烏托邦與反烏托邦

A couple of weeks ago, over several nights on British television, a drama series was aired entitled Utopia. The premise of the drama was that a secret cabal of ruthless and powerful operators had dedicated themselves over decades to inoculating 90% of the human race with the drug that would render them infertile.

幾周前，英國(guó)電視上連續(xù)幾晚播放了名為烏托邦的連續(xù)劇。該劇大概講一幫兇惡之人組成一隱秘陰謀集團(tuán)，幾十年來(lái)給九成的人注射了藥物，致使他們不能生育。

The aim of the would-be utopians was to avert the environmental catastropheimplicit in the population explosion. Of course, the titled Utopia has an ironic cast, for, depending on your perspective and how you view the moral relation between means and ends, this is surely a dystopian as much as a utopian vision.

他們的目的通過(guò)避免人口爆炸引發(fā)的環(huán)境災(zāi)難來(lái)打造烏托邦的世界。當(dāng)然，這個(gè)烏托邦雖有其名，卻意喻諷刺。從不同的角度出發(fā)，選擇不同的看待手段與目的之間道德關(guān)系的方式，它可以是一個(gè)烏托邦，也可以是反烏托邦。

But then Utopias and Dystopias indissolubly linked, both have a long and honourablecultural history in the English-speaking world. We can go back as far as Thomas More's novel of the early 16th century which coined the term, and we can come forward to the present day Utopia on television.

可是烏托邦和反烏托邦也難分難解地聯(lián)系在一起，它們都在英語(yǔ)世界有著漫長(zhǎng)而光輝的歷史。早在十六世紀(jì)早期，托馬斯·莫爾就在小說(shuō)中創(chuàng)造了烏托邦這個(gè)詞，今天我們也可以在電視上看到烏托邦連續(xù)劇。

Doubtless, the future, whatever it may hold in terms of social reality, should contain plenty of fictive Utopias and Dystopias. As to what this kind of speculative fiction actually says and does for us, what function it fulfils for the collective psyche, one thing is clear. It's not about our future, but what's happening to us right now.

毫無(wú)疑問(wèn)，未來(lái)不管社會(huì)如何發(fā)展，各種虛構(gòu)的烏托邦和反烏托邦應(yīng)該是不勝枚舉的。有一點(diǎn)可以肯定，這種臆想式虛構(gòu)對(duì)我們所說(shuō)所做的，及其對(duì)集體心理產(chǎn)生的功能，不關(guān)乎我們的未來(lái)，而在于現(xiàn)在。