主题：【原创】炮打工业党：《论工业社会及其未来》 -- 万年看客

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，莫斯科的一个共产党银行职员，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。