那些不堪回首的“网”事

2016-01-07JacobBrogan

新东方英语 2016年1期

Jacob+Brogan

人的记忆有限，这样的设定必然有其道理，毕竟有许多事我们不愿想起，宁愿它们随风而逝。然而，互联网的出现打破了这一默契，在帮助我们记录美好过往的同时，也将那些不堪回首的经历一并记录了下来。在搜索引擎不断进化的时代，一不小心，过去的自己可能就会出现在你的面前。这场毫无防备的邂逅带来的也许是甜蜜，但更多时候，则可能是尴尬、窘迫甚至麻烦。

My first week of grad school， a few of my new peers already knew me by my publication record. I wasnt a prodigy1）： My writing hadnt appeared in some prestigious scholarly journal. Instead， theyd Googled their way to an essay Id written almost a decade before， one in which I enthusiastically declared my love for playing Dungeons & Dragons2） in the young adult section of my local public library. （And no， Im not linking to it for you.）

I dont think theyd looked hard： It was easy to find at the time， a bright beacon of shame on the first page of my Google results. But imagine my embarrassment when I realized that this was their first impression of me. As future English professors， they read it with care， calling out adolescent quirks3） of word choice and syntax4） that I would have rather left behind. I never quite lived it down5）， if only because6） I imagined that my colleagues never forgot.

To be clear， though， Dungeons & Dragons itself wasnt the problem. I still play， I still love libraries， and I dont care who knows. To the contrary， it was my youthful sincerity that ate at7） me. Free of cynicism and guile， my prose read like the work of another writer. It marked me as a fraud， a wholly different creature from the urbane8） sophisticate I wanted so badly to be. Think of that moment when your parents insist on showing baby pictures to your latest partner. Even as they coo9）， you can feel your face flush， unable to reconcile this hapless10） earlier version of yourself with the mature facade youve long since erected. This is why the telltale11） traces of all our pasts sometimes fill us with shame， even when theyre not particularly shameful.

In the age of Google， intrusions of personal history into present reality have become more common—and more unpredictable—than ever before. Once upon a time， this mostly played out within families： Children paging through their parents yearbooks or siblings telling embarrassing stories about one another. But now， anyone can expose us to our earlier selves at any time. For me it was my long-since-forgotten adventures in the library. For you it might be a wild night on the town12）， a failed Ultimate Fighting13） career， or something else—anything else—that youd rather not recall. At the mercy of14） algorithms few of us understand， we live with pasts that are always on the verge of bubbling up anew. Evidence that we were once entirely different is never more than a few keystrokes15） away.

This is， of course， a different kind of shame than the sort we normally encounter online. In his much-discussed So Youve Been Publicly Shamed， Jon Ronson describes case after case in which individuals were exposed to widespread public ridicule， often for crimes16） they had considered harmless. He examines the example of Lindsey Stone17）， who received death threats after posting a photo from the Arlington National Cemetery that many considered disrespectful. And， of course， theres Justine Sacco18）， who destroyed her life when a single impolitic—and arguably racist—tweet went viral.

Singled out in every way， Ronsons subjects—and people like them—become the prisoners of others contempt. As Ive argued before， shame involves fragmentation. Its not just that were cut off from our communities， but that we are divided against ourselves19）. When， like Stone or Sacco， we do something shameful， that act comes to stand in20） for our whole person， and were brought low by the elevation of a single， isolated incident.

Today， the very structure of the Internet ensures that well stumble over the rubble of our pasts. Indeed， the more of our lives we document online， the more common such accidents will become. Unlike chronological social media timelines， the vagaries21） of search engine optimization leave us with a multiplicity of personal histories， all of them competing for primacy22）. Even when they speak faintly， they can tell compelling stories about us—whether or not anyone else is listening.

Over coffee， an acquaintance told me hed been a public social conservative during his college years， and that those beliefs had continued to haunt him long after his opinions had shifted to the left. More damning was his internship with a notoriously misogynistic23） senator， a fact that he now feels compelled to conceal. “I think people who see that must assume that Im some dyed-in-the-wool24） conservative，” he told me. Aware that new colleagues， prospective employers， and others may have come across this information， he constantly finds himself wondering whether he needs to overcompensate to prove that hes “not that person anymore.” This may be the quintessence25） of private shame， a knowledge that informs—and deforms—our behavior. Under its spell， we limit ourselves in response to the mere possibility that others might discover our old truths.

Many of those Ive spoken to tell me that theyve taken elaborate steps to escape their digital pasts. My formerly conservative friend explained that hes cautious about even revisiting embarrassing search results in private， fearful that he might inadvertently26） increase their page rank. Another friend， who was once profiled in a widely circulated article about a soft drink， has tried to pile numerous new results on top of old ones to keep people from thinking hes a doofus27）. （He asked me to be circumspect in telling his story， lest years of work go to waste.） While he wasnt really that humiliated by anything hed said in the interview， he worried that it would challenge the image he was trying to convey.

Similar fears animate right to be forgotten regulations in Europe—and campaigns for them elsewhere. Advocates of such laws claim that theyre not trying to get offending—or even embarrassing—content removed from the Internet altogether， just attempting to make it harder to find. As Mark Joseph Stern has argued， these demands nevertheless verge on28） censorship， which helps explain why Google is pushing back against them. Living in an open-access world means living with our histories.

Under ordinary circumstances， our pasts always shape present actions. But when they reappear without warning they do far more. Even in the most benign cases—like my Dungeons & Dragons essay—they can give the lie to29） our attempts at self-reinvention， suggesting that were playing roles rather than simply being. But when our ghosts are more malevolent30） they threaten to reshape every aspect of our lives. Where public shaming entails alienation from our communities， these smaller shames involve alienation from our selves. On the Internet， we are never far from becoming puppets of the people we were.

在我进入研究生院的第一周，几个新同事就已经通过我的发表记录了解了我。我不是天才，我的文章没有发表在什么知名的学术期刊上。事实上，他们是在谷歌上搜到了我在将近十年前写的一篇文章。在那篇文章中，我满腔热情地表达了我对在我们当地公共图书馆的青年区玩《龙与地下城》的热爱。（不，我是不会给你们发那篇文章的链接的。）

我想他们没费多大劲就看到了那篇文章：当时那篇文章很容易发现，就在关于我的谷歌搜索结果的首页，像一盏明亮的信号灯散发出羞愧的光。但当我意识到这就是他们对我的第一印象时，想想我有多尴尬吧。这些未来的英语教授们把文章读得那叫一个仔细，一边还大声吆喝着文中所用的那种青少年特有的怪异措辞，这些措辞我真想弃之脑后不再想起。我一直没有真正放下这件事，哪怕仅仅是因为想到我的同事们不会忘记。

不过，需要说明的是，问题并不在《龙与地下城》本身。我依然玩这款游戏，依然热爱图书馆，我并不在乎有谁知道。相反，令我烦恼的是我年少时的真诚。没有愤世嫉俗，也没有狡诈耍滑，那篇文章读起来就像是另一个人写的。它表明我是个冒牌货，是个与我一心想成为的斯文而老道的人全然不同的人。想想你的父母坚持把你婴儿时期的照片拿给你的新伴侣看的情景。即便他们低声细语，你仍然会感到脸红，无法将自己早年那副可怜相与你长久以来树立的成熟形象调和起来。这就是为什么暴露内情的往日痕迹有时会令我们满心羞愧，即便它们并没有什么特别可羞愧之处。

在谷歌时代，个人历史闯入当前现实的状况已经变得比以往任何时候都更加普遍，也更加难以预测。以前，这种情况主要是在家庭内部上演：孩子们翻看父母的毕业纪念册，或是兄弟姐妹之间互道对方的糗事。可是如今，任何人在任何时候都可以把我们昔日的模样摆在我们面前。就我而言，那是我早已忘记的在图书馆里的探险经历。对你来说，那也许是一个在城里寻欢作乐的不羁之夜，一段不成功的终极格斗职业生涯，或者别的什么你不愿想起的事—任何事。在没有多少人明白的演算规则的摆布下，我们得忍受随时可能再次冒出来的往事。只消敲几下键盘，就能找到我们曾经与现在截然不同的证据。

当然，这种羞愧感与我们通常在网络上遇到的情况不同。在引发热议的《你被当众羞辱了》一书中，作者乔恩·龙森讲述了个人遭受大众普遍奚落的一个个事例，事件的起因常常是他们做出了自以为无妨的不当之举。他剖析了琳赛·斯通的案例：斯通上传了一张在阿灵顿国家公墓内拍的照片，这张照片被许多人视为不敬，此后她收到了死亡威胁。当然，还有贾丝廷·萨科：在她发布的一条欠考虑的—也可以说是种族主义的—推文迅速传开后，她断送了自己的人生。

龙森的书中涉及的人物—以及像他们一样的人—在各个方面都被人区别对待，成了受困于他人的鄙视之中的囚徒。正如我以前论述过的，羞耻会带来分裂。我们不仅从所在的群体被隔绝开，我们的自我也会分裂。当我们像斯通或萨科那样做了不光彩的事，那一个行为就代替了我们整个人，抬高某个单一、孤立事件的重要性使我们的整体形象恶化。

当今，网络特有的结构注定了我们会因自己的过去而栽跟头。事实上，我们在网上记录的个人生活越多，这类事件就会变得越加普遍。与社交媒体上按照时间顺序排列的记录不同，难以捉摸的搜索引擎优化操作将各式各样的个人历史信息展现在我们面前，所有这些信息都在争夺最重要的位置。它们即使只发出微弱的声音，也能讲述一些与我们有关的吸引人的故事—无论是否有人听。

一个熟人在喝咖啡时告诉我，他在大学时代是个公开的社会保守派，在他的观点业已转左许久之后，过去的信仰仍令他困扰不已。更糟糕的是，他曾经在一位歧视女性出了名的参议员手下当过实习生，对于这一事实，他现在感到不得不加以隐瞒。他对我说：“我想，得知这件事的人一定会想当然地认为我是个十足的保守分子。”他知道新同事、潜在雇主和其他人可能已经偶然获悉了这一信息，因此一直困惑不安，不知是否需要做一些过度补偿的行为，以证明他“不再是从前那个人”了。这可能就是个人廉耻心的本质，一种指引—并扭曲——人们行为的认识。在它的“魔咒”下，仅仅是因为别人有可能发现我们过去的真相，我们就过得束手束脚。

许多和我交谈过的人告诉我，他们采取了精心设计的措施来逃脱个人的数字化历史。那位曾经观念保守的友人解释说，他甚至在私下里重新访问那些令他难堪的搜索结果时都非常谨慎，生怕会无意中提高它们的网页排名。还有一位朋友，曾在一篇广为流传的关于某软饮料的文章中露面，为了不让别人把他当成蠢货，他设法在先前的搜索结果之上添加了大量新的搜索结果。（他叮嘱我在讲到他的事时要谨慎些，以免他好几年的心血全都白费。）虽然他在采访中并没有说过什么特别让他感到丢脸的话，但他还是担心那会让他努力塑造的形象受到质疑。

类似的忧虑促进了欧洲关于被遗忘权的立法，其他一些地区也发起了推动这一立法的运动。呼吁制定这类法律的人宣称，他们并非试图把具有冒犯性—甚至令人尴尬——的内容从网上全部移除，只是想让这些内容更难被人发现。然而，正如马克·约瑟夫·斯特恩所言，这些要求近乎审查制度，这也就部分解释了为什么谷歌会对此发起反击。生活在一个可开放获取信息的世界就意味着与我们的历史共存。

通常情况下，我们的过去总是塑造我们今天的行为。然而，当它们毫无预警地再度浮现时，其影响远不止于此。即使在最没有伤害的情况下—例如我那篇关于《龙与地下城》的文章—它们也能使我们重塑自我的努力显得像个谎言，让人们觉得我们是在演戏而不是在做真实的自己。但是，当我们无法摆脱的往事带有更多恶意时，它们就可能会改变我们生活的各个方面。公开的羞辱使我们和群体疏远，而这些小的羞耻感使我们与自己疏离。在网络世界里，旧时的自己对我们的操控从来没有远离。

1. prodigy [?pr?d?d?i] n. 奇才，天才（尤指神童）

2. Dungeons & Dragons：《龙与地下城》，一款桌上角色扮演游戏，最初发行于1974年。

3. quirk [kw??（r）k] n. 古怪举动；怪癖

4. syntax [?s?nt?ks] n. [语]句法；语法；句子结构（分析）

5. live down：使人们忘记（错误、失败、恶名等）

6. if only because：即使仅仅因为

7. eat at：烦扰，困扰

8. urbane [??（r）?be?n] adj. 有礼貌的，彬彬有礼的；温文尔雅的

9. coo [ku?] vi. 柔情地说话，低语

10. hapless [?h?pl?s] adj. 运气不好的；不幸的

11. telltale [?tel?te?l] adj. 泄露秘密的，暴露内情的

12. on the town：在城里寻欢作乐