Unit 5 - How Could Anything That Feels So Bad Be So Good?
If modern life is so wonderful, why do we feel so unhappy? In the following article, the author suggests that though living standards have improved, we, rather than feeling content, never become completely satisfied with what we have achieved. This is because we always find ourselves with new and higher expectations. To meet these expectations and solve the new problems that arise, new strategies should be adopted.
HOW COULD ANYTHING THAT FEELS SO BAD BE SO GOOD?
Richard E. Farson
Maybe it is time to adopt a new strategy in trying to figure out why life today is so difficult, and what can be done about it. Assume that not only are things often not what they seem, they may be just the opposite of what they seem. When it comes to human affairs, everything is paradoxical.
People are discontented these days, for example, not because things are worse than ever, but because things are better than ever. Take marriage. In California there are about six divorces for every ten marriages -- even higher in some of the better communities. One must admit that a good deal of discontent is reflected in those statistics. But the explanation so frequently offered -- that the institution of marriage is in a state of collapse -- simply does not hold. Marriage has never been more popular and desirable than it is now; so appealing in fact, that even those who are in the process of divorce can scarcely wait for the law to allow them to marry again.
The problem is that people have never before entered marriage with the high expectations they now hold. Throughout history, the family has been a vital unit for survival, starting as a defense system for physical survival, and gradually becoming a unit for economic survival. Now, of course, the family has become a physical and economic liability rather than an asset. Having met, as a society, the basic survival and security needs, people simply don't need each other anymore to fight Indians or spin yarn -- or wash dishes or repair electrical plugs for that matter. The bonds of marriage and family life are no longer functional, but affectional. People used to come to love each other because they needed each other. Now it's just the other way around. They need each other because they love each other.
Listening to the complaints of those recently divorced, one seldom hears of brutality and desertion, but usually something like, "We just don't communicate very well", "The educational differences between us were simply too great to overcome", "I felt trapped in the relationship", "He won't let me be me", "We don't have much in common anymore". These complaints are interesting, because they reflect high-order discontent resulting from the failure of marriage to meet the great expectations held for it. Couples now expect -- and demand -- communication and understanding, shared values and goals, intellectual companionship, great moments of intimacy. By and large, marriage today actually does deliver such moments, but as a result couples have gone on to burden the relationship with even greater demands. To some extent it has been the success of marriage that has created the discontent.
The same appears to be true in the civil rights movement. The gains that have been made have led not to satisfaction but to increased tension and dissatisfaction, particularly among those benefiting from such gains. The discontent is higher in the North than in the South, higher in cities than in rural areas.
The disturbing paradox of social change is that improvement brings the need for more improvement in constantly accelerating demands. So, compared to what used to be, society is way ahead; compared to what might be, it is way behind. Society is enabled to feel that conditions are rotten, because they are actually so good.
Another problem is that everything is temporary, nothing lasts. We have grown up with the idea that in order to develop personal security we need stability, roots, consistency, and familiarity. Yet we live in a world which in every respect is continually changing. Whether we are talking about sky-scrapers or family life, scientific facts or religious values, all are highly temporary and becoming even more so. If one were to plot a curve showing the incidence of invention throughout the history of man, one would see that change is not just increasing but actually accelerating. Changes are coming faster and faster -- in a sense change has become a way of life. The only people who will live successfully in tomorrow's world are those who can accept and enjoy temporary systems.
People are also troubled because of the new participative mood that exists today. It's a do-it-yourself society; every layman wants to get into the act. Emerson's "do your own thing" has become the cliché of the times. People no longer accept being passive members. They now want to be active changers.
This participative phenomenon can be seen in every part of contemporary life -- on campus, in the church, in the mass media, in the arts, in business and industry, on ghetto streets, in the family.
The problem is that modern man seems unable to redesign his institution fast enough to accommodate the new demands, the new intelligence, the new abilities of segments of society which, heretofore, have not been taken seriously. Consequently, people are frightened by the black revolution, paralyzed by student activism, and now face what may be even more devastating -- the women's rebellion.
Society simply has not had these kinds of problems before, and to meet them it will have to adopt strategies for their solution that are as new, and as different, and as paradoxical as are the problems themselves.
Instead of trying to reduce the discontent felt, try to raise the level or quality of the discontent. Perhaps the most that can be hoped for is to have high-order discontent in today's society, discontent about things that really matter. Rather than evaluating programs in terms of how happy they make people, how satisfied those people become, programs must be evaluated in terms of the quality of the discontent they engender. For example, if a consultant wants to assess whether or not an organization is healthy, he doesn't ask, "Is there an absence of complaints?" but rather, "What kinds of complaints are there?"
Instead of trying to make gradual changes in small increments, make big changes. After all, big changes are relatively easier to make than are small ones. Some people assume that the way to bring about improvement is to make the change small enough so that nobody will notice it. This approach has never worked, and one can't help but wonder why such thinking continues. Everyone knows how to resist small changes; they do it all the time. If, however, the change is big enough, resistance can't be mobilized against it. Management can make a sweeping organizational change, but just let a manager try to change someone's desk from here to there, and see the great difficulty he encounters. All change is resisted, so the question is how can the changes be made big enough so that they have a chance of succeeding?
Buckminster Fuller has said that instead of reforms society needs new forms; e.g., in order to reduce traffic accidents, improve automobiles and highways instead of trying to improve drivers. The same concept should be applied to human relations. There is a need to think in terms of social architecture, and to provide arrangements among people that evoke what they really want to see in themselves. Mankind takes great pains with physical architecture, and is beginning to concern itself with the design of systems in which the human being is a component. But most of these designs are only for safety, efficiency, or productivity. System designs are not made to affect those aspects of life people care most about such as family life, romance, and esthetic experiences. Social technology as well as physical technology need to be applied in making human arrangements that will transcend anything mankind has yet experienced. People need not be victimized by their environments; they can be fulfilled by them.
The great frontier today is the exploration of the human potential man's seemingly limitless ability to adapt, to grow, to invent his own destiny. There is much to learn, but we already know this: the future need not happen to us; we can make it happen.
参考译文——感觉这么坏的东西怎么会这么好呢？
如果现代生活那么美好，那我们为什么会觉得如此不满？在下面这篇文章中，作者表示虽然生活水平提高了，我们却并不因此满足，对取得的成就我们永远不会完全满意。这是因为我们总是抱有新的、更高的期望。为了实现这些期望，为了解决出现的新问题，我们应该采用新的方法。
感觉这么坏的东西怎么会这么好呢？
理查德·E·法森
也许现在该采用一种新的办法来弄清楚今天的生活为何如此艰难，以及该用什么办法加以解决。应该承认，事情常常不仅不是它们看上去的那样，事情可能正好与看上去的相反。说到人世间的事，一切都似是而非。
譬如说，现今人们不满，往往不是因为情况比以往任何时候都糟，而是因为情况从未这么好过。举婚姻为例，在加利福尼亚，每十对夫妇就有大约六对离婚——在一些生活较富裕的社区，离婚率还要高。必须承认，这些统计数字反映了许多不满。但是人们通常对此作的解释——婚姻制度处于崩溃境地——则完全不能成立。婚姻从未像现在这样普及，从未像现在这样受到欢迎。事实上，它是如此吸引人，以至那些正在办理离婚手续的人，几乎等不及法律的允许，就想再度结婚了。
问题是，人们从未像现在这样对婚姻抱如此之高的期望。从古至今，家庭一直是人类赖以生存的单位，开始时是充作维持肉体生存的防守系统，尔后渐渐变成了保障经济上得以生存下去的单位。到了今天，家庭显然已成了物质上、经济上的负担，而不再是可靠保证了。人们作为一个社会，在满足了基本的生存和安全需要之后，相互间完全不再需要去和印第安人作战或纺纱了——进一步而论，也不要洗盘子或修理电插头了。婚姻和家庭生活的纽带，再也不是功能性的，而是情感方面的。过去人们相爱是因为相互需要，现在正好颠倒了过来。人们相互需要是因为相爱。
从那些刚离婚的人的怨言中，你很少听到有关虐待和遗弃一类的事，而通常的抱怨大都是:"我们就是不能很好地相互沟通"，"我们所受的教育差距太大，无法克服"，"我感到被我俩的关系束缚住了"，"他不让我实现自我价值"，"我们之间共同的东西不多了"。这些抱怨很有趣，因为它们反映了由于婚姻未能满足早先对它所抱的巨大期望而造成的高层次上的不满。夫妻间现在期望——并要求——交流与理解，共同的价值观念与目标，精神上的相互依托，以及美好的亲近时刻。总的来讲，现今的婚姻确实给夫妻们带来这种时刻，但也正因为如此，夫妻们进而以更高的要求沉重地拖累着婚姻关系。在一定程度上，正是婚姻的成功引起了不满。
民权运动似乎也是如此。它赢得的胜利显然并未导致满足，反而造成紧张和不满的加剧。在那些因胜利而得益的人中间，更是如此。不满情绪，北方高于南方，城市高于乡村。
在社会变革令人不安的怪圈中，进步带来的是要求更多的进步。而这种要求在不断加速地提出来。所以，跟过去相比，社会已经前进了一大步，跟可能达到的目标相比，则又远远落在后面。大家觉得情况糟透了，恰恰是由于实际上情况是很好的缘故。
另一个问题是，一切都是暂时的，短暂的。我们从小到大，一直怀着一种思想，这就是，为了增进个人的安全，我们需要稳定，需要有根基，需要前后一贯，需要熟悉了解。然而，我们生活在一个各方面都在不断变化的世界上。无论我们谈及摩天大楼还是家庭生活，科学事实还是宗教观念，一切都是极其短暂的，而且这种情况愈演愈烈。如果画一个曲线图，表示人类历史长河中发明创造的发生率，你就会看到变化不只是增多了，实际上是在加速发生着。变化越来越快——在某种意义上讲，变化已成了一种生活方式。只有那些能够接受并喜欢暂时体制的人才能在明天的世界上成功地生活。
人们受到困扰的另一个原因，是当今存在的新的参与情绪。今天的社会是一个亲自干的社会。每个人想积极参与。爱默生的"干自己的事"已经成了当今时代的口头禅。人们不再肯做被动的成员，他们要做积极的变革者。
这种积极参与现象在现代生活中到处可见——在校园里，在教堂里，在大众传媒中，在艺术上，在商界、工业界，在贫民区的街道上，在家庭里。
问题是，现代人似乎未能迅速及时地重新设计其种种体制，以便容纳迄今为止还没有被认真对待的那些社会阶层的新的要求、新的聪明才智和新的能力，因此，人们被黑人革命吓坏了，被学生们的激进行动惊呆了，而现在正面临着一件破坏性更大的事情——妇女的反叛。
社会以前从未遇到过这些问题，要对付这些问题，就必须采取与问题本身一样新的、不同的、矛盾的策略。
不必把精力花费在减少不满情绪上，而是要提高不满的水平和质量。或许在现今社会中最有希望做到的是产生高层次的不满，也就是这些不满涉及的是真正关系重大的事情。
在评估方案的时候，不要以它们会使人们多么高兴，满意为标准，而要看它们会产生什么样的不满。例如，当一个顾问在评价一个机构是否健全时，不要问有没有抱怨，而要问有些什么样的抱怨？
不要试图渐进地变革，要进行大的变革。毕竟大的变革相对而言比小的变革要容易一些。有些人认为进行改进的方式是使变革小到让人难以察觉得到。这种方法从未成功过。人们不禁要问，为什么这种思想还在继续？人人都知道如何去抵抗小的变革，他们时时都在这样做。然而，如果变革足够大的话，要想对它发起抵抗就不行了。管理部门可以进行大规模的机构改革，但如果让一个经理把某个人的办公桌从一个地方移到另一个地方的话，你就会看到他将遇到的困难会有多大。所有的变革都会有阻力，问题在于怎样使变革的步子大到使之有机会获得成功。
理查德·巴克敏斯特·富勒说过，社会需要的不是变革而是新的形式。比如，要减少交通事故，就该去改进汽车和公路而不是司机。这一概念也适用于人际关系。有必要根据社会构成考虑问题，提供人员安排，从而引出人们真正想从自己身上看到的东西。人们一直在苦心经营着有形的建筑，现在开始关心人类自身作为其组成成份的系统设计了。但这些设计大多是为了安全、效率和生产力而进行的。系统设计没有影响人们最为关心的生活方面，比如家底生活，谈情说爱和美学欣赏等。在进行超越迄今为止人类所有的一切经历和人际安排时，我们需要社会科学和自然科学的技术。不类不应该成为其环境的受害者，而应该通过自身的环境实现自身的价值。
当今重大的前沿课题是人类潜能——人类那种似乎无限的适应、成长、设计其自身命运的能力——的开发。我们要学很多的东西，但有一点我们早已知晓：我们不必消极地坐等明天，我们可以创造未来。
参考资料：
1. 大学英语精读第六册 Unit 05_大学教材听力 - 可可英语
2. 大学英语精读(第三版) 第六册:Unit4A How Could Anything That Feels So Bad Be So Good?(1)_大学教材听力 - 可可英语
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