Unit 4 HOW COULD ANYTHING THAT FEELS SO BAD BE SO GOOD课文翻译大学英语六

Unit 4 HOW COULD ANYTHING THAT FEELS SO BAD
BE SO GOOD?
Maybe it is time to adopt a new strategy in trying to figure out why life today is so difficult, and what can be done about it. Assume that not only are things often not what they seem, they may be just the opposite of what they seem. When it comes to human affairs, everything is paradoxical.
People are discontented these days, for example, not because things are worse than ever, but because things are better than ever. Take marriage. In California there are about six divorces for every ten marriages -- even higher in some of the better communities. One must admit that a good deal of discontent is reflected in those statistics. But the explanation so frequently offered -- that the institution of marriage is in a state of collapse -- simply does not hold. Marriage has never been more popular and desirable than is it now; so appealing in fact, that even those who are in the process of divorce can scarcely wait for the law to allow them to marry again.
The problem is that people have never before entered marriage with the high expectations they now hold. Throughout history, the family has been a vital unit for survival, starting as a defense system for physical survival, and gradually becoming a unit for economic survival. Now, of course, the family has become a physical and economic liability rather than an asset. Having met, as a society, the basic survival and security needs, people simply don't need each other anymore to fight Indians or spin yarn -- or wash dishes or repair electrical plugs for that matter. The bonds of marriage and family life are no longer functional, but affectional. People used to come to love each other because they needed each other. Now it's just the other way around. They need each other because they love each other.
Listening to the complaints of those recently divorced, one seldom hears of brutality and desertion, but usually something like, "We just don't communicate very well", "The educational differences between us were simply too great to overcome", "I felt trapped in the relationship", "He won't let me be me", "We don't have much in common anymore". These complaints are interesting, because they reflect high-order discontent resulting from the failure of marriage to meet the great expectations held for it. Couples now expect -- and demand -- communication and understanding, shared values and goals, intellectual companionship, great moments of intimacy. By and large, marriage today actually does deliver such moments, but as a result couples have gone on to burden the relationship with even greater demands. To some extent it has been the success of
marriage that has created the discontent.
The same appears to be true in the civil rights movement. The gains that have been made have led not to satisfaction but to increased tension and dissatisfaction, particularly among those benefiting from such gains. The discontent is higher in the North than in the South, higher in cities than in rural areas.
The disturbing paradox of social change is that improvement brings the need for more improvement in constantly accelerating demands. So, compared to what used to be, society is way ahead; compared to what might be, it is way behind. Society is enabled to feel that conditions are rotten, because they are actually so good.
Another problem is that everything is temporary, nothing lasts. We have grown up with the idea that in order to develop personal security we need stability, roots, consistency, and familiarity. Yet we live in a world which in every respect is continually changing. Whether we are talking about sky-scrapers or family life, scientific facts or religious values, all are highly temporary and becoming even more so. If one were to plot a curve showing the incidence of invention throughout the history of man, one would see that change is not just increasing but actually accelerating. Changes are coming faster and faster -- in a sense change has become a way of life. The only people who will live successfully in tomorrow's world are those who can accept and enjoy temporary systems.
People are also troubled because of the new participative mood that exists today. It's a do-it-yourself society; every layman wants to get into the act. Emerson's "do your own thing" has become the cliché of the times. People no longer accept being passive members. They now want to be active changers.
This participative phenomenon can be seen in every part of contemporary life -- on campus, in the church, in the mass media, in the arts, in business and industry, on ghetto streets, in the family.
The problem is that modern man seems unable to redesign his institution fast enough to accommodate the new demands, the new intelligence, the new abilities of segments of society which, heretofore, have not been taken seriously. Consequently, people are frightened by the black revolution, paralyzed by student activism, and now face what may be even more devastating -- the women's rebellion.
Society simply has not had these kinds of problems before, and to meet them it will have to adopt strategies for their solution that are as new, and as different, and as paradoxical as are the problems themselves.
Instead of trying to reduce the discontent felt, try to raise the level or quality of the discontent. Perhaps the most that can be hoped for is to have high-order discontent in
today's society, discontent about things that really matter.
Rather than evaluating programs in terms of how happy they make people, how satisfied those people become, programs must be evaluated in terms of the quality of the discontent they engender. For example, if a consultant wants to assess whether or not an organization is healthy, he doesn't ask, "Is there an absence of complaints?" but rather, "What kinds of complaints are there?"
Instead of trying to make gradual changes in small increments, make big changes. After all, big changes are relatively easier to make than are small ones. Some people assume that the way to bring about improvement is to make the change small enough so that nobody will notice it. This approach has never worked, and one can't help but wonder why such thinking continues. Everyone knows how to resist small changes; they do it all the time. If, however, the change is big enough, resistance can't be mobilized against it. Management can make a sweeping organizational change, but just let a manager try to change someone's desk from here to there, and see the great difficulty he encounters. All change is resisted, so the question is how can the changes be made big enough so that they have a chance of succeeding?
Buckminster Fuller ahs said that instead of reforms society needs new forms; e.g., in order to reduce traffic accidents, improve automobiles and highways instead of trying to improve drives. The same concept should be applied to human relations. There is a need to think in terms of social architecture, and to provide arrangements among people that evoke what they really want to see in themselves. Mankind takes great pains with physical architecture, and is beginning to concern itself with the design of systems in which the human being is a component. But most of these designs are only for safety, efficiency, or productivity. System designs are not made to affect those aspects of life people care most about such as family life, romance, and esthetic experiences. Social technology as well as physical technology need to be applied in making human arrangements that will transcend anything mankind has yet experienced. People need not be victimized by their environments; they can be fulfilled by them.
The great frontier today is the exploration of the human potential man's seemingly limitless ability to adapt, to grow, to invent his own destiny. There is much to learn, but we already know this: the future need not happen to us; we can make it happen.
感觉很糟糕的事情为何如此之好？
可能现在是采用一种新的策略去搞清楚为什么今天的生活会如此困难。

以及该怎样来应付这个问题的时候了。

假定事物不仅是它们通常看上去的样子，它们可能恰好相反。

当涉及
到人的问题的时候，一切事情都是自相矛盾的。

例如，人们现在感到不满意，不是因为事情比以往更糟，而是因为事情比以往任何时候都好。

以婚姻为例，在加利福利亚，十对夫妇中有约六对离婚--在一些较富裕的地区这个比例还要高一些。

人们必须承认，这些数字说明了许多不满。

但人们通常对此给予的解释--婚姻制度正处于崩溃的状态--根本站不住脚。

人们从未象现在这样渴望和欢迎婚姻。

的确，婚姻是如此地引人入胜，连很多正在办离婚的人几乎等不及法律许可他们重新结婚。

问题在于人们对婚姻报有的期望从未象现在这样高。

有史以来，家底就一直是一个生存的重要单元。

从一个充当肉体生存的防御体系，渐渐地演变成为一个经济生存的单元。

现在，毫无疑问，家庭变成了经济和肉体上的负担而不是财富。

作为一个社会，基本的生存和安全需要得到满足之后，人们不再相互需要去纺纱或是去和印第安人作战了--进而言之，人们也不相互需要去洗盘子或是去修电源插头。

婚姻和家庭生活的纽带不再是功能性的，而是情感性的了。

人们过去相爱通常是因为他们彼此需要。

而今却刚好相反，人们互相需要是因为他们彼此相爱。

听一听最近离婚的人的抱怨，人们很少能听到虐待和遗弃的事。

常常听到的都是这样的话：我们就是无法好好地沟通。

我们之间受教育的差距太大，难以逾越。

我感到被婚姻束缚住了。

他不让我自主行事。

我们之间不再有很多共同的东西了。

这些抱怨都很有意思。

因为它们反映了由于婚姻未能达到原来人们对其所抱的高期望值而引发的高层次的不满。

夫妻们现在期望--并要求--相互沟通和理解，共同的价值观和目标，精神伴侣，和美妙的亲密时刻。

总体上看，婚姻的确带来了这样的时刻，但正是这样，夫妻们进一步用更高的要求来给婚姻关系增加负担。

从某种程度上看，是婚姻的成功产生了这些不满。

民权运动的情况也是一样。

它所取得的就没有导致满足而是增加了紧张和不满意，特别是在那些从中获益的人中更是如此。

人们的不满情绪北方高于南方，城市高于乡村。

社会变革产生了一种令人不安的矛盾现象。

即进步带来了对更多的进步的要求，而且这种要求是以不断加速的形式出现的。

所以，与过去相比，社会已经大有进步了；但与将来可能的情形相比，却又远远落后了。

由此使人们感到情况很糟，而这正是由于实际情况很好所致。

另一个问题是一切都是短暂的，没有什么是一成不变的。

人们从小就养成了一种观念：为了增进个人的安全，我们需要安定，有根基，始终如一，需要了解熟悉周围的一切。

但我们生活在一个各个方面都在不停变化着的世界上。

无论是说到摩天大楼，还是家庭生活，是科学事实还是宗教信仰，一切都是非常短暂的，并且会越来越短暂。

如果要画一张曲线来反映人类历史上发明创造的发生率的话，就会发现变化不仅在增加，而且在加速进行。

变化越来越快--从某种意义上看，变化已经成了一种生活方式。

在将来的世界上只有那些能够接受和喜欢暂时性制度的人才能够成功地生活下去。

人们还因为现今存在的参与情绪而烦恼。

这是一个自己动手干的社会。

每个人都想参与到活动中去。

爱默生的自己动手自己干的中号已经成为时代的口头禅。

人们不会再做被动的
成员，他们如今想成为积极的变革者。

人们可以在现代生活中的各个方面看到这种参与现象，--无论在校园，在教堂，在大众传播媒体中，在艺术上，在商业和工业中，在贫民窟的街道上，还是在家里。

问题是现代人似乎不能重新设计其体制，来不及迅速地容纳那些新的要求。

新的智慧，新的社会能力。

至到如今，仍然没有认真对待。

相应的结果是，人们被黑人革命吓怕了，被学生的激进活动惊呆了。

现在他们又面临着可能更具破坏性的事情--妇女的反叛。

社会只不过以往从未经历过这些问题罢了。

要解决这些问题，需要采用与这些问题一样新、一样相异、一样矛盾的策略才行。

不要试图去减少不满的情绪，应该去提高不满的水平或质量。

也许最有希望在今天的社会上做到的是产生高水平的不满，即对那些真正事关紧要的事情的不满。

在估价方案的时候，不要以它们会使人们多么高兴，满意为标准，而要看它们会产生什么样的不满。

例如，当一个顾问在评价一个机构是否健全时，他不是去问是不是没有抱怨？而是要问有些什么样的抱怨？
不要试图渐进地变革，要进行大的变革。

毕竟大的变革相对而言比小的变革要容易一些。

有些人认为进行改进的方式是使变革小到让人难以察觉得到。

这种方法从未成功过。

人们不禁要问，为什么这种思想还在继续？人人都知道如何去抵抗小的变革，他们时时都在这样做。

然而，如果变革足够大的话，要想对它发起抵抗就不行了。

管理部门可以进行大规模的机构改革，但如果让一个经理把某个人的办公桌从一个地方移到另一个地方的话，你就会看到他将遇到的困难会有多大。

所有的变革都会有阻力，问题在于怎样使变革的步子大到使之有机会获得成功。

巴克明斯特·富勒说过，社会需要的不是变革而是新的形式。

比如，要减少交通事故，就该去改进汽车和公路而不是司机。

这一概念也适用于人际关系。

有必要根据社会构成考虑问题，提供人员安排，从而引出人们真正想从自己身上看到的东西。

人们一直在苦心经营着有形的建筑，现在开始关心人类自身作为其组成成份的系统设计了。

但这些设计大多是为了安全、效率和生产力而进行的。

系统设计没有影响人们最为关心的生活方面，比如家底生活，谈情说爱和美学欣赏等。

在进行超越迄今为止人类所有的一切经历和人际安排时，我们需要社会科学和自然科学的技术。

不类不应该成为其环境的受害者，而应该通过自身的环境实现自身的价值。

当今重大的前沿课题是人类潜能的开发。

人的那种似乎无限的适应能力。

生长，设计其自身命运的能力我们要学很多的东西，但有一点我们早已知晓：我们不必消极地坐等明天，我们可以创造未来。