When one family fights with another, it's a feud.

当一个家族与另一个家族展开斗争时，就成了一个世代的恩怨。

When lots of families fight with one another in identical little towns up and down in the same mountain range, it's a pattern.

一个山区同一小镇的许多家庭相互争斗已成为一种模式。

What was the cause of the Appalachian pattern?

是什么引发阿巴拉契亚的争斗？

Over the years, many potential causes have been examined and debated, and the consensus appears to be that the region was plagued by a particularly virulent strain of what sociologists call a "culture of honor."

多年来，人们不断地寻找并讨论许多潜在的原因，最终达成了共识：似乎该地区受到了某种特别的病毒蔓延的折磨，社会学家称之为“荣誉文化”。

Cultures of honor tend to take root in highlands and other marginally fertile areas, like Sicily or the mountainous Basque regions of Spain.

荣誉文化往往扎根于高原和其他边境领土地区，如意大利西西里岛或西班牙的巴斯克地区。

If you live on some rocky mountainside, the explanation goes, you can't farm.

如果你住在一些山区，也就是说，你没法有农场，

You probably raise goats or sheep, and the kind of culture that grows up around being a herdsman is very different from the culture that grows up around growing crops.

你可能会养山羊或绵羊，但作为牧民所发展出来的文化与种植庄稼的农民的文化是不同的。

The survival of a farmer depends on the coorperation of others in the community.

一个农民的生存依靠社区与他人的合作，

But a herdsman is off by himself.

但是牧民却自我封闭。

Farmers also don't have to worry that their livelihood would be stolen in the night, because crops can't easily be stolen

农民不必担心他们维持生计的东西会在某天晚上被盗，因为农作物不能轻易被盗，

unless, of course, a thief wants to go to the trouble of harvesting an entire field all on his own.

除非小偷想独自收割全部的收成。

But a herdsman does.

但是，牧民却有担忧，

He's under constant threat of ruin through the lost of his animals. So he has to be aggressive:

他很清楚，他需要通过他的言行证明他不是弱者。

he has to make it clear, through his words and deeds, that he is not weak.

他很清楚，需要通过他的言行证明他不是弱者。

He has to be willing to fight in response to even the slightest challenge to his reputation, and that's what the "culture of honor means."

为了他的声誉，他愿意接受并回应来自外界的任何挑战，哪怕是极其微小的挑战，这就是所谓的“荣誉文化”的意义。

It's a word where a man's reputation is at the center of his livelihood and self-worth.

在这个世界上，个人的生计和自我价值是荣誉的中心。

"The critical moment in the development of the young shepherd's reputation is his first quarrel," the ethnographer J. K. Campbell writes of one herding culture in Greece.

“对年轻的牧羊人的荣誉发展而言，第一次争执是关键时刻，”JK的民族志学者坎贝尔写了一个关于希腊牧群文化：

"Quarrels are necessarily public.

“争执必然是在公众场合。

They may occur in a coffee shop, the village square, or most frequently, on a grazing boundery where a curse or stone aimed at one of his straying sheep by another shepherd is an insult which inevitably requires a violent response."

他们可能会发生在咖啡馆，在村广场，最常见的是在牧区边界，一个牧羊人诅咒或用一块石头瞄准一只走失的羊，对于这种侮辱，不可避免地会召至一场暴力回应。”