现代大学英语精读第二版（第五册）学习笔记（原文及全文翻译）——3 - Goods Move, People Move...（商品流通，人员流动，观念转变及文化变迁）

Unit 3 - Goods Move, People Move, Ideas Move And Cultures Change

Goods Move, People Move, Ideas Move And Cultures Change

Erla Zwingle

Today we are in the throes of a worldwide reformation of cultures, a tectonic shift of habits and dreams called, in the curious vocabulary of social scientists, "globalization." It's an inexact term for a wild assortment of changes in politics, business, health, entertainment. "Modern industry has established the world market…All old-established national industries are dislodged by new industries, whose products are consumed, not only at home, but in every quarter of the globe. In place of the old wants we find new wants, requiring for their satisfaction the products of distant lands and climes." Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels wrote this 150 years ago in The Communist Manifesto. Their statement now describes an ordinary fact of life.

How people feel about this depends a great deal on where they live and how much money they have. Yet globalization, as one report stated, "is a reality, not a choice." Humans have been weaving commercial and cultural connections since before the first camel caravan ventured afield. In the 19th century the postal service, newspapers, transcontinental railroads, and great steam-powered ships wrought fundamental changes. Telegraph, telephone, radio, and television tied tighter and more intricate knots between individuals and the wider world.

Now computers, the Internet, cellular phones, cable TV, and cheaper jet transportation have accelerated and complicated these connections.

Still, the basic dynamic remains the same: Goods move. People move. Ideas move. And cultures change. The difference now is the speed and scope of these changes. It took television 13 years to acquire 50 million users; the Internet took only 5.

Not everyone is happy about this. Some Western social scientists and anthropologists, and not a few foreign politicians, believe that a sort of cultural cloning will result from what they regard as the "cultural assault" of McDonald's, Coca-Cola, Disney, Nike, MTV, and the English language itself—more than a fifth of all the people in the world now speak English to some degree. Whatever their backgrounds or agendas, these critics are convinced that Western—often equated with American—influences will flatten every cultural crease, producing, as one observer terms it, one big "McWorld."

Popular factions sprout to exploit nationalist anxieties. In China, where xenophobia and economic ambition have often struggled for the upper hand, a recent book called China Can Say No became the best-seller by attacking what it considers the Chinese willingness to believe blindly in foreign things, advising Chinese travelers to not fly on a Boeing 777 and suggesting that Hollywood be burned.

There are many Westerners among the denouncers of Western cultural influences, but James Watson, a Harvard anthropologist, isn't one of them.

"The lives of Chinese villagers I know are infinitely better now than they were 30 years ago" he says. "China has become more open partly because of the demands of ordinary people. They want to become part of the world—I would say globalism is the major force for democracy in China. People want refrigerators, stereos, CD players. I feel it's a moral obligation not to say: ‘Those people out there should continue to live in a museum while we will have showers that work.’"

Westernization, I discovered over months of study and travel, is a phenomenon shot through with inconsistencies and populated by very strange bedfellows. Critics of Western culture blast Coke and Hollywood but not organ transplants and computers. Boosters of Western culture can point to increased efforts to preserve and protect the environment. Yet they make no mention of some less salubrious aspects of Western culture, such as cigarettes and automobiles, which, even as they are being eagerly adopted in the developing world, are having disastrous effects. Apparently westernization is not a straight road to hell, or to paradise either.

But I also discovered that cultures are as resourceful, resilient, and unpredictable as the people who compose them. In Los Angeles, the ostensible fountainhead of world cultural degradation, I saw more diversity than I could ever have supposed—at Hollywood High School the student body represents 32 different languages.

In Shanghai I found that the television show Sesame Street has been redesigned by Chinese educators to teach Chinese values and traditions. "We borrowed an American box," one told me, "and put Chinese content into it." In India, where there are more than 400 languages and several very strict religions, McDonald's serves mutton instead of beef and offers a vegetarian menu acceptable to even the most orthodox Hindu.

The critical mass of teenagers—800 million in the world—with time and money to spend is one of the powerful engines of merging global cultures. Kids travel, they hang out, and above all they buy stuff. I'm sorry to say I failed to discover who was the first teenager to put his baseball cap on backward. Or the first one to copy him. But I do know that rap music, which sprang from the inner-city ghettos, began making big money only when rebellious white teenagers started buying it. But how can anyone predict what kids are going to want? Companies urgently need to know, so consultants have sprung up to forecast trends. They're called "cool hunters," and Amanda Freeman took me in hand one morning to explain how it works.

Amanda, who is 22, works for a New York-based company called Youth Intelligence and has come to Los Angeles to conduct surveys, whose results go to many important clients. She has shoulder-length brown hair and is wearing a knee-length brocade skirt. Amanda looks very cool to me, but she says no. "The funny thing about my work is that you don't have to be cool to do it," she says. "You just have to have the eye."

We go to a smallish' 50s-style diner in a slightly seedy pocket east of Hollywood that has just become trendy. Then we wander through a few of the thrift shops. "If it's not going to be affordable," Amanda remarks, "it's never going to catch on."

What trends does she see forming now? "the home is becoming more of a social place again. And travel's huge right now—you go to a place and bring stuff back."

"It's really hard to be original these days, so the easiest way to come up with new stuff is to mix things that already exist. Fusion is going to be the huge term that everybody's going to use," she concludes. "There's going to be more blending, like Spanish music and punk—things that are so unrelated."

Los Angeles is Fusion Central, where cultures mix and morph. Take Tom Sloper and mahjong. Tom is a computer geek who is also a mahjong fanatic. This being America, he has found a way to marry these two passions and sell the result. He has designed a software program, Shanghai: Dynasty, that enables you to play mahjong on the Internet. This ancient Chinese game involves both strategy and luck, and it is still played all over Asia in small rooms that are full of smoke and the ceaseless click of the chunky plastic tiles and the fierce concentration of the players. It is also played by rich society women at country clubs in Beverly Hills and in apartments on Manhattan's Upper West Side.

But Tom, 50, was playing it at his desk in Los Angeles one evening in the silence of a nearly empty office building. Actually, he only appeared to be alone. His glowing computer screen showed a game already in progress with several habitual partners: "Blue Whale," a man from Germany; Russ from Ohio; and Freddy, a Chinese-American who lives in Minnesota. Tom played effortlessly as we talked.

"I've learned about 11 different styles of mahjong," he told me with that detached friendliness of those whose true connection is with machines. "There are a couple of different ways of playing it in America. We usually play Chinese mahjong."

I watched the little tiles, like cards, bounce around the screen. As Tom played, he and his partners conversed by typing short comments to each other.

Does he ever play with real people? "Oh yeah," Tom replied. "Once a week at the office in the evening, and Thursday at lunch." A new name appeared on the screen. "There's Fred's mother. Can't be, they're in Vegas. Oh, it must be his sister. TJ's online too, she's the one from Wales—a real night owl. She's getting married soon, and she lived with her fiancé, and sometimes he gets up and says ‘Get off that damn computer!’"

Tom played on into the night. At least it was night where I was. He, an American playing a Chinese game with people in Germany, Wales, Ohio, and Minnesota, was up in the cybersphere far above the level of time zones. It is a realm populated by individuals he's never met who may be more real to him than the people who live next door.

If it seems that life in the West has become a fast-forward blur, consider China. In just 20 years, since market forces were unleashed by economic reforms begun in 1978, life for many urban Chinese has changed drastically. A recent survey of 12 major cities showed that 97 percent of the respondents had televisions, and 88 percent had refrigerators and washing machines. Another study revealed that farmers are eating 48 percent more meat each year and 400 percent more fruit. Cosmopolitan, plunging necklines and all, is read by 260,000 Chinese women every month.

I went to Shanghai to see how the cultural trends show up in the largest city in the world's most populous nation. It is also a city that has long been open to the West. General Motors, for example, set up its first Buick sales outlet in Shanghai in 1929; today GM has invested 1.5 billion dollars in a new plant there, the biggest Sino-American venture in China.

Once a city of elegant villas and imposing office buildings, Shanghai is currently ripping itself to ribbons. In a decade scores of gleaming new skyscrapers have shot up to crowd and jostle the skyline, cramp the narrow winding streets, and choke the parks and open spaces with their sheer soaring presence. Traffic crawls, even on the new multilane overpasses.

But on the streets the women are dressed in bright colors, and many carry several shopping bags, especially on the Nanjing Road, which is lined with boutiques and malls. In its first two weeks of business the Gucci store took in a surprising $100,000.

"Maybe young women today don't know what it was like," says Wu Ying, editor-in-chief of the Chinese edition of the French fashion magazine Elle. "But ten years ago I wouldn't have imagined myself wearing this blouse." It was red, with white polka dots. "When people bought clothes, they thought ‘How long will it last?’ A housewife knew that most of the monthly salary would be spent on food, and now it's just a small part, so she can think about what to wear or where to travel. And now with refrigerators, we don't have to buy food every day."

As for the cultural dislocation this might bring: "People in Shanghai don't see it as a problem," said a young German businessman. "The Chinese are very good at dealing with ambiguity. It's accepted—It's very different, but it's OK, so, so what?"

Potential: This is largely a Western concept. Set aside the Gucci store and skyscrapers, and it's clear that the truly great leap forward here is at the level of ideas. To really grasp this, I had only to witness the local performance of Shakespeare's Macbeth by the Hiu Kok Drama Association from Macau.

There we were at the Shanghai Theatre Academy, some 30 professors and students of literature and drama from all over china and I, on folding chairs around a space not alike half of a basketball court."

"I'm not going to be much help," murmured Zhang Fang, my interpreter. "I don't understand the Cantonese language, and most of these people don't either."

I thought I knew what to watch for, but the only characters I recognized were the three witches. Otherwise the small group spent most of an hour running in circles, leaping, and threatening to beat each other with long sticks. The lighting was heavy on shadows, with frequent flashes. Language wasn't a problem, as the actors mainly snarled and shrieked. Then they turned their backs to the audience and a few shouted something in Cantonese. The lights went out, and for a moment the only sound in the darkness was the whirring of an expensive camera on auto-rewind.

This is China? It could have been a college campus anywhere in the West. Until recently such a performance was unthinkable. It strained imagination that this could be the same country where a generation ago the three most desired luxury items were wristwatches, bicycles, and sewing machines.

Early on I realized that I was going to need some type of compass to guide me through the wilds of global culture. So when I was in Los Angeles, I sought out Alvin Toffler, whose book Future Shock was published in 1970. In the nearly three decades since, he has developed and refined a number of interesting ideas, explained in The Third Wave, written with his wife, Heidi.

What do we know about the future now, I asked, that we didn't know before? "We now know that order grows out of chaos," he answered immediately. "You cannot have significant change, especially on the scale of Russia or China, without conflict. Not conflicts between East and West, or North and South, but ‘wave’ conflicts between industrially dominant countries and predominantly agrarian countries, or conflicts within countries making a transition from one to the other."

Waves, he explained, are major changes in civilization. The first wave came with the development of agriculture, the second with industry. Today we are in the midst of the third, which is based on information. In 1956 something new began to happen, which amounts to the emergence of a new civilization. Toffler said. "It was in that year that U.S. service and knowledge workers outnumbered blue-collar factory workers. In 1957 Sputnik went up. Then jet aviation became commercial, television became universal, and computers began to be widely used. And with all these changes came changes in culture."

"What's happening now is the trisection of world power," he continued. "Agrarian nations on the bottom, smokestack countries in between, and knowledge-based economies on top." There are a number of countries—Brazil, for example—where all three civilizations coexist and collide.

"Culturally we'll see big changes," Toffler said. "You're going to turn on your TV and get Nigerian TV and Fijian TV in your own language." Also, some experts predict that the TV of the future, with 500 cable channels, may be used by smaller groups to foster their separate, distinctive cultures and languages.

"People ask, ‘Can we become third wave and still remain GhiMes?’ Yes." Toffler says. "You can have a unique culture made of your core culture. But you'll be the Chinese of the future, not of the past."

Linking: This is what the spread of global culture ultimately means. Goods will continue to move—from 1987 to 1995 local economies in California exported 200 percent more products, businesses in Idaho 375 percent more. People move: It is cheaper for businesses to import talented employees than to train people at home. Ideas move: In Japan a generation of children raised with interactive computer games has sensed, at least at the cyber level, new possibilities. "The implicit message in all this," wrote Kenichi Ohmac, "is that it is possible to actively take control of one's situation or circumstances and, thereby, to change one's fate. For the Japanese, this is an entirely new way of thinking."

Change: It's reality, not a choice. But what will be its true driving force? Cultures don't become more uniform; instead, both old and new tend to transform each other.

The late philosopher Isaiah Berlin believed that, rather than aspire to some utopian ideal, a society should strive for something else: "not that we agree with each other'" his biographer explained, "but that we can understand each other."

In Shanghai one October evening I joined a group gathered in a small, sterile hotel meeting room. It was the eve of Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement, and there were diplomats, teachers, and businessmen from many Western countries. Elegant women with lively children, single men, young fathers. Shalom Greenberg, a young Jew from Israel married to an American, was presiding over his first High Holy Days as rabbi of the infant congregation.

"It's part of the Jewish history that Jews went all over the world," Rabbi Greenberg reflected. "They received a lot from local cultures, but they also kept their own identity."

The solemn liturgy proceeded, unchanged over thousands of years and hundreds of alien cultures: "Create in me a clean heart, 0 God, and renew a right spirit within me," he intoned. I'm neither Jewish nor Chinese, but sitting there I didn't feel foreign—I felt at home. The penitence may have been Jewish, but the aspiration was universal.

Global culture doesn't mean just more TV sets and Nike shoes. Linking is humanity's natural impulse, its common destiny. But the ties that bind people around the world are not merely technological or commercial. They are the powerful cords of the heart.

参考译文——商品流通，人员流动，观念转变及文化变迁

商品流通，人员流动，观念转变及文化变迁

埃拉·兹温格尔

今天我们正经历着一种世界范围文化剧变的阵痛，一种习俗与追求的结构性变化。用社会学家奇特的词汇来称呼这种变化，就叫“全球化”。就政治、商务、健康卫生及娱乐领域中各种各样的巨大变化而言，这个词并不贴切。“现代工业开拓了世界市场。民族工业被新工业取代。它们的产品不仅供本国消费，而且同时供世界各地消费。旧的、靠国家产品来满足的需要，被新的、要靠极其遥远的国家和地区的产品来满足的需要所取代。”卡尔·马克思和弗里德里希·恩格斯早在150年前就在《共产党宣言》中这样写道。他们那时的陈述，是如今现实生活的真实写照。

人们对此的感受很大程度上取决于他们的居住位置和财富拥有量。然而，正如一篇报道中所说，全球化“是一个现实，而不是一种选择”。从第一批骆驼商队背井离乡、冒险出外经商之时直到现在，人类一直在编织着商贸和文化的纽带。19世纪，邮政服务、报纸、贯穿大陆的铁路及巨大的蒸汽轮船锻造出了根本变化。电报、电话、收音机和电视把个人和外部世界更紧密地连在一起。（这种联系更为复杂，不那么直接，也不易察觉。）

现今，计算机、互联网、移动电话、有线电视和价格低廉的喷气式飞机空运加速了这种联系，并使其更加复杂化。

尽管如此，产生这些变化的动力却是一致的；商品流通、人员流动、观念转变、文化变迁。现在不同的是这些变化的速度和范围。电视机用了 13年时间拥有5000万用户，而互联网只用了5年时间。

并非所有人都对这种变化感到满意。一些西方社会学家、人类学家和相当多的外国政治家认为文化克隆是麦当劳、可口可乐、迪士尼、耐克和MTV“文化侵略”的结果，同时也是英语语言本身的结果，因为现在世界上有五分之一以上的人口或多或少地使用英语。不论他们的背景和理念如何，这些对全球化持反对态度的人都深信西方的——往往等同于美国的——影响会把文化上的差异逐一摧毁。正如一位观察家所说的，这最终将导致一个“麦当劳世界”，一个充斥美国商品和体现美国价值观的世界。

利用国民的焦虑和不安情绪的派别不断涌现。在中国，恐外自闭和容外发展经济的思潮一直在争取统治地位。最近出版的《中国可以说不》大为畅销。这本书对那种中国人盲目崇洋媚外心理进行了批驳，建议中国游客不要乘坐波音777飞机，并建议烧毁好莱坞大片。

许多西方人对西方文化影响持抨击态度，但哈佛大学人类学家詹姆斯·沃森所持观点有异。

他说:“我知道如今的中国农村人的生活比30年前的生活水平大有改善。中国越来越开放，部分原因是出于中国普通民众的要求。他们想成为世界的一部分，我是说全球观念是中国民主的重要动力。人们需要使用冰箱、音响和激光唱机。‘远在中国的那些人应该继续过着那种只有在博物馆才能见到的落后的生活，而我们却可以使用淋浴器。’我认为不应该这么说，不这么说是一种道义上的责任。

通过几个月的研究和旅行，我发现西方化是一种得到广泛认可但却自相矛质的现象。批评者公开抨击可乐和好莱坞，但是对器官移植和计算机却不加指责。热心的拥护者认为应该努力增加环境保护力度，但对西方文化中如香烟和汽车的不那么健康的一面却只字不提。尽管这些东西已经带给西方国家以灾难性的后果，但是发展中国家却急切地接纳这些文化。显然，西方化既不是直抵地狱之桥，也不会是直通天堂之路。

不过我也发现文化就如同构成文化的民族一样，善于随机应变，富有弹性而且不可预测。从表面看来，洛杉矶是世界文化堕落的根源。但我看到的差异要比我想象的多得多：在好莱坞高中里，学生使用32种完全不冋的语言；

在上海，我发现中国教育者改编了“芝麻街”电视节目，用以传达中国人的价值观和传统。一位教育者对我说:“我们借用美国的包装，但装进去的却是中国内容。”在有400多种语言和几种严格宗教戒律的印度，麦当劳出售的是羊肉而不是牛肉汉堡，甚至最正统的印度教信徙都可以接受他们销售的素食食品。

有时间、有金钱的8亿青少年是融合全球文化的关键及主要动力之一。孩子们喜欢旅行、闲游，重要的是他们拥有购买实力。可遗憾的是，我不知道哪个青少年第一个反戴棒球帽，或者哪个青少年第一个模仿他。但是我确实知道只有当叛逆的白人青少年开始买票时，起源于市内黑人贫民区的说唱乐才开始因此大赚。然而，人们怎么预测孩子们的需求呢？许多公司迫切要了解孩子们的需求，因此出现了“猎酷人”顾问，由他们来预测未来趋势。阿曼达·弗里曼—天上午拉着我，揭示了奥妙所在。

阿曼达，22岁，在总部设在纽约的一家叫作“青年情报”公司工作。她到洛杉矶进行调査，为很多重要客户搜取信息。她棕发披肩，织锦裙及膝。对我来说，阿曼达很酷，可她不以为然：“我的工作有趣之处就在于你不必装酷，可你必须有眼光。”

我们来到一家较小、50年代装修式样的餐馆。这家餐馆位于好莱坞东面一个略显破旧的地区，最近这个地方开始火了起来。然后我们去逛了几家二手货商店。阿曼达说：“人们买不起，就永远流行不起来。”

她看到了什么将要流行了吗？“家正在再次成为社交的地方，时下流行旅游，去个新地方，购物回家。”

最后，她说：“现今原创极为困难。因此，最容易的办法就是把现存的东西组合在一起，拿出一个新玩意儿来。融合将成为流行的大词，会有越来越多的混合出现，如西班牙音乐和庞克摇滚乐——这本是风马牛不相及的东西。”

洛杉矶是融合的中心。在这里，不同文化交汇、变异。汤姆·斯洛珀和麻将牌就是一例。汤姆是个电脑奇人，也是个麻将迷。由于这是美国，所以他不得不寻找能把这两种热情结合在一起的方式来获利。他设计了一个可以在互联网上打麻将的软件程序，名为“上海：王朝”。这种古老的中国游戏需要战略和运气。亚洲人仍然局限于在小屋子里玩麻将，人们精力集中，屋子里烟雾弥漫，厚厚塑料牌噼啪声不绝于耳。有钱的女人在比弗利山庄的乡间俱乐部和曼哈顿上西区公寓里玩着麻将。

而在洛杉矶的一个夜晚，50岁的汤姆一个人坐在办公桌旁，在寂静、空荡荡的办公大楼里玩起了麻将。表面上他只是一个人在玩麻将。可实际上他那闪亮着的计算机屏幕表明他在与几个老牌友对弈：德国人“蓝鲸”、俄亥俄州的卢斯、明尼苏达州的美籍华人弗雷迪。我们一边谈着话，汤姆一边轻松地玩着。

“我已会11种不同的麻将玩法。”汤姆对我很友善，像那些心思连在计算机上的其他人一样，有点心不在焉。他对我说：“美国的玩法不少，可我们一般玩中式的。”

小小麻将牌像扑克一样在屏幕上弹来弹去。汤姆用文字方式与牌友简短地评论着牌局。

他面对面地打过麻将吗？他回答：“打过。一周一次，晚上在办公室打，周四中午打。”这时，屏幕上跳出一个新名字。“弗雷迪的母亲。不可能，他们在维加斯。噢！一定是他姐姐。TJ也在线，她是威尔士人，真正的夜猫子。她快结婚了，现在和未婚夫住在一起。有时她未婚夫会起床对她说：‘从那个该死的电脑上下来！’”

汤姆一直玩到深夜——至少我这儿是深夜。他游走在超越时区的网络世界：一个美国人却同时与德国人、威尔士人、俄亥俄人和明尼苏达人一起玩中国游戏。对他来说，这是一个人们从未谋面，但却比隔壁的邻居更加盘实的网络世界。

如果说西方的生活看似发展太快而难窥真貌，那么就审视中国吧。自从1978年经济改革释放了市场的潜力，在短短20年的时间里，许多中国城市居民的生活产生了巨变。最近一项对12个大城市的调查显示，97%的调查对象拥有电视机，88%拥有电冰箱和洗衣机。另一项研究表明农民每年肉食消费增加48%，水果消费增加400%。在中国，每个月都有26万妇女阅读刊有开领袒胸图片及其他内容的《时尚》杂志。

我到上海去考察这个世界人口最多国家的最大城市文化变迁趋势。上海也是对西方开放时间最长的城市，例如，早在1929年通用汽车公司就在上海建立了第一个别克牌汽车销售处。今天，通用汽车投资15亿美元在那儿新建了中国最大的中美合资工厂。

曾经拥有雅致别墅和宏伟办公大楼的上海，现在却被条条分割。在10年时间里，几十座闪亮的摩天大楼冲天而起，拥挤在天际间，挤压着狭窄弯曲的小巷，用它们高耸的外表窒息着公园和开放空间。车辆缓慢爬行在多车道高架桥上。

然而，走在街上，尤其在两边布满精品店和各种购物广场的南京路上，妇女衣着艳丽，很多人拎着几个采购的商品。古驰专卖店刚刚开业两周营业额就达到十万美元，实在令人吃惊。

中国版法国时装杂志《百丽》总编吴颖说：“也许现在的年轻女性不知道过去的情形，但10年前我绝不会想到我会穿这样的宽松衬衫。这是件衬有白圆点图案的红色衬衫。那时，买衣服时人们会考虑‘能穿多久’，家庭主妇知道她们每月的大部分工资都要用来购买食品，而现在食品消费只占工资的一小部分，所以她会去想穿什么，去哪儿旅游。现在有了电冰箱，人们不必每天都购买食品。”

谈及由此可能带来的文化错位问题，一位年轻的德国商人说：“上海人认为这不是问题。中国人长于应变。接受就是了。‘这与众不同，但还可以。能怎么样？’”

潜力：这多半是个西方观念。抛开古驰专卖店和摩天大厦不谈，上海真正的飞跃表现在观念上。看看澳门Hiu Kok戏剧协会上演的莎士比亚戏剧《麦克白》就足以说明问题。

在上海戏剧学院，我和大约30名来自全中国文学与戏剧专业的教授和学生坐在折叠椅上观看演出。演出的场地大约有半个篮球场大小。

翻译张芳小声对我说：“没什么可译的，我不懂粤语，在座的许多人也不懂。”

我本以为自己知道看些什么，可我能辨认的角色只有三个女巫。一个小时的演出中的大半时间里，这些人都围成圈，跑来跳去，用长棍子相互威胁。灯光在演员身后留下了浓重的影子，闪电频频。没有语言问题，因为演员主要是在狂呼尖叫。之后，他们背向观众，几个人用粤语叫喊。灯光熄灭，有一阵子，黑暗中唯一的声音就是一部价格昂贵的照相机自动倒卷时发出的声音。

这是中国？在西方任何一所大学都可能看到类似的情形。在西方，直到最近人们才开始接受这样的表演。难以想象，在同一个国家，前一代人们梦寐以求的三大奢侈品曾是手表、自行车和缝纫机。

开始时，我就意识到穿越全球文化荒原会需要某种指南。因此还在洛杉矶时，我找到《未来的冲击》的作者阿尔文·托夫勒。此书出版于1970年。此后30多年中，他不断完善了更多有趣的思想。他与夫人海蒂合著的《第三次浪潮》一书详细地解释了这些想法。

现在，人们对以前并不知道的未来又了解多少呢？我问他。他随即答道：“人们都知道，秩序产生于混乱。尤其是在俄罗斯或中国这样的大国，没有冲突就不可能产生巨变。这些既不是东方和西方之间的冲突，也不是南北之间的冲突，而是以工业为主和以农业为主的国家之间的‘浪潮’冲突，或转型时期国家内部的冲突。”

他解释说，浪潮是文明的重大变革。农业发展带来了第一次浪潮？工业革命带来第二次浪潮。如今我们正处在依托于信息的第三次浪潮之中。新文明开始于1956年出现的变化。托夫勒说：“就在那一年，美国服务业和信息业从业人数超过了蓝领工人。1957年，苏联发射人造地球卫星。随后是喷气飞机转向商用、电视普及、计笕机开始广泛应用，文化变迁随之出现。”

他继续阐释：“世界权力三级分化正在出现。农业国处于底层，工业国位于中间，以知识经济为主导的国家在顶层。”在有些国家，例如巴西，三种文明形态相互并存与碰撞。

托夫勒说：“我们将会目睹文化的巨变。你打开电视就能收看到用你自己的母语播放的尼曰利亚和斐济电视节目。”一些专家还对未来的电视做出如下预测：将有500个有线频道，小群体可以用这些培育各自独立、独特的文化和语言。

托夫勒说：“人们问‘我们能赶上第三次浪潮并保持中国特有的文化吗？’能。你们能够在自己的核心文化上建构独特的文化。但那将是中国的未来文化，而并非中国的传统文化。”

链接：这就是全球文化传播的最终目的。商品将会持续流动：从1987年到1995年，加利福尼亚州的地方经济出口了200%的产品，爱达荷商业输出了375%。人员流动：公司引进人才要比自己培训更便宜。观念转变：在日本，伴随电子游戏成长的一代至少在网络世界看到了新的机会。大前研一写道：“这些所传达的信息是，人们可以把握自己的处境，并因此改变自己的命运。对日本人来说，这是一种全新的思维方式。”

变迁：变迁是一个现实，而不是一种选择。但是，真正的动力是什么？各种文化并没有开始趋同；相反，新趋势和旧趋势向彼此的方向相互转变。

已故哲学家以赛亚·伯林认为，一个社会应该追求一些其他东西，而不是渴望某种乌托邦式的理想。他在自传中写道：“并非我们意见一致，而是我们彼此相互理解。”

在上海某个10月的晚上，犹太人赎罪日前夜，我参加了一群人在一间寻常宾馆的小会议室的聚会。参加聚会的有许多西方国家的外交官、教师和商人，还有带着活泼孩子的漂亮女士、单身男士和年轻的父亲。沙勒姆·格林伯格是个年轻的以色列犹太人，娶了个美国妻子。他是第一次以拉比身份主持新年宗教集会。

格林伯格拉比说：“犹太人遍布全球，这是犹太历史的一部分。他们吸纳了很多不同的当地文化，可他们仍然保持着自己的本色。”

庄严的礼拜仪式依照上千年来的传统方式进行，上百种外国文化并没有将其改变。他吟诵：“啊，上帝！赠予我一颗纯净的心，再生我正确的灵魂！”我不是犹太人，也不是中国人，但坐在这里，就像在自己家里一样，我没感觉自己是外人。忏悔仪式可能是犹太教所特有的，但是，渴求的心理却是普遍的。

全球文化并不仅仅意味着拥有更多的电视机和耐克鞋。相互联系是人类天生的欲望，是其共同的命运，但是连接全球人类的纽带绝不仅仅是科技或商务。这种连接靠的是强有力的心灵纽带。

Key Words:

manifesto [.mæni'festəu]

n. 宣言，声明 vi. 发表宣言

flatten ['flætn]

v. 变单调，变平，打倒

phenomenon [fi'nɔminən]

n. 现象，迹象，(稀有)事件

disastrous [di'zɑ:strəs]

adj. 灾难性的

habitual [hə'bitjuəl]

adj. 惯常的，习惯的

outlet ['autlet]

n. 出口，出路，通风口，批发商店

fang [fæŋ]

n. 尖牙

chaos ['keiɔs]

n. 混乱，无秩序，混沌

agrarian [ə'ɡrεəriən]

adj. 土地的；耕地的；有关土地的

atonement [ə'təunmənt]

n. 赎罪，弥补

liturgy ['litədʒi]

n. 礼拜形式

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