。

More than that, William F. Buckley also had his loves. He loved his wife and family. And he loved his God and country. It might even be said that he loved many of his friends, as well as his lives at sea and on the slopes–and perhaps even his life as a celebrity as well, maybe even especially his life as a celebrity.
更重要的是，威廉·F·巴克利也有他的爱。他爱他的妻子和家人。他也爱他的上帝和国家。甚至可以说，他爱许多朋友，以及他在海上和山坡上的生活——也许甚至还爱他的名人生活，也许尤其是他的名人生活。

In sum, this revolutionary took pleasure in many things and in many others, but his biographer wants us to know that his subject seemed to derive the “most pleasure” from bringing others into his life and involving them in one or more of his many “enthusiasms.”
总之，这位革命者在许多事情上都感到快乐，在许多其他事情上也是如此，但他的传记作者想让我们知道，他似乎从将他人引入他的生活并让他们参与到他众多“热情”中的某一项或多项中，获得了“最大的快乐”。

He even took a measure of rueful pleasure in his “apostates,” meaning those he discovered and nurtured before they began to move (but perhaps not grow) politically leftward. Here the prime, but far from lone example, was Garry Wills.
他甚至对他的“叛教者”感到一丝苦涩的欣慰，指的是那些他发现并培养起来的，但还没有开始（也许不是成长）向左政治倾斜的人。在这里，最典型但远非唯一的例子是加里·威尔斯。

During the 1960s the double whammy of the war in Vietnam and the overpowering issue of civil rights drove a wedge between Buckley and many of his disciples. According to Buckley, the most painful break was with Wills. Nonetheless, Buckley did not lose his sense of humor, rueful though it was. What was National Review running, he wondered, if not a “finishing school for apostates.”
在 20 世纪 60 年代，越南战争的双重打击和民权问题的压倒性影响使巴克利与他的许多门徒之间产生了裂痕。据巴克利所说，最痛苦的分裂是与威尔斯的分裂。然而，巴克利并没有失去他的幽默感，虽然带着些许苦涩。他不禁想知道，《国家评论》在刊登什么内容，如果不是“叛教者的完美学校”。

When it came to politics, his involvement was invariably a rear-guard action, whether fighting against the Soviet empire or against the encroachments of the federal government. For Buckley, these were necessary and good fights, save in retrospect his opposition to the effort of the federal government to dismantle state-imposed systems of racial segregation. Years after the fact, Buckley would concede that this dismantlement did require federal action.
在政治方面，他的参与几乎总是后卫行动，无论是反对苏联帝国，还是反对联邦政府的侵蚀。对于巴克利来说，这些都是必要且正确的斗争，除了事后回想起来，他反对联邦政府拆除种族隔离制度的努力。事隔多年，巴克利承认，这种拆除确实需要联邦政府的行动。

And the fight against international communism? Whether fighting with or for Joe McCarthy, whether praising Richard Nixon (for outing Alger Hiss) or criticizing him (for sins domestic and foreign, but especially for the opening to China), whether operating in the CIA or for his ex-CIA pal of Watergate infamy, E. Howard Hunt, Buckley knew that the Cold War had to be fought and won. In fact, it seems that victory in that war was much more important to Buckley than rolling back the welfare/administrative state at home.
反对国际共产主义的斗争呢？无论是与乔·麦卡锡并肩作战，还是为他辩护，亦或是批评他（无论是国内还是国际方面的罪行，尤其是对中国的开放），无论是在中央情报局工作还是为他那位在水门事件中臭名昭著的前中央情报局朋友霍华德·亨特工作，巴克利都知道冷战必须打赢。事实上，似乎在巴克利心中，赢得那场战争比在国内推翻福利/行政国家更为重要。

And after the Cold War was won? Of course, Buckley was pleased, as he should have been and deserved to be. But in a sense everything after that was anticlimactic. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, William F. Buckley, Jr., had two more decades of life. To be sure, there were more Blackford Oakes novels to write, more Firing Line episodes to tape, and many, many more columns to write. But in a very real sense this Buckley seemed to sense that the major purpose of his life had already come to an end.
在冷战胜利之后？当然，巴克利感到高兴，这是他应得的，也理应如此。但在某种意义上，之后的一切都显得有些平淡。苏联解体后，威廉·F·巴克利 Jr. 还剩下两十年的生命。可以说，他还有更多的黑福德·奥克斯小说要写，更多的《开火线》节目要录制，以及许多、许多的专栏要写。但在非常真实的意义上，这位巴克利似乎感觉到，他生命的主要目标已经基本完成了。

Sam Tanenhaus seems to agree. After all, he devotes barely a handful of pages to the final quarter of his subject’s life. Nonetheless, one gets the feeling that the William F. Buckley could easily have led a full and happy life quite apart from politics and political affairs. As it was, he was always making room for as much fun as possible, not to mention as many hijinx as were doable, or at least as dream-upable. And of course time would always have to be made for the non-political and even the apolitical.
山姆·塔内豪斯似乎也同意这一点。毕竟，他几乎只用几页纸就讲完了这位主角生命的最后一季度。尽管如此，人们还是会觉得，威廉·F·巴克利完全可以过上一个充实而幸福的生活，完全不涉及政治和政治事务。实际上，他总是在为尽可能多的乐趣腾出空间，更不用说尽可能多的恶作剧，或者至少是可以想象的恶作剧。当然，时间也总得为非政治甚至反政治的事情留出。

This would-be revolutionary was never the intellectual leader of the conservative movement. Nor was he ever a major, much less its dominant political leader. More than that, and more to the point, he never wanted to be either one. He apparently lacked both the discipline and the desire to write the tour-de-force of a book that others claimed he was always going to write. And he probably lacked the proverbial fire in the belly that is required for a serious run for elective office.
这个自称革命者从未是保守运动的思想领袖，也从未是其主要的，更不用说是其主导的政治领袖。更重要的是，更切题的是，他从未想成为其中任何一个。他显然缺乏写出他人声称他一直会写的那本杰作的纪律和渴望。而且，他可能缺乏竞选公职所需的那种“火在肚子里”的精神。

Yes, he did run for the office of mayor of New York City in 1965. But he did so more to block and frustrate John Lindsay than anything else, save for the lark that it would be and the book that he likely intended to write, win or lose. And what would be his first act, if he did somehow manage to win? “Demand a recount” was his immediate reply. It was all classic Buckley.
是的，他确实在 1965 年竞选了纽约市市长的职位。但他这样做更多是为了阻挠和挫败约翰·林赛，除了那种轻松的心情和他可能打算写的书，无论输赢。如果他真的赢了，他的第一行动会是什么？“要求重新计票”是他立即的回答。这一切都体现了布克利的经典风格。

In sum, he must have had as much fun living his life as Sam Tanenhaus must have had writing about it. Not that Buckley’s life was devoid of tragedies and failures. Far from it. And to always varying extents, the Buckley family fortune was often a house of cards. Sometimes it was there, and sometimes it wasn’t. But no matter, Bill Buckley always thought that something was there–or at least he did his best to pretend that was such the case. Besides, he was eventually making real money all on his own with Blackford Oakes, Firing Line, and those innumerable columns.
总的来说，他一定和山姆·塔嫩豪斯在写关于他的时候一样享受生活。并不是说布克利的生活没有悲剧和失败。远非如此。在不同程度上，布克利家族的财富常常像一座纸牌屋。有时候它还在，有时候就不在了。但无论如何，比尔·布克利总是认为那东西还在——或者至少他尽力假装如此。此外，他最终靠自己在《布莱克福德·奥克斯》、Firing Line 以及那些无数的专栏中赚到了真正的钱。

And just what does Sam Tanenhaus think of it all? For that matter, what does Tanenhaus think that Buckley might think about things today? This, after all, is the William F. Buckley, Jr., who once claimed that he would rather be governed by the first two thousand names in the Boston telephone directory than by the Harvard faculty. Hints are here and there, but only hints, which is as it should be and only could be.
那么，山姆·塔内豪斯对这一切到底怎么看？更重要的是，塔内豪斯认为巴克利今天可能会怎么想？毕竟，这位威廉·F·巴克利，曾经声称他宁愿由波士顿电话簿前两千个名字来治理，也不愿由哈佛的教职员工来治理。这里有一些暗示，但只是暗示，这也是理所当然的，也是唯一可能的。

Hinting at those hints returns us to that quixotic run for mayor in 1965, and to this matter of a past and possible future American revolution. That would be the “revolution” that Tanenhaus wants us to believe that Buckley long ago engineered versus the revolution that might well be in the offing, thanks in no small part to one WFB.
暗示那些暗示让我们回到 1965 年那场异想天开的市长竞选，以及关于美国过去和未来可能的革命的问题。那将是塔内豪斯希望我们相信巴克利早已策划的“革命”，与可能即将到来的革命——这在很大程度上要归功于一位 WFB——之间的区别。

One of the surprising discoveries of the Buckley mayoral campaign was the support it received from the city’s working classes, or as Buckley aide-de-camp Neal Freeman put it, “the people who made the city go.” Who was speaking for them, but the patrician Buckley, amazingly enough? And who were they, if not future MAGA Republicans? Furthermore, as Tanenhaus himself puts it, Buckley, the “disciple” of the libertarian Albert J. Nock, may have been slow to see himself as a leader of the “forgotten Americans.” But he gradually became “exactly that.”
在巴克利市长竞选中令人惊讶的发现之一是他得到了城市工人阶级的支持，或者正如巴克利的副官尼尔·弗里曼所说，“让城市运转的人们”。谁在代表他们，竟然是贵族出身的巴克利？如果不是未来的 MAGA 共和党人，他们又是谁？此外，正如塔内豪斯本人所说，巴克利是自由意志主义者阿尔伯特·J·诺克的“门徒”，他可能起初未能迅速将自己视为“被遗忘的美国人”的领袖。但他逐渐变成了“正是那样的人”。

To be sure, Buckley played a key role in reviving a moribund conservatism, both political and intellectual, in the aftermath the New Deal, World War II and the defeat of Taft Republicanism. He gave the movement two “P” words, well, one and a half. He gave it a Place at the table and what might only be called Pizzaz.
可以肯定的是，巴克利在新政、第二次世界大战以及塔夫脱共和党败退之后，复兴了政治和思想上的濒临死寂的保守主义。他为这个运动带来了两个“P”字，嗯，实际上是一个半。他为它争取到了一个“位置”，以及可以称之为“魅力”的东西。

In opposing Eisenhower and promoting Goldwater, he seemed determined to “wreck the Republican party in order to rule the wreckage.” At least that was the estimate of the inestimable Walter Lippmann at the time. Tanenhaus deems Lippmann to have been “half-right.” In a few other Tanenhaus words, Buckley may well have reduced the existing GOP to ruins, “but he had also willed a new one into being.”
在反对艾森豪威尔和支持戈德华特时，他似乎决心“要把共和党搞得一团糟，以便统治这片废墟”。至少当时无可估量的沃尔特·李普曼是这么估计的。坦恩豪斯认为李普曼“半对”。用坦恩豪斯的其他话来说，巴克利很可能把现有的共和党搞得一败涂地，“但他也意愿创造一个新的党派”。

Here Sam Tanenhaus himself is half-right. Yes, Buckley played an important role in transforming the GOP into the winning party of Ronald Reagan. After all, Reagan initially had come to him. Not so in the early sixties when Buckley approached Goldwater, even though he suspected that the Arizona senator was a “lightweight.” (According to Tanenhaus, Goldwater suspected the same thing about Goldwater; hence his decision to have Buckley brother-in-law and Yale debating partner Brent Bozell draft The Conscience of a Conservative, all in the name of trying to “save” an America that Bozell and Buckley refused to “abandon.”)
这里山姆·塔内豪斯本人有一半是对的。是的，巴克利在将共和党转变为罗纳德·里根的胜利党方面发挥了重要作用。毕竟，里根最初是找他来的。早在六十年代初，巴克利接触戈德沃特时并非如此，尽管他怀疑这位亚利桑那州参议员是个“轻量级”。（据塔内豪斯所述，戈德沃特也对自己有同样的怀疑；因此他决定让巴克利的姐夫兼耶鲁辩论搭档布伦特·博泽尔起草《保守派的良知》，这一切都是为了试图“拯救”一位博泽尔和巴克利拒绝“放弃”的美国。）

In all likelihood, what has been called the “Reagan Revolution” was the revolution that made its way into the subtitle of this biography. If so, that revolution is far from complete. It may be somewhat closer to completion today, but it still remains far from complete. And standing in its way is a left that is not only much further to the left than the left of Buckley’s heyday, but very, very powerful as well.
很可能，被称为“里根革命”的正是这本传记副标题中提到的那场革命。如果是这样的话，这场革命还远未完成。它今天可能比以前更接近完成，但仍然远未完成。而阻碍它的，是一个不仅比巴克利鼎盛时期的左派更左，而且非常强大的左派。

In any case, the revolution that William F. Buckley, Jr., set into motion itself remains far from complete. In truth, and in Buckley’s mind, the main idea was actually to create a counter-establishment that would eventually produce not a revolution, but a “counter-revolution.” The first successful stage was the Reagan presidency. The second successful stage was the remaking of the Republican party into the party of the American working class. The third successful stage might well prove to have been the Trump presidencies. It’s still too early to tell. Meanwhile, it might have been better, if a little clumsier, to subtitle this biography, “the life and counter-revolution that someday might fundamentally restore and renew the America that might not be saved, but should not be abandoned.”
无论如何，威廉·F·巴克利（William F. Buckley, Jr.）引发的革命本身仍远未完成。事实上，在巴克利的心中，主要思想实际上是要创建一个反建制派，最终不是引发革命，而是引发“反革命”。第一个成功的阶段是里根总统时期。第二个成功的阶段是将共和党改造成美国工人阶级的党派。第三个成功的阶段可能正是特朗普总统时期。现在还为时尚早。与此同时，如果这本传记的副标题是“生命与反革命，某天可能从根本上恢复和更新那个可能无法拯救，但不应被抛弃的美国”，或许会更好一些，虽然有点笨拙。

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 The Imaginative Conservative
富有想象力的保守派

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