論工業社會及其未來-67

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Thus the power process is disrupted in our society through a deficiency of real goals and a deficiency of autonomy in the pursuit of goals. But it is also disrupted because of those human drives that fall into group 3: the drives that one cannot adequately satisfy no matter how much effort one makes. One of these drives is the need for security. Our lives depend on decisions made by other people; we have no control over these decisions and usually we do not even know the people who make them. (“We live in a world in which relatively few people—maybe 500 or 1,000—make the important decisions”—Philip B. Heymann of Harvard Law School, quoted by Anthony Lewis, New York Times, April 21, 1995.) Our lives depend on whether safety standards at a nuclear power plant are properly maintained; on how much pesticide is allowed to get into our food or how much pollution into our air; on how skillful (or incompetent) our doctor is; whether we lose or get a job may depend on decisions made by government economists or corporation executives; and so forth. Most individuals are not in a position to secure themselves against these threats to more [than] a very limited extent. The individual’s search for security is therefore frustrated, which leads to a sense of powerlessness.

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因此權力進程在我們的社會中因為缺乏真實的目標以及在追求目標時缺乏自治權而被擾亂。但權力進程亦因第三類的人類欲望而被中斷：那些一個人無論多麼努力都不能充分滿足的慾望。這類慾望的其中一種就是對安全的需求。我們的生命仰賴於別人所做的決定；我們對這些決定沒有控制權且通常我們甚至不知道做這些決策的人是誰。（「我們生活在一個相對少數的人—或許五百或一千人—做出重要決定的世界中」—哈佛法學院 Philip B. Heymann，Anthony Lewis 引用，紐約時報，1995 年 4 月 21 日。）我們的生命取決於核電廠的安全標準是否被恰當維持；取決於多少農藥被允許進到我們的食物中或空氣汙染有多嚴重；取決於我們的醫生技術有多高明（或多無能）；我們是否有工作可能取決於政府經濟學家或企業管理者的決策，諸如此類。大部分人們都只能在非常有限的範圍內保護他們自己對抗這些威脅。個人對於安全的追尋因此遭受挫折，從而導致無力感。