Before the BlackBerry: our recent affluence has diluted the old sense of community Photo: ALAMY
I was one of the luckier ones. My BlackBerry never actually collapsed in The Great Global Catastrophe last week – it just staggered a bit. But I was, nevertheless, absolutely furious. Not at the service disruption, which was a minor irritation, but because the public relations fiasco might push my favourite electronic device into extinction. And then I would be forced into buying one of those over-hyped, over-priced toys which the newly canonised Saint Steven of Apple had convinced people that they wanted.
黑莓出現以前：近代的物質(zhì)充裕削弱了過(guò)去的社區感。照片：ALAMY
我算是幸運的。在上周的全球大災難里【譯者注：指本月初蔓延全球的黑莓網(wǎng)絡(luò )故障】，我的黑莓并沒(méi)有崩潰——它只是趔趄了一下。不過(guò)我還是非常憤怒——不是因為中斷的服務(wù)，那只是讓我有點(diǎn)兒不爽罷了——我憤怒是因為那徹底失敗的公關(guān)可能會(huì )將我所鐘愛(ài)的電子產(chǎn)品推向滅絕，那樣我就不得不買(mǎi)一個(gè)那被新近封為蘋(píng)果圣史蒂文的說(shuō)服大家需要購買(mǎi)的、經(jīng)過(guò)大肆炒作、價(jià)格高得離譜的玩具了。
The relentless pressure to upgrade, to keep up with the latest state-of-the-art innovations, may be at its most obvious and ruthless in the electronic gadget business. But that competitiveness (and the brilliant manipulation of public perceptions that it involves) is just a function of a wider cultural change: people could not be persuaded or bullied into buying things they did not know they needed if they were not quite so rich. (Or if society didn’t offer them so many simulacrums of personal wealth in the form of easy credit.)
在電子產(chǎn)品這個(gè)行業(yè)里，要求不斷升級、跟上最新時(shí)代創(chuàng )新的壓力，可能已經(jīng)公開(kāi)得不能再公開(kāi)、冷血得不能再冷血了?？墒沁@種競爭（以及對大眾視聽(tīng)的聰明扭曲）其實(shí)只是更大范圍內文化變遷的一個(gè)函數而已：如果人們沒(méi)有錢(qián)，（或者社會(huì )沒(méi)有通過(guò)隨便就能取得的信用而制造那么多的個(gè)人財富假象，）就無(wú)法說(shuō)服或者逼迫他們購買(mǎi)他們并不知道自己需要的東西。
Having lived in Britain since the 1960s, when even many middle-class homes did not have telephones, central heating or fridges, let alone the full panoply of home entertainment equipment that now counts as standard issue, I am astounded by the change in expectations. Am I grateful on behalf of a younger adult generation that takes for granted the ownership of a car, a warm house and the labour-saving appliances that make family life so much less exhausting? Of course I am. Do I think that this affluence and everything that it buys are undiluted blessings – that there has been no loss in this gallop into acquisitiveness? No, I do not.
我從上個(gè)世紀六十年代起就一直生活在英國，那時(shí)很多中產(chǎn)階級家庭也沒(méi)有電話(huà)、中央供暖或冰箱，更不用說(shuō)現在已經(jīng)成為標準配置的全套家庭娛樂(lè )設施了。人們在期望值上發(fā)生的變化真讓我吃驚。年輕的一代覺(jué)得擁有一輛汽車(chē)、一所溫暖的房子、以及讓家庭生活不再疲于奔命的種種省力裝置是理所當然的，我要不要因此為他們而心存感激呢？當然。我是否認為這種物質(zhì)的充裕以及所有花錢(qián)可以買(mǎi)到的東西都純屬好事，而在大家急于獲取的過(guò)程中沒(méi)有一絲一毫的損失呢？不，我可不這樣認為。
Maybe I will sound too much like an old puritanical Marxist, ranting about the capitalist conspiracy to lure gullible consumers into buying more and more, if I say that the coming reduction of affluence (what economists call a “readjustment” in disposable income) might not necessarily be such a terrible thing. It is worth noting, on the conspiracy front, that the price of home entertainment goodies, which had been falling consistently for many years, has now dramatically leapt: DAB radios are far more expensive than traditional ones, as are “smart” televisions, which incorporate computers.
如果我說(shuō)即將到來(lái)的財富削減（經(jīng)濟學(xué)家稱(chēng)之為可支配收入的“再分配”）并不一定那么糟糕，我聽(tīng)起來(lái)可能很象一個(gè)過(guò)時(shí)的清教徒式的馬克思主義者，不停地數落著(zhù)資本主義引誘容易上當受騙的消費者購買(mǎi)越來(lái)越多商品的陰謀。說(shuō)到陰謀，有必要指出的是，家庭娛樂(lè )設施的價(jià)格在過(guò)去很多年里一直在下跌，現在突然大幅度上漲了：數字廣播收音機比傳統收音機貴了許多，同樣昂貴的還有內置電腦的“智能”電視機。
Now don’t get me wrong, I believe profoundly in the value of mass prosperity and the ability of free markets to deliver it: the personal freedom, self-determination and dignity that come with financial independence are transforming for individuals and for the societies in which they are generally available. And yet, and yet… through this very independence that comes with relative wealth, something has been lost.
請別誤會(huì )我。我完全相信社會(huì )繁榮的價(jià)值以及自由市場(chǎng)提供這一切的能力：經(jīng)濟獨立所帶來(lái)的個(gè)人獨立、自我意志和尊嚴正在改變每一個(gè)人，也改變著(zhù)他們身處其中的社會(huì )?？墒?，可是……人們在相對富裕后獲得上述獨立的同時(shí)，有些東西也消失了。
When our children were very small, we did not own a car, nor did many of our friends and neighbours – such a state being not uncommon in an inner London district in the 1970s. So the friends who did own cars used to give lifts to the supermarket, or to the doctor, or wherever, to those who did not. And nobody on ordinary middle-class earnings could afford a nanny – they looked then like a nearly extinct species – so we had au pairs, or used informal childminders (who were usually friends, or friends of friends).
在我們的孩子還小的時(shí)候，我們并沒(méi)有汽車(chē)，多數我們的朋友和鄰居也沒(méi)有——這種情形在上個(gè)世紀七十年代的倫敦近郊并不少見(jiàn)。于是，有車(chē)的朋友經(jīng)常會(huì )捎上沒(méi)車(chē)的朋友去超市，去看醫生，或者做其它雜事。那時(shí)一般中產(chǎn)階級的收入也雇不起保姆——保姆當時(shí)幾乎成為瀕危物種了——于是我們就通過(guò)提供食宿來(lái)?yè)Q取服務(wù)，或者使用非正式保姆來(lái)看孩子（這些通常都是朋友或者朋友的朋友）。
Some people solved their childcare problems by letting rooms in their homes to single mothers in return for childminding. (This was a very common arrangement – we could afford bigger houses in those days when property prices were so much lower.) Because we could not afford to pay for evening baby-sitting, we formed well-organised baby-sitting circles in which tokens were exchanged for hours – and these became life-saving neighbourhood friendship networks. (Were we part of a Big Society without giving it a name?)
有些人為了解決照看孩子的問(wèn)題，就讓單身母親住到他們家里的空房間里，以此換取對孩子的照顧服務(wù)。（這在當時(shí)很普遍——那時(shí)的房子價(jià)格比現在低得多，所以我們買(mǎi)得起大房子。）因為請人在晚上看孩子太貴，我們就組織起看孩子的社交圈，用代幣來(lái)交換小時(shí)——這些后來(lái)都成為救命的鄰里友誼網(wǎng)絡(luò )。（我們好象都是名符其實(shí)的大社會(huì )的成員呢，對不？）
In other words, we helped each other. Because we had so little money, we had to improvise mutual support systems. We became a true community precisely because we needed each other’s goodwill and assistance, and could not buy our way out of difficulties or practical problems. I know that parents now share school runs and arrange play dates during the holidays, and I am sure that neighbours are still helpful to one another in emergencies. But is there the same sense of extended family – of real interdependence – that there was when people relied on one another for day-to-day needs?
換句話(huà)說(shuō)，我們互相幫助。因為手頭不寬裕，我們不得不臨時(shí)湊成互助的系統。正是因為我們無(wú)法花錢(qián)解決問(wèn)題和一些實(shí)際的困難，需要彼此的善意和協(xié)助，我們才能成為真正的社區。我知道現在有些家長(cháng)輪流接送孩子上下學(xué)，或者在假期里輪流組織活動(dòng)日，我也相信鄰居們在彼此遇到緊急狀況時(shí)還是會(huì )互相幫助，但是那種大家庭的感覺(jué)，那種真正的相互依賴(lài)、相依為命的感覺(jué)，還跟從前一樣嗎？
This is what is known in political circles as “solidarity”, which was once a strong feature of working-class life before (as Noel Gallagher of all people, noted last week ) its traditional values were junked in favour of celebrity culture and materialism. By the 1970s, when Britain’s economy was in a spiral of decline, the middle classes were impoverished, too, and so they discovered their own resources – and the consolations of social connectedness.
這在政治圈里稱(chēng)之為“休戚與共”。這曾經(jīng)是工薪階層生活的重要特征（就象諾爾·加拉赫上周所說(shuō)的那樣），直到它的傳統價(jià)值被拋到一邊，取而代之的是明星文化和物質(zhì)主義。到了上個(gè)世紀七十年代、英國經(jīng)濟每況愈下時(shí)，中產(chǎn)階級也變窮了，結果他們發(fā)現了自己所擁有的資源以及與社會(huì )相聯(lián)所帶來(lái)的安慰。
But it is not just relations between families that have been disrupted, or attenuated, by prosperity. Much has been written about the mental isolation that is bred in children and adolescents by computer addiction: that quasi-autistic condition that obsessive interaction with a screen seems to inculcate. It may or may not be true that this compulsion can actually have neurological consequences, as Baroness Greenfield, the ex-director of the Royal Institution, has claimed. But what cannot be denied is that a child or an adult who is so preoccupied with relating to an inanimate object is cut off – in a world of his own, as they say. The household affluent enough to provide each member with his own television, computer and smartphone is spared the need for most forms of social contact.
物質(zhì)繁榮導致的并不僅限于家庭關(guān)系的破裂和貶值。已經(jīng)有很多文章討論過(guò)電腦癖給孩子和青春期少年帶來(lái)的精神孤立，也就是過(guò)度使用顯示屏所導致的準自閉癥情況。目前還不能確定是不是象皇家研究所的前主任格林菲爾德男爵夫人所說(shuō)的那樣，這種強迫行為會(huì )對神經(jīng)系統產(chǎn)生影響，但是無(wú)可否認的是，一個(gè)完全被無(wú)生命物體所占據的孩子或成人，注定只能生活在他自己的世界里。那些富裕得可以為其中每個(gè)成員提供他自己的電視、電腦和智能手機的家庭，便失去了絕大多數社交的需要。
In a quaint historical era that some of us can just recall, families had to negotiate what would be watched on the one and only television in the house. This process was not without friction – particularly between the genders and the generations – but at least you got to know each other’s preferences and predilections, and the arguments in defence of those preferences offered training in social give-and-take. So the individual household, walled up in its suburban palace with every conceivable form of electronic equipment, can be isolated from its community. And the members of that household – staring at their individual screens or texting away on their phones – can lead lives separate from one another.
我們有些人也許還能記得，在過(guò)去，一家只有一臺電視，家里人需要通過(guò)協(xié)商來(lái)決定看什么節目。這個(gè)過(guò)程有時(shí)充滿(mǎn)摩擦，特別是在不同性別和不同代的人之間，但至少你會(huì )了解每個(gè)人的喜好和偏愛(ài)，而且那些為自己的嗜好辯解的爭論還有助于學(xué)習在社會(huì )中給予和索取。所以那些生活在郊區宮殿的圍墻里、擁有一切電子設備的人家，便從社區中脫離了。而這樣家庭里的成員——盯著(zhù)他們各自的屏幕，或者在各自的手機上發(fā)著(zhù)短信——便會(huì )過(guò)著(zhù)彼此完全不相干的生活。
Is it possible that if people are allowed to adjust to being just a bit poorer – if the heavy hand of regulation on such things as informal childcare, for example, can be removed – that there might be a chance to recover something valuable that has been almost forgotten?
有沒(méi)有這樣的可能，當人們習慣于變得窮一點(diǎn)兒的時(shí)候——并且，在諸如非正式保姆方面的法規重手能夠被移開(kāi)的話(huà)——也許我們有機會(huì )重新找回一些幾乎被忘卻的過(guò)去的價(jià)值？
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