抵抗信息入侵 数字时代没有瓦尔登湖

Daimler has given frazzled employees the opportunity to delete automatically all emails received while they are on holiday. The carmaker’s move underlines what everyone already knows: personal technology can abrade the self. Finding several thousand unread messages makes one’s first day back at work peculiarly horrible.

戴姆勒(Daimler)公司已经准许其疲惫不堪的雇员自动删除度假期间收到的全部邮件。这家汽车生产商的做法凸显了一个众所周知的问题：个体技术(personal technology)可能折磨自我。在重返工作的第一天发现数千封未读邮件实在让人不寒而栗。

This is not the fault of device makers, social networks or mobile data operators. It is a consequence of our determination, fed by professional and personal paranoia, to use all their products and services at once. The malady’s symptoms are a fractured attention span, insomnia triggered by exposure to blue light and an ever wider, shallower friendship group.

这并不能归咎于设备生产商、社交网络或移动数据运营商。我们是自食其果：出于职业的和个人的偏执，我们决定同时使用全部这些产品和服务。这种顽疾的症状表现为注意力碎片化，暴露于蓝光所导致的失眠，以及更广阔却也更肤浅的朋友圈。

I spotted a typical sufferer last month on a train rolling through Concord, Massachusetts, home of Henry David Thoreau, a nature philosopher who believed that in 1840s America: “The incessant anxiety and strain of some is a well-nigh incurable form of disease.” True to that diagnosis, our contemporary victim was tetchily switching between mobile phones as bandwidth fluctuated. He was also juggling an iPad and a pager. He was organising a business trip to Indianapolis. He should have alighted at Concord and thrown his devices in Walden Pond, the lake where Thoreau swam after retreating from modern life.

上个月，我在火车上发现了一名典型“患者”。这列火车当时正穿越亨利•戴维•梭罗(Henry David Thoreau)的家乡，马萨诸塞州的康科德(Concord, MA)。这位自然主义哲学家认为，在19世纪40年代的美国：“一些人持续不断的焦虑和压力几乎成为了一种不可治愈的疾病。”如同梭罗的诊断，这位当代“患者”随着带宽波动而恼怒地在几个手机之间切换，他还摆弄着一部iPad和一个寻呼机。他在组织一次前往印第安纳波利斯的商务旅行。他真应该在康科德下车，然后把他的设备都扔到瓦尔登湖(Walden Pond)湖里去，也就是梭罗从现代生活退隐后游泳的湖泊。

Each technological revolution triggers a reaction against it. Thoreau was in part rebelling against the railway that ran, and still runs, past Walden. This not only redistributed Americans – some doubtless on business trips to Indianapolis – in a manner he thought unnecessary. It also stimulated written communication in the form of letters. Thoreau believed most of these were a waste of time. Similarly, when mass production became a spring tide in the 19th century, British polemicists such as William Morris and John Ruskin were there to wave it back.

每一场技术革命都会引发相应的反对。梭罗在一定程度上反抗当时经过（现在也依然经过）瓦尔登湖的铁路。这条铁路不仅是用一种他觉得没有必要的方式把美国人重新分配到各个地方（其中一些人无疑是在前往印第安纳波利斯的商务旅行的途中），还刺激了书信形式的文字交流。梭罗认为其中绝大部分只是浪费时间而已。类似的，当大批量生产成为19世纪的大潮之时，威廉•莫里斯(William Morris)和约翰•拉斯金(John Ruskin)等英国辩论家希望将这股浪潮推回去。

The reaction to intrusive information technology is inchoate so far. Some Californian cafés ban Google Glass, which they see as spywear masquerading as eyewear. There are sporadic media storms about the proportion of internet content that is pornographic. German singer Cris Cosmo had a minor hit with a ditty entitled “Schiess auf Facebook” a few years back, but social media helped foster its success. No latter-day Thoreau has yet gained popular traction with a philosophy of digital detoxification. There is plainly a gap in the market.

迄今为止，对侵入式的信息技术的反抗才刚刚抬头。一些加州的咖啡馆禁止使用谷歌眼镜，他们认为这是一种伪装成眼镜的间谍器材。还有一些零星的针对互联网色情内容比重的媒体风暴。几年前，德国歌手克里斯•科斯莫(Cris Cosmo)有一首小有名气的单曲《Schiess auf Facebook》，歌曲是抨击Facebook的，但正是社交媒体帮助促成了这首歌的成功。当代的梭罗们还没有拿出凝聚人气的数字排毒哲学。这显然是一块市场空白。

One part of Thoreau’s argument was anti-consumerist and sits in useful counterpoise to the idea that the latest Apple product is sufficient reward for working 50-plus hours a week. Having retreated to the woods, he lived on just over $62 in his first year. This included the cost of building a hut, though not rent.

梭罗的部分论点在于反消费主义，这有助于抗衡“苹果最新产品足够回报一周工作50多个小时”的观念。归隐山林后，梭罗仅花费了62美元便度过了第一年。其中还包括建造小屋的费用（尽管梭罗没有选择租房子）。

The British economist, John Maynard Keynes, approaching the work-life balance from a slightly different angle in 1930, argued that rising industrial productivity would result in Britons needing to work only 15 hours a week. His thinking converged with Thoreau’s in imagining that individuals wanted more time to relax in preference to having more goods and services.

1930年，英国经济学家约翰•梅纳德•凯恩斯(John Maynard Keynes)从一个略微不同的角度来探讨工作与生活的平衡。他认为，工业生产率的提高最终会使英国人每周仅需工作15小时。他的想法和梭罗相同之处在于，他们都认为比起得到更多的商品和服务，人们更想要更多的休闲时间。

Most do not. This is just as well for the staff of Daimler, who would lose their jobs if there was no demand for top-end cars that are functionally little different from cheap runabouts. The debate focuses on a purportedly unfair division of the spoils of economic activity rather than an unjust split of free time. By this latter measure, a typical banker is scraping by while a struggling actor is rolling in it.

但大部分人并非如此。戴姆勒公司的员工也是这样。顶级汽车与便宜的汽车在功能上并无太大区别，但若没有对顶级汽车的需求，他们也就失业了。这场辩论集中于经济活动成果的不公平分配上，而非闲暇时间的不公平分配。如果依据后一个标准，一个典型的银行家在勉强度日，而一个苦苦挣扎的演员则享用不尽。

Thoreau believed the mass of men lived lives of quiet desperation. What he had not grasped was that the mass of men do not care if they believe their next door neighbour’s life is marginally more desperate than their own.

梭罗认为大多数人都生活在默默的绝望中。但他没认识到的是，只要大众认为隔壁邻居的人生比他们自己略微更加绝望，他们就不在乎这种状况。

I disembarked at Concord while the multitasking businessman whizzed on down the rails. Walden Pond is busy these days, and today Thoreau’s daily swim would probably have ended in a collision with a kayak. But there is a satisfactorily lonely pool further into the woods, beside which the digital jitterbug can sit and purge the ones and zeros from his system.

我在康科德站下车，而那个手忙脚乱的商人继续坐着火车飞速前行。如今的瓦尔登湖很繁忙，如果现在梭罗还每天游泳的话，可能会撞到某一艘皮艇。但是，在树林深处还有一个令人满意的孤寂的池子。被数字生活搞得神经紧张的人可以坐在水池旁，忘掉自己系统中的二进制数字。

Elevated by my temporary rejection of modernity, I returned to a full inbox, 11-hour working days and commuting between home and work PCs with two mobile phones, a BlackBerry and an iPad. A business trip to Indianapolis seems inevitable.

短暂地逃离现代性之后，我精神振作地回到了收件箱满满、每天工作11个小时的生活，带着两部手机，一部黑莓(BlackBerry)、一部iPad穿梭于家中的电脑和工作地点的电脑之间。前往印第安纳波利斯的商务旅行看来不可避免。