天国之翼: 从禅悟到硅谷之五：复古主义者和技术狂人

原作者：
来源From Satori to Silicon Valley: REVERSIONARIES AND TECHNOPHILES
译者幻龙炎

I should explain how I am using the term 'postindustrial' here. I mean it in the sense that would supposedly place us permanently beyond the chronic the instability of boom and bust, the waste of life and resources, the injustice and brutality. In its postindustrial phase, our society would not simply have matured but transcended, reaching that point where our technological genius would at last have freed us from the tyranny of getting and spending, compulsive productivity and frantic consumption, mass manipulation and military necessity, so that we might live a fully human life. 'Postindustrial' indicates a stage of moral, not economic, growth.

我必须解释我在这里是如何使用“后工业化”这个概念的。我所说的后工业的意义在于，那时我们将永远地超越了工业化的慢性病，超越了繁荣和萧条循环的怪圈，超越了对生活和资源的浪费，超越了不公正和暴力。在后工业化阶段的，我们的社会不仅已经成熟，而且将能够超越，那时，我们的技术天才终将能够将我们从强制性地获取和消费中解放出来，从强迫性的生产和疯狂的消费中解放出来，从大规模地欺瞒和军事动员中解放出来，那时，我们终将能够过上完整意义上的人的生活。“后工业时代”意味着一个道德发展的阶段，而非经济增长的阶段。

That utopian goal has been with us since the first appearance of the Dark Satanic Mills. But in the western world, the vision of our postindustrial future has been polarized between two very different scenarios: that of the 'Reversionaries' and that of the 'Technophiles.'

这种乌托邦式的目标，自“黑暗的撒旦般的磨坊”（译著：语出William Blade的Milton a Poem的前言）第一次出现以来便与我们同在了。但在西方世界，我们未来的后工业时代的愿景已经分化为两种截然不同的景象：一种是由“复古主义者”描绘出的，而另一幅，则是由“技术狂人”描绘出的。

For the Reversionaries, who trace back to John Ruskin, William Morris, Prince Kropotkin, and the Romantic artists generally, industrialism is the extreme state of a cultural disease that must be cured before it kills us. It is a stage of pathological overdevelopment in the history of human economy from which a healthy technology -- usually seen as some form of communitarian handicrafts -- will have to be salvaged once the industrial system has reached the point of terminal inhumanity. The Reversionaries are what Paul Goodman would have called 'neolithic conservatives.' They look forward to the day when the factories and heavy machinery will be left to molder, and we will have the chance to return to the world of the village, the farm, the hunting camp, the tribe. This would lead us to a life close to the soil and the elements that needs only simple and communal pleasures to find fulfillment. This is the route that, for example, Stephen Gaskin chose for himself and his followers when they left the Experimental College at San Francisco State University in 1971.

所谓复古主义者，最早可以追溯到John Ruskin，William Morris，克鲁泡特金，更宽泛地说包括了浪漫主义艺术家，对于他们来说，工业化是一种文化病的极端状态，必须在它杀死我们之前治愈它。这是一个人类经济史中病态的过度发展的阶段，在这个阶段里，当工业体系达到非人道的极点时，我们便必须拯救健康的技术──这通常表现为某种形式的社群性的手工艺。这些复古主义者被Paul Goodman称为“新石器时代保守派”。他们期待着有一天，工厂和重型机械将让位于模塑，我们将能够回到一个由村庄、农场、狩猎营地、部落组成的世界。这将会令我们的生活更贴近土地和其他基本元素，这种生活中，人们只需要一些简单的乐趣，和社群的娱乐，便可幸福满足。具体举例来说，这便是Stephen Gaskin在1971年离开旧金山州立大学时为自己和他的追随者们选择的道路。

Through the middle and later sixties, Gaskin, a former assistant to San Francisco State Professor S. I. Hayakawa, had been teaching a 'Monday Night Class' in the student-financed and controlled Experimental College. When the class began to draw some several hundred students, it moved for a brief period to Glide Memorial Church in downtown San Francisco and identified itself as a 'religion,' with Gaskin as its guru. Finally in late 1971, Gaskin organized a mass exodus via bus caravan that made its way to a 1700 acre farm in Tennessee. The philosophy of the settlement was simple living and 'guaranteed good karma.' Some have identified Gaskin's following of reconstructed urbanites as 'voluntary peasants.' Gaskin puts it this way:

在六十年代中后期，Gaskin，作为旧金山州立大学教授S. I. Hayakawa（萨缪埃尔·早川）的助手，在由学生出资并运营的Experimental College开设了“周一晚间课程”。当整个班级吸引了数百名学生后，它短暂地搬去了旧金山市中心的Glide Memorial Church开课，并自称为一“宗教”，而Gaskin便是该教的宗师。终于，在1971年底，Gaskin用大巴车组织了一次大迁徙，将所有人搬去了田纳西州一个1700英亩的农场。这个定居点的哲学，是简单的生活，“保证你有好果报”。一些人将Gaskin重建的这个小城的居民称为“志愿农民”。Gaskin如是说：

What we are really into is making a living in a clean way. I guess farming is about the cleanest way to make a living. It's just you and the dirt and God. And the dirt -- you can't make friends with an acre of ground and get it to give you an 'A' like in college or something. If you make friends with it, you have to put work into it, and then it'll come back and feed you, it'll really do it. But you can't snow it or anything like that -- it's going to be real with you. (Resurgence, No. 59, Nov.-Dec., 1976, London, p. 12.)

我们真正感兴趣的，是以一种清洁的方式谋生。我觉得经营农场大约是最清洁的一种谋生方式了。这种方式只依赖你自己，和土地，还有上帝。说到土地──你固然是没法与一英亩泥土成为朋友，然后像在大学里那样让它给你一个“A”。如果你想同它成为朋友，你必须在其上劳作，然后它便会回过身来哺育你，它真的会这样做。但是你不能蒙骗它，或是使诈，等等等等──它会和你动真格的。（Resurgence, No. 59, Nov.-Dec., 1976, London, p. 12.）

The result of Gaskin's philosophy in application was to be one of the few long-term communitarian ventures to come out of the sixties. By dint of hard work, fraternal sharing, and minimal consumption, The Farm managed to prosper into the 1980's on a regimen of soybeans and natural childbirth.

Gaskin的哲学在应用层面上的果实便是六十年代后少数仍然长期坚持运作的社群。通过艰苦努力，成员间如兄弟姐妹般地共享，以及最低限度的消费，农场（The Farm）依靠大豆种植，和成员的自然生育，成功地持续运作至1980年代。

Over against this stratagem of radical withdrawal and reversion, we have the technophiliac vision of our industrial destiny, a modem current of thought that flows back to Saint-Simon, Robert Owen, and H. G. Wells. For these utopian industrialists, as for Buckminster Fuller after them, the cure for our industrial ills will not be found in things past, but in Things To Come. Indeed, it will be found at the climax of the industrial process. What is required, therefore, is not squeamish reversion, but brave perseverance. We must adapt resourcefully to industrialism as a necessary stage of social evolution, monitoring the process with a cunning eye for its life-saving potentialities. As we approach the crisis that threatens calamity, we must grasp these opportunities as they emerge and use them to redeem the system from within. The way out of our dilemma is to tunnel fearlessly through until we reach daylight.

在这种激进的退隐和复古战略的反面，我们还有一个来自技术狂的对工业化命运的愿景，而这股思潮，可以追溯回圣西门、罗伯特·欧文，和H. G. 威尔斯。对于这些乌托邦主义企业家，以及他们之后的Buckminster Fuller来说，医治工业病的药不在旧事物中中，而是在未来的新事物中。而且，人们将在工业化的最高峰找到这一良方。因此，我们所必需的，不是娇气地复古退隐，而是勇敢执着地坚守。我们必须机智地适应工业化这一社会进化的必经阶段，并且密切地关注其拯救生命的潜在可能。当灾难和危机的威胁来临时，我们必须抓住机遇，自工业化体制的内部进行救赎。我们离开困局的出路就是勇敢穿过隧道，直到我们到达光明的出口。

One recognizes at once the familiar Marxist pattern of history in this vision. As against the utopian visionaries who would abscond from industrial society, Marx insisted that the logic of history had to be worked through in its proper phases: from feudalism to capitalism, from capitalism to socialism, from socialism to communism. But one also notices that in Fuller's foreshortened version of the philosophy, we are dealing with the views of a technician, not a political economist. In sharp contrast to Marx, Fuller was a sociological illiterate. There is simply no political context to his thought. Instead, where Marx deals in class conflict and political power, Fuller offers us . . . inventions. That is what the industrial system produces. Its inventions are simply to be appropriated by clever engineers like Fuller and used to save the human race. The inventions make possible things the capitalist owners cannot envision. But mavericks like Fuller, purporting to stand outside the system, recognize these possibilities and hasten to take advantage of them. As Fuller put it:

在技术狂的愿景中，我们立刻就能发现熟悉的马克思主义史学逻辑。同乌托邦式的自工业社会归隐的理想相反，马克思坚持认为，历史的逻辑，必须循序渐进地经过若干阶段：从封建主义到资本主义，从资本主义到社会主义，从社会主义到共产主义。但是我们也可以发现，在前述的Fuller的哲学的缩略版中，我们的视野是一个技术人员的，而不是一个政治经济学家的。富勒本人是一个社会学文盲，与马克思形成了鲜明对比。他的思想根本没有任何政治含义。于是当马克思提出阶级斗争和政治权力问题的时候，富勒为我们提供的是……科技发明。而这正是工业体系所生产出的东西。工业发明只能由像Fuller这般的聪明的工程师加以利用，用来挽救人类。这些发明能够使资本家无法想象的事情成为可能。但是，像Fuller这样特立独行的人，身处体制之外，便能认识到这些可能性，并快速取得领先优势。正如Fuller所说：

The individual can take initiative without anybody's permission. Only individuals can . . . look for the principles manifest in their experience that others may be overlooking because they are too preoccupied with how to please some boss or with how to earn money. . . .The individual is the only one who could think in a cosmically adequate manner. (Robert Snyder, Buckminster Fuller, An Autobiographical Monologue/Scenario, New York, St. Martin's Press, 1970, p. 38)

独立的个人不需要任何人的许可便可以行动起来。只有独立的个人能够……找寻到体现在他们经验之中的那些被其他人所忽视的准则，而他们忽视的原因往往在于他们醉心于讨好老板或是挣钱……只有独立的个人才能够以宇宙般广阔的尺度进行思考。（Robert Snyder, Buckminster Fuller, An Autobiographical Monologue/Scenario, New York, St. Martin's Press, 1970, p. 38）

Thus, these 'individuals' outsmart and outflank the high and the mighty, who, one is left to conclude, simply surrender to their superior insight.

因此，这些“个人”在思想和行动上都超越了那些位高权重的人，对于他们我们也只能认为，他们将在更高的智慧面前臣服。

What is an example of such a clever gambit? Well, Fuller was a man of one example, the invention he always fell back on to prove every point: the geodesic dome, on which he held the patent. Had not advanced engineering and industrial technology made this stupendous invention possible? And was not the whole history of the world going to be transformed by the dome? QED.

又有谁是这样的一种策略的范例呢？其实，Fuller自己便是一个典型，他也每每提及他拥有专利的穹顶型建筑引以为证。如果没有先进的工程和工业技术，这惊人的发明有可能实现吗？难道不正是这穹顶建筑将要改变世界的历史吗？证明完毕。

There was a cult of the geodesic dome during the sixties. It began with the popular dome books of San Francisco architect Lloyd Kahn, who was converted to domesmanship by Fuller when the inventor came to the San Francisco Bay Area. Thanks to Kahn's books and The Whole Earth Catalog, the hope sprang up that communities of domes might blossom overnight outside major cities -- like barbarian encampments embodying the new postindustrial culture. (As far as I'm aware, the closest approach to that goal was Drop City near Trinidad Colorado, a 'weed patch commune' whose several funky structures were rigged up out of salvaged junk from the nearest city dump.) The dome quickly became more than an architectural eccentricity; it came to symbolize a new, worldwide style of shelters which combined the values of simplicity, economy, durability, communalism, and whose tetrahedron units had (so Fuller insisted) tapped the deep geometrical logic of the cosmos.

在六十年代人们对于穹顶建筑几近痴迷。穹顶建筑的流行始于旧金山建筑师Lloyd Kahn的书籍，而他正是受Fuller影响而转向关注穹顶建筑的。也由于Kahn的书籍和《全地球目录》的影响，人们开始期盼，一夜之间穹顶建筑社区就可以在大城市周围萌发出来──就好像那些体现了新后工业文化的野蛮人营地一样。（据我所知，最接近这个目标的是靠近Trinidad Colorado的水珠之城Drop City，那地方被称为“杂草公社”，里面的几个怪异的建筑都是用附近城市垃圾场里捞出来的东西建造的。）很快地，穹顶建筑不再仅仅是怪异的建筑了；它更象征着一种新的，世界性的人居风尚，它结合了简单、经济、耐用、和社群主义的价值观，而且其四面体的单元（如Fuller坚持道）在深层次表现了整个宇宙的几何逻辑。

Fuller's followers were quick to take his claims for the dome at full value. As one of the founders of Drop City pronounced:

Fuller的追随者们很快便将他对于穹顶建筑的主张发扬光大到了极致。如水珠之城的一位创始人所说：

To live in a dome is -- psychologically -- to be in closer harmony with natural structure. Macrocosm and microcosm are recreated, both the celestial sphere and molecular and crystalline forms. Cubical buildings are structurally weak and uneconomic. Corners constrict the mind. Domes break into new dimensions. They help to open man's perception and expand his approaches to creativity. The dichotomy between utilitarian and aesthetic, between artist and layman is broken down. (Bill Voyd, "Drop City," in Theodore Roszak, ed. Sources, New York, Harper & Row, 1972, p. 276)

生活在穹顶建筑中──在心理上──便与自然结构更加和谐。宏观宇宙和微观宇宙都得到重建，无论是天球或是分子和晶体都开始显形。立方体建筑结构脆弱且不经济。边角会禁锢心灵。穹顶则打开了全新的维度。他们能够帮助解放人的感知力，拓展人的创造能力。功利与审美、艺术家和普通人之间的界限被瓦解。（Bill Voyd, "Drop City," in Theodore Roszak, ed. Sources, New York, Harper & Row, 1972, p. 276）

Another dome missionary proclaimed:

另一个穹顶建筑教的传教士宣称：

Soon domed cities will spread across the world, anywhere land is cheap -- on the deserts, in the swamps, on mountains, tundra, ice caps. The tribes are moving, building completely free and open waystations, each a warm and beautiful conscious environment. We are winning. (Hugh Gardner, Children of Prosperity, New York, St. Martin's Press, 1978, p.37)

穹顶城市将很快在世界各地出现，只要是土地便宜的地方──沙漠，沼泽，群山，苔原，冰盖。部族在迁徙，在建立完全自由和开放的驿站，每一站都有一个温馨美丽的自觉的环境。我们正在取得胜利。（Hugh Gardner, Children of Prosperity, New York, St. Martin's Press, 1978, p.37）

Now there were a number of problems with domes. Most of them, even those built in the deserts, the swamps, the mountains, had to have their struts and shafts and connectors, their plywood and fiberglass, shipped in from some distant industrial metropolis. And none of them were all that much cheaper or easier to build than a Quonset hut or a Butler barn. And most of them leaked, unless they were shielded by a vast and fragile plastic skin, again imported from the metropolis. And none could be insulated unless they were sprayed or coated with an industrial chemical. And none of them in style or structural substance ever bore any respectful relationship to their locality. Indeed, the dome was designed by its maker to be placeless, meant to be plunked down anywhere from the Arctic to the tropics as an assertion of the global industrial dominance. But none of this seemed to matter to the dome enthusiasts; by virtue of Fuller's intoxicating rhetoric and boundless optimism, the dome was seen as an icon of our social salvation.

然而穹顶建筑是有一些问题的。他们中的大多数，尤其是在沙漠，沼泽，山区建造的，都必须把所需的支柱、连轴和连接件，以及胶合板和玻璃纤维，从距离遥远的工业化大都市运送至工地。其中没有一个比Quonset hut（译注：一种形似蔬菜大棚的建筑）或是尖顶的谷仓更便宜或更容易建造。而且他们中的大多数都会漏雨，除非他们用一张巨大但又脆弱的塑料皮把顶蒙上，而这种塑料膜，仍然是要从大都市进口的。而且他们不保温，除非他们用化学工业品喷涂表面。而且他们在风格上或结构上都与他们的所在地格格不入。事实上，穹顶建筑是被设计为无所凭依的，这意味着，作为一种工业统驭全球的象征，它是可以被栽到任何地方的，无论是北极还是赤道之上。但是，这一切对于穹顶的拥趸似乎都无关紧要；凭借Fuller醉人的花言巧语和无穷的乐观，穹顶被视为对社会进行救赎的标志。

Fuller was not alone in extrapolating the technophiliac vision of postindustrial history There were others, each of whom became, at some point, a countercultural favorite. There was Marshall McLuhan, who saw the electronic media as the secret of building a new 'global village' that was somehow cozy, participative, and yet at the same time technologically sophisticated. There was Paolo Soleri, who believed that the solution to the ecological crisis of the modem world was the building of megastructural 'arcologies' -- beehive cities in which the urban billions could be compacted into totally artificial environments. There was Gerard O'Neill, who barnstormed the country whipping up enthusiasm for one of the zaniest schemes of all: the launching of self-contained space colonies for the millions. For a few years, O'Neill became a special fascination of Stewart Brand and The Whole Earth Catalog (later The Co-Evolution Quarterly). In each of these cases, one sees the same assumption brought into play: the industrial process, pushed to its limit, generates its own best medicine. Out of the advanced research of the electronics, plastics, chemical, and aerospace industries, there emerge solutions to all our political and environmental problems.

Fuller并不是在独自推广后工业化时代的技术狂的愿景。还有其他人，他们中的每一个，在某个时刻，都曾为反文化运动追捧。其中便有马歇尔·麦克卢汉，他将电子媒体视为建设一个全新的“地球村”的秘诀，这一地球村带有某种惬意和温情，和集体参与性，同时又拥有非常成熟的科技。其中还有Paolo Soleri，他相信，现代社会生态危机的解决办法是超大规模的“arcologies”（生态建筑，由architecture建筑和ecology生态两词缩合而成）──那是一种装若蜂窝的城市，数以十亿计的城市人口完全可以被塞进这个完全人工的环境中。还有杰拉德·奥尼尔 Gerard O'Neill，他巡回全国煽动推销的是一个疯狂到极点的计划：建造可以容纳达百万人的自给自足的太空殖民地。有那么几年，O'Neill迷倒了Stewart Brand和《全地球目录》的读者（《目录》后来改为《共同进化季刊The Co-Evolution Quarterly》）。从这些例子中，我们能发现一个共同的前提假设：工业化进程，被推到了极限后，便能生产出医治自身的最佳良药。在对电子、塑胶、化工、航空航天行业的高精尖研究中，我们能够发现解决所有的政治和环境问题的方案。

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