自考 Lesson Nine The Trouble with Television
-
自考
Lesson Nine The Trouble with
Television
电视的毛病
The Trouble with Television
要摆脱电视的影响是困难的。
It is difficult to escape
the influence of television.
< br>假如统计的平均数字适用于你的话，那么你到
20
岁的时
候就至少看过
2
万个小
时的电视了，从
那以后每生活
10
年就会增加
1
万小时。
If
you fit the statistical averages, by the age of 20
you will have been
exposed to at least
20,000 hours
of
television. You can
add
10,000 hours
for each decade you have
lived after the age of 20.
笔起看电视，美国人只有在工作和睡眠上花时间更多。
The
only
things
Americans
do
more
than
watch
television
are
work
and
sleep.
稍微计算一下，使用这些时间的一部分能够做些什么。
Calculate
for
a
moment
what
could
be
done
with
even
a
part
of
those
hours.
听说一个大学生仅
用
5000
小时就可以获得学士学位。
Five
thousand
hours, I
am
told,
are
what
a
typical
college
undergraduate
spends working
on a bachelor's degree.
在<
/p>
1
万个小时内你能学成一个天文学家或工程师，流利掌握几门外语
。
In 10,000
hours you
could have
learned
enough to become
an
astronomer or
engineer. You could have
learned several languages fluently.
<
/p>
如果你感兴趣的话，
你可能读希腊原文的荷马史诗或俄文版的陀思
妥耶夫斯基的
作品；如果对此不感兴趣，那你可以徒步周游世界，撰写一本游记。
If it appealed to
you, you could be reading Homer in the original
Greek
or
Dostoyevsky
in
Russian.
If
it
didn't,
you
could
have
walked
around
the
world
and written a book about it.
电视的毛病在于它分散了人们的注意力。
The trouble with television
is that it discourages concentration.
生活中几乎一切有趣的、
能给人以满足的事都需要一定的建设性
的、
持之以恒的
努力。
Almost anything interesting
and rewarding in life requires some
constructive, consistently applied
effort.
即使是我们中间那些最迟钝、
最没有天才的人也能做出一些事来，
而这些事使那
些从来不在任何事情上专心致志的人感到像是奇迹一般。
The
dullest,
the
least
gifted
of
us
can
achieve
things
that
seem
miraculous
to those who
never concentrate on anything.
但电视鼓励我们不做出任何努力，
它向我们兜售即时的满足，
它给我们提供娱乐，
使我们只想娱乐，让时间在毫无痛苦中消磨掉。
But Television
encourages us to apply no effort. It sells us
instant
gratification.
It
diverts
us
only
to
divert,
to
make
the
time
pass
without
pain.
电视节目的多样化成了一种麻醉剂而不是促进思考的因素。
Television's variety
becomes a narcotic , nor a stimulus.
它那系列的、多变的画面引着我们跟着它走。
Its serial, kaleidoscopic
exposures force us to follow its lead.
观众无休无止地跟着导游游览：
参观
博物馆
30
分钟，
看大教堂
30
分钟，
喝饮料
30<
/p>
分钟，然后上车去下一个参观点，只是电视的特点是时间分配以分秒计算，
而所选择的内容却多为车祸和人们的互相残杀。
The viewer is on a perpetual guided
tour: 30 minutes at the museum, 30
at
the cathedral, 30 for a drink, then back on the
bus to the next
attraction
—
-except on television.,
typically, the spans allotted arc
on
the
order
of
minutes
or
seconds,
and
the
chosen
delights
are
more
often
car crashes and people killing one
another.
总之许多电视节目取代了人类最可贵的
一种才能，
即主动集中自己的注意力，
而
不是被动地奉送注意力。
In
short,
a
lot
of
television
usurps
one
of
the
most
precious
of
all
human
gifts, the ability to focus your
attention yourself, rather than just
passively surrender it.
吸引并抓住人们的注意力是大多数电视节目安排的主要目的，
它加强
了电视是有
利可图的广告的载体的作用。
Capturing your attention
—
and holding
it
—
is the prime motive of
most
television
programming
and
enhances
its
role
as
a
profitable
advertising
vehicle.
节目安排使人
生活在无休止的恐惧之中，
唯恐抓不住人们的注意力——不管是什
么人的注意力都担心。
Programmers
live
in
constant
fear
of
losing
anyone's
attention
—
anyone's.
避免造
成这一局面的最有把握的办法就是使一切节目都保持简短，
不要使任何人
的注意力过于集中而受到损害，
而要通过多样化、
新奇
性、
动作和行动不断地提
供刺激。
The
surest
way
to
avoid
doing
so
is
to
keep
everything
brief,
not
to
strain
the attention of anyone but instead to
provide constant stimulation
through
variety, novelty, action and movement.
很简单，电视的运作原则就是迎合观众的注意力跨度短这一特
点。
Quite
simply, television operates on the appeal to the
short attention
span.
这只是最简单的解决办法，
但它逐渐被看作是电视这一宣传媒体特定的，
内在固
有的性质，
是必须履行的职责，
似乎是司令萨尔诺夫或另一个令人敬畏的电视创
始人给我们传下
了刻有铭文的石碑，
命令电视上出现的一切节目均不得使观众需
要片刻以上的注意力。
It
is
simply
the
easiest
way
out.
But
it
has
come
to
be
regarded
as
a
given,
as inherent in the
medium itself; as an imperative, as though General
Sarnoff, or one of
the other
august
pioneers of video,
had bequeathed to
us tablets
of stone commanding that nothing in television
shall ever
require more than a few
moments' Concentration.
要是运用得恰当，这倒也无可厚非。
In its place that is fine.
如此出色地把使人忘却现实的娱乐作为大规模推销工具加以包
装，
谁又能反对这
样一种宣传媒介呢？