TED演講者：David Wengrow / 大衛(wèi).溫格羅

演講標(biāo)題：A new understanding of human history and the roots of inequality / 對(duì)于人類歷史以及不平等之根源的新認(rèn)識(shí)

內(nèi)容概要：What if the commonly accepted narratives about the foundation of civilization are all wrong? Drawing on groundbreaking research, archaeologist David Wengrow challenges traditional thinking about the social evolution of humanity -- from the invention of agriculture to the formation of cities and class systems -- and explains how rethinking history can radically change our perspective on inequality and modern life.

關(guān)于文明的基礎(chǔ)，如果一般廣為接說(shuō)的說(shuō)法都是錯(cuò)的，怎么辦？根據(jù)開(kāi)創(chuàng)性的研究結(jié)果，大衛(wèi)?溫格羅要挑戰(zhàn)傳統(tǒng)上對(duì)于人類社會(huì)演化的想法——從農(nóng)業(yè)的發(fā)明到城市以及階級(jí)體制的形成——并解釋為什么重新思考?xì)v史能夠大大改變我們對(duì)于不平等以及現(xiàn)代生活的觀點(diǎn)。

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【1】In the summer of 2014, I was in Iraqi Kurdistan with a small team of archaeologists, finishing a season of field excavations near the border town of Halabja.

2014 年夏天, 我身在伊拉克庫(kù)德斯坦, 我們?cè)谶吘承℃?zhèn)哈拉布賈附近進(jìn)行了

【2】Our project was looking into something which has puzzled and intrigued me ever since I began studying archeology.

我們的計(jì)畫(huà)所研究的主題, 就一直感到困惑且著迷的題材。

【3】We're taught to believe that thousands of years ago, when our ancestors first invented agriculture in that part of the world, that it set in motion a chain of consequences

我們所學(xué)的是,數(shù)千年前, 當(dāng)我的祖先初次在世界上的那個(gè)地區(qū) 發(fā)明了農(nóng)業(yè), 就啟動(dòng)一連串的連鎖效應(yīng),

【4】that would shape our modern world in a particular direction, on a particular course.

型塑了我們現(xiàn)代社會(huì)的前進(jìn)方向, 以及前進(jìn)的路線。

【5】By farming wheat, our ancestors supposedly developed new attachments to the land they lived on.

藉由耕種小麥, 我們的祖先

【6】Private property was invented.

私有財(cái)產(chǎn)被發(fā)明出來(lái)。

【7】And with that, the need to defend it.

隨之,也出現(xiàn)了需要保護(hù)它的需求。

【8】Along with new opportunities for some people to accumulate surpluses, came new labor demands, tying most people to a hard regime of tending their crops while a privileged few received freedom and the leisure to do other things.

隨著某些人有新機(jī)會(huì)可以累積盈余, 新的勞動(dòng)需求也出現(xiàn)了, 讓大部分人被照顧自家 作物的辛苦起居給綁住, 只有少數(shù)有特權(quán)的人 以及閑暇時(shí)間可以做其他的事。

【9】To think, to experiment, to create the foundations of what we refer to as civilization.

可以去思考、去實(shí)驗(yàn)、 去創(chuàng)造我們所謂文明的基礎(chǔ)。

【10】Now, according to this familiar story, what happened next is that populations boomed, villages turned into towns, towns became cities, and with the emergence of cities,

根據(jù)這個(gè)耳熟能詳?shù)墓适? 接下來(lái)發(fā)生的就是人口激增, 村落變成了小鎮(zhèn),小鎮(zhèn)變成了城市, 隨著城市出現(xiàn),

【11】our species was locked on a familiar trajectory of development where spiraling populations and technological change were bound up with the kind of dreadful inequalities that we see around us today.

我們這個(gè)物種就被熟悉的 發(fā)展軌道給限制住了, 在這個(gè)軌道上,不斷增加的人口 會(huì)連帶著可怕的不平等, 現(xiàn)今我們?cè)谏磉叾寄芸吹健?/p>

【12】Except, as anyone can tell you, who's looked at the evidence from the Middle East, almost nothing of what I've just been saying is actually true.

只是說(shuō),只要看過(guò)中東的證據(jù),就能知道, 我剛才說(shuō)的幾乎都不是真的。

【13】And the consequences I'm going to suggest are quite profound.

而我接下來(lái)要講的推論, 相當(dāng)深?yuàn)W。

【14】Actually, what happened after the invention of agriculture around 10,000 years ago, is a long period of around another 4,000 years in which villages largely remained villages.

事實(shí)上,在大約一萬(wàn)年前 農(nóng)業(yè)發(fā)明之后所出現(xiàn)的 是一段長(zhǎng)達(dá)約四千年的時(shí)期, 在這段時(shí)期,村落 多半都仍然是村落,

【15】And actually there's very little evidence for the emergence of rigid social classes, which is not to say that nothing happened.

事實(shí)上,幾乎沒(méi)有證據(jù)顯示 有死板的社會(huì)階級(jí)出現(xiàn), 這并不表示什么都沒(méi)有發(fā)生。

【16】Over those 4,000 years, technological change actually proceeded apace.

在那四千年間, 科技的改變以飛快的速度展開(kāi)。

【17】Without kings, without bureaucracies, without standing armies, these early farming populations fostered the development of mathematical knowledge, advanced metallurgy.

沒(méi)有國(guó)王、 沒(méi)有官僚、沒(méi)有常備軍, 這些早期的務(wù)農(nóng)人口 先進(jìn)的冶金術(shù)。

【18】They learned to cultivate olives, vines and date palms.

他們學(xué)會(huì)種橄欖、葡萄樹(shù)、棗椰樹(shù)。

【19】They invented leavened bread, beer, and they developed textile technologies: the potter's wheel, the sail.

他們發(fā)明了發(fā)酵的面包、啤酒。 他們開(kāi)發(fā)了紡織技術(shù): 拉坯輪車、帆。

【20】And they spread all of these innovations far and wide, from the shores of the eastern Mediterranean, up to the Black Sea, and from the Persian Gulf, all the way over to the mountains of Kurdistan, where our excavations were taking place.

且他們把所有這些創(chuàng)新都 散播到很廣、很遠(yuǎn)的地方去, 范圍從東地中海的沿岸 直達(dá)黑海, 且從波斯灣 一路到庫(kù)德斯坦的山區(qū), 也就是我們進(jìn)行挖掘的地方。

【21】I've often referred, half jokingly, to this long period of human history as the era of the first global village.

我常會(huì)半開(kāi)玩笑地把 這段很長(zhǎng)的人類歷史稱為 第一個(gè)地球村的時(shí)代。

【22】Because it's not just the technological innovations that are so remarkable, but also the social innovations which enabled people to do all these things without forming centers and without raising up a class of permanent leaders over everybody else.

因?yàn)?不僅科技創(chuàng)新非常卓越, 社會(huì)創(chuàng)新也同樣不凡, 讓大家能夠去做所有這些事, 且不需要形成中心, 也不需要拉抬出 一個(gè)永久領(lǐng)導(dǎo)者的階級(jí),

【23】Now, oddly enough, this efflorescence of culture is not what we usually refer to as civilization.

奇怪的是, 這段文化的全盛期卻不是我們通常所謂的文明。

【24】Instead, that term is usually reserved for harshly unequal societies, which came thousands of years later.

反之,那個(gè)詞通常是保留給 數(shù)千年后出現(xiàn)的極不平等社會(huì)。

【25】Dynastic Mesopotamia. Pharaonic Egypt.

王朝時(shí)期的美索不達(dá)米亞、 法老時(shí)期的埃及、

【26】Imperial Rome.

帝國(guó)時(shí)期的羅馬

【27】Societies that were deeply stratified.

分層非常明顯的社會(huì)。

【28】So in short, I've always felt that there was basically something very weird about our concept of civilization, something that leaves us lost for words, tongue tied.

簡(jiǎn)言之, 我一直覺(jué)得我們對(duì)于文明的觀念 在根本上就有著非常奇怪之處, 讓我們無(wú)話可說(shuō),無(wú)言以對(duì)。

【29】When we're confronted with thousands of years of human beings, say, practicing agriculture, creating new technologies, but not lording it over each other or exploiting each other to the maximum.

當(dāng)我們面臨到數(shù)千年的人類去做…… 比如實(shí)行農(nóng)業(yè)、創(chuàng)造新科技, 但不去統(tǒng)治彼此, 或把彼此剝削到極致。

【30】Why don't we have better words?

為何我們沒(méi)有更好的詞？

【31】Where is our lexicon for those long expanses of human history in which we weren't behaving that way?

當(dāng)遇到行為模式并非 那樣的人類長(zhǎng)歷史時(shí), 我們的詞彙表在哪里？

【32】Over the past ten years or more, I worked closely together with the late, great anthropologist David Graeber to address some of these questions.

在過(guò)去十多年間, 我有位密切的合作伙伴,是已故的 偉大人類學(xué)家,大衛(wèi)?格雷柏, 我們?cè)噲D處理這類問(wèn)題。

【33】But we did it on a much larger scale because from our perspective as an archaeologist and an anthropologist, this clash between theory and data, between the standard narrative of human history and the evidence that we have before us today is not just confined to the early Middle East.

但我們做的規(guī)模更大許多, 因?yàn)橐晕覀兩頌?考古學(xué)家和人類學(xué)家的身份, 理論和資料間的這種沖突, 人類歷史的標(biāo)準(zhǔn)說(shuō)法 與我們現(xiàn)今眼前證據(jù) 之間的這種沖突, 并不只發(fā)生在早期的中東。

【34】It’s everything: out whole picture of human history that we’ve been telling for centuries, it’s basically wrong.

比比皆是: 數(shù)世紀(jì)以來(lái)我們一直 訴說(shuō)的人類歷史全貌 基本上是錯(cuò)的。

【35】I'm going to try and explain a few more of the reasons why.

我接下來(lái)會(huì)試著用 幾個(gè)理由來(lái)解釋為什么。

【36】Let's go back to some of those core concepts, the stable reference points around which we've been organizing and orchestrating our understanding of world history for hundreds of years.

咱們回到那些核心觀念, 也就是那些牢靠的參照點(diǎn), 我們一直根據(jù)它們 來(lái)整理和協(xié)調(diào)

【37】Take, for instance, that notion that for most of its history, the human species lived in tiny egalitarian bands of hunter gatherers, until the advent of agriculture ushered in a new age of inequality.

以這個(gè)見(jiàn)解為例: 在大部分的人類歷史上, 人類以狩獵采集者組成的 小隊(duì)群形式過(guò)生活, 直到農(nóng)業(yè)出現(xiàn),

【38】Or the notion that with the arrival of cities came social classes, sacred kings and rapacious oligarchs trampling everyone else underfoot.

或者這個(gè)見(jiàn)解:隨著城市出現(xiàn), 神圣的國(guó)王及貪婪的寡頭政治執(zhí)政者

【39】From our very first history lessons, we're taught to believe that our modern world, with all of its advantages and amenities, modern health care, space travel, all the things that are good and exciting, couldn't possibly exist without that original concentration of humanity into larger and larger units and the relentless buildup of inequalities that came with it.

我們最早接觸到的歷史課 就教我們要相信,我們現(xiàn)代的世界 以及它所有的優(yōu)點(diǎn)、便利措施、 現(xiàn)代健康照護(hù)、 太空旅行,所有美好且讓人興奮的一切, 之所以會(huì)存在, 靠的就是原先將人類集中 成為更大單位的做法, 以及隨之而來(lái)

【40】Inequality, we're taught to believe, was the necessary price of civilization.

我們學(xué)到的是要相信,不平等 是文明的必要代價(jià)。

【41】Well, if so, then what are we to make of the early Middle East?

如果是這樣,那我們又要 如何看待早期的中東？

【42】Perhaps one might say there was just a very, very, very long lag time, 4,000 years, before all these developments took place.

有人可能會(huì)說(shuō),那只是非常 非常非常長(zhǎng)的時(shí)間延擱, 延了四千年, 發(fā)展才出現(xiàn)。

【43】Inequality was bound to happen, it was bound to set in.

不平等注定會(huì)發(fā)生,注定會(huì)出現(xiàn),

【44】It was just a matter of time.

只是時(shí)間早晚。

【45】And perhaps the rest of the story still works for other parts of the world.

也許故事剩下的部分還能用, 用在世界上的其他地方。

【46】Well, let's think a bit about what we can actually say today about the origin of cities.

咱們來(lái)稍微想想看, 我們現(xiàn)今能夠怎么說(shuō) 城市的源頭。

【47】Surely, you might think, with the appearance of cities came the appearance of social classes.

你可能會(huì)想,當(dāng)然,隨著城市出現(xiàn), 社會(huì)階級(jí)就會(huì)出現(xiàn)。

【48】Think about ancient Egypt with its pyramid temples.

想想古埃及以及它的金字塔神殿,

【49】Or Shang China with its lavish tombs.

或中國(guó)商朝和它的鋪張的墳?zāi)?

【50】The classic Maya with their warlike rulers.

或古馬雅以及它那些好戰(zhàn)的統(tǒng)治者,

【51】Or the Inca empire with its mummified kings and queens.

或印加帝國(guó)以及它被制成 木乃伊國(guó)王及皇后。

【52】But actually, the picture these days is not so clear.

但,實(shí)際上,我們對(duì) 那些時(shí)期的樣貌并不清楚。

【53】What modern archeology tells us, for example, is that there were already cities on the lower reaches of the Yellow River over 1,000 years before the rise of the Shang.

比如,現(xiàn)代考古學(xué)能告訴我們 黃河的下段很早就已經(jīng)有城市了, 時(shí)間比商朝的興起還早了一千多年。

【54】And on the other side of the Pacific, in Peru’s Rio Supe, we already see huge agglomerations of people with monumental architecture 4,000 years before the Inca.

且在太平洋的另一頭, 在秘魯?shù)奶K佩河, 很早就已經(jīng)有大型的 人類聚落以及巨大的建筑, 時(shí)間比印加還早了四千年。

【55】In South Asia, 4,500 years ago, the first cities appeared at places like Mohenjo-daro and Harappa in the Indus Valley.

在南亞,四千五百年前,最早的城市 出現(xiàn)在印度河流域的摩亨佐—達(dá)羅 以及哈拉帕等地。

【56】But these huge settlements present no evidence of kings or queens.

但這些大型的定居地都沒(méi)有證據(jù)

【57】No royal monuments, no aggrandizing art.

沒(méi)有皇家遺跡, 沒(méi)有吹捧的藝術(shù)品,此外,

【58】And what's more, we know that much of the population lived in high-quality housing with excellent sanitation.

我們知道大部分的人都生活在 高品質(zhì)住房中,衛(wèi)生良好。

【59】North of the Black Sea, in the modern country of Ukraine, archaeologists have found evidence of even more ancient cities going back 6,000 years.

在黑海的北方, 在現(xiàn)在的烏克蘭, 考古學(xué)家找到證據(jù), 證明有更古老的城市存在, 可回溯到六千年前。

【60】And again, these huge settlements present no evidence of authoritarian rule.

同樣的, 這些大型定居地也沒(méi)有證據(jù) 能證明有專治的統(tǒng)治存在。

【61】No temples, no palaces, not even any evidence of central storage facilities or top-down bureaucracy.

沒(méi)有神殿,沒(méi)有宮殿, 甚至沒(méi)有證據(jù)顯示有中央的儲(chǔ)存機(jī)構(gòu) 或由上而下的官僚制度。

【62】Actually what we see in those cases are these great concentric rings of houses arranged rather like the inside of a tree trunk around neighborhood assembly halls.

事實(shí)上,在這些例子中,我們 看到的是宏偉的房舍同心圓, 房舍的排列像是在排樹(shù)干中一樣, 以鄰坊的集會(huì)堂為中心。

【63】And it stayed that way for about 800 years.

且約八百年來(lái)都維持如此。

【64】So what this means is that long before the birth of democracy in ancient Greece, there were already well-organized cities on several of the world's continents which present no evidence for ruling dynasties.

這意味著,在古希臘的 民主誕生之前很久, 就已經(jīng)有組織良好的城市了, 好幾個(gè)大陸上都有, 且通通都沒(méi)有統(tǒng)治王朝存在的證據(jù)。

【65】And some of them also seem to have managed perfectly well without priests, mandarins and warrior politicians.

其中有一些還管理得非常好, 不需要祭師、官吏,以及戰(zhàn)爭(zhēng)政客。

【66】Of course, some early cities did go on to become the capitals of kingdoms and empires.

當(dāng)然,當(dāng)中也有些城市后來(lái)成了 王國(guó)與帝國(guó)的首都。

【67】But it's important to note that others went in completely the opposite direction.

重要的是要注意到, 其他城市卻完全走向 相反的方向。

【68】To take one well-documented example, around the year 250 AD, the city of Teotihuacan, in the valley of Mexico, with a population of around 100,000 people,

舉一個(gè)記錄完整的例子,時(shí)間大約是 西元 250 年, 特奧蒂瓦坎這個(gè)城市, 位在墨西哥谷, 人口大約十萬(wàn),

【69】turned its back on pyramid temples and human sacrifices and reconstituted itself as a vast collection of comfortable villas housing most of the city's population.

它背棄了金字塔神殿以及活人祭祀, 將它自己重新改組, 變成由大量的舒適莊園組成,

【70】When archaeologists first investigated these buildings, they assumed they were palaces.

考古學(xué)家最初在調(diào)查這些建筑物時(shí), 還假設(shè)它們是宮殿,

【71】Then they realized that just about everyone in the city was living in a palace with spacious patios and subfloor drainages, gorgeous murals on the walls.

后來(lái)他們發(fā)現(xiàn),幾乎城市中的每個(gè)人 都住在宮殿里,有寬敞的露臺(tái), 地下有排水系統(tǒng), 墻上有華麗的壁飾。

【72】But we shouldn't get carried away.

但我們不能興奮過(guò)頭。

【73】None of the societies that I've been describing was perfectly egalitarian.

我剛才所描述的所有社會(huì)通通都不是 完美的平等社會(huì)。

【74】But then we might also remember that fifth-century Athens, which we look to as the birthplace of democracy, was also a militaristic society founded on chattel slavery, where women were completely excluded from politics.

但我們也別忘了第五世紀(jì)的雅典, 它被我們視為是民主的誕生地, 它也是個(gè)軍國(guó)主義社會(huì), 那時(shí)的女性完全不能參與政治。

【75】So maybe by comparison, somewhere like Teotihuacan was not doing so badly at keeping the genie of inequality in its bottle.

所以,也許,比較之下, 特奧蒂瓦坎這種地方不算太糟, 還能把不平等的精靈關(guān)在瓶子里。

【76】But maybe we can just forget about all that, we can look away.

但,也許我們可以把這一切 拋諸腦后別去看。

【77】Perhaps all of these things I'm talking about are basically outliers.

也許我說(shuō)的這一切基本上都是特例。

【78】Maybe we can still keep our familiar story of civilization intact.

也許我們?nèi)匀豢梢栽獠粍?dòng) 保有我們熟悉的文明故事。

【79】And after all, if cities without rulers were really such a common thing in human history, why didn't Cortéz and Pizarro and all the other conquistadors find any when they began their invasion of the Americas?

畢竟, 如果沒(méi)有統(tǒng)治者的城市 那么,科爾特斯、皮薩羅, 及所有其他的征服者為何不 在他們開(kāi)始入侵美洲時(shí) 去找這類城市？

【80】Why did they find only Moctezuma and Atahualpa lording it over their empires?

為什么他們只遇到 蒙特蘇馬和阿塔瓦爾帕 統(tǒng)治著他們的帝國(guó)？

【81】Except that's not true either.

不過(guò),那也不是真的。

【82】Actually, the city where Hernan Cortéz found his military allies, the ones who enabled his successful assault on the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlán, was exactly one such city without rulers: an indigenous republic by the name of Tlaxcala, governed by an urban parliament, which had some pretty interesting initiation rituals for would-be politicians.

事實(shí)上,埃爾南?科爾特斯 在一個(gè)城市中找到軍事盟友, 讓他能夠成功地攻擊 特諾奇提特蘭的阿茲特克首都, 這個(gè)城市正是這種 沒(méi)有統(tǒng)治者的城市: 一個(gè)原住民共和國(guó), 名為特拉斯卡拉, 由城市議會(huì)負(fù)責(zé)管理, 對(duì)于想要成為政治家的人, 他們有些很有意思的進(jìn)入儀式。

【83】They'd be periodically whipped and subject to public abuse by their constituents to sort of break down their egos and remind them who's really in charge.

他們定期會(huì)被鞭打, 并被他們的選民公開(kāi)辱罵, 目的是要打破他們的自負(fù),提醒他們

【84】It's a little bit different from what we expect of our politicians today.

和我們現(xiàn)今對(duì)于 政治家的期望有些不同。

【85】And archaeologists, by the way, have also worked at this place Tlaxcala, excavating the remains of the pre-conquest city, and what they found there is really remarkable.

順道一提,考古學(xué)家也有 在特拉斯卡拉這個(gè)地方作業(yè), 挖掘在征服之前的城市的遺跡, 而他們的發(fā)現(xiàn)相當(dāng)值得注意。

【86】Again, the most impressive architecture is not temples and palaces.

同樣的,

【87】It's just the well-appointed residences of ordinary citizens arrayed along these grand terraces overlooking district plazas.

而是一般市民設(shè)備完善的住所, 以梯田的方式排列,十分壯觀,

【88】And it's not just the history of cities that modern archaeological science is turning on its head.

現(xiàn)代考古科學(xué)要大翻盤(pán)的, 不只是城市的歷史。

【89】We also know now that the history of human societies before the coming of agriculture is just nothing like what we once imagined.

我們現(xiàn)在也知道,在農(nóng)業(yè) 出現(xiàn)之前的人類社會(huì)歷史 也和我們以前的想像完全不同。

【90】Far from this idea of people living all the time in tiny bands of hunter-gatherers, actually, what we see these days is evidence for a really wild variety of social experimentation before the coming of farming.

并不是以前認(rèn)為的,人類總是以 狩獵采集者的小隊(duì)群形式生活, 事實(shí)上,我們現(xiàn)今 所找到的證據(jù)能證明 在農(nóng)業(yè)出現(xiàn)之前就有非常多樣化的 社會(huì)實(shí)驗(yàn)。

【91】In Africa, 50,000 years ago, hunter-gatherers were already creating huge networks, social networks, covering large parts of the continent.

在非洲, 五萬(wàn)年前, 狩獵采集者已經(jīng)創(chuàng)造了很大的網(wǎng)路, 社會(huì)網(wǎng)路,涵蓋了 大陸上大部分的地方。

【92】In Ice Age Europe, 25,000 years ago, we see evidence of individuals singled out for special grand burials, their bodies suffused with ornamentation, weapons and even what looked like regalia.

在冰河時(shí)期的歐洲,兩萬(wàn)五千年前, 我們找到證據(jù)證明有些人 他們的尸體上滿是裝飾、 武器,甚至有看起來(lái) 像是盛裝的東西。

【93】We see public buildings constructed on the bones and tusks of woolly mammoth.

我們發(fā)現(xiàn)有公共建筑物 是用長(zhǎng)毛象的骨頭和象牙

【94】And around 11,000 years ago, back in the Middle East, where I started, hunter-gatherers constructed enormous stone temples at a place called G?bekli Tepe in eastern Turkey.

大約一萬(wàn)一千年前, 在中東,我最初開(kāi)始的地方, 狩獵采集者建造了巨大的石神殿, 地點(diǎn)在哥貝克力山丘,

【95】In North America, long before the coming of maize farming, indigenous populations created the massive earthworks of poverty point in Louisiana, capable of hosting hunter gatherer publics in their thousands.

在北美, 遠(yuǎn)在玉米耕種都還沒(méi)有出現(xiàn)之前, 原住居民就建造了 巨型的波弗蒂角土墩, 位在路易斯安那, 能夠容得下數(shù)千多狩獵采集者民眾。

【96】And then Japan, again, long before the arrival of rice farming, the storehouses of Sannai Maruyama could already hold great surpluses of wild plant foods.

接著,在日本, 三內(nèi)丸山的倉(cāng)庫(kù)已經(jīng)能夠容納大量 過(guò)剩的野生植物食物。

【97】Now what do all these details amount to?

所有這些細(xì)節(jié)代表什么？

【98】What does it all mean?

這一切有什么意涵？

【99】Well, at the very least, I'd suggest it's really a bit far-fetched these days to cling to this notion that the invention of agriculture meant a departure from some egalitarian Eden.

最少最少,我認(rèn)為, 現(xiàn)今,我們不該再那么牽強(qiáng)地 緊緊抱持著這個(gè)想法: 農(nóng)業(yè)的發(fā)明意味著

【100】Or to cling to the idea that small-scale societies are especially likely to be egalitarian, while large-scale ones must necessarily have kings, presidents and top-down structures of management.

或者也不適合再抱持 這樣的想法:小規(guī)模社會(huì) 特別有可能是平等的, 而大規(guī)模社會(huì)則一定會(huì)有 國(guó)王、總統(tǒng),以及 由上而下的管理結(jié)構(gòu)。

【101】And there are also some contemporary implications.

此外,還有一些當(dāng)代的意涵。

【102】Take, for example, the commonplace notion that participatory democracy is somehow natural in a small community.

以這個(gè)常見(jiàn)想法為例: 參與式民主在小社群里面總是很自然的,

【103】Or perhaps an activist group, but couldn't possibly have a scale up for anything like a city, a nation or even a region.

或者在激進(jìn)的團(tuán)體里, 但卻絕對(duì)不可能擴(kuò)大到 城市這樣的規(guī)模, 或者國(guó)家,甚至地區(qū)的規(guī)模。

【104】Well, actually, the evidence of human history, if we're prepared to look at it, suggests the opposite.

事實(shí)上,人類歷史的證據(jù), 如果我們準(zhǔn)備好看去看它們的話, 證明實(shí)情恰恰相反。

【105】If cities and regional confederacies, held together mostly by consensus and cooperation existed thousands of years ago, who's to stop us creating them again today

如果主要靠共識(shí)和合作 所形成的城市和區(qū)域性聯(lián)邦 在數(shù)千年前就已經(jīng)存在, 現(xiàn)今誰(shuí)又能阻止我們 再次創(chuàng)造出它們？

【106】with technologies that allow us to overcome the friction of distance and numbers?

我們可以用上讓我們克服 距離和數(shù)字障礙的技術(shù) 來(lái)創(chuàng)造它們。

【107】Perhaps it's not too late to begin learning from all this new evidence of the human past, even to begin imagining what other kinds of civilization we might create if we can just stop telling ourselves that this particular world is the only one possible.

也許現(xiàn)在還不算太遲,可以開(kāi)始從關(guān)于人類過(guò)往的 這些新證據(jù)中學(xué)習(xí), 甚至開(kāi)始想像 我們還有可能創(chuàng)造出 哪些其他類型的文明, 如果我們能停止不斷告訴自己 現(xiàn)在的這個(gè)世界

【108】Thank you very much.

非常謝謝。

【109】(Applause)