什么时候冥想最好:科技让我们更忙碌

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刚开始在哲学系教书的那一年我非常激动。遗憾的是这种激动不是为我自己,而是因为我们系第一次拥有了一台可以用的电脑。这台电脑放在一个阁楼的房间里,我可以早晨8点去上班,赶在其他人之前用上2、3个小时。

It was several years before we each had our own computer. And a few weeks later, all were gone. Security, covering their backs, insinuated that one of the faculty must have turned up over the weekend in a hired Ford Transit. But now that the department actually possessed things worth stealing, the university installed some industrial-strength locks. We bought some more computers and tried again, thereby learning other new ways in which modern technology can routinely ruin your mood.

那时距离我们拥有各自的电脑还有好几年。然而几周后,电脑不见了。学校保安为了推卸自己的责任,暗示说肯定是某一个教职工在周末的时候开着一辆租来的福特货车把电脑搬走了。但是现在系里确实拥有了一些有偷盗价值的东西,因此学校安装了一些非常坚固的锁。我们又买了几台电脑。而后我渐渐明白,现代科技可以通过其他新的方法,时不时就毁掉你的心情。

It is hard to think back to academic life before computers. I was there only as a witness. My teachers used to write out the drafts of their books and papers by hand, with expensive, though smudgy, fountain pens, and the departmental secretaries would type them up over the summer break. The secretaries also had to type all student references and important correspondence. No more, of course.

现在已经很难想象电脑出现之前的学术生活是怎样的。那时我只不过是一个旁观者。过去我的老师们总是用价格贵还容易把手弄脏的钢笔亲手写出他们的著作和论文的手稿,系里的秘书们再利用暑假的时间用打字机把这些手稿打出来。秘书们还必须打印出所有学生的参考资料和重要的信件。当然也没有其他的任务了。

Every few years, another computing triumph was achieved. Email saved the time and trouble of printing letters, folding them up and putting them in envelopes. The internet, eventually, put the resources of a reference library on your desk. And, in the last couple of years, the widespread electronic availability of journal articles has cut out the need to root through dusty shelves and stand in line at the photocopier.

每隔几年,计算机技术就会取得一项巨大的成功。电子邮件帮人们省去了打印、折叠信件并放进信封的时间和麻烦。而互联网最终把一所图书馆的资源都摆在了你的桌面上。最近几年,电子版期刊论文的广泛传播和获取让人们不必在落满灰尘的书架前苦苦搜寻,也不必在复印机前排长队了。

Just as the end of the Cold War was meant to produce a "peace dividend", we should now be experiencing a "technology dividend", luxuriating in the spare time we have created for ourselves. But what has happened to all that time saved?

正如冷战的结束注定了“和平红利”的诞生,我们如今正在享受“科技红利”,它让我们把所争取来的业余时间都耗了进去。但是我们用节省下来的这些时间都做了些什么呢?

I vaguely recall a story in which the central character did everything he could to save time, counting out the seconds banked. But at the end of each day he realised, to his despair, that just as much time had gone as usual, whatever he did. Beckett makes the point the other way round: Vladimir: "Well, that passed the time." Estragon: "It would have passed anyway."

我大致记得一个故事,主人公尽一切所能节约时间,一分一秒都不放过。但是每天结束的时候他都绝望地意识到,不论他怎么做,时间还是会照常流走。作家贝克特用另外一种方式也表明了这一点:弗拉迪米尔:“噢,时间在流逝。” 伊斯塔力根:“不管怎样它都是要流逝的。”

Innovations are introduced with the promise that they will save time, or money, or make us safer or more comfortable. But, as my UCL colleague John Adams observed, innovations can have a perverse effect. Notoriously, he claimed that when seat belts were introduced, people simply took more risks when they drove. If we really want road safety, he suggests, we should put a sharpened spike right in the middle of the steering wheel. Then you'd watch your braking distance.

那些科技创新诞生的时候都承诺它们将会节约时间或金钱,或是让我们的生活更加安全,更加便利。然而,据我在伦敦大学学院的同事John Adams观察到的,科技创新也有负面效应。众所周知的是,他声称安全带发明后,人们驾驶时承担的风险反而更高了,他建议,如果我们真的想确保行车安全,我们应该在方向盘中间放置一个尖状物。这样你就会关注你的制动距离了。

Karl Marx noticed something similar. In early industrial Britain, he reports, a factory boy modified his machine in order to complete his day's work in a couple of hours, and laze around the rest of the time. So impressed was the factory owner that he modified all the machines and multiplied the production targets.

卡尔马克斯也注意到了类似的事情。他指出,在早期的工业英国,一个在工厂工作的男孩改进他的机器,是为了在几个小时之内完成一天的工作量,剩下来的时间却无所事事。令人印象深刻的是工厂老板,他改进了所有的机器,同时也让生产目标加倍。

I'm hardly the first to point out that instead of consuming the time-saving benefits of information technology by making the work day less pressured, we have found other ways of filling up the time. Now that we have such whizzy computers, university administrators can do valuable things that we had no time for before, such as making sure every member of the department has signed a piece of paper swearing that they know where the fire exits are.

我们并没有通过减轻工作日的压力来享受信息技术帮我们节省下的时间,而是已经找到了其他的办法来充实这些时间。我并不是第一个提出这个观点的。现在我们拥有了如此高科技的电脑,大学的管理人员可以做许多从前我们没有时间去做的有价值的事情,比如确保系里的每一位教职员工都签署了一份文件,声明他们知道消防出口的位置。

And what, as an academic, do I do with the hours and minutes I save by not having to traipse off to the library each time I need to check a reference? I would like to tell you that I have finally taken up the tuba, or, at the least, am using the time for ever deeper reflection. But the truth is I still begin every email with the line "Sorry to be slow replying, it has been exceptionally busy over the last few days".

作为一名大学教师,当我需要查阅一份参考文献时不必每次都往图书馆跑了。那么我利用这些节约下来的时间都做了什么呢?我很想告诉你,我终于有时间拿起我的低音大号,至少在利用这些时间进行更深刻的思考。可事实是我依然在每封电子邮件的开头写道“抱歉未能及时回复,最近几天一直非常忙碌”。

Jonathan Wolff is professor of philosophy at University College London. His column appears monthly

注:作者Jonathan Wolff 是伦敦大学学院的哲学教授,每月在《卫报》发表专栏文章。