社会主义下人的灵魂（十一）

好久没更新了啊。马上要到假期了，继续填坑吧。

Now, I have said that the community by means of organisation of machinery will supply the useful things, and that the beautiful things will be made by the individual. This is not merely necessary, but it is the only possible way by which we can get either the one or the other. An individual who has to make things for the use of others, and with reference to their wants and their wishes, does not work with interest, and consequently cannot put into his work what is best in him. Upon the other hand, whenever a community or a powerful section of a community, or a government of any kind, attempts to dictate to the artist what he is to do, Art either entirely vanishes, or becomes stereotyped, or degenerates into a low and ignoble form of craft. A work of art is the unique result of a unique temperament. Its beauty comes from the fact that the author is what he is. It has nothing to do with the fact that other people want what they want. Indeed, the moment that an artist takes notice of what other people want, and tries to supply the demand, he ceases to be an artist, and becomes a dull or an amusing craftsman, an honest or a dishonest tradesman. He has no further claim to be considered as an artist. Art is the most intense mode of Individualism that the world has known. I am inclined to say that it is the only real mode of Individualism that the world has known. Crime, which, under certain conditions, may seem to have created Individualism, must take cognisance of other people and interfere with them. It belongs to the sphere of action. But alone, without any reference to his neighbours, without any interference, the artist can fashion a beautiful thing; and if he does not do it solely for his own pleasure, he is not an artist at all.

正如我所说的那样，生活所需由机器管理的社团提供，个体才得以专注于美好的事物。它不仅仅是必要的，还是我们想兼得这两者的唯一方法。如果一个人所做的都只是为了满足别人的需求，别人的愿望，而不是源于他自身的兴趣，那他又怎能把事情做到极致呢？另一方面，如果社会群体，政府，或是其他权力机构企图支配艺术家的言行，那么艺术就会僵化，堕落，甚至于消亡。艺术的独特性在于它的气质。有什么样的作者，就会创造出什么样的美，而这种美和其他那些想控制它的人毫无关系。事实上，当创作者试图满足别人的需求时，他就不再是一个艺术家了。要么有趣要么沉闷，要么诚实要么虚伪，他会变成手工艺人，变成商人，但他再也变不回艺术家了。艺术是这个世界上个体最强烈的表现形式，而且我更倾向于说它是这世上唯一一种不会撒谎的表现形式。在某些情况下，是罪恶创造了个体，但这种罪恶会干扰他们，妨碍他们，使它仅仅成为一种作用范围。只有当创作者不受任何干扰时，他才能创造美；他一旦不再忠于自己，他就再也不是艺术家了。

And it is to be noted that it is the fact that Art is this intense form of Individualism that makes the public try to exercise over it in an authority that is as immoral as it is ridiculous, and as corrupting as it is contemptible. It is not quite their fault. The public has always, and in every age, been badly brought up. They are continually asking Art to be popular, to please their want of taste, to flatter their absurd vanity, to tell them what they have been told before, to show them what they ought to be tired of seeing, to amuse them when they feel heavy after eating too much, and to distract their thoughts when they are wearied of their own stupidity. Now Art should never try to be popular. The public should try to make itself artistic. There is a very wide difference. If a man of science were told that the results of his experiments, and the conclusions that he arrived at, should be of such a character that they would not upset the received popular notions on the subject, or disturb popular prejudice, or hurt the sensibilities of people who knew nothing about science; if a philosopher were told that he had a perfect right to speculate in the highest spheres of thought, provided that he arrived at the same conclusions as were held by those who had never thought in any sphere at all – well, nowadays the man of science and the philosopher would be considerably amused. Yet it is really a very few years since both philosophy and science were subjected to brutal popular control, to authority – in fact the authority of either the general ignorance of the community, or the terror and greed for power of an ecclesiastical or governmental class. Of course, we have to a very great extent got rid of any attempt on the part of the community, or the Church, or the Government, to interfere with the individualism of speculative thought, but the attempt to interfere with the individualism of imaginative art still lingers. In fact, it does more than linger; it is aggressive, offensive, and brutalising.

众所周知，艺术是一种表现个人主义的重要方式，它更能让人们体会到权力的荒谬可笑和腐败卑劣。不论在哪个时代，人们总是被错误的抚养长大，虽然这并不能怪他们。他们总是认为艺术就应该是流行的，能够满足他们的口味的，认为艺术就应该满足他们无理的虚荣，一遍遍的重复他们早已知晓的事物。他们认为艺术就应该给他们展示那些他们早已厌倦的东西，在茶余饭后取乐他们，在他们为自己的愚蠢懊恼时开解他们。然而艺术本就不应该流行，反而是人们应该去追随艺术，这之间有着非常巨大的区别。如果一个科学家被告知他的实验结果不应该使人沮丧，不应该反对那些普遍的偏见，不应该伤害那些不懂科学又多愁善感的人；如果一个哲学家被告知他关于至高境界的猜想和那些从来没有思考过这个问题的人得到的结论相同，好吧，任何当今的科学家和哲学家都会被这种言论逗乐的。迄今为止，科学和哲学还没被权威和流行支配几年，而事实上这些所谓的权威不是源于对社会的无知，就是源于对统治阶级和教会权力的恐惧和贪婪。在任何时候，我们都应该反对任何企图干涉探索个人主义的行为，不论它是社会，政府还是宗教，尽管这种企图永远存在。它不仅存在，还非常残暴。