Loyal Opposition - So You Wanna Be a Cowboy
Loyal Opposition - So You Wanna Be a Cowboy
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忠诚的反对派 - 所以你想成为一名牛仔
作者：
T. Curtis
在我年轻的时候，每天早上，沃斯堡星报上的一条横幅都会提醒我，我是在“西部开始的地方”长大的。一阵强风吹过北沃斯堡，会提醒考敦的其他人，旧的奇泽姆小道现在在从市中心穿过Trinity河的养牛场结束。每年在西南博览会和脂肪股票展期间，公立学校都会举办一个牧场日，所有的孩子都可以穿着牛仔或女牛仔服来学校。许多孩子从蹒跚学步的时候就开始骑马，有些孩子还想拥有一个牧场，长大后当一名牛仔。很少有人，也许没有人，成为真实的牛仔。即便如此，那些成为程序员的人还是为他们童年的幻想找到了一个出口。他们用一百万英亩的土地换取了一百万像素，比起寒冷潮湿，他们更后悔核心垃圾场。然而，童年的梦想很难破灭，那些很少在后院玩耍的孩子们仍然有一个自己的形象要实现。这是一个形象诞生于观看约翰韦恩（“杜克”）和没完没了的电视西部片。这是一个孤独的英雄在夜间与不可能的障碍作斗争以拯救（选择一个（城镇，牛群，女孩））的形象。当你第一次完成一个来自地狱的项目时，你知道你已经填满了你脑海中的靴子。杜克会很骄傲的。在美国人的心灵中，很少有像英雄牛仔那样根深蒂固的形象了。好莱坞在20世纪世纪的中间几代人身上塑造了一种随着19世纪而褪色的生活形象。麦迪逊大道利用对牛仔的怀旧之情来销售各种各样的产品。太多的软件专家，迷恋于罕见的天才黑客，崇拜“牛仔程序员”。即使是城市牛仔也觉得这个比喻贬低了他们的专业精神。那么，专家们是如何编造出这种相似性的呢？他们应该被自己的矛盾修饰法所刺伤吗？狂野不羁的牛仔形象是从沿着车道的城镇里偶尔发生的酒吧斗殴演变而来的。少数牛仔参与了这些爆发，这是那些人生活中微不足道的一部分。虽然大多数牛仔都有左轮手枪，但很少有人有电视西部片中描绘的枪法。尽管如此，这个形象还是受到了人们的欢迎，尤其是东部人，他们从来没有见过牧场，也没有在小路上开车。然而，正如西奥多·罗斯福在《牧场生活和狩猎小径》一书中所观察到的那样，“很少有人引用东方忠诚的反对者的暴行
E very morning during my youth a banner atop the Fort Worth StarTelegram would remind me that I was growing up “Where the West Begins.” A strong wind blowing through north Fort Worth would remind the rest of Cowtown that the old Chisholm Trail now ended in the cattle yards just across the Trinity River from downtown. Every year during the Southwestern Exposition and Fat Stock Show the public schools would host a Ranch Day, and all the kids could come to school in their cowboy or cowgirl getup. Many of the kids had ridden horses since they were toddlers, and some harbored thoughts of owning a ranch and being a cowboy when they grew up. Few, probably none, became real cowboys. Even so, those that became programmers found an outlet for their childhood fantasies. They traded a million acres for a million pixels and rued the core dump more than the cold damp. Yet childhood dreams die hard, and kids who rarely roughed it in the backyard still had an image of themselves to fulfill. It was an image born from watching John Wayne (“the Duke”) and interminable TV Westerns. It was an image of the lone hero struggling through the night against impossible obstacles to save the (pick one(town, herd, girl)). The first time you delivered on a project from hell, you knew you had filled the boots in your mind. The Duke would be proud. Few images seem quite so ingrained in the American psyche as that of the heroic cowboy. Hollywood raised the middle generations of the 20th century on images of a life that faded with the 19th. Madison Avenue has used nostalgia for cowboys to sell every manner of product. And too many software pundits, having become enamored with the rare wizard hacker, have venerated the “cowboy programmer.” Even urban cowboys feel that this metaphor degrades their professionalism. So how did the pundits concoct this similitude? Should they be gored by their own oxymoron? The image of the wild, unruly cowboy evolved from occasional barroom brawls started by trail-riders in towns along the drive. A minority of cowboys engaged in these outbursts, and it was a miniscule part of the lives of those who did. Although most cowboys owned a revolver, few had the marksmanship portrayed in TV Westerns. Nevertheless, this image became popular with people, especially easterners, who had never seen a ranch or been on a trail drive. However, as Theodore Roosevelt observed in Ranch Life and the Hunting Trail, “Few of the outrages quoted in eastloyal opposition