《乌合之众·第二编·群体的意见与信念·群体意见与信念的间接因素》第16节
The State, which manufactures by dint of textbooks all these persons possessing diplomas, can only utilise a small number of them, and is forced to leave the others without employment. It is obliged in consequence to resign itself to feeding the first mentioned and to having the others as its enemies. From the top to the bottom of the social pyramid, from the humblest clerk to the professor and the prefect, the immense mass of persons boasting diplomas besiege the professions. While a business man has the greatest difficulty in finding an agent to represent him in the colonies, thousands of candidates solicit the most modest official posts. There are 20,000 schoolmasters and mistresses without employment in the department of the Seine alone, all of them persons who, disdaining the fields or the workshops, look to the State for their livelihood. The number of the chosen being restricted, that of the discontented is perforce immense. The latter are ready for any revolution, whoever be its chiefs and whatever the goal they aim at. The acquisition of knowledge for which no use can be found is a sure method of driving a man to revolt.[11]
注释摘要
勒庞在这一节里要论证的是，他所憎恶的那套拉丁式教育不但在智识上毫无实效，更在政治上制造出一支随时准备参加革命的失业知识分子大军。他的推理链条是这样的：国家通过教科书批量生产持有文凭的人，但官僚体系能吸纳的职位极其有限，于是从基层职员一直到教授、省长，全社会的文凭持有者都在争抢公职。与此同时，法国在殖民地的商业拓展却找不到代理人，成千上万的求职者宁肯失业也要…