爲什麼90年代是最好的10年

BACK in the late 1980s, when I was a co-editor of Spy magazine, we published a cover story about the 1970s. Spy being Spy, it was a grand feast of love-hate celebration: “A Return to the Decade of Mood Rings, Ultrasuede, Sideburns and Disco Sex-Machine Tony Orlando.” One of its implicit premises was the silliness of the pandemic of American nostalgia, especially for a culturally dubious decade that had ended less than a decade earlier. Over the last half century, we Americans have come to create and consume automatically and continuously a kind of recent-past wistfulness.

20世紀80年代末，我還是《密探》(Spy)雜誌的主編之一，我們發表了一期關於70年代的封面故事。《密探》就是《密探》，這是一個愛恨交織的慶典與精彩的盛宴：“回到情緒戒指、麂皮絨、連鬢鬍子和迪斯科性感機器託尼·奧蘭多(Tony Orlando)的十年裏。”其中一個暗含的前提是美式懷舊蔓延的愚蠢，特別是對於一個文化上非常模糊的十年的懷舊，而它的終結甚至還不到十年。在上個世紀的下半葉，我們美國人無意識地創造與消費着對“不久前的過去”的悵惘之中，並且持續不斷地處於這種狀態。

But what about the 1990s? Nostalgia for the era in which you were young is almost inevitable, so people born between 1970 and 1990 feel a natural fetishistic fondness for that decade. But even for the rest of us, the ’90s provoke a unique species of recherche du temps perdu, not mere bittersweet reveling in the passage of time. No, looking back at the final 10 years of the 20th century is grounds for genuine mourning: It was simply the happiest decade of our American lifetimes.

但90年代又怎樣呢？對自己年輕時代的懷舊是不可避免的，所以生於1970年到1990年的人肯定會對這十年產生一種盲目的天然親切之感。但是即便對於我們其他人來說，90年代也能喚起一種獨特的“追憶似水年華”之感，這不僅僅是對時光流逝的苦甜參半的回憶。不，回溯20世紀的最後十年是一種真正的哀悼：那是我們美國人生活中最快樂的十年。

This isn’t (mainly) fogeyishness on my part. No. It is empirically, objectively, broadly true. I am not now nor have I ever been a Clintonite, but when Jeb Bush reportedly said a few weeks ago, apropos of 2016 and the probable Democratic presidential nominee, that “if someone wants to run a campaign about ’90s nostalgia, it’s not going to be very successful,” I think he was being wishful.

這並不（主要）是出於我個人的守舊。不，這是有事實根據的，是客觀的、普適的真相。我從來不是克林頓的擁躉，現在也不是，但當傑布·布什(Jeb Bush)幾個星期之前說起2016年，以及可能的民主黨總統候選人時，他說“如果有人能夠發起關於90年代懷舊的政治宣傳，肯定不會成功”，我覺得他過於一廂情願了。

Let’s begin with the quantifiable bits. America at large was prospering in the ’90s. The United States economy grew by an average of 4 percent per year between 1992 and 1999. (Since 2001, it’s never grown by as much as 4 percent, and since 2005 not even by 3 percent for a whole year.) An average of 1.7 million jobs a year were added to the American work force, versus around 850,000 a year during this century so far. The unemployment rate dropped from nearly 8 percent in 1992 to 4 percent — that is, effectively zero — at the end of the decade. Plus, if you were a man and worked in an office, starting in the ’90s you could get away with never wearing a necktie.

我們還是從量化的數據開始吧。在90年代，美國從總體而言非常繁榮。從1992年到1999年，美國經濟平均每年增長4%（從2001年起就再也沒有超過4%；從2005年起，全年增長率就再也沒有超過3%）。每年平均增加170萬個就業機會，本世紀以來，平均每年約增長85萬個就業機會。到90年代末，失業率從1992年的8%降低到4%（這事實上等於零）。此外，如果你是做文職工作的男性，從90年代開始，你就可以不用西裝革履地去上班了。

From 1990 to 1999, the median American household income grew by 10 percent; since 2000 it’s shrunk by nearly 9 percent. The poverty rate peaked at over 15 percent in 1993, then fell to nearly 11 percent in 2000, more or less its postwar low. During the ’90s, stocks quadrupled in value — the Dow Jones industrial average increased by 309 percent. You could still buy a beautiful Brooklyn townhouse for $500,000 or less. And so on.

從1990年到1999年，美國家庭收入的中位數增長了10%；自從2000年以來，降低了約9%。貧困率在1993年達到最高，超過15%，到2000年下降到接近11%，近乎“二戰”後的最低點。在90年代，股價翻了四倍，道瓊斯工業平均指數增長了309%。你仍然可以用50萬美元乃至更少的錢就買下一棟漂亮的布魯克林聯排別墅。等等。

By the end of the decade, in fact, there was so much good news — a federal budget surplus, dramatic reductions in violent crime (the murder rate in the United States declined by 41 percent) and in deaths from H.I.V./AIDS — that each astounding new achievement didn’t quite register as miraculous. After all, the decade had begun with a fantastically joyful and previously unimaginable development: The Soviet empire collapsed, global nuclear Armageddon ceased to be a thing that worried anyone very much, and the nations of Eastern Europe were mostly unchained.

到90年代末，事實上，有那麼多的好消息——聯邦預算出現剩餘、暴力犯罪大幅度減少（美國的謀殺率降低了41%），HIV/艾滋死亡率也大幅度減少——這些驚人的新成就在當時併爲被視爲奇蹟。畢竟，這十年剛一開始，就發生了一個令人快樂而又難以置信的成就——蘇聯帝國解體，人們不再爲全球核末日而擔憂，東歐國家也大都獲得瞭解放。

A tide of progress and good sense seemed to be sweeping the whole world. According to the annual count by Freedom House, the tally of the world’s free countries climbed from 65 at the beginning of the decade to 85 at the end. Since then, the total number of certified-free countries has increased by only four.

進步與善意的大潮似乎席捲了整個世界。根據“自由之家”(Freedom House)組織的年度統計，90年代初，全世界共有65個自由國家，到了90年代末，變成了85個。自那以後，被承認的自由國家只增加了四個。

Between 1990 and 1994 South Africa dismantled apartheid surprisingly peacefully. With the Oslo Accords, Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization had come together at last to negotiate a framework for coexistence and eventual peace. The civil wars in the former Yugoslavia ended and an enduring peace was restored. China became normal, reforming its economy, tripling its gross domestic product and easing its way into the world order.

從1990年到1994年，南非以驚人的和平方式廢除了種族隔離制度。根據奧斯陸協議，以色列與巴勒斯坦解放組織終於走到一起，談判共存與持久和平的框架。前南斯拉夫國家的內戰結束了，持久的和平得以恢復。中國成了正常國家，開始進行經濟改革，國內生產總值翻了三倍，開始融入世界秩序。

During the ’90s, the only American-led war in the Middle East was the one that drove Saddam Hussein’s invading army out of Kuwait with a ground campaign that lasted a mere 100 hours.

在90年代，美國在中東的唯一一場戰爭是派遣地面部隊，把薩達姆·侯賽因(Saddam Hussein)的侵略軍趕出科威特，戰爭僅僅持續了100個小時。

Peace, prosperity, order — and American culture was vibrant and healthy as well. There were both shockingly excellent versions of what had come before and distinctly new, original forms. Wasn’t the release of Nirvana’s “Nevermind,” in 1991, pretty much the last time a new rock ’n’ roll band truly, deeply mattered, the way rock ’n’ roll did in the ’60s and ’70s? Wasn’t hip-hop, which achieved its mass-market breakthrough and dominance in the ’90s, the last genuinely new and consequential invention of American pop culture?

和平、繁榮與秩序——美國文化也同樣健康活躍。文化中既有承襲自過去的東西，也有嶄新的原創形式，二者都很精彩。1991年，“涅槃”(Nirvana)發行了《別在意》(Nevermind)， 一支新的搖滾樂隊能像六七十年代的搖滾樂那樣，產生真正深遠的影響，這難道不是最後一次嗎？嘻哈樂在大衆市場獲得突破，主宰了90年代，這難道不是美國流行文化中最後一次產生真正新穎而重大的創新嗎？

What is the most remarkably successful literary creation of the last several decades? The Harry Potter novels, the first three of which appeared in the ’90s. Supertalented literary youngsters appeared — David Foster Wallace (“Infinite Jest”), Donna Tartt (“The Secret History”), Jonathan Lethem (“Motherless Brooklyn”) and Dave Eggers (McSweeney’s). And supertalented literary geezers — Philip Roth (“American Pastoral”), John Updike (“Rabbit at Rest”), Alice Munro (“The Love of a Good Woman”), Don DeLillo (“Underworld”) — produced some of their best and most successful work as well.

說說過去十幾年來最成功的文學創作？哈利·波特(Harry Potter)系列小說的前三部都是在90年代出版的。那十年間，天才文學新星開始出現：寫出了《無盡的玩笑》(Infinite Jest)的大衛·福斯特·華萊士(David Foster Wallace)、寫出《祕史》(The Secret History)的唐娜·塔特(Donna Tartt)、寫出《布魯克林孤兒》(Motherless Brooklyn)的喬納森·勒瑟姆(Jonathan Lethem)和寫出《麥克斯維尼》(McSweeney’s)的戴夫·艾格斯(Dave Eggers)。此外還有那些天才的老人家們——菲利普·羅斯(Philip Roth)寫出了《美國牧歌》(American Pastoral)、約翰·厄普代克(John Updike)寫出了《兔子歇了》(Rabbit at Rest)、愛麗絲·門羅(Alice Munro)寫出了《好女人的愛》(The Love of a Good Woman)，唐·德里羅(Don Delillo)寫出了《地下》(Underworld)——他們都獻上了最精彩、最成功的作品。

The quality of television radically improved. “Seinfeld” and “The Simpsons” had their premieres in 1989, and in the ’90s they blew up, along with “Friends” and “NYPD Blue” — all of them broadcast network series, none of them reality shows. HBO, before the ’90s a channel for movies, boxing and soft-core porn, decided to swing for the fences. First with “The Larry Sanders Show” and then with “The Sopranos,” it proved that episodic television could accommodate major ambition and actual brilliance, ushering in an enduring new (cable) TV era.

電視節目的質量急劇上升。《宋飛傳》(Seinfeld)和《辛普森一家》(The Simpsons)都於1989年首次亮相，在90年代興盛一時，之後是《老友記》(Friends)和《紐約重案組》(NYPD Blue)——它們都是公共臺電視劇，都不是真人秀。HBO臺在90年代之前是個專放電影、拳擊和軟色情的頻道，90年代，它決定轉型。先是製作了《拉里·桑德斯秀》(The Larry Sanders Show)，之後又有了《黑道家族》(The Sopranos)，這部劇集證明電視劇也可以承載遠大的抱負，成爲真正精彩的節目，從而引領了一個長盛不衰的（有線）電視新時代。

In feature films, it was the decade of “Pulp Fiction” and the indie movement, thanks to which idiosyncratic, more-commercial-than-art-house masterpieces like those by Wes Anderson, Alexander Payne and Richard Linklater became plausible. It was also the decade in which traditional Disney animation came back from the dead and in which Pixar, with the first two “Toy Story” movies, reinvented the form magnificently.

在電影界，這是屬於《低俗小說》(Pulp Fiction)與獨立運動(indie movement)的十年，韋斯·安德森(Wes Anderson)、亞歷山大·佩恩(Alexander Payne)與理查德·林特萊克(Richard Linklater)拍攝的那些怪異而又有商業氣質，不那麼孤芳自賞的傑作開始爲大衆所見。這十年裏，傳統迪斯尼動畫起死回生，皮克斯也帶來了《玩具總動員》(Toy Story)系列的前兩部，革新了動畫片這種形式。

THE digital age, of course, got fully underway in the ’90s. At the beginning of the decade almost none of us had heard of the web, and we didn’t have browsers, search engines, digital cellphone networks, fully 3-D games or affordable and powerful laptops. By the end of the decade we had them all. Steve Jobs returned to Apple and conjured its rebirth.

當然，90年代，數碼時代也在醞釀之中。在90年代初，我們大家幾乎都沒有聽說過互聯網，我們也沒有瀏覽器、搜索引擎、數字手機系統、3-D遊戲或便宜好用的筆記本電腦。到90年代末，這一切全都成了現實。史蒂夫·喬布斯(Steve Jobs)迴歸蘋果公司，令它獲得新生。

And it was just the right amount of technology. By the end of the decade we all had cellphones, but not smartphones; we were not overconnected or tyrannized by our devices. Social media had not yet made social life both manically nonstop and attenuated. The digital revolution hadn’t brutally “disrupted” whole economic sectors and made their work forces permanently insecure. Recorded music sales nearly doubled during the decade. Newspapers and magazines were thriving. Even Y2K, our terrifying end-of-the-millennium technological comeuppance, was a nonevent.

而且這些都是適度的技術。90年代末，我們都有了手機，但還不是智能手機；我們還沒有被設備過度連接，或者受到技術的控制。社交媒體還沒有令社交生活變得病態般無休無止，一方面又弱化了社交生活。數碼革命還沒有粗暴地“瓦解”整體經濟環節，令它們的工作變得再也不那麼安全。90年代，音樂唱片的銷量幾乎增加了一倍。報紙和雜誌也繁榮昌盛。就連可怕的千禧年技術危機——千年蟲——到最後都根本不成問題。

Indeed, the ’90s were a decade of catastrophes that didn’t happen. The Clinton tax increases did not trigger a recession. Welfare reform did not ravage the poor. Compared with Sandy, every hurricane that touched New York — Bob! Bertha! Danny! Dennis! Floyd! — was a dud.

事實上，90年代裏根本沒有發生任何大災難。克林頓政府的增稅並沒有引發衰退。福利改革沒有掠奪窮人。與桑迪颶風相比，那時候經過紐約的那些颶風——鮑勃！伯莎！丹尼！丹尼斯！弗洛伊德！——全都是小菜一碟。

Were there real problems in the ’90s? Of course. But they weren’t obvious, so ... we were blissfully ignorant! Almost none of us were suitably alarmed by carbon emissions and the warming planet. According to a 1995 article in this newspaper about climate change, “most scientists say the amount of warming so far, about one degree Fahrenheit in the last century, is still too small to be distinguished from the climate system’s natural fluctuations.” So why worry?

90年代有什麼真正的問題嗎？當然有，但它們並不是那麼明顯，所以……我們真是處於有福的無知之中！我們都沒有充分意識到碳排放與全球變暖問題。《紐約時報》1995年的一篇文章中談到氣候變化，“全球氣溫與上個世紀相比提高了一華氏度，大多數科學家認爲，考慮到氣候系統的自然波動，這個變化並不大。”所以我們幹嘛還要擔心？

When the House and Senate passed by overwhelming bipartisan majorities and President Clinton signed the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999, doing away with the firewalls between investment banks and commercial banks, the change seemed inevitable, sensible, modern — not a precursor of the 2008 Wall Street crash. When a jihadist truck bomb detonated in the parking garage below the north tower of the World Trade Center in 1993, we were alarmed only briefly, figuring it for a crazy one-off rather than a first strike in a long struggle.

1999年，參衆兩院以兩黨多數通過了金融服務業現代化法案，並由克林頓總統簽署生效，撤銷了投資銀行與商業銀行之間的防火牆，在當時，這個改變看來不可避免，是明智而現代化的——而不是2008年華爾街金融危機的前奏。1993年一個伊斯蘭聖戰者用卡車炸彈引爆了世貿中心北塔的停車場，我們只是短暫擔心了一陣，覺得這是瘋狂的一次性行爲，而不是長期戰鬥的開端。

Americans have never much liked paying attention to foreign countries and their problems (see Rwanda, 1994), so the decade between the end of the Cold War and the beginning of the war on terror was very much our cup of tea.

美國人從來不喜歡關注外國和外國人的問題（看看1994年的盧旺達吧），所以從冷戰結束後到與恐怖主義作戰之間的這十年正是最合我們的口味的那杯茶。

No: I mean our cup of coffee. You can’t talk about the ’90s without talking about the sudden availability of excellent coffee — espresso in Idaho! — all over America. This was thanks to Starbucks, of course, which went from nearly 100 outlets in the United States at the start of the decade to 2,000 at the end. But as it goes with so many good things in America — easier credit and financial innovation and electronic connection and all the rest — that just wasn’t enough.

不對，我是說，它是最合我們口味的那杯咖啡。談到90年代，不說那些突然出現的好咖啡怎麼行——愛達荷特濃咖啡——一下子遍及全美。當然，這要感謝星巴克，90年代初，它在全美只有100家分店，到90年代末就變成了2000家。但當時美國還有那麼多的好東西——放鬆信貸與金融創新，還有電子通訊等等等——這麼多家星巴克還遠遠不夠。

Today there are more than 13,000 Starbucks in the United States. And each of them, to my eye, looks exactly as it did when the rollout began — 13,000 ubiquitous and faintly melancholic time-capsule museums of the last best American decade.

如今美國有13000多家星巴克點。在我看來，每一家都和它最初的樣子差不多——13000個無處不在、略帶憂鬱的時光膠囊博物館，封存着上一個美國的黃金十年的樣子。