黄油在烘焙中的作用:杰森?伯格：大萧条经验谈

杰森?伯格：大萧条经验谈

《赫芬顿邮报》文化版 （Culture | HuffingtonPost)  2011年10月7日讯

译者 seez_franco

"There are plenty of people who will write for free."

“瞧瞧，眼下到处都是拼命码字却得不到报酬的人。”

Jason Boog has heard this argument before. 

这种说法杰森?伯格早有耳闻。

"'Writers are complaining? There are more pressing issues in the world today."

“怎么，这点破事儿也值得作家们吐槽么？放眼世界，当前比这要紧的事儿多了去了。”

He's heard that one too. 

这是他听过的另一种说法。

"The publishing industry is scaling right back. Newspapers are disappearing. Stores are undercutting publishers' prices. Jobs are non-existent. New formats are slashing prices." 

“出版业一蹶不振，报纸淡出公众视野，出版价一降再降，工作岗位接连蒸发，新生代读物面世，老产品价格跳水。”

Boog is quoting arguments that were spoken not yesterday, or last year - but more than 80 years ago, during the Great Depression. This was a time when the publishing seemed to be about to collapse, yet writers believed in a new kind of industry, and helped to build it through organized dissent. 

伯格这段引言可不是最近才有的，倘若究其出处，那还得追溯到八十多年前的大萧条时期。那时的出版业几乎濒临崩溃，但作家们深信有一种新兴行业模式可以让一切峰回路转。于是，在他们有组织的抗议活动之下，这种新模式应运而生。

As he works on a new book exploring parallels between then and now, Boog is wondering if such moves could be possible today - and if writers could ever organize themselves in such a manner again.

当杰森?伯格专注于他考古问今的新作时，禁不住产生了这样的疑问：这类事在今天是否可行呢？作家们是否可以向当年那样自我组织起来呢？

He knows what he's talking about. As the editor of GalleyCat, probably the book industry's leading website for insider news and gossip, Jason has seen huge changes as they occurred across all aspects of publishing. 

这可不是痴人说梦。身为GalleyCat （出版界数一数二的网站，素以内幕新闻和八卦著称）的编辑，杰森见证了出版业方方面面的剧变。

"[I started] looking at this subject three years ago. The stock market was in free fall and the publishing industry was going through a lot of trials and tribulations. I found that in 1933, when the stock market hit rock bottom, magazine publishing, newspaper publishing and book publishing all were cut in half. Everything was scaled back and tons of writers were left out in the cold.

“三年前我便开始关注这个问题。那时候，股市一落千丈，出版业正面临重重考验和磨难。我发现当股市在1933年触底时，报刊、杂志和书籍的出版量也随之下降了一半。什么销量啦，售价啦，那些凡是跟出版业沾边的东西，几乎都在缩水，成千上万的作家被迫下岗，睡大街喝西北风的大有人在。”

"The book industry started to move towards paperbacks, a new development at that time, and people were very worried about prices. There was also a huge battle going on between publishers and department stores. Macy's were running books as loss leaders, to get people into the stores. We see that kind of thing happening with online book sales today."

“然而没过多久，美国出版行业便出台了新举措，开始推出平装本出版物。不过，人们依旧担心平装书定价过高。此外，出版商与销售商之间的利益战也愈演愈烈。梅西百货公司为了招来顾客甚至不惜削本贱卖书刊。如今的网上购书也是同一番景象。”

"And so the writers took to the streets. They were marching, picketing. There were fist fights with the police. They actively engaged with the world and forced people to pay attention to the fact that it was almost impossible to make a living. I think we can learn from that.

“于是，作家们终于忍无可忍了，他们涌上街头，发起抗议游行和罢工纠察，甚至还跟警方大打出手。他们四处奔波，争取舆论关注，目的就是要让人们认清现实——这日子实在没法儿过了。我觉得，这对我们颇有启发。”

While Boog admits that many aspects of today's crisis in publishing and writing are different from those of the 1930s, he still sees a possible route for how writers can force change. 

伯格坦言，写作与出版行业如今所面临的危机在许多方面与大萧条时期还是有差异的。尽管如此，他仍相信作家们能够以某种方式来改善当前的局面。

"I think that maybe we haven't endured a long enough recession yet to see this now, but in 1934, publishers went on strike, and authors were on the picket line. There were fist fights with the police. They didn't stop, they kept pressing and they made front-page headlines in the New York Times for weeks on end. 

“我想，就目前来看，我们的经济还不至于衰到足以发生这种事。但1934年的情况就大不相同了，出版商罢工，作家走上纠察线，甚至与警方发生肢体冲突。这种坚持不懈的抗议活动让他们在之后的几个星期中成为《纽约时报》的头版头条。”

图片来源：马里奥·安祖奥尼（Mario Anzuoni）/路透社

"Writers were actively engaged with the world and they forced people to pay attention to the fact that it was almost impossible to make a living."

“这些作家四处奔波，争取舆论关注，目的就是要让人们认清现实——这日子实在没法儿过了。”

图片来源：Filmpeek.com

Recently, as Boog himself reported on GalleyCat, The Writers Guild East of America joined the Occupy Wall Street march on behalf of its members. Perhaps this is the start of what Boog is hoping will become a writers' movement? Does a Federal Writers Project even make sense today, in a world of bloggers and tweeters?

近日， 根据伯格自己在GalleyCat上的报道，美国东岸编剧协会已代表其会员加入了占领华尔街抗议活动。这或许为一场轰轰烈烈的作家运动拉开了序幕，就如伯格所期望的那样。说到底，在当今这个博客和推特蔚然成风的世界里，曾经的联邦作家项目还能有什么作为呢？

Boog doesn't pretend to know the answers, but he hopes his book will help bring some of the issues to light in a new way. 

在这些事情上，伯格并未装作通晓一切，但他仍希望他的作品可以从全新的角度挖掘事情的真相。

"I'd like to reach out to writers, to everybody that's out there that feels like they're alone, and give them something to think about. Also I think there's a general audience should be thinking about these issues. What do we do with white collar unemployment? How do we put people back to work, how do we value ourselves in a digital economy?"

“我想走近那些作家、那些感到孤立无援的人，告诉他们一些东西，好让他们有所思考。同样的，即使是非文字工作者的普罗大众也应该好好想想这些问题。该如何应对白领失业？如何实现再就业？如何在数字经济这一大背景下评估自身价值？”

As for the near future - it doesn't look good.

就近期的发展势头来看，讨论如何解决这些问题为时尚早。

"I don't think things are going to get any easier for the next five to ten years. It's going to take a long time for standards of how much we pay for writing to become more unified, and for advertising to catch up with these new models. It's going to be a very long, hard slog for writers over the next few years."

“我不认为事情的局面会在今后的五年到十年内有所好转。我们到底要花多少钱来规范统一我们的文字作品？又要花多少钱为这些作品打广告做宣传？这些都有标准可循。不过，若要让这些标准适应新模式，我们还有很长的路要走。未来几年对作家来说将会是艰苦卓绝的漫漫征途。”