作者名称 国旗国籍

Shamus

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2021.01.06 11:33

Excerpt from Kusamakura by Natsume Soseki.

We are being dragged

yet deeper into the real world, which I define as the world that contains trains. Nothing can be more quintessentially representative of twentieth-century civilization than the steam train. It roars along, packed tight with hundreds of people in the one box, merciless in its progress, and all those hundreds crammed in there must travel at the same speed, stop at the same places, and submit to a baptismal submersion in the same swirling steam. Some say that people “ride” in a train, but I would say they are thrust into it; some speak of “going” by train, but it seems to me they are transported by it. Nothing is more disdainful of individuality. Having expended all its means to develop the individual, civilization then proceeds to crush it by all possible means.
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Comments

  • Shamus 2021.01.06 11:34

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    CN

    Present civilization gives each person his little patch of earth and tells him he may wake and sleep as he pleases on it—but then it throws up an iron railing around it, and threatens us with dire consequences if we should put a foot outside this barrier. Those who can act as they please in their own little patch naturally feel the urge to do the same beyond it, so the pitiful citizens of this world spend their days biting and raging at the boundary fence that hems them in. Civilization, having given individuals their freedom and turned them into wild beasts thereby, then maintains the peace by throwing these unfortunates behind bars. This isn’t real peace, it’s the peace of the zoo, where the tiger lies in his cage glaring out at the gaping sightseers. Should one bar of that cage come loose, the world would fall apart.
  • Shamus 2021.01.06 11:39

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    CN

    I must say, whenever I see one of those fierce trains hurtling along, treating all on board indiscriminately as so much freight, and mentally balance the individuals crammed in there against the train’s utter disregard for their individuality—I can only say, Watch out, this could be nasty if you’re not careful! Modern civilization in fact reeks of such dangers. The steam train hurtling blindly into the darkness ahead is simply one of them.
  • malvina ॐ 2021.01.07 06:05

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    EN

    💖

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