13.杂乱对抗分类／THE DISPARATE VERSUS THE CLASSIFIED

［13］杂乱对抗分类／THE DISPARATE VERSUS THE CLASSIFIED

换一个提法：如何才能，听起来很矛盾，制造出布朗运动？ Put differently: How, paradoxically, can we produce Brownian movements?

我们至少可以通过阿里斯蒂德·布西科式的机缘巧合，促进它。 We can at least promote them through the serendipity of Aristide Boucicaut.

布西科是法国乐蓬马歇百货公司创始人，他起初试图把想要出售的商品分类，整齐放置在不同走道的货架上。 The founder of the French department storeLe Bon Marché, Boucicaut initially tried to classify all the merchandise he wanted to sell, arranging it neatly on shelves in separate aisles.

每份包装静静地待在自己的位置，分门别类，井井有条，就像排排坐着的学生或在防守战壕里的古罗马军队。 Each package sat quietly in its place, classified, organized, like students in rows or Roman legionaries in their entrenched camp.

实际上，“class”（班；类；等级）这个词最初意味着将军队分列成紧密队形。 Indeed, the term “class” originally signified the division of an army into tight rows.

现在，正如大学能普适地满足学习的愉悦，布西科的大商店也能普适地满足女士的幸福（Bonheur des dames）②，一个普通顾客能想到的一切（食品、衣服、化妆品）都能一站式购齐，布西科的成功水到渠成，赚了个盆满钵满。 Now, since Boucicaut’s huge store—which was as universal for the Bonheur des dames② as the university was for the pleasure of learning—had assembled under one roof everything a regular customer could dream of(food, clothing, cosmetics), success came quickly, and Boucicaut made a fortune.

左拉那本关于这位发明家的小说（即Au Bonheur des dames，中译为《妇女乐园》）描述了布西科，某日，在财富达到上限时的幡然醒悟与拒不妥协。Zola’s novel about this inventor recounts Boucicaut’s rude awakening when his revenues, one day, hit a ceiling and refused to budge.

那天早晨，他遵从略显鲁莽的直觉，打乱了原来的合理次序，把商店走道弄成了迷宫，把货架搞得一团乱。 One morning, struck by a brash intuition, he destroyed his reasonable ordering and instead turned the aisles of his store into a labyrinth and its shelves into chaos.

你可能是来商店买个煮汤用的韭葱的，但由于这竭力安排下的混乱，首先你得穿过卖丝绸和蕾丝的柜台。 You might come to the store to buy leeks for a soup, but because of this vigorously programmed chaos, you first had to pass through the section selling silks and laces.

结果，除了蔬菜，拇指姑娘的祖母最后还采购了一匹台布回家。销售额直冲云霄。 So Thumbelina’s grandmother wound up buying a tablecloth as well as her vegetables.The sales went through the ceiling.

欠妥的杂乱有着理性所不知道的好处。 The ill-sorted or the disparate has virtues of its own, of which reason is unaware.

尽管实用且高效，秩序却能造成禁锢。 Order, though practical and efficient, can imprison.

虽然秩序促进运动，却最终也能冻结运动。 Although it promotes movement, in the end it can also freeze movement.

尽管执行时准备校核清单很有必要，但校核清单也把探索发现当作细菌给消灭了。 Thecheck-list, though essential for action, can sterilize discovery.

与之相对的是渗透着失序的氛围，它像一种有某种活动间隙的装置，正是这个活动间隙激发了创造。 An atmosphere penetrated with disorder, by contrast, is like an apparatus that has a certain play in it, and it is precisely this play that provokes invention.

出现在脖子和它的断头之间的正是同一个活动间隙。 And this same play appears between the neck and its severed head.

让我们跟着拇指姑娘玩电脑游戏。 Let us follow Thumbelina as she plays her computer games.

让我们听从被后来的每一家百货商店都付诸实施的那套、布西科机缘巧合的直觉。 Let us listen to Boucicaut’s serendipitous intuition, which has been put into practice by every subsequent department store.

让我们取消赛先生们的排位，而把物理系安排到哲学系边上，语言学紧挨数学，化学和生态学放在一块。 Let us undo the orderings of the sciences, and put the Department of Physics next to Philosophy, Linguistics alongside Mathematics, and Chemistry with Ecology.

细枝末节也要打磨，比如，变更我们菜单的内容。 We even need to work on the details, altering, for instance, the contents of our menus.

用户每次启动电脑，都会遇到新菜单，像从陌生星球来的、讲着另一种语言的新菜单。 Every time users start their computers, they could encounter new menus, as if from a strange planet, speaking another language.

他们因此足不出户就能远游他方。 They would thus travel far without ever leaving home.

古罗马军队由垂直线标出界限、被分成正方形群组的明智的卡斯特拉，会被形形色色的碎片马赛克代替，某种万花筒效果，镶嵌艺术，“百花香”。 The rational castrum of the Roman army, marked out by perpendicular lines and separated into square groups, would be replaced by a mosaic of diverse bits and pieces, a kind of kaleidoscope, the art of marquetry, a potpourri.

《知识的游吟诗人》③ 里已经梦想过一种大学，其空间是混杂的、多姿多彩的、虎皮纹的、浓淡深浅不一的、五彩斑斓的、群星闪耀的——真实得像一幅风景画。 .The Troubador of Knowledge③ was already dreaming of universities whose space was mixed and multi-colored, striped like a tiger, blended in different shades, dyed with numerous pigments, twinkling like the stars—real like a landscape!

我们曾需要出行才可见到其他人，或者，如果要回避他们，我们可躲在家里；现在呢，他们就在我们面前，无休无止地在，不需要我们动一动地在。 We used to have to travel to see other people, or we could stay at home to avoid them; now they are in our face, non-stop, without our having to move.

工作不分类的人，或那些把种子播种到每阵风中的人，他们永远能孕育创造性。 People whose work defies classification, or who sow seeds into every wind, perpetually fertilize inventiveness.

相反，伪理性方法则一无是处。我们要如何重新设计页码呢？忘记理性秩序。我们当然需要秩序，不过，是去除理性的秩序。 Pseudorational methods, by contrast, are good for nothing. How can we redesign the page? By forgetting the order of reasons.We need order, certainly, but an order without reason.

它是必须要被改变的理性。 It is reason that must be changed.

发明创造是唯一真正的智力行为。 The only authentic intellectual act is invention.

我们应该去偏爱电子芯片组成的迷宫。 Our preference should be for the labyrinth of electronic chips.

布西科万岁，我的祖母万岁！拇指姑娘喊道。 Long live Boucicaut and my grandmother! cries Thumbelina.