《卫报》：不是阴谋论，爱泼斯坦案揭露了一种隐形交易

2月7日，英国《卫报》刊文称，美国司法部公布的最新一批杰弗里·爱泼斯坦相关文件，再次将西方社会长期存在的深层问题推到台前。

文章认为，一方面，在权力和财富高度集中的顶层社会，法律和规则并不是对所有人一视同仁。另一方面，爱泼斯坦并未担任任何公职，却频繁介入政治、商业甚至外交事务的幕后运作，这本身就是对西方现代民主制度的一种讽刺。

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，引发公众愤怒的，并不只是爱泼斯坦本人的性犯罪行为——这些早已不是秘密——而是文件呈现出的精英阶层日常运作方式。文件显示，一个由政商权势人物构成的非正式关系网络长期存在，在其中，身份、财富和人脉本身就成了“护身符”。

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 /ɪˌluːmɪˈnɑːtiː/ 社会精英

jaundice /ˈdʒɔːndɪs/ 偏见

《卫报》认为，这批文件未必能解答所有关键疑问，比如爱泼斯坦的部分知名交往对象是否直接参与违法行为，或他2019年在狱中死亡是否另有隐情。但即便如此，它们仍从侧面印证了公众多年来的直觉：精英群体确实享有普通人难以获得的制度宽容。

文章援引学者观点称，这并不意味着存在一个严密运作、暗中操控世界的阴谋组织，而是一种更普遍、更现实的情况——权力与财富之间形成了默契，让某些人可以长期游走在法律和道德边缘，而不必付出相应代价。

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".

《卫报》还注意到，最新披露的文件进一步勾勒出爱泼斯坦与全球精英之间复杂而交织的关系网络，涉及政界、商界、学界，甚至王室成员。文章同时强调，被文件提及并不等同于违法，但这些高度封闭、彼此熟识的关系本身，已经反映出精英社会的排他性。

《卫报》评论称，这些文件的意义不在于制造新的阴谋论，而在于揭示权力是如何在正式制度之外被交换和巩固的。文件暴露了意识形态在精英阶层中的相对虚伪性。无论政治立场如何分化，在超越某一财富和权力门槛后，所谓价值分歧往往让位于阶层自利与彼此庇护。

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，围绕爱泼斯坦的争议，问题并不只在于某个个人的堕落，而在于一种被长期默许的结构性现实：部分人习惯于在一个对自己格外宽松的规则体系中运转，并且理所当然地认为，自己的行为不需要向外界交代。

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 /ˈɡlædˌhændər/ 交际高手（贬义）

con artist /ˈkɒn ˌɑːtɪst/ 骗子

back-scratcher /ˈbæk ˌskrætʃər/ 互相包庇的人

hedonist /ˈhiːdənɪst/ 享乐主义者

来源：卫报

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