金融時報:視頻時代，思考不再？

視頻時代，思考不再？

今天的信息科技，能讓圖像和視頻的分享傳播變得易如反掌。觀看吸引眼球而無需動腦的視頻，正在成為我們生活的一部分。一些鏡頭前不經(jīng)意的動作可能影響總統(tǒng)大選的結(jié)果，一些并不嚴謹?shù)囊曨l可能擁有令人不安的巨大影響。這，是否意味著一個新的時代，使文字閱讀和嚴謹思考漸漸被邊緣化？

測試中可能遇到的詞匯和知識：

truculence ['tr?kj?l?ns] n.好戰(zhàn)

North Korea's cryptic videos 今年2月，朝鮮官媒在youtube上發(fā)布了兩段宣傳視頻，片中朝鮮軍隊以立體化進攻迅速攻占韓國，綁架美國僑民，攻擊美國城市

thrown-down gauntlet 扔在地上的長手套，在中世紀的歐洲，這是一種要求與對方?jīng)Q斗的姿態(tài)。

vernacular [v?'nækj?l?] n./adj.本地話，方言

1960 presidential debates 史上第一次電視直播的總統(tǒng)大選辯論，年輕的民主黨人肯尼迪VS共和黨副總統(tǒng)尼克松。一般認為，尼克松在觀點和表達上更勝一籌，但鏡頭前形象更好的肯尼迪最終以微弱優(yōu)勢獲勝

unkempt [?n'kem(p)t] adj.蓬亂不整

wallop ['w?l?p] v.沖擊

Neda Agha-Soltan 2009年伊朗大選時被無辜射殺的一名女學生，這一視頻引發(fā)巨大反響

KONY 2012 一部發(fā)布于2012年3月的紀錄片，旨在揭示烏干達軍閥科尼的殘暴行徑。盡管片中有諸多夸大和不實之處，但有各界名人轉(zhuǎn)發(fā)，7個月內(nèi)就有9700萬點擊

Protestant ['pr?t?st?nt] n./adj.新教，新教徒，新教的

In the unthinking age, seeing is believing (823 words)

By Christopher Caldwell

It might be easier to do something about North Korea’s nuclear truculence if we could make head or tail of the cryptic videos it has been posting on the web. The latest shows a dreaming man, some Korean script and a video of rockets flying through space while fires burn in skyscrapers and a pianist plays “We Are the World” at dirge tempo. Is this a harmless fantasy? A thrown-down gauntlet? Should the west respond with a statement? Should it post a video of its own? It is hard to know. Our traditional media are being “replaced” by the internet. But the “information” coming out of the information economy is often hard to decipher, and composed for purposes that are hard to discern.

The film academic Stephen Apkon argues in The Age of the Image , published this week, that it is possible to speak of a new kind of literacy, one built on figuring out such non-verbal messages. At its humblest level, his book is about the “language” of film, but Mr Apkon has a larger philosophical point, too. Our culture is growing more global. While it still relies on words, they are increasingly wrapped up with images, and it is the images people remember. Elizabeth Daley, dean of the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts, believes writing today is like Latin on the eve of the Renaissance – the language of a scholarly establishment. YouTube clips and other visuals are the equivalent of vernacular Italian. They are the street language, and the medium for much new and creative thinking.

Images have always mattered in public arguments more than we admit. Few people cared that Richard Nixon won the 1960 presidential debates against John Kennedy, so unkempt did the Republican look. Mr Apkon quotes a neuroscientist who says people are so attuned to picking up subtle signals that they make decisions about whether they like or dislike politicians “immediately”. And unsubtle, non-verbal messages with a great emotional wallop can now be broadcast more widely. Video of the shooting of Neda Agha-Soltan, captured during June 2009 protests against irregular Iranian elections, spread round the world. In the gut-wrenching Kony 2012 video (100m views in six days), American activists sought to enlist the US military in a manhunt for a Ugandan warlord.

Eyesight is the most trusted sense, Mr Apkon notes, and that means we need to be careful with it. There is a standing danger that the public will grow so upset by images of mistreatment that it will demand the government send the army off to war. This is arguably what happened Somalia in 1992, with America’s poorly planned military response to the African country’s famine. In future, Mr Apkon says, we are likely to need “a combination of scepticism and incisiveness”, enabling citizens to “[critique] what is put in front of them with some level of sophistication”.

That is unlikely. When the passions provoked by visual imagery lead to the same conclusion as the logic of a verbal argument, people are generally comfortable coming to a decision. But when passion and logic are at odds, one of them must be favoured.

Until recently, it was the essence of statesmanship, scholarship and justice to purge strong emotion from our deliberations. Images today, though, are so plentiful and sharp that they dominate our thought processes. Although Mr Apkon relishes the immediacy of YouTube, he fears that political advertisers will soon be able to craft stories around “hidden mental hungers”, easily manipulating voters.

Citizens tend to think about voting in one of two ways. First, you base your vote on your identity. You are a farmer, so you choose the candidate best disposed towards farmers. The second theory is that you vote on arguments, independent of identity. You believe a sales tax should replace income tax, so you vote for the candidate who shares that opinion. But today’s image-based communication has little to do with identity or arguments. It has to do with the lowest-common-denominator traits that mark you as a human animal.

There is no obvious solution. Even if we acquire the scepticism Mr Apkon speaks of, certain institutions “go with” certain styles of perceiving, absorbing and interpreting information. You would not think that there was anything “Protestant” about the printing press. And yet the press seems to have been a prerequisite for Protestantism’s rise. Likewise, our own democracies, imperfect though they may be, are the culmination of the culture of the written word. Mr Apkon notes how Kennedy, in those 1960 debates, “tapped into a lever in the psyche more primal than mere facts”.

In retrospect, that was an ominous moment. Once you find that lever, isn’t democracy bound to lose a bit of its appeal, rather like a detective story in which you have been told the ending?

The writer is a senior editor at The Weekly Standard

請根據(jù)你所讀到的文章內(nèi)容，完成以下自測題目：

1.The three exemple of the 1960 presidential debates, the death of Neda Agha-Soltan, and KONY 2012, can imply what?

A. Images have always mattered in public arguments more than we admit.

B. Videos on political issues are the most popular among all.

C. Videos carrying messages with a great emotional wallop can attract attention.

D. Activists must use street language to appeal to the audience.

答案(1)

2.What does this mean?

“writing today is like Latin on the eve of the Renaissance – the language of a scholarly establishment”

A. That videos are like Italian that served as the street language.

B. That "a video is worth more than a thousand words".

C. That writing would be less popular among common people.

D. That writing would face extinction, just as Latin.

答案(2)

3.What does the writer think of the phenomenon of “seeing is believing”?

A. positive

B. negative

C. dangerous

D. useful

答案(3)

4.According to the author, what may "image-based communication" influence voter behavior？

A. People might vote on their identities.

B. People might vote on arguments, independent of identity.

C. People might vote on their “hidden mental hungers”.

D. People might vote on political advertisers who have better stories.

答案(4)

* * *

(1) 答案：A. Images have always mattered in public arguments more than we admit.

解釋：第三段中作者舉了這三個例子，A是本段的第一句話，是這段話試圖表達的。

(2) 答案：C.That writing would be less popular among common people.

解釋：幾個選項乍看都有道理，但是，這句話中有幾個元素：拉丁文、文藝復興前夜、學術(shù)語言。

AB并未解釋“前夜”意味著拉丁文“逐漸被邊緣化”這一含義。D忽略了“學術(shù)語言”，拉丁文并未滅亡，只是不再被大眾使用。

(3) 答案：B.negative

解釋：Apkon說，在未來，人們需要有懷疑精神，要能對眼前的東西有深刻一點的考慮。但作者說，That is unlikely。作者還說了，when passion and logic are at odds, one of them must be favoured.

(4) 答案：C.People might vote on their “hidden mental hungers”.

解釋：AB顯然是“讀圖時代”之前的選民行為。Apkon擔憂的是：新時代的基于圖像的宣傳，會代替選民的嚴肅思考，而政治廣告競相去搞能煽動人內(nèi)心深處的需要的東西（比如對正義的需要，讓“不轉(zhuǎn)不是中國人”這種轉(zhuǎn)發(fā)語頗有市場），從而操縱選民行為。