暗淡蓝点

Carl Sagan，1994。评分 9。

1990 年旅行者一号在离开太阳系之前回头拍了一张地球，那时它已经在六十亿公里之外，地球在照片里占不到一个像素。萨根为这张照片写的那段文字，是全书的起点：

Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

"scarcely distinguishable" 把冲突放到了遥远的观看尺度上：那些人执着争夺、划分彼此的地方，在照片里几乎无从分辨。这并没有抹去施暴者与受害者在道德上的差别。这一层展开在 对族人友善，对异族残暴，同一个人毫无矛盾。

几条主线：

• 对族人友善，对异族残暴，同一个人毫无矛盾：萨根把它定位在灵长类身上。
• 我们看到的不是它现在的样子：望远镜是时光机。
• 那句话想说的事，它自己的例子就犯了：他引的那句话，例子本身是伪史。

书中既有对人类自大观念的批评，也有对认识能力的肯定。 萨根写道：Our time is burdened under the cumulative weight of successive debunkings of our conceits，从地心说到日心说到演化论，人类被一次次挪出中心。而他给的转折是：

But if our objective is deep knowledge rather than shallow reassurance, the gains from this new perspective far outweigh the losses. Once we overcome our fear of being tiny, we find ourselves on the threshold of a vast and awesome Universe.

我当时记的是：承认我们的渺小后能够感受到更宏大的宇宙。

接着是一段列举人类成就的话，他把人类做到的事一件件列出来：看到大爆炸之后不久的宇宙、探到行星核心和恒星内部、读出每个地球生物的遗传语言、发明农业、造出救了几十亿人命的疫苗、以光速通信、把飞船送去七十多个世界。然后收在这一句：We are right to rejoice in our accomplishments, to be proud that our species has been able to see so far, and to judge our merit in part by the very science that has so deflated our pretensions.

用那门贬低了我们的科学来衡量我们的价值，这一步是他和虚无主义分开的地方。 他在书里也引了托尔斯泰那句"生命的荒谬无意义，是人所能获得的唯一无可争辩的知识"，然后没有停在那儿。

几处别的：

关于谦卑的古老出处。 他引了克律西波斯（经西塞罗记载）那句：任何活着的人如果认为整个世界上没有任何东西优于自己，那是一种疯狂的傲慢。 这条属于斯多葛那一族，见 四主德的源头在《理想国》第四卷。

关于农业。 他给的那句概括很省事：Why chase the food when you can make it come to you.

关于旅行者会遇见什么。 Travelers might encounter inferior beings called barbarians or superior beings called gods，而这两个类别都是分组装置的产物。

关于信仰的退潮，他引了阿诺德《多佛海滩》里那几行，The Sea of Faith 曾经涨满，如今只听得见它悠长的退却之声。

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