  January 2004 2004年1月 Have you ever seen an old photo of yourself and been embarrassed at the way you looked? Did we actually dress like that? We did. And we had no idea how silly we looked. It's the nature of fashion to be invisible, in the same way the movement of the earth is invisible to all of us riding on it. 你是否曾经看过自己的一张旧照片，对自己的样子感到尴尬？我们真的穿成那样了吗？是的，我们穿成了那样。而且我们毫不知情地显得多么愚蠢。时尚的本质就是无形的，就像地球的运动对我们所有乘坐其上的人都是无形的一样。 What scares me is that there are moral fashions too. They're just as arbitrary, and just as invisible to most people. But they're much more dangerous. Fashion is mistaken for good design; moral fashion is mistaken for good. Dressing oddly gets you laughed at. Violating moral fashions can get you fired, ostracized, imprisoned, or even killed. 令我害怕的是，道德时尚也存在。它们同样是武断的，对大多数人来说同样是无形的。但它们却更加危险。时尚被误认为是好设计；道德时尚被误认为是善良。穿着古怪会让人取笑。违反道德时尚可能会让你被解雇、排斥、监禁，甚至被杀害。 If you could travel back in a time machine, one thing would be true no matter where you went: you'd have to watch what you said. Opinions we consider harmless could have gotten you in big trouble. I've already said at least one thing that would have gotten me in big trouble in most of Europe in the seventeenth century, and did get Galileo in big trouble when he said it — that the earth moves. [1] 如果你能够坐上时光机回到过去，无论你去哪里，有一件事是肯定的：你得小心你说的话。我们认为无害的观点在过去可能会让你陷入麻烦。我已经说了至少一件在 17 世纪的大部分欧洲会让我陷入麻烦的事情，也正是这件事让伽利略陷入了麻烦——地球是运动的。 [1] It seems to be a constant throughout history: In every period, people believed things that were just ridiculous, and believed them so strongly that you would have gotten in terrible trouble for saying otherwise. 在历史上似乎是一个恒定的事实：在每个时期，人们都相信一些荒谬的事情，并且相信得如此坚定，以至于你若说出不同的观点就会陷入严重的麻烦。 Is our time any different? To anyone who has read any amount of history, the answer is almost certainly no. It would be a remarkable coincidence if ours were the first era to get everything just right. 我们的时代有何不同？对于任何读过一定量历史的人来说，答案几乎肯定是否定的。如果我们的时代是第一个把一切都搞对的时代，那将是一个非凡的巧合。 It's tantalizing to think we believe things that people in the future will find ridiculous. What would someone coming back to visit us in a time machine have to be careful not to say? That's what I want to study here. But I want to do more than just shock everyone with the heresy du jour. I want to find general recipes for discovering what you can't say, in any era. 想到我们相信的事情将来的人会觉得荒谬，这真是令人心动。如果有人乘时光机回到我们这个时代，他需要小心不要说错什么？这就是我想在这里研究的。但我不只是想用当下的异端观点震惊每个人，我想找到一个通用的方法，来发现在任何时代你不能说的话。 The Conformist Test 《顺从者测试》 Let's start with a test: Do you have any opinions that you would be reluctant to express in front of a group of your peers? 让我们从一个测试开始：你是否有任何观点，你会不愿意在同龄人面前表达？ If the answer is no, you might want to stop and think about that. If everything you believe is something you're supposed to believe, could that possibly be a coincidence? Odds are it isn't. Odds are you just think what you're told. 如果答案是否定的，你可能需要停下来思考一下。如果你所相信的一切都是你应该相信的，这可能只是巧合吗？很可能不是。很可能你只是在听别人的话。 The other alternative would be that you independently considered every question and came up with the exact same answers that are now considered acceptable. That seems unlikely, because you'd also have to make the same mistakes. Mapmakers deliberately put slight mistakes in their maps so they can tell when someone copies them. If another map has the same mistake, that's very convincing evidence. 另一种选择是你独立考虑每个问题，并得出现在被认为是可接受的确切答案。这似乎不太可能，因为你也会犯同样的错误。地图制作者故意在地图上放入轻微的错误，这样他们就能知道有人抄袭了他们的地图。如果另一张地图有同样的错误，那就是非常有说服力的证据。 Like every other era in history, our moral map almost certainly contains a few mistakes. And anyone who makes the same mistakes probably didn't do it by accident. It would be like someone claiming they had independently decided in 1972 that bell-bottom jeans were a good idea. 像历史上的每个时代一样，我们的道德地图几乎肯定包含一些错误。而任何犯同样错误的人可能并非偶然。这就像有人声称他们在 1972 年独立决定喇叭裤是个好主意一样荒谬。 If you believe everything you're supposed to now, how can you be sure you wouldn't also have believed everything you were supposed to if you had grown up among the plantation owners of the pre-Civil War South, or in Germany in the 1930s — or among the Mongols in 1200, for that matter? Odds are you would have. 如果你现在相信你应该相信的一切，你怎么能确定如果你在南北战争前的美国种植园主中长大，或者在 20 世纪 30 年代的德国，又或者在 1200 年的蒙古人中长大，你也不会相信你应该相信的一切呢？很可能你会。 Back in the era of terms like "well-adjusted," the idea seemed to be that there was something wrong with you if you thought things you didn't dare say out loud. This seems backward. Almost certainly, there is something wrong with you if you don't think things you don't dare say out loud. 回到“适应良好”这样的时代，似乎认为如果你想的事情你不敢大声说出来，那么你就有问题。这似乎是颠倒的。几乎可以肯定，如果你不敢大声说出你所想的事情，那么你就有问题。 Trouble 麻烦 What can't we say? One way to find these ideas is simply to look at things people do say, and get in trouble for. [2] 我们不能说什么？找到这些想法的一种方法就是简单地看看人们说出来却惹上麻烦的事情。 [2] Of course, we're not just looking for things we can't say. We're looking for things we can't say that are true, or at least have enough chance of being true that the question should remain open. But many of the things people get in trouble for saying probably do make it over this second, lower threshold. No one gets in trouble for saying that 2 + 2 is 5, or that people in Pittsburgh are ten feet tall. Such obviously false statements might be treated as jokes, or at worst as evidence of insanity, but they are not likely to make anyone mad. The statements that make people mad are the ones they worry might be believed. I suspect the statements that make people maddest are those they worry might be true. 当然，我们不仅仅是在寻找我们不能说的事情。我们在寻找那些我们不能说的事情，这些事情是真实的，或者至少有足够的可能是真实的，以至于这个问题应该保持开放。但是，许多让人因言论而惹上麻烦的事情可能确实超过了这个第二个更低的门槛。没有人因为说 2 + 2 等于 5，或者匹兹堡的人都有十英尺高而惹上麻烦。这些显然错误的陈述可能被视为笑话，或者最坏的情况下被视为疯狂的证据，但它们不太可能让任何人生气。让人生气的陈述是那些他们担心可能被相信的陈述。我怀疑让人最生气的陈述是那些他们担心可能是真实的陈述。 If Galileo had said that people in Padua were ten feet tall, he would have been regarded as a harmless eccentric. Saying the earth orbited the sun was another matter. The church knew this would set people thinking. 如果伽利略说威尼斯的人有十英尺高，他会被视为一个无害的怪人。说地球围绕太阳运转就是另一回事。教会知道这会让人们开始思考。 Certainly, as we look back on the past, this rule of thumb works well. A lot of the statements people got in trouble for seem harmless now. So it's likely that visitors from the future would agree with at least some of the statements that get people in trouble today. Do we have no Galileos? Not likely. 当然，当我们回顾过去时，这个经验法则仍然适用。很多人因为发表的言论而惹上麻烦，现在看来似乎无伤大雅。因此，未来的访客很可能会同意今天会让人陷入麻烦的一些言论。难道我们没有伽利略吗？不太可能。 To find them, keep track of opinions that get people in trouble, and start asking, could this be true? Ok, it may be heretical (or whatever modern equivalent), but might it also be true? 要找到它们，要留意那些让人陷入麻烦的观点，并开始思考，这可能是真的吗？好吧，这可能是异端邪说（或者现代的等价物），但它也可能是真的吗？ Heresy 异端 This won't get us all the answers, though. What if no one happens to have gotten in trouble for a particular idea yet? What if some idea would be so radioactively controversial that no one would dare express it in public? How can we find these too? 然而，这并不能给我们所有的答案。如果没有人因为某个想法而陷入麻烦怎么办？如果某个想法非常具有争议性，以至于没有人敢公开表达它怎么办？我们怎么找到这些想法呢？ Another approach is to follow that word, heresy. In every period of history, there seem to have been labels that got applied to statements to shoot them down before anyone had a chance to ask if they were true or not. "Blasphemy", "sacrilege", and "heresy" were such labels for a good part of western history, as in more recent times "indecent", "improper", and "unamerican" have been. By now these labels have lost their sting. They always do. By now they're mostly used ironically. But in their time, they had real force. 另一种方法是遵循那个词，异端。在历史的每个时期，似乎都有标签被贴上，以在任何人有机会询问它们是否真实之前就将它们打倒。“亵渎”、“渎神”和“异端”在西方历史的很大一部分时间内都是这样的标签，就像近些年的“不雅”、“不当”和“非美国人”一样。到现在，这些标签已经失去了它们的力量。它们总是会失去的。到现在它们大多被讽刺地使用。但在它们的时代，它们确实有力量。 The word "defeatist", for example, has no particular political connotations now. But in Germany in 1917 it was a weapon, used by Ludendorff in a purge of those who favored a negotiated peace. At the start of World War II it was used extensively by Churchill and his supporters to silence their opponents. In 1940, any argument against Churchill's aggressive policy was "defeatist". Was it right or wrong? Ideally, no one got far enough to ask that. 例如，“失败主义者”这个词现在并没有特定的政治内涵。但在 1917 年的德国，它是一种武器，由卢登道夫用来清洗那些支持和平谈判的人。在第二次世界大战开始时，丘吉尔及其支持者广泛使用它来使他们的对手沉默。1940 年，任何反对丘吉尔进攻政策的论点都被称为“失败主义者”。这是对还是错？理想情况下，没有人有机会问这个问题。 We have such labels today, of course, quite a lot of them, from the all-purpose "inappropriate" to the dreaded "divisive." In any period, it should be easy to figure out what such labels are, simply by looking at what people call ideas they disagree with besides untrue. When a politician says his opponent is mistaken, that's a straightforward criticism, but when he attacks a statement as "divisive" or "racially insensitive" instead of arguing that it's false, we should start paying attention. 今天我们有很多这样的标签，当然，从通用的“不合适”到可怕的“具有分裂性”。在任何时期，应该很容易弄清楚这些标签是什么，只需看看人们称之为除了不真实的想法。当一位政治家说他的对手是错误的，那是一个直接的批评，但当他攻击一种陈述为“具有分裂性”或“种族不敏感”，而不是争论它是错误的时候，我们应该开始注意了。 So another way to figure out which of our taboos future generations will laugh at is to start with the labels. Take a label — "sexist", for example — and try to think of some ideas that would be called that. Then for each ask, might this be true? 所以，找出我们的哪些禁忌将会被未来的世代嘲笑的另一种方法是从标签开始。拿一个标签——比如“性别歧视”——然后尝试想一些可能会被称为这个标签的想法。然后对于每一个想法，问一下，这可能是真的吗？ Just start listing ideas at random? Yes, because they won't really be random. The ideas that come to mind first will be the most plausible ones. They'll be things you've already noticed but didn't let yourself think. 随便列举一些想法？是的，因为它们实际上不会是随机的。首先想到的想法将是最有可能的。它们将是你已经注意到但没有让自己去思考的事情。 In 1989 some clever researchers tracked the eye movements of radiologists as they scanned chest images for signs of lung cancer. [3] They found that even when the radiologists missed a cancerous lesion, their eyes had usually paused at the site of it. Part of their brain knew there was something there; it just didn't percolate all the way up into conscious knowledge. I think many interesting heretical thoughts are already mostly formed in our minds. If we turn off our self-censorship temporarily, those will be the first to emerge. 1989 年，一些聪明的研究人员追踪了放射科医生在扫描胸部影像以寻找肺癌迹象时的眼动。[3] 他们发现，即使放射科医生错过了一个癌变病灶，他们的眼睛通常也会在那个位置停顿。他们大脑的一部分知道那里有什么东西；只是没有完全上升到意识知识。我认为许多有趣的异端思想已经在我们的头脑中形成。如果我们暂时关闭自我审查，这些思想将首先浮现出来。 Time and Space 时间和空间 If we could look into the future it would be obvious which of our taboos they'd laugh at. We can't do that, but we can do something almost as good: we can look into the past. Another way to figure out what we're getting wrong is to look at what used to be acceptable and is now unthinkable. 如果我们能够预见未来，他们会笑我们哪些禁忌。我们做不到这一点，但我们可以做一件几乎同样好的事情：我们可以回顾过去。找出我们错在哪里的另一种方法是看看过去什么是可以接受的，而现在是不可想象的。 Changes between the past and the present sometimes do represent progress. In a field like physics, if we disagree with past generations it's because we're right and they're wrong. But this becomes rapidly less true as you move away from the certainty of the hard sciences. By the time you get to social questions, many changes are just fashion. The age of consent fluctuates like hemlines. 过去和现在之间的变化有时确实代表着进步。在物理学这样的领域，如果我们与过去的一代人意见不合，那是因为我们是对的，他们是错的。但是，随着你远离确定性的硬科学，这种说法迅速变得不再那么正确。当你涉及社会问题时，许多变化只是时尚。法定年龄也像裙摆一样起伏不定。 We may imagine that we are a great deal smarter and more virtuous than past generations, but the more history you read, the less likely this seems. People in past times were much like us. Not heroes, not barbarians. Whatever their ideas were, they were ideas reasonable people could believe. 我们可能会想象自己比过去的一代人聪明得多，更有美德，但是你读的历史越多，这种想法就越不可能。过去的人们很像我们。既不是英雄，也不是野蛮人。无论他们的想法是什么，都是合理人可以相信的想法。 So here is another source of interesting heresies. Diff present ideas against those of various past cultures, and see what you get. [4] Some will be shocking by present standards. Ok, fine; but which might also be true? 所以这里是另一个有趣异端的来源。将现在的想法与各种过去文化的想法进行对比，看看你会得到什么。[4] 有些可能会令人震惊，按照现在的标准来看。好吧，但哪些也可能是真的呢？ You don't have to look into the past to find big differences. In our own time, different societies have wildly varying ideas of what's ok and what isn't. So you can try diffing other cultures' ideas against ours as well. (The best way to do that is to visit them.) Any idea that's considered harmless in a significant percentage of times and places, and yet is taboo in ours, is a candidate for something we're mistaken about. 你不必回顾过去来发现巨大的差异。在我们自己的时代，不同的社会对于什么是可以接受的，什么是不可以接受的，有着截然不同的观念。因此，你也可以尝试将其他文化的观念与我们的观念进行对比。（最好的方法是亲自去访问这些文化。）任何在很多时代和地方被认为是无害的观念，但在我们这里却是禁忌的，都有可能是我们误解的东西的候选者。 For example, at the high water mark of political correctness in the early 1990s, Harvard distributed to its faculty and staff a brochure saying, among other things, that it was inappropriate to compliment a colleague or student's clothes. No more "nice shirt." I think this principle is rare among the world's cultures, past or present. There are probably more where it's considered especially polite to compliment someone's clothing than where it's considered improper. Odds are this is, in a mild form, an example of one of the taboos a visitor from the future would have to be careful to avoid if he happened to set his time machine for Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1992. [5] 例如，在 20 世纪 90 年代初政治正确达到巅峰时期，哈佛大学向其教职员工发放了一本小册子，其中提到，赞美同事或学生的衣服是不合适的。不能再说“衬衫不错”。我认为这个原则在世界各国的文化中都很罕见，无论是过去还是现在。可能有更多的文化认为赞美别人的服装是特别礼貌的，而认为不适当的地方可能更少。很有可能，这是一个轻微的例子，是未来的访客在设置时间机器前往 1992 年马萨诸塞州剑桥市时需要小心避免的禁忌之一。 [5] Prigs 自命不凡 Of course, if they have time machines in the future they'll probably have a separate reference manual just for Cambridge. This has always been a fussy place, a town of i dotters and t crossers, where you're liable to get both your grammar and your ideas corrected in the same conversation. And that suggests another way to find taboos. Look for prigs, and see what's inside their heads. 当然，如果未来他们有时光机，他们可能会为剑桥专门制作一本参考手册。这里一直是一个挑剔的地方，一个爱挑剔细节的地方，一个你可能在同一场对话中被纠正语法和想法的地方。这也提示了另一种找到禁忌的方法。寻找道貌岸然的人，看看他们的内心深处是什么。 Kids' heads are repositories of all our taboos. It seems fitting to us that kids' ideas should be bright and clean. The picture we give them of the world is not merely simplified, to suit their developing minds, but sanitized as well, to suit our ideas of what kids ought to think. [6] 孩子们的头脑是我们所有禁忌的储存库。我们觉得孩子的想法应该是明亮而纯净的。我们给他们的世界观不仅仅是为了适应他们正在发展的思维，而且也是为了适应我们对孩子应该怎么想的想法。 [6] You can see this on a small scale in the matter of dirty words. A lot of my friends are starting to have children now, and they're all trying not to use words like "fuck" and "shit" within baby's hearing, lest baby start using these words too. But these words are part of the language, and adults use them all the time. So parents are giving their kids an inaccurate idea of the language by not using them. Why do they do this? Because they don't think it's fitting that kids should use the whole language. We like children to seem innocent. [7] 现在我的很多朋友都开始要孩子了，他们都尽量不在孩子听到的地方说“操”、“屎”这样的脏话，以免孩子也学会说这些词。但这些词是语言的一部分，成年人经常使用它们。所以父母不使用这些词给孩子们提供了一个不准确的语言观念。他们为什么这样做呢？因为他们认为孩子不应该使用整个语言。我们希望孩子们看起来天真无邪。 Most adults, likewise, deliberately give kids a misleading view of the world. One of the most obvious examples is Santa Claus. We think it's cute for little kids to believe in Santa Claus. I myself think it's cute for little kids to believe in Santa Claus. But one wonders, do we tell them this stuff for their sake, or for ours? 大多数成年人也故意给孩子们一个错误的世界观。最明显的例子之一就是圣诞老人。我们认为小孩相信圣诞老人是可爱的。我自己也认为小孩相信圣诞老人是可爱的。但人们不禁要问，我们告诉他们这些事情是为了他们的利益，还是为了我们自己的利益？ I'm not arguing for or against this idea here. It is probably inevitable that parents should want to dress up their kids' minds in cute little baby outfits. I'll probably do it myself. The important thing for our purposes is that, as a result, a well brought-up teenage kid's brain is a more or less complete collection of all our taboos — and in mint condition, because they're untainted by experience. Whatever we think that will later turn out to be ridiculous, it's almost certainly inside that head. 我在这里不是为了支持或反对这个想法。父母们可能会想要给自己的孩子们的思想打扮成可爱的小宝宝服装，这可能是不可避免的。我自己可能也会这样做。对我们来说重要的是，因此，一个受过良好教养的十几岁的孩子的大脑是我们所有禁忌的一个相对完整的集合，而且是处于新品状态，因为它们没有被经验污染。无论我们认为什么以后会被证明是荒谬的，几乎可以肯定地说，它几乎肯定存在于那个头脑中。 How do we get at these ideas? By the following thought experiment. Imagine a kind of latter-day Conrad character who has worked for a time as a mercenary in Africa, for a time as a doctor in Nepal, for a time as the manager of a nightclub in Miami. The specifics don't matter — just someone who has seen a lot. Now imagine comparing what's inside this guy's head with what's inside the head of a well-behaved sixteen year old girl from the suburbs. What does he think that would shock her? He knows the world; she knows, or at least embodies, present taboos. Subtract one from the other, and the result is what we can't say. 我们如何得到这些想法？通过以下思想实验。想象一个现代康拉德式的人物，他曾在非洲当雇佣兵，曾在尼泊尔当医生，曾在迈阿密当夜总会经理。具体细节并不重要，只是一个见多识广的人。现在想象一下，比较一下这个人头脑中的东西和一个来自郊区的乖巧的十六岁女孩的头脑中的东西。他认为什么会让她感到震惊？他了解世界；她知道，或者至少体现了，当前的禁忌。两者相减，结果就是我们无法说出的东西。 Mechanism 机制 I can think of one more way to figure out what we can't say: to look at how taboos are created. How do moral fashions arise, and why are they adopted? If we can understand this mechanism, we may be able to see it at work in our own time. 我可以想到另一种方法来弄清楚我们不能说什么：看看禁忌是如何产生的。道德时尚是如何产生的，为什么会被采纳？如果我们能理解这个机制，也许我们就能看到它在我们自己的时代中起作用。 Moral fashions don't seem to be created the way ordinary fashions are. Ordinary fashions seem to arise by accident when everyone imitates the whim of some influential person. The fashion for broad-toed shoes in late fifteenth century Europe began because Charles VIII of France had six toes on one foot. The fashion for the name Gary began when the actor Frank Cooper adopted the name of a tough mill town in Indiana. Moral fashions more often seem to be created deliberately. When there's something we can't say, it's often because some group doesn't want us to. 道德时尚似乎不是像普通时尚那样产生的。普通时尚似乎是偶然产生的，当每个人都模仿某个有影响力的人的一时兴致时。15 世纪晚期欧洲流行宽鞋头的时尚是因为法国的查理八世有一只脚有六个脚趾。Gary 这个名字的流行是因为演员弗兰克·库珀采用了印第安纳州一个艰苦的工厂城镇的名字。道德时尚似乎更多地是故意创造的。当有些事情我们不能说的时候，往往是因为某个群体不希望我们说。 The prohibition will be strongest when the group is nervous. The irony of Galileo's situation was that he got in trouble for repeating Copernicus's ideas. Copernicus himself didn't. In fact, Copernicus was a canon of a cathedral, and dedicated his book to the pope. But by Galileo's time the church was in the throes of the Counter-Reformation and was much more worried about unorthodox ideas. 当群体感到紧张时，禁令会最为严厉。伽利略的情况讽刺的是，他因为重复哥白尼的观点而惹上了麻烦。哥白尼本人却没有。事实上，哥白尼是一座大教堂的牧师，并把他的书献给了教皇。但到了伽利略的时代，教会正处于反宗教改革的动荡时期，对非正统的观念更加担忧。 To launch a taboo, a group has to be poised halfway between weakness and power. A confident group doesn't need taboos to protect it. It's not considered improper to make disparaging remarks about Americans, or the English. And yet a group has to be powerful enough to enforce a taboo. Coprophiles, as of this writing, don't seem to be numerous or energetic enough to have had their interests promoted to a lifestyle. 要启动一个禁忌，一个群体必须处于软弱和力量之间的平衡状态。一个自信的群体不需要禁忌来保护自己。对美国人或英国人进行贬低的言论并不被认为是不当的。然而，一个群体必须足够强大才能执行禁忌。截至目前，粪便恋者似乎并不多，也没有足够的活力来将他们的兴趣推广为一种生活方式。 I suspect the biggest source of moral taboos will turn out to be power struggles in which one side only barely has the upper hand. That's where you'll find a group powerful enough to enforce taboos, but weak enough to need them. 我怀疑道德禁忌最大的来源将会是权力斗争，其中一方仅仅占据上风。在这种情况下，你会发现一个足够强大以执行禁忌的群体，但又足够软弱以需要禁忌。 Most struggles, whatever they're really about, will be cast as struggles between competing ideas. The English Reformation was at bottom a struggle for wealth and power, but it ended up being cast as a struggle to preserve the souls of Englishmen from the corrupting influence of Rome. It's easier to get people to fight for an idea. And whichever side wins, their ideas will also be considered to have triumphed, as if God wanted to signal his agreement by selecting that side as the victor. 大多数斗争，无论实际上是关于什么的，都会被描述为不同观念之间的斗争。英国的宗教改革从根本上来说是为了财富和权力的斗争，但最终被描述为一场为了保护英国人的灵魂免受罗马腐化影响的斗争。让人们为一个观念而战更容易。而无论哪一方获胜，他们的观念也会被认为获得了胜利，仿佛上帝通过选择那一方作为胜利者来表示他的赞同。 We often like to think of World War II as a triumph of freedom over totalitarianism. We conveniently forget that the Soviet Union was also one of the winners. 我们经常喜欢把二战看作是自由战胜极权主义的胜利。我们方便地忘记了苏联也是其中的赢家之一。 I'm not saying that struggles are never about ideas, just that they will always be made to seem to be about ideas, whether they are or not. And just as there is nothing so unfashionable as the last, discarded fashion, there is nothing so wrong as the principles of the most recently defeated opponent. Representational art is only now recovering from the approval of both Hitler and Stalin. [8] 我并不是说斗争从来不涉及思想，只是它们总是被看作是关于思想的，无论实际情况如何。就像没有什么比被抛弃的时尚更不合时宜一样，没有什么比最近被击败的对手的原则更错误的了。代表性艺术现在才刚刚从希特勒和斯大林的赞同中恢复过来。[8] Although moral fashions tend to arise from different sources than fashions in clothing, the mechanism of their adoption seems much the same. The early adopters will be driven by ambition: self-consciously cool people who want to distinguish themselves from the common herd. As the fashion becomes established they'll be joined by a second, much larger group, driven by fear. [9] This second group adopt the fashion not because they want to stand out but because they are afraid of standing out. 尽管道德潮流往往源自不同于服装潮流的地方，但它们的采纳机制似乎大致相同。早期采纳者会被野心驱使：自觉酷的人们想要与普通群体区别开来。随着潮流的确立，他们会被第二个更大的群体所加入，这个群体被恐惧所驱使。[9] 这第二个群体采纳这种潮流并不是因为他们想要脱颖而出，而是因为他们害怕脱颖而出。 So if you want to figure out what we can't say, look at the machinery of fashion and try to predict what it would make unsayable. What groups are powerful but nervous, and what ideas would they like to suppress? What ideas were tarnished by association when they ended up on the losing side of a recent struggle? If a self-consciously cool person wanted to differentiate himself from preceding fashions (e.g. from his parents), which of their ideas would he tend to reject? What are conventional-minded people afraid of saying? 所以，如果你想弄清楚我们不能说什么，看看时尚的机制，并尝试预测它会使什么变得不可言说。哪些群体强大但紧张，他们想要压制哪些想法？哪些想法因为最近一场斗争失败而被玷污？如果一个自觉酷的人想要区别自己和之前的时尚（比如他的父母），他们的哪些想法会倾向于拒绝？传统思维的人害怕说什么？ This technique won't find us all the things we can't say. I can think of some that aren't the result of any recent struggle. Many of our taboos are rooted deep in the past. But this approach, combined with the preceding four, will turn up a good number of unthinkable ideas. 这种技术不会找到我们不能说的所有事情。我可以想到一些并不是最近斗争的结果的事情。我们的许多禁忌根植于过去。但这种方法，结合前面的四种方法，将找出许多不可想象的想法。 Why Some would ask, why would one want to do this? Why deliberately go poking around among nasty, disreputable ideas? Why look under rocks? 有人会问，为什么要这样做？为什么要故意在恶劣的、不体面的想法中四处探索？为什么要翻开石头看底下？ I do it, first of all, for the same reason I did look under rocks as a kid: plain curiosity. And I'm especially curious about anything that's forbidden. Let me see and decide for myself. 首先，我这样做是出于同样的原因，我小时候也会翻开石头看，纯粹是出于好奇心。而且我对任何被禁止的事情尤其感到好奇。让我自己看看，然后自己决定。 Second, I do it because I don't like the idea of being mistaken. If, like other eras, we believe things that will later seem ridiculous, I want to know what they are so that I, at least, can avoid believing them. 其次，我这样做是因为我不喜欢被误导的想法。如果像其他时代一样，我们相信后来看起来荒谬的事情，我想知道它们是什么，至少我可以避免相信它们。 Third, I do it because it's good for the brain. To do good work you need a brain that can go anywhere. And you especially need a brain that's in the habit of going where it's not supposed to. 第三，我这样做是因为这对大脑有好处。要做好工作，你需要一个可以去任何地方的大脑。尤其是需要一个习惯于去不该去的地方的大脑。 Great work tends to grow out of ideas that others have overlooked, and no idea is so overlooked as one that's unthinkable. Natural selection, for example. It's so simple. Why didn't anyone think of it before? Well, that is all too obvious. Darwin himself was careful to tiptoe around the implications of his theory. He wanted to spend his time thinking about biology, not arguing with people who accused him of being an atheist. 伟大的工作往往源于他人忽视的想法，而没有什么想法比不可想象的更容易被忽视。比如自然选择。这么简单的道理，为什么以前没有人想到呢？嗯，那太明显了。达尔文本人小心翼翼地绕过了他理论的含义。他想把时间花在思考生物学上，而不是和那些指责他是无神论者的人争论。 In the sciences, especially, it's a great advantage to be able to question assumptions. The m.o. of scientists, or at least of the good ones, is precisely that: look for places where conventional wisdom is broken, and then try to pry apart the cracks and see what's underneath. That's where new theories come from. 尤其是在科学领域，能够质疑假设是一个巨大的优势。科学家的工作方法，或者至少是好的科学家的方法，就是这样：寻找传统智慧无法解释的地方，然后试图撬开裂缝，看看下面是什么。这就是新理论的来源。 A good scientist, in other words, does not merely ignore conventional wisdom, but makes a special effort to break it. Scientists go looking for trouble. This should be the m.o. of any scholar, but scientists seem much more willing to look under rocks. [10] 换句话说，一个优秀的科学家不仅仅是忽视传统智慧，而是特别努力地打破它。科学家们喜欢找麻烦。这应该是任何学者的工作方法，但科学家们似乎更愿意去翻找底下的东西。 Why? It could be that the scientists are simply smarter; most physicists could, if necessary, make it through a PhD program in French literature, but few professors of French literature could make it through a PhD program in physics. Or it could be because it's clearer in the sciences whether theories are true or false, and this makes scientists bolder. (Or it could be that, because it's clearer in the sciences whether theories are true or false, you have to be smart to get jobs as a scientist, rather than just a good politician.) 为什么？可能是因为科学家们更聪明；大多数物理学家如果必要的话可以通过法国文学的博士课程，但很少有法国文学教授能通过物理学的博士课程。或者是因为在科学领域，理论是真是假更加清晰，这使得科学家更加大胆。（或者是因为在科学领域，理论是真是假更加清晰，你必须聪明才能成为科学家，而不仅仅是一个优秀的政治家。） Whatever the reason, there seems a clear correlation between intelligence and willingness to consider shocking ideas. This isn't just because smart people actively work to find holes in conventional thinking. I think conventions also have less hold over them to start with. You can see that in the way they dress. 无论原因是什么，似乎智力和考虑令人震惊的想法的意愿之间存在着明显的相关性。这不仅仅是因为聪明人积极努力地寻找常规思维的漏洞。我认为常规思维对他们的控制也较少。你可以从他们的穿着方式看出来。 It's not only in the sciences that heresy pays off. In any competitive field, you can win big by seeing things that others daren't. And in every field there are probably heresies few dare utter. Within the US car industry there is a lot of hand-wringing now about declining market share. Yet the cause is so obvious that any observant outsider could explain it in a second: they make bad cars. And they have for so long that by now the US car brands are antibrands — something you'd buy a car despite, not because of. Cadillac stopped being the Cadillac of cars in about 1970. And yet I suspect no one dares say this. [11] Otherwise these companies would have tried to fix the problem. 不仅在科学领域，异端观点都可能带来好处。在任何竞争激烈的领域，你都可以通过看到别人不敢看的东西而大获成功。而在每个领域中，可能都存在一些鲜有人敢提及的异端观点。在美国汽车行业内，人们现在对市场份额的下降感到非常焦虑。然而，造成这一问题的原因是如此明显，以至于任何敏锐的外部人士都能在一秒钟内解释清楚：他们生产劣质汽车。而且他们已经生产了这么长时间，以至于现在美国汽车品牌已经成为反品牌——你购买汽车并非因为它们，而是尽管它们。凯迪拉克大约在 1970 年左右停止成为汽车中的凯迪拉克。然而我怀疑没有人敢说这一点。[11] 否则这些公司早就会试图解决这个问题。 Training yourself to think unthinkable thoughts has advantages beyond the thoughts themselves. It's like stretching. When you stretch before running, you put your body into positions much more extreme than any it will assume during the run. If you can think things so outside the box that they'd make people's hair stand on end, you'll have no trouble with the small trips outside the box that people call innovative. 培养自己去思考不可思议的想法不仅有助于思考本身，还有其他好处。这就像进行伸展训练。当你跑步前进行伸展，你的身体会处于比跑步时更极端的姿势。如果你能够想到那些让人毛骨悚然的超乎寻常的想法，那么你就不会在人们称之为创新的小小突破上遇到任何困难。 Pensieri Stretti 思绪紧缩 When you find something you can't say, what do you do with it? My advice is, don't say it. Or at least, pick your battles. 当你发现有些事情你无法说出口时，你会怎么处理？我的建议是，不要说出来。或者至少要慎重选择你的战斗。 Suppose in the future there is a movement to ban the color yellow. Proposals to paint anything yellow are denounced as "yellowist", as is anyone suspected of liking the color. People who like orange are tolerated but viewed with suspicion. Suppose you realize there is nothing wrong with yellow. If you go around saying this, you'll be denounced as a yellowist too, and you'll find yourself having a lot of arguments with anti-yellowists. If your aim in life is to rehabilitate the color yellow, that may be what you want. But if you're mostly interested in other questions, being labelled as a yellowist will just be a distraction. Argue with idiots, and you become an idiot. 假设将来有一场运动要禁止黄色。提议涂抹任何黄色的事物都会被谴责为“黄色主义者”，任何喜欢这种颜色的人也会受到怀疑。喜欢橙色的人会受到容忍，但也会受到怀疑。假设你意识到黄色并没有错。如果你四处宣扬这一点，你也会被指责为黄色主义者，你会发现自己与反对黄色的人争论不休。如果你的人生目标是恢复黄色的声誉，那或许正是你想要的。但如果你更感兴趣于其他问题，被贴上黄色主义者的标签只会让你分心。和白痴争论，你也会变成白痴。 The most important thing is to be able to think what you want, not to say what you want. And if you feel you have to say everything you think, it may inhibit you from thinking improper thoughts. I think it's better to follow the opposite policy. Draw a sharp line between your thoughts and your speech. Inside your head, anything is allowed. Within my head I make a point of encouraging the most outrageous thoughts I can imagine. But, as in a secret society, nothing that happens within the building should be told to outsiders. The first rule of Fight Club is, you do not talk about Fight Club. 最重要的是能够想你想要的，而不是说你想要的。如果你觉得必须说出你所想的一切，可能会抑制你产生不当的想法。我认为最好遵循相反的政策。在你的思想和言语之间划清界限。在你的脑海中，任何事都可以。在我的脑海中，我努力鼓励我能想象到的最疯狂的想法。但就像在一个秘密社团里一样，建筑物内发生的任何事情都不应告诉外人。《搏击俱乐部》的第一条规则是，你不要谈论《搏击俱乐部》。 When Milton was going to visit Italy in the 1630s, Sir Henry Wootton, who had been ambassador to Venice, told him his motto should be "i pensieri stretti & il viso sciolto." Closed thoughts and an open face. Smile at everyone, and don't tell them what you're thinking. This was wise advice. Milton was an argumentative fellow, and the Inquisition was a bit restive at that time. But I think the difference between Milton's situation and ours is only a matter of degree. Every era has its heresies, and if you don't get imprisoned for them you will at least get in enough trouble that it becomes a complete distraction. 当弥尔顿在 1630 年代前往意大利访问时，曾驻威尼斯大使的亨利·伍顿爵士告诉他，他的座右铭应该是“i pensieri stretti & il viso sciolto.” 闭上心思，敞开面孔。对每个人微笑，不要告诉他们你在想什么。这是明智的建议。弥尔顿是一个好争论的家伙，而当时的宗教裁判所也有些不安分。但我认为弥尔顿的处境与我们的区别只是程度的问题。每个时代都有其异端邪说，如果你不因此而被监禁，至少也会因此陷入足够的麻烦，以至于成为一个完全的干扰。 I admit it seems cowardly to keep quiet. When I read about the harassment to which the Scientologists subject their critics [12], or that pro-Israel groups are "compiling dossiers" on those who speak out against Israeli human rights abuses [13], or about people being sued for violating the DMCA [14], part of me wants to say, "All right, you bastards, bring it on." The problem is, there are so many things you can't say. If you said them all you'd have no time left for your real work. You'd have to turn into Noam Chomsky. [15] 我承认保持沉默似乎有些懦弱。当我读到关于科学教会对待批评者的骚扰[12]，或者亲以色列团体“正在整理档案”以对付那些发声反对以色列侵犯人权的人[13]，或者有人因违反数字千年版权法而被起诉[14]时，我内心的一部分想说，“好吧，混蛋们，来吧。” 问题是，有太多事情是你不能说的。如果你把它们都说了，你就没有时间去做真正的工作了。你将不得不变成诺姆·乔姆斯基[15]。 The trouble with keeping your thoughts secret, though, is that you lose the advantages of discussion. Talking about an idea leads to more ideas. So the optimal plan, if you can manage it, is to have a few trusted friends you can speak openly to. This is not just a way to develop ideas; it's also a good rule of thumb for choosing friends. The people you can say heretical things to without getting jumped on are also the most interesting to know. 保持思想秘密的麻烦在于你失去了讨论的优势。谈论一个想法会导致更多的想法。所以，如果你能做到的话，最佳的计划是有一些可以坦诚交谈的信任朋友。这不仅是发展想法的一种方式；也是选择朋友的一个好的经验法则。你可以毫无顾忌地说异端的话的人也是最值得交往的人。 Viso Sciolto? 自由的视觉？ I don't think we need the viso sciolto so much as the pensieri stretti. Perhaps the best policy is to make it plain that you don't agree with whatever zealotry is current in your time, but not to be too specific about what you disagree with. Zealots will try to draw you out, but you don't have to answer them. If they try to force you to treat a question on their terms by asking "are you with us or against us?" you can always just answer "neither". 我认为我们不需要过于开放的态度，而是需要收敛的思想。也许最好的策略是明确表示你不赞同当前时代的任何狂热，但不要过于具体地表明你反对什么。狂热者会试图引诱你表态，但你不必回应他们。如果他们试图强迫你按照他们的方式处理问题，问“你是支持我们还是反对我们？”你可以简单地回答“都不是”。 Better still, answer "I haven't decided." That's what Larry Summers did when a group tried to put him in this position. Explaining himself later, he said "I don't do litmus tests." [16] A lot of the questions people get hot about are actually quite complicated. There is no prize for getting the answer quickly. 更好的做法是回答“我还没有决定。”这就是拉里·萨默斯在一群人试图把他安排到这个位置时所做的。后来他解释说，“我不做试金石测试。”[16] 很多人为之争论的问题实际上相当复杂。没有奖励可以让你快速得到答案。 If the anti-yellowists seem to be getting out of hand and you want to fight back, there are ways to do it without getting yourself accused of being a yellowist. Like skirmishers in an ancient army, you want to avoid directly engaging the main body of the enemy's troops. Better to harass them with arrows from a distance. 如果反黄主义者似乎变得不受控制，而你想反击，有方法可以做到这一点，而不会被指责为黄主义者。就像古代军队中的游击队员一样，你要避免直接与敌军主力交战。最好是从远处用箭矢骚扰他们。 One way to do this is to ratchet the debate up one level of abstraction. If you argue against censorship in general, you can avoid being accused of whatever heresy is contained in the book or film that someone is trying to censor. You can attack labels with meta-labels: labels that refer to the use of labels to prevent discussion. The spread of the term "political correctness" meant the beginning of the end of political correctness, because it enabled one to attack the phenomenon as a whole without being accused of any of the specific heresies it sought to suppress. 有一种方法是将辩论提升到更高的抽象层次。如果你反对一般性的审查制度，你就可以避免被指责支持某本书或电影中包含的异端邪说。你可以用元标签来攻击标签：指的是使用标签来阻止讨论的标签。"政治正确"这个词的传播意味着政治正确的终结的开始，因为它使人们能够攻击整个现象，而不会被指控支持它试图压制的任何具体异端邪说。 Another way to counterattack is with metaphor. Arthur Miller undermined the House Un-American Activities Committee by writing a play, "The Crucible," about the Salem witch trials. He never referred directly to the committee and so gave them no way to reply. What could HUAC do, defend the Salem witch trials? And yet Miller's metaphor stuck so well that to this day the activities of the committee are often described as a "witch-hunt." 另一种反击的方法是使用隐喻。亚瑟·米勒通过写一部关于塞勒姆女巫审判的戏剧《炼狱》来削弱美国不道德活动委员会。他从未直接提到委员会，因此他们无法回应。美国不道德活动委员会能做什么，为塞勒姆女巫审判辩护吗？然而米勒的隐喻深入人心，以至于直到今天，委员会的活动经常被描述为"捕魔行动"。 Best of all, probably, is humor. Zealots, whatever their cause, invariably lack a sense of humor. They can't reply in kind to jokes. They're as unhappy on the territory of humor as a mounted knight on a skating rink. Victorian prudishness, for example, seems to have been defeated mainly by treating it as a joke. Likewise its reincarnation as political correctness. "I am glad that I managed to write 'The Crucible,'" Arthur Miller wrote, "but looking back I have often wished I'd had the temperament to do an absurd comedy, which is what the situation deserved." [17] 最好的，可能是幽默。狂热者，无论他们的事业是什么，总是缺乏幽默感。他们无法以同样的方式回应笑话。他们在幽默的领域里就像骑士在溜冰场上一样不快乐。例如，维多利亚时代的假正经似乎主要是通过将其当作笑话来战胜的。同样地，它的再生为政治正确性。亚瑟·米勒写道：“我很高兴自己写了《大审判》，但回想起来，我常常希望自己有能力写一部荒谬喜剧，因为那种情况本来就该如此。” [17] ABQ A Dutch friend says I should use Holland as an example of a tolerant society. It's true they have a long tradition of comparative open-mindedness. For centuries the low countries were the place to go to say things you couldn't say anywhere else, and this helped to make the region a center of scholarship and industry (which have been closely tied for longer than most people realize). Descartes, though claimed by the French, did much of his thinking in Holland. 一个荷兰朋友说我应该以荷兰作为宽容社会的例子。事实上，他们有着长期的相对开明的传统。几个世纪以来，低地国家是你可以说出其他地方无法说出的话的地方，这有助于使该地区成为学术和工业的中心（这两者的联系比大多数人意识到的要长）。笛卡尔，虽然被法国人认领，但他的许多思想都是在荷兰完成的。 And yet, I wonder. The Dutch seem to live their lives up to their necks in rules and regulations. There's so much you can't do there; is there really nothing you can't say? 然而，我想知道。荷兰人似乎生活在规则和法规中。那里有很多事情是你不能做的；难道真的没有你不能说的吗？ Certainly the fact that they value open-mindedness is no guarantee. Who thinks they're not open-minded? Our hypothetical prim miss from the suburbs thinks she's open-minded. Hasn't she been taught to be? Ask anyone, and they'll say the same thing: they're pretty open-minded, though they draw the line at things that are really wrong. (Some tribes may avoid "wrong" as judgemental, and may instead use a more neutral sounding euphemism like "negative" or "destructive".) 当然，他们重视开放思维并不意味着一定会如此。谁会认为他们不开放思维呢？我们假设的郊区小姐认为她很开放思维。她不是被教导要如此吗？问任何人，他们都会说同样的话：他们很开放思维，尽管他们在一些真正错误的事情上划清了界限。（一些部落可能避免使用“错误”这个带有评判性的词，而可能使用更中性的委婉说法，比如“负面的”或“破坏性的”。） When people are bad at math, they know it, because they get the wrong answers on tests. But when people are bad at open-mindedness they don't know it. In fact they tend to think the opposite. Remember, it's the nature of fashion to be invisible. It wouldn't work otherwise. Fashion doesn't seem like fashion to someone in the grip of it. It just seems like the right thing to do. It's only by looking from a distance that we see oscillations in people's idea of the right thing to do, and can identify them as fashions. 当人们不擅长数学时，他们知道，因为他们在考试中得到了错误的答案。但当人们不擅长开放思维时，他们却不自知。事实上，他们往往持相反的看法。记住，时尚的本质是看不见的。否则它就行不通。对于一个被其所控制的人来说，时尚似乎并不像时尚。它只是看起来是正确的事情要做。只有通过远距离的观察，我们才能看到人们对正确事情的观念的波动，并且能够将其识别为时尚。 Time gives us such distance for free. Indeed, the arrival of new fashions makes old fashions easy to see, because they seem so ridiculous by contrast. From one end of a pendulum's swing, the other end seems especially far away. 时间免费地给予我们这样的距离。事实上，新时尚的到来使得旧时尚更容易被看到，因为与之形成鲜明对比，它们显得如此荒谬。在摆锤摆动的一端，另一端似乎特别遥远。 To see fashion in your own time, though, requires a conscious effort. Without time to give you distance, you have to create distance yourself. Instead of being part of the mob, stand as far away from it as you can and watch what it's doing. And pay especially close attention whenever an idea is being suppressed. Web filters for children and employees often ban sites containing pornography, violence, and hate speech. What counts as pornography and violence? And what, exactly, is "hate speech?" This sounds like a phrase out of 1984. 然而，要在自己的时代看到时尚，需要有意识地努力。没有时间给你距离，你就得自己创造距离。不要成为人群的一部分，尽可能远离它并观察它在做什么。特别要注意每当一个想法被压制时。儿童和员工的网络过滤器通常禁止包含色情、暴力和仇恨言论的网站。什么算是色情和暴力？而“仇恨言论”究竟是什么？这听起来像是《1984》中的一句话。 Labels like that are probably the biggest external clue. If a statement is false, that's the worst thing you can say about it. You don't need to say that it's heretical. And if it isn't false, it shouldn't be suppressed. So when you see statements being attacked as x-ist or y-ic (substitute your current values of x and y), whether in 1630 or 2030, that's a sure sign that something is wrong. When you hear such labels being used, ask why. 这样的标签可能是最大的外部线索。如果一个陈述是错误的，那就是你可以说的最糟糕的事情。你不需要说它是异端邪说。如果它不是错误的，就不应该被压制。所以当你看到陈述被攻击为 x-主义者或 y-主义者（用你当前的 x 和 y 的值替换），无论是在 1630 年还是 2030 年，这是某些事情出了问题的明确迹象。当你听到这样的标签被使用时，问问为什么。 Especially if you hear yourself using them. It's not just the mob you need to learn to watch from a distance. You need to be able to watch your own thoughts from a distance. That's not a radical idea, by the way; it's the main difference between children and adults. When a child gets angry because he's tired, he doesn't know what's happening. An adult can distance himself enough from the situation to say "never mind, I'm just tired." I don't see why one couldn't, by a similar process, learn to recognize and discount the effects of moral fashions. 尤其是当你听到自己在使用它们时。你需要学会不仅仅是远离暴徒，还需要能够远离自己的思想。顺便说一句，这并不是一个激进的想法；这是孩子和成年人之间的主要区别。当一个孩子因为累而生气时，他不知道发生了什么。一个成年人可以让自己足够远离情况，说“没关系，我只是累了。”我不明白为什么一个人不能通过类似的过程学会识别和抵消道德潮流的影响。 You have to take that extra step if you want to think clearly. But it's harder, because now you're working against social customs instead of with them. Everyone encourages you to grow up to the point where you can discount your own bad moods. Few encourage you to continue to the point where you can discount society's bad moods. 如果你想清晰地思考，就必须迈出额外的一步。但这更难，因为现在你是在与社会习俗对抗，而不是与之合作。每个人都鼓励你成长到可以摒弃自己的坏情绪。很少有人鼓励你继续前行，直到可以忽略社会的坏情绪。 How can you see the wave, when you're the water? Always be questioning. That's the only defence. What can't you say? And why? 当你是水时，怎么能看到浪花呢？始终保持质疑。这是唯一的防御。你不能说什么？为什么？ Notes 笔记 Thanks to Sarah Harlin, Trevor Blackwell, Jessica Livingston, Robert Morris, Eric Raymond and Bob van der Zwaan for reading drafts of this essay, and to Lisa Randall, Jackie McDonough, Ryan Stanley and Joel Rainey for conversations about heresy. Needless to say they bear no blame for opinions expressed in it, and especially for opinions not expressed in it. 感谢 Sarah Harlin、Trevor Blackwell、Jessica Livingston、Robert Morris、Eric Raymond 和 Bob van der Zwaan 阅读本文草稿，以及 Lisa Randall、Jackie McDonough、Ryan Stanley 和 Joel Rainey 就异端邪说进行的讨论。毋庸置疑，他们对本文中表达的观点，尤其是未表达的观点，概不负责。 |
