当理想遭遇现实

形形色色的政府代表了意识不同方面的演练。

美国的民主实验是英勇、大胆而革新性的。以你们了解的历史来说，一个国家的所有居民在法律上被认为是彼此平等的公民，这还是头一回。那应该，也的确是一个真正的理想。当然，就实际状况而言，还是常有不平等存在。人们在市场或社会中所受的待遇，常常显示出与那个公认的民族理想之间的巨大差异。但那梦想是美国国民生活的重要部分，甚至那些无耻的人也至少要给出口头的承诺，或做出阳奉阴违的计划。

在过去，以及现今世界的大部分地区，许多重要的决定并不是由个人，而是由国家、宗教或社会做出来的。在20世纪，有几个问题占据了美国文化的前沿：有组织的宗教外在化——变成了社会性而非灵性的实体；科学、技术和金钱利益的结合。这里鲁柏谈威廉·詹姆士的书会是很好的背景资料，尤其是涉及民主与唯灵论的章节。无论如何，一方面，每个人被认为应与他人平等。比如，婚姻不再是被安排的，一个男人不再需要子承父业。年轻人发现自己要面对许许多多的个人决定，而在别的文化里这多少是被自动决定的。交通的发展使这个国家得到开发，因此一个人不再局限于自己的家乡。所有这些，意味着人类的意识心即将扩张其力量、能力及范围。这个国家当时是——现在仍然是——充满了理想主义的。

可是，那个理想主义闯入了弗洛伊德与达尔文思想的阴云之中。一个国家在这样的人类手中又怎能得到有效管理呢——他们不过是以人的形象横冲直撞的一组化学物，带着自儿时就内置的神经质，一个有污点的物种的后代，被毫无意义的宇宙抛掷而漫无目的地漂流。

有组织的宗教感受到了威胁；而如果它不能证明人有灵魂，至少能保证，通过适当的社会工作，身体的需要能得到满足。因此，它放弃了很多本应增强其力量的原则，反而接受了将洁净等同于美德的诸多陈腔滥调——当然，因此才有了你们的止汗除臭剂广告，以及市场上的很多玩意儿。

Various kinds of governments represent the exercise of different aspects of consciousness.

The American experiment with democracy is heroic, bold, and innovative. In historic terms as you understand them, this is the first time that all of the inhabitants of a country were to be legally considered equal citizens one with the other. That was to be, and is, the ideal. In practical terms, of course, there often are inequalities. Treatment in the marketplace, or in society, often shows great divergence from that stated national ideal. Yet the dream is a vital portion of American national life, and even those who are unscrupulous must pay it at least lip service, or cast their plans in its light.

In the past, and in large areas of the world now, many important decisions arc not made by the individual, but by the state, or religion, or society. In this century several issues came to the forefront of American culture: the exteriorization of organized religion, which became more of a social rather than a spiritual entity, and the joining of science with technology and moneyed interests. Ruburt's book on [William] James would be good background material here, particularly the sections dealing with democracy and spiritualism. In any case, on the one hand each individual was to be equal with each other person. Marriages, for example, were no longer arranged. A man no longer need follow his father's vocational footsteps. Young adults found themselves faced with a multitudinous number of personal decisions that in other cultures were made more or less automatically. The development of transportation opened up the country, so that an individual was no longer bound to his or her native town or region. All of this meant that man's conscious mind was about to expand its strengths, its abilities, and its reach. The country was ? and still is ? brimming with idealism.

That idealism, however, ran smack into the dark clouds of Freudian and Darwinian thought. How could a country be governed effectively by individuals who were after all chemicals run amok in images, with neuroticism built-in from childhood ? children of a tainted species, thrown adrift by a meaningless cosmos in which no meaning could be found？

Organized religion felt threatened; and if it could not prove that man had a soul, it could at least see to it that the needs of the body were taken care of through suitable social work, and so it abandoned many of the principles that might have added to its strength. Instead it settled for platitudes that equated cleanliness with virtue — hence, of course, your deodorant advertisements, and many other aspects of the marketplace.

——摘自《个人与群体事件的本质》（The individual and nature of mass events）

校译：Laujenny           美编：老王

《赛斯说●第九十二期》

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赛斯书预言，赛斯说，缘起，实相赛斯书合集