-
“
9.
11
”事件前后
泰
?
摩西
As
the ruins
of
the
World
Trade
Towers smoldered
at
the southern
end
of
Manhattan
and
the
breeze
stirred the ashes of thousands of human beings, a
new age of anxiety was born. If someone
had
slept
through
September
11
and
awakened,
Rip
V
an
Winkle-like
today,
he
would
open
his
eyes on
an astonishing new landscape.
1
．
世贸大厦双塔的废墟还在曼哈顿区南端闷燃，
微风将几千人的身躯化成的灰烬吹起，
一个新的焦虑时代由此开始。如果有人在
9
月
11
日那天像
瑞普
?
凡
?
温
克尔那样恰好睡去，
一觉醒来，眼前的这一派景象定让他瞠日结舌。
Guardsmen toting M-16s are stationed
at our airports. The president of the United
States attends a
World Series game and
the airspace over Y
ankee Stadium is
closed, a line of snipers positioned on
the stadium rooftop. The vice-
president's safekeepers whisk him from place to
place, just as his
arch-nemesis Osama
bin Laden is presumably moved from cave to cave
halfway across the world.
Anthrax panic
sends Congress running from its chambers.
2
．
机场里驻进了背着
V
-16
自动步枪的国民警卫队员。
纽约扬基体育场上空的空域因美
国总统亲临美国两大职业棒球联赛的决赛而关闭，
禁止飞机通过。
体育场的屋顶之上还部署
了
一排狙击手。
副总统的保卫员们忙不迭地将他不断转移，
正如他
那难以对付的仇敌奥萨马
?
本
?
拉丹一样，据推测他此刻也在世界另一头从一个山洞转移到另一个山洞。议员们在炭疽
病的恐慌中弃岗而逃。
The
events
of
September
11
divided
our
world
into
two
radically
different
eras.
We
watch
wistfully
as the
pre-9/11 world
drifts
away
on
its
raft
of
memory
,
cast
in
Technicolor shades
of
nostalgia.
We
will
remember
that
assassinated
world
as
idyllic,
secure
(never
mind
that
it was
neither), we will speak of it in the
reverent tones reserved for the dead.
3
．
“
9?11
”事
件将我们的世界划为截然不同的两个时代。我们带着惆怅，目送“
9?11
”
之前的世界在怀旧的暗淡色彩中随记忆的小筏渐渐漂走远去。
在我们的记忆中，
这个突遭袭
击的世界永远如诗如面
，
牢不可破
(
虽然实际并非如此
)
。
谈到它时，
我们
总是像在谈论亡灵，
语气异常恭敬。
Meanwhile,
the
post
9/11
era
looms
like
an
unmapped
wilderness.
As
with
other
unclaimed
territories
throughout history
, a fierce battle is
being waged for its psychic, political and
material
capital. Former president Bill
Clinton has called this conflict
century
the charge are the
warriors of the Bush Administration, a battalion
of securitycrats and generals
who are
attempting to colonize the future with their own
repressive agenda.
4
．与此
同时，
“
9?11
”之后的日子就像没
有标志的荒地呈现在人们面前。与历史上前几
次拓荒一样，这场激烈的精神、政治和物质
的资本战正在打响。前总统比尔
?
克林顿称这次
较量是
“争夺
21
世纪灵魂的
战争”
，
最后的战利品还包括我们最珍视的价值观和自由。
在这
场战争中，
布什政府的将士们首当其冲
，
这些视国家安全重于民众自由的官员们准备把他们
一贯实行的
镇压政策带入未来。
But there is a
brighter side, a growing chorus of dissenting
voices who reject paranoia and hubris
and question the rush toward becoming a
security state. There is a dialectic afoot in the
country, a
stirring
of
peaceful
purpose
that
has
been
largely
ignored
by
the
mainstream
media,
which
assumes
the
public
is
thinking
in
red,
white
and
blue, when
actually
the
spectrum
of
emotions,
ideas and opinions
is, like America itself, multihued.
5
．不过，光明的一面仍旧存在：越来越多的人开始反对这种多疑和自
大，并对这种视安全
为国家最高目标的做法提出质疑。
人们开始
辩证地思考，
对基本上得不到主流媒体重视的和
平这一主题热烈
讨论。
主流媒体一直以为公众的想法只有红、
白、蓝三种颜色，
殊不知人们
的情感、思想和观点正如美国本身，是多姿多彩的。
Just before his
death in November 2001, Ken Kesey described the
state of the union in succinctly
Keseyian terms:
men
in
turbans
if
they
don't
turn
over
the
men
in
hiding.”
With
the
prescience
of
a
dying
man,
Kesey ventured that this was really a
war between the brutal, aggressively male way
things had
always been and
continue
to
do,
Kesey
nurtured
great
hopes
for
a
future
constructed
on
a
model
of
mutual
cooperation, trust and rational
thinking.
6
．在<
/p>
2001
年
11
月肯
?
凯西去世前夕，他以独有的简洁对美国做了这样的描写：
“穿西
装的人
(
美国官员
)
告诉我们穿军装的人
(<
/p>
美国军队
)
怎样对付一味窝藏他人
(
本
?
拉丹及“基地
”
组织成员
)
的人
(
塔利班
)
。
”即将离开人世的人具有的先知使凯西大胆地将这场战争称做仍是
历史上一直存在的
野蛮的雄性侵略性方式和
“或许刚刚处于萌芽阶段的胆怯和脆弱的处理方
式”
的角逐。
和许多仍旧持这种观点的美国人一样，<
/p>
凯西渴望未来的世界能够建立在互相合
作、信任和理智的思考之上
。
No Longer Invulnerable
7
The
attacks
in
New
Y
ork
and
Washington
shattered
the
sense
of
invulnerability
that
is
a
hallmark of
the American psyche. After 9/11, we looked at each
other with new eyes, asked new
questions.
If
you
found
yourself
trapped
in
a
doomed
airplane
with
a
cell
phone
in
hand,
who
would
you
call?
Pundits wrote
that
the country
had
lost
its
innocence,
overlooking
the
fact
that
innocence is not a desirable quality in
a superpower nation.
不再坚不可摧
7
．
纽约和华盛顿遭受的恐怖袭击使美国人不再相信无所不胜这一美国
精神的主要特征。
“
9?11
”事件之
后，我们用新眼光对视，并提出新的问题。如果你乘坐的飞机就要失事，你
会用手中的移
动电话与谁通话
?
学者们认为这个国家已经不再纯真，却没有认
识到纯真对一
个超级大国并不可取。
Overnight,
the
United
States
perceived
a
sword
of
Damocles
suspended
over
its
head
and
the
ensuing
waves
of
paranoia
initiated
surreal
episodes:
a
nationwide
run
on
gas masks;
a
demand
from the Postal
Service that all mail be irradiated against
biological threats; and, most appalling of
all,
Op-Eds
that
declared
using
nuclear
weapons
against
Muslim
countries would
be
justified
if
terrorists killed so much as one more
American.
8
．一夜之间，美国感觉到达摩克利
斯剑正悬挂在头上，一个接一个以多疑为主调的超
现实的插曲出现了：
< br>全国抢购防毒面具，
邮局辐照所有邮件，
严防生物袭击，
更让人感到可
怕的是专栏上发表的文章，
有人扬言，
如果再有一名美国人因恐怖分子死亡，
美国政府将
有
理由对穆斯林国家动用核武器。
Among the unavoidable truths to emerge
from 9/11 is that being on U. S. soil does not
render us
immune from harm. The
American people now have much more in common with
millions of the
planet's citizens who
spend their lives in regions where armed conflict
or terrorism take innocent
lives daily.
We too are mired near the bottom of Maslow's
pyramid, struggling to regain our lost
sense of safety and security.
9
．
“
9?11<
/p>
”
事件让我们认识到许多无可争辩的事实，
其中有一点就是即使在美国本土也
无法保证我们免受伤害。
美
国人现在和世界上千百万生活在武装冲突和恐怖活动每天都夺走
生命的地区的人们有了更
多共同之处。
我们也陷在马斯洛金字塔的底层，
为重获安全感而
挣
扎。
The new
Zeitgeist even has Ally
McBeal
registering concern about world events.
Relationships,
laments Ally
Mc
Beal, were easier
a
detective rebukes another detective that he isn't
World Trade Center
10<
/p>
．这种新的时代精神竟然会让艾丽
?
麦克
比尔这位从不关心政治的人对世界大事也开
始担心起来。
艾丽<
/p>
?
麦克比尔认为人与人之间的关系
“在<
/p>
9
月世界变化之前”
并非如此困难，
对此他感到十分痛惜。
《纽约重案组》中，一个侦探指责另一侦探，
说他并不是“世贸大厦
事件惟一的受害者”
。
< br>
The
most
visible
symptom
of
our
profound
psychological
trauma
is
a
zealous
new
patriotism.
Seeking solace, the country drapes
itself in the American flag like a child in a
superhero cape who
plays
at
being
invincible.
From
homes,
vehicles
and
clothing
to
department
store
windows,
billboards
and
television
commercials,
there
are
few
places
in
the country where
the Stars
and
Stripes
has
not
found
a
purchase.
People who
never
gave
the flag
much
thought
except
on
the
Fourth
of
July
have
become
suddenly,
passionately,
patriotic.
For
some
of
us,
patriotism
is
a
complicated matter, linked with a
dedication to the Constitution. But the now
inescapable presence
of the flag,
supposedly a symbol of American pride and unity,
sometime looks: suspiciously like
overcompensation for a wounded ego. The
flag is an icon,a brand that offers no more
protection
than the Nike swoosh.
11
．<
/p>
我们这种巨大的心理创伤最明显的症状就是一种新的狂热的爱国主义。
为了寻求安
慰，
全国上下都裹进了国旗，
< br>就像一个披着超人斗篷扮无敌英雄的小孩子。
家里、
各种
交通
工具上、衣服上、商店的橱窗里、广告牌上、电视广告里??星条旗处处可见。以前
除了在
7
月
4
日之外不会想到国旗的人现在一下子都充满激情地成了爱国者。对我们某些人来说，
爱国
主义是个复杂的东西，
与是否忠于宪法有关。
可是现在，
无处不在的国旗可能象征着美
国的自豪和统一，
有时看上去未免像是对受伤的自我的过度补偿。
国旗不过是个象征，
< br>它能
够给人提供的保护不会与带有耐克品牌标志的商品有多大差异。
A
Hardening of Outlook
12
It
has
not
been
fashionable
for
some
time
to
assign
oracular
qualities
to
Orwell's
novel,
1984.
Y
et
the
book
has
much
to
say
to
our
fractured,
post
9/11
era.
In
Orwell's
dystopia,”'practices
which
has
been
long
abandoned,
in
some
cases
for
hundreds
of
years
—
imprisonment
without
trial..
public
executions,
torture
to
extract
confe?ssions,
,
,
not
only
became
common
again,
but
were
tolerated
and
even
defended
by
people
who
considered
themselves
enlightened
and
progressive.
These
paroxysmal
social
changes,
Orwell
wrote,
began with a
outlook”.
观点的硬化
12<
/p>
．
人们曾一度不再认为奥韦尔的小说
《<
/p>
1984
》
是一部预言，
不过小说巾的描写与我们
“
9?1l
< br>”事件之后这不再完整的时代的确大有相似之处。他描写反面乌托邦时说，
“一些
长
期以来已经放弃不用的做法，
有些甚至几百年来都已废除的做
法，
例如未经审讯即监禁??
公开处决、
严刑拷打逼供??不仅又普遍实行起来，
而且也为那些自认为开明进步的人所容
忍，甚至辩护。
”奥韦尔认为这种突发的社会变化起源于“普遍硬化的
观点”
。