Unit10 Things: The Throw-away Society by Alvin Toffler
“Barbie,” a twelve-inch plastic teen-ager, is the best known and best-selling doll in history. Since its introduction in 1959, the Barbie doll population of the world has grown to 12,000,000—more than the human population of Los Angeles or London or Paris. Little girls adore Barbie because she is highly realistic and eminently dress-upable. Mattel, Inc., maker of Barbie, also sells a complete wardrobe for her, including clothes for ordinary daytime wear, clothes for formal party wear, clothes for swimming and skiing.
十二英寸高的塑料小人“芭比”曾是历史上最著名最畅销的洋娃娃,自从1959年问世以来,全世界的芭比娃娃的数量增长到1200,0000人—比洛杉矶,伦敦和巴黎任何一个城市的人口还要多。小女孩热衷芭比娃娃是因为他很像真的而且可以任意更换衣服,作为芭比娃娃的生产厂家,Mattel公司还出售芭比的整体衣柜,包括日常便装,正式晚装,泳装和滑雪衫。
Recently Mattel announced a new improved Barbie doll. The new version has a slimmer figure, “real”eyelashes and a twist-and turn waist that makes her more humanoid than ever. Moreover, Mattel announced that, for the first time, any young lady wishing to purchase a new Barbie would receive a trade-in allowance for her old one.
最近Mattel公司推出一款更高级的芭比娃娃,这个新产品身材更苗条,有仿真睫毛,又可以扭转弯曲的腰肢,所有这些特点使其更加人性化。此外,M公司还首次宣布,任何一个购买芭比娃娃的女士都可以获得旧芭比娃娃的折价优惠。
What Mattel did not announce was that by trading in her old doll for a technologically improved modes, the little girl of today, citizen of tomorrow’s super-industrial world, would learn a fundamental lesson about the new society: that man’s relationships with things are increasingly temporary.
M公司所没有宣布的是,通过折旧芭比娃娃来销售新款芭比娃娃,今天的小女孩,明天工业化社会的公民就会得出这样一个对社会的基本认识:人类和物品的关系越来越短暂。
The ocean of man-made physical objects that surrounds us is set within a larger ocean of natural objects. But increasingly, it is the technologically produced environment that matters for the individual. The texture of plastic or concrete, the iridescent glisten of an automobile under a streetlight, the staggering vision of a cityscape seen from the window of a jet— these are the intimate realities of his existence. Man-made things enter into and color his consciousness. Their number is expanding with explosive force, both absolutely and relative to the natural environment. This will be even more true in super-industrial society than it is today.
我们周围人造物品的海洋外围还有更广阔的自燃物品的海洋。但是这个技术制造的环境逐渐影响着人类。塑料或混凝土结构,街灯下霓虹闪烁的汽车,从飞机窗口俯瞰到的缓慢移动的城市—这些人类的亲密伙伴。人造物品进入并影响了人类意识,其数量急剧增长,无论是就绝对而言还是相对而言。这种现象在将来的超级工业化社会会更加突出。
Anti-materialists tend to deride the importance of “things.” Yet things are highly significant, not merely because of their functional utility, but also because of their psychological impact. We develop relationships with things. Things affect our sense of foreshortening of our relationships with things accelerates the pace of life.
唯心主义者试图否认物品的重要性,但是物品是非常重要的,不仅因为它有实用功能,还因为其对精神的影响,我们发展和物品的关系,物品影响我们对关联和断联的意识。他们在情景结构中的作用,我们和物品关系的缩短加快了生活的节奏。
Moreover, our attitudes toward things reflect basic value judgments. Nothing could be more
dramatic than the difference between the new breed of little girls who cheerfully turn in their Barbies for the new improved model and those who, like their mothers and grandmothers before them, clutch lingeringly and lovingly to the same doll until it disintegrates from sheer age. In this difference lies the contrast between past and future, between societies based on permanence, and the new, fast-forming society based on transience.
此外,我们对物品的态度反映了基本的价值评判。有的小女孩兴高采烈的把她们的芭比娃娃换成新款高级的娃娃,有的小女孩象她们的母亲和祖母年少时一样,终日抱着同一个娃娃,形影不离,爱不释手,直到长大后娃娃从生活中消失,没有什么比这更具有戏剧性的对比了。这种不同在于过去和未来的对比,对于永久的社会和新的变幻无常的社会的对比。
That man-thing relationships are growing more and more temporary may be illustrated by examining the culture surrounding the little girl who trades in her doll. This child soon learns that Barbie dolls are by no means the only physical objects that pass into and out of her young life at a rapid clip. Diapers, bibs, paper napkins, Kleenex, towels, non-returnable soda bottles—all are used up quickly in her home and ruthlessly eliminated. Corn muffins come in baking tins that are thrown away after one use. Spinach is encased in plastic sacks that can be dropped into a pan of boiling water for heating, and then thrown away. TV dinners are cooked and often served on throw-away trays. Her home is a large processing machine through which objects flow, entering and leaving, at a faster and faster rate of speed. From birth on, she is inextricably embedded in a throw-away culture.
观察一下旧芭比换新芭比的小女孩身后的文化就可以看出人类和物品间的关系越来越短暂,这些孩子很快会知道有很多物品以极快的速度进入并离开他们的生活,不只是芭比娃娃。纸尿裤,围裙,纸巾,手绢,非循环使用的苏打汽水瓶—所有这些在她家被迅速使用,有的被无情的丢弃。玉米松饼放进一次性的烤罐,菠菜放进塑料袋中,这种塑料袋可以一起放进沸水锅中加热然后丢弃。电视上的烹饪节目也经常使用一次性的碟子。她的家就是一个大型处理机器,通过这个机器,物品以越来越快的速度不断流动,进入又离开,从出生开始,她就被包围在一次性的文化中。
The idea of using a product once or for a brief period and then replacing it, runs counter to the grain of societies or individuals steeped in a heritage of poverty. Not long ago Uriel Rone, a market researcher for the French advertising agency Publicis, told me: “The French housewife is not used to disposable products. She likes to keep things, even old things, rather than throw-away curtain. We did a marketing study for them and found the resistance too strong.” This resistance, however, is dying all over the developed world.
对一次性物品的使用让人想到了粮食问题和祖祖辈辈生活在贫困中的人,不久前,法国广告代理公司P的一位市场调查员U R 告诉我:“法国的家庭主妇并不习惯于使用一次性的产品,她们喜欢把东西留着,即使是旧物品也不会丢。我们代表公司宣传一种一次性的塑料窗帘。我们队她们作市场调查,却发现她们的抵制情绪很强。”这种抵制在其他发达国家越来越少了。
Thus a writer, Edward Maze, has pointed out that many Americans visiting Sweden in the early 1950’s were astounded by its cleanliness. “We were almost awed by the fact that there were no beer and soft drink bottles by the road sides, as, much to our shame, there were in America. But by the 1960’s lo and behold, bottles were suddenly blooming along Swedish highways… What happened? Sweden had become a buy, use and throw-away society, following the American pattern.” In Japan today throw-away tissues are so universal that cloth handkerchiefs are regarded
as old fashioned, not to say unsanitary. In England for sixpence one may buy a “Dentamatic throw-away toothbrush”which comes already coated with toothpaste for its one-time use. And even in France, disposable cigarette lighters are commonplace. Form cardboard milk containers to the rockets that power space vehicles, products created for short-term or one-time use are becoming more numerous and crucial to our way of life.
因此,作家E M 指出在十二世纪五十年代初期,很多区瑞典观光的美国人都被瑞典的干净所震惊“让我们敬佩的是路边没有一个啤酒瓶和软饮料瓶,而自惭形秽的是,美国到处都是。但是到二十世纪六十年代,看看吧,各种瓶瓶罐罐凸现在瑞典的高速公路上……怎么了?跟美国一样,瑞典已经变成一个购买,使用一次性物品的国家了。在当今的日本,一次性的纸巾非常普遍,手绢已经老土了,而且也不卫生。在英国,花七便士就可以买到已经挤好牙膏,一次性使用的牙刷。即使在法国,一次性的打火机也很普遍,从牛奶只喝到为太空提供动力的火箭,它们对我们的生活起着越来越重要的作用。
The recent introduction of paper and quasi-paper clothing carried the trend toward disposability a step further. Fashionable boutiques and working-class clothing stores have sprouted whole departments devoted to gaily colored and imaginatively designed paper apparel. Fashion magazines display breathtakingly sumptuous gowns, coats, pajamas, even wedding dresses made of paper. The bride pictured in one of these wears a long white train of lace-like paper that, the caption writer notes, will make “great kitchen curtains” after the ceremony.
刚上市的纸衣服或者类似纸的衣服将一次性文化更推进了一步。时尚饰品店和工薪阶层服装店已经陆续出现一个全新的部门,这个部门专门负责那些色彩艳丽
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特别的纸衣服。时尚杂志展示了价格惊人的纸长袍,纸外套,纸睡袍,甚至纸婚纱和礼服。图中的新娘穿着仿蕾丝纸做成的白色长袍裙,标题写道:这条裙子在婚礼结束后可以做成“不错的厨房窗帘”。
Paper clothes are particularly suitably for children, Writes one fashion expert: “Little girls will soon be able to spill ice cream, draw pictures and make cutouts on their clothes while their mothers smile benignly at their creativity.” And for adults who want to express their own creativity, there is even a “paint-yourself-dress” complete with brushes. Price: $2.00.
纸衣服是最适合孩子的。一位时尚专家写道:“小孩子会乱溅冰激凌,而且他可以在纸衣服上画画,或者贴剪纸画,而母亲在一旁微笑的赞许其创造力。”对于想展示创造力的成年人,可以买一种配有刷子的“自助衣服”,价格两美元。
Price, of course, is a critical factor behind the paper explosion. Thus a department store features simple A-line dresses made of what it calls “devil-may-care cellulose fiber and nylon.” At $1.29 each, it is almost cheaper for the consumer to buy and discard a new one than to send an ordinary dress to the cleaners. Soon it will be. But more than economics is involved, for the extension of the throw-away culture has important psychological consequences.
当然,价格是纸用品猛增的重要原因。因此有一家百货商店很有特色,店内全是清一色的衣服,这些衣服都是用被称作“魔鬼也会留意的纤维和尼龙”做成的。每件事1.29美元,对于消费者来说,一次性要比普通衣服送进洗衣店要便宜的多。但不仅仅是经济问题,一次性文化的蔓延还带来了不容忽视的精神影响。
We develop a throw-away mentality to match our throw-away products. This mentality produces, among other things, a set of radically altered values with respect to property. But the spread of disposability through the society also implies decreased durations in man-thing relationships. Instead of being linked with a single object over a relatively long span of time, we are linked for brief periods with the succession of objects that supplant it.
我们已经形成了一种一次性的心态,来适应一次性的产品。这种心态使得我们对于物品
的价值观产生了巨大的改变。然而社会中的一次性文化的蔓延也预示着人类和物品的关系持续的时间越来越短。我们只是和一系列马上将被代替的物品保持短期的联系,而不是和某一物品保持长期的联系。
课后翻译:
1 他奇特的行为与对良好举止的一般观念背道而驰。
His peculiar behavior runs counter to the popular concept of good conduct.
2 相对论对现代科学产生了巨大影响。
The theory of relativity made a great impact on modern science.
3 任何人都没有权利嘲笑残疾人的不利条件。
No one has the right to deride the disadvantages of handicapped people.
4 在她毕业典礼哪天,Judy的叔叔婶婶以丰盛的晚餐来款待她。
On her graduation day, Judy was treated to a sumptuous dinner by her uncle and aunt.
5 关于他过去在公司的经历,没有什么人有不满。
With respect to his past record in the firm, no one has anything to complain about.
6 她深深地陷入反对校董会的密谋之中。
He is inextricably involved in the plot against the school board.
7 我年迈的叔祖母很不习惯那些充斥市场的一次性物品。
My aged great-aunt is not used to the disposable goods which flood the market today.
8 他在考试作弊被发现后,他的名字马上从应试者的名单上删去了。
His name was immediately eliminated from the list of candidates after he was caught cheating in the exam.
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