《衛報》：不是陰謀論，愛潑斯坦案揭露了一種隱形交易

2月7日，英國《衛報》刊文稱，美國司法部公布的最新一批杰弗里·愛潑斯坦相關文件，再次將西方社會長期存在的深層問題推到臺前。

文章認為，一方面，在權力和財富高度集中的頂層社會，法律和規則并不是對所有人一視同仁。另一方面，愛潑斯坦并未擔任任何公職，卻頻繁介入政治、商業甚至外交事務的幕后運作，這本身就是對西方現代民主制度的一種諷刺。

The millions of Jeffrey Epstein files dumped by the US Department of Justice will provide journalists, conspiracy theorists and interested members of the public with months of reading. And what they will read is enraging.

The files are an unflattering glimpse into the real ways that wealth is accumulated and power is brokered. Epstein, a private individual accountable to no voters, government authorities, or shareholders, was engaged in a near-constant stream of back-channel interventions in the political or business spheres.

If anything, the files make a mockery of public political commitments of all kinds.

文章指出，引發公眾憤怒的，并不只是愛潑斯坦本人的性犯罪行為——這些早已不是秘密——而是文件呈現出的精英階層日常運作方式。文件顯示，一個由政商權勢人物構成的非正式關系網絡長期存在，在其中，身份、財富和人脈本身就成了“護身符”。

What makes these files so infuriating, however, is not just Epstein's horrific predatory behavior, which is well-known, but the more mundane examples of elite conduct that the documents continue to expose. They vividly illustrate a world whose existence many everyday people, whether fevered with visions of the Illuminati or just jaundiced by banal anti-establishment cynicism, already suspected exists: an informal global club of powerful, ultra-rich people who all seemingly know each other, help one another out, and protect each other from the consequences of their depravity.

Illuminati /??lu?m??nɑ?ti?/ 社會精英

jaundice /?d???nd?s/ 偏見

《衛報》認為，這批文件未必能解答所有關鍵疑問，比如愛潑斯坦的部分知名交往對象是否直接參與違法行為，或他2019年在獄中死亡是否另有隱情。但即便如此，它們仍從側面印證了公眾多年來的直覺：精英群體確實享有普通人難以獲得的制度寬容。

文章援引學者觀點稱，這并不意味著存在一個嚴密運作、暗中操控世界的陰謀組織，而是一種更普遍、更現實的情況——權力與財富之間形成了默契，讓某些人可以長期游走在法律和道德邊緣，而不必付出相應代價。

Although the documents may not expose an actual criminal conspiracy, Matthew Dallek, a political historian at George Washington University, said, they confirm the belief behind most conspiracy theories: that elites "get special treatment, that they're shielded from the rules that are supposed to apply to everyone equally, and that there is a kind of corruption in the broadest sense of the word".

《衛報》還注意到，最新披露的文件進一步勾勒出愛潑斯坦與全球精英之間復雜而交織的關系網絡，涉及政界、商界、學界，甚至王室成員。文章同時強調，被文件提及并不等同于違法，但這些高度封閉、彼此熟識的關系本身，已經反映出精英社會的排他性。

《衛報》評論稱，這些文件的意義不在于制造新的陰謀論，而在于揭示權力是如何在正式制度之外被交換和鞏固的。文件暴露了意識形態在精英階層中的相對虛偽性。無論政治立場如何分化，在超越某一財富和權力門檻后，所謂價值分歧往往讓位于階層自利與彼此庇護。

Above a certain stratosphere of wealth or fame, it would seem, ideological and other differences are subsumed by far more motivating forms of elite self-interest.

文章最后指出，圍繞愛潑斯坦的爭議，問題并不只在于某個個人的墮落，而在于一種被長期默許的結構性現實：部分人習慣于在一個對自己格外寬松的規則體系中運轉，并且理所當然地認為，自己的行為不需要向外界交代。

Whatever the motivations of that ire, it focused briefly on a world that deserves more scrutiny. Yet the men at its center turned out not to be cunning New World Order ideologues but elite gladhanders, con artists, back-scratchers, and hedonists, in a world whose special rules they assumed, quite rationally, that they would never need to explain to the outside.

gladhander /?ɡl?d?h?nd?r/ 交際高手（貶義）

con artist /?k?n ?ɑ?t?st/ 騙子

back-scratcher /?b?k ?skr?t??r/ 互相包庇的人

hedonist /?hi?d?n?st/ 享樂主義者

來源：衛報

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