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Lesson Nine The Trouble with Television

電視的毛病

The Trouble with Television

要擺脫電視的影響是困難的。

It is difficult to escape the influence of television.

假如統計的平均數字適用于你的話，那么你到20歲的時候就至少看過2萬個小時的電視了，從那以后每生活10年就會增加1萬小時。

If you fit the statistical averages， by the age of 20 you will have been exposed to at least 20，000 hours of television. You can add 10，000 hours for each decade you have lived after the age of 20.

筆起看電視，美國人只有在工作和睡眠上花時間更多。

The only things Americans do more than watch television are work and sleep.

稍微計算一下，使用這些時間的一部分能夠做些什么。

Calculate for a moment what could be done with even a part of those hours.

聽說一個大學生僅用5000小時就可以獲得學士學位。

Five thousand hours， I am told， are what a typical college undergraduate spends working on a bachelor's degree.

在1萬個小時內你能學成一個天文學家或工程師，流利掌握幾門外語。

In 10，000 hours you could have learned enough to become an astronomer or engineer. You could have learned several languages fluently.

如果你感興趣的話，你可能讀希臘原文的荷馬史詩或俄文版的陀思妥耶夫斯基的作品；如果對此不感興趣，那你可以徒步周游世界，撰寫一本游記。

If it appealed to you， you could be reading Homer in the original Greek or Dostoyevsky in Russian. If it didn't， you could have walked around the world and written a book about it.

電視的毛病在于它分散了人們的注意力。

The trouble with television is that it discourages concentration.

生活中幾乎一切有趣的、能給人以滿足的事都需要一定的建設性的、持之以恒的努力。

Almost anything interesting and rewarding in life requires some constructive， consistently applied effort.

即使是我們中間那些最遲鈍、最沒有天才的人也能做出一些事來，而這些事使那些從來不在任何事情上專心致志的人感到像是奇跡一般。

The dullest， the least gifted of us can achieve things that seem miraculous to those who never concentrate on anything.

但電視鼓勵我們不做出任何努力，它向我們兜售即時的滿足，它給我們提供娛樂，使我們只想娛樂，讓時間在毫無痛苦中消磨掉。

But Television encourages us to apply no effort. It sells us instant gratification. It spanerts us only to spanert， to make the time pass without pain.

電視節目的多樣化成了一種麻醉劑而不是促進思考的因素。

Television's variety becomes a narcotic ， nor a stimulus.

它那系列的、多變的畫面引著我們跟著它走。

Its serial， kaleidoscopic exposures force us to follow its lead.

觀眾無休無止地跟著導游游覽：參觀博物館30分鐘，看大教堂30分鐘，喝飲料30分鐘，然后上車去下一個參觀點，只是電視的特點是時間分配以分秒計算，而所選擇的內容卻多為車禍和人們的互相殘殺。

The viewer is on a perpetual guided tour： 30 minutes at the museum， 30 at the cathedral， 30 for a drink， then back on the bus to the next attraction —-except on television.， typically， the spans allotted arc on the order of minutes or seconds， and the chosen delights are more often car crashes and people killing one another.

總之許多電視節目取代了人類最可貴的一種才能，即主動集中自己的注意力，而不是被動地奉送注意力。

In short， a lot of television usurps one of the most precious of all human gifts， the ability to focus your attention yourself， rather than just passively surrender it.

吸引并抓住人們的注意力是大多數電視節目安排的主要目的，它加強了電視是有利可圖的廣告的載體的作用。

Capturing your attention —and holding it—is the prime motive of most television programming and enhances its role as a profitable advertising vehicle.

節目安排使人生活在無休止的恐懼之中，唯恐抓不住人們的注意力——不管是什么人的注意力都擔心。

Programmers live in constant fear of losing anyone's attention—anyone's.

避免造成這一局面的最有把握的辦法就是使一切節目都保持簡短，不要使任何人的注意力過于集中而受到損害，而要通過多樣化、新奇性、動作和行動不斷地提供刺激。

The surest way to avoid doing so is to keep everything brief， not to strain the attention of anyone but instead to provide constant stimulation through variety， novelty， action and movement.

很簡單，電視的運作原則就是迎合觀眾的注意力跨度短這一特點。

Quite simply， television operates on the appeal to the short attention span.

這只是最簡單的解決辦法，但它逐漸被看作是電視這一宣傳媒體特定的，內在固有的性質，是必須履行的職責，似乎是司令薩爾諾夫或另一個令人敬畏的電視創始人給我們傳下了刻有銘文的石碑，命令電視上出現的一切節目均不得使觀眾需要片刻以上的注意力。

It is simply the easiest way out. But it has come to be regarded as a given， as inherent in the medium itself； as an imperative， as though General Sarnoff， or one of the other august pioneers of video， had bequeathed to us tablets of stone commanding that nothing in television shall ever require more than a few moments' Concentration.

要是運用得恰當，這倒也無可厚非。

In its place that is fine.

如此出色地把使人忘卻現實的娛樂作為大規模推銷工具加以包裝，誰又能反對這樣一種宣傳媒介呢？

Who can quarrel with a medium that so brilliantly packages escapist entertainment as a mass-marketing tool？

但是我看到了它的價值現已充斥于這個國家及其生活之中。

Rut I see its values now pervading this nation and its life.

認為快速思維和快餐食品一樣影響著生活節奏很快、性情急躁的公眾，這已成了時髦的看法。

It has become fashionable to think that， like fast food， fast ideas are the way to get to a fast-moving， impatient public.

在新聞方面，我認為這種做法不能進行很好的交流。

In the case of news， this practice， in my view， results in inefficient communication.

我懷疑電視每晚的新聞節目真正能夠被人吸收和理解的有多少。

I question how much of television's nightly news effort is really absorbable and understandable.

其中許多被形象地描述為“機關槍不連貫地點射”。

Much of it is what has been aptly described as “machine-gunning with scraps.”

我認為這種技術是與連貫性作對的。

I think the technique fights coherence.

我認為它最終會使事情變得枯燥乏味、無足輕重（除非伴以恐怖的畫面），因為任何一件事，如果你對它幾乎一無所知，那么它差不多總會是枯燥乏味、使人覺得無足輕重的。

I think it tends to make things ultimately boring and dismissible （unless they are accompanied by horrifying pictures） because almost anything is boring and dismissible if you know almost nothing about it.

我認為，電視迎合觀眾注意力跨度短的做法不僅會造成交流不暢，而且還會降低文化水平。

I believe that TV's appeal to the short attention span is not only inefficient communication but decivilizing as well.

想一想電視要達到的那些極不慎重的原則吧：必須避免復雜性，用視覺刺激來代替思考，語言的精確早已是不合時宜的要求。

Consider the casual assumptions that television tends to cultivate： that complexity must be avoided， that visual stimulation is a substitute for thought， that verbal precision is an anachronism.

它可能已過時，但我所受的教育告訴我思想就是語言，是按準確的語法規則組織起來的。

It may be old-fashioned， but I was taught that thought is words， arranged in grammatically precise

在美國存在著讀寫能力的危機。

There is a crisis of literacy in this country.

據一項研究估計，約有3000萬美國成年人是“功能性文盲”。他們的讀寫能力無法回答招聘廣告，或讀懂藥瓶上的說明。

One study estimates that some 30 million adult Americans are “functionally illiterate” and cannot read or write well enough to answer the want ad or understand the instructions on a medicine bottle.

能讀寫可能算不上是一項不可剝奪的人權，但是我們學識淵博的開國元勛們并不感到它是不合理的或者甚至是達不到的。

Literacy may not be an inalienable human right， but it is one that the highly literate Founding Fathers might not have found unreasonable or even unattainable.

從統計數字上看，我們的國家不僅未達到人人能讀寫的程度，而且離這一目標越來越遠。

We are not only not attaining it as a nation， statistically speaking， but we are falling further and further short of attaining it.

盡管我不會天真到認為電視是造成這一情況的原因，但我卻相信它起了一定的作用，是有影響的。

And， white I would not be so simplistic as to suggest that television is the cause， 1 believe it contributes and is an influence.

美國的一切：社會結構、家庭組織形式、經濟、在世界上的地位，都變得更為復雜，而不是相反。

Everything about this nation —the structure of the society， its forms of family organization， its economy， its place in the world— has become more complex， not less.

然而其占主導地位的傳播媒介，全國聯系的主要方式，卻在人類存在的問題上推銷簡單的解決方式，而這些問題通常是沒有簡單的解決方式的。

Yet its dominating communications instrument， its principal form of national linkage， is one that sells neat resolutions to human problems that usually have no neat resolutions.

在我的心目中，那30秒鐘一個的商業廣告：一位家庭主婦因選對了牙膏而感到幸福的那小小的戲劇性場面就是這一切的象征。電視已使這極其成功的藝術形式成為我們文化不可缺少的一個部分了。

It is all symbolized in my mind by the hugely successful art form that television has made central to the culture，the 30-second commercial： the tiny drama of the earnest housewife who finds happiness in choosing the right toothpaste.

在人類歷史上，幾時曾有這樣多的人共同把自己這樣多的業余時間奉送給一件玩具，一項大眾娛樂？

When before in human history has so much humanity collectively surrendered so much of its leisure to one toy， one mass spanersion？

幾時曾有一個國家使自己整個地置于商品推銷媒介的擺布之下？

When before has virtually an entire nation surrendered itself whole-sale to a medium for selling？

幾年前，耶魯大學的法學教授小查爾斯？L？布萊克寫道：“……被喂食本身并不是件瑣碎小事。”

Some years ago Yale University law professor Charles L. Black. Jr.，wrote：“…… forced feeding on trivial fare is not itself a trivial matter-”

我認為我們這個社會正在強行被喂食。

I think this society is being forced-fed with trivial fare，

我擔心這一做法對我們的思維習慣，對我們的語言、我們努力的極限度及對復雜情況的興趣等方面所造成的影響，這一點我們還只是極模糊地意識到。

and I fear that the effects on our habits of mind， our language， our tolerance for effort， and our appetite for complexity are only dimly perceived.

就算我的看法不對，用懷疑和批判的眼光來分析這個問題，來考慮如何抵制它，也不會有任何害處。

If I am wrong， we will have done no harm to look at the issue skeptically and critically，to consider how we should be resisting it. I hope you will join with me in doing so.