宜昌市三级医院:选择恐惧症

哲学家Renata Salecl认为消费者的选择观念实际是一种有害的错觉，会阻碍我们改变世界。

WORDS BY Renata Salecl

作者：Renata Salecl

ILLUSTRATION BY Jack Hudson

插图：Jack Hudson

How do you choose what to eat in a restaurant? Do you ask your friends or the waiter? Do you branch out or stick with the usual? However you decide, the result is often the same: when the food arrives you end up casting envious glances at your companions’ dishes, secretly regretting the choice you’ve just made. In fact, the anxiety of choice is now so serious that one London restaurant is doing a roaring trade by offering a single dish on its menu. Is this evidence that people today are overwhelmed by the choices they face?

　　你去餐馆吃饭时是如何点菜的？问自己的朋友还是问服务生？换花样还是一成不变？无论你是怎么决定的，到上菜的时候，结果总是一样：你向朋友点的菜投去羡慕嫉妒恨的目光，心里默默后悔自己点得不合适。事实上，选择焦虑症的严重程度不容小觑，以至于伦敦有家餐厅，菜谱上只有一道菜，生意却出奇火爆。这是不是如今人们在各种选择面前不知所措的一个例证？

Of course, we consider ourselves fortunate to face the paralysis of choice, but there are darker consequences, too. The ideology of choice is all-pervasive in today’s society, and has contributed to growing feelings of anxiety and inadequacy among consumers. This anxiety has, in turn, affected our ability to make choices that lead to social change.

　　当然，我们很幸运，因为如今我们面前的选择甚至多到难以选择的地步，但这种情况也有其不良后果。当今社会，选择的观念无孔不入，种种选择会导致人们越发感到焦虑不安和力不从心。这种焦虑反过来又会影响我们做出选择、进而改变世界的能力。

Choice has always been linked to anxiety – Jean-Paul Sartre wrote that when we stand in front of the abyss, we’re not afraid that we’ll fall, only that we might throw ourselves in. Today, that anxiety has been multiplied, as we’re led to believe that life itself is a consumer choice.

　　选择与焦虑从来就密不可分。让·保罗·萨特曾经写道，一个站在深渊边缘的人，并不害怕失足跌落，反而害怕自己纵身跃下的可能性。耳濡目染之下，今天的我们相信生活本身就是一种消费选择，因此这种选择焦虑也就被加倍放大。

We’re told that we can choose the type of life we live, the type of body we have, even the way our kids will turn out. But while we bask in the false promise of mastery, we forget that the choices we make are often irrational – either linked to other people’s choices (what is socially acceptable), or our own unconscious motives. And we forget – or refuse to remember – that with choice comes loss. After all, when I choose one direction in life, I lose the possibility of another.

　　总有人向我们灌输这样的理念：我们可以选择自己的生活方式，可以选择自己的身材，甚至可以选择子女的未来。我们因为这种无所不能的虚假承诺而洋洋得意，同时却忘记了，自己做出的选择往往并不理智——要么受到别人选择（社会认同）的影响，要么受到自己内心无意识动机的影响。我们还忘记了，或者是拒绝记住，有选必有失。毕竟，选择了人生的一个方向，就放弃了另一个方向的可能性。

And so the ideology of choice encourages people to turn inwards. We’re told that the choices we make after careful planning will bring us our desired results – happiness, security, contentment – and that with better choices, the traumatic feelings we have when facing loss, risk and uncertainty will be eliminated. But today, psychoanalysts see many patients who can’t understand why they feel empty. They ask themselves, ‘Why am I not happy when I have been choosing so carefully all my life?’

　　因此，选择观念促使人们转而关注内心自我。别人告诉我们，精打细算再做选择，会为我们带来幸福、安全、满足等等想要的结果；他们还说，做出正确的选择，就不会因为面对损失、风险和未知而感到痛苦。但今天，心理医生遇到的很多患者依然为莫名的空虚而困扰，他们总是自问：“我一辈子都在谨慎选择，为什么还是不快乐？”

It is precisely the anxiety and guilt that we feel over our choices – and the inadequacy we experience in our lives – that powers today’s consumer ideology and prevents social change. We have grown so introspective that we fail to make choices that contribute to social transformation.

　　正是我们在选择面前产生的焦虑、自责和力不从心，促进了今天的消费观念的发展，也阻碍了社会改变的进程。不停内省的结果，就是我们再也不能做出推动社会变革的选择。

Since the Enlightenment, society and democracy have been linked to the idea of freedom and choice. Today, however, we find it almost impossible to imagine that we have a choice over how society could be better organised in the future. Even in the midst of an economic crisis, we’re only able to see the future as a continuation of the present. Where are the alternative theories about new social structures? When did we lose the appetite to make political choices?

　　从启蒙运动开始，社会、民主就与自由、选择的概念联系在一起。然而，如今我们几乎无法想象自己还有选择让未来社会变得更好。即使经济危机当头，我们也只能把未来看作现在的延续而已。其他有关新的社会结构的理论都在哪儿呢？我们什么时候失去了参与政治选择的兴趣呢？

“The ideology of choice is all-pervasive in today’s society, and has contributed to growing feelings of anxiety and inadequacy among consumers.”

　　“当今社会，选择的观念无孔不入，种种选择会导致人们越发感到焦虑不安和力不从心。”

So now we have less power and fewer real (non-material) choices than ever, and yet we’ve been taught to blame ourselves for the state of our lives. The danger is that if we become sufficiently anxious, we might very quickly give the few choices left to us away, identifying with an authority that tells us what to do. We might hire a coach, follow a guru or turn to an autocratic leader whose confidence seems soothing in an era of uncertainty.

　　因此，我们如今享有的权利和真正（非物质）的选择比以往任何一个年代都要少，同时人们却要求我们为生活现状而自责。更危险的是，过度焦虑的情况下，我们可能会放弃面前的几个选择，而直接选择跟从权威。我们可能会聘请一位教练，追随一位导师，甚至听从一位独裁者的意见——在不确定性面前，他的自信似乎会让人情绪安定。

The solution is to accept that life is defined by uncertainty, risk and unpredictability. And that although choices have a wonderful potential to affect change, we cannot predict the nature of the change they will bring nor avoid the losses that come with them. Unless we learn to live with those consequences, we’re destined to eat the same dish day after day.

　　要想解决这一问题，我们就要接受，人生的实质就在于它不确定、有风险、难以预知。我们要知道，尽管选择对于事情变化有着潜在而神奇的影响，我们依然不能预测变化为我们带来的改善，也不能避免随之而来的损失。只有学会接受选择带来的所有结果，才能真正享受新鲜美好、千变万化的每一天。