抵抗信息入侵 數字時代沒有瓦爾登湖

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)公司已經准許其疲憊不堪的僱員自動刪除度假期間收到的全部郵件。這家汽車生產商的做法凸顯了一個衆所周知的問題：個體技術(personal technology)可能折磨自我。在重返工作的第一天發現數千封未讀郵件實在讓人不寒而慄。

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.

這並不能歸咎於設備生產商、社交網絡或移動數據運營商。我們是自食其果：出於職業的和個人的偏執，我們決定同時使用全部這些產品和服務。這種頑疾的症狀表現爲注意力碎片化，暴露於藍光所導致的失眠，以及更廣闊卻也更膚淺的朋友圈。

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.

上個月，我在火車上發現了一名典型“患者”。這列火車當時正穿越亨利•戴維•梭羅(Henry David Thoreau)的家鄉，馬薩諸塞州的康科德(Concord, MA)。這位自然主義哲學家認爲，在19世紀40年代的美國：“一些人持續不斷的焦慮和壓力幾乎成爲了一種不可治癒的疾病。”如同梭羅的診斷，這位當代“患者”隨着帶寬波動而惱怒地在幾個手機之間切換，他還擺弄着一部iPad和一個尋呼機。他在組織一次前往印第安納波利斯的商務旅行。他真應該在康科德下車，然後把他的設備都扔到瓦爾登湖(Walden Pond)湖裏去，也就是梭羅從現代生活退隱後游泳的湖泊。

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.

每一場技術革命都會引發相應的反對。梭羅在一定程度上反抗當時經過（現在也依然經過）瓦爾登湖的鐵路。這條鐵路不僅是用一種他覺得沒有必要的方式把美國人重新分配到各個地方（其中一些人無疑是在前往印第安納波利斯的商務旅行的途中），還刺激了書信形式的文字交流。梭羅認爲其中絕大部分只是浪費時間而已。類似的，當大批量生產成爲19世紀的大潮之時，威廉•莫里斯(William Morris)和約翰•拉斯金(John Ruskin)等英國辯論家希望將這股浪潮推回去。

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.

迄今爲止，對侵入式的信息技術的反抗纔剛剛擡頭。一些加州的咖啡館禁止使用谷歌眼鏡，他們認爲這是一種僞裝成眼鏡的間諜器材。還有一些零星的針對互聯網色情內容比重的媒體風暴。幾年前，德國歌手克里斯•科斯莫(Cris Cosmo)有一首小有名氣的單曲《Schiess auf Facebook》，歌曲是抨擊Facebook的，但正是社交媒體幫助促成了這首歌的成功。當代的梭羅們還沒有拿出凝聚人氣的數字排毒哲學。這顯然是一塊市場空白。

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.

梭羅的部分論點在於反消費主義，這有助於抗衡“蘋果最新產品足夠回報一週工作50多個小時”的觀念。歸隱山林後，梭羅僅花費了62美元便度過了第一年。其中還包括建造小屋的費用（儘管梭羅沒有選擇租房子）。

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，英國經濟學家約翰•梅納德•凱恩斯(John Maynard Keynes)從一個略微不同的角度來探討工作與生活的平衡。他認爲，工業生產率的提高最終會使英國人每週僅需工作15小時。他的想法和梭羅相同之處在於，他們都認爲比起得到更多的商品和服務，人們更想要更多的休閒時間。

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.

但大部分人並非如此。戴姆勒公司的員工也是這樣。頂級汽車與便宜的汽車在功能上並無太大區別，但若沒有對頂級汽車的需求，他們也就失業了。這場辯論集中於經濟活動成果的不公平分配上，而非閒暇時間的不公平分配。如果依據後一個標準，一個典型的銀行家在勉強度日，而一個苦苦掙扎的演員則享用不盡。

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.

梭羅認爲大多數人都生活在默默的絕望中。但他沒認識到的是，只要大衆認爲隔壁鄰居的人生比他們自己略微更加絕望，他們就不在乎這種狀況。

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.

我在康科德站下車，而那個手忙腳亂的商人繼續坐着火車飛速前行。如今的瓦爾登湖很繁忙，如果現在梭羅還每天游泳的話，可能會撞到某一艘皮艇。但是，在樹林深處還有一個令人滿意的孤寂的池子。被數字生活搞得神經緊張的人可以坐在水池旁，忘掉自己系統中的二進制數字。

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.

短暫地逃離現代性之後，我精神振作地回到了收件箱滿滿、每天工作11個小時的生活，帶着兩部手機，一部黑莓(BlackBerry)、一部iPad穿梭於家中的電腦和工作地點的電腦之間。前往印第安納波利斯的商務旅行看來不可避免。