第八章、為什么快感很重要
For most of the history of our species, there was no television or internet orbooks. Our ancestral environment had no McDonald’s, birth control pills, Viagra, plastic surgery, nuclear weapons, alarm clocks, florescent lighting, paternity tests, or written codes of law. There were not billions of people.
縱觀歷史，我們“人”這個(gè)物種在很長一段時(shí)期里，不僅沒有電視、互聯(lián)網(wǎng)，甚至連書都沒有。我們祖先生活的環(huán)境里沒有麥當(dāng)勞，沒有避孕藥，沒有偉哥、整容手術(shù)、核武器、鬧鐘、熒光燈、親子鑒定、法律條文……更沒有數(shù)以十億計(jì)的人口。
Our minds are not modern, and many of our woes have to do with this mismatch between our Stone-age psychologies and the world in which we now live. Obesity is a simple example of this. Food was hard to get for most people for most of human history. Even a few hundred years ago, the average European family spent over half of its budget on food, and it wouldn’t get much for the money—the daily caloric intake of an eighteenth century Frenchman was equivalent that of a contemporary citizen of a malnourished African nation.362 In a world in which food is scarce, it is smart for an animal to eat when it can and store up the fat, and suicidal to pass up the chance for sweet fruit or fresh meat. But many humans now live in environments in which food is cheap, plentiful, and cleverly manufactured to be maximally flavorful. It is difficult—impossible for many of us—to resist the Darwinian imperative to gobble it all up.363
時(shí)代摩登了，可我們的思維并未隨之進(jìn)化。我們的心智還停留在石器時(shí)代，然而我們所生活的世界卻早已今非昔比，于是心理與現(xiàn)實(shí)的失衡就帶來了種種煩惱。
隨便舉個(gè)例子，比如說肥胖。歷史上絕大部分的時(shí)間里，對(duì)絕大部分人而言，如何填飽肚子是個(gè)老大難問題。甚至就在近幾百年前，普通歐洲家庭還要將一半的預(yù)算開支留給食物采購；即便如此，一個(gè)18世紀(jì)的法國人每天那點(diǎn)可憐的卡路里攝取量，其實(shí)也就跟如今一個(gè)營養(yǎng)不良的非洲難民差不了多少。【362】生活在食物匱乏的世界里，動(dòng)物想活命，就必須做到能吃就吃、儲(chǔ)存脂肪；想找死，那就大可棄難得的水果、鮮肉于不顧?？删脱巯潞芏嗳说纳疃?，食物不僅價(jià)格低廉、品種豐富，而且還經(jīng)過了精心調(diào)味，以最大限度滿足味蕾的需要。想要克制住所謂“達(dá)爾文式的原始沖動(dòng)”真的很難——對(duì)很多人來講那簡直就是不可能：看到好吃的，人的本能就是想要吃光光?！?63】
As another example, it would be smart to treat the insults and provocations of strangers—rude behavior on the highway, nasty remarkson the internet—as irrelevant. There’s no payoff to getting mad. But our minds are not evolved to think about strangers, and we obsess,needlessly, about what people think of us andhowthese insults will diminish us in the eyes of others. This is why we have roadrage and blog wars.
再舉個(gè)例子吧：面對(duì)高速路上野蠻司機(jī)的粗暴行徑，或是網(wǎng)絡(luò)上的惡毒言論——面對(duì)種種陌生人的侮辱和挑釁，我們?nèi)艘锹斆鞯脑?，其?shí)就都不該往心里去。你怒了，對(duì)你有半點(diǎn)兒好處嗎？沒有?？晌覀兊拇竽X還沒進(jìn)化到這個(gè)地步；我們根本就不認(rèn)識(shí)那些陌生人，可我們?cè)跉忸^上時(shí)就顧不了那么多了。所以我們才會(huì)如此庸人自擾，既擔(dān)心三人成虎、無中生有，又害怕長了他人志氣、滅了自己威風(fēng)。也正因?yàn)槿绱耍_車時(shí)我們特別容易被激怒，而網(wǎng)上那些博客口水戰(zhàn)也是同樣的道理。
Finally, we have evolved in a world of lions and tigers and bears; of plants and birds and rocks and things. We get pleasure and fulfillment from the natural world.364 Many modern humans miss out on this, as we spend our days inconstructed environments. The biologist E.O. Wilson has argued that thisestrangement from nature is bad for the soul: “[we] descend farther from heaven’s air if we forget how much the natural world means to us.”365 Several studies now show that even a limited dose of the natural, such as a chance to look at the outsideworld through a window, is good for one’s health. Hospitalized patients heal quicker; prisoners get sick less often; spending time with a pet enhances the lives of everyone fromautistic children toAlzheimer patients.366
最后還有一點(diǎn)：我們一路進(jìn)化而來，離不開這個(gè)世界，而這個(gè)世界則既離不了豺狼虎豹，也離不了花鳥石蟲；換言之，是大自然的種種一切賦予了我們快感與滿足感?！?64】生活在鋼筋水泥改造過的環(huán)境中，很多現(xiàn)代人恰恰就忽略了這一點(diǎn)。生物學(xué)家伊·奧·威爾森（E.O. Wilson）曾指出：疏離大自然不利于人類心靈健康。他說：“如果我們將自然的世界拋在腦后，那么自然的天堂就會(huì)將我們拋得更遠(yuǎn)。”【365】近來亦有一些研究表明，即便是與大自然的小小接觸——比如向窗外眺望幾眼——對(duì)人的健康也大有益處；例如住院病人可以更快康復(fù)，獄中囚犯的患病率也會(huì)降低。任何人，不管是自閉癥兒童，還是老年癡呆癥患者，只要身邊常有寵物相伴，生活質(zhì)量必定有所改善。
These mismatches are interesting and important, and they are the focus of much research and theorizing in evolutionary psychology. What scholars sometimes miss, though, is that we are not innocent bystanders. We are not like rats dropped into a psychologist’s maze or elephants thrust into a circus. We made this unnatural world. We invented the Big Mac and the Twinkie; the freeway and theinternet andtheskyscraper; government andreligion andlaw.
上述如此種種失衡，不但有意思，而且還具有重要的意義，是進(jìn)化心理學(xué)大量理論與研究的焦點(diǎn)。不過，專家學(xué)者們有時(shí)會(huì)忽略一點(diǎn)：我們?nèi)祟惒⒎悄幌嚓P(guān)的圍觀群眾。我們既不是被心理學(xué)家扔進(jìn)迷宮里做實(shí)驗(yàn)的老鼠，也不是被抓進(jìn)馬戲團(tuán)里表演的大象；我們大自然的創(chuàng)造者，我們?cè)诖笞匀恢袆?chuàng)造出了眼下這個(gè)不自然的世界。我們發(fā)明了巨無霸漢堡和奶油夾心蛋糕，發(fā)明了高速公路、互聯(lián)網(wǎng)和摩天大樓，也發(fā)明了政府、宗教，還有法律。
This book so far has been about what we like and why we like it. In this brief final chapter, I turn to some implications of the essent
本書到現(xiàn)在為止討論的，是我們喜歡什么，以及我們?yōu)槭裁聪矚g這些東西。而在這最后一章中，我們換個(gè)話題，我想要談?wù)?#8230;…
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