論工業社會及其未來-28

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The leftist of the oversocialized type tries to get off his psychological leash and assert his autonomy by rebelling. But usually he is not strong enough to rebel against the most basic values of society. Generally speaking, the goals of today’s leftists are NOT in conflict with the accepted morality. On the contrary, the left takes an accepted moral principle, adopts it as its own, and then accuses mainstream society of violating that principle. Examples: racial equality, equality of the sexes, helping poor people, peace as opposed to war, nonviolence generally, freedom of expression, kindness to animals. More fundamentally, the duty of the individual to serve society and the duty of society to take care of the individual. All these have been deeply rooted values of our society (or at least of its middle and upper classes [4] for a long time. These values are explicitly or implicitly expressed or presupposed in most of the material presented to us by the mainstream communications media and the educational system. Leftists, especially those of the oversocialized type, usually do not rebel against these principles but justify their hostility to society by claiming (with some degree of truth) that society is not living up to these principles.

[4] There are many individuals of the middle and upper classes who resist some of these values, but usually their resistance is more or less covert. Such resistance appears in the mass media only to a very limited extent. The main thrust of propaganda in our society is in favor of the stated values.The main reason why these values have become, so to speak, the official values of our society is that they are useful to the industrial system. Violence is discouraged because it disrupts the functioning of the system. Racism is discouraged because ethnic conflicts also disrupt the system, and discrimination wastes the talents of minority-group members who could be useful to the system. Poverty must be “cured” because the underclass causes problems for the system and contact with the underclass lowers the morale of the other classes. Women are encouraged to have careers because their talents are useful to the system and, more importantly, because by having regular jobs women become better integrated into the system and tied directly to it rather than to their families. This helps to weaken family solidarity. (The leaders of the system say they want to strengthen the family, but they really mean is that they want the family to serve as an effective tool for socializing children in accord with the needs of the system. We argue in paragraphs 51, 52 that the system cannot afford to let the family or other small-scale social groups be strong or autonomous.)

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過度社會化類型的左派試著掙脫他的心理狗鍊並透過造反來聲稱自己的自治。但通常左派沒有強大到足以對抗社會最基本的價值。總體來說，今日左派的目標和社會普遍接受的道德準則並沒有衝突。相反的，左派取一個被普遍接受的道德準則為己有，並以此控訴主流社會違反這個準則。例子：種族平等、性別平等、幫助窮人、和平反戰、普遍的非暴力、言論自由、善待動物。更根本地，我為人人，人人為我。這些全都是長期以來深植我們社會的價值（或至少是社會的中層和上層階級 [4]）這些價值在大多數主流傳播媒體及教育系統傳達給我們的內容中明示或暗示或預設。左派，尤其是過度社會化的那一型，通常不會反抗這些準則，而是透過宣稱（某種程度來說是事實）社會沒有達到這些準則來正當化他們對社會的敵意。

[4] 有許多中層或上層階級的人抗拒其中一些價值，但通常他們的抵抗或多或少是隱蔽的。如此的抵抗只有非常少數出現在大眾媒體中。我們社會的宣傳主推上述指稱的價值。為什麼這些價值變成我們社會可以說是官方價值的主要原因是它們對工業體系非常有用。暴力不被鼓勵因為其擾亂了體系的運作。種族主義不被鼓勵因為種族衝突亦擾亂了系統，且歧視浪費了對系統可能有助益的少數群體中的人才。貧窮必須被「治癒」因為下層階級對系統造成問題且和下層階級接觸會導致其他階級士氣低落。女性因其才能對系統有用而被鼓勵走入職場，且更重要的是因為女性擁有正職工作後變得更容易被整合到系統中並與其直接聯繫而非和家庭有緊密聯繫。這有助於削弱家庭團結。（這體系的領導者們說他們想強化家庭，但它們真正的意思是他們想要家庭依系統的需求作為社會化兒童的有效工具。我們將論證這個體系不能讓家庭或其他小規模社會團體變得強大或自治。）