《星球之战》中的环境危机战争隐喻——兼论康芒纳的生态伦理观

Environmental Crisis as War in At War with the Planet with a Discussion on Barry Commoner's Ecological Ethics

隐喻作为一种认知手段,具有帮助人们认识新事物、理解新概念的作用,并可通过改变认识为未来行动提供指导,因此,有时也被用于科普教育中。在《星球之战》一文中,生物学家康芒纳就借助"环境危机是战争"这一隐喻和对该隐喻的扩展说明环境危机的存在及其严重性和产生的根源。通过辨证地看待现代技术与环境之间的关系,康芒纳揭示了人与自然的主体间关系和他的生态整体观。继康芒纳之后,其他环保主义者对"环境危机是战争"这一隐喻的沿用和扩展进一步说明了这一隐喻的吸引力、表现力,也表明这类隐喻在科普教育中可起到帮助公众认识新事物或新概念的作用。

Metaphors can be used to help people to know new things and understand new concepts.By changing the way people perceive things,they can also provide guidance for future action.They are,therefore,sometimes used as means to popularize new knowledge or concepts in science education.In At War with the Planet,the first chapter of Making Peace with the Planet,biologist Barry Commoner uses the metaphor“environmental crisis as war”and its extensions to raise the public awareness of the environmental crisis,its gravity and the underlying causes.By examining dialectically the interplay between technology and the environment,Commoner reveals the intersubjectivity between man and nature and his view of ecological holism.The use of war as a metaphor for environmental crisis and its extensions by later environmentalists further proves the attraction and expressiveness of such metaphors and confirms the important role metaphors can play in popularizing new knowledge or concepts in science.