论工业社会及其未来

INTRODUCTION

介绍

1. The Industrial Revolution and itsconsequences have been a disaster for the human race. They have greatlyincreased the life-expectancy of those of us who live in "advanced"countries, but they have destabilized society, have made life unfulfilling,have subjected human beings to indignities, have led to widespreadpsychological suffering (in the Third World to physical suffering as well) andhave inflicted severe damage on the natural world. The continued development oftechnology will worsen the situation. It will certainly subject human beings togreater indignities and inflict greater damage on the natural world, it willprobably lead to greater social disruption and psychological suffering, and itmay lead to increased physical suffering even in "advanced"countries.

1，工业革命及其后果为人类带来了极大的灾难。这两者极大地增加了我们这些生活在“发达”国家的人口的预期寿命，但也破坏了社会的稳定性，令生活空虚无谓，剥夺了人类的尊严，导致了心理疾病的扩散（以及第三世界里的生理疾病扩散），还严重地破坏了自然界。技术的继续发展将令上述情况进一步恶化。人类尊严必将遭到进一步剥夺，自然界也必将遭到进一步破坏。社会也很可能遭到进一步扰乱，心理困扰将会加剧，而生理疾病甚至将会在“发达”国家蔓延开来。

2. The industrial-technological system maysurvive or it may break down. If it survives, it MAY eventually achieve a lowlevel of physical and psychological suffering, but only after passing through along and very painful period of adjustment and only at the cost of permanentlyreducing human beings and many other living organisms to engineered productsand mere cogs in the social machine. Furthermore, if the system survives, theconsequences will be inevitable: There is no way of reforming or modifying thesystem so as to prevent it from depriving people of dignity and autonomy.

2，工业-技术体系可能幸存也可能崩溃。假如该体系幸存下来，可能最终将会降低生理与心理的痛苦水平，但在此之前必须经历一段漫长而痛苦的调整期，而且人类与众多其他生命体也将付出惨重代价，永远沦为社会机器上的齿轮。更有甚者，假如这个体系幸存下来，将会导致不可避免的后果：没有任何方法能够改革或改进这一体系，使之不至于剥夺人的尊严与自主。

3. If the system breaks down theconsequences will still be very painful. But the bigger the system grows themore disastrous the results of its breakdown will be, so if it is to break downit had best break down sooner rather than later.

3，假如这一体系崩溃，结果依旧会十分痛苦。但是体系规模越大，崩溃造成的结果就越可怕。因此假如真要崩溃的话最好赶早不赶迟。

4. We therefore advocate a revolutionagainst the industrial system. This revolution may or may not make use ofviolence: it may be sudden or it may be a relatively gradual process spanning afew decades. We can't predict any of that. But we do outline in a very generalway the measures that those who hate the industrial system should take in orderto prepare the way for a revolution against that form of society. This is notto be a POLITICAL revolution. Its object will be to overthrow not governmentsbut the economic and technological basis of the present society.,

4，所以我们主张发动针对工业体系的革命。这场革命可能使用或不使用暴力，可能突然完成也可能在几十年时间里相对循序渐进地进行。我们无法预测这一点。但是我们的确为那些憎恨工业体系的人们勾勒了一套十分宽泛的方法，从而为反对这一特定社会形式的革命铺平道路。这不是一场政治革命。革命目标并非推翻政府，而是颠覆现存社会的经济与技术基础。

5. In this article we give attention toonly some of the negative developments that have grown out of theindustrial-technological system. Other such developments we mention onlybriefly or ignore altogether. This does not mean that we regard these otherdevelopments as unimportant. For practical reasons we have to confine our discussionto areas that have received insufficient

public attention or in which we havesomething new to say. For example, since there are well-developed environmentaland wilderness movements, we have written very little about environmentaldegradation or the destruction of wild nature, even though we consider these tobe highly important.

5，本文中我们仅仅关注了工业-技术体系所产生的所有负面发展中的一部分。其他此类发展我们则仅仅稍微提了一提或者干脆完全忽略了。这并不意味着我们认为此类负面发展不重要。出于实际考量我们必须将讨论范围局限于未曾获得足够公众注意或者我们有话要说的领域。例如，鉴于目前已经有了进展得力的环保与自然运动，我们对于环境恶化或自然破坏的话题并未多费笔墨，尽管我们认为这些问题极为重要。