0suffering
作者：托马斯·利戈蒂（Thomas Ligotti）
译者：0suffering（注：译自英语原著The Conspiracy Against The Human Race: A Contrivance Of Horror）
Introduction: Of Pessimism And Paradox
引言：悲观与悖论
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In his study The Nature of Evil (1931), Radoslav A. Tsanoff cites a terse reflection set down by the German philosopher Julius Bahnsen in 1847, when he was seventeen years old. "Man is a self-conscious Nothing," wrote Bahnsen. Whether one considers these words to be juvenile or precocious, they belong to an ancient tradition of scorn for our species and its aspirations. All the same, the reigning sentiments on the human venture normally fall between qualified approval and loud-mouthed braggadocio. As a rule, anyone desirous of an audience, or even a place in society, might profit from the following motto: "If you can't say something positive about humanity, then say something equivocal."在其著作《邪恶的本质》（1931）中，Radoslav A. Tsanoff 引用了德国哲学家尤利乌斯·巴恩森（Julius Bahnsen）于1847年在十七岁时写下的一句简练的感悟：“人是一个自我意识的虚无。” 无论人们认为这句话是幼稚还是早慧，它都属于一个古老的传统——对人类及其抱负的轻蔑。尽管如此，关于人类事业的主流观点通常介于谨慎的认可与夸夸其谈的自夸之间。一般来说，任何希望获得听众或在社会中立足的人，都可能受益于以下格言：“如果你不能说些对人类积极的话，那就说些模棱两可的话。”
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Returning to Bahnsen, he grew up to become a philosopher who not only had nothing either positive or equivocal to say about humanity, but who also arrived at a dour assessment of all existence. Like many who have tried their hand at metaphysics, Bahnsen declared that, appearances to the contrary, all reality is the expression of a unified, unchanging force—a cosmic movement that various philosophers have characterized in various ways. To Bahnsen, this force and its movement were mnonstrous in nature, resulting in a universe of indiscriminate butchery and mutual slaughter among its individuated parts. Additionally, the "universe according to Bahnsen" has never had a hint of design or direction. From the beginning, it was a play with no plot and no players that were anything more than portions of a master drive of purposeless self-mutilation. In Bahnsen's philosophy, everything is engaged in a disordered fantasia of carnage. Everything tears away at everything else . . . forever. Yet all this commotion in nothingness goes unnoticed by nearly everything involved in it. In the world of nature, as an instance, nothing knows of its embroilment in a festival of massacres. Only Bahnsen's self-conscious Nothing can know what is going on and be shaken by the tremors of chaos at feast.回到巴恩森，他成长为一位哲学家，不仅对人类没有任何正面或模棱两可的评价，还对整个存在作出了悲观的评估。像许多尝试过形而上学的人一样，巴恩森宣称，尽管表面上看似不同，所有现实其实都是某种统一、不变力量的表达——一种宇宙性的运动，而不同的哲学家对此有不同的描述。在巴恩森看来，这种力量及其运动本质上是怪诞而可怖的，导致了一个充满无差别屠戮和相互残杀的宇宙。此外，“巴恩森的宇宙”从未有过一丝设计或方向。从一开始，它就是一出没有情节的戏剧，登场的角色不过是某种无目的自我摧残的主导冲动的部分。在巴恩森的哲学中，一切都被卷入了一场无序的血腥狂欢。一切都在撕裂一切……永无止境。然而，这场虚无中的喧嚣，几乎没有任何事物能察觉到。在自然界中，例如，没有任何存在知道自己正陷于一场屠戮的盛宴之中。只有巴恩森的“自觉的虚无”才能洞悉正在发生的一切，并被这场混乱的盛宴震撼得颤抖不已。
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As with all pessimistic philosophies, Bahnsen's rendering of existence as something strange and awful was unwelcome by the self-conscious nothings whose validation he sought. For better or worse, pessimism without compromise lacks public appeal. In all, the few who have gone to the pains of arguing for a sullen appraisal of life might as well never have been born. As history confirms, people will change their minds about almost anything, from which god they worship to how they style their hair. But when it comes to existential judgments, human beings in general have an unfalteringly good opinion of themselves and their condition in this world and are steadfastly confident they are not a collection of self-conscious nothings.与所有悲观哲学一样，巴恩森对存在的诠释——将其视为某种陌生而可怕的东西——并不受那些自我意识的虚无者欢迎，而他正是寻求他们的认可。无论好坏，不妥协的悲观主义缺乏公众吸引力。总的来说，那些费尽心思为阴郁的人生观辩护的人，简直不如从未出生。历史证明，人们几乎可以改变对任何事物的看法，从他们崇拜的神祇到他们的发型。但在存在的判断上，人类普遍对自己及其在世间的处境抱有坚定的好感，并始终自信自己绝非一群自我意识的虚无者。
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Must all reproof of our species' self-contentment then be renounced? That would be the brilliant decision, rule number one for deviants from the norm. Rule number two: If you must open your mouth, steer away from debate. Money and love may make the world go round, but disputation with that world cannot get it to budge if it is not of a mind to do so. Thus British author and Christian apologist G. K. Chesterton: "You can only find truth with logic if you have already found truth without it." What Chesterton means to say here is that logic is irrelevant to truth, because if you can find truth without logic then logic is superfluous to any truth-finding effort. Indeed, his only motive for bringing logic into his formulation is to taunt those who find logic quite relevant to finding truth, although not the kind of truth that was pivotal to Chesterton's morale as a Christian.那么，我们是否必须放弃对人类自满的所有责难？这当然是一个高明的决定——偏离常规者的首要法则。第二条法则是：如果你非要开口，就避开辩论。金钱与爱情或许让世界运转，但若世界无意动摇，与之争辩绝不会让它挪动分毫。正如英国作家兼基督教护教者G. K. 切斯特顿所言：“只有当你已经在没有逻辑的情况下找到真理时，你才能用逻辑找到真理。” 这句话的真正含义是，逻辑与真理无关，因为如果能够在没有逻辑的情况下找到真理，那么逻辑对于寻求真理的努力来说便是多余的。事实上，切斯特顿之所以在论述中提及逻辑，唯一的动机不过是嘲讽那些认为逻辑与寻求真理密切相关的人——尽管他们所追寻的真理，恰恰不是支撑他作为基督徒的精神支柱的那种真理。
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Renowned for stating his convictions in the form of a paradox, as above, Chesterton, along with anyone who has something positive or equivocal to say about the human race, comes out on top in the crusade for truth. (There is nothing paradoxical about that.) Therefore, should your truth run counter to that of individuals who devise or applaud paradoxes that stiff up the status quo, you would be well advised to take your arguments, tear them up, and throw them in someone else's garbage.切斯特顿以悖论的形式表达自己的信念而闻名，如上所述。他与所有对人类持正面或模棱两可看法的人一样，在追寻真理的斗争中稳操胜券。（这并没有任何悖论可言。）因此，如果你的真理与那些创造或赞美悖论以巩固现状的人相悖，明智之举便是把你的论点拿出来，撕碎，然后扔进别人的垃圾桶。
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To be sure, though, futile argumentation has its attractions and may act as an amusing complement to the bitter joy of spewing gut-level vituperations, personal idolatries, and rampant pontifications. To absolve such an unruly application of the rational and the irrational (not that they are ever separable), the present "contrivance of horror" has been anchored in the thesis of a philosopher who had disquieting thoughts about what it is like to be a member of the human race. But too much should not be telegraphed in this prelude to abjection. For the time being, it need only be said that the philosopher in question made much of human existence as a tragedy that need not have been were it not for the intervention in our lives of a single, calamitous event: the evolution of consciousness—parent of all horrors. He also portrayed humanity as a species of contradictory beings whose continuance only worsens their plight, which is that of mutants who embody the contorted logic of a paradox—a real-life paradox and not a bungled epigram.当然，无谓的争论自有其吸引力，它或许能成为一种有趣的消遣，佐以喷涌而出的本能谩骂、个人崇拜以及肆意的武断论调。为了宽恕这种对理性与非理性的任性滥用（尽管二者从未真正可分），当前这场“恐怖的构造”已锚定于一位哲学家的论题之上——他对身为人类意味着什么怀有令人不安的见解。然而，在这场通向厌弃的序幕中，不宜过多泄露内容。暂时只需指出，这位哲学家将人类存在视为一场本可避免的悲剧，而促成这一悲剧的，是某个单一且灾难性的事件——意识的进化，这正是万般恐惧的源头。他还将人类描绘为一种自相矛盾的生物，他们的存续只会加剧自身的困境——一群畸变者，体现着悖论那扭曲的逻辑，一个真实存在的悖论，而非拙劣的警句。
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Even an offhand review of the topic will show that not all paradoxes are alike. Some are merely rhetorical, an apparent contradiction of logic that, if well juggled, may be intelligibly resolved within a specific context. More intriguing are those paradoxes that torture our notions of reality. In the literature of supernatural horror, a familiar storyline is that of a character who encounters a paradox in the flesh, so to speak, and must face down or collapse in horror before this ontological perversion—something which should not be, and yet is. Most fabled as specimens of a living paradox are the "undead," those walking cadavers greedy for an eternal presence on earth. But whether their existence should go on unendingly or be cut short by a stake in the heart is not germane to the matter at hand. What is exceedingly material resides in the supernatural horror that such beings could exist in their impossible way for an instant. Other examples of paradox and supernatural horror congealing together are inanimate things guilty of infractions against their nature. Perhaps the most outstanding instance of this phenomenon is a puppet that breaks free of its strings and becomes self-mobilized.即便是对这一主题的粗略审视也会表明，并非所有悖论都是一样的。有些仅仅是修辞上的伪矛盾——看似违反逻辑，但若加以巧妙处理，便可在特定语境中得以合理解释。更引人入胜的则是那些折磨我们对现实认知的悖论。在超自然恐怖文学中，一个常见的情节便是某个角色“亲身”遭遇悖论，并不得不直面这一本体论的扭曲——某种不应存在却又确实存在的东西，最终要么挺身应对，要么在恐惧中崩溃。最著名的活体悖论莫过于“亡灵”——那些渴望在世间永存的行尸走肉。然而，他们的存在应当永无止境，还是应被一根木桩终结，并不是当前讨论的重点。真正至关重要的是，这些存在竟然能以其不可能的方式出现，哪怕只是短暂一瞬，这本身便是一种超自然的恐怖。其他悖论与超自然恐怖交织的例子还包括违背自身本性的无生命之物。其中最具代表性的现象，或许就是一个傀儡挣脱操纵它的线，自行行动。
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For a brief while, let us mull over some items of interest regarding puppets. They are made as they are made by puppet makers and manipulated to behave in certain ways by a puppet master's will. The puppets under discussion here are those made in our image, although never with such fastidiousness that we would mistake them for human beings. If they were so created, their resemblance to our soft shapes would be a strange and awful thing, too strange and awful, in fact, to be countenanced without alarm. Given that alarming people has little to do with merchandising puppets, they are not created so fastidiously in our image that we would mistake them for human beings, except perhaps in the half-light of a dank cellar or cluttered attic. We need to know that puppets are puppets. Nevertheless, we may still be alarmed by them. Because if we look at a puppet in a certain way, we may sometimes feel it is looking back, not as a human being looks at us but as a puppet does. It may even seem to be on the brink of coming to life. In such moments of mild disorientation, a psychological conflict erupts, a dissonance of perception that sends through our being a convulsion of supernatural horror.暂且让我们思考一些关于木偶的趣事。它们由木偶师制作，并受操纵者的意志支配，以特定方式行动。这里讨论的木偶是按照我们的形象制作的，尽管从未被雕琢得如此精细，以至于我们会将它们误认为人类。如果它们真被如此打造，那它们与我们柔软形体的相似之处将会是一种奇异而可怖的存在，太过奇异与可怖，以至于无法坦然接受。而既然惊吓人群并非木偶销售的初衷，它们便不会被塑造得如此逼真，至少不会逼真到让我们误以为它们是人类——除非在阴暗的地窖或杂乱的阁楼里，光线昏暗，影影绰绰。我们必须知道木偶就是木偶。然而，即便如此，我们依然可能会被它们惊扰。因为当我们以某种方式注视木偶时，或许会感到它正回望着我们——不是以人类的方式，而是以木偶的方式。它甚至可能显得正处于苏醒的边缘。在这种短暂的错乱时刻，心理上的冲突骤然爆发，感知上的矛盾撕裂心神，使我们陷入一阵超自然的惊恐之中。
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A sibling term of supernatural horror is the "uncanny." Both terms are pertinent in reference to nonhuman forms that disport human qualities. Both may also refer to seemingly animate forms that are not what they seem, as with the undead—monstrosities of paradox, things that are neither one thing nor another, or, more uncannily, and more horrifically supernatural, things that are discovered to be two things at once. Whether or not there really are manifestations of the supernatural, they are horrifying to us in concept, since we think ourselves to be living in a natural world, which may be a festival of massacres but only in a physical rather than a metaphysical purport. This is why we routinely equate the supernatural with horror. And a puppet possessed of life would exemplify just such a horror, because it would negate all conceptions of a natural physicalism and affirm a metaphysics of chaos and nightmare. It would still be a puppet, but it would be a puppet with a mind and a will, a human puppet—a paradox more disruptive of sanity than the undead. But that is not how they would see it. Human puppets could not conceive of themselves as being puppets at all, not when they are fixed with a consciousness that excites in them the unshakable sense of being singled out from all other objects in creation. Once you begin to feel you are making a go of it on your own—that you are making moves and thinking thoughts which seem to have originated within you—it is not possible for you to believe you are anything but your own master.“超自然恐怖”的同义概念之一是“诡异”（uncanny）。这两个术语都适用于那些非人之物却展现出人类特质的现象。它们同样可指那些看似具有生命却又并非其表象所示的存在，比如不死者——这些悖论般的怪物，既非此物，亦非彼物，或者更诡异、更恐怖地说，它们被发现竟是两者共存。无论超自然现象是否真实存在，它们的概念本身就令我们感到恐惧，因为我们自认为身处一个自然世界——尽管这个世界充斥着杀戮与灾厄，但其本质仍然是物理性的，而非形而上的。因此，我们总是习惯性地将超自然与恐怖等同。而一个被赋予生命的木偶，正是这种恐怖的极致体现，因为它将彻底颠覆所有关于自然物理世界的认知，转而肯定一种充满混沌与梦魇的形而上学观念。它依旧是木偶，但它却拥有思想与意志，是一个“人类木偶”——一种比不死者更能摧毁理智的悖论。然而，它们自身不会这样看待自己。那些拥有意识的木偶，根本无法想象自己是木偶，尤其当他们的意识使他们产生一种无可动摇的信念——即自己是被造物中独一无二的存在。一旦你开始觉得自己正在独立行事——你做出的决策、你萌生的念头似乎都源于自身——你便再也无法相信自己不是自身的主宰。
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As effigies of ourselves, puppets are not equal partners with us in the world. They are actors in a world of their own, one that exists inside of ours and reflects back upon it. What do we see in that reflection? Only what we want to see, what we can stand to see. Through the prophylactic of self-deception, we keep hidden what we do not want to let into our heads, as if we will betray to ourselves a secret too terrible to know. Our lives abound with baffling questions that some attempt to answer and the rest of us let pass. Naked apes or incarnate angels we may believe ourselves to be, but not human puppets. Of a higher station than these impersonators of our species, we move freely about and can speak any time we like. We believe we are making a go of it on our own, and anyone who contradicts this belief will be taken for a madman or someone who is attempting to immerse others in a contrivance of horror. How to take seriously a puppet master who has gone over to the other side?作为我们的模拟造像，木偶并非与我们在世界中平等共存的伙伴。它们是一个独立世界中的演员，这个世界存在于我们的世界之内，并对其进行映照。那么，在这种映照中，我们看到了什么？只看到我们愿意看到的，或者说，我们能够承受看到的。通过自欺的防护机制，我们将那些不愿让自己意识到的东西隐藏起来，仿佛这样就能避免揭示某个可怖至极的秘密。我们的生活充满了令人费解的问题，有些人试图解答，而其余的人则置之不理。我们可能会认为自己是裸猿，或者是化身为人的天使，但绝不会认为自己是“人类木偶”。身处比这些模仿我们物种的存在更高的地位，我们自由行动，随时开口言说。我们深信自己是在独立行事，而任何胆敢反驳这一信念的人，不是疯子，便是试图让他人沉溺于某种人为构造的恐怖之中。如何认真对待一个已经转向另一边的木偶操纵者？
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When puppets are done with their play, they go back in their boxes. They do not sit in a chair reading a book, their eyes rolling like marbles over its words. They are only objects, like a corpse in a casket. If they ever came to life, our world would be a paradox and a horror in which everything was uncertain, including whether or not we were just human puppets.当木偶的戏剧落幕，它们便被收回箱中。它们不会坐在椅子上读书，眼珠如弹珠般在字句间滚动。它们只是物件，如同棺中尸骸。倘若它们真的活了过来，我们的世界将陷入悖论与恐怖之中，一切都变得不确定，甚至包括我们自己是否只是“人类木偶”。
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All supernatural horror obtains in what we believe should be and should not be. As scientists, philosophers, and spiritual figures have testified, our heads are full of illusions; things, including human things, are not dependably what they seem. Yet one thing we know for sure: the difference between what is natural and what is not. Another thing we know is that nature makes no blunders so untoward as to allow things, including human things, to swerve into supernaturalism. Were it to make such a blunder, we would do everything in our power to bury this knowledge. But we need not resort to such measures, being as natural as we are. No one can prove that our life in this world is a supernatural horror, nor cause us to suspect that it might be. Anybody can tell you that—not least a contriver of books that premise the supernatural, the uncanny, and the frightfully paradoxical as essential to our nature.所有超自然恐怖皆源于我们对“应当如此”与“不应如此”的信念。正如科学家、哲学家和灵性人物所证实的，我们的头脑充斥着幻象——万物，包括人类自身，往往并非其表象所示。然而，有一点我们确信无疑：自然与非自然之间的区别。我们还知道，自然不会犯下如此离奇的谬误，以至于让万物——包括人类——偏离其轨道，堕入超自然之境。倘若自然真的犯下这样的谬误，我们定会竭尽全力将这一事实掩埋。但我们无需如此，因为我们本身便是自然的产物。无人能够证明，我们的尘世生活是一种超自然恐怖，也无法让我们对此产生怀疑。任何人都可以告诉你这一点——尤其是那些构思超自然、诡异与可怖悖论为人类本质的书籍创作者。