The proper response, according to Arnold, was repression, the reigning in of “right,” and the asserting of firmer control over public space, for “without order there can be no society; and without society there can be no human perfection” (Arnold 1993, 181, quoted in Williams 1997[1980], 6).
按照Arnold的说法,正确的应对方式应该是镇压,为权利而卫冕,对公共空间更加坚固的控制的主张来源于“没有秩序就没有社会,没有社会就没有人类的美好。”
Only with order can culture flourish, can cities be centers of civilization, Williams’s point in resurrecting the context of Arnold’s arguments about culture is important: those rights we take as “immemorial,” such as the right to assemble in and use public space, are not only relatively new, they are always hotly contested and only grudgingly given by those in power.
文化只有在秩序下才可以繁荣发展,城市才能成为文明的中心。Williams的观点在恢复Arnold有关文化重要性的背景下,如下:这些权利被当作“不朽的、固有的”,比如在公共场所集会和使用的权利并不是最近才有的,他们一直存在并仅仅在权力下存在。
Always hotly contested: rights over and to public space are never guaranteed once and for all. New struggles emerge, if not only over the right to vote then over the right to live a sane and peaceful life in the nuclear age, the right to control over government in totalitarian states, or, especially in the “postmodern” cities of the Western world, the right, in the absence of decent, affordable housing, simply to live. As Williams rightly proclaims: it will always be necessary to go again to Hyde Park.”
一直存在争议的是:有关使用公共空间的权利从未被保证过。新的争论开始,如果仅仅保证有投票权、生活在和平的年代,可以控制专制国家的政府,或者,西方世界里的后现代国家,公民可以在可负担的起房价的社会谋生,正如Williams所倡议道:有必要再次回到Hyde Park。
But, just as it is always necessary “to go again to Hyde Park”——for people to take control of public space in defiance of the order, control, and contempt imposed upon them in the name of vouchsafing the vested interests of the few-so too in response do there arise legions of Matthew Arnold imitators.
但再次回到Hyde Park的必要性体现在人们无视命令而试图控制公共空间,甚至在无视少数人的意志下强制执行,这表明了Matthew Arnold的追随者开始大量出现。
“Our own little Arnolds,” Williams called them, who claim they are promoting “excellence and humane values on the one hand; discipline and where necessary repression on the other.”
Williams称这些宣称为了提高人类的美好价值而需要进行必要的压制的人们为“Our own little Arnolds”。
It is not just spectacular protests, riots, or mass demonstrations that draw out these “little Arnolds.” In the contemporary United States, these “little Arnolds” have multiplied most rapidly around the perceived disordering of city streets that has come with the persistent growth of homelessness, with the growing numbers of the un- and underemployed, the mentally ill, and the drug-addicted who have no other recourse than to live their lives in full view of the urban pubic.
真正吸引“little Arnolds”的目光的并不是大规模的抵抗、游行、示威、混乱等。在当代世界里,“little Arnolds”有多种多样的在可达的无序的城市街道里并因为无家可归者、失业的人数、心理疾病的人数、吸毒的人数越来越多而稳定增长。这些人只能在城市空间内众目睽睽之下生活。
For the homeless “to go to Hyde Park” is often a matter of survival; for their detractors this “occupation” of public space by homeless people is seen as a clear affront to the order, dignity, and the civilization of the city.
对无家可归者而言,再次回到Hyde Park事关生存,对于他们的批评者而言,无家可归者占领的公共空间被视为对于城市中的秩序、尊严和文明的侮辱。