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[心情]物质的丰裕与心智的涣散(中英对照)
物质的丰裕与心智的涣散
● 梁耀祖
Billy Leung
“在一家沃马超级市场，排头位的一个女人被一群蜂拥抢购架上DVD放映机的消费者践踏并失去知觉。那个女人……看上了一台价值29美元的DVD放映机……那个女人的妹妹说绝大多数人继续抢购便宜货，他们关心的只是一台该死的DVD放映机。”
六十年代末期，斯坦福大学生物学家保罗·俄力治预测，美国将于二十一时纪陷入饥荒，导致抢夺食物的暴动随处可见。我们都知道，现实刚好是相反的——就如上述一份杂志所报道，发生在佛罗里达州的事件般，世界出现了购物骚乱。
绝大多数新加坡人，根本不用担心生命中最重要必需品的价格会暴涨到没人可以负担得起的程度，幸运的我们乐见食物（如果还有人为它操心的话）的开销占据收入的比率日益减少。
最近我们在电视上，可以观赏不少描写世界上最令人反感又过度放纵的消费者的节目。
在“简单生活第二辑——公路旅程”中，我们惊讶的看到巴利丝·希尔顿（连锁饭店承继人）和尼歌·利翠（过气明星尼安奴·利翠的女儿）竟然对现实生活一无所知：利翠从来没有为汽车添油的经验，因为“通常都是我的保镖干的”。
你的反应是什么？捧着肚皮大笑？感到厌恶之极？这些反应都可以，不过我们要留神，因为如果一名活在三四十年前的人可以目睹我们今天的生活，他们会认为我们所有人，其实跟川普和彭博的下一代一样被宠坏和堕落。
尽管你可能发牢骚，可是你知道事实正是如此：你曾经用过并废置了多少台电脑？你知道确实数字吗？你的电视收到多少个频道呢？
再者，我敢打赌如果你转台观赏黑白片，你的子女会不屑地走开。1970年时，没有人拥有录影机，现在录影机已经成为历史，而沃马更以29美元的价格售卖DVD放映机。
如果有人在1980年告诉你——今天你会使用跟一包香烟大小的手机，联络正在飞越太平洋的某人之余，还可以运用这精巧的装置同时支付你的账单和整理数码相片——当时你会相信他吗？
消费文化取得了完全的胜利。比起过去，我们的消费不断增加，也可以随意使用更多的“玩具”，不过随着大量廉价消费品如糖果般从天而降，我不肯定我们心智的忍耐力是否也相对获得提升。
在消费层面上，我们可能已经被宠坏到失去前人那种旺盛不衰的野心的地步，不再勇敢地面对未知的领域，不再以双手和无比坚毅去解决问题，反而一味等待其他人手抬银盘，奉上解决方法到眼前。这正是我的忧虑之处。
这些现象的后果是我们将缺乏革新者，他们使以前只能被特权阶级享用的产品或服务大众化，而革新者的减少会令我们生活水平的提升放缓。
除此之外，当我们的社会变得更富裕和更有效率时，会不知不觉间面对一个两难的局面：以政府之手替你解决问题，还是冒着你可能无法到达终点甚至中途失败的风险，放手让你挣扎求存？
可能这两难局面才是现代物质主义挂帅的社会的真正讽刺。没错，某程度上这是一门由于自己的成功引起的“富贵病”，但是我们不能对它掉以轻心，否则下一回国家可能被“第三代综合症”——由于创办人的孙儿女都被宠坏了，所以一个家庭式企业大都不能遗传超过三代——所困扰，切记切记。
·作者是耶鲁大学国际与发展经济硕士，目前是房地产业规划师。
Material abundance and mental irrelevance
“A mop of shoppers rushing for a sale of DVD players trampled the first woman in line and knocked her unconscious as they scrambled for the shelves at a Wal-Mart Supercenter.
The woman...had her eye on a US$29 DVD player...The woman's sister said that...most people continued their rush for the deals and all they cared about was a stupid DVD player.”
In the late 1960s, Stanford biologist Paul Ehrlich predicted that America would be so near to starvation in the 21st century that food riots would erupt everywhere. As we all know, the reality is just the opposite - the world observes shopping riots, as a magazine report on the above incident in Florida illustrates.
Instead of panicking as the ultimate necessity of life grows so expensive that no one can afford it, the vast majority of us in Singapore are fortunate enough to comfortably allow food (if anyone still cares) to claim a proportion of our income lower than ever before.
We have been treated to a glut of TV programmes of late about some of the world's most revoltingly excessive consumers.
In “The Simple Life 2 - Road Trip”, we meet Paris Hilton (heir of the hotel chain) and Nicole Richie (daughter of former pop star Lionel Richie) so that we can marvel at their cluelessness about real life: Richie has never pumped gas “because my guard usually does that”.
What is your reaction? Laugh? Loathe? Fine - but be careful. Because the truth is, if average homo sapiens of about 30-40 years ago could see us today, they would think we were all as spoiled and as rotten as any young Trump or Bloomberg.
You know it is true, albeit somewhat begrudgingly. How many computers have you used and scrapped? Do you even know? How many channels do you get on TV?
And I bet your children will walk away in disgust if you switch to black-and-white programmes. No one had a VCR in 1970. Now VCRs are history and Wal-Mart is selling DVD players for US$29 each.
If anyone had told you in 1980 that today you could use a mobile phone the size of a cigarette pack to call someone who is flying over the Pacific Ocean, while settling your bills and managing your digital pictures all with that tiny gadget, would you have believed him?
The consumer culture has achieved total victory. We spend more and have more “toys”at home than ever before. But I am not sure if our mental toughness has caught with the avalanche of cheap consumer goods that are like candies falling from the sky.
My worry is that we are so spoilt on consumption that we may have lost the raw aggression of our predecessors to brave uncharted waters and solve problems with bare hands, instead of waiting for others to spoon-feed us with solutions on a silver plate.
The consequence is a dearth of innovators who “democratise”products or services which were previously available only for the privileged, which will in turn put a brake on our living standards.
Moreover, as our society gets more affluent and efficient, it is somehow torn between solving problems for you - by the visible hand of the government - or letting you swim on your own, at the risk of you not reaching the finish line or even getting drowned.
Perhaps this is the true irony of the modern materialistic society. No doubt it is a rich man's disease initiated partially by our very own success. But it is definitely not one to be overlooked, otherwise the “third-generation syndrome”(a family-run enterprise usually cannot remain in the hands of the family members over three generations as the founder's grandchildren are too spoilt to run the business) may be next to plague the nation.
Beware.
The writer who has a master's degree in International Development Economics from Yale University, is a real estate planner.
复杂的事情简单做，简单的事情重复做，重复的事情快乐做。
发表于：2005-03-21 05:06只看该作者
3楼
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