高级英语Lesson-6-(Book-2)-Disappearing-Through-the-Skylight-课文翻译

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Lesson 6 Disappearing Through the SkylightOsborne Bennet Hardison Jr.1 Science is committed to the universal. A sign of this is that the more successful a science becomes, the broader the agreement about its basic concepts: there is not a separate Chinese or American or Soviet thermodynamics, for example; there is simply thermodynamics. For several decades of the twentieth century there was a Western and a Soviet genetics, the latter associated with Lysenko's theory that environmental stress can produce genetic mutations. Today Lysenko's theory is discredited, and there is now only one genetics.2 As the corollary of science, technology also exhibits the universalizing tendency. This is why the spread of technology makes the world look ever more homogeneous. Architectural styles, dress styles, musical styles--even eating styles--tend increasingly to be world styles. The world looks more homogeneous because it is more homogeneous. Children who grow up in this world therefore experience it as a sameness rather than a diversity, and because their identities are shaped by this sameness, their sense of differences among cultures and individuals diminishes. As buildings become more alike, the people who inhabit the buildings become more alike. The result is described precisely in a phrase that is already familiar: the disappearance of history.3 The automobile illustrates the Point With great clarity. A technological innovation like streamlining or all-welded body construction may be rejected initially, but if it is important to the efficiency or economics of automobiles, it will reappear in different ways until it is not only accepted but universally regarded as an asset. Today's automobile is no longer unique to a given company or even to a given national culture, its basic features are found, with variations, in automobiles in general, no matter who makes them.4 A few years ago the Ford Motor Company came up with the Fiesta, which it called the "World Car." Advertisements showed it surrounded by the flags of all nations. Ford explained that the cylinder block was made in England, the carburetor in Ireland, the transmission in France, the wheels in Belgium, and so forth.5 The Fiesta appears to have sunk Without a trace. But the idea of a world car was inevitable. It was the automotive equivalent of the International Style. Ten years after the Fiesta, all of the large automakers were international. Americans had Plantsin Europe, Asia, and South America, and Europeans and Japanese had plants in America and South America, and in the Soviet Union Fiat Fiat (= Fabbrica Italiana Automobile Torino ) workers refreshed themselves with Pepsi-Cola). In the fullness of time international automakers will have plants in Egypt and India and the People's Republic of China.6 As in architecture, so in automaking. In a given cost range, the same technology tends to produce the same solutions. The visual evidence for this is as obvious for cars as for buildings. Today, if you choose models in the same price range, you will be hard put at 500 paces to tell one makefrom another. In other words, the specifically American traits that lingered in American automobiles in the 1960s--traits that linked American cars to American history--are disappearing. Even the Volkswagen Beetle has disappeared and has taken with it the visible evidence of the history of streamlining that extends from D'Arcy Thompson to Carl Breer to Ferdinand Porsche.7 If man creates machines, machines in turn shape their creators. As the automobile is universalized, it universalizes those who use it. Like the World Car he drives, modern man is becoming universal. No longer quite an individual, no longer quite the product of a unique geography and culture, he moves from one climate-controlled shopping mall to another, from one airport to the next, from one Holiday Inn to its successor three hundred miles down the road; but somehow his location never changes. He is cosmopolitan. The price he pays is that he no longer has a home in the traditional sense of the word. The benefit is that he begins to suspect home in the traditional sense is another name for limitations, and that home in the modern sense is everywhere and always surrounded by neighbors.8 The universalizing imperative of technology is irresistible. Barring the catastrophe of nuclear war, it will continue to shape both modern culture and the consciousness of those who inhabit that culture.9 This brings us to art and history again. Reminiscing on the early work of Francis Picabia and Marcel Duchamp, Madame Gabrielle Buffet-Picabia wrote of the discovery of the machine aesthetic in 1949:"I remember a time ... when every artist thought he owed it to himself to turn his back on the Eiffel Tower, as a protest against the architectural blasphemy with which it filled the sky.... The discovery and rehabilitation of ... machines soon generated propositions which evaded all tradition, above all, a mobile, extra human plasticit y which was absolutely new....”10 Art is, in one definition, simply an effort to name the real world. Are machines "the real world" or only its surface? Is the real world that easy to find? Science has shown the in substantiality of the world. It has thus undermined an article of faith: the thingliness of things. At the same time, it has produced images of orders of reality underlying the thingliness of things. Are images of cells or of molecules or of galaxies more or less real than images of machines? Science has also produced images that are pure artifacts. Are images of self-squared dragons more or less real than images of molecules?11 The skepticism of modern science about the thingliness of things implies a new appreciation of the humanity of art entirely consistent with Kandinsky's observation in On the Spiritual in Art that beautiful art "springs from inner need, which springs from the soul." Modern art opens on a world whose reality is not "out there" in nature defined as things seen from a middle distance but "in here" in the soul or the mind. It is a world radically emptied of history because it is a form of perception rather than a content.12 The disappearance of history is thus a liberation--what Madame Buffet-Picabia refers to as the discovery of "a mobile extra-human plasticity which [is] absolutely new." Like science, modern art often expresses this feeling of liberation through play--in painting in the playfulness of Picasso and Joan Miro and in poetry in the nonsense of Dada and the mock heroics of a poem like Wallace Stevens's "The Comedian as the Letter C."13 The playfulness of the modern aesthetic is, finally, its most striking--and also its most serious and, by corollary, its most disturbing--feature. The playfulness imitates the playfulness of science that produces game theory and virtual particles and black holes and that, by introducing human growth genes into cows, forces students of ethics to reexamine the definition of cannibalism. The importance of play in the modern aesthetic should not come as a surprise. It is announced in every city in the developed world by the fantastic and playful buildings of postmodernism and neo-modernism and by the fantastic juxtapositions of architectural styles that typify collage city and urban adhocism.14 Today modern culture includes the geometries of the International Style, the fantasies of facadism, and the gamesmanship of theme parks and museum villages . It pretends at times to be static but it is really dynamic. Its buildings move and sway and reflect dreamy visions of everything that is going on around them. It surrounds itscitizens with the linear sculpture of pipelines and interstate highways and high-tension lines and the delicate virtuosities of the surfaces of the Chrysler Airflow and the Boeing 747 and the lacy weavings of circuits etched on silicon, as well as with the brutal assertiveness of oil tankers and bulldozers and the Tinkertoy complications of trusses and geodesic domes and lunar landers. It abounds in images and sounds and values utterly different from those of the world of natural things seen from a middle distance.15 It is a human world, but one that is human in ways no one expected. The image it reveals is not the worn and battered face that stares from Leonardo's self-portrait much less the one that stares, bleary and uninspired, every morning from the bathroom mirror. These are the faces of history. It is, rather, the image of an eternally playful and eternally youthful power that makes order whether order is there or not and that having made one order is quite capable of putting it aside and creating an entirely different or the way a child might build one structure from a set of blocks and then without malice and purely in the spirit of play demolish it and begin again. It is an image of the power that made humanity possible in the first place.16 The banks of the nineteenth century tended to be neoclassic structures of marble or granite faced with ponderous rows of columns. They made a statement" "We are solid. We are permanent. We are as reliable as history. Your money is safe in our vaults."17 Today's banks are airy structures of steel and glass, or they are store-fronts with slot-machinelike terminals, or trailers parked on the lots of suburban shopping malls.18 The vaults have been replaced by magnetic tapes. In a computer, money is sequences of digital signals endlessly recorded, erased, processed, and reprocessed, and endlessly modified by other computers. The statement of modern banks is "We are abstract like art and almost invisible like the Crystal Palace. If we exist at all, we exist as an airy medium in which your transactions are completed and your wealth increased."19 That, perhaps, establishes the logical limit of the modern aesthetic. If so, the limit is a long way ahead, but it can be made out, just barely, through the haze over the road. As surely as nature is being swallowed up by the mind, the banks, you might say, are disappearing through their own skylights.(from Disappearing Through The Skylight )--------------------------------------------------------------------NOTES1. Hardison: Osborne Bennet Hardison Jr. was born in San Diego, California in 1928. He was educated at the University of North Carolina and the University of Wisconsin. He has taught at Princeton and the University of North Carolina. He is the author of Lyrics and Elegies (1958), The Enduring Monument (1962), English Literary Criticism: The Renaissance(1964), Toward Freedom and Dignity: The Humanities and the Idea of Humanity(1973), Entering the Maze: Identity and Change in Modern Culture (1981) and Disappearing Through the Skylight (1980).2. Ford Motor Company: one of the largest car manufacturing companies of America3. International Style: as its name indicates, an architectural style easily reproduced and accepted by countries throughout the world. These structures use simple geometric forms of straight lines, squares, rectangles, etc., in their designs. It is often criticized as a rubber-stamp method of design. These structures are meant to be simple, practical and cost-effective.4. Fiat: the biggest Italian car manufacturing company. Fiat is an acronym of the Italian name, Fabbrica Italiana Automobile Torina.5. Pepsi-Cola: a brand name of an American soft drink. It is a strong competitor of another well-known American soft drink, Coca-Cola.6. Volkswagen Beetle: model name of a car designed and manufactured by the German car manufacturing company, Volkswagen7.D'Arcy Thompson: D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson (1860-1948) placed biology on a mathematical foundation. In his book On Growth and Form. Thompson invented the term Airflow to describe the curvature imposed by water on the body of a fish, The airflow or streamling influenced the future designing of cars and airplanes to increase their speed and reduce air friction.8. Carl Breer: auto-designer, who designed the Chrysler Airflow of 1934.9. Ferdinand Porshe: auto-designer of the original Volkswagen10. Holiday Inn: name adopted by a hotel chain11. Picabia: Francis Picabia (1878-1953). French painter. After working in an impressionist style, Picabia was influenced by Cubism and later was one of the original exponents of Dada in Europe and the United States.12.Duchamp: Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968), French painter. Duchamp is noted for his cubist-futurist painting Nude Descending a Staircase, depicting continuous action with a series of overlapping figures. In 1915 he was a cofounder of a Dada group in New York.13. Madame Gabrille Buffet-Picabia: perhaps wife of Francis Picabia14. Eiffel Tower: a tower of iron framework in Paris, designed by A.G. Eiffel and erected in the Champ-de-Mars for the Paris exposition of 188915. self-squared dragons: a picture of a four-dimensional dragon produced by computer technique16. Kandinsky: Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944), Russian abstract painter and theorist. He is usually regarded as the originator of abstract art. In 1910 he wrote an important theoretical study, Concerning the Spiritual in Art.17. Picasso: Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), Spanish painter and sculptor, who worked in France. His landmark painting Guernica is an impassioned allegorical condemnation of facism and war.18. Miro: Joan Miro (1893-1983), Spanish surrealist painter. After studying in Barcelona, Miro went to Paris in 1919. In the 1920s he came into contact with cubism and surrealism. His work has been characterized as psychic automatism, an expression of the subconscious in free form.19. Dada: a movement in art and literature based on deliberate irrationality and negation of traditional artistic values; also the art and literature produced by this movement20. Stevens: Wallace Stevens (1879-1955), American poet, educated at Harvard and the New York University Law School. A master of exquisite verse, Stevens was specifically concerned with creating some shape of order in the "slovenly wilderness" of chaos.21. game theory: a mathematical theory of transactions developed by John Von Neumann. He called this theory, which has important applications in economic, diplomacy, and national defense, "game theory". Even though they are serious, however, the games are often so intricate and their rules so strange that the game becomes overtly playful.22. virtual particles: particles that serve all practical purposes though they do not exist in reality23. black hole: A star in the last phases of gravitational collapse is often referred to asa "black hole". Even light cannot escape the black hole but is turned back by the enormous pull of gravitation. Therefore it can never be observed directly.24. lunar lander: a vehicle designed to land on the surface of the moon25. collage city: Collage City (1975) by Colin Rowe. In it he calls for a city that is a rich mixture of styles. It also implies the preservation of many bits and pieces of history. collage: an artistic composition made of various materials (as paper, cloth or wood) glued on a picture surface26. adhocism: This is a key term used by Charles Jencks in his book. The Language of Post-Modern Architecture (1977). The ad hoc city is intended to avoid the horrors of the totally planned city. The ad hoc city clearly shows a fondness for clashing styles and queer postmodern buildings as well as fantastic architectural complexes.27. facadism: It is a form of mosaic architecture. In mosaic architecture bits and pieces of older buildings are combined with bits and pieces of modern buildings. In facadism fronts of nineteenth-century buildings may be propped up while entirely new buildings are created behind them and often beside and above them.28. theme parks and museum villages: Such places try to reproduce history certain themes through architectural complexes. For example, Disneyland Anaheim, California, tries to reproduce the main street of a typical nineteenth centutry American town, but everything is stage set and nothing is real.29. Chrysler Airflow: a car model manufactured by the Chrysler Corporation of America30. Boeing 747: an airplane model manufactured by the Boeing Company of America31. Tinkertoy: a trademark for a toy set of wooden dowels, joints, wheels etc., used by children to assemble structures32. Crystal Palace: building designed by Sir Joseph Paxton and erected in Hyde Park, London, for the great exhibition in 1851. In 1854 it was removed to Sydenham, where, until its damage by fire in 1936, it housed a museum of sculpture, pictures, and architecture and was used for concerts. In 1941 it demolition was completed because it served as a guide to enemy bombing planes. The building was constructed of iron, glass, and laminated wood One of the most significant examples of 19th century proto-modern architecture, it was widely imitated in Europe and America.。

高级英语第六册

Lesson 3 At war with the planet1. What people do may intentionally cause droughts, floods and heat waves.2.But this image, now repeatedly thrust before us in photographs, posters, and advertisements, is misleading.The Earth we see in photos, posters, and ads, which appears so beautiful, is not the true reflection of the world we live in; such image lulls us into complacency.3.The techno sphere has become sufficiently large and intense to alter the natural processes that govern the ecosphere.Human activities have taken place over such large areas and with such intensity that they have already caused disastrous effects on ecology.4....which could establish it only because it fitted properly into the preexisting system?The fish could play its role because it became a necessary link with the processes preceding it and the processes following it in the ecological system.5.Defined so narrowly, it is no surprise that cars have properties that are hostile to their environment.When cars are produced to serve such narrow purposes, it is not surprising that some of their characteristic qualities are harmful to the environment.22. Yields rose, but not in proportion to the rate of fertilizer application...The farmer applied more and more fertilizer, and the production did rise but did not increase at the same rate of the fertilizer.23...their waste is flushed into the sewer system altered in composition but not in amount at treatment plant...People eat plants and animals, and their waste is flushed into the sewer system. After being processed, the waste is still waste. The residue will go into rivers, oceans, and will have harmful effect on the aquatic ecosystem.24. Left to their own devices, ecosystems are conservative...If the ecosystems are not upset by outside intrusion, they will remain the same with very little change25. In contrast to the ecosphere, the techno sphere is composed of objects and materials that reflect a rapid and relentless process of change and variation.The characteristics of the objects and materials in the techno sphere are rapid change and great variety.26. But this is done only at the cost of understanding.If we take side in the war of the two words, we are doing so at the risk of failing to have a clear understanding of the nature and cause of the war, thus, we lose the chance to really solve the grave environmental crisis.Lesson4 nettles27.How all my own territory would be altered, ad if a landslide had gone through it and skimmed off all meaning except loss of Mike.The impact of Mike's leaving on my life was beyond my imagination. I didn't expect that Mike's leaving would have such a tremendous power that it would change themeaning of my existence completely. All my thoughts were about loss of Mike.28.During that time of life that is supposed to be a reproductive daze, with the woman's mind all swamped by maternal juices, we were still compelled to discuss Simone de Beauvoir and Arthur Koestler and "The Cocktail Party".At that time, we were young mothers, and we were supposed to lead a terribly busy life full of confusion and bewilderment caused by giving birth to and raising babies. And our minds were supposed to be fully occupied by how to feed the babies and things like that. However, In the midst of all this we still felt the need to discuss some of the important thinkers of our time like Simone de Beauvoir and Arthur Koestler and T.S.Eliot's sophisticated work” The Cocktail Party".29....I would be frightened, not of any hostility but of a kind of nonexistence.I would be frightened, and my fear was not caused by my neighbor's visibly hostile and violent way of life, but by a kind of formless and hidden emptiness and meaninglessness of human existence. What happened around me was totally irrelevant to me, and I felt very isolated and alienated.30.She did not ask me---was it delicacy or disapproval? ---about my new life.She did not ask me about my new life, either out of subtle consideration for my feeling about this sensitive subject or out of disapproval for my new life style.31.It would be a sleazy thing to do, in the house of his friends.It would be a morally low thing, an indecent thing to commit infidelity in the house of a friend.32.I knew now that he was a person who had hit rock bottom.I knew that he was a person who had experienced the worst in life, the hardest experience a person might have to endure.33.He and wife knew that together and it bound them, as something like that would either break you apart or bind you, for life.They experienced the worst together and they knew what it was like and understood the meaning of that experience. Such an experience posed the gravest test to people. If they stood the test, their friendship or marriage would be strengthened, and a sacred bondage would be formed between them. But if they failed the test, their relationship would be broken and they would flow on gently and34.Not risking a thing yet staying alive as a sweet trickle, an underground resource. With the weight of this now stillness on it, this seal.If they acted on love, they would take risks. They wouldn't do that or go further in their relationship, but they would rather let their love remain as a sweet trickle, which would flow on gently and...Lesson 5 the One against the Many1....the national rejection of dogmatic preconceptions about the nature of the social and economic order1.There are such prejudices in an arrogant manner about the characteristic of the social order and economic order and they take it for granted. The country just rejected such prejudice.2 Nor can one suggest that Americans have been consistently vulnerability tosecular ideology ever after2.No one can say that Americans have never been tempted by the approach of understanding, preserving or transforming the world according to rigid dogmas.3..and any intellect so shaped was ...ever afterA mind influenced by Calvinist theology would surely find it somewhat difficult to resist other ideological temptations to ideological thinking.4.Pragmatism is no more wholly devoid...experiencePragmatism is not completely free from abstract ideas just as ideology is not completely free from experience, that is to say, abstract ideas have a place in pragmatism just as experience has a role in ideology.5.As an ideologist, however, Jefferson....historical curiosityAs a man following a fixed set of beliefs, Jefferson is only an interesting historical figure. His beliefs are out of date and are irrelevant to present-day reality.6....whose central dogma is confided to the custody of an infallible priesthood Their central beliefs are imprisoned by the whole body of priests who are always effective.7....where free men may find partial truths, but where ...on Absolute TruthIn this universe a person whose mind is unconstrained may be able to discover relation truths but no man on earth can claim that he has already grasped the one and only truth.8.But ideology is a drug; no matter how ...it still persists.Ideology has the characteristic of a narcotic. In spite of the fact that it has been proved wrong many times by experience, people still long to commit them to ideology. 9....the only certainty in an.....abuseThe only thing that is sure of a despotic system is the unrestricted exercise of power.10. The distinctive human triumph...lies in the capacity to understand the frailty of human striving ...nonethelessThe most outstanding achievement of humanity is they know that no matter how hard they try, they cannot achieve Absolute truth, yet they continue to make great efforts and refuse to give upLesson6 Death of a pig1. It is a tragedy enacted on most farms with ...The murder, being premeditated, is in the first degree. And the smoked bacon and ham provide...questionedThe tragedy has an ending---the killing of a pig and the serving of its meat. The killing deliberately planned and carried out efficiently, is the most type of murder. However, whether pigs should end their lives that way has never been questioned.1.A pig couldn't ask for anything better or none has, at any rateA pig could not ask for any better living conditions; at least no pig has ever complained. In a word, my pig lived in a pleasant environment2.You could see him down there at all hours, his white face parting (i)stethoscope dangling ...and grinning his corrosive grinFred was quite excited about the event. He was down at the pigpen all the time. Because of his swollen joints, he moved about unsteadily. His face set apart the grassalong the fence as he moved about. He was like a doctor, with his long, drooping ears dangling like a stethoscope, and he scrabbled on the ground as if he were prescribing some medicine.3.When the enema bag appeared, and the bucket of warm suds, his happiness...full charge of the irrigationWhen it was time to dose the pig, Fred became even more excited, and he managed to get through the fence, and acted as if he was taking charge of the medical treatment. 4....and the premature expiration of a pig is...a sorrow in which it feels fully involvedIf a pig dies before he is supposed to, it is a serious matter for the whole community to remember. The whole community would share the sadness for his death.5.I have written this account in penitence and in grief, as a man who...and to explain my...so many raised pigsThe purpose of this essay is to show that I am sorry for what has happened to my pig, since I have failed to raise the pig and cannot provide a reason why my pig could didn't grow the way other pigs have grown.6.The grave in the woods is unmarked, but ...and I know he and I...on flagless...own choosingThe pig's grave in the woods doesn't have a tombstone, but whenever somebody wants to visit it, Fred will show him the way. I know we will often visit it, separate or together, when we need to ponder over problems or when we are depressed. Lesson 7 Inaugural address1.For man holds in his mortal hands....and all forms of human life.As a result of technological development, human beings now have the power to put an end to poverty and human misery, but at the same time they also possess the power to destroy the whole world, rendering it uninhabitable and lifeless.2....unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights...We do not want to see or to allow the slow destruction of those human rights.3.To those peoples in the huts and villages of half.....of mass misery, we pledge our best efforts to help them help themselves...To the people of the underdeveloped countries living in poverty in rural areas, we are committed to helping them to rid themselves of mass poverty by their own efforts.4.But this peaceful revolution of hope cannot become the prey of hostile powers. But we should not let any communist power take advantage of this alliance for progress to expand its influence.5.And let every other power know that this....of its own house.We want to make clear to the communist powers that Americas are the Americas of the Americans. Do not attempt to penetrate into this area.6....before the dark powers of destruction..... Or accidental self-destruction.Before the world is destroyed by a nuclear war launched in a preemptive attack or caused by accident.7....yet both rating to alter the uncertain...of mankind's final war.Yet both sides attempt to get an edge in the nuclear arms race so as to break themutual deterrence which has so far prevented the outbreak of a nuclear war. 8....civility is not a sign of weakness, and sincerity is always subject to proof.To be ready to negotiate and establish friendly relations does not mean that we are weak or afraid. Declarations of sincere intention have to be tested by actions.9.Let both sides seek to invoke the wonders of science instead of its terrors.Let the two sides use the fruits of science for the benefit of humanity rather than using high-tech weapons to kill and destroy.10....each generation of Americans has been summoned to give testimony to its national loyalty.1.There have been occasions for each generation of Americans to be called upon to fight and die for their country.Lesson 9 The Bluest Eyes1. This is perhaps because they only have places of birth, but no place where they feel at home and which they identify themselves with. But these girls are strongly influenced by their home towns, and the influence stays with them forever even after they leave their home towns.2. The brown girls try hard to repress their emotions and passions. However, these natural human emotions cannot be wiped out totally. Sometimes they will emerge and burst out. And they will develop, become stronger and stay with them. So whenever and wherever this funk bursts out, the brown girls will do their best to stifle it.3. If his needs were physical, she could meet them. She could make him comfortable and give him enough or ever more than enough to satisfy his physical needs.4. Geraldine had seen black girls like Pecola at many places and many times in the past.5. On the one hand, they (girls like Pecola) were ignorant and uncomprehending. They did not ask question why their lives were so miserable. On the other hand, as they were poverty-stricken and practically had nothing, their eyes revealed their desire for anything that could make their lives easier.6. In the eyes of these girls one can see that they were in despair, without any hope for the future, and that their life was nothing but a waste.7. As the girls were growing into young women, they had never worn girdles to make their figure look slimmer, and thus more elegant; and when the boy grew up, they just began to wear their caps with the bills turned backward to indicate that they had become adults.Unit31.我们一直在滥用这股强大的力量，就像传说中的魔术师的师弟一样，并没有意识到我们的这种行为很可能会导致灾难性的后果2.即使全球变暖这种灾害永不发生，即使臭氧层空洞仍然只是一种深奥的极地现象，人类的活动已经极大地的改变了全球的条件，这些也许是用照相机拍不出来的3.与生态圈相反，技术圈是由线性流程决定4.现在技术圈运作的能源主要是矿物燃料，一旦用完，永不再生5.尼龙不能进行生物分解—也就是说，现存的有机物中还没有发现哪种酶可以分解尼龙6.~~有生命的东西创造了一系列对生命至关重要的有限但独立的物质和反应7.免费的午餐实际上是一种负债，在技术圈中，债务是指已承认但尚未归还的欠款8.当债务以技术圈制造的环境污染的形式出现，然后又转嫁到生态圈，这种债务将无法消除，造成破坏是不可避免的。

高级英语课件Disappearing through the Skylight

7) fantasy: n. a pleasant situation that you imagine but that is unlikely to happen; a product at your imagination
8) impart sth. to sb.:

to pass information, knowledge etc. to other people impart sth. to sth.: give a particular quality to

The metaphorical phrase ―Disappearing Through the Skylight‖ is used to describe the changed appearance of modern banks which seem to be disappearing.

The last statement

Detailed Study of the Text
Ⅱ. Background Information

Osborne Bennet Hardison Jr.

born in San Diego, Californian, 1928 Graduated from University of North California and the University of Wisconsin a teacher at Princeton and the University of North Carolina.

well-known for his profound insights into the change in modern culture brought about by modern science and technology reviewing the ways in which the central concepts in nature, history, language, art, and human evolutions have changed under the impact of modern science and technology.

高级英语Lesson 6 (Book 2) Disappearing Through the Skylight 课后练习答案

Lesson 6 Disappearing Through the Skylight 练习题答案/answerⅠ .1. Lysenko : Trofim Denisovich Lysenko (1898-- 1976), Russian agronomist. As president of the Lenin All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences he became the scientific and administrative leader of Soviet agriculture. In 1937 he was made a member of the Supreme Soviet and head of the institute of Genetics of the Soviet Academy of Sciences. He first became known for his process (vernalization) of moistening and refrigerating the seed of spring wheat thereby reputedly imparting to it the characteristics of winter wheat. He became the leader of the Soviet school of genetics that opposed the theories of heredity accepted by most geneticists and supported the doctrine that the characteristics acquired through environmental influences are inherited. Lysenko rejected neo-Mendelism and was a disciple of the Russian horticulturist I. V. Michurin. Ly senkol s theories were offered as Marxist orthodoxy and won the official support (1948) of the Soviet Central Com- mittee. However, they were severely criticized after the death of Stalin in 1953, and in 1956 he was removed as director of the Institute of Genetics, which resulted in there turn of Soviet biological thought to the mainstream of international scientific ideas.2. Leonardo. Leonardo da Vinci (1452 -- 1519), Italian painter, sculptor, architect, musician, engineer, and scientist, born near Vinci, a hill village in Tuscany. In 1466 he moved to Florence, where he entered the workshop of Verrocchio. Early in his apprenticeship he painted an an-gel, and perhaps portions of the landscape, in Verrocchio' s Baptism of Christ. The culmination of Leonardo' s art during his first period in Florence is the magnificent unfinished Adoration of the Magi commissioned in 1481 by the monks of San Donato a Scopeto. In this work is revealed the integration of dramatic movement and chiaroscuro that characterizes the master' s mature style, He went to Milan around 1482 and remained at the court of Ludovico Sforza for 16 years. In 1483, Leonardo, with his pupil Ambrogiode Predis, was commissioned to execute the famous Madonna of the Rocks. Leonardo' s fresco of the Last Sup-per (Milan) was begun around 1495 and completed by1498. After the fall ofLudovica Sforza (1499) Leonar do left Milan and returned to Florence. Here he engaged in much theoretical work in mathematics and pursued his anatomical studies at the hospital of Santa Maria Nuova. In 1502 he entered the service of Cesare Borgia as a military engineer. In 1503 he was commissioned to execute the fresco of the battle of Anghiari but was never completed. From about this time dates the celebrated Mona Liza, the portrait of the wife of a Florentine merchant. The old master spent his last years in France at the castle of Cloux, near Amboise. Here he was left entirely free to pursue his own researches until his death. The versatility and creative power of Leonardo mark him as a supreme example of Renaissance genius. The richness and originality of intellect expressed in his notebooks reveal one of the greatest minds of all time.Ⅱ.1. There are broad agreements about the basic concepts of science, for example, there is only a single science of thermodynamics whose basic concepts are accepted by all countries, including such diverse countries as China, America or the Soviet Union. For a short time there were two genetics, a Soviet genetics as proposed by Lysenko and a Western genetics. However, Soviet Lysenko' s theories were refuted and in 1956 the Soviet Union accepted the Western genetic concepts.2. It makes the world look more and more uniform. Different styles in architecture, dress, music and eating that exist in various countries and among different people are tending to disappear. They are being replaced by more uniform styles or world styles. The houses the people live in, the cars they drive, etc. , are becoming more alike.3. A technological innovation in the manufacture of automobiles like streamlining or all-welded body construction may be initiated by one company in one country, but when it proves to make cars more efficient and cheaper, it is soon adopted universally by all automobile manufacturers. Today, the basic features of an automobile are to be found in automobiles in general, no matter who makes them. Besides this feature, all large automakers are now international companies. Americans have auto plants in Europe, Asia and South America, and Europeans and Japanese have plants in America and South America, and so on.4. He drives cars that have the same basic features. When he goes shopping, he finds the climate in all the shops is the same because they are all similarlyair-conditioned. When he travels he finds all the airports to be familiar because they are all constructed along similar lines and the hotels to have the same amenities. In a word, he finds himself at home in all countries and places.5. He no longer has a fixed home with all the emotional ties that are usually attached to such a home with its fixed location surrounded by well-known neighbors, etc. His home is now everywhere and he is always surrounded by all kinds of neighbors. He feels the old home limited his activities and his emotions.6. She says in the past artists regarded machines and machinelike structures like the Eiffel Tower in Paris as ugly and irreverent. After 1949 the artists discovered a new beauty in machines which could now be shaped and moulded very easily into various artistic designs.7. The writer doesn’t t directly answer the question. He says science has now thrown doubt on "the thingliness of things". It does not produce the material objects we see with our eyes but images, geometric and mathematical, of the reality underlying these things. It has made the world rather "insubstantial". The writer in his prologue states: "Today, nature has slipped, perhaps finally, beyond our field of vision. We can imitate it in mathematics -- we can even produce convincing images of it -- but we can never know it. We can only know our own creations.8. It is displayed in the architectural styles found in cities of the developed world -- styles that typify collage city and urban adhocism. It is also displayed in the mosaic architecture of facadism and the playful theme parks and museum villages. It abounds in images and sounds and values utterly different from those of the world of natural things seen from a middle distance.9. The banks are no longer the solid, ponderous buildings of the past but airy structures Of steel and glass. People need not go to the banks directly for many financial transactions which can now be carried out in stores or trailers with slot- machinelike terminals linked to the banks. Money is now recorded, erased, processed and reprocessed as digital signals by a computer.Ⅲ.1.In the passage, the writer puts forward his central theme of "disappearance" -- nature disappears, history disappears and even the solid banks disappear. Besides expressing the central theme of the book, the metaphorical phrase, "Disappearing Through the Skylight", is used also specifically in this chapter to describe the changedappearance of modern banks which seem to be disappearing. The second important idea he puts forward is the universalizing tendency of science and technology. The basic concepts of science are understood, accepted and adopted by scientists all over the world. There is only one science of thermodynamics, genetics, etc. This universalizing effect is reflected in architectural styles, dress styles, musical styles, etc. They all tend to become world styles. The third concept is, "If man creates machines, machines in turn shape their creators. " The modern man is no longer a unique individual, the product of a special environment and culture. The homogeneous world he now lives in universalizes him. He becomes a cosmopolitan, a citizen of the world. Finally, the disappearance of history is a form of liberation and this feeling of liberation is often expressed through play. the playfulness of science has produced game theory and virtual particles, in art it has puoduced the paintings of Picasso and Joan Miro and so on.2. The writer' s views are generally clearly and succinctly presented as a topic sentence at the beginning of each paragraph and then developed or illustrated in the paragraph itself or by succeeding paragraphs. For example, the first sentence in the opening paragraph is a topic sentence that presents a very important view of the writer, "Science is committed to the universal. " This idea of universality is developed and illustrated in the five paragraphs that follow and each paragraph that follows also has its own topic sentence. The organizational pattern is very clear and logical.3. The writer uses tha present tense and universal statements to attain the goal of objectivity.4. The writer uses figurative language freely to make his ideas more vivid and forceful. Readers can find many metaphors, analogies, rhetorical questions, repetition and balanced structure, etc. in this piece. The very title of this piece, " Disappearing Through the Skylight ", is a metaphorical phrase that immediately stirs the imagination of readers.5. A lot of scientific and technical terms are used in this piece, such as thermodynamics, genetics, genetic mutations, etc. Many sentences are complex and compound ones; some of them, though simple sentences, are complicated in structure, for example, "The skepticism of modern science "" from the soul. " "It surrounds its citizens with "-" and geodesic domes and lunar landers. " All these are stylistic features.IV.1. Science is engaged in the task of making its basic concepts understood and accepted by scientists all over the world.2. The car model, called Fiesta, seems to have disappeared completely.3. The idea of a world car is similar to the idea of having a world style for architecture. /As architecture was moving toward a common International Style, it was natural for the automobile to do the same.4. Things that are happening in auto making are similar to those happening in architecture.5. The modern man no longer has very distinct individual traits shaped by a special environment and culture．6．The disadvantage of being a cosmopolitan is that he loses a home in the old sense of the world．7．The benefit of being a cosmopolitan is that he begins to think the old kind of home probably restricts his development and activities．8．The compelling force of technology to universalize cannot be resisted．9．When every artist thought it was his duty to show his contempt for and objection to the Eiffel Tower which they considered an irreverent architectural structure．10．a flexible and pliable quality that was beyond human powers and absolutely new 11．People used to firmly believe that the things they saw around them were real solid substances but this has now been thrown into doubt by science,12．That，perhaps, shows how far logically modern aesthetic can go．／The solid banks can become almost abstract and invisible．／This is perhaps the furthest limit of how solid objective things may be disappearing．V．See the translation of the text．Ⅵ．1．Thermodynamics热力学2．genetic遗传学3．stress应力4．genetic mutation遗传突变5．streamlining(设计成)流线型6．all—welded body全焊车身7．cyclinder block气缸套8．carburetor汽化器9．transmission传动；变速器10．cells细胞11．molecules分子12．galaxies星系13．particles粒子14．black hole(天文)黑洞15．genes基因16．High-tension lines高压线17．circuit(集成)电路18．geodesic dome用轻便和挺直建筑材料的拉力建造的圆屋顶19．terminal终端20．Magnetic tapes(录音等用)磁带21．computer计算机Ⅶ．1．homogeneous：the same in structure，quality，etc．；similar or identical 2．diversity：different；variety3．economics：things related to the economy(of automobile manufacturing，such as production costs，consumer appeal，sale price，etc．)4．asset：a valuable or desirable thing5．suspect：think it probable or likely；guess；suppose6．barring：unless there should be；excepting7．blasphemy：any remark or action or thing held to be irreverent or disrespectful 8．proposition：a person，problem，undertaking，etc．，being or to be dealt with 9．extra：outside the scope or region of；beyond10．order：category，class11．artifact：a product(as a structure on a microscope slide)of artificial character due to extraneous(as human)agency12．circuits：an integrated circuit，a tiny complex of electronic components and their interconnections produced on a single small silicon chip silicon：a silicon chip，a small slice of silicon on which an integrated circuit is etched．13．truss：a rigid framework of beams，struts bars，etc．，for supporting a roof geodesic dome：a dome made of light straight structural elements mostly in tensionⅧ．1．uni-，having or consisting of one only：universe，uniaxial，unicellular, unilateral, unipolar, univalve2. thermo-, heat : thermodynamics, thermochemistry, thermoelectric, thermometer, thermomagnetic, thermoplastic3. dis-, fail, cease, refuse to .disappear, dissatisfy, disallow, disappoint, disapprove, disbelieve4. techno-, art, science, skill, technical, technological: technology, technography, technocracy, technocrat, technologist, technologize5. hom or homo-, one and the same : similar, alike : homogeneous, homograph, homochromatic, homology, homonym, homophone6. auto-, self-propelling: automobile, autotruck, autobus, autocade, autogyro, automotive7. trans-, over, across, through: transmission, transfer, transmigrate, transfuse,, transform, transition8. cosmo-, world, universe, cosmopolitan, cosmography, cosmology, cosmonaut, cosmopolis9. post-, after in time, later (than), following: postmodernism, postglacial, postnatal, posthumous, postimpressionism, postmortem10. neo-, new, recent, latest : neomodernism, neolithic, neo-Darwinism, neoimpressionism, neologism, neophyteIX.1. The piers are built, Then the towers are erected on the piers. The cables are run from one side of the river to the other and are anchored, The suspenders are attached to the cables. Finally the deck is raised.2. The slide is removed from the microscope and is replaced by a transparent ruler with 1 mm graduations. Now the width of the field of view of the microscope is measured. The diameter of the field is converted from millimeters to microns, then the width of the field (in microns) is measured for each objective lens required.X.1. a steam2. an air outletnoise3. aircraft turbine4. laboratory research5. a research laboratory6. a mercury thermometer7. a nuclear power plantⅪ1. The theories we use (or the theories used) in meteorology are complicated and do not cover all aspects of the weather,2. The raw materials are weighed, (then) mixed automatically in the correct proportions and then fed into the granulator.3. When thoroughly mixed with the suspension, these substances separate the virus particles from the rest of the suspension.4. The plastics material is fed into a hopper and then heated.5. Local, long-distance and inter-continental calls are connected automatically in this exchange.6. Many signals are transmitted from this centre, while a few are passed on to the next relay station. When grouped together, they are transmitted as composite signals.7. The steel is heated, quenched rapidly in water, heated again and finally cooled slowly.Ⅻ.1. group2. before3. work4. turn5. disappeared6. mathematical7. surface8. nature9. beyond 10. it11. produce 12. never 13. own 14. close16. clarity 17. century 18. reflecting15. objectifies 19. moment20. traditional 21. bridge 22. gorge 23. mouth 24. offers25. whether 26. similarities 27. invisible 28. administrative 29. policies 30. hamburger 31. Pepsi-Cola 32. and33. cases 34. disappearance 35. identities 36. global 37. process 38. facet 39. happened 40. fadedⅩⅢ. Omitted.ⅩⅣ. Impact of Science and Technology on Our societyThe development of science and technology nowadays has exerted an enormous influence on our society. We needn’t enumerate the achievements human beings have made in the fields of electronics and biochemistry which so benefit us. Only have a look around us and we are sure to feel the ubiquitous impact.Radios and cassette recorders are the necessary tools for learning foreign languages. A telephone has become one of the most important communication tools even among students. When the clock strikes, announcing the arrival of the new year, many students wait at the telephone box with an intention of sending greetings to their family members. And we now use magnetic cards to buy food in the canteens. The procedure becomes simple and the management systematic. With the help of the sophisticated medical equipment, some diseases which used to be incurable can be got rid of.On the other hand, the scientific and technical development has resulted in some problems, among which is pollution. Fortunately, more and more people have come to realize the seriousness of a variety of pollutions and begun to take the action against it.Although the development of science and technology has brought some side effects, with its further advance, human beings are sure to get over them, and enjoy more and more ad-vantages of science and technology.。

张汉熙高级英语第二册第六课PPT课件

▪ " This book is about the ways culture has changed in the past century, changing the identities of all those born into it. Its metaphor for the effect of change on culture is "disappearance".
5
▪ 1. Disappearing Through the Skylight ▪ is not only the title of this chapter ▪ but also the title of the book. ▪ This shows the importance the writer
4
Байду номын сангаас
▪ He is the author of Lyrics and Elegies (1958), The Enduring Monument (1962), English Literary Criticism: The Renaissance (1964), Toward Freedom and Dignity: The Humanities and the Idea of Humanity (1973), Entering the Maze: Identity and Change in Modern Culture (1981) and Disappearing Through the Skylight (1980).
Lesson6 Disappearing Through the Skylight
Osborne Bennet Hardison Jr.

高级英语第六课

1. When she was eleven, Clara, like her brother Alan before her, acquired a Grammar School place. Her mother, although of the mentality that refuses such places because of the price of the uniform, was luckily not in a social or financial position where she could reasonably do so, and although she was often unreasonable enough, she did not like to appear to be so in the eyes of the whole neighbourhood, so she constrained her parsimony and her innate distrust in education into selecting the less distinguished of the schools available, on the grounds that the bus fare was cheaper. It was a large, rather forbidding and gloomy building, called Battersby Grammar School, and it was on the fringe of that decayed, desolate, once-grand grey fringe that surrounds the centres of most cities; the houses in this area, large and terraced and of some dignity, had been long abandoned by the middle classes, and were now occupied by families who could not afford to live anywhere else. An occasional member of the fugitive genteel stuck it grimly out until death; once Clara was accosted by an old lady, battered and ragged and bent, who said as she walked along, and in accents of refined madness, that once the people that lived there had held their heads up high. Clara, a poor audience with her twisted knee socks, did not know what she meant.克莱拉11岁时，像她哥哥艾伦一样，进入一所公立中学。

高级英语6课文翻译,部分单元

迪士尼世界：后现代的乌托邦城市1迪斯尼世界的本质是什么？这个答案多半体现在迪斯尼为游客创造幻觉的努力上，这一幻觉使游客觉得自己进入了一个更符合他们渴望的完美世界。

迪斯尼世界用各种各样的方式创造了这个完美世界。

例如，它鼓励游客以一个孩子的眼光去看待这个乐园，并把自己定义为一个“给生活带来梦想”的地方。

然而最根本的却是，它只是创造了一个完美世界的虚构版本。

在这个世界，迪斯尼引导游客逃脱来自现实生活中的束缚；在这个世界，游客不再受时间，距离，体积和现实法则的约束。

在五花八门的游乐区中，游客似乎脱离了人体以及人体的遗传基因；他们穿梭于过去与未来中，离开了地球。

在惊险的游乐项目中，他们不遵循万有引力定律，以一种不符常理的速度和方式移动着。

2迪斯尼世界还怂恿游客逃避社会和自我的堕落状态。

它创造了美国资本主义制度和政治历史的理想化幻象；它把游客拖入到永久庆典的世界中----一个满是游行队伍、焰火，盛装的表演者以及无尽的享乐诱惑的世界。

游客仿佛加入了一个永无止境的假期中，生活中的负面情绪也都被抛之脑后。

3显然，当你把所有这些都联系在一起，就可了解到，迪斯尼世界只是帮助游客以一种虚构的方式实现人类最大的梦想：超越。

在迪斯尼世界，我们超越了平凡。

它取代了我们自己所在的世界----在现实世界，多数机遇与我们擦肩而过，多数人隐藏自己的动机；而在迪斯尼，我们游历在象征世界：这个世界客观、具体，却似乎没有压力、无忧无虑，异常精彩，正如幻想一般。

4就是这样，迪斯尼摆脱了当代社会枯燥的“科学主义”世界观。

德国社会学家马克思韦伯曾经说过，在当今社会，随着科学地位的上升和宗教影响的减弱，我们正在见证世界的觉醒。

仿真文化的产物，例如迪斯尼世界，似乎正在随着一种新的承诺而重获魅力：利用太空飞行，外星人，时光穿梭和失落世界的各种神话，艺术和科技可以将我们的世界创造成最新版的当代爱情故事。

5但迪斯尼世界并不只提供客观化幻象。

借助仿真的力量，它也向我们展示了，科技是如何赋予我们不受世界控制的力量和自由的。

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Lesson 6 Disappearing Through the Skylight
从天窗中消失
小奥斯本·本内特·哈迪森
科学是能够为人们普遍接受的。

有一个事实可用来说明这一点：一门科学发展程度越高，其基本概念就越能为人们普遍接受。

举例而言，世界上就只有一种热力学，并不存在什么分开独立的中国热力学、美国热力学或者苏联热力学。

在二十世纪的几十年的时间里，遗传学曾分为两派；西方遗传学和苏联遗传学。

后者源于李森科的理论，即环境的作用可能造成遗传基因的变异。

今天，李森科的理论已经被推翻，因此，世界上就只有一种遗传学了。

作为科学的自然产物，工艺技术也显示出一种世界通用的倾向。

这就是为什么工艺技术的发展传播使世界呈现出一体化特征的原因。

原本各异的世界各地的建筑风格、服饰风格、音乐风格——甚至饮食风格——都越来越趋向于变成统一的世界流行风格了。

世界呈现出同一性特征是因为它本来具有同一性。

在这个世界上长大的儿童感受到的是一个千篇一律的世界而不是一个多样化的世界。

他们的个性也受到这种同一性的影响，因此，在他们的感觉中，不同文化和个人之间的差异变得越来越小了。

由于世界各地的建筑越来越千篇一律，居住在这些建筑里的人也越来越千人一面了。

这样带来的结果用一句人们已经听熟的话来描述再恰当不过：历史要消失了。

以汽车为例即可非常清楚地证明这一点。

诸如流线型或全焊接式车身结构一类的技术革新，一开始可能不被人接受，但假如这种技术革新在提高汽车制造业的工作效率和经济效益方面确有巨大作用，它便会一再地以各种变异的形式出现，直到最终它不仅会被接受，而且会被大家公认为是一种宝贵的成果。

今天的汽车再也找不出某个汽车公司或某个民族文化的标志性特征了。

一般的汽车，不管产于何地，其基本特征都大同小异。

几年前，福特汽车公司制造出一种菲爱斯塔牌汽车，并将其称为“世界流行车”。

这种车出现在广告上的形象是周围环绕着世界各国的国旗。

福特公司解释说，这种汽车的汽缸活塞是英国产的，汽化器是爱尔兰造的，变速器是法国产的，车轮是比利时产的，诸如此类，等等等等。

这种菲爱斯塔牌汽车现在似乎已完全销声匿迹了，但这种制造世界流行汽车的设想计划却是势在必行的。

这表明汽车业也像建筑等行业一样在向国际流行风格的方向发展。

菲爱斯塔牌汽车问世十年后，所有大型汽车制造公司都已国际化。

美国人在欧洲、亚洲和南美洲都设了汽车厂。

欧洲人和日本人也把他们的汽车厂设到了美国、南美洲以及苏联(菲亚特公司的工人在那儿可以喝到百事可乐来消乏解渴)。

当时机成熟的时候，这些跨国型的汽车制造公司还会把他们的汽车厂设在埃及、印度和中华人民共和国。

汽车制造业的情形也像建筑业的情形一样。

在一定的成本范围内，相同的工艺技术就能产生相同的产品。

证明这一点的直观证据在汽车方面和建筑方面一样，都是显而易见的。

今天，如果要你在同一价格档次的各型汽车中进行选择，从距离五百步的地方看是很难分辨出各种不同牌子型号的汽车的。

换句话说，六十年代里美国汽车还保留着的美国特色——美国汽车中那种与美国历史相联系的特点——正在逐渐消失。

甚至连德国的大众汽车公司的大众甲壳虫型汽车也丧失了自身原有的特色，而通过自己车型的变化演示了从达西·汤普森到卡尔·布里尔到费迪南德·波尔舍一代一代的流线型汽车设计发展史。

人创造了机器，而机器反过来也能塑造其创造者。

由于汽车已普遍化，使用汽车的人也就司空见惯了。

现代社会的人像他们驾驶的世界流行汽车一样正变得越来越彼此雷同。

他们不再具有鲜明的个性特征，再不是某个特殊地理文化环境里孕育出来的特殊个人了。

他们可以从一个装设空调的市场到另一个市场，从一个机场到另一个机场，从一个假日酒店到三百英里外的另一家酒店，不停地旅行运动，但他们所处的环境却可能永远一个样。

他们是世界人，他们为此付出的代价是他们不再拥有一个传统意义的家。

他们从中得到的好处则是开始觉得传统意义上的家是牢笼的别称，而现代意义的家则无处不是，自己身边周围的人又无不是自己的邻友。

工艺技术的普遍应用是不可抗拒的。

只要没有核战争给世界带来毁灭性灾难，这种应用将继续影响现代文化以及创造这种文化的现代人的思想意识。

这又把我们的注意力带回到艺术和历史方面来了。

迦百列布菲·皮卡比阿夫人追忆弗朗西斯·皮卡比阿和马塞尔·杜尚的早期作品时对1949年机器美学的产生作了这样的描写：“我记得有一个时期……每一位艺术家表示对埃菲尔铁塔的蔑视，谴责这座污染天空，亵渎神明的建筑是自己义不容辞的责任……机器……的发明与发展很快就提出了一些传统思维完全无法解决的命题，一种全新的、灵活的、超出人的理解力的可塑性……”
曾有人下定义说，艺术就是一种给现实世界命名的尝试。

机器是“现实世界”本身还是仅仅是其表面呢?现实世界容易发现吗?科学已经证明，世界是虚无的。

这就动摇了人们认为世界的物质是客观实在的信念。

同时，科学又创造出了潜存于客观实在之中的各种不同种类和范畴的现实世界的形象。

机器的形象与细胞、分子或是银河系这些物体形象相比较，哪一个更实在呢?科学还创造出了纯
属人造物的形象。

一个张牙舞爪的龙的形象比分子的形象是更接近现实还是更远离现实呢?
现代科学对世界万物的客观实在性的怀疑意味着对艺术的性质需重新评价，这与康定斯基在《论艺术中的精神因素》一书中对美的艺术所作的评价是十分吻合的。

他说，美的艺术是“发自人的灵魂深处的需要”。

现代艺术所描绘的并不是用眼睛看到的物质世界的客观现实，而是人的内心世界所反映的现实。

因为现代艺术所描绘的世界不是客观存在的物质世界，而是人的内心世界，所以，它是一个完全丧失了历史的世界。

因此，历史的消失是一种解放——即布菲皮卡比阿夫人所谓的“一种全新的、灵活的、超出人的理解力的可塑性”的发现。

像科学一样，现代艺术往往也是通过玩耍的方式来表达这种思想解放的——在绘画艺术方面是通过毕加索和琼·米罗的玩耍性作品，在诗歌艺术方面是通过达达派的朦胧诗以及诸如华莱士·斯蒂文斯的《C字母一样的喜剧演员》一类的滑稽史诗。

现代美学的玩耍性说到底是其最突出的，也是最严肃的，而必然地也是最令人不安的特征。

这种玩耍性是模仿产生了博奕论、虚构粒子和黑洞的科学的荒诞性。

这种科学的玩耍性还通过把人的生长基因植入牛体，迫使伦理学的研究者重新审定食人肉的习性的定义。

玩耍在现代美学中的重要性不应引起惊讶。

它在发达世界的每座城市里都通过后现代主义和新现代主义的奇形怪状和荒诞的建筑物，通过把各种建筑风格奇特地拼凑在一起得到反映，而这恰恰是拼贴画式的城市和无计划的大杂烩城市的典型表现。

今天，现代文化包括了国际风格的几何图形、传统门面与新型建筑相结合的奇特图案以及主题公园和博物馆村庄的游戏绝招。

这种文化有时装成是静态的，但实际上却是生机勃勃的。

体现这种文化的建筑移动、摇摆，就像做梦一样，反映了周围发生的一切。

这种文化向其公民展示了体现几何图形的直线结构，如管道、州际公路和高压电线，也展示了富有艺术性的流线型克莱斯勒公司的气流汽车、波音747飞机以及硅片集成电路上的精细网织图案。

现代文化也向其公民展示了无情地引人注目的庞然大物——油轮和推土机以及结构玩具的复杂设计、短线拱顶和登月车辆。

它充满了想象、声音和价值，完全不同于我们肉眼所看到的我们周围世界的自然景物。

现代文化是一个显示人的特点的世界，但又不是人们想象的那种模样。

它所表现的形象不是列奥纳多自画像上那种倦怠憔悴的面容，更不是每天早晨从浴室镜子里见到的模模糊糊、平平淡淡的面孔。

这些都是历史的本来面目了。

现代文化是一种永远具有玩耍性而又朝气蓬勃的力量；这种力量可以创造出某种秩序，不管这种秩序是否客观存在于现实世界之中；而且，在创造出一种秩序后，又完
全有可能打破这种秩序，再创一个完全不同的新秩序，就像一个小孩玩积木时已经拼造出一种结构后又毫无恶意地以纯粹的玩耍态度拆散重拼一样。

这就是它使人类显示其特点的形象。

十九世纪的银行一般都是以大理石或花岗石砌成的新古典式建筑，正面装饰着一排排粗重的廊柱。

它们向世人宣告：“我们坚不可摧；我们永不衰朽；我们像历史一样令人信赖。

您的钱储放在我们的地下保险库里可保绝对完全。

”
今天的银行却是一些钢架玻璃结构的虚无飘渺的建筑，或是一些门前装有像自动售货机一样的计算机终端设备的商店门面，或是一些停放在城郊商业中心停车场上的挂车式活动房屋。

原先的地下保险库如今也换成了磁带来替代其职能。

钱在电脑中变成了一系列数字信号，这些数字信号要不断地经过其他电脑一次次地录入、删除、处理、再处理并不断加以修改。

现代银行向世人宣告的是：“我们像艺术般的抽象，几乎像水晶宫般的无形。

假如我们还存在的话，我们也只是以一种虚无飘渺的媒介而存在，通过这种媒介您们的交易得以进行，您们的财富得以增值。

”
也许这就可以成为现代美学发展的逻辑上的极限。

如果这样的话，这个极限点距离我们还有一段较长的路程，但其模糊的轮廓透过路上弥漫着的薄雾已依稀可辨。

正如物质世界的客观现实逐渐消失于人们的头脑中一样，可以说，现代银行也正从自己的天窗中逐渐消失。