SHALL WE CHOOSE DEATH?
Bertrand Russell
December 30, 1954
I am speaking not as a Briton, not as a European, not as a member of a western democracy, but as a human being, a member of the species Man, whose continued existence is in doubt. The world is full of conflicts: Jews and Arabs; Indians and Pakistanis; white men and Negroes in Africa; and, overshadowing all minor conflicts, the titanic struggle between communism and anticommunism.
Almost everybody who is politically conscious has strong feelings about one or more of these issues; but I want you, if you can, to set aside such feelings for the moment and consider yourself only as a member of a biological species which has had a remarkable history and whose disappearance none of us can desire. I shall try to say no single word which should appeal to one group rather than to another. All, equally, are in peril, and, if the peril is understood, there is hope that they may collectively avert it. We have to learn to think in a new way. We have to learn to ask ourselves not what steps can be taken to give military victory to whatever group we prefer, for there no longer are such steps. The question we have to ask ourselves is: What steps can be taken to prevent a military contest of which the issue must be disastrous to all sides?
The general public, and even many men in positions of authority, have not realized what would be involved in a war with hydrogen bombs. The general public still thinks in terms of the obliteration of cities. It is understood that the new bombs are more powerful than the old and that, while one atomic bomb could obliterate Hiroshima, one hydrogen bomb could obliterate the largest cities such as London, New York, and Moscow. No doubt in a hydrogen-bomb war great cities would be obliterated. But this is one of the minor disasters that would have to be faced. If everybody in London, New York, and Moscow were exterminated, the world might, in the course of a few centuries, recover from the blow. But we now know, especially since the Bikini test, that hydrogen bombs can gradually spread destruction over a much wider area than had been supposed. It is stated on very good authority that a bomb can now be manufactured which will be 25,000 times as powerful as that which destroyed Hiroshima. Such a bomb, if exploded near the ground or under water, sends radioactive particles into the upper air. They sink gradually and reach the surface of the earth in the form of a deadly dust or rain. It was this dust which infected the Japanese fishermen and their catch of fish although they were outside what American experts believed to be the danger zone. No one knows how widely such lethal radioactive particles might be diffused, but the best authorities are unanimous in saying that a war with hydrogen bombs is quite likely to put an end to the human race. It is feared that if many hydrogen bombs are used there will be universal death - sudden only for a fortunate minority, but for the majority a slow torture of disease and disintegration...
Here, then, is the problem which I present to you, stark and dreadful and inescapable: Shall we put an end to the human race1 or shall mankind renounce war? People will not face this alternative because it is so difficult to abolish war. The abolition of war will demand distasteful limitations of national sovereignty. But what perhaps impedes understanding of the situation more than anything else is that the term "mankind" feels vague and abstract. People scarcely realize in imagination that the danger is to themselves and their children and their grandchildren, and not only to a dimly apprehended humanity" And so they hope that perhaps war may be allowed to continue provided modern weapons are prohibited. I am afraid this hope is illusory. Whatever agreements not to use hydrogen bombs had been reached in time of peace, they would no longer be considered binding in time of war, and both sides would set to work to manufacture hydrogen bombs as soon as war broke out, for if one side manufactured the bombs and the other did not, the side that manufactured them would inevitably be victorious...
As geological time is reckoned, Man has so far existed only for a very short period one million years at the most. What he has achieved, especially during the last 6,000 years, is something utterly new in the history of the Cosmos, so far at least as we are acquainted with it. For countless ages the sun rose and set, the moon waxed and waned, the stars shone in the night, but it was only with the coming of Man that these things were understood. In the great world of astronomy and in the little world of the atom, Man has unveiled secrets which might have been thought undiscoverable. In art and literature and religion, some men have shown a sublimity of feeling which makes the species worth preserving. Is all this to end in trivial horror because so few are able to think of Man rather than of this or that group of men? Is our race so destitute of wisdom, so incapable of impartial love, so blind even to the simplest dictates of self-preservation, that the last proof of its silly cleverness is to be the extermination of all life on our planet? - for it will be not only men who will perish, but also the animals, whom no one can accuse of communism or anticommunism.
I cannot believe that this is to be the end. I would have men forget their quarrels for a moment and reflect that, if they will allow themselves to survive, there is every reason to expect the triumphs of the future to exceed immeasurably the triumphs of the past. There lies before us, if we choose, continual progress in happiness, knowledge, and wisdom. Shall we, instead, choose death, because we cannot forget our quarrels? I appeal, as a human being to human beings: remember your humanity, and forget the rest. If you can do so, the way lies open to a new Paradise; if you cannot, nothing lies before you but universal death.
我們該選擇死亡嗎?
伯特蘭·羅素
1954年12月30日
我不是作為一個英國人、一個歐洲人、一個西方民主國家的一員，而是作為一個人，作為不知是否還能繼續生存下去的人類的一員在講演。世界充滿了爭鬥：猶太人和阿拉伯人;印度人和巴勒斯坦人;非洲的白人和黑人;以及使所有的小沖突都相形見絀的共產主義和反共產主義之間的大搏鬥。
差不多每個有政治意識的人都對這類問題懷有強烈的感受;但是我希望你們，如果你們能夠的話，把這份感受暫擱一邊，並把自己隻看作一種具有非凡歷史、誰也不希望它滅亡的生物的一員。可能會迎合一群人而冷落另一群人的詞語，我將努力一個字都不說。所有的人，不分彼此，都處在危險之中;如果大家都看到了這種危險，那麽就有希望聯合起來避開它。我們必須學習新的思想方法。我們必須學習不自問能採取什麽措施來使我們所喜歡的人群獲得軍事上的勝利，因為不再有這樣的措施。我們必須自問的問題是：能採取什麽措施來避免必然會給各方造成災難的軍事競賽?
普通民眾，甚至許多當權人士，不清楚一場氫彈戰所包含的會是什麽。普通民眾仍舊從城市的毀滅上思考問題。不言而喻，新炸彈比舊炸彈更具威力——一顆原彈能毀滅廣島，而一顆氫彈能毀滅像倫敦、紐約和菲斯科這樣的大都市。毫無疑問，一場氫彈戰將會毀滅大城市。但這隻是世界必須面對的小災難中的一個。假如化敦人、紐約人和莫斯科人都滅絕了，世界可能要經過幾個世紀才能從這場災難中恢復過來。而我們現在，尤其是從比基尼核試驗以來很清楚：氫彈能夠逐漸把破壞力擴散到一個比預料要廣大得多的地區。據非常權威的人士說，現在能夠製造出一種炸彈，其威力比毀滅廣島的炸彈大2.5萬倍。這種炸彈如果在近地或水下爆炸，會把放射性微粒送入高層大氣。這些微粒逐漸降落，呈有毒灰塵或毒雨的狀態到達地球表面。正是這種灰塵使日本漁民和他們所捕獲的魚受到了感染，盡管他們並不在美國專家所確認的危險區之內。沒有人知道這種致命的放射性微粒怎麽會傳播得這麽廣，但是這個領域的最高權威一致表示：一場氫彈戰差不多就是滅絕人類的代名詞。如果許多氫彈被使用，死神恐怕就會降臨全球——隻有少數幸運者才會突然死亡，大多數人卻須忍受疾病和解體的慢性折磨……
這裏，我要向你提起一個直率的、令人不快而又無法回避的問題：我們該消滅人類，還是人類該拋棄戰爭?人們不願面對這個抉擇，因為消滅戰爭太難了。消滅戰爭要求限製國家主權，這令人反感。然而“人類”這個專門名詞給人們的感覺是模糊、抽象的，它可能比任何其他東西都更容易妨礙認識這種情勢。人們幾乎沒有用自己的想象力去認識這種危險不僅指向他們所模模糊糊理解的人類，而且指向他們自己和他們的子子孫孫。于是他們相信隻要禁止使用現代武器，也許可以允許戰爭繼續下去。恐怕這個願望隻是幻想。任何不使用氫彈的協定是在和平時期達成的，在戰爭時期這種協定就被認為是沒有約束力的，一旦戰爭爆發，雙方就會著手製造氫彈，因為如果一方製造氫彈而另一方不造的話，造氫彈的一方必然會取勝……
按照地質年代來計算，人類到目前為止隻存在了一個極短的時期——最多100萬年。在至少就我們所了解的宇宙而言，人類在特別是最近6000年裏所達到的認識，在宇宙史上是一些全新的東西。太陽升升落落，月亮盈盈虧虧，夜空星光閃爍，無數歲月就這樣過去了，隻是到人類出現以後，這些才被理解。在天文學的巨觀世界和原子的微觀世界，人類揭示了原先可能認為無法提示的秘密。在藝術、文學和宗教領域裏，一些人顯示了一種崇高的感情，它使人們懂得人類是值得保全的。難道因為很少有人能考慮整個人類多于這個或那個人群，這一切就會在毫無價值的恐怖行動中結束嗎?人類是否如此缺少智慧，如此缺少無私的愛，如此盲目，甚至連自我儲存的最簡單命令都聽不見，以致要用滅絕地球上的所有生命來最後證明它那缺乏理智的小聰明?——因為不駐人會被消滅，而且動物也會被消滅，沒有人能指責它們是共產主義或反共產主義。
我無法相信結局會是這樣。人們如果想讓自己生存下去，他們就應暫時忘掉爭吵，進行反省，人們有千萬條理由期待未來的成就極大地超過以往的成就，如果讓我們選擇，那麽擂在我們面前的有幸福、知識和智慧的持續成長。我們能因為無法忘掉爭吵而舍此去選擇死亡嗎?作為一個人，我向所有的人呼吁：記住你們的人性，忘掉其餘的一切。如果你們能這樣做，通向一個新的天堂的路就暢通無阻;如果你們做不到這一點，擺在你們面前的就隻有全世界的毀滅。