误入歧途的"善"——希特勒德国之深度解析(续）

希特勒本来很可能引爆世界上第一颗原子弹。不过，以一种奇怪的方式，希特勒从一开始就知道他注定失败，而德国也注定不会成为他所期望的样子。他渴望毁灭，因为在他头脑比较清醒的时候，甚至还意识到自己早先的理想是扭曲的。这意味着他常常扯自己的后腿，而联军几次重要的胜利就是这种扯后腿的结果。以同样的方式，德国出于同样的原因而没发展出原子弹。

不过，我们现在来谈一谈广岛，这个极具破坏力的炸弹在那儿被引爆了——又是为了什么呢？为了挽救生命，挽救美国人的生命。救美国人的意图诚然是“善的”——这次却是以牺牲日本人为代价。就此而言，美国的善并非日本的善，而一个用来“挽救生命”的行动也蓄意夺走个体的生命。

达成“善”的代价是什么呢？而谁对善的理念才是标准呢？在某种程度上，人类对善的追求催生了西班牙的宗教裁判和塞勒姆的女巫搜捕。政治上，今天许多人相信苏联是“敌人”，因而可以使出任何手段去摧毁那个国家。在美国国内，有些人坚信“美国体制”已经烂透了，而去摧毁它的任何手段都是合理的。有些人相信男同性恋与女同性恋者是“邪恶的”，相信他们缺乏人性的真正特质，因而不必以正常的尊重对待他们。这些全都涉及了你们对善的理念的价值判断。

很少有人一开始就努力要尽可能的坏。至少某些罪犯觉得，在偷窃时他们只不过是在纠正社会的错误。我并不是说那是他们唯一的动机，但不管怎样，他们以自己对善良和正义的诠释来看待自己，从而把他们的活动合理化了。

你们必须了解，狂热分子永远有着浮夸的理想，同时又相信人性本恶，相信个人是缺乏力量的。他们无法信任自己的表达，因为他们确信自己的奸诈。于是他们的理想看起来就更加遥不可及。狂热分子号召别人发起社会行动。既然他们从不相信个人能有所作为，他们的团体就不是每一个体出于理智的聚合，也不是个人资源的汇集。与此相反，那种团体里聚集的人都害怕彰显自己的个体性，却希望在团体里找到它，或希望建立一种“共同的个体性”——而那是不可能的。

真正的个体能通过社会行动做很多事，人类是社会性的，但那些害怕自己个体性的人在团体里永远也找不到个体性，而只会找到一幅描绘自身无力感的讽刺画。

Hitler might well have exploded the world's first atomic bomb. In a strange fashion, however, Hitler knew that he was doomed from the very beginning, and so did Germany as far as Hitler's hopes for it were concerned. He yearned for destruction, for in saner moments even he recognized the twisted distortions of his earlier ideals. This meant that he often sabotaged his own efforts, and several important Allied victories were the result of such sabotaging. In the same way, Germany did not have the atomic bomb for the same reasons.

Now, however, we come to Hiroshima, where this highly destructive bomb was exploded (on August 6, 1945) ? and for what reason? To save life, to save American lives. The intent to save American lives was certainly "good" ? at the expense of the Japanese this time. In that regard, America's good was not Japan's, and an act taken to "save life" was also designed to take individual lives.

At what expense is "the good" to be achieved ? and whose idea of the good is to be the criterion? Man's pursuit of the good, to some extent now, fathered the Inquisition and the Salem witch hunts. Politically, many today believe that Russia is "the enemy," and that therefore any means may be taken to destroy that country. Some people within the United States believe fervently that "the establishment" is rotten to the core, and that any means is justified to destroy it. Some people believe that homosexuals and lesbians are "evil," that somehow they lack the true qualities of humanness and therefore need not be treated with normal respect. These are all value judgments involving your ideas of the good.

Very few people start out trying to be as bad as possible. At least some criminals feel that in stealing they are simply righting society's wrongs. I am not saying that is their only motive, but in one way or another they manage to justify their activities by seeing them in their own version of the good and the right.

You must realize that fanatics always deal with grandiose ideals, while at the same time they believe in man's sinful nature, and the individual's lack of power. They cannot trust the expression of the self, for they are convinced of its duplicity. Their ideals then seem even more remote. Fanatics call others to social action. Since they do not believe that the individual is ever effective, their groups are not assemblies of private individuals come reasonably together, pooling individual resources. They are instead congregations of people who are afraid to assert their individuality, who hope to find it in the group, or hope to establish a joint individuality ? and that is an impossibility.

True individuals can do much through social action, and the species is a social one, but people who are afraid of their individuality will never find it in a group, but only a caricature of their own powerlessness.

校译：Laujenny   美编：周周    

《赛斯说●第107期》

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