从自动签名机到“提笔忘字”：科技浪潮下的手写困境

2025/6/14 2:16:30

手写这一承载人类千年智慧与情感的技能，正悄然从我们生活中淡...

手写这一承载人类千年智慧与情感的技能，正悄然从我们生活中淡出。提笔忘字、草书难识，不仅是书写能力的退化，更是文化记忆的消逝。当手写消失，我们究竟失去了什么？是时候重新审视，这被科技“边缘化”的传统艺术了。

图源 | unsplashHumming away in offices on Capitol Hill, in the Pentagon and in the White House is a technology that represents the pragmatism, efficiency and unsentimental nature of American bureaucracy: the autopen.在美国国会大厦、五角大楼和白宫的办公室里，嗡嗡运转着一项技术，它体现了美国官僚体系的务实、高效与不讲情面——自动签名机。It is a device that stores a person"s signature, replicating it as needed using a mechanical arm that holds a real pen.这是一种存储个人签名的设备，通过机械臂握持真实笔具，在需要时复制签名。Like many technologies, this rudimentary robotic signature-maker has always provoked ambivalence.与许多技术一样，这种基础的机器人签名制造工具始终引发着矛盾心理。We invest signatures with meaning, particularly when the signer is well known.我们会为签名赋予意义，尤其是签名的人是名人时。During the George W Bush administration, the secretary of defence, Donald Rumsfeld, generated a small wave of outrage when reporters revealed that he had been using an autopen for his signature on the condolence letters that he sent to the families of fallen soldiers.在小布什政府时期，国防部长唐纳德·拉姆斯菲尔德曾引发过一阵小规模的公愤，因为有记者揭露，他在寄给阵亡士兵家属的慰问信上使用自动签名机签署自己的名字。Fans of singer Bob Dylan expressed ire when they discovered that the limited edition of his book The Philosophy of Modern Song, which cost nearly $600 and came with an official certificate "attesting to its having been individually signed by Dylan", in fact had made unlimited use of an autopen.歌手鲍勃·迪伦的粉丝们发现，“证明由迪伦亲笔签名”的限量版书籍《现代歌曲哲学》，这本售价近600美元且附有官方证书的书，实际上使用了自动签名机无限复制签名，这让他们感到愤怒。Dylan took the unusual step of issuing a statement on his Facebook page: "With contractual deadlines looming," Dylan wrote, "the idea of using an autopen was suggested to me, along with the assurance that this kind of thing is done "all the time" in the art and literary worlds."迪伦采取了不寻常的举措，在其脸书页面上发表声明：“随着合同截止日期临近，有人向我建议使用自动签名笔，并保证这类做法在艺术和文学界"司空见惯"。”He also acknowledged that: "Using a machine was an error in judgment and I want to rectify it immediately."他还承认：“使用机器签名是我判断失误，我愿意立即纠正这个错误。”Our mixed feelings about machine-made signatures make plain our broader relationship to handwriting: it offers a glimpse of individuality.我们对机器签名的复杂情感，清晰地揭示了我们与手写之间更广泛的关系：手写让我们得以一瞥人的个性。Any time spent doing archival research is a humbling lesson in the challenges and rewards of deciphering the handwritten word.任何从事档案研究的时间都是一堂谦逊的课程，让人深刻体会到破译手写文字所面临的挑战与收获。You come to know your long-dead subjects through the quirks of their handwriting; one man"s script becomes spidery and small when he writes something emotionally charged, while another"s pristine pages suggest the diligence of a medieval monk.你可以通过他们笔迹的独特之处来了解这些早已逝去的研究对象；一个人的字迹在书写情感强烈的内容时会变得细密如蛛网，而另一个人整洁的页面则透露出中世纪僧侣般的勤勉。The calligraphist Bernard Maisner argues that calligraphy, and handwriting more broadly, is "not meant to reproduce something over and over again.书法家伯纳德·梅斯纳认为，书法乃至更广义的手写艺术“并非是为了机械性地重复某种固定形态。It"s meant to show the humanity, the responsiveness and variation within."它是为了展现其中的人性、同情心与各种变化。”But handwriting is disappearing.但手写正在消失。A high-school student who took the preliminary SAT used for college admittance in the US confessed to the Wall Street Journal that "audible gasps broke out in the room" when students learned they would have to write a one-sentence statement that all the work is the student"s own, in cursive, or joined-up handwriting.一名高中生向《华尔街日报》坦言，在美国大学入学预科考试中，"教室里爆发出一阵明显的惊呼声"，因为学生们得知必须用草书体手写一句"所有作业均为学生独立完成"的声明。"Cursive? Most students my age have only encountered this foreign language in letters from Grandma."“草书？我这个年纪的学生大多只在奶奶的书信里见过这种陌生语言。”The Common Core State Standards for education in the US, which outline the skills students are expected to achieve at each grade level, no longer require students to learn cursive writing.美国教育“共同核心标准”规定了学生在各年级应掌握的技能，但已不再要求学生学会书写草书体。Finland removed cursive writing from its schools in 2016, and Switzerland, among other countries, as also reduced instruction in cursive handwriting.芬兰于2016年取消了学校里的草书书写教学，瑞士等国家也减少了草书手写课程。One assessment claimed that more than 33% of students struggle to achieve competency in basic handwriting, meaning the ability to write legibly the letters of the alphabet (in both upper and lower case).一项评估指出，超过33%的学生难以掌握基本书写能力，即清晰书写字母表上的字母（包括大小写）的能力。"We"re trying to be realistic about skills that kids are going to need," said one school board member in Greenville, South Carolina.南卡罗来纳州格林维尔市的一位校董事会成员表示：“我们正努力以务实的态度去看待孩子们未来所需的技能。”"You can"t do everything. Something"s got to go."“你不可能十项全能。总得放弃点什么。”Children who cannot write in cursive also can"t read it.不会写草书的孩子也看不懂草书。Schoolchildren are not the only ones who can no longer write or read cursive.学生并不是不会写也不认识草书的群体。Fewer and fewer of us put pen to paper to record our thoughts, correspond with friends, or even to jot down a grocery list.越来越少的人愿意提笔写下自己的想法、与朋友写信，甚至连草草记下购物清单都不愿意。Instead of begging a celebrity for an autograph, we request a selfie.我们不再向名人索要签名，而是请求合影。Many people no longer have the skill to do more than scrawl their name in an illegible script, and those who do will see that skill atrophy as they rely more on computers and smartphones.许多人除了潦草地写下难以辨认的签名外，已不再具备其他书写能力；而那些仍掌握书写技巧的人，随着对电脑和智能手机的依赖加深，也会发现这项技能在逐渐退化。A newspaper in Toronto recorded the lament of a pastry instructor who realised that many of his culinary students couldn"t properly pipe an inscription in icing on a cake – their cursive writing was too shaky and indistinct to begin with.多伦多一家报纸记录了一位糕点导师的哀叹，他发现许多烹饪学生无法用糖霜在蛋糕上正确裱花题字——他们的草书字迹一开始就颤颤巍巍，而且模糊不清。As a practical skill in the digital world, handwriting seems useless.作为数字世界中的实用技能，手写似乎毫无用处。There is a term in Chinese, tibiwangzi, which means "take pen, forget character".汉语中有个成语叫“提笔忘字”，意思是“拿起笔却忘了字怎么写”。According to the China Youth Daily Social Survey Center, 4% of Chinese youth are "already living without handwriting".《中国青年报》社会调查中心的数据显示，4%的中国青年已进入“提笔忘字”的生活状态。What does it mean to live without handwriting?没有手写的生活意味着什么？The skill has deteriorated gradually, and many of us don"t notice our own loss until we"re asked to handwrite something and find ourselves bumbling as we put pen to paper.手写技能已逐渐退化，只有在被要求手写时提笔忘字、笨拙不堪的时候，我们许多人才意识到自身的退步。Some people still write in script for special occasions (a condolence letter, an elaborately calligraphed wedding invitation) or dash off a bastardised cursive on the rare occasions when they write a cheque, but apart from teachers, few people insist on a continued place for handwriting in everyday life.一些人仍会在特殊场合使用手写体（如吊唁信、精心书写的婚礼请柬），或在偶尔填写支票时潦草地写几笔变体草书，但除了教师群体外，如今很少有人坚持在日常生活中使用手写。But we lose something when handwriting disappears.但手写消失时，我们确实失去了一些东西。We lose measurable cognitive skills, and we also lose the pleasure of using our hands and a writing implement in a process that for thousands of years has allowed humans to make our thoughts visible to one another.我们失去了可以衡量的认知能力，同时也失去了在延续数千年的过程中用手和书写工具看见彼此的思想的乐趣。We lose the sensory experience of ink and paper and the visual pleasure of the handwritten word.我们失去了墨水和纸张的感官体验以及手写文字的视觉愉悦。We lose the ability to read the words of the dead.我们失去了阅读逝者文字的能力。We are far more likely to use our hands to type or swipe.我们更倾向于用手打字或滑动屏幕。We communicate more but with less physical effort, forgetting the vast evolutionary history that fitted us for physical movement and expression as a means of understanding our world.我们交流得更多，付出的体力却更少，忘记了那漫长的进化史——它让我们适应了用身体运动和表达来理解这个世界。内容来源：每日英语听力|双语精读等