20
Psycho-Fatalism
心理宿命论
1. Whenever something calamitous happens to us, we are led to look beyond everyday causal explanations in order to understand why we have been singled out to receive such terrible, intolerable punishment. And the more devastating the event, the more inclined we are to imbue it with a significance it does not objectively have, the more likely we are to slip into a brand of psychological fatalism. Bewildered and exhausted by grief, I suffocated on question marks: 'Why me? Why this? Why now?' I scoured the past to look for origins, omens, offences, anything that might count as an explanation for the wound I had sustained.每当灾难降临时，我们会越过平常的因果解释去看待它们，从而理解为何单单是我们被挑选去接受这可怕而不可忍受的惩罚。事件的毁灭程度越大，我们越容易为之赋予一个客观上并不存在的意义，越可能滑进一种心理宿命论。克洛艾离去的伤痛让我迷惑不解，使我心力交瘁。心中的那些试图找出理由来解释这混乱的各种符号令我窒息：“为什么是我？为什么会这样？为什么是现在？”我仔细检点过去的一举一动，寻找事情发生的根源、征兆，以及我的过错，寻找任何一点可以解释这荒谬事件的原因；寻找一些可以些微涂抹我伤口的镇痛剂；寻找互不相干的事件之间的联系。我把原因附会在生活中随意的鸡毛蒜皮的小事之上。
2. I was forced to abandon the optimism of everyday life. I gave up television and the daily papers. I took time off work. I became obsessed by millennial disasters: the risks of earthquakes, floods, and avian flus. I felt the transience of everything, the illusions upon which civilizations are built. I saw in happiness a violent denial of reality. I looked commuters in the face and wondered why they were unbothered by their own meaninglessness. I understood the pain of history, a record of carnage enveloped in nauseous nostalgia. I felt the arrogance of scientists and politicians, newscasters and petrol-station attendants, the smugness of accountants and gardeners. I linked myself to the great outcasts, I became a follower of Caliban and Dionysus, and all who had been reviled for looking pus-filled truth in the face. In short, I briefly lost my mind.我被迫丢弃现代的技术乐观主义，逃离为了抵抗原始恐惧而设计的信息网络。我不再阅读日报，不再信任电视，不再相信天气预报，不再相信经济预测。我整天想的都是千年一遇的灾难——地震、洪水、饥荒、瘟疫。我贴近了神的世界，贴近了由原始动力主导我们人生的世界。我感到世事无常，摩天大楼、桥梁道路、理论观点、火箭发射装置、各种选举、快餐饭店都产生于我的幻觉。我把世界的幸福与和谐视为对现实的决然否定。我看着上下班的人群，不理解为什么他们视而不见。我想象宇宙爆炸、熔岩流汹涌，想象抢劫和破坏。我理解了历史的痛苦，那不过是装在令人恶心的怀旧情怀中的大屠杀记录。我感受到科学家的政治家的自大；我体验到新闻评论员的加油站员工的傲慢；我领会到会计员的园艺工的自鸣得意。我把自己视为伟大的流浪者，我成了卡利班、狄俄尼索斯以及所有那些曾因为直视脓血斑斑的真理而遭辱骂之人的追随者。简而言之，我暂时迷失了思想。
3. But did I have a choice? Chloe's departure had rocked my confidence in just about everything. I felt that I had lost the ability to control my own destiny and had witnessed a childish, petulant demon take charge of me, make me smile, encourage me to feel safe, and then smash me onto the rocks. I was a character in a narrative whose grander design I was helpless to alter. I repented for the arrogance of my previous faith in free will.然而我有另外的选择吗？克洛艾的离去动摇了我的信念——我是自己房屋的主人，它提醒我精神的脆弱、心智的无能及缺陷。我失去了地球的重力吸引，整个人崩溃瓦解。然而在这极度的绝望之中，我的神志却是出奇的清醒。我感到无法讲述自己的故事，但却看到一个魔鬼在替我担负起述说者的角色。他是一个顽皮任性的心魔，乐于将他的诸多角色高高提起，然后把他们掷向下面的岩石。我觉得自己就像一个被绳线吊着的玩偶，一下子被提升到天空，或一下子降落到心灵深处。我是名家讲述的故事中的人物，无力改变比我更为庞大的故事结构。我是表演者而非剧作家，只能盲目地接受他人的剧本，归属于一个未知而痛苦的结局。我承认并且后悔以前乐观主义的傲慢自大，相信答案存在于思索之中。我意识到汽车的操纵器与它的动作几无联系，我能刹车，我能踩油门，但是车子以自己的冲量在运动。我暂时感觉到的踏板的反应是错误的，我以前确信无疑的原来不过是踏板和运动的偶然巧合，不过是洞察人类奥秘的理论和命运的偶然巧合而已。
4. Once more I thought of destiny, once more I felt the almost divine nature of love. Both its arrival and departure, the first so beautiful, the second gruesome, reminded me that I was but a plaything for the games of Cupid and Aphrodite. Unbearably punished, I sought out my guilt. Unsure of quite what I had done, I confessed to everything. I tore myself apart looking for reasons: every insolence returned to haunt me, acts of ordinary cruelty and thoughtlessness -- none of these had been missed by the gods, who had now chosen to wreak their terrible revenge on me.如果我自己的思想是苍白的模仿者而不是发起者，那么真正的思想则在幕后，在背景之下或在舞台侧景之上，是一种非我的思想。我又一次期盼着命运，我又一次感觉到爱情源泉的神圣本质。爱情的降临和离去（前者是那么美好，后者是那么可憎）提醒我，我只是丘比特和阿佛洛狄特游戏中的一个玩物。在难以承受的惩罚中，我找到了自己的过错。我是一个神志不清的罪犯，正走向自己都没有注意到的危险。我杀戮，却又没有意识到自己的杀戮行为。这是一个不容暂缓的罪行，因为它并不怀有明确的犯罪意图。我本来希望爱情长生不息，但我仍然毁灭了它。我犯下了罪行，但一无所知。如今我寻找自己罪在何处，却不能确定我到底做了什么，只好承认干了一切坏事。我将自己撕碎，寻找行凶的武器。每一点傲慢无礼，所有那些残酷、考虑不周的行为都重现在我的眼前——没有一丝一毫逃过诸神的眼睛，如今他们对我施行这些可怕的复仇。看着镜子里自己的脸，我忍无可忍，我抠出自己的眼睛，等待众鸟来啄我的肝脏，把我这罪恶之躯衔到高山之巅。
5. The ancient myths were dead, of course. We don't tend to believe that gods direct our lives. Yet we have replaced them with a strong belief that there are comparably mysterious inner forces which govern what happens to us: I had been psychologically cursed to be unhappy in love.古代诸神当然已不复存在，他们对于袖珍计算器时代来说过于庞大。奥林匹斯山变成滑雪胜地，特尔斐的神示所成了昆士威附近的咖啡馆，但是众神仍然在那里，他们找到了新的形体，穿上套装，参与到当今时代中来。他们现在被微型化了，不再穿梭于云彩之间，而是徜徉在我们的灵魂深处。在心灵的舞台上，我正生动地扮演一出戏剧，独自一人扮演诸神的角力。在舞台中心，宙斯/弗洛伊德在导演这场演出，在讲解主旨，分派雷鸣、闪电、咒语。我在命运的诅咒之下痛苦地煎熬，这不是外在的命运，而是心理命运，产生于心灵深处的命运。
6. It was psychoanalysis that provided names for my demons. It explained that life often unfolds in ways that defy self-awareness. In the Freudian world, a man may consciously try to love a woman, but unconsciously he may be doing everything to drive her into another's arms. Now Chloe had left, a new interpretation of our love story came to mind. It was a story that had been doomed to fail, that had been chosen because it would fail, and because in its failure, it would repeat a classic and perversely satisfying pattern of family neurosis. When my own parents had divorced, I recalled my mother warning me that I should be careful not to fall into an unhappy relationship, because her mother had fallen into one, and her mother before that. Was this not a hereditary psychological curse? The curse of Freud was upon me.在一个科学时代，心理分析为我的心魔进行命名。尽管心理分析本身隶属科学范畴，但还存留迷信的原动力（如果不是本质的话），相信大多数生命的展开无须理性的控制。从狂热、无意识行为和故事中，从冲动和天罚的故事中，我觉察到宙斯及其同伴的存在，地中海变成了十九世纪后期的维也纳——一幅大致同样、得以世俗化、净化了的图画。弗洛伊德完成了伽利略和达尔文的革命，把人类带回希腊祖先最初的谦逊，人类不再是扮演者，而成为被扮演的对象。弗洛伊德的世界由双面的硬币组成，其中一面永不为我们所见，这是一个仇恨可掩身于伟大的爱情背后或伟大的爱情躲藏在仇恨背后的世界。在这个世界，男人也许会用心去爱女人，但又会在无意识之中通过做每一件事将她送入另一个男人的怀抱。弗洛伊德的思想从长久以来属于自由理念的科学领域出发，代表了一种向心理决定主义的回归。弗洛伊德学说的信奉者从科学自身的领域对思想的“我”的支配地位予以质疑，这是在对科学的历史进行令人啼笑皆非的歪曲。“我思故我在”变成了拉坎的“我非在我思处，我思非我所在。”
我们不能找到一个超验主义的支点去审视过去，过去总是相对于现在而存在，随着现在的运动而发展变化。我们也不是为了怀念过去而回首往事，体察过去是为了解释现在。既然一切已经令人不快地走到了终点，那么我对克洛艾的爱在我生命中的作用现在看来已非同往日了。当我快乐地享受爱情时，我把爱嵌入永远迈向更美好的生命故事之中，作为我将最终学会怎样生活、让自己幸福的证明。我记起我的一位姑妈——一个并不坚定的神秘主义者。她曾经预言我会拥有满意的爱情，很可能会爱上一个从事美术绘画的女孩。有一天，看着克洛艾素描时，我想起了这位姑妈。我兴奋地意识到甚至注意到在这个细节上克洛艾都与姑妈的预言完全一致。和她相拥着徜徉在大街，我有时会体验到是上天在保佑我，赏赐于我的幸福就是神的光轮存在的证明。
如果我们要寻找征兆——不论是好的还是坏的，这并不困难。如今克洛艾离去了，爱情故事令人恐惧的一幕拉开了，快乐的爱情故事走向了终点，之所以选择它，就是因为它将失败。它的失败再次重复了一种典型的家庭恐惧症。记得父母离婚时，母亲警告我日后得谨慎小心，不要陷入与她相同的婚姻悲剧，因为她的母亲就没有逃脱这同样命运，她母亲的母亲也是如此。难道这不是一种遗传病症？难道这不是我们的遗传和心理结构参家庭生活的诅咒？几年前，先于克洛艾的一个女人曾在一次激烈的争吵中告诉我说，我将永远不会从爱情中得到幸福，因为我“想得太多”。确实如此，我确实想得太多（这些想法足以作为证明），思想于我来说，既是有益的自然力，也是折磨我的工具。也许是因为我的思索，才使我枯燥的分析精神与克洛艾的性格不合，才使我不知不觉之中疏远了克洛艾。我记得曾在牙医诊所读过一本星相学的书，书上警告我说，越是努力想在爱情中成功，事情就越困难。克洛艾的离去应验了这一点：我努力想和她交好，然而由于一个迄今为止尚不清楚的心理宿命，结果只能看着我们分崩离析。我无力正确地行为处事，我触怒了众神，阿佛洛狄特的诅咒降临到我身上。
心理宿命论替代了昔日的爱情宿命论，然而二者不过是同一种思想倾向的两方面。它们都是叙事的方式，在不连串不依时间为序的事件中彼此关联，在善/恶的尺度、英雄或悲剧英雄的标准上得以评价。通过一个曲线图可以说明，第一个上幸福的故事，类同于一个朝上延伸的箭头，好似我学会了把握世界、理解爱情。
但是克洛艾的离去否定了这幅曲线图，使我明白过去其实很复杂，包含着一个迥然相异的解释，幸福总是伴随着残酷的坠落，是另一个不同的曲线图，我生命的轨迹也许就如一系列的峰尖伴随着一直下降的低槽——一个悲剧英雄的命运，他的胜利总是要付出巨大的代价，以生命的结束而告终。
7. The essence of a curse is that the person labouring under it cannot know of its existence. It is a secret code within the individual writing itself over a lifetime. Oedipus is warned by the Oracle that he will kill his father and marry his mother -- but conscious warnings serve no purpose, they cannot defuse the ominous prognosis. Oedipus is cast out from home in order to avoid the Oracle's prediction, but nevertheless ends up marrying Jocasta. His story is told for him, not by him. The curse defies the will.诅咒的本质就是，人在诅咒之下痛苦地煎熬而不知其存在。诅咒是写在个体生命过程中的秘密代码，但又找不到它合理的、事先的表述。俄狄浦斯受到神谕的警告，他将弑父娶母。然而这些警告于事无补，仅仅警醒的是思想着的“我”，却无法制止这编成代码的诅咒的应验。为了逃避神谕，俄狄浦斯被赶出家门，但结果逃脱不了与伊俄卡斯特结为夫妻的命运。他的人生是由他人来告知，自己已无法左右。他知道可能出现的结果，他明了危险，然而却无力改变。诅咒战胜了意愿。
8.What curse did I labour under? Nothing other than an inability to enjoy happy relationships, possibly the greatest misfortune known to man in modern society. Exiled from the shaded grove of love, I would be compelled to wander the earth till the day of my death, unable to shake off my compulsion to make those I love flee from me. I sought a name for this evil, and one night, in tears, found it contained in a dictionary of psychoanalytic terms under the entry for repetition compulsion: 我为之痛苦煎熬的诅咒是什么？不是别的，只是我不能得到幸福的爱情，这是现代社会中最大的不幸。从那浓荫掩映的爱情果园中放逐出来，我被迫在这尘世间游荡，我无法抑制我的强迫行为，致使我爱的人离我而去，就这样一直到我的生命走到终点。我为这不幸寻找一个名称，我发现这名称就包含在对重复性强迫行为的心理分析学解释之中，其定义就是：
... an ungovernable process originating in the unconscious. As a result of its actions, the subject deliberately places himself in distressing situations, thereby repeating an old experience, but he does not recall this prototype; on the contrary, he has the strong impression that the situation is fully determined by the circumstances of the moment.*
* The Language of Psychoanalysis, J. Laplanche, J. B. Pontalis (Karnac Books, 1988).……一个起源于无意识的不可控制的行为过程。在这种行为驱使下，主体故意将自己置于痛苦的境地，从而反复体验以往的某次经历，但又不记得这是过去已经发生的事情。相反，他强烈地认为这种境况完全决定于当下的环境。
9. No philosophy is further from the thought that what happens to us is random than psychoanalysis (even to deny meaning is meaningful). I did not simply love Chloe and then she left me. I loved Chloe in order that she would leave me. Buried deep in my unconscious, a pattern had been forged, in the early months or years. The baby had driven away the mother, or the mother had left the baby, and now the man had recreated the same scenario, different actors but the same plot. It was not for the shape of her smile or the liveliness of her mind that I had chosen Chloe. It was because the unconscious, the perverse casting director of my life, had recognized in her a suitable character to leave the stage after inflicting the requisite amount of suffering.心理分析学令人欣慰之处（如果能够如此乐观地说）在于，它认为我们生活在一个富有意义的世界。哲学不过是白痴讲述的一个毫无意义的故事而已（甚至否定意义本身包含意义）。然而意义从来不是无足轻重的；心理宿命论者的口语微妙地用为了替代然后，从而确定一个失效的因果联系。我不是爱着克洛艾然后她离我而去，我爱着克洛艾是为了她离我而去。爱她，这痛苦的故事就如一篇涂抹重写的手稿，在文字背后，还有另外一个故事已被伪造。孩子赶走了母亲，或母亲遗弃了孩子，如今孩子/男人重新创造了同样的剧本，演员虽已更换，但情节却依然未变，克洛艾穿上了另一个人穿过的衣服。为什么我竟然选择了她？不是因为她的笑靥，不是因为她活跃的思想，而是分配角色的导演从她身上发现了一个适合扮演母亲/婴儿剧本角色的性格。她会按照剧作家的要求，带着必须的毁坏和痛苦，适时离开舞台。
10. Unlike the curses of the Greek gods, psychological fatalism at least held out the promise that it could be escaped. Where it was, ego might be. Had I had the strength to rise from my bed, I might have made it to the couch, and there, like Oedipus at Colonnus, begun to build an end to my sufferings. But I was unable to summon the necessary sanity to make it out of the house and seek help. I was unable even to talk, I could not share my grief with others, hence it ravaged me. I lay curled on the bed, the blinds drawn, irritated by the slightest noise or light, unduly upset if the milk in the fridge was stale or a drawer failed to open first time. Watching everything slip out of my grasp, I concluded that the only way to regain at least a measure of control was to kill myself.与希腊诸神的诅咒不同的是，心理宿命论至少承诺，它的诅咒可以被避免。只要自我在痛苦、挫伤、流血、穿刺之后还没有那么地被损毁，只要自我还能规划每一天，更不用说还能安排生活，那么本我是什么，自我也可以是什么。自我失去了所有的复原能力，惨遭飓风的吞噬，苦苦挣扎只是为了恢复基本的功能。如果我还有力气从床上爬进来，也许我能挪到诊所的病床上，在那里，如同俄狄浦斯到了科洛诺斯一样，我开始给自己的苦难一个了结。但是我没有能力集中必要的神志走出屋子，寻求帮助。我甚至不能与人交谈，也不能运用象征手法陈述此事。我无法让他人分担我的苦难，因此苦难肆意蹂躏着我。我蜷缩在床上，窗帘拉上了，最轻微的响声，最微弱的光线都会激怒我。冰箱里的牛奶馊了，抽屉不能一下子打开，都会让我异常气恼。看着一切从我手中消消溜走，我得出结论：要重新获得至少是一定程度的控制力，惟一的方法就是自杀。
网友评论