原作者:
来源From Satori to Silicon Valley
译者幻龙炎
When this essay was first written for the Alvin Fine Memorial Lecture at San Francisco State University in April 1985, I was not fully aware of how much the times had already changed since I wrote The Making of a Counter Culture in 1969. But I soon learned. A few weeks before the lecture, a student in the Public Affairs Office at San Francisco State called me to arrange some campus publicity. He had a question.
1985年4月,当我在为旧金山州立大学的Alvin Fine纪念讲座写作此文时,我并不完全清楚,自1969年我写完The Making of a Counter Culture一书后,时代已发生了如何的改变。但很快我便明白了。在讲座前的几周,旧金山州立大学外联部门的一名学生找到我,想组织一些校园宣传活动。他问了一个问题。
'Where's Satori?'
“禅悟在哪里?”
'What?' I asked.
“什么?”我问。
'Your lecture is called 'From Satori to Silicon Valley,' ' he explained. 'I know where Silicon Valley is. But where's Satori?'
“你的讲座叫做‘从禅悟到硅谷’,”他解释道。“我知道硅谷在哪里。但禅悟是哪里?”
'The Zen state of enlightenment ... you never heard of that?'
“禅悟是禅宗所说的开悟……你从来没听说过这个?”
'Oh. I never took any courses in Oriental religion '
“噢。我从来没修过东方宗教的课。”
I started to explain the term, spelling out its once obvious connection with the counter culture of the sixties.
我便开始解释这个概念,解释它与六十年代反文化的关联。而这层联系,曾经非常显明。
'Counter culture,' he interrupted. 'That's ... hippies. All like that.'
“反文化,”他打断我说道,“那就是……嬉皮士咯。嬉皮士的那些东西。”
Suddenly I felt one hundred years old.
突然之间我觉得我足足有一百岁那么老。
I often feel that way these days. I teach students now who have no clear idea what a sit-in or a teach-in was, who no longer remember the Days of Rage or the Summer of Love, Vietnam or Watergate. Woodstock for them is only a picture in their textbooks, the Chicago Seven (or was it Eight?) are an unknown quantity.
近来我也常常有这样的感觉。现在我需要教一些不知道“静坐示威”或“示教”(六十年代学生占领公地进行宣传演讲的一种形式)为何物的学生,他们也不会记起愤怒三日(Days of Rage)或是爱之夏(Summer of Love),他们也不会记起越南战争或是水门事件。伍德斯托克对于他们来说只是教材里的一张图片,芝加哥七人(又或者是八人?)对于他们来说是一个未知的组合。
Only to be expected. After all, when I was making my way through college, what did I know about Sacco and Vanzetti ... the Memorial Day Massacre ... the Moscow Trials ... ? Time passes. Social memory is a shifting cloud. The young, awkwardly segueing into citizenhood, leave ancestral traumas and triumphs behind. Which is as it should be. One hopes they will go on to better things of their own.
这其实是可以预料到的。毕竟,当我走向大学时,我又哪里知道Sacco和Vanzetti……或是纪念日大屠杀(the Memorial Day Massacre)……或是莫斯科审判(the Moscow Trials)……呢?时光飞逝。社会记忆如浮云般飘忽。年轻的一代在别别扭扭地成为社会公民时,也将先辈的伤痛和伟大胜利留在了身后。而这也是理所当然的。我们总是希望他们能够独自走向更美好的前程。
Will they? There is no guarantee, but knowing a little history might help. And having some idea of where satori is can't hurt.
可是他们能吗?这可不一定,但了解一点历史或许会有所帮助。再了解一点“禅悟”是哪里大概也没什么害处。
But do bear in mind as you read, that this essay dates back to 1985. Rather than revise to take account of all that has happened in the world of high tech since then, I have made only minor changes of style. That might seem to risk leaving a lot uncovered. But the main issue under discussion in this essay, the convoluted interplay between Technophiles and Reversionaries within the counter culture of the sixties and seventies, remains a significant history lesson for those interested in the greater meaning of computers in our culture. As for other social and technological developments since the advent of the first Macintosh, much of this is covered in my book The Cult of Information: A Neo-Luddite Treatise on High Tech, Artificial Intelligence, and the True Art of Thinking, available in a second edition from the University of California Press as of 1995.
但阅读此文时请谨记,此文写于1985年。我并没有将自那时以来高科技领域发生的一切补充记录下来,而仅仅是做了文字上的轻微改动。这样做似乎有遗漏甚多的危险。但本文所要讨论的主要话题,也就是,技术狂人与复古主义者在六十年代和七十年代的反文化中的诡异互动,对于想要了解计算机在我们文化中更广泛的意义的人来说,仍是有重要历史意义的一课。至于自第一台苹果电脑诞生以来的社会与科技进步,大部分在我所著的The Cult of Information: A Neo-Luddite Treatise on High Tech, Artificial Intelligence, and the True Art of Thinking第二版(1995,the University of California Press)中有所记述。
Rather than revise the original essay, I have added a few afterthoughts in two new sections at the end. 'Nerds, Zombies, and the Flight from Mortality' deals in greater depth with what I now see as the Gnostic undercurrent of Technophilia. The final section, 'Down Among the Cyberpunks,' faces up to the fact that neither Technophiles nor Reversionaries achieved the utopian vista they had in view. Instead, another force has won the day. That leaves us to look for hope in odd places, perhaps among the uneasy dreams of digital outlaws.
尽管没有修改原文,我在本书末尾增加了两节跋。“Nerds, Zombies, and the Flight from Mortality”深入讨论了我眼中的技术狂面孔下掩藏的诺斯底主义潜流。最后一节,“Down Among the Cyberpunks”,则讨论了技术狂和复古派都未能达致他们憧憬的乌托邦理想这一历史事实。取而代之的是,另一股力量赢得了历史。这使我们开始在一些奇怪的地方寻找希望,或许,这希望存在于数码时代叛逆之徒的不羁的梦中。
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