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发表于 2009-6-3 08:08
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15、Shall We Choose Death?
Bertrand Russell
I am speaking not as a Briton, not as a European, not as a member of a western democracy, but as a human being, a member of the species Man, whose continued existence is in doubt. The world is full of conflicts: Jews and Arabs; Indians and Pakistanis; White men and Negroes in Africa; and, overshadowing all minor conflicts, the titanic struggle between communism and anticommunism.
Almost everybody who is politically conscious has strong feelings about one or more of these issues; but I want you, if you can, to set aside such feelings for the moment and consider yourself only as a member of a biological species which has had a remarkable history and whose disappearance none of us can desire. I shall try to say no single word which should appeal to one group rather than to another. All, equally, are in peril, and if the peril is understood, there is hope that they may collectively avert it. We have to learn to think in a new way. We have to learn to ask ourselves not what steps can be taken to give military victory to whatever group we prefer, for there no longer are such steps. The question we have to ask ourselves is: What steps can be taken to prevent a military contest of which the issues must be disastrous to all sides?
The general public, and even many men in position of authority, have not realized what would be involved in a war with hydrogen bombs. The general public still thinks in terms of the obliteration of cities. It is understood that the new bombs are more powerful than the old and that, while one atomic bomb could obliterate Hiroshima, one hydrogen bomb could obliterate the largest cities such as London, New York, and Moscow. No doubt in a hydrogen-bomb war great cities would be obliterated. But this is one of the minor disasters that would have to be faced. If everybody in London, New York, and Moscow were exterminated, the world might, in the course of a few centuries, recover from the blow. But we now know, especially since the Bikini test, that hydrogen bombs can gradually spread destruction over a much wider area than had been supposed. It is stated on very good authority that a bomb can now be manufactured which will be 25, 000 times as powerful as that which destroyed Hiroshima. Such a bomb, if exploded near the ground or under water, sends radioactive particles into the upper air. They sink gradually and reach the surface of the earth in the form of a deadly dust or rain. It was this dust which infected the Japanese fishermen and their catch of fish although they were outside what American experts believed to be the danger zone. No one knows how widely such lethal radioactive particles might be diffused, but the best authorities are unanimous in saying that a war with hydrogen bombs is quite likely to put an end to the human race. It is feared that if many hydrogen bombs are used there will be universal death – sudden only for a fortunate minority, but for the majority a slow torture of disease and disintegration.
Here, then, is the problem which I present to you, stark and dreadful and inescapable: Shall we put an end to the human race; or shall mankind renounce war? People will not face this alternative because it is so difficult to abolish war. The abolition of war will demand distasteful limitations of national sovereignty. But what perhaps impedes understanding of the situation more than anything else is that the term “mankind” feels vague and abstract. People scarcely realize in imagination that the danger is to themselves and their children and their grandchildren, and not only to a dimly apprehended humanity. And so they hope that perhaps war may be allowed to continue provided modern weapons are prohibited. I am afraid this hope is illusory. Whatever agreements not to use hydrogen bombs had be reached in time of peace, they would no longer be considered binding in time of war, and both sides would set to work to manufacture hydrogen bombs as soon as war broke out, for if one side manufactured the bombs and the other did not, the side that manufactured them would inevitable be victorious…
As geological time is reckoned, Man has so far existed only for a very short period --- one million years at the most. What he has achieved, especially during the last 6,000 years, is something utterly new in the history of the Cosmos, so far at least as we are acquainted with it. For countless ages the sun rose and set, the moon waxed and waned, the stars shone in the night, but it was only with the coming of Man that these things were understood. In the great world of astronomy and in the little world of the atom, Man has unveiled secrets which might have been thought undiscoverable. In art and literature and religion, some men have shown a sublimity of feeling which makes the species worth preserving. Is all this to end in trivial horror because so few are able to think of Man rather than of this or that group of men? Is our race so destitute of wisdom, so incapable of impartial love, so blind even to the simplest dictates of self-preservation that the last proof of its silly cleverness is to be the extermination of all life on our planet? – for it will be not only men who will perish, but also the animals, whom no one can accuse of communism or anticommunism.
I cannot believe that this is to be the end. I would have men forget the ir quarrels for a moment and reflect that, if they will allow themselves to survive, there is every reason to expect the triumphs in the future to exceed immeasurably the triumphs of the past. There lies before us, if we choose continual progress in happiness, knowledge, and wisdom. Shall we, instead, choose death, because we cannot forget our quarrels? I appeal, as a human being to human beings: remember your humanity, and forget the rest. If you can do so, the way lies open to a new Paradise; if you cannot, nothing lies before you but universal death.
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伯兰特.罗素（1872-1970）,英国哲学家、逻辑学家。毕业于剑桥大学三一学院，英国皇家学会会员。第一次世界大战期间因宣传和平而被监禁。 1950年获诺贝尔文学奖。1963年创立罗素和平基金。在数学上提出“罗素悖论”，对20世纪数学基础产生很大的影响。在哲学上，提出逻辑原子论即所谓 “中立一元论”。在政治上，反对侵略战争，主张和平主义。在美国制造出氢弹并进行爆炸试验后，他成了核武器的积极反对者。本篇是他在这方面具有代表性的演说。
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我们该选择死亡吗？
[英国] 伯兰特.罗素
在此，我不是以一个英国人，或是欧洲人，或是一位西方人民，而是仅作为一个人，作为人类这个生死未卜的种族中的一员来说这些话的。世界上充满了冲突：犹太人和阿拉伯人之间、印度人和巴基斯坦人之间、白人和非洲黑人之间，以及，让所有小的冲突相形见绌的共产主义和非共产主义之间的严重对抗。
几乎每个对政治敏感的人都会这些事情有强烈的感受，但是，如果可以的话，我希望你们此刻能把这些感受放到一边，而是只以你们是一个物种的一员来思考问题，这个物种有过辉煌的历史，谁也愿看到它消失。我努力做到不对任何群体说一个厚此薄彼的字眼，所有的人，都同样地处于危险之中，不过如果大家可以意识到这种危险的话，还是有希望共同避免它的。我们需要以一种新方式来思考。我们要学会不再问自己用什么样的方法才能使我们钟爱的那一方获得军事胜利，因为不会再有这些方法了。我们要问自己的是：我们如何才能阻止一个两败俱伤的军备竞赛？
公众，甚至许多当权者，都未曾意识到氢弹战争意味着什么。公众仍然以为那只是摧毁一些城市。大家已知道新型比旧的威力更大，一颗原子弹可以夷平广岛，而一颗氢弹可以毁灭像伦敦、纽约、莫斯科这样的大城市。毫无疑问氢弹战争中大城市会被毁灭，但那不过是我们可能遇到的小灾难之一。如果伦敦、纽约、莫斯科的人都死光了，人类也许要历经数个世纪才能从这种打击中恢复元气。可是现在，其在比基尼核试验后，我们很清楚，氢弹的破坏力可以慢慢扩散到一个比我们原先预料的更大的范围内。一个极具权威的机构声称如今可以制造出一种原子弹，它的威力是毁灭广岛那颗原子弹的25000倍。这样一个，如果在近地或者水下爆炸，会将放射性粒子送入高空，它们会慢慢下沉，然后以一种致命的灰尘或者雨水的形式抵达地面。就是这种灰尘感染了日本的渔民，影响了他们的捕鱼业，尽管他们处于美国专家们所认为的危险区域之外。没人知道这种致命的放射性粒子会扩散多广，不过所有最权威的机构一致认为氢弹战争很可能将整个人类毁灭。我们担心如果在战争中使用很多氢弹的话，所有人都会死光――而且只有少数幸运的人可以迅速死掉，而大部分人则会忍受长时间的疾病和核辐射的折磨。
在此，我向大家提出一个直接的、让人讨厌的，而不可回避的问题：我们要让人类灭绝吗，还是让人类放弃战争？人们不愿面对这个抉择，因为放弃战争实在是太难了。那意味着对主权的限制，这是让人不舒服的。但或许最阻止人们认清形式的原因是“人类”这个概念是让人感到模糊和抽象的。人们不仅对人类这个概念一知半解，甚至很少想到这种危险是针对他们自己以及他们的孩子、孙子们的。他们期待着，或许只要禁止使用现代武器，战争还是可以继续的。但我恐怕这种期望仅仅是幻想。无论在和平时期哪些禁止使用氢弹的条约曾经发挥效用，它们在战时都会失去效力。一旦战争爆发，双方就会立即着手制造氢弹，因为如果一方制造氢弹而另一方没有的话，胜利就会毫无疑问地属于前者。
按地质年代来计算，迄今为止人类只存在了很短的一段时间，至多一百万年。可是他们所取得的成绩，尤其在最近6000年里，是在我们所知道的宇宙历史上全新的。亿万年的岁月中，日升日落，月圆月缺，星空闪耀，而只有人类来到世界上才理解了这一切。在天文学的宏观世界和原子的微观世界，人类揭示了原先或许认为是不可了解的秘密。在艺术、文学和宗教领域，许多人展现了一种崇高的情感，这些崇高情感让人类这个种族是值得保全的。难倒说仅仅是因为很少有人不是仅仅考虑这群或那群人，而是考虑到整个人类, 所有这一切都要消失在那毫无意义的恐怖活动中吗？
我们的种族真的如此缺乏智慧，不能毫无偏袒地去爱，并对自我保存这种最简单的要求都视而不见，以至于我们愚蠢的小聪明的最后证明就是毁灭地球上所有的生物？要知道，人类不仅会毁灭自己，所有的动物都会被毁灭，而无人可以指责它们是信奉共产主义还是非共产主义的。
我无法相信这就是结局。如果人类想继续生存下去，我希望人们能暂停忘却争吵，并仔细反省，这样我们很有理由期待未来我们将取得比过去大无数倍的成就。假如我们做此选择，我们未来会持续得到更多的快乐、知识、智慧。难倒仅仅因为我们不能忘却我们的争端，我们就要选择死亡吗？作为一个人，我向人类呼吁：记住你们是人类，忘记其它的。如果你们可以做到的话，一个新的天堂将会展现在我们面前，反之，只有整个世界的共同灭亡。 |
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发表于 2009-6-3 07:53
