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托斯丹·凡勃伦：有闲阶级论·摘录 33
托斯丹·凡勃伦《有闲阶级论》· The Theory of the Leisure Class · 投资
Abstention from labour is not only a honorific or meritorious act, but it presently comes to be a requisite of decency. The insistence on property as the basis of reputability is very naive and very imperious during the early stages of the accumulation of wealth. Abstention from labour is the convenient evidence of wealth and is therefore the conventional mark of social standing; and this insistence on the meritoriousness of wealth leads to a more strenuous insistence on leisure. Nota notae est nota rei ipsius. According to well established laws of human nature, prescription presently seizes upon this conventional evidence of wealth and fixes it in men's habits of thought as something that is in itself substantially meritorious and ennobling; while productive labour at the same time and by a like process becomes in a double sense intrinsically unworthy. Prescription ends by making labour not only disreputable in the eyes of the community, but morally impossible to the noble, freeborn man, and incompatible with a worthy life.
出处：
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/833
定位：Excerpt 33 · 核对日期：2026-10-19 · 核验：短摘录
白话
不劳动起初是荣誉行为，很快变成体面生活的必需。财富积累早期，人们极天真又极强硬地坚持财产是名誉基础；不劳动是财富的方便证据，因而成为社会地位的常规标志。对财富的推崇又导致更起劲地推崇有闲。按人性规律，习俗把这种财富证据固定为本身就有价值、使人高贵的东西；生产劳动则被看成双重地不体面。最后，劳动不仅被社群视为不光彩，对高贵自由人来说还在道德上不可能，与体面生活不相容。
上下文
凡勃伦论述有闲如何从荣誉变成体面必需，并引用“Nota notae est nota rei ipsius”（标记之标记即事物本身之标记）。
今日一问
你判断一个人“体面”时，是否不自觉把“不干粗活”算进了加分项？
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