因为无力，所以狂热

在大众心里，一个人之所以过着他似乎无法控制的生活，是因为魔鬼还是有瑕疵的基因，并没有多少分别。他开始感到无力，觉得社会行动本身并没有多大价值，因为不管出于什么原因，如果人的邪恶是天生的，那么哪里还有什么希望呢？

作为个人，在寻求更好的生活条件这事儿上，至少是有一些希望的。用所能找到的任何分散注意力的外界事物来忘记个人的困惑，是有一些希望的。理想主义是不屈不挠、历久弥坚的，而不论它看上去被毁灭了多少次，却总能以不同的形式回来。因此，那些感觉宗教令他们失望的人重新将目光投向科学，而科学允诺提供一个最近似天堂的人间：物品大量生产、每家有两辆汽车、每种病都有药医、每个问题都有解答。一开始科学好像不负众望，因为世界在眨眼之间就将烛光变成电灯再到霓虹灯，而一个人能在几小时内走过他父亲或祖父要花几天才能走完的旅程。

当科学提供了日新月异的舒适与方便时，很少有人提出质疑。然而，毫无疑问的是：外在条件的确已经改进了，但个人看起来却并没有快乐多少。到这时已经很明显了，科学发明也可以有较黑暗的一面。如果科学知识被用来动摇生命本身的基础，那么，生活的外在便利又有什么意义呢？

大众老老实实服用的各种药品，现在常被发现有非常令人遗憾的副作用。用来保护农业的化学物会对人产生伤害。这种种情形远比核灾难的威胁更令人不安，因为它们涉及了人的日常生活：他买的物品、他吃的药。

有些人曾寻找，而且还在寻找某些权威——任何权威——来替他们做决定，因为这世界好像愈来愈危险，而他们由于信念使然，感到愈来愈无力。他们渴望回到旧时代，那时候，结婚的决定有人替他们做好了，他们能安全地追随父辈的脚步，他们被迫留在家里，也感觉不到异域他乡的诱惑。而现在，他们已被困于科学和宗教之间。他们的理想主义找不到任何出口，他们的梦仿佛被出卖了。

那些人指望形形色色的狂热教派，在那儿，决定已替他们做好，在那儿，他们摆脱了作为一个独特个体的重负——他们已被矛盾信念夺走了作为个体的力量感。男人可能一度会应召入伍，他们暗地里欢欣雀跃，憧憬着这段完全成人之前的时光——在这段时间，有人替他们做决定，他们可以在原地踏步，而那些还没有完全准备好去面对生活的人，可以带着一种荣誉感与尊严离开。 

过去，甚至在你们的国家，对于那些不想像别人一样活在尘世的人，还有修道院和修女院。他们也许追求其他的目标，但关于住在哪儿、做什么、到哪儿去、如何过活的决定都有人替他们做。通常这种人出于共同的兴趣和一种荣誉感结合在一起，而在20世纪对报复行为也没什么好怕的了。

可是，狂热教派主要涉及恐惧心理，用恐惧作为一种剌激。狂热教派进一步侵蚀了个人的力量，使得他害怕离开。那个团体是有力量的，而团体的力量被赋予了它的领袖，除此之外，个人并没有力量。举例来说，那些死于圭亚那（琼斯镇惨案）的人是有自杀倾向的。他们没有值得活下去的理由，因为他们的理想主义已变得与任何实践相去甚远，以至于留给他们的只有理想主义的灰烬而已。

In the public mind, it made little difference whether the devil or tainted genes condemned the individual to a life in which it seemed he could have little control. He began to feel powerless. He began to feel that social action itself was of little value, for if man's evil were built-in, for whatever reasons, then where was there any hope?

There was some hope, at least, in looking for better living conditions personally. There was some hope in forgetting one's doubts in whatever exterior distractions could be found. Idealism is tough, and it is enduring, and no matter how many times it is seemingly slain, it comes back in a different form. So those who felt that religion had failed them looked anew to science, which promised to provide the closest approximation to heaven on earth: mass production of goods, two cars in every garage, potions for every ail?ment, solutions for every problem. And it seemed in the beginning that science delivered, for the world was changed from candlelight to electric light to neon in the flicker of an eye, and a man could travel in hours distances that to his father or grandfather took days on end.

And while science provided newer and newer comforts and conveniences, few questions were asked. There was, however, no doubt about it: Exterior conditions had improved yet the individual did not seem any happier. By this time it was apparent that the discoveries of science could also have a darker side. Life's exterior conveniences would hardly matter if science's knowledge was used to undermine the very foundations of life itself.

The various potions taken faithfully by the public were now often found to have very unfortunate side effects. The chemicals used to protect agriculture had harmful effects upon people. Such situations bothered the individual far more than the threat of nuclear disaster, for they involved his contact with daily life: the products that he bought, the medicines that he took.

Some people looked, and are looking, for some authority — any authority — to make their decisions for them, for the world seems increasingly dangerous, and they, because of their beliefs, feel increasingly powerless. They yearn toward old ways, when the decisions of marriage were made for them, when they could safely follow in their father's footsteps, when they were unaware of the lure of different places, and forced to remain at home. They have become caught between science and religion. Their idealism finds no particular outlet. Their dreams seem betrayed.

Those people look to cults of various kinds, where decisions are made for them, where they are relieved of the burden of an individuality that has been robbed of its sense of power by conflicting beliefs. At one time the males might have been drafted into the army, and, secretly exultant, gone looking for the period before full adulthood — where decisions would be made for them, where they could mark time, and where those who were not fully committed to life could leave it with a sense of honor and dignity.

In the past also, even in your country, there were convents and monasteries for those who did not want to live in the world as other people did. They might pursue other goals, but the decisions of where to live, what to do, where to go, how to live, would be made for them. Usually such people were joined by common interests, a sense of honor, and there was no retaliation to be feared in this century.

Cults, however, deal primarily with fear, using it as a stimulus. They further erode the power of the individual, so that he is frightened to leave. The group has power. The individual has none, except that the power of the group is vested in its leader. Those who died in Guyana, for example, were suicidally inclined. They had no cause to live for, because their idealism became so separated from any particular actualization that they were left only with its ashes.

——摘自《个人与群体事件的本质》（The individual and nature of mass events）

校译：           美编：老王

《赛斯说●第九十三期》

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