《论工业社会及其未来》—泰德.卡辛斯基
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中文译文基于1996年中国文史出版社《轰炸文明——发往人类未来的死亡通知单》,原译者王小东
INTRODUCTION
介绍
1. The Industrial Revolution and itsconsequences have been a disaster for the human race. They have greatlyincreased the life-expectancy of those of us who live in "advanced"countries, but they have destabilized society, have made life unfulfilling,have subjected human beings to indignities, have led to widespreadpsychological suffering (in the Third World to physical suffering as well) andhave inflicted severe damage on the natural world. The continued development oftechnology will worsen the situation. It will certainly subject human beings togreater indignities and inflict greater damage on the natural world, it willprobably lead to greater social disruption and psychological suffering, and itmay lead to increased physical suffering even in "advanced"countries.
1,工业革命及其后果为人类带来了极大的灾难。这两者极大地增加了我们这些生活在“发达”国家的人口的预期寿命,但也破坏了社会的稳定性,令生活空虚无谓,剥夺了人类的尊严,导致了心理疾病的扩散(以及第三世界里的生理疾病扩散),还严重地破坏了自然界。技术的继续发展将令上述情况进一步恶化。人类尊严必将遭到进一步剥夺,自然界也必将遭到进一步破坏。社会也很可能遭到进一步扰乱,心理困扰将会加剧,而生理疾病甚至将会在“发达”国家蔓延开来。
2. The industrial-technological system maysurvive or it may break down. If it survives, it MAY eventually achieve a lowlevel of physical and psychological suffering, but only after passing through along and very painful period of adjustment and only at the cost of permanentlyreducing human beings and many other living organisms to engineered productsand mere cogs in the social machine. Furthermore, if the system survives, theconsequences will be inevitable: There is no way of reforming or modifying thesystem so as to prevent it from depriving people of dignity and autonomy.
2,工业-技术体系可能幸存也可能崩溃。假如该体系幸存下来,可能最终将会降低生理与心理的痛苦水平,但在此之前必须经历一段漫长而痛苦的调整期,而且人类与众多其他生命体也将付出惨重代价,永远沦为社会机器上的齿轮。更有甚者,假如这个体系幸存下来,将会导致不可避免的后果:没有任何方法能够改革或改进这一体系,使之不至于剥夺人的尊严与自主。
3. If the system breaks down theconsequences will still be very painful. But the bigger the system grows themore disastrous the results of its breakdown will be, so if it is to break downit had best break down sooner rather than later.
3,假如这一体系崩溃,结果依旧会十分痛苦。但是体系规模越大,崩溃造成的结果就越可怕。因此假如真要崩溃的话最好赶早不赶迟。
4. We therefore advocate a revolutionagainst the industrial system. This revolution may or may not make use ofviolence: it may be sudden or it may be a relatively gradual process spanning afew decades. We can‘t predict any of that. But we do outline in a very generalway the measures that those who hate the industrial system should take in orderto prepare the way for a revolution against that form of society. This is notto be a POLITICAL revolution. Its object will be to overthrow not governmentsbut the economic and technological basis of the present society.,
4,所以我们主张发动针对工业体系的革命。这场革命可能使用或不使用暴力,可能突然完成也可能在几十年时间里相对循序渐进地进行。我们无法预测这一点。但是我们的确为那些憎恨工业体系的人们勾勒了一套十分宽泛的方法,从而为反对这一特定社会形式的革命铺平道路。这不是一场政治革命。革命目标并非推翻政府,而是颠覆现存社会的经济与技术基础。
5. In this article we give attention toonly some of the negative developments that have grown out of theindustrial-technological system. Other such developments we mention onlybriefly or ignore altogether. This does not mean that we regard these otherdevelopments as unimportant. For practical reasons we have to confine our discussionto areas that have received insufficient public attention or in which we havesomething new to say. For example, since there are well-developed environmentaland wilderness movements, we have written very little about environmentaldegradation or the destruction of wild nature, even though we consider these tobe highly important.
5,本文中我们仅仅关注了工业-技术体系所产生的所有负面发展中的一部分。其他此类发展我们则仅仅稍微提了一提或者干脆完全忽略了。这并不意味着我们认为此类负面发展不重要。出于实际考量我们必须将讨论范围局限于未曾获得足够公众注意或者我们有话要说的领域。例如,鉴于目前已经有了进展得力的环保与自然运动,我们对于环境恶化或自然破坏的话题并未多费笔墨,尽管我们认为这些问题极为重要。
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF MODERN LEFTISM
现代左派主义的心理
6. Almost everyone will agree that we livein a deeply troubled society. One of the most widespread manifestations of thecraziness of our world is leftism, so a discussion of the psychology of leftismcan serve as an introduction to the discussion of the problems of modernsociety in general.
6,几乎所有人都会同意我们生活在一个深度动荡的社会。我们这个社会的疯狂有许多广为传播的表现,左派主义就是其中之一。因此讨论左派主义心理有助于进一步开展针对现代社会一般性问题的讨论。
7. But what is leftism? During the firsthalf of the 20th century leftism could have been practically identified withsocialism. Today the movement is fragmented and it is not clear who canproperly be called a leftist. When we speak of leftists in this article we havein mind mainly socialists, collectivists, "politically correct"types, feminists, gay and disability activists, animal rights activists and thelike. But not everyone who is associated with one of these movements is aleftist. What we are trying to get at in discussing leftism is not so much amovement or an ideology as a psychological type, or rather a collection ofrelated types. Thus, what we mean by "leftism" will emerge moreclearly in the course of our discussion of leftist psychology (Also, seeparagraphs 227-230.)
7,但是左派主义是什么呢?在二十世纪前半段左派主义就等同于社会主义。今天这一运动已经分崩离析了,也很难说怎样的人才算是左派主义者。本文中所谓的左派主义者包括社会主义者、集体主义者、“政治正确”人士、女权主义者、同性恋与残疾人活动者,动物权益保护者以及其他类似群体。但并非所有与此类活动有所牵扯的人都一定是左派主义者。我们这里打算讨论的并非左派主义运动或者意识形态,而是左派运动的心理类型或者相关心理类型的集合。我们笔下“左派主义”的含义将会随着我们对于左派主义心理的讨论而越发清晰。(见227-230段)
8. Even so, our conception of leftism willremain a good deal less clear than we would wish, but there doesn‘t seem to beany remedy for this. All we are trying to do is indicate in a rough andapproximate way the two psychological tendencies that we believe are the maindriving force of modern leftism. We by no means claim to be telling the WHOLEtruth about leftist psychology. Also, our discussion is meant to apply tomodern leftism only. We leave open the question of the extent to which ourdiscussion could be applied to the leftists of the 19th and early 20th century.
8, 尽管如此,我们对于左派主义的概念依然赶不上我们的希望那样清晰,但是看来在这方面完全无计可施。我们在这里只想以粗略的方式指出我们眼中驱动现代左派主义的两大心理趋势。我们不敢声称已经穷尽了左派心理的所有事实。我们的讨论也仅局限于现代左派主义。至于我们的讨论究竟在多大程度上可以应用于十九世纪以及二十世纪初期的左派主义者,在此姑且存而不论。
9. The two psychological tendencies thatunderlie modern leftism we call "feelings of inferiority" and"oversocialization." Feelings of inferiority are characteristic ofmodern leftism as a whole, while oversocialization is characteristic only of acertain segment of modern leftism; but this segment is highly influential.
9, 我们将奠定现代左派主义基础的两股心理趋势称为“自卑感”与“过度社会化。自卑感是现代左派主义的整体特征,而过度社会化则仅仅是现代左派主义某些派别的特征,但是这一派别极有影响力。
FEELINGS OF INFERIORITY
自卑感
10. By "feelings of inferiority" we mean not only inferiority feelings in the strictest sense but a whole spectrum of related traits: low self-esteem, feelings of powerlessness, depressive tendencies, defeatism, guilt, self-hatred, etc. We argue that modern leftists tend to have such feelings (possibly more or less repressed) and that these feelings are decisive in determining the direction of modern leftism.
10,我们口中的“自卑感”不仅意味着最严格意义上的自卑感,还包括一系列十分广泛的相关特征:自尊低下、无力感、抑郁、失败主义、负罪感以及自我憎恨等等。我们认为现代左派主义者倾向于有上述感受(可能受到了一定程度的压抑),这些感受对于决定现代左派主义的方向起着决定性的作用。
11. When someone interprets as derogatory almost anything that is said about him (or about groups with whom he identifies) we conclude that he has inferiority feelings or low self-esteem. This tendency is pronounced among minority rights advocates, whether or not they belong to the minority groups whose rights they defend. They are hypersensitive about the words used to designate minorities. The terms "negro," "oriental," "handicapped" or "chick" for an African, an Asian, a disabled person or a woman originally had no derogatory connotation. "Broad" and "chick" were merely the feminine equivalents of "guy," "dude" or "fellow." The negative connotations have been attached to these terms by the activists themselves. Some animal rights advocates have gone so far as to reject the word "pet" and insist on its replacement by "animal companion." Leftist anthropologists go to great lengths to avoid saying anything about primitive peoples that could conceivably be interpreted as negative. They want to replace the word "primitive" by "nonliterate." They seem almost paranoid about anything that might suggest that any primitive culture is inferior to our own. (We do not mean to imply that primitive cultures ARE inferior to ours. We merely point out the hypersensitivity of leftish anthropologists.)
11,当某人将几乎一切针对他(或者他所认同的群体)所说的话均理解为贬损时,我们就认为此人有自卑感或低自尊。少数群体权益拥护者就体现了这一趋向,无论他们自身是否从属于该群体。他们对于指代少数群体的名词极为敏感。指代黑人、亚洲人、残疾人与女性的“黑鬼(negro)”、“东方人(oriental)”、“残废(handicapped)”与“妞(chick)”就原意来说并不包含贬低意味。“娘们(broad)”与“妞”只是“爷们(guy)”“哥们(dude,fellow)”的女性对应称谓。正是活动家们自己为这些名词附加了负面含义。有些动物权益活动家们甚至拒绝使用“宠物”一词,而以“动物伴侣”取而代之。左派人类学家们十分费力地避免使用任何可能被理解为负面含义的言辞来形容原始民族,他们还想把“原始(primitive)”替换成“不文(nonliterate)”任何可能暗示原始文化比他们的文化更为低劣的言辞都令他们几乎要疑神疑鬼。(我们在此不打算暗示原始文化比我们的文化更为低劣。我们仅仅想要指出左派人类学家极为敏感的表现。)
12. Those who are most sensitive about "politically incorrect" terminology are not the average black ghetto-dweller, Asian immigrant, abused woman or disabled person, but a minority of activists, many of whom do not even belong to any "oppressed" group but come from privileged strata of society. Political correctness has its stronghold among university professors, who have secure employment with comfortable salaries, and the majority of whom are heterosexual, white males from middle-class families.
12,对于“政治正确”术语最为敏感的人并非一般的贫民区黑人居民、亚洲移民,遭受虐待的女性或者残疾人,而是一小部分活动家,他们当中有许多人甚至都不属于任何“受压迫”群体,而是出身于地位更高的社会阶层。政治正确的据点是大学教授,他们有稳定的工作与丰厚的薪金,以中产阶级出身异性恋白人男性为主。
13. Many leftists have an intense identification with the problems of groups that have an image of being weak (women), defeated (American Indians), repellent (homosexuals), or otherwise inferior. The leftists themselves feel that these groups are inferior. They would never admit it to themselves that they have such feelings, but it is precisely because they do see these groups as inferior that they identify with their problems. (We do not suggest that women, Indians, etc., ARE inferior; we are only making a point about leftist psychology).
13,许多左派主义者对于那些在形象上软弱(女性)、失败(印第安原住民)、令人反感(同性恋)等等的群体所遭遇的问题有着十分强烈的认同感。他们绝不会自认拥有此类感情,但正是因为他们认为这些群体低人一等才会认同他们遭遇的问题。(我们并未暗示女性与印第安人等群体低人一等,我们仅仅在解释左派主义者的心理。)
14. Feminists are desperately anxious to prove that women are as strong as capable as men. Clearly they are nagged by a fear that women may NOT be as strong and as capable as men.
14,女权主义者极为急切地想要证明女性与男性一样强壮有力。很明显女性可能不像男性一样强壮有力的恐惧令她们十分不安。
15. Leftists tend to hate anything that has an image of being strong, good and successful. They hate America, they hate Western civilization, they hate white males, they hate rationality. The reasons that leftists give for hating the West, etc. clearly do not correspond with their real motives. They SAY they hate the West because it is warlike, imperialistic, sexist, ethnocentric and so forth, but where these same faults appear in socialist countries or in primitive cultures, the leftist finds excuses for them, or at best he GRUDGINGLY admits that they exist; whereas he ENTHUSIASTICALLY points out (and often greatly exaggerates) these faults where they appear in Western civilization. Thus it is clear that these faults are not the leftist‘s real motive for hating America and the West. He hates America and the West because they are strong and successful.
15,左派主义者倾向于憎恨一切给人留下强大、优秀与成功印象的事物。他们憎恨美国,他们憎恨西方文明,他们憎恨白人男性,他们憎恨理性。左派主义者们之所以憎恨西方等事物的原因显然与他们的真正动机不符。他们说他们之所以憎恨西方是因为西方喜好战争、推行帝国主义、性别歧视以及种族中心论等等,但当这些问题出现在社会主义国家或者原始文化当中时,左派主义者们总会为其寻找借口,至多也仅仅是勉强承认其存在,同时则十分积极地(并经常夸大其词地)指出西方文明中出现的同样问题。因此很显然这些问题并非左派主义者憎恨美国与西方的真正原因。他们憎恨美国与西方是因为它们强大而成功。
16. Words like "self-confidence," "self-reliance," "initiative", "enterprise," "optimism," etc. play little role in the liberal and leftist vocabulary. The leftist is anti-individualistic, pro-collectivist. He wants society to solve everyone‘s needs for them, take care of them. He is not the sort of person who has an inner sense of confidence in his own ability to solve his own problems and satisfy his own needs. The leftist is antagonistic to the concept of competition because, deep inside, he feels like a loser.
16,“自信”、“自立”、“自主”、“进取”以及“乐观”之类的词汇在自由派与左派主义者的用语当中起不到多少作用。左派主义者反对个人主义,支持集体主义。他们希望社会解决每个人的需求并照料他们。他内心深处对于依靠自己的能力解决自己的问题并满足自己的需求毫无信心。左派主义者是竞争这一概念的天敌,因为他在内心深处感觉像是个失败者。
17. Art forms that appeal to modern leftist intellectuals tend to focus on sordidness, defeat and despair, or else they take an orgiastic tone, throwing off rational control as if there were no hope of accomplishing anything through rational calculation and all that was left was to immerse oneself in the sensations of the moment.
17,吸引现代左派主义知识分子的艺术形式倾向于关注污秽、失败与绝望,或者采取狂欢基调,放弃理性控制,似乎已经无望通过理性计算实现任何目的,只得将自己彻底沉浸于当下的感官刺激当中。
18. Modern leftist philosophers tend to dismiss reason, science, objective reality and to insist that everything is culturally relative. It is true that one can ask serious questions about the foundations of scientific knowledge and about how, if at all, the concept of objective reality can be defined. But it is obvious that modern leftist philosophers are not simply cool-headed logicians systematically analyzing the foundations of knowledge. They are deeply involved emotionally in their attack on truth and reality. They attack these concepts because of their own psychological needs. For one thing, their attack is an outlet for hostility, and, to the extent that it is successful, it satisfies the drive for power. More importantly, the leftist hates science and rationality because they classify certain beliefs as true (i.e., successful, superior) and other beliefs as false (i.e. failed, inferior). The leftist‘s feelings of inferiority run so deep that he cannot tolerate any classification of some things as successful or superior and other things as failed or inferior. This also underlies the rejection by many leftists of the concept of mental illness and of the utility of IQ tests. Leftists are antagonistic to genetic explanations of human abilities or behavior because such explanations tend to make some persons appear superior or inferior to others. Leftists prefer to give society the credit or blame for an individual‘s ability or lack of it. Thus if a person is "inferior" it is not his fault, but society‘s, because he has not been brought up properly.
18,现代左派主义哲学家倾向于蔑视理性、科学与客观现实,并坚持一切都在文化上都是相对的。诚然,人们可以就科学知识的基础以及如何(假如可以的话)在概念上定义客观事实提出严肃的问题。但是显然现代左派主义哲学家们并不仅仅是头脑冷静的逻辑学家,他们的所作所为也不是对于知识基础进行系统性分析。他们在攻击真理与事实时投入了大量的感情。他们攻击这些概念是因为自己的心理需求。他们的攻击行为是对自身敌意的发泄,假如这种攻击取得成功,还能满足他们的权欲。更重要的是,左派主义者们憎恨科学与理性是因为它们将特定信仰归类为真(成功、高等)而将其他信仰归类为假(失败、低等)。左派主义者的自卑感如此深厚以至于他无法容忍对于事物进行任何成功/高等与失败/低等的分类。还有许多左派主义者以此为基础反对精神疾病的概念与智商测试的实用性。左派主义者尤为反对从基因角度解释人类能力或表现,因为此类解释会使一部分人显得比另一部分人更为高等或低等。左派主义者更喜欢将个人能力或能力缺乏归功或归罪于社会。因此假如某人较为“低等”,这并非本人的错误,而是社会的错误,因为他没有得到适当的培养。
19. The leftist is not typically the kind of person whose feelings of inferiority make him a braggart, an egotist, a bully, a self-promoter, a ruthless competitor. This kind of person has not wholly lost faith in himself. He has a deficit in his sense of power and self-worth, but he can still conceive of himself as having the capacity to be strong, and his efforts to make himself strong produce his unpleasant behavior. [1] But the leftist is too far gone for that. His feelings of inferiority are so ingrained that he cannot conceive of himself as individually strong and valuable. Hence the collectivism of the leftist. He can feel strong only as a member of a large organization or a mass movement with which he identifies himself.
19,左派主义者并非那种会因为自卑感而夸夸其谈、自高自大、欺凌他人、自我吹捧以致无情竞争的典型人物。此类人物并未完全丧失对自己的信心。他在权力与自我价值的认知方面有缺陷,他他依然可以想象自己强大有力的样子,正是他令自己强大的努力才导致了这种种令人不快的行为。【1】然而左派主义者已经远远超过了这一阶段。他的自卑感如此根深蒂固,以至于她无法想象自己可以成为一名强大且有价值的个人。因此左派主义者信奉集体主义。他仅仅在身为大型组织或大规模运动的一员时才能感到强大。
[1]. (Paragraph 19) We are asserting that ALL, or even most, bullies and ruthless competitors suffer from feelings of inferiority.
【1】(第19段)我们断言,所有或者至少大多数欺辱他人或者无情竞争的人都有自卑感。
20. Notice the masochistic tendency of leftist tactics. Leftists protest by lying down in front of vehicles, they intentionally provoke police or racists to abuse them, etc. These tactics may often be effective, but many leftists use them not as a means to an end but because they PREFER masochistic tactics. Self-hatred is a leftist trait.
20,注意左派主义者们行动策略中的自虐倾向。左派主义者经常躺在车轮前进行抗议,有意识挑逗警察或种族主义者对自身施暴。这些策略往往有效。但是许多左派主义者使用此类策略并非单纯当做手段,而是因为他们更偏好自虐性的策略。自我憎恨是左派主义者的特征。
21. Leftists may claim that their activism is motivated by compassion or by moral principle, and moral principle does play a role for the leftist of the oversocialized type. But compassion and moral principle cannot be the main motives for leftist activism. Hostility is too prominent a component of leftist behavior; so is the drive for power. Moreover, much leftist behavior is not rationally calculated to be of benefit to the people whom the leftists claim to be trying to help. For example, if one believes that affirmative action is good for black people, does it make sense to demand affirmative action in hostile or dogmatic terms? Obviously it would be more productive to take a diplomatic and conciliatory approach that would make at least verbal and symbolic concessions to white people who think that affirmative action discriminates against them. But leftist activists do not take such an approach because it would not satisfy their emotional needs. Helping black people is not their real goal. Instead, race problems serve as an excuse for them to express their own hostility and frustrated need for power. In doing so they actually harm black people, because the activists‘ hostile attitude toward the white majority tends to intensify race hatred.
21,左派主义者可能声称他们的活动动机是同情或者道德原则,道德原则对于过度社会化的左派主义者也的确有作用。但是同情或者道德原则不会是左派主义活动的主要动机。左派主义者的活动当中有着太过突出的敌意,因此其最要动机是权欲。更有甚者,许多左派主义者在进行活动时并没有为了维护他们声称想要帮助的群体的权益而进行理性计算。例如,如果一个人认为黑人平权行动对黑人有益,那么采取敌对化或教条化的平权行动有意义吗?很明显,与那些认为平权行动对他们造成歧视的白人们打交道时,采取灵活怀柔的手段并至少作出一些口头和象征性的让步将更富有成效。但左派主义活动家们不采取这种做法,因为它无法满足他们的情感需要。帮助黑人不是他们真正的目标。相反,他们将种族问题作为借口借以表达自己的敌意与追求权力而不可得的沮丧。他们的作法实际上伤害了黑人,因为这些活动家对待白人多数的敌对态度倾向于加强种族仇恨。
22. If our society had no social problems at all, the leftists would have to INVENT problems in order to provide themselves with an excuse for making a fuss.
22,如果我们的社会并没有上述所有的问题,左派将不得不发明新的问题,从而为自己提供无病呻吟的借口。
23. We emphasize that the foregoing does not pretend to be an accurate description of everyone who might be considered a leftist. It is only a rough indication of a general tendency of leftism.
23,我们强调,上述论述未必对于每一个可能被视为左派主义者的人都十分准确,这只是对于左派主义总趋势的粗略概括。
OVERSOCIALIZATION
过度社会化
24. Psychologists use the term "socialization" to designate the process by which children are trained to think and act as society demands. A person is said to be well socialized if he believes in and obeys the moral code of his society and fits in well as a functioning part of that society. It may seem senseless to say that many leftists are over-socialized, since the leftist is perceived as a rebel. Nevertheless, the position can be defended. Many leftists are not such rebels as they seem.
24,心理学家使用“社会化”这个术语表示训练儿童使之按照社会的要求去思考和行动的过程。一个得到良好社会化的人相信并服从他所属社会的道德准则,并且很适应作为社会正常运作一部分的身份。说许多左派主义者过度社会化可能看起来毫无意义,因为左派主义者一般被视为反叛者。然而这一主张可以得到辩护。许多左派都不像看上去那样反叛。
25. The moral code of our society is so demanding that no one can think, feel and act in a completely moral way. For example, we are not supposed to hate anyone, yet almost everyone hates somebody at some time or other, whether he admits it to himself or not. Some people are so highly socialized that the attempt to think, feel and act morally imposes a severe burden on them. In order to avoid feelings of guilt, they continually have to deceive themselves about their own motives and find moral explanations for feelings and actions that in reality have a non-moral origin. We use the term "oversocialized" to describe such people. [2]
25,我们社会的道德准则如此严苛,以至于没有人能以完全道德的方式进行思考、感受与行动。例如,我们不应该去恨任何人,但几乎每个人都曾经一度痛恨过其他什么人,不论他是否向自己承认。有些人的社会化程度如此之高,以至于完全道德地思考、感受与行动的企图为他们带来了严重的负担。为了避免罪恶感,他们不断地就自己的动机欺骗自己,为那些在现实当中有着非道德起源的感受和行动寻找道德解释。我们使用“过度社会化”这一术语来形容这样的人。 【2】
[2]. (Paragraph 25) During the Victorian period many oversocialized people suffered from serious psychological problems as a result of repressing or trying to repress their sexual feelings. Freud apparently based his theories on people of this type. Today the focus of socialization has shifted from sex to aggression.
【2】(第25段)在维多利亚时期许多过度社会化的人们都因为试图压抑性欲而遭受了严重的心理问题。显然弗洛伊德以这些人为基础构建了自己的理论。今天社会化的重点已经从性欲转向了攻击性。
26. Oversocialization can lead to low self-esteem, a sense of powerlessness, defeatism, guilt, etc. One of the most important means by which our society socializes children is by making them feel ashamed of behavior or speech that is contrary to society‘s expectations. If this is overdone, or if a particular child is especially susceptible to such feelings, he ends by feeling ashamed of HIMSELF. Moreover the thought and the behavior of the oversocialized person are more restricted by society‘s expectations than are those of the lightly socialized person. The majority of people engage in a significant amount of naughty behavior. They lie, they commit petty thefts, they break traffic laws, they goof off at work, they hate someone, they say spiteful things or they use some underhanded trick to get ahead of the other guy. The oversocialized person cannot do these things, or if he does do them he generates in himself a sense of shame and self-hatred. The oversocialized person cannot even experience, without guilt, thoughts or feelings that are contrary to the accepted morality; he cannot think "unclean" thoughts. And socialization is not just a matter of morality; we are socialized to confirm to many norms of behavior that do not fall under the heading of morality. Thus the oversocialized person is kept on a psychological leash and spends his life running on rails that society has laid down for him. In many oversocialized people this results in a sense of constraint and powerlessness that can be a severe hardship. We suggest that oversocialization is among the more serious cruelties that human beings inflict on one another.
26,过度社会化可导致低自尊、无力感、失败主义以及内疚等,我们对儿童进行社会化的最重要手段之一是使他们对于与社会期望相反行为或言语感到羞愧。如果做过了头,或者如果某个孩子特别容易受到这种感情的影响,他就会为自己感到羞愧。此外过度社会化的人与轻度社会化的人相比更容易在思想与行为上受到社会期待的限制。大多数人都会做出不道德的行为。他们撒谎,他们小偷小摸,他们违反交通法规,他们在工作中偷懒,他们讨厌别人,他们说别人的坏话或者使用卑劣的花招来出人头地。过度社会化的人不能做这些事情,如果他做了就会为自己感到羞耻,还会自我仇恨。他不能想“不干净”的念头。而且社会化不只是一个道德问题,我们遭到社会化之后遵守的许多规范或表现都不属于道德的认定范围。因此,过度社会化的人在心理上被狗链拴着,一辈子都在社会铺设的轨道上运行。对于许多过度社会化的人来说这都会导致约束感和无力感,令其十分难熬。我们认为过度社会化是人类对彼此造成最严重的暴行。
27. We argue that a very important and influential segment of the modern left is oversocialized and that their oversocialization is of great importance in determining the direction of modern leftism. Leftists of the oversocialized type tend to be intellectuals or members of the upper-middle class. Notice that university intellectuals [3] constitute the most highly socialized segment of our society and also the most left-wing segment.
27,我们认为,当代左派当中一个非常重要且有影响力的派系就是过度社会化份子,他们的过度社会化对于确定现代左派主义的前进方向十分重要。过度社会化类型的左派主义者往往是知识分子和上层中产阶层的成员。请注意,大学知识分子【3】构成了我们的社会中社会化程度最高的部分,也是最左派的部分。
[3]. (Paragraph 27) Not necessarily including specialists in engineering "hard" sciences.
【3】(第27段)未必一定包括研究“硬”科学的专家。
28. The leftist of the oversocialized type tries to get off his psychological leash and assert his autonomy by rebelling. But usually he is not strong enough to rebel against the most basic values of society. Generally speaking, the goals of today‘s leftists are NOT in conflict with the accepted morality. On the contrary, the left takes an accepted moral principle, adopts it as its own, and then accuses mainstream society of violating that principle. Examples: racial equality, equality of the sexes, helping poor people, peace as opposed to war, nonviolence generally, freedom of expression, kindness to animals. More fundamentally, the duty of the individual to serve society and the duty of society to take care of the individual. All these have been deeply rooted values of our society (or at least of its middle and upper classes (4) for a long time. These values are explicitly or implicitly expressed or presupposed in most of the material presented to us by the mainstream communications media and the educational system. Leftists, especially those of the oversocialized type, usually do not rebel against these principles but justify their hostility to society by claiming (with some degree of truth) that society is not living up to these principles.
28, 过度社会化类型的左派主义者试图挣脱自己的心理狗链,通过反叛来维护他的自主权。但通常他不够强大,无法反抗社会最基本的价值。一般而言,今天的左派主义者的目标与公认的道德并不冲突。恰恰相反,左派主义者接受公认的道德原则,当做自己的原则,然后指责主流社会违反该原则。例如:种族平等,男女平等,帮助穷人,和平或反战,一般的非暴力行为,言论自由,善待动物,等等。从根本上说就是个人服务社会的责任与社会照顾个人的责任。所有这些很长一段时间以来都已经深深植根于我们的社会价值当中,或至少是社会的中产阶级和上层阶级【4】主流传播媒体与教育体系呈现给我们的大多数都材料或明或暗地明示或暗示了这些价值。左派主义者,尤其是那些过度社会化类型的左派主义者,通常不会反叛这些原则,而是通过声称社会辜负了这些原则(在一定程度上的确如此)来为自己对社会的敌意进行辩护。
[4]. (Paragraph 28) There are many individuals of the middle and upper classes who resist some of these values, but usually their resistance is more or less covert. Such resistance appears in the mass media only to a very limited extent. The main thrust of propaganda in our society is in favor of the stated values.
【4】(第28段)很多中产阶级和上层阶级个人反对这些价值当中的一部分,但通常他们的反对或多或少都是隐蔽的。这种反对仅仅在出现在大众媒体当中一个非常有限的范围内。我们社会的宣传主旨是支持上述指明的价值。
The main reasons why these values have become, so to speak, the official values of our society is that they are useful to the industrial system. Violence is discouraged because it disrupts the functioning of the system. Racism is discouraged because ethnic conflicts also disrupt the system, and discrimination wastes the talent of minority-group members who could be useful to the system. Poverty must be "cured" because the underclass causes problems for the system and contact with the underclass lowers the moral of the other classes. Women are encouraged to have careers because their talents are useful to the system and, more importantly because by having regular jobs women become better integrated into the system and tied directly to it rather than to their families. This helps to weaken family solidarity. (The leaders of the system say they want to strengthen the family, but they really mean is that they want the family to serve as an effective tool for socializing children in accord with the needs of the system. We argue in paragraphs 51,52 that the system cannot afford to let the family or other small-scale social groups be strong or autonomous.)
可以这么说,这些价值观成为官方价值观的原因是因为它们对于工业体系有用。暴力遭到阻碍,因为它会破坏体系的功能。种族主义遭到阻碍,因为种族冲突会扰乱体系运行,歧视可能对体系有用的少数群体成员则会造成人才浪费。贫困必须被“治愈”,因为下层阶级会给体系造成问题,其他阶级在接触下层阶级时士气也会下降。鼓励妇女创立自己的事业是因为她们的才能对体系有利,更重要的是因为经常性工作的女性更容易整合到体系当中,并直接与体系而不是家庭相联系,这有助于削弱家庭凝聚力。 (体系的领导人说,他们希望加强家庭,但他们真正的意思是他们希望家庭根据体系的需求成为儿童社会化的有效工具。我们在第51、52段认为体系不敢让家庭或其他小规模社会群体真正强大自主起来)。
29. Here is an illustration of the way in which the oversocialized leftist shows his real attachment to the conventional attitudes of our society while pretending to be in rebellion against it. Many leftists push for affirmative action, for moving black people into high-prestige jobs, for improved education in black schools and more money for such schools; the way of life of the black "underclass" they regard as a social disgrace. They want to integrate the black man into the system, make him a business executive, a lawyer, a scientist just like upper-middle-class white people. The leftists will reply that the last thing they want is to make the black man into a copy of the white man; instead, they want to preserve African American culture. But in what does this preservation of African American culture consist? It can hardly consist in anything more than eating black-style food, listening to black-style music, wearing black-style clothing and going to a black-style church or mosque. In other words, it can express itself only in superficial matters. In all ESSENTIAL respects more leftists of the oversocialized type want to make the black man conform to white, middle-class ideals. They want to make him study technical subjects, become an executive or a scientist, spend his life climbing the status ladder to prove that black people are as good as white. They want to make black fathers "responsible." they want black gangs to become nonviolent, etc. But these are exactly the values of the industrial-technological system. The system couldn‘t care less what kind of music a man listens to, what kind of clothes he wears or what religion he believes in as long as he studies in school, holds a respectable job, climbs the status ladder, is a "responsible" parent, is nonviolent and so forth. In effect, however much he may deny it, the oversocialized leftist wants to integrate the black man into the system and make him adopt its values.
29,下面来表现一下过度社会化左派主义者如何显示他对于社会传统观念的真实依赖,同时还假装反抗。许多左派主义者都支持平权运动,支持黑人获得地位更高的工作,提高黑人学校教学质量并向此类学校追加投资,他们认为黑人“下层阶级”的存在是社会的耻辱。他们希望将黑人整合到体系中,使他成为企业主管,律师,科学家,就像上层中产阶级的白人一样。左派主义者会回答说他们最不想做的就是使黑人男子成为白人的翻版,相反,他们要保留美国黑人文化。但是保存美国黑人文化是什么意思呢?几乎无非就是吃黑人风格的食物,听着黑人风格的音乐,穿着黑人风格的服装,修建黑人风格的教堂或清真寺。换句话说,黑人只可以在表面问题上表达自己。而在所有根本方面,过度社会化的左派主义者都希望黑人符合白人中产阶层的理想。他们希望让他学习技术学科,成为行政人员或科学家,耗费人生向上爬从而证明自己并不比白人更差。他们希望黑人父亲 “负责”。他们希望黑人帮派放弃暴力。但这些正是工业技术体系的价值观。该体系不在乎一个人听什么样的音乐,穿什么样的衣服,信什么宗教,只要他在学校上学,拥有体面的工作,攀登等级阶梯,是一个“负责任”的父亲,不使用暴力等等。实际上,无论过度社会化的左派主义者如何否认这一点,他实际上是要将黑人整合到体系中并让他接受体系的价值观。
30. We certainly do not claim that leftists, even of the oversocialized type, NEVER rebel against the fundamental values of our society. Clearly they sometimes do. Some oversocialized leftists have gone so far as to rebel against one of modern society‘s most important principles by engaging in physical violence. By their own account, violence is for them a form of "liberation." In other words, by committing violence they break through the psychological restraints that have been trained into them. Because they are oversocialized these restraints have been more confining for them than for others; hence their need to break free of them. But they usually justify their rebellion in terms of mainstream values. If they engage in violence they claim to be fighting against racism or the like.
30,我们当然并不声称左派主义者,甚至是过度社会化的左派主义者,从不反抗我们社会的基本价值观。显然他们有时会这么做。一些过度社会化的左派主义者甚至还反抗现代社会最重要的原则之一,采用了肢体暴力。他们认为暴力对他们来说是一种“解放”。换句话说,他们通过暴力冲破了习得的心理制约。因为他们过度社会化,这些制约对他们的限制效果更强;因此他们需要打破这些制约。但是,他们通常用主流价值观为自己的反叛辩护。如果他们从事暴力活动,他们就声称自己是在打击种族主义。
31. We realize that many objections could be raised to the foregoing thumb-nail sketch of leftist psychology. The real situation is complex, and anything like a complete description of it would take several volumes even if the necessary data were available. We claim only to have indicated very roughly the two most important tendencies in the psychology of modern leftism.
31,我们认识到,对于上述左派主义者的心理素描可以提出许多反对意见。真实的情况是复杂的,即使提供必要的数据,进行完整描述也需要好几卷的篇幅。我们只打算非常粗略地概述两个最重要的现代左派主义者心理倾向。
32. The problems of the leftist are indicative of the problems of our society as a whole. Low self-esteem, depressive tendencies and defeatism are not restricted to the left. Though they are especially noticeable in the left, they are widespread in our society. And today‘s society tries to socialize us to a greater extent than any previous society. We are even told by experts how to eat, how to exercise, how to make love, how to raise our kids and so forth.
32,左派主义者的问题表明了我们的社会作为整体的问题。低自尊,抑郁倾向和失败不仅限于左派,这些问题广泛存在于我们的社会,虽然在左派尤其明显。今天的社会与以往任何社会相比都试图在更大程度上将我们社会化。甚至还有专家告诉我们怎么吃,如何运动,如何做爱,如何教育子女等等。
THE POWER PROCESS
权力过程
33. Human beings have a need (probably based in biology) for something that we will call the "power process." This is closely related to the need for power (which is widely recognized) but is not quite the same thing. The power process has four elements. The three most clear-cut of these we call goal, effort and attainment of goal. (Everyone needs to have goals whose attainment requires effort, and needs to succeed in attaining at least some of his goals.) The fourth element is more difficult to define and may not be necessary for everyone. We call it autonomy and will discuss it later (paragraphs 42-44).
33,人类有一种需求(可能有生物学基础),我们称之为“权力过程”。这与对权力的需要紧密相关(这一点得到了广泛承认)但并不完全一样。“权力过程”有四大要素。其中最明确的三个我们称之为目标、努力与目标实现。(每个人都需要目标,目标的实现需要努力,他至少需要成功实现一部分目标)第四个元素很难定义,未必对所有人都有必要。我们叫它自主并将在下文中加以讨论(第42-44段)。
34. Consider the hypothetical case of a man who can have anything he wants just by wishing for it. Such a man has power, but he will develop serious psychological problems. At first he will have a lot of fun, but by and by he will become acutely bored and demoralized. Eventually he may become clinically depressed. History shows that leisured aristocracies tend to become decadent. This is not true of fighting aristocracies that have to struggle to maintain their power. But leisured, secure aristocracies that have no need to exert themselves usually become bored, hedonistic and demoralized, even though they have power. This shows that power is not enough. One must have goals toward which to exercise one‘s power.
34。考虑一个假设的个人,他只要心念一动就能获得自己想要的一切。这个人有权力,但他将会遭受严重的心理问题。起初他将有很多的乐趣,但渐渐地他将极度无聊并且情绪低落。最终他有可能患上抑郁症。历史表明悠闲的贵族们往往会变得颓废。为了保持权力而征战不休的贵族并不会如此。但悠闲而安全、没有必要发挥自己能力的贵族通常会变得无聊,沉湎于享乐主义并意气消沉,即使他们掌握着权力。这表明权力本身是远远不够的。一个人必须有行使权力的目标。
35. Everyone has goals; if nothing else, to obtain the physical necessities of life: food, water and whatever clothing and shelter are made necessary by the climate. But the leisured aristocrat obtains these things without effort. Hence his boredom and demoralization.
35。每个人都有目标,首先是获得生活必需品:食物,水和与生活在特定气候区域所必须的衣服和住所。但有闲的贵族毫不费力就能获得这些东西。因此,他会感到无聊和意气消沉。
36. Nonattainment of important goals results in death if the goals are physical necessities, and in frustration if nonattainment of the goals is compatible with survival. Consistent failure to attain goals throughout life results in defeatism, low self-esteem or depression.
36。如果目标是生存必需品,未能获得重要目标就会导致死亡;如果目标对生存有益,未能获得目标就会使人感到受挫。在整个生活当中一直没能获得目标将会导致失败主义,自卑或抑郁症。
37. Thus, in order to avoid serious psychological problems, a human being needs goals whose attainment requires effort, and he must have a reasonable rate of success in attaining his goals.
37。因此,为了避免严重的心理问题,一个人需要一个耗费一定努力才能实现的目标,还必须有合理的目标实现成功率。
SURROGATE ACTIVITIES
替代性活动
38. But not every leisured aristocrat becomes bored and demoralized. For example, the emperor Hirohito, instead of sinking into decadent hedonism, devoted himself to marine biology, a field in which he became distinguished. When people do not have to exert themselves to satisfy their physical needs they often set up artificial goals for themselves. In many cases they then pursue these goals with the same energy and emotional involvement that they otherwise would have put into the search for physical necessities. Thus the aristocrats of the Roman Empire had their literary pretensions; many European aristocrats a few centuries ago invested tremendous time and energy in hunting, though they certainly didn‘t need the meat; other aristocracies have competed for status through elaborate displays of wealth; and a few aristocrats, like Hirohito, have turned to science.
38,但是并非所有有闲贵族都会变得厌倦而意气消沉。例如裕仁天皇就没有沉湎于颓废的享乐主义,而是投身于海洋生物学并取得了相当的成就。当人们不必为了满足物质需求而发挥能力时,他们经常为自己设定人为目标。在很多情况下他们为了追求这些目标而投入的精力与感情就像其他人为了获取物质必需品所进行的投入一样。因此罗马贵族会用文学修饰自己;几个世纪以前的许多欧洲贵族投入大量的时间与精力来打猎,尽管他们肯定不缺肉食;其他贵族则通过展示财富来进行社会地位的比拼;还有少数贵族转向了科学领域,例如裕仁天皇。
39. We use the term "surrogate activity" to designate an activity that is directed toward an artificial goal that people set up for themselves merely in order to have some goal to work toward, or let us say, merely for the sake of the "fulfillment" that they get from pursuing the goal. Here is a rule of thumb for the identification of surrogate activities. Given a person who devotes much time and energy to the pursuit of goal X, ask yourself this: If he had to devote most of his time and energy to satisfying his biological needs, and if that effort required him to use his physical and mental facilities in a varied and interesting way, would he feel seriously deprived because he did not attain goal X? If the answer is no, then the person‘s pursuit of a goal X is a surrogate activity. Hirohito‘s studies in marine biology clearly constituted a surrogate activity, since it is pretty certain that if Hirohito had had to spend his time working at interesting non-scientific tasks in order to obtain the necessities of life, he would not have felt deprived because he didn‘t know all about the anatomy and life-cycles of marine animals. On the other hand the pursuit of sex and love (for example) is not a surrogate activity, because most people, even if their existence were otherwise satisfactory, would feel deprived if they passed their lives without ever having a relationship with a member of the opposite sex. (But pursuit of an excessive amount of sex, more than one really needs, can be a surrogate activity.)
39,我们使用 “替代活动”这个名词来表示追求自行设立的人为目标的行为,人们之所以树立这些目标只是为了能够为之努力,或者说仅仅是为了追逐目标过程中的“满足感”。这是识别替代活动的关键。假设某人投入了大量时间和精力去追求目标x,你不妨问自己:如果他要投入大部分时间和精力来满足自己的生理需求,而且他需要以多种不同且有趣的方式发挥自己的体力与脑力,他是否会因为没能达到目标x而感到非常失落呢?如果答案是否定的,则此人对于目标X的追求就是替代活动。裕仁的海洋生物研究显然是替代活动,因为很肯定,如果裕仁要将他的时间花在有趣的非科学性任务上从而获取生活必需品,他不会因为自己不知道海洋动物的解剖结构和生命周期而感到失落。另一方面,性与爱的追求(打个比方)不是替代活动,因为大多数人即使在其他方面享受着令人满意的生活,如果终其一生没有与一名异性建立关系,依旧会感到失落。(但追求超出需要的过度性生活就是替代活动了)
40. In modern industrial society only minimal effort is necessary to satisfy one‘s physical needs. It is enough to go through a training program to acquire some petty technical skill, then come to work on time and exert very modest effort needed to hold a job. The only requirements are a moderate amount of intelligence, and most of all, simple OBEDIENCE. If one has those, society takes care of one from cradle to grave. (Yes, there is an underclass that cannot take physical necessities for granted, but we are speaking here of mainstream society.) Thus it is not surprising that modern society is full of surrogate activities. These include scientific work, athletic achievement, humanitarian work, artistic and literary creation, climbing the corporate ladder, acquisition of money and material goods far beyond the point at which they cease to give any additional physical satisfaction, and social activism when it addresses issues that are not important for the activist personally, as in the case of white activists who work for the rights of nonwhite minorities. These are not always pure surrogate activities, since for many people they may be motivated in part by needs other than the need to have some goal to pursue. Scientific work may be motivated in part by a drive for prestige, artistic creation by a need to express feelings, militant social activism by hostility. But for most people who pursue them, these activities are in large part surrogate activities. For example, the majority of scientists will probably agree that the "fulfillment" they get from their work is more important than the money and prestige they earn.
40。在现代工业社会中,只需付出很少的努力就足以满足自己的生理需求。只需要参加技能培训计划并学一点手艺,按时上下班,为了完成工作而投入最少的努力,这就足够了。唯一的要求是一般水平的智力以及单纯的服从,后者才是最重要的。如果你有这些特质,社会就会从摇篮到坟墓一直照顾你(的确,对于下层社会来说生存必需品的获得并不这么理所当然,但我们这里说的是主流社会)因此毫不奇怪的是,现代社会充满了替代活动。这些活动包括科研工作,运动成绩,人道主义工作,艺术和文学创作,企业升职,获取远远超出需要的金钱和物质财富直到它们无法带来任何额外的生理满足,还有参与社会活动,尽管活动所要解决的问题对于活动家个人来说并不重要,例如为了非白人少数族裔的权利而工作的白人活动家。这些行为并不总是单纯的替代活动,因为对很多人来说,他们的动机并不只是需要用来追求的目标。科学工作的动机可能是追求声望,艺术创作是为了表达感情,激进社会活动主义则受到了敌意的驱使。但对于大多数追求这些目标的人来说,这些活动在很大程度上是替代活动。例如,大多数的科学家们可能会同意他们从工作获得的“满足感”比他们所赚取的金钱和声望更重要。
41. For many if not most people, surrogate activities are less satisfying than the pursuit of real goals ( that is, goals that people would want to attain even if their need for the power process were already fulfilled). One indication of this is the fact that, in many or most cases, people who are deeply involved in surrogate activities are never satisfied, never at rest. Thus the money-maker constantly strives for more and more wealth. The scientist no sooner solves one problem than he moves on to the next. The long-distance runner drives himself to run always farther and faster. Many people who pursue surrogate activities will say that they get far more fulfillment from these activities than they do from the "mundane" business of satisfying their biological needs, but that it is because in our society the effort needed to satisfy the biological needs has been reduced to triviality. More importantly, in our society people do not satisfy their biological needs AUTONOMOUSLY but by functioning as parts of an immense social machine. In contrast, people generally have a great deal of autonomy in pursuing their surrogate activities. have a great deal of autonomy in pursuing their surrogate activities.
41。对于许多人(如果不是大多数人)来说,替代活动都不如追求真正的目标(也就是即使权力过程的需求已经满足之后依然希望获得的目标)那样令人满意。这一点的表现之一是,在许多或者大多数情况下,深入参与替代活动的人永远不会满足,从来没法休息。因此,商人不断致力于获取越来越多的财富。科学家刚解决了一个问题就又着手解决下一个。长跑运动员总是驱使自己跑得更远更快。很多追求替代活动的人会说他们从这些活动中得到的满足感远远多从“平凡”的工作或生理需求的满足,但是这是因为在我们的社会满足生理需求所需要的努力已经降低到了不值一提的程度。更重要的是,在我们的社会中,人们满足生理需求的方式并非自主,而是充当巨大社会机器零件。相反,在追求自己的替代活动时人们普遍有很大的自主性。
AUTONOMY
自主性
42. Autonomy as a part of the power process may not be necessary for every individual. But most people need a greater or lesser degree of autonomy in working toward their goals. Their efforts must be undertaken on their own initiative and must be under their own direction and control. Yet most people do not have to exert this initiative, direction and control as single individuals. It is usually enough to act as a member of a SMALL group. Thus if half a dozen people discuss a goal among themselves and make a successful joint effort to attain that goal, their need for the power process will be served. But if they work under rigid orders handed down from above that leave them no room for autonomous decision and initiative, then their need for the power process will not be served. The same is true when decisions are made on a collective bases if the group making the collective decision is so large that the role of each individual is insignificant [5]
42,自主性作为权力过程的一部分,可能并非对所有人都有必要。但是大多数人朝着自己的目标努力时都需要或多或少的自主。他们的努力必须由自己主动进行,并且必须遵从自己的方向,受自己的控制。然而,大多数人都不必非得作为单一个体发挥主动性、遵从方向并进行控制。通常只要作为一个小团体的一员就够了。因此,如果有五六个人彼此讨论共同的目标并且成功地联合努力来实现这一目标,他们对于权力过程的需求就会得到满足。但是如果他们在上级下发的死板命令下工作,毫无自主主动的空间,他们对于权力过程的需求就得不到满足。同样,当进行集体决策时,假如集体人数过多,每个个人的作用都微不足道[5],那么也会出现这种情况。
[5],(Paragraph 42) It may be argued that the majority of people don‘t want to make their own decisions but want leaders to do their thinking for them. There is an element of truth in this. People like to make their own decisions in small matters, but making decisions on difficult, fundamental questions require facing up to psychological conflict, and most people hate psychological conflict. Hence they tend to lean on others in making difficult decisions. The majority of people are natural followers, not leaders, but they like to have direct personal access to their leaders and participate to some extent in making difficult decisions. At least to that degree they need autonomy
【5】(第42段)有人认为多数人都不想自己进行决策,而是更希望有领导者替他们思考。这话也有一定的道理。人们喜欢在小事上自行决策但是在困难而根本性的问题上进行决策必须面对激烈的心理冲突,而大多数人都讨厌心理冲突。因此他们更希望他人替他们进行困难决策。大多数人都是天然的跟随者而不是领导者,但是他们喜欢与自己的领导者保持直接联系并且部分参与困难决策的制定。至少在这种程度上他们还是需要自主性的。
43. It is true that some individuals seem to have little need for autonomy. Either their drive for power is weak or they satisfy it by identifying themselves with some powerful organization to which they belong. And then there are unthinking, animal types who seem to be satisfied with a purely physical sense of power(the good combat soldier, who gets his sense of power by developing fighting skills that he is quite content to use in blind obedience to his superiors).
43,的确,有些人似乎并不需要自主。可能他们的权欲并不强,或者他们通过从属于强大的组织来获得了满足感。还有一类不假思索的、动物般的人,似乎单纯的肉体权力感就能使其感到满足(优秀的士兵通过战斗技能来获得权利感,他对于盲从上级感到相当满意)。
44. But for most people it is through the power process-having a goal, making an AUTONOMOUS effort and attaining t the goal-that self-esteem, self-confidence and a sense of power are acquired. When one does not have adequate opportunity to go throughout the power process the consequences are (depending on the individual and on the way the power process is disrupted) boredom, demoralization, low self-esteem, inferiority feelings, defeatism, depression, anxiety, guilt, frustration, hostility, spouse or child abuse, insatiable hedonism, abnormal sexual behavior, sleep disorders, eating disorders, etc. [6]
44。但大多数人还是要通过权力过程——确立目标,自主努力,实现目标——来获得自尊,自信和权力感。当一个人没有足够的机会来经历整个权力过程的时候,将会导致(取决于个人条件和权力过程遭到中断的方式)无聊,士气低落,低自尊,自卑感,失败主义,抑郁,焦虑,内疚,沮丧,敌意,虐待配偶或子女,永不满足的享乐主义,不正常的性行为,睡眠障碍,进食障碍等[6]。
[6],(Paragraph 44) Some of the symptoms listed are similar to those shown by caged animals.
【6】(第44段)这里列出的一些症状类似于长期囚禁在笼中的动物所显示的症状。
To explain how these symptoms arise from deprivation with respect to the power process:
这里解释一下权力过程的剥夺如何导致这些症状的出现:
Common-sense understanding of human nature tells one that lack of goals whose attainment requires effort leads to boredom and that boredom, long continued, often leads eventually to depression. Failure to obtain goals leads to frustration and lowering of self-esteem. Frustration leads to anger, anger to aggression, often in the form of spouse or child abuse. It has been shown that long-continued frustration commonly leads to depression and that depression tends to cause guilt, sleep disorders, eating disorders and bad feelings about oneself. Those who are tending toward depression seek pleasure as an antidote; hence insatiable hedonism and excessive sex, with perversions as a means of getting new kicks. Boredom too tends to cause excessive pleasure-seeking since, lacking other goals, people often use pleasure as a goal. See accompanying diagram. The foregoing is a simplification. Reality is more complex, and of course deprivation with respect to the power process is not the ONLY cause of the symptoms described. By the way, when we mention depression we do not necessarily mean depression that is severe enough to be treated by a psychiatrist. Often only mild forms of depression are involved. And when we speak of goals we do not necessarily mean long-term, thought out goals. For many or most people through much of human history, the goals of a hand-to-mouth existence (merely providing oneself and one‘s family with food from day to day) have been quite sufficient.
根据对于人性的常识理解,缺乏需要努力才能实现的目标会导致无聊,而长期无聊最终往往会导致抑郁症。未能达成目标会导致挫折并降低自尊。挫折导致愤怒,愤怒导致攻击性,往往以虐待配偶或子女的形式表现出来。人们已经证明了长期持续的挫折通常会导致抑郁症,抑郁症往往会造成内疚,睡眠障碍,进食障碍和不良情绪。倾向患抑郁症的人寻求快感作为解药,因此导致了无法满足的享乐主义和过度性生活,变态行为也成为了获取新刺激的手段。无聊之所以容易造成过度享乐,还因为在没有其他目标的情况下人们经常将快感当做目标(请参阅附图)。前述是简化表述,现实更为复杂。当然权力过程的缺失并不是这里描述症状的唯一原因。顺便说一下,当我们提到抑郁症时,并不一定意味着严重到必须由精神科医生进行治疗的抑郁症。通常情况下只会出现轻微的抑郁症。我们所谓的目标也不必然意味着深思熟虑之后的长期目标。因为人类历史上的许多或大多数人都仅仅将糊口作为目标(为自己和自己的家庭获取日常的食物)。
SOURCES OF SOCIAL PROBLEMS
社会问题的根源
45. Any of the foregoing symptoms can occur in any society, but in modern industrial society they are present on a massive scale. We aren‘t the first to mention that the world today seems to be going crazy. This sort of thing is not normal for human societies. There is good reason to believe that primitive man suffered from less stress and frustration and was better satisfied with his way of life than modern man is. It is true that not all was sweetness and light in primitive societies. Abuse of women and common among the Australian aborigines, transexuality was fairly common among some of the American Indian tribes. But is does appear that GENERALLY SPEAKING the kinds of problems that we have listed in the preceding paragraph were far less common among primitive peoples than they are in modern society.
45,上述任何症状都可能发生在任何一个社会,但在现代工业社会中它们的存在规模尤其大。我们并非首先提出当今世界似乎正在发疯的人。这样的事情对于人类社会来说是不正常的。有充分的理由相信,与现代人相比,原始人所遭受的压力和挫折更少并更满足于自己的生活方式。的确,原始社会的生活也并非充满轻松与甜蜜。澳洲原住民经常虐待妇女,性变装在美国的一些印第安部落当中也相当常见。但总体来说,我们在上文各段当中列举的各种问题对于原始民族来说远不如在现代社会中那样常见。
46. We attribute the social and psychological problems of modern society to the fact that that society requires people to live under conditions radically different from those under which the human race evolved and to behave in ways that conflict with the patterns of behavior that the human race developed while living under the earlier conditions. It is clear from what we have already written that we consider lack of opportunity to properly experience the power process as the most important of the abnormal conditions to which modern society subjects people. But it is not the only one. Before dealing with disruption of the power process as a source of social problems we will discuss some of the other sources.
46。我们将现代社会的社会与心理问题归咎于以下事实:现代社会要求人们在一套截然不同的条件下生活,在这套条件下,人类种族的的生活和行为方式与早先条件下所养成的行为模式发生了冲突。我们在上文中明确认为缺乏恰当体验权力过程的机会是现代社会加诸于人们头上的最主要非正常条件。但这不是唯一的问题。在讨论作为社会问题来源之一的权力过程打断之前,我们将讨论其他几个来源。
47. Among the abnormal conditions present in modern industrial society are excessive density of population, isolation of man from nature, excessive rapidity of social change and the break-down of natural small-scale communities such as the extended family, the village or the tribe.
47,现代工业社会所造成的异常情况是人口密度过大,人与自然相隔离,社会变革过快的和突破以及自然小规模社区——如大家庭、村庄或部落——的瓦解。
48. It is well known that crowding increases stress and aggression. The degree of crowding that exists today and the isolation of man from nature are consequences of technological progress. All pre-industrial societies were predominantly rural. The industrial Revolution vastly increased the size of cities and the proportion of the population that lives in them, and modern agricultural technology has made it possible for the Earth to support a far denser population than it ever did before. (Also, technology exacerbates the effects of crowding because it puts increased disruptive powers in people‘s hands. For example, a variety of noise-making devices: power mowers, radios, motorcycles, etc. If the use of these devices is unrestricted, people who want peace and quiet are frustrated by the noise. If their use is restricted, people who use the devices are frustrated by the regulations... But if these machines had never been invented there would have been no conflict and no frustration generated by them.)
48,众所周知,人群聚集会增加压力与攻击性。目前的拥挤程度以及人与自然的隔离是技术进步的必然结果。所有前工业社会都以农村为主。工业革命极大增加了城市规模和城市人口比例,现代农业技术使人们有可能供养远比之前任何时代更为密集的人口。 (此外,技术也加剧了人群聚集的影响,因为它将更强大的破坏力交给了人群。例如,现在存在着各种发出噪声的设备:电动剪草机,收音机,摩托车等。假如这些设备的使用不受限制,希望享受和平与安宁的人们就会因为噪音而感到沮丧。如果其应用受到限制,使用这些设备的人就会感到沮丧,但如果这些机器从来不曾问世,就不会造成冲突与沮丧。)
49. For primitive societies the natural world (which usually changes only slowly) provided a stable framework and therefore a sense of security. In the modern world it is human society that dominates nature rather than the other way around, and modern society changes very rapidly owing to technological change. Thus there is no stable framework.
49,对于原始社会来说,自然世界(通常只会进行缓慢的改变)提供了一个稳定的框架,因此他们有安全感。现代世界当中人类社会主导了自然而不是相反,而且由于技术变革现代社会的变化十分迅速。因此不存在稳定的框架。
50. The conservatives are fools: They whine about the decay of traditional values, yet they enthusiastically support technological progress and economic growth. Apparently it never occurs to them that you can‘t make rapid, drastic changes in the technology and the economy of a society with out causing rapid changes in all other aspects of the society as well, and that such rapid changes inevitably break down traditional values.
50,保守派是傻瓜:他们抱怨传统价值观的衰败,但同时又积极支持技术进步和经济增长。显然他们从来没有想到技术与经济快速而剧烈的变化必然导致所有其他社会方面的快速变化,这种快速变化又将不可避免地打破传统价值观。
51.The breakdown of traditional values to some extent implies the breakdown of the bonds that hold together traditional small-scale social groups. The disintegration of small-scale social groups is also promoted by the fact that modern conditions often require or tempt individuals to move to new locations, separating themselves from their communities. Beyond that, a technological society HAS TO weaken family ties and local communities if it is to function efficiently. In modern society an individual‘s loyalty must be first to the system and only secondarily to a small-scale community, because if the internal loyalties of small-scale small-scale communities were stronger than loyalty to the system, such communities would pursue their own advantage at the expense of the system.
51,传统观念的崩溃在一定程度上意味着维系传统小规模社会群体的纽带的崩溃。现代社会环境往往要求或诱使个人脱离自己的社区移动到新的地点,这一事实对于小规模社会群体的解体也有促进作用。除此之外,科技社会如果要有效地发挥作用,就必须削弱家庭关系和地方社区。在现代社会中个人首先必须忠于体系,其次才能忠于小规模社区,因为如果小规模社区的内部忠诚强于对体系的忠诚,这样的社区会牺牲体系来为自己追求好处。
52. Suppose that a public official or a corporation executive appoints his cousin, his friend or his co-religionist to a position rather than appointing the person best qualified for the job. He has permitted personal loyalty to supersede his loyalty to the system, and that is "nepotism" or "discrimination," both of which are terrible sins in modern society. Would-be industrial societies that have done a poor job of subordinating personal or local loyalties to loyalty to the system are usually very inefficient. (Look at Latin America.) Thus an advanced industrial society can tolerate only those small-scale communities that are emasculated, tamed and made into tools of the system. [7]
假设公职人员或公司的执行总裁任命他的表兄弟、他的朋友或者教友担任某职位而不是任命最能胜任这项工作的人。他将个人忠诚放在了体系忠诚之前,这就是“裙带关系”或“歧视”,这两项在现代社会中都是可怕的罪行。未能成功地将个人或地区忠诚置于体系忠诚之下的准工业社会通常是非常低效的(例如拉丁美洲)。因此,一个先进的工业社会只能容忍那些遭到阉割与驯服并被体系当做工具的小规模社区。【7】
[7]. (Paragraph 52) A partial exception may be made for a few passive, inward looking groups, such as the Amish, which have little effect on the wider society. Apart from these, some genuine small-scale communities do exist in America today. For instance, youth gangs and "cults". Everyone regards them as dangerous, and so they are, because the members of these groups are loyal primarily to one another rather than to the system, hence the system cannot control them. Or take the gypsies. The gypsies commonly get away with theft and fraud because their loyalties are such that they can always get other gypsies to give testimony that "proves" their innocence. Obviously the system would be in serious trouble if too many people belonged to such groups. Some of the early-20th century Chinese thinkers who were concerned with modernizing China recognized the necessity of breaking down small-scale social groups such as the family: "(According to Sun Yat-sen) The Chinese people needed a new surge of patriotism, which would lead to a transfer of loyalty from the family to the state. . .(According to Li Huang) traditional attachments, particularly to the family had to be abandoned if nationalism were to develop to China." (Chester C. Tan, Chinese Political Thought in the Twentieth Century," page 125, page 297.)
【7】(第52段)少数被动内向的群体,例如阿米什人,可能会部分例外于这一原则,这些群体对于更广泛的社会影响不大。除此之外,在美国确实存在一些真正的小规模社区,例如青少年团伙和“邪教”。所有人都认为他们很危险,他们也的确如此,因为这些群体的成员主要忠于彼此而不是体系,因此体系无法控制他们。拿吉普赛人举例。吉普赛人往往不会因为盗窃和欺诈行为遭受惩处,因为他们忠于彼此,其他吉普赛人总是可以 “证明”自己的清白。显然,如果这类群体成员太多,该体系将面临很大的麻烦。二十世纪初期一些关心中国现代化的中国思想家认识到有必要打破小规模社会群体,如家庭:“(孙中山认为)中国人民需要接受新一轮的爱国主义影响,这将使得忠诚从家庭向国家转移……(李璜认为)如果中国的国家主义想要得到发展,就不得不放弃传统的牵绊,特别是家庭的牵绊。”(Chester C. Tan, Chinese Political Thought in the Twentieth Century,第125页,第297页。)
53. Crowding, rapid change and the breakdown of communities have been widely recognized as sources of social problems. but we do not believe they are enough to account for the extent of the problems that are seen today.
53,人们广泛认为人群聚集与社区的快速变化瓦解是社会问题的根源。但是我们不认为仅凭这些就足以造成今天我们所见的如此严重的问题。
54. A few pre-industrial cities were very large and crowded, yet their inhabitants do not seem to have suffered from psychological problems to the same extent as modern man. In America today there still are uncrowded rural areas, and we find there the same problems as in urban areas, though the problems tend to be less acute in the rural areas. Thus crowding does not seem to be the decisive factor.
54,有几座工业社会之前的城市也十分庞大而拥挤,但是其中的居民似乎并没有遭受像现代社会成员那样严重的心理问题。今天的美国依然存在着人口稀少的农村地区,在那里也出现了与城市地区类似的问题,尽管程度上没有这么剧烈。因此人群聚集似乎并不是关键因素。
55. On the growing edge of the American frontier during the 19th century, the mobility of the population probably broke down extended families and small-scale social groups to at least the same extent as these are broken down today. In fact, many nuclear families lived by choice in such isolation, having no neighbors within several miles, that they belonged to no community at all, yet they do not seem to have developed problems as a result.
55,在十九世纪不断推进的美国边疆,人口流动性对于大家庭与小社区的破坏作用至少与今天一样强。实际上许多核心家庭都是自愿选择隔离生活的,几里以内没有邻居,不属于任何社区,但他们似乎也没有出问题。
56.Furthermore, change in American frontier society was very rapid and deep. A man might be born and raised in a log cabin, outside the reach of law and order and fed largely on wild meat; and by the time he arrived at old age he might be working at a regular job and living in an ordered community with effective law enforcement. This was a deeper change that that which typically occurs in the life of a modern individual, yet it does not seem to have led to psychological problems. In fact, 19th century American society had an optimistic and self-confident tone, quite unlike that of today‘s society. [8]
56,进一步来说,美国边疆社会的发展也十分快速而深刻。某人可能生长于木屋中,不受法律秩序的制约,以野物为主食。而到老时他可能已经有了稳定的工作,生活在法律约束的社区当中。与典型现代人在一生中遭遇的变化相比,这种变化更为深刻,但是看起来似乎也没有导致心理问题。实际上,十九世纪的美国社会基调乐观而自信,与今天大不相同。【8】
[8]. (Paragraph 56) Yes, we know that 19th century America had its problems, and serious ones, but for the sake of breviety we have to express ourselves in simplified terms.
【8】的确,我们清楚十九世纪的美国也存在着自己的问题,而且还十分严重。但是为了方便讨论起见我们在这里姑且简化一下实际情况。
57. The difference, we argue, is that modern man has the sense (largely justified) that change is IMPOSED on him, whereas the 19th century frontiersman had the sense (also largely justified) that he created change himself, by his own choice. Thus a pioneer settled on a piece of land of his own choosing and made it into a farm through his own effort. In those days an entire county might have only a couple of hundred inhabitants and was a far more isolated and autonomous entity than a modern county is. Hence the pioneer farmer participated as a member of a relatively small group in the creation of a new, ordered community. One may well question whether the creation of this community was an improvement, but at any rate it satisfied the pioneer‘s need for the power process.
57,我们认为这其中的区别在于现代人(基本有理地)感到变化是强加在他身上的,而十九世纪的边疆开拓者则(也同样基本有理地)感到他自己造成了变化。开拓者定居在自己选择的地点,并用自己的努力将其改造成农田。当时一个郡县里往往只有几百户居民,这个郡县的孤立性与自主性也远远超过今天的郡县。因此,开拓边疆的农夫参与了一个相对较小的团体并创建了一个新的有秩序社区。这种社区的创立算不算进步尽管可以讨论,但无论如何开拓者的权力过程得到了满足。
58. It would be possible to give other examples of societies in which there has been rapid change and/or lack of close community ties without the kind of massive behavioral aberration that is seen in today‘s industrial society. We contend that the most important cause of social and psychological problems in modern society is the fact that people have insufficient opportunity to go through the power process in a normal way. We don‘t mean to say that modern society is the only one in which the power process has been disrupted. Probably most if not all civilized societies have interfered with the power ‘ process to a greater or lesser extent. But in modern industrial society the problem has become particularly acute. Leftism, at least in its recent (mid-to-late -20th century) form, is in part a symptom of deprivation with respect to the power process.
58,变化迅速且/或缺乏密切社区纽带但却没有像今日工业化社会那样发生大规模行为异常的社会可能还有其他例证。我们意图说明现代社会当中社会与心理问题的最主要原因就是人们没有足够的机会来正常地完成权力过程。我们并不认为现代社会是唯一一个打断权力过程的社会。很可能绝大多数文明社会都会在不同程度上干涉权力过程。但是在现代社会这个问题尤为尖锐。左派主义,或者起码说最近形式(二十世纪中后期)的左派主义,正是权力过程剥夺所导致的症状的一部分。
DISRUPTION OF THE POWER PROCESS IN MODERN SOCIETY
现代社会对于权力过程的打断
59. We divide human drives into three groups: (1) those drives that can be satisfied with minimal effort; (2) those that can be satisfied but only at the cost of serious effort; (3) those that cannot be adequately satisfied no matter how much effort one makes. The power process is the process of satisfying the drives of the second group. The more drives there are in the third group, the more there is frustration, anger, eventually defeatism, depression, etc.
59,我们将人类的欲望分为三类,(1)可以通过最少努力得到满足的欲望;(2)需要付出大量努力才能满足的欲望;(3)无论如何努力也无法充分满足的欲望。权力过程满足的是第二种欲望。第三类欲望越多,人们就越发沮丧愤怒,最后则会发展成失败主义与抑郁症。
60. In modern industrial society natural human drives tend to be pushed into the first and third groups, and the second group tends to consist increasingly of artificially created drives.
60,现代工业社会倾向于将人类的自然欲望推向第一类与第三类,第二类欲望则越发人为化。
61. In primitive societies, physical necessities generally fall into group 2: They can be obtained, but only at the cost of serious effort. But modern society tends to guaranty the physical necessities to everyone [9] in exchange for only minimal effort, hence physical needs are pushed into group 1. (There may be disagreement about whether the effort needed to hold a job is "minimal"; but usually, in lower- to middle-level jobs, whatever effort is required is merely that of obedience. You sit or stand where you are told to sit or stand and do what you are told to do in the way you are told to do it. Seldom do you have to exert yourself seriously, and in any case you have hardly any autonomy in work, so that the need for the power process is not well served.)
61,在原始社会,物质需求一般属于第二类,必须付出大量努力才能获取。现代社会在倾向于保证令所有人【9】都能用最小努力换取物质必需品,因此物质需求就被推到了第一类。(有人可能并不认为保住工作只需要“最小化”的努力;但是一般来说,中低层工作所要求的只是服从而已。只需要在规定地点站着或坐下,根据指定的方式完成指定的任务。在工作中基本上没有自主,因此对于权力过程的需求也就没有得到满足。)
9. (Paragraph 61) We leave aside the underclass. We are speaking of the mainstream.
【9】(第61段)我们这里忽略了下层阶级,只讨论社会主流。
62. Social needs, such as sex, love and status, often remain in group 2 in modern society, depending on the situation of the individual. [10] But, except for people who have a particularly strong drive for status, the effort required to fulfill the social drives is insufficient to satisfy adequately the need for the power process.
62,社会需求,例如性、爱与社会地位,在现代社会中往往属于第二类,当然这还要取决于每个个人的具体情况。【10】但是,除非某人对于社会地位有着特别强大的欲望,满足社会欲望所需的努力依然不足以充分满足权力过程的需要。
[10]. (Paragraph 62) Some social scientists, educators, "mental health" professionals and the like are doing their best to push the social drives into group 1 by trying to see to it that everyone has a satisfactory social life.
【10】(第62段)有些社会科学家、教育者、“精神健康”专业人士以及其他类似人物正在竭力将社会欲望推入第一类,从而使所有人都能拥有满意的社会生活。
63. So certain artificial needs have been created that fall into group 2, hence serve the need for the power process. Advertising and marketing techniques have been developed that make many people feel they need things that their grandparents never desired or even dreamed of. It requires serious effort to earn enough money to satisfy these artificial needs, hence they fall into group 2. (But see paragraphs 80-82.) Modern man must satisfy his need for the power process largely through pursuit of the artificial needs created by the advertising and marketing industry [11], and through surrogate activities.
63,因此属于第二类的特定人为需求就被创造了出来,借以满足权力过程的需要。广告与营销的发展使人们觉得他们需要他们的祖父母们做梦也没有想过的东西。他们需要花大力气挣钱来满足这些人为需求,因此这些需求就归于了第二类。(见80-82段)现代人想要满足权力过程的需要就必须主要依靠追求由广告与营销工业创造出来的人为需求【11】以及替代行为。
[11]. (Paragraphs 63) Is the drive for endless material acquisition really an artificial creation of the advertising and marketing industry? Certainly there is no innate human drive for material acquisition. There have been many cultures in which people have desired little material wealth beyond what was necessary to satisfy their basic physical needs (Australian aborigines, traditional Mexican peasant culture, some African cultures). On the other hand there have also been many pre-industrial cultures in which material acquisition has played an important role. So we can‘t claim that today‘s acquisition-oriented culture is exclusively a creation of the advertising and marketing industry. But it is clear that the advertising and marketing industry has had an important part in creating that culture. The big corporations that spend millions on advertising wouldn‘t be spending that kind of money without solid proof that they were getting it back in increased sales. One member of FC met a sales manager a couple of years ago who was frank enough to tell him, "Our job is to make people buy things they don‘t want and don‘t need." He then described how an untrained novice could present people with the facts about a product, and make no sales at all, while a trained and experienced professional salesman would make lots of sales to the same people. This shows that people are manipulated into buying things they don‘t really want.
【11】(第63段)对于获取物质的无尽欲望是否真是广告和营销行业的人为创造呢?当然,人并没有与生俱来的获取物质欲望。在许多文化中,人们对于物质必需品之外的物质财富并没有多大兴趣,以满足他们的基本生理需求(澳大利亚原住民,传统墨西哥农民文化,一些非洲文化)。另一方面,在工业革命前,获取物质行为作用重大的文化也有许多。因此,我们不能说当今以获取物质为导向的文化完全就是广告和营销行业的创造。但很显然,广告和营销行业对于这种文化的创造有着重大的作用。如果没有确凿证据表明如此大手笔的开支一定能增加销量,大公司是不会花费数百万美元做广告的。一名FC(?)成员几年前遇到了一个销售经理,此人坦率地告诉他,“我们的工作是让人购买他们不想要且不需要的东西。”然后他描述了一个未经训练的新手如何向人们介绍关于产品的事实却卖不出去,而一个训练有素,经验丰富的专业销售员却可以面向同一批人打开销路。这表明人们在操纵之下购买了他们并不真正想要的东西。
64. It seems that for many people, maybe the majority, these artificial forms of the power process are insufficient. A theme that appears repeatedly in the writings of the social critics of the second half of the 20th century is the sense of purposelessness that afflicts many people in modern society. (This purposelessness is often called by other names such as "anomic" or "middle-class vacuity.") We suggest that the so-called "identity crisis" is actually a search for a sense of purpose, often for commitment to a suitable surrogate activity. It may be that existentialism is in large part a response to the purposelessness of modern life. [12] Very widespread in modern society is the search for "fulfillment." But we think that for the majority of people an activity whose main goal is fulfillment (that is, a surrogate activity) does not bring completely satisfactory fulfillment. In other words, it does not fully satisfy the need for the power process. (See paragraph 41.) That need can be fully satisfied only through activities that have some external goal, such as physical necessities, sex, love, status, revenge, etc.
64,,看来对于很多人甚或大多数人来说,人为形式的权力过程是不够的。二十世纪后半期社会批评家的著作中反复出现的一个主题是困扰很多现代社会成员的无目的性。 (这种无目的性通常有其他名称,如“失范”或“中产阶级空虚”)。我们认为,所谓的“身份危机”其实是对于目的性的寻找,往往是为了投入一项合适的替代活动。存在主义可能在很大程度上是是现代生活对于无目的性的回应。【12】对于“满足感”的搜寻在现代社会中非常普遍。但我们认为,大多数以获得满足感为主要目标的活动(即替代活动)并不能带来完全令人满意的满足感。换句话说,它并不能完全满足对于权力过程的需要。(见第41段),这一需要只有通过拥有外部目标的活动才可以得到完全满足,如物质必需品,性,爱情,地位,复仇等
[12]. (Paragraph 64) The problem of purposelessness seems to have become less serious during the last 15 years or so, because people now feel less secure physically and economically than they did earlier, and the need for security provides them with a goal. But purposelessness has been replaced by frustration over the difficulty of attaining security. We emphasize the problem of purposelessness because the liberals and leftists would wish to solve our social problems by having society guarantee everyone‘s security; but if that could be done it would only bring back the problem of purposelessness. The real issue is not whether society provides well or poorly for people‘s security; the trouble is that people are dependent on the system for their security rather than having it in their own hands. This, by the way, is part of the reason why some people get worked up about the right to bear arms; possession of a gun puts that aspect of their security in their own hands.
【12】(第64段)在过去的15年里,无目的性的问题似乎已经变得不那么严重了,因为人们现在感觉自己在身体与经济方面都没那么安全了,对于安全的需要为他们提供了目标。但无目的性已经被实现安全的难度所带来的挫败感所取代了。我们强调无目的性的问题,因为自由派和左派主义者希望通过使社会保障所有人的安全来解决我们的社会问题,但如果真能做到这一点只能令无目的性卷土重来。真正的问题不在于社会为其成员提供的安全是否足够,而是在于人们依赖体系为他们提供安全而不是将安全掌握在自己手中。顺便说一句,之所以有些人对于携带武器的权利如此热衷,这也是部分原因;手里有枪意味着他们把某一方面的安全掌握在了自己手中。
65. Moreover, where goals are pursued through earning money, climbing the status ladder or functioning as part of the system in some other way, most people are not in a position to pursue their goals AUTONOMOUSLY. Most workers are someone else‘s employee as, as we pointed out in paragraph 61, must spend their days doing what they are told to do in the way they are told to do it. Even most people who are in business for themselves have only limited autonomy. It is a chronic complaint of small-business persons and entrepreneurs that their hands are tied by excessive government regulation. Some of these regulations are doubtless unnecessary, but for the most part government regulations are essential and inevitable parts of our extremely complex society. A large portion of small business today operates on the franchise system. It was reported in the Wall Street Journal a few years ago that many of the franchise-granting companies require applicants for franchises to take a personality test that is designed to EXCLUDE those who have creativity and initiative, because such persons are not sufficiently docile to go along obediently with the franchise system. This excludes from small business many of the people who most need autonomy.
65,此外,如果通过赚钱、攀爬等级阶梯、充当体系一部分或其他方式来追求目标,大多数人都不会自主追求自己的目标。大多数工人是别人的雇员,正如我们在第61段中指出的那样,他们每天都必须按照指定的方式做指定的事情。甚至独立经营的人也只有有限的自主。小企业经营者和创业者一直都在抱怨政府过度监管束缚住了他们的双手。有些规定无疑是不必要的,但在大多数情况下政府规定对于我们这个极其复杂的社会来说是必要且不可避免的,。今天很大一部分小企业以特许经营制度为基础。几年前据《华尔街日报》报道,许多大公司在授予专营权时都需要申请者接受性格测试,目的是为了排除那些有创造性和主动性的人,因为这样的人不够顺从,无法乖乖地沿袭特许经营体系。这就将许多最需要自主的人排除在了小企业之外。
66. Today people live more by virtue of what the system does FOR them or TO them than by virtue of what they do for themselves. And what they do for themselves is done more and more along channels laid down by the system. Opportunities tend to be those that the system provides, the opportunities must be exploited in accord with the rules and regulations [13], and techniques prescribed by experts must be followed if there is to be a chance of success.
66,今天的人们更多依靠体系为他们或对他们所作的事情生活,而不是依靠自己为自己所作的事情生活。而他们为自己所作的事情也越来越依靠体系安排的渠道。机会大都是体系提供的,对于机会的利用也要符合规则与规定【13】而且如果想要有机会成功就必须遵从专家指定的方法。
[13]. (Paragraph 66) Conservatives‘ efforts to decrease the amount of government regulation are of little benefit to the average man. For one thing, only a fraction of the regulations can be eliminated because most regulations are necessary. For another thing, most of the deregulation affects business rather than the average individual, so that its main effect is to take power from the government and give it to private corporations. What this means for the average man is that government interference in his life is replaced by interference from big corporations, which may be permitted, for example, to dump more chemicals that get into his water supply and give him cancer. The conservatives are just taking the average man for a sucker, exploiting his resentment of Big Government to promote the power of Big Business.
【13】(第66段)保守派减少政府监管的努力对于普通人没有多少好处。首先,真正能够消除的监管措施只有一小部分,绝大多数监管措施都是必需的。其次,绝大多数去监管措施都是对行业而不是普通人起作用。因此这些举措的主要作用是将权力从政府手中转移到私人企业手中。对于普通人来说这意味着之前干涉他生活的是大政府,现在则是大企业,而这些企业可能会允许对他不利的行为,例如向水源倾倒化学物质使他患上癌症。保守派将普通人当成了冤大头,利用他对大政府的怨气来加强大企业的权力。
67. Thus the power process is disrupted in our society through a deficiency of real goals and a deficiency of autonomy in pursuit of goals. But it is also disrupted because of those human drives that fall into group 3: the drives that one cannot adequately satisfy no matter how much effort one makes. One of these drives is the need for security. Our lives depend on decisions made by other people; we have no control over these decisions and usually we do not even know the people who make them. ("We live in a world in which relatively few people - maybe 500 or 1,00 - make the important decisions" - Philip B. Heymann of Harvard Law School, quoted by Anthony Lewis, New York Times, April 21, 1995.) Our lives depend on whether safety standards at a nuclear power plant are properly maintained; on how much pesticide is allowed to get into our food or how much pollution into our air; on how skillful (or incompetent) our doctor is; whether we lose or get a job may depend on decisions made by government economists or corporation executives; and so forth. Most individuals are not in a position to secure themselves against these threats to more [than] a very limited extent. The individual‘s search for security is therefore frustrated, which leads to a sense of powerlessness.
67,因此在我们的社会里权力过程经常因为缺乏真正目标与缺乏追求目标的自主权而遭到打断。不过打断权力过程的因素还有第三类欲望:无论付出多么大的努力都不能充分满足的欲望。其中一项欲望就是对安全的需要。我们的生活依赖于其他人的决定,我们无法控制这些决定,通常我们甚至不知道作出这些决定的是什么人。(“我们生活在一个由相对不多的人——也许500或100人——做出重要决定的世界里。” 菲利普.B.海曼,哈佛大学法学院,《纽约时报》,1995年4月21日,安东尼.刘易斯)我们的生命取决于核电厂是否得到了恰当维护,食品中许可的农药残留量或者空气中许可的污染物含量有多高,我们的医生有多么高明(或不称职),我们是否有工作取决于政府经济学家或企业管理者的决策,大多数人都只能在一个非常有限的范围内确保自己免受威胁,个人对于安全的追寻因此而受挫,这也导致了无力感。
68. It may be objected that primitive man is physically less secure than modern man, as is shown by his shorter life expectancy; hence modern man suffers from less, not more than the amount of insecurity that is normal for human beings. but psychological security does not closely correspond with physical security. What makes us FEEL secure is not so much objective security as a sense of confidence in our ability to take care of ourselves. Primitive man, threatened by a fierce animal or by hunger, can fight in self-defense or travel in search of food. He has no certainty of success in these efforts, but he is by no means helpless against the things that threaten him. The modern individual on the other hand is threatened by many things against which he is helpless; nuclear accidents, carcinogens in food, environmental pollution, war, increasing taxes, invasion of his privacy by large organizations, nation-wide social or economic phenomena that may disrupt his way of life.
68,可能有人提出反对,认为原始人与现代人相比更欠缺身体安全,因为原始人的寿命更短,因此现代人承受的不安全感与人类能够承受的正常值相比要更少而不是更多。但心理安全与身体安全的关系并不密切。我们之所以感到安全与其说是因为客观安全的现实,倒不如说是对我们有能力保障自身安全的信心。原始人在面对猛兽袭击或饥饿威胁时可以奋力自卫或长途跋涉寻找食物。他的这些努力未必总能成功,但他面对那些威胁他的事物绝非束手无策。另一方面现代个人对于自己所受到的威胁往往十分无奈:核事故,食品里的致癌物质,环境污染,战争,税收上调,大型企业对于隐私的侵犯以及全国性的社会或经济问题都会打乱他的生活方式。
69. It is true that primitive man is powerless against some of the things that threaten him; disease for example. But he can accept the risk of disease stoically. It is part of the nature of things, it is no one‘s fault, unless is the fault of some imaginary, impersonal demon. But threats to the modern individual tend to be MAN-MADE. They are not the results of chance but are IMPOSED on him by other persons whose decisions he, as an individual, is unable to influence. Consequently he feels frustrated, humiliated and angry.
69,的确,原始人面对某些威胁时同样无能为力,例如疾病。但是他坚忍地接受了疾病带来的风险。疾病是自然的一部分,不是任何人的错,除非是某个想象出来的、毫无感情的魔鬼。但是现代人面对的威胁都是人为的,并不是运气不好的结果,而是他人的决策强加于他的结果,而他又无力影响这些决策。因此他自然会感到沮丧,羞辱与愤怒。
70. Thus primitive man for the most part has his security in his own hands (either as an individual or as a member of a SMALL group) whereas the security of modern man is in the hands of persons or organizations that are too remote or too large for him to be able personally to influence them. So modern man‘s drive for security tends to fall into groups 1 and 3; in some areas (food, shelter, etc.) his security is assured at the cost of only trivial effort, whereas in other areas he CANNOT attain security. (The foregoing greatly simplifies the real situation, but it does indicate in a rough, general way how the condition of modern man differs from that of primitive man.)
70,因此原始人的安全大体而言是掌握在自己手里的(无论作为个体还是小群体的成员)。而现代人的安全则掌握在那些距离他太远或规模太大,以致他无法施加个人影响的机构组织手里。因此现代人追求安全的欲望大致可归于第一类与第三类;在某些领域(例如食物与住所)他的安全只需要一丁点努力就能得到保证,而在其他方面他则完全无法自行获得安全。(这段论述极大地简化了实际情况,但是的确十分粗略地概括了现代人与原始人的区别)
71. People have many transitory drives or impulses that are necessary frustrated in modern life, hence fall into group 3. One may become angry, but modern society cannot permit fighting. In many situations it does not even permit verbal aggression. When going somewhere one may be in a hurry, or one may be in a mood to travel slowly, but one generally has no choice but to move with the flow of traffic and obey the traffic signals. One may want to do one‘s work in a different way, but usually one can work only according to the rules laid down by one‘s employer. In many other ways as well, modern man is strapped down by a network of rules and regulations (explicit or implicit) that frustrate many of his impulses and thus interfere with the power process. Most of these regulations cannot be disposed with, because the are necessary for the functioning of industrial society.
71,现代生活中人们有很多暂时性的欲望或冲动也会遭到抑制,因此也会落入第三类。一个人可能会生气,但现代社会不允许斗殴,很多情况下甚至不允许言语攻击。某人前往某地是可能急着赶路,也可能希望慢慢走,但一般来说都只能跟随车流行动并遵守交通信号。在许多其他方面,现代人都被一张规则之网所笼罩(或明或暗),使他的冲动无法释放并因此打断他的权力过程。大部分此类规则都不能废除,因为这些规则对于工业社会的运作是必需的。
72. Modern society is in certain respects extremely permissive. In matters that are irrelevant to the functioning of the system we can generally do what we please. We can believe in any religion we like (as long as it does not encourage behavior that is dangerous to the system). We can go to bed with anyone we like (as long as we practice "safe sex"). We can do anything we like as long as it is UNIMPORTANT. But in all IMPORTANT matters the system tends increasingly to regulate our behavior.
72,现代社会在某些方面是极为放纵的。在不影响体系运作的方面我们基本上想做什么都可以。我们可以任意信仰任何宗教(只要该宗教不鼓励威胁体系的行为)。我们可以和任何人上床(只要注意“安全性交”)。我们想做什么都可以,只要所作的事情无关紧要。但是在所有重要方面体系都倾向于越发规范我们的行为。
73. Behavior is regulated not only through explicit rules and not only by the government. Control is often exercised through indirect coercion or through psychological pressure or manipulation, and by organizations other than the government, or by the system as a whole. Most large organizations use some form of propaganda [14] to manipulate public attitudes or behavior. Propaganda is not limited to "commercials" and advertisements, and sometimes it is not even consciously intended as propaganda by the people who make it. For instance, the content of entertainment programming is a powerful form of propaganda. An example of indirect coercion: There is no law that says we have to go to work every day and follow our employer‘s orders. Legally there is nothing to prevent us from going to live in the wild like primitive people or from going into business for ourselves. But in practice there is very little wild country left, and there is room in the economy for only a limited number of small business owners. Hence most of us can survive only as someone else‘s employee.
73。管束人们行为的因素不止限于明确的规则以及政府。控制往往是政府以外的其他机构或者作为整体的体系通过间接胁迫、心理压力或操纵来进行的。大多数大型组织都会使用某种形式的宣传[14]操纵公众的态度和行为。宣传不限于“广告”,有时制作人甚至没有自觉意识到自己正在进行宣传。例如,娱乐节目的内容就是一种功能强大的宣传形式。举一个间接胁迫一个例子:没有法律规定我们必须去工作,每天必须遵守雇主的命令。在法律上没有什么条纹能阻止我们像原始人那样生活在野外或自行创业。但在现实当中野外环境已经极为有限,经济生活当中所能容纳的小企业主数量也是有限的。因此,我们大多数人只有成为别人的雇员才可以生存。
[14]. (Paragraph 73) When someone approves of the purpose for which propaganda is being used in a given case, he generally calls it "education" or applies to it some similar euphemism. But propaganda is propaganda regardless of the purpose for which it is used.
【14】(第73段)如果某人同意某个特例当中使用宣传的目的,他一般称之为“教育”或使用其他委婉用语。但是宣传就是宣传,无论出于什么目的。
74. We suggest that modern man‘s obsession with longevity, and with maintaining physical vigor and sexual attractiveness to an advanced age, is a symptom of unfulfillment resulting from deprivation with respect to the power process. The "mid-life crisis" also is such a symptom. So is the lack of interest in having children that is fairly common in modern society but almost unheard-of in primitive societies.
74,我们认为现代人对于长寿的痴迷以及在老年阶段维持身体活力与性吸引力的执着是一种不满足的症状,原因则在于权力过程遭到了剥夺。所谓“中年危机”也是此类症状之一。缺乏养育子女的兴趣对于现代社会来说也十分常见,但是在原始社会这种事可谓闻所未闻。
75. In primitive societies life is a succession of stages. The needs and purposes of one stage having been fulfilled, there is no particular reluctance about passing on to the next stage. A young man goes through the power process by becoming a hunter, hunting not for sport or for fulfillment but to get meat that is necessary for food. (In young women the process is more complex, with greater emphasis on social power; we won‘t discuss that here.) This phase having been successfully passed through, the young man has no reluctance about settling down to the responsibilities of raising a family. (In contrast, some modern people indefinitely postpone having children because they are too busy seeking some kind of "fulfillment." We suggest that the fulfillment they need is adequate experience of the power process -- with real goals instead of the artificial goals of surrogate activities.) Again, having successfully raised his children, going through the power process by providing them with the physical necessities, the primitive man feels that his work is done and he is prepared to accept old age (if he survives that long) and death. Many modern people, on the other hand, are disturbed by the prospect of death, as is shown by the amount of effort they expend trying to maintain their physical condition, appearance and health. We argue that this is due to unfulfillment resulting from the fact that they have never put their physical powers to any use, have never gone through the power process using their bodies in a serious way. It is not the primitive man, who has used his body daily for practical purposes, who fears the deterioration of age, but the modern man, who has never had a practical use for his body beyond walking from his car to his house. It is the man whose need for the power process has been satisfied during his life who is best prepared to accept the end of that life.
75,在原始社会,生活是一连串的阶段。一个阶段的需要和目的已经达成之后,原始人就会自然进入下一阶段而并不感到特别勉强。一名年轻男子通过成为一个猎人来完成权力过程,他的狩猎活动不是为了取乐或满足感,而是为了得到必要的肉食。 (年轻女性的权力过程更加复杂,更加注重社会权力,我们在此姑且不加讨论)。顺利通过这一阶段后,年轻人就会毫不勉强地承担起养家的责任。(相比之下,一些现代人无限期推迟生育子女,因为他们太忙于寻求某种“圆满”。我们认为,他们所需要的是权力过程的充分经验——这里的权力过程要有真正的目标,而不是替代活动的人为目标。)同样,在成功地养育了他的孩子,通过为他们提供物质必需品而完成权力过程之后,原始人会认为他的工作已经完成并坦然接受老年(如果他能活这么久)与死亡。另一方面,许多现代人对于死亡的前景感到不安,他们付出了大量努力试图维持自己的身体状况、外观和健康。我们认为这是由于他们从来没有以任何方式使用自己的身体,从来没有通过认真地使用自己的身体来完成权力过程,因此感到不满足。原始人每天为了实际目的而使用自己的身体,而现代人对于身体的实际应用无非是每天下车走回家,真正担心年岁增长却是后者。在人生当中满足了权力过程需要的人最能接受人生的结束。
76. In response to the arguments of this section someone will say, "Society must find a way to give people the opportunity to go through the power process." For such people the value of the opportunity is destroyed by the very fact that society gives it to them. What they need is to find or make their own opportunities. As long as the system GIVES them their opportunities it still has them on a leash. To attain autonomy they must get off that leash.
76,有些人对本段论述的反应是“社会必须设法为人们提供经历权力过程的机会。”但是对于这些人来说,由社会向他们提供机会这一事实就已经摧毁了这些机会的价值。他们必须自己寻找或创造自己的机会。只要这些机会是体系提供的,体系就依然制约着他们。为了获得自主他们必须摆脱这种制约。
HOW SOME PEOPLE ADJUST
一部分人的调整方式
77. Not everyone in industrial-technological society suffers from psychological problems. Some people even profess to be quite satisfied with society as it is. We now discuss some of the reasons why people differ so greatly in their response to modern society.
77,并非所有生活在工业技术社会的人们都会遭受心理问题。有些人甚至对于社会现状十分满意。我们现在就来讨论一下为什么人们对于现代社会的反应如此不同。
78. First, there doubtless are differences in the strength of the drive for power. Individuals with a weak drive for power may have relatively little need to go through the power process, or at least relatively little need for autonomy in the power process. These are docile types who would have been happy as plantation darkies in the Old South. (We don‘t mean to sneer at "plantation darkies" of the Old South. To their credit, most of the slaves were NOT content with their servitude. We do sneer at people who ARE content with servitude.)
78,首先,无疑人与人之间的权力欲望强弱有所不同。权力欲望较弱的个人相对而言或许没有多少体验权力过程的需要,或者至少说相对而言对于权力过程中的自主性没有多少需要。这些人属于温顺的类型,例如当年美国南方各州种植园里的黑奴。(我们无意嘲笑当年美国南方各州种植园里的黑奴。平心而论,大多数黑奴都不甘忍受奴役。但我们的确嘲笑那些满足于奴役的人。)
79. Some people may have some exceptional drive, in pursuing which they satisfy their need for the power process. For example, those who have an unusually strong drive for social status may spend their whole lives climbing the status ladder without ever getting bored with that game.
79,有些人在满足权力过程需求的追寻中或许有超过常人的欲望。例如有人对于社会地位的欲望特别强烈,他可能会耗费终生向上爬而丝毫不感到厌倦。
80. People vary in their susceptibility to advertising and marketing techniques. Some people are so susceptible that, even if they make a great deal of money, they cannot satisfy their constant craving for the shiny new toys that the marketing industry dangles before their eyes. So they always feel hard-pressed financially even if their income is large, and their cravings are frustrated.
80,不同的人对于广告营销手段的易感度有所不同。有些人极易受到影响,以至于尽管他们赚了很多钱,依旧无法抗拒营销工业在他们眼前招摇的闪亮新玩具。因此尽管他们收入优渥却总感到财政吃紧,他们的欲求总得不到伸张。
81. Some people have low susceptibility to advertising and marketing techniques. These are the people who aren‘t interested in money. Material acquisition does not serve their need for the power process.
81,有些人对于广告与营销策略的易感度很低。这些人对金钱没有兴趣。获取物质无法满足他们对于权力过程的需要
82. People who have medium susceptibility to advertising and marketing techniques are able to earn enough money to satisfy their craving for goods and services, but only at the cost of serious effort (putting in overtime, taking a second job, earning promotions, etc.) Thus material acquisition serves their need for the power process. But it does not necessarily follow that their need is fully satisfied. They may have insufficient autonomy in the power process (their work may consist of following orders) and some of their drives may be frustrated (e.g., security, aggression). (We are guilty of oversimplification in paragraphs 80-82 because we have assumed that the desire for material acquisition is entirely a creation of the advertising and marketing industry. Of course it‘s not that simple.
82,对于广告与营销策略有着中等易感度的人可以赚到足够的钱来满足自己对于商品与服务的欲望,但是必须为此付出相当的努力(加班,兼职,争取升职等)。因此获取物质可以满足他们对于权力过程的需要。但他们的需要未必一定就能得到完全的满足。他们在权力过程中未必拥有完全自主(他们的工作就是执行命令)而他们的一部分预防也可能遭到压制(安全或攻击性)。(我们在80-82段的论述过于简略,因为我们假设获取物质的欲望完全是广告与营销行业创造出来的。当然实际情况要复杂得多。)
83. Some people partly satisfy their need for power by identifying themselves with a powerful organization or mass movement. An individual lacking goals or power joins a movement or an organization, adopts its goals as his own, then works toward these goals. When some of the goals are attained, the individual, even though his personal efforts have played only an insignificant part in the attainment of the goals, feels (through his identification with the movement or organization) as if he had gone through the power process. This phenomenon was exploited by the fascists, nazis and communists. Our society uses it, too, though less crudely. Example: Manuel Noriega was an irritant to the U.S. (goal: punish Noriega). The U.S. invaded Panama (effort) and punished Noriega (attainment of goal). The U.S. went through the power process and many Americans, because of their identification with the U.S., experienced the power process vicariously. Hence the widespread public approval of the Panama invasion; it gave people a sense of power. [15] We see the same phenomenon in armies, corporations, political parties, humanitarian organizations, religious or ideological movements. In particular, leftist movements tend to attract people who are seeking to satisfy their need for power. But for most people identification with a large organization or a mass movement does not fully satisfy the need for power.
83,有些人通过认同某个强大组织或群体运动来部分满足自己的权力需求。缺乏目标或权力的个人会加入一个组织或运动,接受其目标作为自己的目标,然后努力实现这些目标。当这些目标中的一部分达成之后,即使个人的努力在目标实现的过程中只起到了不太重要的作用,个人依然会(通过对于运动或组织的认同)感到自己已经完成了权力过程。法西斯,纳粹和共产主义者都利用过这种现象。我们的社会也会利用这种现象,尽管不那么粗暴。例如:诺列加刺激了美国(目标:惩罚诺列加)。美国入侵巴拿马(努力)并惩罚了诺列加(达到目标)。美国完成了权力过程,许多认同美国的美国人也共鸣班底感到了权力过程的完成。因此公众广泛支持入侵巴拿马,因为这一事件给人们带来了权力感。 [15]在军队,企业,政党,人道主义组织,宗教或意识形态运动当中也能看到同样的现象。左派主义运动尤其会吸引试图满足权力过程需要的人。但对于大多数人来说认同一个庞大的组织或群众运动并不能完全满足对权力的需求。
[15]. (Paragraph 83) We are not expressing approval or disapproval of the Panama invasion. We only use it to illustrate a point.
【15】我们并不打算对入侵巴拿马事件表示赞同或反对。我们只想说明自己的论点。
84. Another way in which people satisfy their need for the power process is through surrogate activities. As we explained in paragraphs 38-40, a surrogate activity that is directed toward an artificial goal that the individual pursues for the sake of the "fulfillment" that he gets from pursuing the goal, not because he needs to attain the goal itself. For instance, there is no practical motive for building enormous muscles, hitting a little ball into a hole or acquiring a complete series of postage stamps. Yet many people in our society devote themselves with passion to bodybuilding, golf or stamp collecting. Some people are more "other-directed" than others, and therefore will more readily attack importance to a surrogate activity simply because the people around them treat it as important or because society tells them it is important. That is why some people get very serious about essentially trivial activities such as sports, or bridge, or chess, or arcane scholarly pursuits, whereas others who are more clear-sighted never see these things as anything but the surrogate activities that they are, and consequently never attach enough importance to them to satisfy their need for the power process in that way. It only remains to point out that in many cases a person‘s way of earning a living is also a surrogate activity. Not a PURE surrogate activity, since part of the motive for the activity is to gain the physical necessities and (for some people) social status and the luxuries that advertising makes them want. But many people put into their work far more effort than is necessary to earn whatever money and status they require, and this extra effort constitutes a surrogate activity. This extra effort, together with the emotional investment that accompanies it, is one of the most potent forces acting toward the continual development and perfecting of the system, with negative consequences for individual freedom (see paragraph 131). Especially, for the most creative scientists and engineers, work tends to be largely a surrogate activity. This point is so important that is deserves a separate discussion, which we shall give in a moment (paragraphs 87-92).
84,人们满足权力过程的另一种方法是替代活动。正如我们在第38-40段所解释的那样,替代活动指向人为的目标,个人追求此类目标是为了获得“满足感”而不是达到目标本身。举例来说,锻炼出巨大的肌肉,将小球打入一个洞里或获得一套完整的系列邮票等行为并没有什么实用动机。然而在我们的社会里有很多人都在充满激情地进行着健身、高尔夫或集邮活动。有些人与其他人相比要更加 “以他人为导向”,因此更容易仅仅因为他们周围的人认为这些替代活动十分重要或者因为社会告诉他们这些活动很重要就重视这些替代活动。这就是为什么有些人会非常严肃地对待基本上无关紧要的活动,如运动、桥牌、象棋或晦涩的学术研究,而其他看得更清楚的人从来只将这些活动视为替代活动,因此在满足权力过程的需要时从来没有重视过这些活动。接下来只需要指出在许多情况下一个人的谋生方式也是替代活动。不是单纯的替代活动,因为活动的动机是为了获得物理必需品以及(对于某些人来说)社会地位和因为广告宣传而想要拥有的奢侈品。但很多人投入工作的努力远远超过了赚取任何金钱或地位所必需的额度,而这种额外的努力就构成了替代活动。这种额外努力加上随之而来的感情投资是促进体系不断发展和完善的最强大力量,并会为个人自由带来消极的后果(见第131段)。特别是对于最有创意的科学家和工程师来说,工作往往主要是替代活动。这一点非常重要,因此值得拿出来单独讨论(第87-92段)。
85. In this section we have explained how many people in modern society do satisfy their need for the power process to a greater or lesser extent. But we think that for the majority of people the need for the power process is not fully satisfied. In the first place, those who have an insatiable drive for status, or who get firmly "hooked" or a surrogate activity, or who identify strongly enough with a movement or organization to satisfy their need for power in that way, are exceptional personalities. Others are not fully satisfied with surrogate activities or by identification with an organization (see paragraphs 41, 64). In the second place, too much control is imposed by the system through explicit regulation or through socialization, which results in a deficiency of autonomy, and in frustration due to the impossibility of attaining certain goals and the necessity of restraining too many impulses.
85,在本节当中我们讨论了许多现代人是如何或多或少地满足了自己对于权力过程的需要。但是我们认为对于大多数人来说对于权力过程的需要并未得到完全满足。首先,那些对于社会地位的欲望极强,或者极其投入替代行为,或者十分认同某个组织或运动,从而满足了自己对于权力过程的需求的人都是特例。其他人是无法通过这些方法来得到满足的(见41、64段)。其次,体系通过明文规定与社会化施加了太多限制,导致了自主性不足,无法达成某些目标以及对于过量冲动进行限制的必要性也会使人感到挫败。
86. But even if most people in industrial-technological society were well satisfied, we (FC) would still be opposed to that form of society, because (among other reasons) we consider it demeaning to fulfill one‘s need for the power process through surrogate activities or through identification with an organization, rather than through pursuit of real goals.
86,但是即使大多数人在工业技术社会都得到了完全满足,我们(FC)依旧要反对这种社会形式,因为(原因之一是)我们认为通过投入替代行为或者认同某个组织而不是追寻真正的目标来满足对于权力过程的需求是对人的贬低。
THE MOTIVES OF SCIENTISTS
科学家的动机
87. Science and technology provide the most important examples of surrogate activities. Some scientists claim that they are motivated by "curiosity," that notion is simply absurd. Most scientists work on highly specialized problem that are not the object of any normal curiosity. For example, is an astronomer, a mathematician or an entomologist curious about the properties of isopropyltrimethylmethane? Of course not. Only a chemist is curious about such a thing, and he is curious about it only because chemistry is his surrogate activity. Is the chemist curious about the appropriate classification of a new species of beetle? No. That question is of interest only to the entomologist, and he is interested in it only because entomology is his surrogate activity. If the chemist and the entomologist had to exert themselves seriously to obtain the physical necessities, and if that effort exercised their abilities in an interesting way but in some nonscientific pursuit, then they couldn‘t giver a damn about isopropyltrimethylmethane or the classification of beetles. Suppose that lack of funds for postgraduate education had led the chemist to become an insurance broker instead of a chemist. In that case he would have been very interested in insurance matters but would have cared nothing about isopropyltrimethylmethane. In any case it is not normal to put into the satisfaction of mere curiosity the amount of time and effort that scientists put into their work.
87,科学和技术为替代活动提供了最重要的例子。一些科学家宣称,他们的动机是“出于好奇”,这个概念十分荒谬。大多数科学家研究的都是高度专业化的问题,并非任何正常好奇心的对象。例如,一个天文学家、数学家或一个昆虫学家会对三甲基丁烷的特性感到好奇吗?当然不会。只有化学家才会对此感到好奇,因为化学是他的替代活动。化学家会对一种新发现甲虫的适当分类感到好奇吗?这个问题只有昆虫学家有兴趣,他对此有兴趣也仅仅是因为昆虫学是他的替代活动。如果化学家和昆虫学家不得不认真努力从而获得物质必需品,而且如果这种努力需要他们以非科学研究的有趣方式发挥自己的能力,那么他们根本不会关心三甲基丁烷或甲虫分类。假设研究生教育的资金缺乏导致原本可能成为化学家的人成为了保险经纪人。在这种情况下,他会对保险事宜很感兴趣,但不会再关心什么三甲基丁烷了。科学家们单纯以好奇心为理由将如此大量的时间和精力投入自己的工作是难以服人的。
88. The "benefit of humanity" explanation doesn‘t work any better. Some scientific work has no conceivable relation to the welfare of the human race - most of archaeology or comparative linguistics for example. Some other areas of science present obviously dangerous possibilities. Yet scientists in these areas are just as enthusiastic about their work as those who develop vaccines or study air pollution. Consider the case of Dr. Edward Teller, who had an obvious emotional involvement in promoting nuclear power plants. Did this involvement stem from a desire to benefit humanity? If so, then why didn‘t Dr. Teller get emotional about other "humanitarian" causes? If he was such a humanitarian then why did he help to develop the H-bomb? As with many other scientific achievements, it is very much open to question whether nuclear power plants actually do benefit humanity. Does the cheap electricity outweigh the accumulating waste and risk of accidents? Dr. Teller saw only one side of the question. Clearly his emotional involvement with nuclear power arose not from a desire to "benefit humanity" but from a personal fulfillment he got from his work and from seeing it put to practical use.
88,“造福人类”,这个解释也同样靠不住。一其他科学领域则显然有着造成危险的可能性。然而,在这些领域的科学家们对他们的工作就像开发疫苗或研究空气污染的同行们一样热情。考虑爱德华.泰勒博士(Edward Teller)的例子,他对于参与促进核电厂建设十分热情。这种感情投入是否源于造福人类的愿望呢?如果是这样的话,那么为什么泰勒博士没有对其他 “人道主义”事业进行同样的感情投入呢?如果他是人道主义者,那么他为什么要帮助发展氢弹呢?与许多其他的科学成就一样,核电厂是否真正能够造福人类是非常值得商榷的。廉价电力的好处能够超过核废料累积和危险事故带来的危害吗?泰勒博士看到的只是问题的一个侧面。显然他对于核电的情感投入并非源于“造福人类”的愿望,而是源于他的工作以及将核电投入实用所带来的个人价值的实现。
89. The same is true of scientists generally. With possible rare exceptions, their motive is neither curiosity nor a desire to benefit humanity but the need to go through the power process: to have a goal (a scientific problem to solve), to make an effort (research) and to attain the goal (solution of the problem.) Science is a surrogate activity because scientists work mainly for the fulfillment they get out of the work itself.
89,一般来说科学家都是这样。可能其中也有少数例外,但总体而言他们的动机既不是好奇也不是造福人类,而是完成权力过程的需要。
90. Of course, it‘s not that simple. Other motives do play a role for many scientists. Money and status for example. Some scientists may be persons of the type who have an insatiable drive for status (see paragraph 79) and this may provide much of the motivation for their work. No doubt the majority of scientists, like the majority of the general population, are more or less susceptible to advertising and marketing techniques and need money to satisfy their craving for goods and services. Thus science is not a PURE surrogate activity. But it is in large part a surrogate activity.
90,当然实际情况并没有如此简单。其他动机对于许多科学家来说也有作用,例如金钱与地位。有些科学家或许对地位有着无法满足的欲求(见79段),这一点为他们的工作提供了最主要的动机。无疑,大多数科学家也像大多数公众一样多少易于受到广告与营销手段的影响,也需要金钱来满足他们对于商品和服务的需要。因此科学研究并不完全是替代行为,但在相当程度上是这样。
91. Also, science and technology constitute a mass power movement, and many scientists gratify their need for power through identification with this mass movement (see paragraph 83).
91,此外,科学技术也构成了群体权力运动,许多科学家都通过认同这一运动来满足自己的权力需求(见83段)
92. Thus science marches on blindly, without regard to the real welfare of the human race or to any other standard, obedient only to the psychological needs of the scientists and of the government officials and corporation executives who provide the funds for research.
92,因此科学盲目地前进,不考虑人类种族的真正福祉或任何其他标准,仅仅服从科学家以及提供研究资金的政府官员与企业高管的心理需求。
THE NATURE OF FREEDOM
自由的本质
93. We are going to argue that industrial-technological society cannot be reformed in such a way as to prevent it from progressively narrowing the sphere of human freedom. But because "freedom" is a word that can be interpreted in many ways, we must first make clear what kind of freedom we are concerned with.
93,我们认为工业技术社会无法加以改革,使之不至于蚕食人类自由的空间。但是由于“自由”这个词可以从许多不同方面加以解释,我们必须首先阐明我们这里所谓的自由究竟是什么。
94. By "freedom" we mean the opportunity to go through the power process, with real goals not the artificial goals of surrogate activities, and without interference, manipulation or supervision from anyone, especially from any large organization. Freedom means being in control (either as an individual or as a member of a SMALL group) of the life-and-death issues of one‘s existence; food, clothing, shelter and defense against whatever threats there may be in one‘s environment. Freedom means having power; not the power to control other people but the power to control the circumstances of one‘s own life. One does not have freedom if anyone else (especially a large organization) has power over one, no matter how benevolently, tolerantly and permissively that power may be exercised. It is important not to confuse freedom with mere permissiveness (see paragraph 72).
94,我们这里的“自由”指的是经历权力过程的机会,该权力过程要有真正的目标,而不是替代行为的人为目标,不受任何人尤其是大型组织的干涉、操纵或监督。自由意味着(以个人或小群体成员的身份)控制关乎本人生死的问题:食物,衣物,住所以及抵御环境当中任何可能的威胁。自由意味着拥有权力,不是控制他人的权力,而是控制自身周边环境的权力。如果任何其他人(尤其是大型组织)对某人有权力,那么这个人就不自由,无论这种权力的实施有多么宽容放纵。绝不能将自由与放纵混为一谈。
95. It is said that we live in a free society because we have a certain number of constitutionally guaranteed rights. But these are not as important as they seem. The degree of personal freedom that exists in a society is determined more by the economic and technological structure of the society than by its laws or its form of government. [16] Most of the Indian nations of New England were monarchies, and many of the cities of the Italian Renaissance were controlled by dictators. But in reading about these societies one gets the impression that they allowed far more personal freedom than out society does. In part this was because they lacked efficient mechanisms for enforcing the ruler‘s will: There were no modern, well-organized police forces, no rapid long-distance communications, no surveillance cameras, no dossiers of information about the lives of average citizens. Hence it was relatively easy to evade control.
95,人们说我们生活在一个自由社会,因为我们拥有若干宪法保护的权利。但是这些权利并没有看上去那么重要。一个社会当中个人自由的限度并不是由法律或者政府形式决定的,而是由这个社会的经济与技术结构决定的【16】新英格兰的大多数印度国家都是君主制国家,文艺复兴时期的意大利城邦也多由独裁者掌控。但是研究一下这些社会,人们会感到这些社会远比我们的社会更加允许个人自由的存在。部分原因在于这些社会缺乏执行统治者意志的有效机制。这些社会里没有组织良好的现代警察,没有远距离快速通信,没有监视摄像头,没有针对普通人日常生活的信息卷宗。因此在此类社会里逃避控制相对较容易。
[16]. (Paragraph 95) When the American colonies were under British rule there were fewer and less effective legal guarantees of freedom than there were after the American Constitution went into effect, yet there was more personal freedom in pre-industrial America, both before and after the War of Independence, than there was after the Industrial Revolution took hold in this country. We quote from "Violence in America: Historical and Comparative perspectives," edited by Hugh Davis Graham and Ted Robert Gurr, Chapter 12 by Roger Lane, pages 476-478: "The progressive heightening of standards of property, and with it the increasing reliance on official law enforcement (in 19th century America). . .were common to the whole society. . .The change in social behavior is so long term and so widespread as to suggest a connection with the most fundamental of contemporary social processes; that of industrial urbanization itself. . ."Massachusetts in 1835 had a population of some 660,940, 81 percent rural, overwhelmingly preindustrial and native born. It‘s citizens were used to considerable personal freedom. Whether teamsters, farmers or artisans, they were all accustomed to setting their own schedules, and the nature of their work made them physically dependent on each other. . .Individual problems, sins or even crimes, were not generally cause for wider social concern. . ."But the impact of the twin movements to the city and to the factory, both just gathering force in 1835, had a progressive effect on personal behavior throughout the 19th century and into the 20th. The factory demanded regularity of behavior, a life governed by obedience to the rhythms of clock and calendar, the demands of foreman and supervisor. In the city or town, the needs of living in closely packed neighborhoods inhibited many actions previously unobjectionable.
【16】(第95段)当北美殖民地依旧处于英国统治之下时,对于自由的法律保障与美国宪法生效之后相比要更少且效力更弱。但是与工业革命在美国扎根之后相比,在独立战争前后的前工业化美国有着更多的个人自由。我们引用Violence in America: Historical and Comparative perspectives一书,Hugh Davis Graham与Ted Robert Gurr编辑,第12章,作者Roger Lane,第476-478页,“(十九世纪美国)财产标准的渐进式升高与人们对于官方执法力量的越发依赖……对于整个社会而言十分常见……这对于社会行为的改变历时如此之长,范围如此之广,以至关乎当代最基本的社会进程:工业化与城市化……1835年的马萨诸塞人口约为660940人,81%是农村人口,前工业化社会与本地出生人口占绝对主流。无论是牛马车夫、农夫还是手艺匠人都习惯于自行设定日程,他们工作的性质也使得他们在物质层面上相互依赖……个人问题,罪过甚至犯罪一般都不会导致大范围的关注……”但是1835年时刚刚起步的工业化与城市化这对双生子运动在整个十九世纪与二十世纪期间对于人的行为一直有着渐进性的影响。工厂要求行为规律化,要求人们顺从钟表与日历的节律以及工头与监管人员的命令。而在城镇当中,紧密居住的需要禁止了许多之前无人反对的行为。
Both blue- and white-collar employees in larger establishments were mutually dependent on their fellows. as one man‘s work fit into another‘s, so one man‘s business was no longer his own. "The results of the new organization of life and work were apparent by 1900, when some 76 percent of the 2,805,346 inhabitants of Massachusetts were classified as urbanites. Much violent or irregular behavior which had been tolerable in a casual, independent society was no longer acceptable in the more formalized, cooperative atmosphere of the later period. . .The move to the cities had, in short, produced a more tractable, more socialized, more ‘civilized‘ generation than its predecessors."
大型机构里的蓝领与白领工人全都相互依赖,他们的工作相互契合,因此他们再也没有私事了。“新式生活与工作组织形式的结果到了1900年已经很明显了,马萨诸塞州2805346名居民中有76%成为了城市人口。在一个随意独立的社会当中往往能得到容忍的大量暴力或不端行为在后来更加正规化合作化的氛围当中都成了不可接受的表现……简而言之,迁入城市的运动造成了比之前世代更加驯良,更加社会化,更加‘文明’的一代人。”
(If copyright problems make it impossible for this long quotation to be printed, then please change Note 16 to read as follows:)
(假如出于版权原因无法出版上文中的长篇引言,请将第16号注释替换为下文:)
([16]. (Paragraph 95) When the American colonies were under British rule there were fewer and less effective legal guarantees of freedom than there were after the American Constitution went into effect, yet there was more personal freedom in pre-industrial America, both before and after the War of Independence, than there was after the Industrial Revolution took hold in this country. In "Violence in America: Historical and Comparative Perspectives," edited by Hugh Davis Graham and Ted Robert Gurr, Chapter 12 by Roger Lane, it is explained how in pre-industrial America the average person had greater independence and autonomy than he does today, and how the process of industrialization necessarily led to the restriction of personal freedom.)
(【16】(第95段)当北美殖民地处于英国统治之下时,与美国宪法生效之后相比,自由的法律保障较少且效力较弱。但是与工业革命在美国扎根之后相比,在独立战争前后的前工业化美国有着更多的个人自由。Hugh Davis Graham与Ted Robert Gurr编辑的《美国的暴力:历史与比较视角》(Violence in America: Historical and Comparative perspectives)一书中由Roger Lane撰写的第12章专门解释了前工业化时期美国的普通人如何拥有超过今天的独立自主以及工业化进程如何必然导致了对个人自由的限制。)
96. As for our constitutional rights, consider for example that of freedom of the press. We certainly don‘t mean to knock that right: it is very important tool for limiting concentration of political power and for keeping those who do have political power in line by publicly exposing any misbehavior on their part. But freedom of the press is of very little use to the average citizen as an individual. The mass media are mostly under the control of large organizations that are integrated into the system. Anyone who has a little money can have something printed, or can distribute it on the Internet or in some such way, but what he has to say will be swamped by the vast volume of material put out by the media, hence it will have no practical effect. To make an impression on society with words is therefore almost impossible for most individuals and small groups. Take us (FC) for example. If we had never done anything violent and had submitted the present writings to a publisher, they probably would not have been accepted. If they had been accepted and published, they probably would not have attracted many readers, because it‘s more fun to watch the entertainment put out by the media than to read a sober essay. Even if these writings had had many readers, most of these readers would soon have forgotten what they had read as their minds were flooded by the mass of material to which the media expose them. In order to get our message before the public with some chance of making a lasting impression, we‘ve had to kill people.
96,至于宪法权利,不妨以出版自由举例。我们绝对无意抨击这一权利:这是一件十分重要的工具,可以用来限制政治权力集中化以及通过暴露掌权者的不轨之举来约束他们的行为。但是出版自由对于作为个体的普通人用处很小。大众媒体主要受与体系同化的大型机构的控制。任何人只要有一点钱就可以出版印刷品,或在互联网上传播,或借助其他此类手段;但他想说的话将会被媒体的巨量材料所淹没,无法起到任何实际作用。因此对于大多数个人或小团体来说几乎无法用语言为社会留下印象。以我们(FC)为例。如果我们此前从未进行任何暴力活动,那么将这份文稿交给出版社之后很可能不会得到接受。如果其得到接受与出版,恐怕也不会吸引太多读者。即使能够吸引到大量读者,这些人中的大部分也会因为暴露在媒体提供的巨量材料当中而很快将其遗忘。为了将我们的信息传递到公众面前并有机会产生持久影响,我们不得不杀人。
97. Constitutional rights are useful up to a point, but they do not serve to guarantee much more than what could be called the bourgeois conception of freedom. According to the bourgeois conception, a "free" man is essentially an element of a social machine and has only a certain set of prescribed and delimited freedoms; freedoms that are designed to serve the needs of the social machine more than those of the individual. Thus the bourgeois‘s "free" man has economic freedom because that promotes growth and progress; he has freedom of the press because public criticism restrains misbehavior by political leaders; he has a rights to a fair trial because imprisonment at the whim of the powerful would be bad for the system. This was clearly the attitude of Simon Bolivar. To him, people deserved liberty only if they used it to promote progress (progress as conceived by the bourgeois). Other bourgeois thinkers have taken a similar view of freedom as a mere means to collective ends. Chester C. Tan, "Chinese Political Thought in the Twentieth Century," page 202, explains the philosophy of the Kuomintang leader Hu Han-min: "An individual is granted rights because he is a member of society and his community life requires such rights. By community Hu meant the whole society of the nation." And on page 259 Tan states that according to Carsum Chang (Chang Chun-mai, head of the State Socialist Party in China) freedom had to be used in the interest of the state and of the people as a whole. But what kind of freedom does one have if one can use it only as someone else prescribes? FC‘s conception of freedom is not that of Bolivar, Hu, Chang or other bourgeois theorists. The trouble with such theorists is that they have made the development and application of social theories their surrogate activity. Consequently the theories are designed to serve the needs of the theorists more than the needs of any people who may be unlucky enough to live in a society on which the theories are imposed.
97,宪法权利在一定程度上是有用的,但只能保证所谓资产阶级的自由观。根据资产阶级的概念,一个“自由”的人本质上是社会机器的一个组件,只享有一套特定的自由,这套自由与其说是服务于个人,倒不如说是服务于社会机器的需要。因此资产阶级的“自由人”有经济自由,因为这能促进经济成长和进步;他有新闻自由,因为公开批评能抑制政治领袖的不当行为,他有获得公正审判的权利,因为出于当权者心血来潮的监禁将会破坏体系。这显然是西蒙.玻利瓦尔的态度。在他看来只有利用自由来推动进步(小资产阶级心目中的进步)的人们才有资格得到自由。其他资产阶级思想家也采取了类似的观点,认为自由仅仅是达到集体目的的手段。Chester C. Tan在Chinese Political Thought in the Twentieth Century,第202页解释了国民党领袖胡汉民的理念:“一个人被授予权利,因为他是社会的一员,他的社会生活需要这样的权利。胡在这里指的是整个国家的社会。”Tan还在第259页指出,根据张君劢(中国国家社会党领袖)的观点,认为自由必须为了国家与人民的整体利益而得到使用。但是假如某人的自由只能按照别人规定的方式使用,那还算是什么自由呢?FC的自由观不同于玻利瓦尔,胡,张或其他资产阶级理论家。这些理论家的问题在于他们将社会理论的研发和应用当成了替代活动。因此这些理论的设计是为理论家而服务的,而不是那些不幸生在被人强加了这些理论的社会当中的人们。
98. One more point to be made in this section: It should not be assumed that a person has enough freedom just because he SAYS he has enough. Freedom is restricted in part by psychological control of which people are unconscious, and moreover many people‘s ideas of what constitutes freedom are governed more by social convention than by their real needs. For example, it‘s likely that many leftists of the oversocialized type would say that most people, including themselves are socialized too little rather than too much, yet the oversocialized leftist pays a heavy psychological price for his high level of socialization.
98,本节还要再说明一点:人们不应因为某人声称自己足够自由就认为他足够自由。自由部分受到了心理控制的约束,而人们无法感知这种心理活动。此外人们对于自由的感念也不是由他们的真正需要决定的,而是取决于社会常规。例如,许多过度社会化左派主义者都声称包括他们自己在内的大多数人的社会化程度不是太深,而是太浅。但是过度社会化左派主义者为了自己的高度社会化付出了惨重的心理代价。
SOME PRINCIPLES OF HISTORY
几条历史原则
99. Think of history as being the sum of two components: an erratic component that consists of unpredictable events that follow no discernible pattern, and a regular component that consists of long-term historical trends. Here we are concerned with the long-term trends.
99,在此请将历史想象为两个组成部分的总和:一个是不规则组成部分,由无法预知也不遵循任何明显模式的事件组成;另一个是规则组成部分,由长期历史趋势组成。我们在这里考虑的是长期趋势。
100. FIRST PRINCIPLE. If a SMALL change is made that affects a long-term historical trend, then the effect of that change will almost always be transitory - the trend will soon revert to its original state. (Example: A reform movement designed to clean up political corruption in a society rarely has more than a short-term effect; sooner or later the reformers relax and corruption creeps back in. The level of political corruption in a given society tends to remain constant, or to change only slowly with the evolution of the society. Normally, a political cleanup will be permanent only if accompanied by widespread social changes; a SMALL change in the society won‘t be enough.) If a small change in a long-term historical trend appears to be permanent, it is only because the change acts in the direction in which the trend is already moving, so that the trend is not altered but only pushed a step ahead.
100,第一条原则。假如一个小改变影响了长期历史趋势,这种影响只能是暂时性的,趋势很快就能逆转回到原来的状态。(举例:政治反腐改革几乎总是只能取得短期效果,改革者终将懈怠,腐败也总会卷土重来。任何一个给定社会的腐败程度都是恒定的,或者只会随着社会的演变发生缓慢的变化。正常情况下,反腐改革只有在伴随着广泛社会变革的情况下才能取得长期效果,小规模改变是没有用的。)如果某个小改变看似在长期历史趋势当中取得了长期影响,这只是因为这个改变的方向与大趋势相一致,因此趋势没有得到改变,只是向前推进了一步。
101. The first principle is almost a tautology. If a trend were not stable with respect to small changes, it would wander at random rather than following a definite direction; in other words it would not be a long-term trend at all.
101,第一原则基本上就是同义反复。假如某个趋势相对小改变而言不够稳定,这一趋势就会随机发展而非追寻特定方向,换句话说就是根本无法成为长期趋势。
102. SECOND PRINCIPLE. If a change is made that is sufficiently large to alter permanently a long-term historical trend, than it will alter the society as a whole. In other words, a society is a system in which all parts are interrelated, and you can‘t permanently change any important part without change all the other parts as well.
102,第二条原则。假如一项改变足够大,可以永久改变长期历史趋势,那这项改变必然影响整个社会。换言之,社会体系中的各个部分都是相关的,不可能永久性改变任何重要部分而不改变所有其他部分。
103. THIRD PRINCIPLE. If a change is made that is large enough to alter permanently a long-term trend, then the consequences for the society as a whole cannot be predicted in advance. (Unless various other societies have passed through the same change and have all experienced the same consequences, in which case one can predict on empirical grounds that another society that passes through the same change will be like to experience similar consequences.)
103,第三条原则。假如一项改变足够大,可以永久改变长期历史趋势,那么任何人都无法预测社会整体将如何改变。(除非许多其他社会也经历了相同的变化与同样的结果,这样才可以在经验基础上预测下一个经历了此类改变的社会可能会遭受类似的结果。)
104. FOURTH PRINCIPLE. A new kind of society cannot be designed on paper. That is, you cannot plan out a new form of society in advance, then set it up and expect it to function as it was designed to.
104,第四条原则。新型社会无法从纸面上创造出来。换句话说,你无法提前设计新型社会,并期待该社会在得到建立之后会按照设计来运行。
105. The third and fourth principles result from the complexity of human societies. A change in human behavior will affect the economy of a society and its physical environment; the economy will affect the environment and vice versa, and the changes in the economy and the environment will affect human behavior in complex, unpredictable ways; and so forth. The network of causes and effects is far too complex to be untangled and understood.
105,第三条与第四条原则是人类社会复杂性的结果。人类行为的改变将会影响社会经济与物质环境,经济与环境互为影响,而社会与经济的改变又将以无法预测的方式作用于人类行为。因果律的网络过于复杂,任何人都无法理清并理解。
106. FIFTH PRINCIPLE. People do not consciously and rationally choose the form of their society. Societies develop through processes of social evolution that are not under rational human control.
106,第五条原则。人们并不有意识地并理性地选择他们所属社会的形态。舍同通过社会演化而形成,不受人的理性控制。
107. The fifth principle is a consequence of the other four.
107,第五条原则是前四条的结果。
108. To illustrate: By the first principle, generally speaking an attempt at social reform either acts in the direction in which the society is developing anyway (so that it merely accelerates a change that would have occurred in any case) or else it only has a transitory effect, so that the society soon slips back into its old groove. To make a lasting change in the direction of development of any important aspect of a society, reform is insufficient and revolution is required. (A revolution does not necessarily involve an armed uprising or the overthrow of a government.) By the second principle, a revolution never changes only one aspect of a society; and by the third principle changes occur that were never expected or desired by the revolutionaries. By the fourth principle, when revolutionaries or utopians set up a new kind of society, it never works out as planned.
108,在此说明一下:根据第一条原则,一般说来进行社会改革的尝试要么遵从社会发展的方向(因此仅仅加速了无论如何都要发生的改变)要么就只有暂时性的效果,而社会很快就会恢复原状。如果要在任何重要的社会方面遵循发展方向进行持续性的改变,改革是不够的,必须诉诸于革命。(革命并不必然意味着武装暴动或推翻政府)根据第二条原则,革命绝不会仅仅改变某一个单独社会方面;根据第三条原则将会发生革命者们未曾期望或不想看到的改变。根据第四条原则,革命者或乌托邦主义者们建立的新型社会永远无法按照计划运作起来。
109. The American Revolution does not provide a counterexample. The American "Revolution" was not a revolution in our sense of the word, but a war of independence followed by a rather far-reaching political reform. The Founding Fathers did not change the direction of development of American society, nor did they aspire to do so. They only freed the development of American society from the retarding effect of British rule. Their political reform did not change any basic trend, but only pushed American political culture along its natural direction of development. British society, of which American society was an off-shoot, had been moving for a long time in the direction of representative democracy. And prior to the War of Independence the Americans were already practicing a significant degree of representative democracy in the colonial assemblies. The political system established by the Constitution was modeled on the British system and on the colonial assemblies. With major alteration, to be sure - there is no doubt that the Founding Fathers took a very important step. But it was a step along the road the English-speaking world was already traveling. The proof is that Britain and all of its colonies that were populated predominantly by people of British descent ended up with systems of representative democracy essentially similar to that of the United States. If the Founding Fathers had lost their nerve and declined to sign the Declaration of Independence, our way of life today would not have been significantly different. Maybe we would have had somewhat closer ties to Britain, and would have had a Parliament and Prime Minister instead of a Congress and President. No big deal. Thus the American Revolution provides not a counterexample to our principles but a good illustration of them.
109,美国独立运动并不是反例。所谓的美国“革命”并不是我们所谓的革命,而是一场独立战争加上一场用力过猛的政治改革。开国元勋们没有改变美国社会的发展方向,也没有这么做的打算。他们仅仅将美国从英国的拘束性统治之下解放了出来。他们的政治改革没有改变任何基本趋势,仅仅将美国政治文化在自然发展方向上推了一把。美国社会是从英国社会分生出来的,而英国社会早已在代议制民主的方向上发展很久了。独立战争之前美国已经在各殖民地代表大会内部实行了相当程度的代议制民主。美国宪法确立的政治体系是根据英国政体与殖民地代表大会为模版构建出来的。开国元勋们的确进行了重大修改,他们走出了重要的一步。但是这一步仅仅是踏在了英语国家早已走了很久的道路上。证据就是英国本土以及所有英国人永久居留的殖民地最终都发展出了与美国类似的代议制民主。就算当年开国元勋们一时手软没有签署《独立宣言》,我们今天的生活方式也不会有显著差异。我们与英国的联系或许会更紧密,或许会有议会与首相而不是国会与总统,但这都不是什么大事。美国独立运动并未对我们的原则构成反例,而是对其进行了很好的诠释。
110. Still, one has to use common sense in applying the principles. They are expressed in imprecise language that allows latitude for interpretation, and exceptions to them can be found. So we present these principles not as inviolable laws but as rules of thumb, or guides to thinking, that may provide a partial antidote to naive ideas about the future of society. The principles should be borne constantly in mind, and whenever one reaches a conclusion that conflicts with them one should carefully reexamine one‘s thinking and retain the conclusion only if one has good, solid reasons for doing so.
110,不过人们在应用这些原则时依然需要依靠自己的常识。这些原则的表述语言并不周密,有进行阐释的空间,也可以找到例外。因此我们提出这些原则并非将其当作牢不可破的定律,而是作为思考指南,希望能为关于未来社会的不成熟想法提供部分解药。应当牢记这些原则,假如某人得出了与这些原则相冲突的结论,他应当仔细审视自己的思考过程,仅仅在有坚实理由的前提下才维持原有结论。
INDUSTRIAL-TECHNOLOGICAL SOCIETY CANNOT BE REFORMED
工业技术社会无法得到改良
111. The foregoing principles help to show how hopelessly difficult it would be to reform the industrial system in such a way as to prevent it from progressively narrowing our sphere of freedom. There has been a consistent tendency, going back at least to the Industrial Revolution for technology to strengthen the system at a high cost in individual freedom and local autonomy. Hence any change designed to protect freedom from technology would be contrary to a fundamental trend in the development of our society. Consequently, such a change either would be a transitory one -- soon swamped by the tide of history -- or, if large enough to be permanent would alter the nature of our whole society. This by the first and second principles. Moreover, since society would be altered in a way that could not be predicted in advance (third principle) there would be great risk. Changes large enough to make a lasting difference in favor of freedom would not be initiated because it would realized that they would gravely disrupt the system. So any attempts at reform would be too timid to be effective. Even if changes large enough to make a lasting difference were initiated, they would be retracted when their disruptive effects became apparent. Thus, permanent changes in favor of freedom could be brought about only by persons prepared to accept radical, dangerous and unpredictable alteration of the entire system. In other words, by revolutionaries, not reformers.
111,上述原则也表现了为什么很难对工业体系进行改革从而防止其渐进性侵蚀我们的自由。技术至少早在工业革命时就就已经有了以个体自由与地方自主非为代价来加强体系的持续趋势。因此任何保护自由不受技术损害的改变都与我们社会的基本发展趋势相悖。这样的改变要么是暂时性的——很快就会被历史的潮水所淹没——要么就会因为足够产生永久性效果而改变我们这个社会的本质。这是根据第一与第二条原则得出的结果。此外,由于社会的变化无法事先得到预知(第三原则),这种变化将会伴随极大的风险。如果改变足以产生对自由长期有利的变化,那么就不会被风险吓倒,因为这些风险将极大地打乱体系。因此任何改革努力都过于软弱,无法生效。就算改革者们发动了足以带来持久不同的改革,他们也会在这些改革的破坏性效果表露出来后收手。因此只有那些愿意接受极端、危险且无法预测的体系变动的人才能对于自由永久有利的改变,换句话说就是革命者而不是改革者。
112. People anxious to rescue freedom without sacrificing the supposed benefits of technology will suggest naive schemes for some new form of society that would reconcile freedom with technology. Apart from the fact that people who make suggestions seldom propose any practical means by which the new form of society could be set up in the first place, it follows from the fourth principle that even if the new form of society could be once established, it either would collapse or would give results very different from those expected.
112,有些人急于拯救自由却不愿牺牲技术带来的所谓好处,他们会提出天真的新式社会构想来调和自由与技术。姑且不论这些人很少提出任何建立此类社会的具体方法这一事实,就算这些社会真能得到建立也得遵循第四条原则,要么崩溃要么产生与预期十分不同的结果。
113. So even on very general grounds it seems highly improbably that any way of changing society could be found that would reconcile freedom with modern technology. In the next few sections we will give more specific reasons for concluding that freedom and technological progress are incompatible.
113,因此即便是泛泛而言,想要通过改革协调自由与现代科技也很不现实。在接下来几节当中我们将会给出更详细的理由来总结为什么自由与技术进步不相容。
RESTRICTION OF FREEDOM IS UNAVOIDABLE IN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY
在工业社会里对自由的限制是不可避免的
114. As explained in paragraph 65-67, 70-73, modern man is strapped down by a network of rules and regulations, and his fate depends on the actions of persons remote from him whose decisions he cannot influence. This is not accidental or a result of the arbitrariness of arrogant bureaucrats. It is necessary and inevitable in any technologically advanced society. The system HAS TO regulate human behavior closely in order to function. At work, people have to do what they are told to do, otherwise production would be thrown into chaos. Bureaucracies HAVE TO be run according to rigid rules. To allow any substantial personal discretion to lower-level bureaucrats would disrupt the system and lead to charges of unfairness due to differences in the way individual bureaucrats exercised their discretion. It is true that some restrictions on our freedom could be eliminated, but GENERALLY SPEAKING the regulation of our lives by large organizations is necessary for the functioning of industrial-technological society. The result is a sense of powerlessness on the part of the average person. It may be, however, that formal regulations will tend increasingly to be replaced by psychological tools that make us want to do what the system requires of us. (Propaganda [14], educational techniques, "mental health" programs, etc.)
114,正如在65-67段以及70-73段所解释的那样,现代人受到了一整套规则与规章的约束,他的命运取决于他人,这些人离他很远以致他无法对他们的决策施加影响。这并非偶然发生的事故,也不是傲慢的官僚独断专行的结果。在任何一个技术发达的社会这都是不可避免的。体系必须紧密监管人类行为,唯此才能正常运作。在工作当中人们必须遵守命令,否则生产过程就将陷入混乱。官僚体系必须根据硬性规定进行运作。假如允许底层官僚运用任何潜在的个人裁量就将打乱体系,底层官僚运用个人裁量导致的差异也会引发不公平的指控。的确,有一些对于自由的限制的确可以得到消除,但总体而言,答应组织对于我们生活的监管是工业技术社会正常运行所必需的。这将令普通人感到无力。不过正式的监管将会越发由心理工具所取代,使我们想要遵从体系对我们的要求(第14段,教育手段,“心理健康”项目,等等)
115. The system HAS TO force people to behave in ways that are increasingly remote from the natural pattern of human behavior. For example, the system needs scientists, mathematicians and engineers. It can‘t function without them. So heavy pressure is put on children to excel in these fields. It isn‘t natural for an adolescent human being to spend the bulk of his time sitting at a desk absorbed in study. A normal adolescent wants to spend his time in active contact with the real world. Among primitive peoples the things that children are trained to do are in natural harmony with natural human impulses. Among the American Indians, for example, boys were trained in active outdoor pursuits -- just the sort of things that boys like. But in our society children are pushed into studying technical subjects, which most do grudgingly.
115,体系必须强制人们的行为越发远离人类行为自然模式。例如体系需要科学家、数学家与工程师,否则就无法正常运作。因此儿童们担负了要在这些领域出类拔萃的巨大压力。青少年将大量时间花在静坐学习上是不自然的。正常的青少年希望花时间来能动地接触真实世界。原始民族训练儿童所做的事情与自然的人类节律自然和谐。例如美洲印第安人就会训练男孩到户外相互追逐——正是男孩子喜欢做的事情。但是在我们的社会儿童被迫学习技术学科,大多数儿童对此都不情不愿。
116. Because of the constant pressure that the system exerts to modify human behavior, there is a gradual increase in the number of people who cannot or will not adjust to society‘s requirements: welfare leeches, youth-gang members, cultists, anti-government rebels, radical environmentalist saboteurs, dropouts and resisters of various kinds.
116,因为体系持续施压来矫正人类行为,不能或不愿调整自己来适应社会需要的人也越来越多:这其中包括完全拒绝工作的社会救济领取者、青少年犯罪团伙、邪教信徒、反政府叛逆、激进派环保主义破坏者、辍学者以及其他各种抵制社会体系的人。
117. In any technologically advanced society the individual‘s fate MUST depend on decisions that he personally cannot influence to any great extent. A technological society cannot be broken down into small, autonomous communities, because production depends on the cooperation of very large numbers of people and machines. Such a society MUST be highly organized and decisions HAVE TO be made that affect very large numbers of people. When a decision affects, say, a million people, then each of the affected individuals has, on the average, only a one-millionth share in making the decision. What usually happens in practice is that decisions are made by public officials or corporation executives, or by technical specialists, but even when the public votes on a decision the number of voters ordinarily is too large for the vote of any one individual to be significant. [17] Thus most individuals are unable to influence measurably the major decisions that affect their lives. Their is no conceivable way to remedy this in a technologically advanced society. The system tries to "solve" this problem by using propaganda to make people WANT the decisions that have been made for them, but even if this "solution" were completely successful in making people feel better, it would be demeaning.
117,在任何一个技术发达的社会,个体命运都必须依赖于那些他本人不能施加实质性影响的决策。技术社会无法分解成小型自主社区。因为生产有赖于极大数目的人和机器的协作。这祥一个社会必须是高度组织化的,而且不得不做出影响极其大量人口的决策。打个比方,当一个决策影响一百万人时,每一个被影响的个人对于该项决策平均只有百万分之一的影响力。实际上,决策往往是由政府公务员、公司主管抑或技术专家做出的,但即使是公众投票进行决策,一般也会因为投票人数过多而使得任何个人的投票不起什么实质性作用。因此,大多数个人不可能对于影响他们生活的重大决策产生任何值得注意的影响。在技术发达社会中,这一点是无可救药的。体系试图通过使用宣传手段来诱使人们主动要求那些已为他们作好的决策来“解决”这个问题,即使这种“解决办法”非常成功地让人民在感觉上好了一点,它也依然是对人类的一种贬低。
118 Conservatives and some others advocate more "local autonomy." Local communities once did have autonomy, but such autonomy becomes less and less possible as local communities become more enmeshed with and dependent on large-scale systems like public utilities, computer networks, highway systems, the mass communications media, the modern health care system. Also operating against autonomy is the fact that technology applied in one location often affects people at other locations far away. Thus pesticide or chemical use near a creek may contaminate the water supply hundreds of miles downstream, and the greenhouse effect affects the whole world.
118,保守派和其他一些人主张进一步加强地方社区曾经有过的自主权,但随着地方社区越来越与公共设施、计算机网络、高速公路、大众传媒以及现代医保制度等大规模系统纠缠在一起并且必须依赖它们才能存在,这种自主也就越来越不可能了。应用于一个地点的技术往往会影响到距离遥远的其他地区,这一事实同样说明了技术社会与自主的不相容。例如,在某条小溪使用杀虫剂或化学品可能污染下游几百英里的水供应,而温室效应则影响了整个世界。
119. The system does not and cannot exist to satisfy human needs. Instead, it is human behavior that has to be modified to fit the needs of the system. This has nothing to do with the political or social ideology that may pretend to guide the technological system. It is the fault of technology, because the system is guided not by ideology but by technical necessity. [18] Of course the system does satisfy many human needs, but generally speaking it does this only to the extent that it is to the advantage of the system to do it. It is the needs of the system that are paramount, not those of the human being. For example, the system provides people with food because the system couldn‘t function if everyone starved; it attends to people‘s psychological needs whenever it can CONVENIENTLY do so, because it couldn‘t function if too many people became depressed or rebellious. But the system, for good, solid, practical reasons, must exert constant pressure on people to mold their behavior to the needs of the system. Too much waste accumulating? The government, the media, the educational system, environmentalists, everyone inundates us with a mass of propaganda about recycling. Need more technical personnel? A chorus of voices exhorts kids to study science. No one stops to ask whether it is inhumane to force adolescents to spend the bulk of their time studying subjects most of them hate. When skilled workers are put out of a job by technical advances and have to undergo "retraining," no one asks whether it is humiliating for them to be pushed around in this way. It is simply taken for granted that everyone must bow to technical necessity and for good reason: If human needs were put before technical necessity there would be economic problems, unemployment, shortages or worse. The concept of "mental health" in our society is defined largely by the extent to which an individual behaves in accord with the needs of the system and does so without showing signs of stress.
119,体系的存在不是为了满足人类的需求,仅仅以满足人类需求为目的的体系也不可能存在。相反,体系会改变人类的行为以适应它自己的需要。这与可能假装引导技术体系的政治或社会意识形态无关,而是技术本身的问题,因为体系不是由意识形态引导的,而是由技术需求引导的。【18】当然,体系满足了人类的许多需求。但一般说来,只有在满足人的需求对体系有好处时,它才会这样做。体系本身、而非组成体系的个人的需求才是至高无上的。例如,体系供给人们粮食,因为如果每个人都挨饿体系就不能运转;在方便的情况下,体系也会照顾人们的心理需求,因为如果太多的人感到压抑或变得反叛,体系就不能运转。但是,体系有许多充分且实际的理由要不断地对人施压,改变他们的行为以适应体系的需要。比方说,假如垃圾积累过多,那么政府、媒体、教育系统以及环保主义者就会一拥而上,用铺天盖地的垃圾回收利用宣传来淹没我们。假如体系需要更多的技术人员,那么各种声音就会组成一场大合唱来劝诱儿童学习科学。没有人停下来问一问:强迫青少年花费大量时间来学习他们之中大多数人都十分讨厌的东西是否人道。当技术工人因技术进步失去工作而去接受“重新训练”时,没有人问一问:像这样把他们推过来拨过去对于他们来说是否太屈辱。所有人都理所当然地认为,每一个人都必需向技术的需要低头,而且理由十分充分:如果人的需求被摆在了优先于技术需要的地位,就会出现经济问题、失业、短缺甚至更糟。在我们的社会当中,“精神健康”的概念主要被定义为在多大程度一个人能够根据体系的需要行事并且不会流露出承受精神压力的迹象。
18. (Paragraph 119) "Today, in technologically advanced lands, men live very similar lives in spite of geographical, religious and political differences. The daily lives of a Christian bank clerk in Chicago, a Buddhist bank clerk in Tokyo, a Communist bank clerk in Moscow are far more alike than the life any one of them is like that of any single man who lived a thousand years ago. These similarities are the result of a common technology. . ." L. Sprague de Camp, "The Ancient Engineers," Ballentine edition, page 17.
【18】(119段)“今天,在技术发达地区,人们的生活方式十分相像,地理位置、宗教和政治上的不同几乎没有任何关系。芝加哥的一个基督教银行职员,东京的一个佛教银行职员,莫斯科的一个共党银行职员,他们彼此之间的日常生活十分相像,而他们之中的任何一个人的生活与一千年以前人们的生活却非常不同。这种相像是普遍技术的结果……”L. Sprague de Camp,The Ancient Engineers,Ballencine版,第17页。
The lives of the three bank clerks are not IDENTICAL. Ideology does have SOME effect. But all technological societies, in order to survive, must evolve along APPROXIMATELY the same trajectory.
三个银行职员的生活其实并不完全一样。意识形态确实会产生某种影响,但所有技术社会必须遵循大致相同的进化路径,唯此才能存在下去。
120. Efforts to make room for a sense of purpose and for autonomy within the system are no better than a joke. For example, one company, instead of having each of its employees assemble only one section of a catalogue, had each assemble a whole catalogue, and this was supposed to give them a sense of purpose and achievement. Some companies have tried to give their employees more autonomy in their work, but for practical reasons this usually can be done only to a very limited extent, and in any case employees are never given autonomy as to ultimate goals -- their "autonomous" efforts can never be directed toward goals that they select personally, but only toward their employer‘s goals, such as the survival and growth of the company. Any company would soon go out of business if it permitted its employees to act otherwise. Similarly, in any enterprise within a socialist system, workers must direct their efforts toward the goals of the enterprise, otherwise the enterprise will not serve its purpose as part of the system. Once again, for purely technical reasons it is not possible for most individuals or small groups to have much autonomy in industrial society. Even the small-business owner commonly has only limited autonomy. Apart from the necessity of government regulation, he is restricted by the fact that he must fit into the economic system and conform to its requirements. For instance, when someone develops a new technology, the small-business person often has to use that technology whether he wants to or not, in order to remain competitive.
120,在体系内为目的感和自主权留出空间的努力只足一个笑话。例如,我们的公司把每个工人只组装一套机件的一部分改为每个工人都组装整套机件,声称这就是给了他们目的感与成就感。有些公司的确试图在工作中赋予雇员更多的自主权,但由于实际需要,这种尝试只能是非常有限的,而且无论如何也不能给予雇员有关最终目标的自主权,他们的“自主”努力决不能指向他们自己选择的目标,而只能指向雇主的目标。任何公司如果允许其雇员自行其是都会很快关门大吉。同样,对于任何一家存在于特定社会体系当中的公司来说,其中的雇员都必须将各自的努力指向企业的目标,否则企业就不能实现其作为系统一部分的目的。从纯技术角度来说,大多数个人或小团体在工业社会中都不可能享有高度自主权。甚至就连小型企业所有者通常也只有有限的自主权。除了遵从必要的政府规章之外,他还必须适应经济体系对自己的要求。例如,当有人开发出一种新技术之后,小企业主为了保持竞争力往往必须利用这种技术,无论他本人意愿如何。
THE ‘BAD‘ PARTS OF TECHNOLOGY CANNOT BE SEPARATED FROM THE ‘GOOD‘ PARTS
技术的负面效应不可能与正面效应分割开来
121. A further reason why industrial society cannot be reformed in favor of freedom is that modern technology is a unified system in which all parts are dependent on one another. You can‘t get rid of the "bad" parts of technology and retain only the "good" parts. Take modern medicine, for example. Progress in medical science depends on progress in chemistry, physics, biology, computer science and other fields. Advanced medical treatments require expensive, high-tech equipment that can be made available only by a technologically progressive, economically rich society. Clearly you can‘t have much progress in medicine without the whole technological system and everything that goes with it.
121,工业化社会不能迸行有利于自由的改革的一个更深层原因在于,现代技术是一个统一的系统,其中所有部分都相互依存。你不可能去掉技术当中“坏的”部分,只保留“好的”部分。以现代医学为例。医学的进步有赖于化学、物理、生物、计算机科学以及其他领域的进步。先进的医疗需要昂贵的高科技设备。只有技术先进、经济富裕的社会才能提供。显然,抛除了整个技术体系及其所有伴生物,你就不可能在医学领域有任何进步。
122. Even if medical progress could be maintained without the rest of the technological system, it would by itself bring certain evils. Suppose for example that a cure for diabetes is discovered. People with a genetic tendency to diabetes will then be able to survive and reproduce as well as anyone else. Natural selection against genes for diabetes will cease and such genes will spread throughout the population. (This may be occurring to some extent already, since diabetes, while not curable, can be controlled through the use of insulin.) The same thing will happen with many other diseases susceptibility to which is affected by genetic degradation of the population. The only solution will be some sort of eugenics program or extensive genetic engineering of human beings, so that man in the future will no longer be a creation of nature, or of chance, or of God (depending on your religious or philosophical opinions), but a manufactured product.
122,即使医学进步可以不依赖技术体系的其他部分,这一进步本身也会带来特定的弊端。例如,假设我们发现了治疗糖尿病的办法。带有糖尿病遗传倾向的人就会生存下来并且与他人一样繁殖,淘汰糖尿病基因的自然选择就会中止,而这类基因就会在人口中扩散。(在一定程度上这种现象已经发生了,因为糖尿病虽然仍旧不可治愈,却可以用胰岛素控制)许多其他疾病的易感性也会受到人口遗传退化的影响。这个问题的解决之道无非是优生学计划或者大规模人体基因改造工程。换句话说,未来的人类将不再是自然、偶然或者上帝(根据各人哲学观点而异)的造物,而是人造的产品。
123. If you think that big government interferes in your life too much NOW, just wait till the government starts regulating the genetic constitution of your children. Such regulation will inevitably follow the introduction of genetic engineering of human beings, because the consequences of unregulated genetic engineering would be disastrous. [19]
123,如果你认为现在的大政府过度地干涉了你的生活,那么你就等着政府着手管制你的孩子的遗传构造吧。随着人类遗传工程的到来,这种管制将不可避免,因为没有管制,遗传工程的后果将是灾难性的。
[19] (Paragraph 123) Just think an irresponsible genetic engineer might create a lot of terrorists.
【19】(123段)可以设想一下某无良基因工程师创造出一群恐怖分子的场景。
124. The usual response to such concerns is to talk about "medical ethics." But a code of ethics would not serve to protect freedom in the face of medical progress; it would only make matters worse. A code of ethics applicable to genetic engineering would be in effect a means of regulating the genetic constitution of human beings. Somebody (probably the upper-middle class, mostly) would decide that such and such applications of genetic engineering were "ethical" and others were not, so that in effect they would be imposing their own values on the genetic constitution of the population at large. Even if a code of ethics were chosen on a completely democratic basis, the majority would be imposing their own values on any minorities who might have a different idea of what constituted an "ethical" use of genetic engineering. The only code of ethics that would truly protect freedom would be one that prohibited ANY genetic engineering of human beings, and you can be sure that no such code will ever be applied in a technological society. No code that reduced genetic engineering to a minor role could stand up for long, because the temptation presented by the immense power of biotechnology would be irresistible, especially since to the majority of people many of its applications will seem obviously and unequivocally good (eliminating physical and mental diseases, giving people the abilities they need to get along in today‘s world). Inevitably, genetic engineering will be used extensively, but only in ways consistent with the needs of the industrial-technological system. [20]
124通常对于这类担忧的反应是谈论所谓的“医学伦理”,但是伦理规范无法在医学进步面前保护自由,只能使事情变得更糟。能够应用于遗传工程的伦理规范事实上将成为管制人类遗传构造的手段。一部分人(多半是上层阶级)将决定如此这般的遗传工程合乎“道德”,如此这般的做法则不道德,因而他们将在实际上将自己的价值观强加于整个人口的遗传构造。即使伦理规范是以完全民主的方式选择出来的,多数族裔也会将他们自己的价值观强加于那些很可能对于如何 “道德地”运用遗传工程另有看法的少数族裔。真正能够保护自由的伦理规范只能是一挑,那就是禁止任何人类遗传工程。而我们可以十分有把握地说,这一点恰恰不可能在技术社会中得到实现。任何将遗传工程贬低成配角的规范都不可能维持下去,因为生物技术的巨大力量所产生的诱惑是无法抗拒的。特别是在大多数人看来,大量生物技术的应用显然且肯定是有益的(可以根除身体与精神疾病,赋予人们当今世界所需要的能力)。基因技术必将不可避免地得到大规模应用,但应用方式只能与工业-技术体系的需求相一致。[20]
[20]. (Paragraph 124) For a further example of undesirable consequences of medical progress, suppose a reliable cure for cancer is discovered. Even if the treatment is too expensive to be available to any but the elite, it will greatly reduce their incentive to stop the escape of carcinogens into the environment.
【20】(124段)再举一个医学进步导致负面后果的例子。假设人们发现了治疗癌症的可靠方法,哪怕这种疗法过于昂贵,只能用于少数精英,依然会极大地削弱人们制止致癌物质逸入环境的意愿。
TECHNOLOGY IS A MORE POWERFUL SOCIAL FORCE THAN THE ASPIRATION FOR FREEDOM
与自由的渴望相比,技术是更为强大的社会力量
125. It is not possible to make a LASTING compromise between technology and freedom, because technology is by far the more powerful social force and continually encroaches on freedom through REPEATED compromises. Imagine the case of two neighbors, each of whom at the outset owns the same amount of land, but one of whom is more powerful than the other. The powerful one demands a piece of the other‘s land. The weak one refuses. The powerful one says, "OK, let‘s compromise. Give me half of what I asked." The weak one has little choice but to give in. Some time later the powerful neighbor demands another piece of land, again there is a compromise, and so forth. By forcing a long series of compromises on the weaker man, the powerful one eventually gets all of his land. So it goes in the conflict between technology and freedom.
125,在技术与自由之间不可能实现持久的妥协,因为技术是远远更为强大的社会力量,它将通过不断的强迫妥协来侵蚀自由。请想像两个邻居争地的案例,开始时两人各有一块同样大小的地皮,但其中一个比另一个强有力,强的那一个要占对方一块地,弱的那一个拒绝了。强的说“那好吧,让我们妥协,给我原先要的那块地的一半就行。”弱的没办法,只能让步。过了一些时候,那个强的邻居又要另一块地,然后又妥协,直这样妥协下去。通过一系列强加于弱者的妥协,强者最后占了他所有的地。在技术与自由的冲突中,情况也是一样。
126. Let us explain why technology is a more powerful social force than the aspiration for freedom.
126,请允许我们解释一下为什么与自由的渴望相比技术是更为强大的社会力量。
127. A technological advance that appears not to threaten freedom often turns out to threaten it very seriously later on. For example, consider motorized transport. A walking man formerly could go where he pleased, go at his own pace without observing any traffic regulations, and was independent of technological support-systems. When motor vehicles were introduced they appeared to increase man‘s freedom. They took no freedom away from the walking man, no one had to have an automobile if he didn‘t want one, and anyone who did choose to buy an automobile could travel much faster than the walking man. But the introduction of motorized transport soon changed society in such a way as to restrict greatly man‘s freedom of locomotion. When automobiles became numerous, it became necessary to regulate their use extensively. In a car, especially in densely populated areas, one cannot just go where one likes at one‘s own pace one‘s movement is governed by the flow of traffic and by various traffic laws. One is tied down by various obligations: license requirements, driver test, renewing registration, insurance, maintenance required for safety, monthly payments on purchase price. Moreover, the use of motorized transport is no longer optional. Since the introduction of motorized transport the arrangement of our cities has changed in such a way that the majority of people no longer live within walking distance of their place of employment, shopping areas and recreational opportunities, so that they HAVE TO depend on the automobile for transportation. Or else they must use public transportation, in which case they have even less control over their own movement than when driving a car. Even the walker‘s freedom is now greatly restricted. In the city he continually has to stop and wait for traffic lights that are designed mainly to serve auto traffic. In the country, motor traffic makes it dangerous and unpleasant to walk along the highway. (Note the important point we have illustrated with the case of motorized transport: When a new item of technology is introduced as an option that an individual can accept or not as he chooses, it does not necessarily REMAIN optional. In many cases the new technology changes society in such a way that people eventually find themselves FORCED to use it.)
127,一开始看上去并不威胁自由的技术进步往往会在日后极大地威胁自由。以机动车辆交通为例。从前步行者可以去任何他想去的地方,可以按照自己的步调行走,不用遵守任何交通规则,不依靠任何技术支持系统。机动车刚刚出现时好像增加了人的自由的。它们没有夺去步行的人的自由,任何人只想要不想买汽车就可以不买,而买了汽车的人则可以比步行者走得快得多。但是机械化运输很快就改变了社会并大大地限制了人的移动自由。当汽车多起来了之后,大规模地管制它们的使用就变为必需了。开上汽车之后,特别是在人口密集的地区,人们不能按照自己的步调去自己想去的地方,人们的移动为车流和各种各样的交通法规所限。人们将为各种各样的义务所累:牌照、驾驶员考试、更换注册、保险、安全维修、每月付车款,等等。尤其是人们不再拥有选择是否使用机动车辆交通的自由。自从有了机动车辆交通,我们的城市的布局已有了很大改变:大多数人的居所已不在其工作场所、购物区和娱乐区的步行距离之内,因而他们不得不依赖汽车交通或者必须使用公共交通。这时他们对自己的移动的控制更少于自己开车。甚至步行者的自由也变到了很大限制。在城市里,他要不断地停下来等待为汽车交通而设计的红绿灯。在乡下,机动车交通也使得沿高速公路行走变得危险而难受。(注意我们在机动车案例中阐述的重要论点:一项新技术刚开始往往是以一种备选的面目出现的,作为个人可以接受也可以不接受,但它不一定停留在备选的位置上。在许多情况下,新技术会改变社会,最后人们会发现他们自己将要被强制去使用它)
128. While technological progress AS A WHOLE continually narrows our sphere of freedom, each new technical advance CONSIDERED BY ITSELF appears to be desirable. Electricity, indoor plumbing, rapid long-distance communications . . . how could one argue against any of these things, or against any other of the innumerable technical advances that have made modern society? It would have been absurd to resist the introduction of the telephone, for example. It offered many advantages and no disadvantages. Yet as we explained in paragraphs 59-76, all these technical advances taken together have created world in which the average man‘s fate is no longer in his own hands or in the hands of his neighbors and friends, but in those of politicians, corporation executives and remote, anonymous technicians and bureaucrats whom he as an individual has no power to influence. [21] The same process will continue in the future. Take genetic engineering, for example. Few people will resist the introduction of a genetic technique that eliminates a hereditary disease It does no apparent harm and prevents much suffering. Yet a large number of genetic improvements taken together will make the human being into an engineered product rather than a free creation of chance (or of God, or whatever, depending on your religious beliefs).
l28,尽管技术进步作为整体不断压缩我们的自由空间,但是每一项新的技术进步单独考虑都是可取的。电、室内上下水管道、快速远距离通讯……一个人怎么能反对这些东西呢?怎么能反对数不清的技术进步呢?正是这些技术进步造就了现代社会。例如,反对电活实在是荒唐的,因为电话带来的全是方便而没有任何不便。然而,正如我们在59-79段中解释的那样,所有的技术进步汇总到一起就创造出了这样一个世界.在这个世界中,普通人的命运不再掌握在他自己
或他的邻居朋友手中,而是掌握在政客,公司主管及遥远的、不知其名的技术人员和官僚手中,而对这些人他是没有任何影响力的。[21] 这一过程将在未来继续下去。以遗传工程为例。很少人会反对消灭某种遗传疾病的遗传技术。它没有任何明显的害处,却能消除大量的痛苦。而大量对于人类的遗传改进汇总到一起则会把人变成设计制造的产品而不是随机性(或上帝,或其他什么,取决于你的信仰)的创造物。
[21]. (Paragraph 128) Since many people may find paradoxical the notion that a large number of good things can add up to a bad thing, we will illustrate with an analogy. Suppose Mr. A is playing chess with Mr. B. Mr. C, a Grand Master, is looking over Mr. A‘s shoulder. Mr. A of course wants to win his game, so if Mr. C points out a good move for him to make, he is doing Mr. A a favor. But suppose now that Mr. C tells Mr. A how to make ALL of his moves. In each particular instance he does Mr. A a favor by showing him his best move, but by making ALL of his moves for him he spoils the game, since there is not point in Mr. A‘s playing the game at all if someone else makes all his moves.
The situation of modern man is analogous to that of Mr. A. The system makes an individual‘s life easier for him in innumerable ways, but in doing so it deprives him of control over his own fate.
【21】许多人都觉得许多好东西合到起就会变成坏东西是一个有悖常理的想法,因此我们将用一个类比来说明。假设A先生与B先生下棋,而C先生是一位特级大师,站在A先生后面看棋。A先生当然想赢,于是C先生给他支了一步好招,他是在帮A先生。但现在假设C先生告诉A先生这盘棋的全部下法,情况会如何呢?在两种情况下,C先生都是给A先生支好招来帮他,但如采他替A先生走完这盘棋,他就等于把这盘棋搅了,因为如果有其他人替他走棋,A先生还下个什么劲呢?现代人的处境十分似于A先生。体系在无数方面都方便了个人的生活,但这样它就剥夺了个人对于自己命运的控制
129 Another reason why technology is such a powerful social force is that, within the context of a given society, technological progress marches in only one direction; it can never be reversed. Once a technical innovation has been introduced, people usually become dependent on it, unless it is replaced by some still more advanced innovation. Not only do people become dependent as individuals on a new item of technology, but, even more, the system as a whole becomes dependent on it. (Imagine what would happen to the system today if computers, for example, were eliminated.) Thus the system can move in only one direction, toward greater technologization. Technology repeatedly forces freedom to take a step back -- short of the overthrow of the whole technological system.
129,技术之所以是如此强有力的社会力量的另一个理由是,在给定社会的条件下技术进步只会不可逆地朝一个方向前进。只要某项技术发明被引进,人们就往往会对其产生依赖,除非它被某种更先进的发明所取代。人们不仅仅作为个人依赖这项新技术。甚至体系作为一个整体都会依赖它。(例如请想像一下,如果没有了计算机,今天的体系会怎么样)因此,体系只能朝向更加技术化的方向移动。在不至于颠覆整个技术体系的前提下,技术将会不断地逼迫自由后退。
130. Technology advances with great rapidity and threatens freedom at many different points at the same time (crowding, rules and regulations, increasing dependence of individuals on large organizations, propaganda and other psychological techniques, genetic engineering, invasion of privacy through surveillance devices and computers, etc.) To hold back any ONE of the threats to freedom would require a long different social struggle. Those who want to protect freedom are overwhelmed by the sheer number of new attacks and the rapidity with which they develop, hence they become pathetic and no longer resist. To fight each of the threats separately would be futile. Success can be hoped for only by fighting the technological system as a whole; but that is revolution not reform.
130,技术的进步十分迅速并在许多方面威胁自由(拥挤、规章制度、个人对于大型组织越发严重的依赖、宣传与其他心理学技术、遗传工程、通过监视设备和计算机侵犯隐私,等等),阻挡任柯一项对于自由的威胁都需要一场单独的社会斗争。那些想要保卫自由的人会被无数的新攻势及其发展速度所压倒,他们会变得微不足道并停止抵抗。分别反击这些威胁是无效的。只有把技术体系作为一个整体来反击才有成功的希望,但这就是革命而不是改革了。
131. Technicians (we use this term in its broad sense to describe all those who perform a specialized task that requires training) tend to be so involved in their work (their surrogate activity) that when a conflict arises between their technical work and freedom, they almost always decide in favor of their technical work. This is obvious in the case of scientists, but it also appears elsewhere: Educators, humanitarian groups, conservation organizations do not hesitate to use propaganda or other psychological techniques to help them achieve their laudable ends. Corporations and government agencies, when they find it useful, do not hesitate to collect information about individuals without regard to their privacy. Law enforcement agencies are frequently inconvenienced by the constitutional rights of suspects and often of completely innocent persons, and they do whatever they can do legally (or sometimes illegally) to restrict or circumvent those rights. Most of these educators, government officials and law officers believe in freedom, privacy and constitutional rights, but when these conflict with their work, they usually feel that their work is more important.
131,,技术人员(我们在此取这个名词的广义定义来描述所有那些执行需要培训的专门任务的人)往往如此投入自己的工作(他们的替代活动),以至于当他们的技术工作和自由之间发生冲突时,他们几乎总是决定以技术工作为先。对于科学家来说这是显而易见的,但这种情况也出现在其他地方:教育机构、人道主义团体与环保组织都会毫不犹豫地使用宣传或其他心理手段以便他们实现其值得称道的目的。公司和政府机构发现个人信息很有用之后,也会毫不犹豫地进行采集而丝毫不考虑隐私问题。执法机构经常因为犯罪嫌疑人与完全无辜者的宪法权利感到不便,于是他们采取了一切合法(或非法)手段以限制或规避这些权利。大多数教育工作者,政府官员和执法人员相信自由、隐私和宪法权利,但是当这些观念与他们的工作相冲突时,他们通常会觉得自己的工作更重要。
132. It is well known that people generally work better and more persistently when striving for a reward than when attempting to avoid a punishment or negative outcome. Scientists and other technicians are motivated mainly by the rewards they get through their work. But those who oppose technilogiccal invasions of freedom are working to avoid a negative outcome, consequently there are a few who work persistently and well at this discouraging task. If reformers ever achieved a signal victory that seemed to set up a solid barrier against further erosion of freedom through technological progress, most would tend to relax and turn their attention to more agreeable pursuits. But the scientists would remain busy in their laboratories, and technology as it progresses would find ways, in spite of any barriers, to exert more and more control over individuals and make them always more dependent on the system.
132,众所周知,人们在追求报偿时比起在避免惩罚或不良后果时工作得更好、更坚持不懈。科学家和其他技术人员主要是为了报偿而工作,但那些抵抗技术对于自由的侵犯的人们却是为了避免不良后果而工作。因此,只有很少的人能够坚持不懈并且全心投入地从事这项令人泄气的工作。如果改革者的确获得了明面上的显著胜利,设立了防止技术进步进一步侵蚀自由的坚固屏障,那么大多数人都会松懈下来并把注意力转向更为惬意的追求。但科学家会仍旧留在他们的实验室里忙活,而技术随着自身的进步会找到办法绕过任何屏障,将越来越多的控制加于个人头上,使他们越来越依赖于体系。
133. No social arrangements, whether laws, institutions, customs or ethical codes, can provide permanent protection against technology. History shows that all social arrangements are transitory; they all change or break down eventually. But technological advances are permanent within the context of a given civilization. Suppose for example that it were possible to arrive at some social arrangements that would prevent genetic engineering from being applied to human beings, or prevent it from being applied in such a ways as to threaten freedom and dignity. Still, the technology would remain waiting. Sooner or later the social arrangement would break down. Probably sooner, given that pace of change in our society. Then genetic engineering would begin to invade our sphere of freedom, and this invasion would be irreversible (short of a breakdown of technological civilization itself). Any illusions about achieving anything permanent through social arrangements should be dispelled by what is currently happening with environmental legislation. A few years ago it seemed that there were secure legal barriers preventing at least SOME of the worst forms of environmental degradation. A change in the political wind, and those barriers begin to crumble.
133,无论是法律、机构、习惯还是伦理规范,任何社会安排都不可能提供永久的保护来防止技术的侵害。历史表明,所有的社会安排都是短暂的,它们最后都会改变或崩坏。但是技术进步在给定的文明的背景下却是永久的。例如假设我们能够作出防止遗传工程应用于人类,或是防止其威胁自由与尊严的某种社会安排,技术仍会等在那里。迟早这种社会安排会崩坏,多半很快就会崩坏,因为我们的社会变化是如此之快。这时,遗传工程就会开始入侵我们的自由领域,而这种入侵却是不可逆的(除非技术文明本身崩坏)。任何通过社会安排获得持久成果的幻想都会被最近在环境立法中发生的事情所打破。几年以前,我们似乎已经有了一些牢靠的法律屏障,至少可以防止某些最坏的环境退化。但是政坛风向一变,这些屏障也就崩溃了。
134. For all of the foregoing reasons, technology is a more powerful social force than the aspiration for freedom. But this statement requires an important qualification. It appears that during the next several decades the industrial-technological system will be undergoing severe stresses due to economic and environmental problems, and especially due to problems of human behavior (alienation, rebellion, hostility, a variety of social and psychological difficulties). We hope that the stresses through which the system is likely to pass will cause it to break down, or at least weaken it sufficiently so that a revolution occurs and is successful, then at that particular moment the aspiration for freedom will have proved more powerful than technology.
134,所有前述理由说明,技术是比自由的渴望更强大的社会力量。但需要对这一陈述作一个重要的限定:在未来几十年中,由于经济和环境问题,特别是由于人类行为的问题(异化、反叛、敌意,许多社会和心理困难),工业-技术体系很可能会承受严重的压力。我们希望体系多半要
经历的这种压力会引发其崩溃,或至少起到足够的削削弱作用,使得革命能够发生并获得成功,那时,自由的渴望将证明自己比技术更强大。
135. In paragraph 125 we used an analogy of a weak neighbor who is left destitute by a strong neighbor who takes all his land by forcing on him a series of compromises. But suppose now that the strong neighbor gets sick, so that he is unable to defend himself. The weak neighbor can force the strong one to give him his land back, or he can kill him. If he lets the strong man survive and only forces him to give his land back, he is a fool, because when the strong man gets well he will again take all the land for himself. The only sensible alternative for the weaker man is to kill the strong one while he has the chance. In the same way, while the industrial system is sick we must destroy it. If we compromise with it and let it recover from its sickness, it will eventually wipe out all of our freedom.
135,在第125段中,我们使用了一个被其强邻通过一系列强制性妥协抢走了所有土地,最后一无所有的弱邻的比喻。但是,假设强邻病了,不能保卫自己了,弱邻就可以迫使其归还自己的土地或在有机会时将其杀死。同样,我们在工业体系患病时将其摧毁。如果我们与其妥协,给它从病中恢复的机会,它将最终剥夺我们所有的自由。
SIMPLER SOCIAL PROBLEMS HAVE PROVED INTRACTABLE
更简单的社会问题也无法得到解决
136. If anyone still imagines that it would be possible to reform the system in such a way as to protect freedom from technology, let him consider how clumsily and for the most part unsuccessfully our society has dealt with other social problems that are far more simple and straightforward. Among other things, the system has failed to stop environmental degradation, political corruption, drug trafficking or domestic abuse.
136,假如还有人以为可以通过改革的方式保护自由不受技术的侵害,那就让他想想我们的社会在应对远远更加简单直接的其他问题时到底有多么笨拙且往往不成功好了。体系未能制止的问题有很多,比方说环境恶化、政治腐败、贩毒或家庭暴力等等。
137. Take our environmental problems, for example. Here the conflict of values is straightforward: economic expedience now versus saving some of our natural resources for our grandchildren [22] But on this subject we get only a lot of blather and obfuscation from the people who have power, and nothing like a clear, consistent line of action, and we keep on piling up environmental problems that our grandchildren will have to live with. Attempts to resolve the environmental issue consist of struggles and compromises between different factions, some of which are ascendant at one moment, others at another moment. The line of struggle changes with the shifting currents of public opinion. This is not a rational process, or is it one that is likely to lead to a timely and successful solution to the problem. Major social problems, if they get "solved" at all, are rarely or never solved through any rational, comprehensive plan. They just work themselves out through a process in which various competing groups pursing their own (usually short-term) self-interest [23] arrive (mainly by luck) at some more or less stable modus vivendi. In fact, the principles we formulated in paragraphs 100-106 make it seem doubtful that rational, long-term social planning can EVER be successful.
137,以环境问题为例。在这里价值的冲突是直截了当的:是要眼前的经济利益还是为我们的子孙保留一些自然资源[22]。然而,关于这个问题我们从掌权者那里得到的只是一些废话和胡话,而没有得到任何清楚一贯的行动路线。与此同时我们则继续为子孙积累环境问题。解决环境问题的尝试成为不同集团之间的斗争与妥协,有时这边占上风,有时那边占上风。战线随着公众舆论的飘移不定而变化。这不是一个理性的过程,也不能及时且成功地解决问题。大的社会问题,即使能够“解决”,解决方式也很少是理性、全面的计划。各个相互竞争的群体在各自追求(往往是短期的)自身利益的过程中[23]主要凭运气达成了某种多多少少还算稳定的临时解决办法,这样问题就算是得到了解决。实际上,我们在100-106段系统地阐述的原理已经显示了理性长期的社会计划很难成功。
[22]. (Paragraph 137) Here we are considering only the conflict of values within the mainstream. For the sake of simplicity we leave out of the picture "outsider" values like the idea that wild nature is more important than human economic welfare.
【22】(137段)我们这里仅仅考虑主流之内的价值观冲突。为了简化讨论,我们姑且忽略了“非主流”理念的价值观,例如认为野生自然界比人类经济福祉更重要的看法。
[23]. (Paragraph 137) Self-interest is not necessarily MATERIAL self-interest. It can consist in fulfillment of some psychological need, for example, by promoting one‘s own ideology or religion.
【23】(137段)自身利益未必一定是物质性的,也可能包含特定心理需求的满足,例如通过传播自身信仰的宗教或意识形态来获得满足感。
138. Thus it is clear that the human race has at best a very limited capacity for solving even relatively straightforward social problems. How then is it going to solve the far more difficult and subtle problem of reconciling freedom with technology? Technology presents clear-cut material advantages, whereas freedom is an abstraction that means different things to different people, and its loss is easily obscured by propaganda and fancy talk.
138,因此很显然,即使只解决相对直截了当的社会问题,人类的能力也是十分有限的。那么,人类又怎么能够解决协调自由与技术关系这样远为困难且微妙的问题呢?技术显示的是明确的物质优势,而自由是对不同的人有着不同含义的抽象概念,宣传和花哨的言论很容易掩盖自由的缺失。
139. And note this important difference: It is conceivable that our environmental problems (for example) may some day be settled through a rational, comprehensive plan, but if this happens it will be only because it is in the long-term interest of the system to solve these problems. But it is NOT in the interest of the system to preserve freedom or small-group autonomy. On the contrary, it is in the interest of the system to bring human behavior under control to the greatest possible extent. [24] Thus, while practical considerations may eventually force the system to take a rational, prudent approach to environmental problems, equally practical considerations will force the system to regulate human behavior ever more closely (preferably by indirect means that will disguise the encroachment on freedom.) This isn‘t just our opinion. Eminent social scientists (e.g. James Q. Wilson) have stressed the importance of "socializing" people more effectively.
139,而且请注意这样一项重要区别:可以想像某一天我们的环境问题(比方说)可以通过一项理性的全面计划得到解决,但这一切只有在解决环境问题符合体系的长期利益时才可能发生。然而保留自由和小群体的自主权却不符合体系的利益。正相反,最大程度地控制人类行为才符合体系的利益。因此出于实际利益的考虑有可能最终迫使体系采取理性且深谋远虑的手段去解决环境问题,但同样的实际考虑却会迫使体系更严格地管制人类的行为(最好是通过能够掩盖其侵蚀自由之举的间接手段)。这不仅仅是我们的看法。杰出的社会科学家们(例如James Q. Wilson)也曾经强调过更有效地“社会化”人民的重要性。
[24]. (Paragraph 139) A qualification: It is in the interest of the system to permit a certain prescribed degree of freedom in some areas. For example, economic freedom (with suitable limitations and restraints) has proved effective in promoting economic growth. But only planned, circumscribed, limited freedom is in the interest of the system. The individual must always be kept on a leash, even if the leash is sometimes long( see paragraphs 94, 97).
【24】(第139段)一个限制条件:在某些领域允许某些指定程度的自由符合体系的利益。例如经济自由(辅之以适当的限制和约束)可以有效地促进经济发展。但只有有计划、有约束、有限制的自由才符合体系利益。个人必须得被拴上绳子,即使绳子有时放得很长(参看94、97段)
REVOLUTION IS EASIER THAN REFORM
革命比改革更容易
140. We hope we have convinced the reader that the system cannot be reformed in a such a way as to reconcile freedom with technology. The only way out is to dispense with the industrial-technological system altogether. This implies revolution, not necessarily an armed uprising, but certainly a radical and fundamental change in the nature of society.
140,我们希望我们已经说服了读者,体系无法通过改革来调和自由与技术。唯一的出路是摒弃整个工业-技术休系。这意味着革命,不一定是武装起义,但肯定是激烈而根本的社会性质变化
141. People tend to assume that because a revolution involves a much greater change than reform does, it is more difficult to bring about than reform is. Actually, under certain circumstances revolution is much easier than reform. The reason is that a revolutionary movement can inspire an intensity of commitment that a reform movement cannot inspire. A reform movement merely offers to solve a particular social problem A revolutionary movement offers to solve all problems at one stroke and create a whole new world; it provides the kind of ideal for which people will take great risks and make great sacrifices. For this reasons it would be much easier to overthrow the whole technological system than to put effective, permanent restraints on the development of application of any one segment of technology, such as genetic engineering, but under suitable conditions large numbers of people may devote themselves passionately to a revolution against the industrial-technological system. As we noted in paragraph 132, reformers seeking to limite certain aspects of technology would be working to avoid a negative outcome. But revolutionaries work to gain a powerful reward -- fulfillment of their revolutionary vision -- and therefore work harder and more persistently than reformers do.
141,人们倾向于想当然地认为,由于革命带来的变化比改革大,所以革命也就比改革更难发动。实际上,在某些条件下革命比改革容易得多。这是因为一场革命运动能够激发出人们极大的献身热情,而一场改革运动却不能。一场革命运动许诺一下子解决所有问题并创造整个新世界;它提供人民为之甘冒风险、甘作牺牲的理想。由于这些理由,推翻整个技术体系要比对技术的某一部分——如遗传工程的应用发展——进行有效、持久的限制容易得多。在适当的条件下,许许多多的人会热情地献身于推翻工业技术体系的革命。正如我们在132段提到的那样,寻求限制技术的某些方面的改革者是为了避免不良后果而工作。然而,革命者是为了获得强力的报偿一一实现其革命理想——而工作,因此他们比改革者更努力且更执著。
142. Reform is always restrainde by the fear of painful consequences if changes go too far. But once a revolutionary fever has taken hold of a society, people are willing to undergo unlimited hardships for the sake of their revolution. This was clearly shown in the French and Russian Revolutions. It may be that in such cases only a minority of the population is really committed to the revolution, but this minority is sufficiently large and active so that it becomes the dominant force in society. We will have more to say about revolution in paragraphs 180-205.
142,改革总是为对于变化过大有可能带来的痛苦后果的恐惧所阻遏。而一旦革命的狂热控制了一个社会,人民会为了革命事业而忍受无与伦比的苦难。法国与俄国革命充分显示了这一点。很可能在这些案例中,只有少数人真正献身于革命,但这少数人已足够多且足够积极,足以成为社会的主导力量。我们将在180-200段更深入地探讨革命.
CONTROL OF HUMAN BEHAVIOR
控制人类行为
143. Since the beginning of civilization, organized societies have had to put pressures on human beings of the sake of the functioning of the social organism. The kinds of pressures vary greatly from one society to another. Some of the pressures are physical (poor diet, excessive labor, environmental pollution), some are psychological (noise, crowding, forcing humans behavior into the mold that society requires). In the past, human nature has been approximately constant, or at any rate has varied only within certain bounds. Consequently, societies have been able to push people only up to certain limits. When the limit of human endurance has been passed, things start going rong: rebellion, or crime, or corruption, or evasion of work, or depression and other mental problems, or an elevated death rate, or a declining birth rate or something else, so that either the society breaks down, or its functioning becomes too inefficient and it is (quickly or gradually, through conquest, attrition or evolution) replaces by some more efficient form of society.?
143,自文明肇始,有组织的社会便对人们施加压力以保证社会有机体的运行。这类压力在各个社会中极为不同。某些压力是生理的(缺乏营养、过度劳累、环境污染),某些是心理的(噪音、拥挤、按社会所要求的模式重塑人类行为)。过去,人性基本上是恒定的,有变化也不会超越某种界限。因此社会也不能将人推过一定界限。当人的耐受极限被突破时,问题就来了:反叛、犯罪、腐败、逃避工作、抑郁和其他精神问题、死亡率升高、出生率降低,等等;社会或是崩坏,或是不能有效运行,最终将会(或快或慢地通过征服、内耗或演进)被其他更为有效的社会形式所取代。
【25】. (Paragraph 143) We don‘t mean to suggest that the efficiency or the potential for survival of a society has always been inversely proportional to the amount of pressure or discomfort to which the society subjects people. That is certainly not the case. There is good reason to believe that many primitive societies subjected people to less pressure than the European society did, but European society proved far more efficient than any primitive society and always won out in conflicts with such societies because of the advantages conferred by technology.
【25】(143段)我们并不是说一个社会生存的效能和潜能总是与该社会加于其人民的压力或不适成反比。这显然是不正确的。有充分理由相信许多原始社会加于其人民的压力比欧洲社会小,但欧洲社会远比任何原始社会更有效能,而且在与这些社会冲突时总能因为技术优势而胜出。
144, Thus human nature has in the past put certain limits on the development of societies. People coud be pushed only so far and no farther. But today this may be changing, because modern technology is developing way of modifying human beings.
144,因而在过去,人性对于社会的发展设置了某些界限,人们至多被推到此处而不会逾越。然而今天情况已经发生了变化,因为现代技术正在开发改造人类的方法。
145. Imagine a society that subjects people to conditions that make them terribley unhappy, then gives them the drugs to take away their unhappiness. Science fiction? It is already happening to some extent in our own society. It is well known that the rate of clinical depression had been greatly increasing in recent decades. We believe that this is due to disruption fo the power process, as explained in paragraphs 59-76. But even if we are wrong, the increasing rate of depression is certainly the result of SOME conditions that exist in today‘s society. Instead of removing the conditions that make people depressed, modern society gives them antidepressant drugs. In effect, antidepressants area a means of modifying an individual‘s internal state in such a way as to enable him to toelrate social conditions that he would otherwise find intolerable. (Yes, we know that depression is often of purely genetic origin. We are referring here to those cases in which environment plays the predominant role.)
145,设想这样一个社会,它可以迫使人们处于极度不快的状况,然后向他们提供药物以解消他们的不快。这是科学幻想吗?某种程度上这种事正在我们的社会里上演。在最近几十年中,可临床诊断的抑郁症发病率迅速上升。我们相信这是由于权力过程遭到打断而导致的,如59-76段解释的那样。但即使我们错了,抑郁症发病率的提高也肯定是由于当代社会的某些条件造成的。现代社会不是去改变那些使人们抑郁的条件,而是给人们抗抑郁药。实际上抗抑郁药是改变个人的内在状态以使其能够忍受其原先不能忍受的社会条件的一种手段(是的,我们知道抑郁显时常是纯遗传性的。我们在这里谈的是那些环境起决定作用的病例)
146. Drugs that affect the mind are only one example of the methods of controlling human behavior that modern society is developing. Let us look at some of the other methods.
146.,用于人类头脑的药物仅仅是现代社会正在开发的控制人类行为方法的一个例子。让我们看看其他例子
147. To start with, there are the techniques of surveillance. Hidden video cameras are now used in most stores and in many other places, computers are used to collect and process vast amounts of information about individuals. Information so obtained greatly increases the effectiveness of physical coercion (i.e., law enforcement).[26] Then there are the methods of propaganda, for which the mass communication media provide effective vehicles. Efficient techniques have been developed for winning elections, selling products, influencing public opinion. The entertainment industry serves as an important psychological tool of the system, possibly even when it is dishing out large amounts of sex and violence. Entertainment provides modern man with an essential means of escape. While absorbed in television, videos, etc., he can forget stress, anxiety, frustration, dissatisfaction. Many primitive peoples, when they don‘t have work to do, are quite content to sit for hours at a time doing nothing at all, because they are at peace with themselves and their world. But most modern people must be contantly occupied or entertained, otherwise the get "bored," i.e., they get fidgety, uneasy, irritable.
147,让我们从监视技术开始。隐蔽的录像摄影机今天在大多数商店和许多其他地方使用,计算机被用来收集和处理大量的个人信息。如此获取的信息大大加强了生理强制(即执法)的有效性。[26] 然后是宣传手段,大众传播媒介为此提供了有效的载体。有效的技术被开发来,使选举、销售产品、影响民意娱乐的产业成为了体系的重要心理工具,即使是在大量播放性与暴力的时候。娱乐业为现代人提供了逃避现实的必要手段。当人们关注于电视、录像等时,就会忘悼紧张、焦虑、挫折、不满等情绪。许多原始民族在无需劳作的闲暇时候很乐意一连坐上几个小时无所事事,因为他们与自身以及外在世界和睦相处。但是多数现代人必须不停地忙碌或不停地娱乐,不然就会“厌倦”,坐立不安、心神不定、烦燥易怒。
[26]. (Paragraph 147) If you think that more effective law enforcement is unequivocally good because it suppresses crime, then remember that crime as defined by the system is not necessarily what YOU would call crime. Today, smoking marijuana is a "crime," and, in some places in the U.S.., so is possession of ANY firearm, registered or not, may be made a crime, and the same thing may happen with disapproved methods of child-rearing, such as spanking. In some countries, expression of dissident political opinions is a crime, and there is no certainty that this will never happen in the U.S., since no constitution or political system lasts forever.
【26】如果你认为更有效的执法手段打击了犯罪,因此只有好处没有坏处,那么不要忘了,体系定义的犯罪未必就是在你眼中的犯罪行为。吸食大麻在今天美国的某些地区是“犯罪”。持有火器,无论注册与否,也有可能变成犯罪。同样,不受认可的育儿方式,例如打屁股,也有可能变成犯罪。在某些国家,表达异见政治观点是犯罪。谁也不敢说美国永远也不会发生这种事,因为任何宪制或政体都不可能永远存在下去。
If a society needs a large, powerful law enforcement establishment, then there is something gravely wrong with that society; it must be subjecting people to severe pressures if so many refuse to follow the rules, or follow them only because forced. Many societies in the past have gotten by with little or no formal law-enforcement.
如果一个社会需要一个庞大且强有力的执法机构,那么这个社会肯定有些什么严重的毛病:如果有那么多的人拒绝遵守规则,或者只有在遭受强迫的时候才肯遵守规则,那么这个社会必须向人们施以强大压力。过去很多社会并没有正式执法力量,或者执法力量有限,不过也照样运行得很好。
148. Other techniques strike deeper that the foregoing. Education is no longer a simple affair of paddling a kid‘s behind when he doesn‘t know his lessons and patting him on the head when he does know them. It is becoming a scientific technique for controlling the child‘s development. Sylvan Learning Centers, for example, have had great success in motivating children to study, and psychological techniques are also used with more or less success in many conventional schools. "Parenting" techniques that are taught to parents are designed to make children accept fundamental values of the system and behave in ways that the system finds desirable. "Mental health" programs, "intervention" techniques, psychotherapy and so forth are ostensibly designed to benefit individuals, but in practice they usually serve as methods for inducing individuals to think and behave as the system requires. (There is no contradiction here; an individual whose attitudes or behavior bring him into conflict with the system is up against a force that is too powerful for him to conquer or escape from, hence he is likely to suffer from stress, frustration, defeat. His path will be much easier if he thinks and behaves as the system requires. In that sense the system is acting for the benefit of the individual when it brainwashes him into conformity.) Child abuse in its gross and obvious forms is disapproved in most if not all cultures. Tormenting a child for a trivial reason or no reason at all is something that appalls almost everyone. But many psychologists interpret the concept of abuse much more broadly. Is spanking, when used as part of a rational and consistent system of discipline, a form of abuse? The question will ultimately be decided by whether or not spanking tends to produce behavior that makes a person fit in well with the existing system of society. In practice, the word "abuse" tends to be interpreted to include any method of child-rearing that produces behavior inconvenient for the system. Thus, when they go beyond the prevention of obvious, senseless cruelty, programs for preventing "child abuse" are directed toward the control of human behavior of the system.
148,其他技术的影响比上文所述更深远。教育已经不再是孩子不会功课时打打他的屁股、会了就拍拍他的头这样简单的事了。它成了一门控制儿童发展的科学技术。例如,西尔瓦学习中心(Sylvan Learning Centers)在激励儿童学习方面取得了很大成功,而心理学技术在许多常规学校中的应用也多多少少取得了成功。教给家长们的“如何做家长”的技术是为了使儿童接受体系的基本价值观并按照体系的要求行事而设计的。“精神健康”计划、“参与教学”技术、心理
治疗等等表面上是为了个人的利益设计的,但实际上它们往往是诱导个人按照体系的要求去想去做的一种方法(这里确实也没有什么矛盾,如果个人的态度和行为与体系发生了冲突,那么他就是在与一个极为强大的力量作对,他既无法战胜也无法躲避,因此他就会因紧张、挫折、失败而痛苦。如果他按照体系的要求去想去做,他的路就会容易得多。在这个意义上,体系对个人进行洗脑,使他顺从,确实是为了他好。大多数文化——如果不是全部——都不赞同以粗暴且明显的方式虐待儿童。为了一点小事或无事便折磨一个儿童,这使几乎每一个人都感到厌恶。但是许多心理学家把虐待的概念无限扩大。打屁股,作为教育孩子遵守纪律的理性并合谐的体系的一部分,是否算虐待?这个问题的答案最终要由打屁股是否能使一个人良好地适应社会的现存体系而定。实际上,虐待这个词的解释几乎包括了所有会导致不利于体系的行为的抚育儿童方法。因此,当防止“虐待儿童”的计划超出了防止明显且无意义的残酷行为时,其目的就已经在于加强体系对于人类行为的控制了。
149. Presumably, research will continue to increas the effectiveness of psychological techniques for controlling human behavior. But we think it is unlikely that psychological techniques alone will be sufficient to adjust human beings to the kind of society that technology is creating. Biological methods probably will have to be used. We have already mentiond the use of drugs in this connection. Neurology may provide other avenues of modifying the human mind. Genetic engineering of human beings is already beginning to occur in the form of "gene therapy," and there is no reason to assume the such methods will not eventually be used to modify those aspects of the body that affect mental funtioning.
149,可以推测,研究将继续增强心理学技术用于控制人类行为的有效性。但是,我们认为。仅凭心理学技术就使人类适应技术正在创造的这种杜会是不可能的。生物学方法多半也会被用上。这方面我们已经提到了药物的使用。神经病学也许可以提供改造人类头脑的其他途径,人类遗传工程已经以“基因疗法”的形式开始冒头了,没有理由认为这些办法最终不会被用来改造能够影响思维的身体机能。
150. As we mentioned in paragraph 134, industrial society seems likely to be entering a period of severe stress, due in part to problems of human behavior and in part to economic and environmental problems. And a considerable proportion of the system‘s economic and environmental problems result from the way human beings behave. Alienation, low self-esteem, depression, hostility, rebellion; children who won‘t study, youth gangs, illegal drug use, rape, child abuse , other crimes, unsafe sex, teen pregnancy, population growth, political corruption, race hatred, ethnic rivalry, bitter ideological conflict (i.e., pro-choice vs. pro-life), political extremism, terrorism, sabotage, anti-government groups, hate groups. All these threaten the very survival of the system. The system will be FORCED to use every practical means of controlling human behavior.
150,正如我们在134段提到的那样。工业化社会似乎正在进人一个严重紧张的时期,部分是由于人类行为的问题,部分是由于经济及环境问题。而体系的经济及环境问题当中很大一部分又是由人类行为引起的。异化、缺乏自尊、抑郁、敌意、叛逆、厌学儿童、青少年犯罪团伙、毒品、强奸、虐待儿童、其他罪行、滥交、少女怀孕、人口增长、吹治腐败、种族仇恨、民族对立、意识形态对立(例如支持与反对人工堕胎的问题)、政治极端主义、恐怖主义、破坏、反政府集团、仇恨集团,等等。所有这些都直接威胁着体系的生存,体系将被迫使用所有可行的手
段来控制人类行为。
151. The social disruption that we see today is certainly not the result of mere chance. It can only be a result of the conditions of life that the system imposes on people. (We have argued that the most important of these conditions is disruption of the power process.) If the systems succeeds in imposing sufficient control over human behavior to assure itw own survival, a new watershed in human history will have passed. Whereas formerly the limits of human endurance have imposed limits on the development of societies (as we explained in paragraphs 143, 144), industrial-technological society will be able to pass those limits by modifying human beings, whether by psychological methods or biological methods or both. In the future, social systems will not be adjusted to suit the needs of human beings. Instead, human being will be adjusted to suit the needs of the system.[27]
151,我们今天所见的社会动荡肯定不是偶然,只能是体系强加于人们的生存条件所造成结果(我们曾经论证过这些条件中最重要的是权力过程的中断)。如果体系能够成功地对人类行为施加足够的控制以保障其自身的生存,那么,人类历史将跨越一条分水岭。过去,人类耐受力的界限曾经成为社会发展的界限(如我们在143,144段中解释的那样),但是工业——技术社会将能够通过改造人类—无论是依靠心理学方法还是生物学方法,抑或双管齐下——来逾越这些界限。未来的社会体系将不再作调整以适应人类的需要,而是人类作调整以适应社会的需要。【27】
[27]. (Paragraph 151) To be sure, past societies have had means of influencing behavior, but these have been primitive and of low effectiveness compared with the technological means that are now being developed.
【27】(第151段)的确,过去的社会也拥有影响人类行为的手段,但是与现代技术发展起来的现金手段相比,这些手段十分原始且效果有限。
152. Generally speaking, technological control over human behavior will probably not be introduced with a totalitarian intention or even through a conscious desire to restrict human freedom. [28] Each new step in the assertion of control over the human mind will be taken as a rational response to a problem that faces society, such as curing alcoholism, reducing the crime rate or inducing young people to study science and engineering. In many cases, there will be humanitarian justification. For example, when a psychiatrist prescribes an anti-depressant for a depressed patient, he is clearly doing that individual a favor. It would be inhumane to withhold the drug from someone who needs it. When parents send their children to Sylvan Learning Centers to have them manipulated into becoming enthusiastic about their studies, they do so from concern for their children‘s welfare. It may be that some of these parents wish that one didn‘t have to have specialized training to get a job and that their kid didn‘t have to be brainwashed into becoming a computer nerd. But what can they do? They can‘t change society, and their child may be unemployable if he doesn‘t have certain skills. So they send him to Sylvan.
152,一般来说,对于人类行为的技术控制多半并非出于极权主义意图,甚至并非出于有意识地限制人类自由的愿望。[28] 控制人类思想的每一步都是针对社会所面临问题的合理反应。例如防治酗酒、降低犯罪率或者引导年轻人学习科学技术。在许多情况下,总能找到正当的人道主义理由。例如,当一个精神病专家给一个抑郁症患者开抗抑郁药物时,他显然是在帮助那个人。不给一个需要药物的人吃药是不人道的。家长们把他们的孩子送到西尔瓦学习中心去接受改造从而使他们热爱学习的动机自然也是关心自己孩子的幸福。也许其中有些家长并不喜欢不经特殊训练就找不到工作的社会现实,也不希望看到自已的孩子被迫经过洗脑后变成计算机宅男。但他们有什么办法?他们不能改变社会,他们的孩子如果不掌握某些技术就找不到工作,所以他们把孩子送去西尔瓦。
[28]. (Paragraph 152) However, some psychologists have publicly expressed opinions indicating their contempt for human freedom. And the mathematician Claude Shannon was quoted in Omni (August 1987) as saying, "I visualize a time when we will be to robots what dogs are to humans, and I‘m rooting for the machines."
【28】(第152段)无论如何,一些心理学家公开表示了他们付于人类自由的蔑视。《Omni》杂志 (1987年8月号)曾引用数学家克劳德.香农的言论:“我想象有一天我们与机器人的关系就像今天的狗与人一样,而我支持机器人那边。”
153. Thus control over human behavior will be introduced not by a calculated decision of the authorities but through a process of social evolution (RAPID evolution, however). The process will be impossible to resist, because each advance, considered by itself, will appear to be beneficial, or at least the evil involved in making the advance will appear to be beneficial, or at least the evil involved in making the advance will seem to be less than that which would result from not making it (see paragraph 127). Propaganda for example is used for many good purposes, such as discouraging child abuse or race hatred. [14] Sex education is obviously useful, yet the effect of sex education (to the extent that it is successful) is to take the shaping of sexual attitudes away from the family and put it into the hands of the state as represented by the public school system.
153,因此,对于人类行为的控制并非出自当局的蓄意的决策,而是出自社会进化(快速进化)过程。这一过程将是难以抗拒的,因为单独考虑向前迈出的每一步,则似乎每一步都是有利的,或者至少迈出这一步所产生的危害比不迈这一步所产生的祸害要小(参见127段)。例如,宣传被用于许多良好的目的,如减少虐待儿童或种族仇恨。性教育显然是有用的,然而性教育(如果有效的话)的作用是把对于性观念的引导权从家庭夺走,交到以公立学校体系为代表的国家手中。
154. Suppose a biological trait is discovered that increases the likelihood that a child will grow up to be a criminal and suppose some sort of gene therapy can remove this trait. [29] Of course most parents whose children possess the trait will have them undergo the therapy. It would be inhumane to do otherwise, since the child would probably have a miserable life if he grew up to be a criminal. But many or most primitive societies have a low crime rate in comparison with that of our society, even though they have neither high-tech methods of child-rearing nor harsh systems of punishment. Since there is no reason to suppose that more modern men than primitive men have innate predatory tendencies, the high crime rate of our society must be due to the pressures that modern conditions put on people, to which many cannot or will not adjust. Thus a treatment designed to remove potential criminal tendencies is at least in part a way of re-engineering people so that they suit the requirements of the system.
154,假设人们发现某种生物学性状能够增加某个儿童长大后成为罪犯的概率,并假设某种基因疗法可以去除这种性状[29],当然许多家长都会把具有这种性状的子女送去接受治疗。不这么做是不人道的,因为如果孩子长大后成为罪犯,他的一生多半会很悲惨。但许多或大多数原始社会的犯罪率都比我们的社会低,虽然它们既没有高科技的抚育儿童方法,也没有严厉的惩罚制度。没有理由认为现代人比原始人天生就更为掠夺成性。我们社会的高犯罪率必然是现代生活条件强加于人的压力造成的,对于这些压力许多人不能或不愿适应。因此去除潜在犯罪倾向的疗法至少在一定程度上是一种重新设计制造人类以便使他们满足体系要求的方法
29. (Paragraph 154) This is no science fiction! After writing paragraph 154 we came across an article in Scientific American according to which scientists are actively developing techniques for identifying possible future criminals and for treating them by a combination of biological and psychological means. Some scientists advocate compulsory application of the treatment, which may be available in the near future. (See "Seeking the Criminal Element", by W. Wayt Gibbs, Scientific American, March 1995.) Maybe you think this is OK because the treatment would be applied to those who might become drunk drivers (they endanger human life too), then perhaps to peel who spank their children, then to environmentalists who sabotage logging equipment, eventually to anyone whose behavior is inconvenient for the system.
【29】(第154段)这不是科学幻想!在写完第154段后。我们碰巧在《科学美国人》当中发现了一篇文章。据这篇文章说,科学家们正在积极开发辩认潜在罪犯并用生物学和心理学的综合手段为其治疗的技术。一些科学家家主张施行义务治疗,这种疗法可能不久就会出现。(参见《寻找犯罪分子》(Seeking the Criminal Element),作者 W. Wayt Gibbs,《科学美国人》,1995年3月号)。也许你认为这挺好,因为他们治的是那些有可能醉酒驾车的人(这些人也对人类生命构成了威胁),不过此后他们就要修理那些打孩子屁股的人,然后是那些破坏伐木机械的环境主义者,最后是任何为体系找麻烦的人。
155. Our society tends to regard as a "sickness" any mode of thought or behavior that is inconvenient for the system, and this is plausible because when an individual doesn‘t fit into the system it causes pain to the individual as well as problems for the system. Thus the manipulation of an individual to adjust him to the system is seen as a "cure" for a "sickness" and therefore as good.
155,我们的社会倾向于将不利于体系的思想或行为模式视为“病态”,这样做看起来似乎也很有道理,因为如果一个人不适应体系,其后果不仅仅是给体系带来麻烦,其个人也会遭受痛苦。因此,揉搓一个人使其适应体系被看作是“治病”,因而是好事。
156. In paragraph 127 we pointed out that if the use of a new item of technology is INITIALLY optional, it does not necessarily REMAIN optional, because the new technology tends to change society in such a way that it becomes difficult or impossible for an individual to function without using that technology. This applies also to the technology of human behavior. In a world in which most children are put through a program to make them enthusiastic about studying, a parent will almost be forced to put his kid through such a program, because if he does not, then the kid will grow up to be, comparatively speaking, an ignoramus and therefore unemployable. Or suppose a biological treatment is discovered that, without undesirable side-effects, will greatly reduce the psychological stress from which so many people suffer in our society. If large numbers of people choose to undergo the treatment, then the general level of stress in society will be reduced, so that it will be possible for the system to increase the stress-producing pressures. In fact, something like this seems to have happened already with one of our society‘s most important psychological tools for enabling people to reduce (or at least temporarily escape from) stress, namely, mass entertainment (see paragraph 147). Our use of mass entertainment is "optional": No law requires us to watch television, listen to the radio, read magazines. Yet mass entertainment is a means of escape and stress-reduction on which most of us have become dependent. Everyone complains about the trashiness of television, but almost everyone watches it. A few have kicked the TV habit, but it would be a rare person who could get along today without using ANY form of mass entertainment. (Yet until quite recently in human history most people got along very nicely with no other entertainment than that which each local community created for itself.) Without the entertainment industry the system probably would not have been able to get away with putting as much stress-producing pressure on us as it does.
156,在第l27段我们曾指出,即使某一项新技术的使用一开始是非强制性的,它也不一定一直都会是非强制性的,因为新技术将改变社会,以致于个人离开了该项技术就很难或无法生存。这同样适用于涉及人类行为的技术。在一个大多数儿童都接受使之热爱学习的训练计划的世界里,家长几乎是被迫送他的孩子接受这种训练计划的。如果他不送,他的孩子长大后和其他人相比就会显得像个笨蛋,并因此而失业。再假设人们发明了一种生物学疗法,可以大大减少困扰我们社会中许多人的紧张症,并且没有什么副作用。如果许多人都接受这种治疗,社会的总的紧张水平就会降低,而体系也就可以增强制造紧张的压力。事实上,类似现象已经在我们的社会中出现了,这就是大众娱乐(参看147段),我们社会使人们能够减少(或至少暂时逃避)紧张的最重要的心理学工具之一。大众娱乐的使用是非强制性的:没有任何法律要求我们一定要看电视、听收音机、读杂志。然而,大众娱乐已经成为了我们之中大多数人所依赖的逃避或减少紧张情绪的手段。每一个人都抱怨电视节目尽是垃圾,但几乎每一个人都看电视。有些人可能不看电视,但令天已很少有人拒绝任何形式的大众娱乐。(然而,直至相当切近的人类历史时期,大多数人仅仅享用本地社区的娱乐便能够过得很好)
157. Assuming that industrial society survives, it is likely that technology will eventually acquire something approaching complete control over human behavior. It has been established beyond any rational doubt that human thought and behavior have a largely biological basis. As experimenters have demonstrated, feelings such as hunger, pleasure, anger and fear can be turned on and off by electrical stimulation of appropriate parts of the brain. Memories can be destroyed by damaging parts of the brain or they can be brought to the surface by electrical stimulation. Hallucinations can be induced or moods changed by drugs. There may or may not be an immaterial human soul, but if there is one it clearly is less powerful that the biological mechanisms of human behavior. For if that were not the case then researchers would not be able so easily to manipulate human feelings and behavior with drugs and electrical currents.
157,假如工业化社会能够存在下去,技术很可能最终将找到完全控制人类行为的某种方法。人类的思想和行为有着深厚的生物学基础,这一点已是不容质疑的了。实验人员告诉我们:通过用电刺激大脑的适当部位。可以挑起或关闭诸如饥饿、愉快、愤怒和恐惧等感觉。可以通过破坏大脑的某些部位来消除记忆,也可以通过电刺激来使记忆浮现。可以用药诱发幻觉,也可以用药改变情绪。非物质性的人类灵魂可能有也可能没有,即使有,它也显然不如人类行为的生物学机制那么强大。否则研究人员不可能如此容易地使用药物和电流来操纵人类的感情和行为。
158. It presumably would be impractical for all people to have electrodes inserted in their heads so that they could be controlled by the authorities. But the fact that human thoughts and feelings are so open to biological intervention shows that the problem of controlling human behavior is mainly a technical problem; a problem of neurons, hormones and complex molecules; the kind of problem that is accessible to scientific attack. Given the outstanding record of our society in solving technical problems, it is overwhelmingly probable that great advances will be made in the control of human behavior.
158,将所有人的脑袋都插上电极以便当局控制大概是不切实际的。但人类的思想和感觉如此易受生物介入这一事实说明控制人类行为仅仅是一个技术问题,一个涉及神经元、激素和复杂分子的问题,一个可以用科学解决的问题。我们的社会在解决技术问题方面有着非凡的记录,因此它在控制人类行为方面将取得巨大进步实在是十拿九稳的事。
159. Will public resistance prevent the introduction of technological control of human behavior? It certainly would if an attempt were made to introduce such control all at once. But since technological control will be introduced through a long sequence of small advances, there will be no rational and effective public resistance. (See paragraphs 127,132, 153.)
159,公众抵抗能够防止对人类行为进行技术控制吗?如果谁要想一下子就进行全面的控制,那么公众的抵抗肯定会奏效。但是因为技术控制将是通过一长串连续的微小进展逐渐实现的,也就不会出现理性或有效的公共抵抗。(见第127、132、153段)
160. To those who think that all this sounds like science fiction, we point out that yesterday‘s science fiction is today‘s fact. The Industrial Revolution has radically altered man‘s environment and way of life, and it is only to be expected that as technology is increasingly applied to the human body and mind, man himself will be altered as radically as his environment and way of life have been.
160,对于那些认为这一切无非是科幻小说的人们,我们想指出,昨天的科学幻想小说在今天已成为了现实。工业革命已经极大地改变了人类的环境和生活方式,完全可以预期,随着技术不断地应用于人类的身体和思维,人类自身将发生的变化不会小于其环境和生活方式已经产生的变化。
HUMAN RACE AT A CROSSROADS
十字路口的人类
161. But we have gotten ahead of our story. It is one thing to develop in the laboratory a series of psychological or biological techniques for manipulating human behavior and quite another to integrate these techniques into a functioning social system. The latter problem is the more difficult of the two. For example, while the techniques of educational psychology doubtless work quite well in the "lab schools" where they are developed, it is not necessarily easy to apply them effectively throughout our educational system. We all know what many of our schools are like. The teachers are too busy taking knives and guns away from the kids to subject them to the latest techniques for making them into computer nerds. Thus, in spite of all its technical advances relating to human behavior the system to date has not been impressively successful in controlling human beings. The people whose behavior is fairly well under the control of the system are those of the type that might be called "bourgeois." But there are growing numbers of people who in one way or another are rebels against the system: welfare leaches, youth gangs cultists, satanists, nazis, radical environmentalists, militiamen, etc..
161,但是,我们的故事或许还是超前了一点。在实验室里开发一系列操纵人类行为的心理学或生物学技术是一回事,将这些技术整合进一个运转的社会体系则是另一回事。后一个问题更困难。例如,教育心理学技术在开发这些技术的“实验学校”中无疑十分有效,但要在我们的整个教育体系中有效地运用就不见得那么容易了。我们都知道我们的许多学校是什么样的。老师们正忙于收缴孩子们的刀具与枪支,根本没有时间运用最新技术把他们造就成计算机宅男。因此,虽然拥有这些关乎人类行为的技术进步,体系迄今在控制人类行为方而尚未取得令人印象深刻的成功。其行为受到体系很好控制的人是那些可以被称为“小资产阶级”的类型。但越来越多的人在这方面或那方面成为了体系的叛逆:社会福利的寄生虫、青年犯罪团伙、邪教崇拜者、恶魔崇拜者、纳粹分子、激进环境保护主义者、民间军事集团,等等。
162. The system is currently engaged in a desperate struggle to overcome certain problems that threaten its survival, among which the problems of human behavior are the most important. If the system succeeds in acquiring sufficient control over human behavior quickly enough, it will probably survive. Otherwise it will break down. We think the issue will most likely be resolved within the next several decades, say 40 to 100 years.
162,体系目前正在为克服某些威胁到其生存的问题进行着拼死的斗争,在这其中最重要的或许就是人类行为问题。如果体系能够及时地掌握充分控制人类行为的能力,它就多半能够生存下去。否则它就会崩溃。我们认为这个问题多半在今后几十年,大约在40至100年间,就能见分晓。
163. Suppose the system survives the crisis of the next several decades. By that time it will have to have solved, or at least brought under control, the principal problems that confront it, in particular that of "socializing" human beings; that is, making people sufficiently docile so that their behavior no longer threatens the system. That being accomplished, it does not appear that there would be any further obstacle to the development of technology, and it would presumably advance toward its logical conclusion, which is complete control over everything on Earth, including human beings and all other important organisms. The system may become a unitary, monolithic organization, or it may be more or less fragmented and consist of a number of organizations coexisting in a relationship that includes elements of both cooperation and competition, just as today the government, the corporations and other large organizations both cooperate and compete with one another. Human freedom mostly will have vanished, because individuals and small groups will be impotent vis-a-vis large organizations armed with supertechnology and an arsenal of advanced psychological and biological tools for manipulating human beings, besides instruments of surveillance and physical coercion. Only a small number of people will have any real power, and even these probably will have only very limited freedom, because their behavior too will be regulated; just as today our politicians and corporation executives can retain their positions of power only as long as their behavior remains within certain fairly narrow limits.
153,假设体系能够度过今后几十年的危机。到那时,它必须已经解决或至少控制住了它面临的主要问题,特别是“社会化”人类的问题,即将人们改造得足够驯顺,使得他们的行为不再威胁到体系。实现了这一点之后,技术的发展就不再会有任何障碍,它将会走向它的逻辑终点,也就是完全控制地球上的一切,包括人类和所有其它重要的有机体。体系将成为铁板一块的整体组织,或者多多少少分成几块,由几十个既合作又竞争的共存组织共同组成,就像今天的政府、公司和其他大型组织既合作又竞争一样。人类自由基本上将不复存在,因为个人和小群体无法对抗用超级技术以及可以操纵改造人类的先进心理学和生物学工具武装起来的大型组织,更不用说后者还掌握着监视仪器和物理强制手段了。只有极少数人握有真正的权力,但甚至就连他们的自由也是十分有限的,因为他们的行为也是受到管制的;就像今天的政客和公司主管,他们要保住自己的职权就必须限制自己的行为,不逾越某些十分狭隘的界限。
164. Don‘t imagine that the systems will stop developing further techniques for controlling human beings and nature once the crisis of the next few decades is over and increasing control is no longer necessary for the system‘s survival. On the contrary, once the hard times are over the system will increase its control over people and nature more rapidly, because it will no longer be hampered by difficulties of the kind that it is currently experiencing. Survival is not the principal motive for extending control. As we explained in paragraphs 87-90, technicians and scientists carry on their work largely as a surrogate activity; that is, they satisfy their need for power by solving technical problems. They will continue to do this with unabated enthusiasm, and among the most interesting and challenging problems for them to solve will be those of understanding the human body and mind and intervening in their development. For the "good of humanity," of course.
164,今后几十年的危机如果能过去,那时体系就不再需要为生存而加强控制了,但不要想像体系会因此而停止进一步发展控制人与自然的技术。正相反,一旦艰难时期过去了,体系将更迅速地加强对于人与自然的控制,因为它将不再为今日所面临的困难所掣肘。生存并非加强控制的主要动机。我们在第87-90段已经阐述过,技术人员和科学家把他们的工作作为了替代性活动;他们解决技术问题是为了满足自己的权力欲。他们乐此不疲,而留待他们解决的最令人感兴趣、最具挑战性的问题就是探究人类身体和思想的秘密并干预它们的发展。当然,这是为了“人类福祉”。
165. But suppose on the other hand that the stresses of the coming decades prove to be too much for the system. If the system breaks down there may be a period of chaos, a "time of troubles" such as those that history has recorded: at various epochs in the past. It is impossible to predict what would emerge from such a time of troubles, but at any rate the human race would be given a new chance. The greatest danger is that industrial society may begin to reconstitute itself within the first few years after the breakdown. Certainly there will be many people (power-hungry types especially) who will be anxious to get the factories running again.
165,但另一方面,请假设今后几十年的压力超出了体系的承受能力。如果体系崩溃,可能会右一个混乱时期,“动乱年代”,就像在过去各个对代历史所记载的那样。不可能预见动乱年代最后会产生什么结果。但无论如何人类会被赋予一个新机会。最大的危险是工业化社会很可能在崩溃后不几年就开始重组其自身,肯定会有许多人(特别是权力饥渴型的人们)急于重新开动工厂。
166. Therefore two tasks confront those who hate the servitude to which the industrial system is reducing the human race. First, we must work to heighten the social stresses within the system so as to increase the likelihood that it will break down or be weakened sufficiently so that a revolution against it becomes possible. Second, it is necessary to develop and propagate an ideology that opposes technology and the industrial society if and when the system becomes sufficiently weakened. And such an ideology will help to assure that, if and when industrial society breaks down, its remnants will be smashed beyond repair, so that the system cannot be reconstituted. The factories should be destroyed, technical books burned, etc.
166,工业体系将人类贬低到了被奴役的状态,而憎恨这种被奴役状态的人则面临两个任务。第一,我们必须增强体系内的社会紧张态势,以加快其崩溃或把它弱化到足够程度,使得反对体系的革命成为可能。第二,当体系充分弱化时,我们必须发展并宣传一种反对技术和工业社会的意识形态。当工业社会崩溃时,这种意识形态将有助于保证其残余被粉碎到无法修复的地步,这样体系就无法重组。工厂将被捣毁,技术书籍将被烧掉,等等
HUMAN SUFFERING
人类苦难
167. The industrial system will not break down purely as a result of revolutionary action. It will not be vulnerable to revolutionary attack unless its own internal problems of development lead it into very serious difficulties. So if the system breaks down it will do so either spontaneously, or through a process that is in part spontaneous but helped along by revolutionaries. If the breakdown is sudden, many people will die, since the world‘s population has become so overblown that it cannot even feed itself any longer without advanced technology. Even if the breakdown is gradual enough so that reduction of the population can occur more through lowering of the birth rate than through elevation of the death rate, the process of de-industrialization probably will be very chaotic and involve much suffering. It is naive to think it likely that technology can be phased out in a smoothly managed orderly way, especially since the technophiles will fight stubbornly at every step. Is it therefore cruel to work for the breakdown of the system? Maybe, but maybe not. In the first place, revolutionaries will not be able to break the system down unless it is already in deep trouble so that there would be a good chance of its eventually breaking down by itself anyway; and the bigger the system grows, the more disastrous the consequences of its breakdown will be; so it may be that revolutionaries, by hastening the onset of the breakdown will be reducing the extent of the disaster.
167,工业体系的崩溃不会纯粹是革命行动的结果,它不会那么难以抵御革命的攻击,除非它自身内部的发展问题导致了极为严重的困难。因此如果体系崩溃,那么它或是自发崩溃,或是部分自发、部分由革命者促发的崩溃。如果崩溃是突如其来的,许多人都会死去,因为世界人口已如此过分膨胀,离开了先进技术就无法养活自己。甚至即使崩溃足够缓慢,人口的减少可以主要通过出生率的降低而不是死亡率的提高而实现,非工业化的过程也多半是极度混乱和极度痛苦的。幻想通过平稳控制的有序方式逐步废除技术是天真的,特别是要考虑到技术爱好者们的负隅顽抗。那么,致力于体系的崩溃是否因此就十分残酷呢?也许是,也许不是。首先,除非体系本来就已经陷入了深重的困难,无论如何都很可能最终自行崩溃,否者单靠革命者是不可能强行使其崩溃的。而且体系发展得规模越大,崩溃的后果就越严重。因此加速体系崩溃的革命者或许反倒控制了灾难的规模。
168. In the second place, one has to balance the struggle and death against the loss of freedom and dignity. To many of us, freedom and dignity are more important than a long life or avoidance of physical pain. Besides, we all have to die some time, and it may be better to die fighting for survival, or for a cause, than to live a long but empty and purposeless life.
168,其次,我们必须权衡斗争与死亡和丧失自由与尊严这两方面的得失。对于我们之中的许多人来说,自由与尊严比长寿和避免肉体痛苦更重要。再者,我们早晚会死,死于为生存或为某一事业而战,强于活得空虚而无目的。
169. In the third place, it is not all certain that the survival of the system will lead to less suffering than the breakdown of the system would. The system has already caused, and is continuing to cause , immense suffering all over the world. Ancient cultures, that for hundreds of years gave people a satisfactory relationship with each other and their environment, have been shattered by contact with industrial society, and the result has been a whole catalogue of economic, environmental, social and psychological problems. One of the effects of the intrusion of industrial society has been that over much of the world traditional controls on population have been thrown out of balance. Hence the population explosion, with all that it implies. Then there is the psychological suffering that is widespread throughout the supposedly fortunate countries of the West (see paragraphs 44, 45). No one knows what will happen as a result of ozone depletion, the greenhouse effect and other environmental problems that cannot yet be foreseen. And, as nuclear proliferation has shown, new technology cannot be kept out of the hands of dictators and irresponsible Third World nations. Would you like to speculate abut what Iraq or North Korea will do with genetic engineering?
169,第三,体系的存续所带来的痛苦并不一定就比体系崩溃所带来的痛苦更少。在全世界范围内,体系已经招致、并且正在招致的巨大痛苦曾使人类千百年与他人以及环境和睦相处的古代文化被与其解接触的工业社会所摧毁。其结果就是全方位的经济、环境、社会和心理问题。工业杜会的侵扰所产生的影响之一,就是传统的人口控制在全球范围内一下子失去了平衡,因而产生了人口爆炸及其所有连带后果。接着就是心理疾病席卷了整个所谓“幸运”的西方社会(参见44, 45段)。没有人知道臭氧层耗尽、温室效应及其他现在还不能预测的环境问题最终会为这个世界带来怎样的后果。而且就像核扩散已经显示的那样,我们无法防止新技术落入独裁者和不负责任的第三世界国家手中。愿意猜猜伊位克或北朝鲜将用遗传工程来干什么吗?
170. "Oh!" say the technophiles, "Science is going to fix all that! We will conquer famine, eliminate psychological suffering, make everybody healthy and happy!" Yeah, sure. That‘s what they said 200 years ago. The Industrial Revolution was supposed to eliminate poverty, make everybody happy, etc. The actual result has been quite different. The technophiles are hopelessly naive (or self-deceiving) in their understanding of social problems. They are unaware of (or choose to ignore) the fact that when large changes, even seemingly beneficial ones, are introduced into a society, they lead to a long sequence of other changes, most of which are impossible to predict (paragraph 103). The result is disruption of the society. So it is very probable that in their attempt to end poverty and disease, engineer docile, happy personalities and so forth, the technophiles will create social systems that are terribly troubled, even more so that the present one. For example, the scientists boast that they will end famine by creating new, genetically engineered food plants. But this will allow the human population to keep expanding indefinitely, and it is well known that crowding leads to increased stress and aggression. This is merely one example of the PREDICTABLE problems that will arise. We emphasize that, as past experience has shown, technical progress will lead to other new problems for society far more rapidly that it has been solving old ones. Thus it will take a long difficult period of trial and error for the technophiles to work the bugs out of their Brave New World (if they ever do). In the meantime there will be great suffering. So it is not all clear that the survival of industrial society would involve less suffering than the breakdown of that society would. Technology has gotten the human race into a fix from which there is not likely to be any easy escape.
170,“嗨!”技术爱好者们会说,“科学能解决所有这些问题!我们将征服饥荒、消灭心理病痛,让每一个人都健康而快乐!”是的,是的。他们200年前就是这么说的。人们曾指望工业社会能够消灭贫穷,使每一个人都快乐,等等。实际结果却不是那么回事。技术爱好者对社会问题的理解简直是无可救药地天真(或自欺欺人)。他们没有意识到(或故意视而不见)这样一个事实:当巨大的变化,即使是看上去有利的变化,被引入一个社会时,将会引发一长串其他变化,这些变化之中的大都分是不可预见的(103段)其结果则是社会的混乱。因此,技术爱好者们在试图消灭贫穷和疾病,设计制造驯顺、快乐的人格等等时,很可能会创造出比现在还糟糕的社会体系。例如,科学家们吹嘘说他们能够创造出新的、经遗传工程改造的粮食植物以消灭饥荒。然而,这将会允许人日无限膨胀下去,而众所周知,拥挤会导致紧张和攻击性的增强。这仅仅是技术会导致的可预见问题中的一个例子。我们强调指出,历史经验告诉我们,技术进步给社会带来新问题的速度远比它解决旧问题的速度要快。因此技术爱好者们要经过一个漫长的试错时期才能够为他们的美丽新世界排除掉所有的故障(假设他们最终能做到的话)。而与此同时所产生的痛苦将会如此巨大,以至于体系生存下去所带来的痛苦不见得就比体系崩溃更少。技术己将人类带入了一条无法轻易逃脱的死胡同。
THE FUTURE
未来
171. But suppose now that industrial society does survive the next several decade and that the bugs do eventually get worked out of the system, so that it functions smoothly. What kind of system will it be? We will consider several possibilities.
171,然而,假设工业社会经过未来几十年确实幸存下来并最终排除了故障,因而实现了平稳运转,它又会是一个什么样的体系呢?我们将考虑几种可能性
172. First let us postulate that the computer scientists succeed in developing intelligent machines that can do all things better that human beings can do them. In that case presumably all work will be done by vast, highly organized systems of machines and no human effort will be necessary. Either of two cases might occur. The machines might be permitted to make all of their own decisions without human oversight, or else human control over the machines might be retained.
172.首先,让我们假定计算机科学家成功地开发出了智能机器,这些机器无论做什么事都比人类强。在这种情况下,大概所有工作都会由巨大的、高度组织化的机器系统去做,而不再需要任何人类的努力。有两种情况可能发生。一种是允许机器在没有人类监督的情况下自已做出所有的决策,另一种是人类保留对于机器的控制。
173. If the machines are permitted to make all their own decisions, we can‘t make any conjectures as to the results, because it is impossible to guess how such machines might behave. We only point out that the fate of the human race would be at the mercy of the machines. It might be argued that the human race would never be foolish enough to hand over all the power to the machines. But we are suggesting neither that the human race would voluntarily turn power over to the machines nor that the machines would willfully seize power. What we do suggest is that the human race might easily permit itself to drift into a position of such dependence on the machines that it would have no practical choice but to accept all of the machines decisions. As society and the problems that face it become more and more complex and machines become more and more intelligent, people will let machines make more of their decision for them, simply because machine-made decisions will bring better result than man-made ones. Eventually a stage may be reached at which the decisions necessary to keep the system running will be so complex that human beings will be incapable of making them intelligently. At that stage the machines will be in effective control. People won‘t be able to just turn the machines off, because they will be so dependent on them that turning them off would amount to suicide.
173,如果我们允许机器自己做出所有的决策,就无法对其结果进行揣度,因为不可能猜测此类机器的行为。我们只想指出,人类的命运那时就全凭机器发落了。人们也许会反驳,人类决不会愚蠢到把全部权力都交给机器。但我们既不是说人类会有意将权力交给机器,也不是说机器会存心夺权。我们实际上说的是,人类可能会轻易地让自己滑落到一个完全依赖机器的位置,滑落到不能做出任何实际选择,只能接受机器的所有决策的地步。随着社会及其面临的问题变得越来越复杂,而机器变得越来越聪明,人们会让机器替他们做更多的决策。仅仅是因为机器做出的决策会比人的决策带来更好的结果。最后,第二阶段将会来临,在这个阶段,维持体系运行所必需的决策已变得如此之复杂。以至于人类已无能力明智地进行决策。在这一阶段,机器实质上已处于控制地位。人们已不能把机器关上,因为他们已如此地依赖于机器,关上它们就等于是自杀
174. On the other hand it is possible that human control over the machines may be retained. In that case the average man may have control over certain private machines of his own, such as his car of his personal computer, but control over large systems of machines will be in the hands of a tiny elite -- just as it is today, but with two difference. Due to improved techniques the elite will have greater control over the masses; and because human work will no longer be necessary the masses will be superfluous, a useless burden on the system. If the elite is ruthless the may simply decide to exterminate the mass of humanity. If they are humane they may use propaganda or other psychological or biological techniques to reduce the birth rate until the mass of humanity becomes extinct, leaving the world to the elite. Or, if the elite consist of soft-hearted liberals, they may decide to play the role of good shepherds to the rest of the human race. They will see to it that everyone‘s physical needs are satisfied, that all children are raised under psychologically hygienic conditions, that everyone has a wholesome hobby to keep him busy, and that anyone who may become dissatisfied undergoes "treatment" to cure his "problem." Of course, life will be so purposeless that people will have to be biologically or psychologically engineered either to remove their need for the power process or to make them "sublimate" their drive for power into some harmless hobby. These engineered human beings may be happy in such a society, but they most certainly will not be free. They will have been reduced to the status of domestic animals.
171.另一方面,也可能人类还能保持对机器的控制。在这种情况下,一般人也许可以控制他自己的私人机器,如他自己的汽车或私人计算机,但对于大型机器系统的控制权将落入一小群精英之手——就像今天一样,但有两点不同。由于技术的改进,精英对于大众的控制能力将会极大提高,因为人不再必需工作,大众就成为了多余的人,成为了体系的无用负担。如果精英集团失去了怜悯心,他们完全可以决定灭绝人类大众。如果他们有些人情味,他们也可以使用宣传或其他心理学或生物学技术降低出生率,直至人类大众自行消亡,让这个世界由精英们独占。或者,如果精英集团是由软心肠的自由派人士组成的,他们也可以为剩余的人类种族扮演好牧人的角色。他们将注意保证每个人的生理需求都得到满足,每一个孩子都在心理十分健康的条件下被抚养成人,每一个人都有一项有益于健康的癖好来打发日子,每一个可能会变得不满的人都会接受治疗以治愈其“疾病”。当然,生活是如此没有目的,以致于人们都不得不经过生物学的或心理学的重新设计改造,以去除他们对于权力过程的需求,或使他们的权力欲“升华”为无害的癖好。这些经过改造的人们也许能在这样一个社会中生活得平和愉快,但他们决不会自由。他们将被贬低到家畜的地位。
175. But suppose now that the computer scientists do not succeed in developing artificial intelligence, so that human work remains necessary. Even so, machines will take care of more and more of the simpler tasks so that there will be an increasing surplus of human workers at the lower levels of ability. (We see this happening already. There are many people who find it difficult or impossible to get work, because for intellectual or psychological reasons they cannot acquire the level of training necessary to make themselves useful in the present system.) On those who are employed, ever-increasing demands will be placed; They will need more and m ore training, more and more ability, and will have to be ever more reliable, conforming and docile, because they will be more and more like cells of a giant organism. Their tasks will be increasingly specialized so that their work will be, in a sense, out of touch with the real world, being concentrated on one tiny slice of reality. The system will have to use any means that I can, whether psychological or biological, to engineer people to be docile, to have the abilities that the system requires and to "sublimate" their drive for power into some specialized task. But the statement that the people of such a society will have to be docile may require qualification. The society may find competitiveness useful, provided that ways are found of directing competitiveness into channels that serve that needs of the system. We can imagine into channels that serve the needs of the system. We can imagine a future society in which there is endless competition for positions of prestige an power. But no more than a very few people will ever reach the top, where the only real power is (see end of paragraph 163). Very repellent is a society in which a person can satisfy his needs for power only by pushing large numbers of other people out of the way and depriving them of THEIR opportunity for power.
175,再假设计算机科学家们没有能够在开发人工智能方面取得成功,因此人的工作还是必要的。即使如此,机器也将承担越来越多的简单工作,而低能力的工人将越来越过剩(正如我们所见,这种事已经发生了。许多人很难或根本找不到工作,因为他们由于智力或心理原因而不能达到在现今体系内有用就必须达到的训练水平)对于那些找到工作的人,要求会越来越高。他们将需要越来越多的训练,越来越强的能力,他们将不得不越来越可靠、越来越规矩、越来越驯顺,因为他们将越来越像巨型有机体的细胞。他们的任务将越来越专门化,囚而他们的工作在某种意义上也将越来越脱离真实世界,仅集中于现实的一块小碎片。体系将使用一切可以使用的心理学或生物学手段来设计制造人类,使之驯顺,使之具有体系要求的能力,使之将权力欲“升华”为某些专门化的任务。但是这样一个社会的人民将不得不驯顺。这一陈述是有条件的。如果可以找到某种方法,能将竞争性导向服务于体系需求的轨道,那么社会也许会发现竞争性是有用的。我们可以想像这徉一个未来社会,生活于其间的人没完没了地为了声望和权力而竞争,但是只有少数人能够爬上独占真正权力的顶点(参见163段末尾)。这是一个极其令人反胃的世界,因为在这个世界当中,一个人满足权力需求的唯一方式就是将众多他人排挤到一边并剥夺他们满足权力需求的机会。
176. Once can envision scenarios that incorporate aspects of more than one of the possibilities that we have just discussed. For instance, it may be that machines will take over most of the work that is of real, practical importance, but that human beings will be kept busy by being given relatively unimportant work. It has been suggested, for example, that a great development of the service of industries might provide work for human beings. Thus people will would spend their time shinning each others shoes, driving each other around inn taxicab, making handicrafts for one another, waiting on each other‘s tables, etc. This seems to us a thoroughly contemptible way for the human race to end up, and we doubt that many people would find fulfilling lives in such pointless busy-work. They would seek other, dangerous outlets (drugs, , crime, "cults," hate groups) unless they were biological or psychologically engineered to adapt them to such a way of life.
176,我们还可以想像某种把若干个上述可能性结合起来的场景。例如,机器可能接管大部分具有真正重要性的工作,但人类则仍旧还能在相对不那么重要的工作上面忙活。例如有人建议,大力发展服务业可以给人类提供工作机会。这样人们就可以把时间花在互相擦皮鞋上面,可以用出租车带着彼此到处瞎转,互相为对方做手工艺品,互相给对方端盘子,等等。人类如果最终以这样的方式结局,那对于我们来说也实在是太可怜了,而且我们怀疑有多少人会觉得这样的无意义的忙碌等同于充实的生活。他们会去寻找危险的其他渲泄途径(毒品、犯罪、邪教、仇恨群体等),除非他们经过生物学或心理学的设计改造后适应了这种生活方式
177. Needless to day, the scenarios outlined above do not exhaust all the possibilities. They only indicate the kinds of outcomes that seem to us mots likely. But wee can envision no plausible scenarios that are any more palatable that the ones we‘ve just described. It is overwhelmingly probable that if the industrial-technological system survives the next 40 to 100 years, it will by that time have developed certain general characteristics: Individuals (at least those of the "bourgeois" type, who are integrated into the system and make it run, and who therefore have all the power) will be more dependent than ever on large organizations; they will be more "socialized" that ever and their physical and mental qualities to a significant extent (possibly to a very great extent ) will be those that are engineered into them rather than being the results of chance (or of God‘s will, or whatever); and whatever may be left of wild nature will be reduced to remnants preserved for scientific study and kept under the supervision and management of scientists (hence it will no longer be truly wild). In the long run (say a few centuries from now) it is it is likely that neither the human race nor any other important organisms will exist as we know them today, because once you start modifying organisms through genetic engineering there is no reason to stop at any particular point, so that the modifications will probably continue until man and other organisms have been utterly transformed.
177,不用说,上述场景尚未穷尽所有可能性。它们只是表明了我们看来似乎最可能的结局。然而,我们无法想像比上述情况更好而又似乎可能的场景。极其可能的情况是,如果工业技术体系能够度过未来40-100年而幸存下来,那时它将会发展出某些一般特征:个人(至少是那些“小资产阶级”类型的人,他们被整合进体系并维持其运转,因而也掌握了全部权力)空前地依赖大型组织,空前地“社会化”,他们的身心品质在相当程度上(很可能是极大程度上)是设计改造的结果,而不是机缘(或上帝意志,或其他什么)的结果;野生自然所能留下的部分只是为了科学研究而保留的一些残余,这些残余将由科学家监视与管理(因而也算不上真正野生)。从长远看(比如几个世纪以后),无论是人类,还是任何其他重要的有机体,都不会像我们今天所知道的那样存在下去,因为只要你一开始通过遗传工程改造有机体,就没有理由在某一个特定点上停下来,因此改造多半会继下去去,直至人类和其他有机体彻底改观。
178. Whatever else may be the case, it is certain that technology is creating for human begins a new physical and social environment radically different from the spectrum of environments to which natural selection has adapted the human race physically and psychological. If man is not adjust to this new environment by being artificially re-engineered, then he will be adapted to it through a long an painful process of natural selection. The former is far more likely that the latter.
17 8,无论还有另外什么情况,有一点是肯定的:技术给人类创造了一个新的物质和社会环境。这个环境与人类通过自然选择而在生理上和心理上适应了的所有各类环境都极为不同。如果人类不能通过人为的重新设计改造而适应这一新环境,那么就得通过自然选择的痛苦过程去适应它,前者的可能性要比后者大得多
179. It would be better to dump the whole stinking system and take the consequences.
179,更好的办法是把这个腐朽的体系整个扔进垃圾堆,并勇敢地承受其后果。
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