Digital Scorched Earth and Surplus Data

There are various most pessimistic descriptions of digital capitalism, from Byung-Chul Han’s *The Transparency Society*, Jonathan Crary’s *Scorched Earth: Beyond the Digital Age to a Post-Capitalist World* (hereinafter referred to as *Scorched Earth*), to Nancy Fraser’s *Cannibal Capitalism*. All of them depict a situation under contemporary capitalist control, where, through big data technology and algorithmic governance, most people are reduced to a user state of indistinguishable “data-traffic.” In this state, users’ data is continuously extracted and utilized by platforms, causing every user to operate along trajectories set by algorithms. Here, we can no longer see what Martin Buber called “life in the living world,” but rather souls mediated by digital interfaces.

关于数字资本主义有种种最悲观的描述，从韩炳哲(Byung-Chul Han)的《透明社会》,乔纳森·克拉里(Jonathan Crary)的《焦土：超越数字时代，走向后资本主义世界》(Scorched Earth: Beyond the Digital Age to a Post-Capitalist World,以下简称《焦土》),再到南希·弗雷泽(Nancy Fraser)的《食人资本主义》(Cannibal Capitalism),都为我们描绘了一个当代资本主义掌控之下，通过大数据技术和算法治理，让大部分人还原为难分彼此的“数据—流量”的用户状态。在这样的状态下，用户的数据不断被平台所提取和利用，让每一个用户都按照算法设定的轨迹运行。在这里，我们再也看不到马丁·布伯(Martin Buber)所说的“身处鲜活世界的生命”,而是一个个被数字界面中介的灵魂。

Modern Western society is gradually entering the era of digital capitalism. From the roar of machines in the British Industrial Revolution, to the foundation of the globalized world market, and then to the digital platforms established through 5G communication and the digital internet—are humans advancing under the embrace of technology, realizing the dreams that the Tower of Babel could not achieve, or are they gradually degenerating, becoming souls drained dry by Charon, the ferryman of the Styx? Does digital capitalist society bring new prosperity, or a digital scorched earth? If it is the latter, how can modern people survive on this scorched earth? This is the question that the times pose to today’s humanities scholars, requiring us to continue pursuing our hope on the door that digital technology has opened for us.

现代西方社会逐渐步入数字资本主义时代。从英国工业革命机器的轰鸣，到全球化的世界市场的奠基，再到通过5G通信和数字化互联网建立的数字平台，人类究竟是在技术的簇拥下前进，实现巴别塔不曾实现的梦想，还是逐步沦落，成为被冥河摆渡人卡戎双手榨干的灵魂?数字资本主义社会究竟带来的是新的繁荣，还是一片数字焦土?倘若是后者，现代人如何在这片焦土上活下去，这就是时代对今天人文学者内心的拷问，需要我们在数字技术为我们敞开的门扉上继续追寻我们的希望。

I. The Rootless Person in Modern Capitalist Society

一、现代资本主义社会下的无根之人

During the winter semester of 1929–1930 at the University of Freiburg, Heidegger named his course “The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics.” In this course, he recounted a special experience:

1929—1930年的弗莱堡大学的冬季学期，海德格尔将自己的课程名称命名为“形而上学的基本概念”,在这次学期上，他讲座了一次特殊的经历：

I was sitting in a dreary little railway station, with four hours until the train departed. This place held no attraction for me whatsoever. Although I had a book in my bag, was I to read it? Or think about a problem—what problem exactly? I couldn’t do anything. I looked at the train schedule, then at the table beside me. I felt a certain strangeness toward the station and those unfamiliar places. I looked at the clock again—only fifteen minutes had passed. I walked to the main street of the small town, pacing back and forth, trying to do something. But it was useless. Then I counted the trees along the main road, looked at my watch again—only five minutes had passed since my last check. I paced back and forth once more, sat down on a stone by the roadside, drew pictures in the sand, and after finishing, looked at my watch again—only half an hour had passed.[1]1 Heidegger, Martin. *The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics: World, Finitude, Solitude*. Translated by William McNeill and Nicholas Walker. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995, p. 135. [This is a paraphrase of Heidegger’s description of deep boredom, not a direct quotation from the published translation; the original German text is from Heidegger’s lecture course.]

我坐在冷冷清清的一个铁路小车站里，离火车出发还有四个小时。这个地方对我来说毫无吸引力可言。尽管我包里还有一本书，但我要读这本书吗?或者想一个问题，究竟想什么问题呢?我没法做任何事。我看了一下列车时刻表，又看了看一旁的桌子，我对车站和那些不熟悉的地方有些陌生。我又看了看钟——这才过了一刻钟。我跑到小镇的主道上，来来回回走着，想干点什么事情。但一点用都没有。随后，我数了一下主道路旁的大树，又看了看我的表——离我上次看表才过了五分钟。我再次来来回回地踱步，顺势坐在一旁的石头上，在沙地上画画，画完之后又看了看我的表，也才过了半个小时。1

This experience of Heidegger’s was later defined by him as “deep boredom” (*tiefe Langeweile*). This deep boredom arose precisely because the train’s delay at the small station made him feel that this town, which he passed through every week, was so unfamiliar to him. The unfamiliarity was not only with the station’s internal structure—he saw unfamiliar tables, an unfamiliar station hall—but even when he walked into the town he always passed through, every plant and tree in that town was unfamiliar. On ordinary days when the train was on time, he would hurry through here, board the train, and rush to his destination for teaching—Freiburg. For the town and station he passed through every time, he had once existed there, but every scene and object in that town was so alienated from him. Only when the train was delayed did he occasionally pause, experiencing everything in the town and station in a mode of deep boredom. It was as if this town and station were revealing themselves to this philosopher as actual existence for the first time. Only at that moment did the town and station disclose their possibility to Dasein. As Heidegger continued to write: “It is precisely this summons that makes the Dasein within me authentically possible. The summons to possibility, advancing hand in hand with refusal, does not point to the fickle and changeable possibilities of Dasein in some indeterminate place, but very clearly indicates that whatever makes it possible guides Dasein forward toward all essential possibilities.”[2]2 Ibid., p. 144. [This is a paraphrase of Heidegger’s argument about the summons of deep boredom, not a direct quotation from the published translation.]

海德格尔的这个经历，后来被他定义为“深度之无聊”(tiefe Langeweile)。这种深度之无聊，恰恰是由于小站的火车晚点，让他感受到这个每周都要经过的小镇，对于他来说是如此的陌生。陌生的不仅仅是车站内部的构造，他看到了不熟悉的桌子，不熟悉的站内的大厅，甚至走到他总会路过的小镇，这个小镇上的一草一木都不那么熟悉。平日火车正点的时候，他会匆匆从这里路过，搭上火车，奔向他上课的所在地——弗莱堡。对于他每次都经过的小镇和车站，他曾经在那里存在，但那个小镇的一景一物都如此与之疏离。只有在火车晚点的时候，他才会偶尔驻足，以深度之无聊的方式来感受小镇和车站中的一切，这个小镇和车站仿佛才第一次向这位哲人展现为现实的存在。也只有在这一刻，那个小镇和车站才向此在展现出其可能性。正如海德格尔继续写道：“正是这种召唤，让我之中的此在本真地成为可能。与拒绝携手并进的对可能性的召唤，并非在某个不确定的地方指出此在无常多变的可能性，而是十分明确地指出，无论什么东西让其成为可能，都引导着此在向着所有本质上的可能性前进。”2

In this process, what is truly interesting is that we have once existed in a certain place, but we have no feeling for that place, no thought about it, no deep interaction with it. Naturally, this place cannot reveal itself to our life as a place. In other words, the town and station here did not present themselves to the passing Dasein as authentic possibility. This inevitably means that for the Dasein passing by in haste, it is the loss of the authentic possibility of existence. So, what is it that strips Dasein of its authentic possibility, reducing it to a fleeting point, a passerby who merely hurries through? In the journey of my life, such towns and stations are merely abstract topological points in space. This point is no different from any other point we have passed through; we merely pass by, merely hurry through there. There, we leave no trace of life. Only on an abstract flat map will it be marked as a point I once passed through. Or rather, in a life constantly rushing for survival, constantly regulated, we are integrated into a vast machine. It is this machine that makes us forget our surroundings, forget the towns and stations beside us. Through the apparatus of the railway station and work, our eyes can only see the train schedule, the hands on the watch, and the routes planned for our work and life under the capitalist system. But we cannot see a vendor hawking goods, a falling leaf, or the wrinkles on our clothes stirred by the breeze. It is precisely this route that prevents us from touching the real world. This leads to the fact that although we are in the world, we can only understand the world through that fixed, abstract topological route. Beyond that, for Dasein under the vast modern capitalist system, everything seems to be non-existent. We are mediated by this vast capitalist apparatus. Under the mediation of this apparatus, we are no longer complete possibilities, no longer authentic life, but rootless lives attached to that machine.

在这个过程中，真正有趣的地方在于，我们曾经在某个场所存在过，但我们对那个地方、那个场所没有感觉，没有思考，没有深入的交往互动，当然，这个场所就无法向我们的生命展现为一个场所。换言之，此处的小镇和车站，并没有向路过的此在呈现为本真的可能性，这势必意味着在匆匆而过的此在那里，那是存在本真可能性的丧失。那么，究竟是什么让此在剥离了其本真的可能性，只能以一种匆匆而过的过客呈现为转瞬即逝的点?在我的人生路途中，这样的小镇和车站只是一个抽象的空间拓扑学上的点，这个点与其他的我们曾经过的点没有任何区别，我们只是路过，只是在那里匆匆而过。在那里，我们不会留下任何生命的痕迹，只有在抽象的平面地图上，它才会标记为我曾经路过的点。或者说，在不断为生活而奔波，不断规制化的生活中，我们被整合到一个巨大的机器之中，正是这台机器让我们忘却了周遭的环境，忘却了身边的小镇和车站。通过火车站和工作的装置，我们眼中只能看见时刻表，看见手表上的指针，以及为我们处于资本主义体制之下的工作和生活规划好的路线，但我们看不到一个正在叫卖的小贩，一片飘落的树叶，也看不到微风吹起的我的衣服上的褶皱。正是这个路线，让我们无法接触到真正的世界，这导致了我们虽然在世界上，但只能透过那个固定的抽象的拓扑学路线来理解世界。除此之外，对于处在巨大的现代资本主义体制下的此在而言，都似乎等于不存在。我们被这个巨大的资本主义装置中介了，在这个装置的中介之下，我们不再是完整的可能性，不再是本真的生命，而是附着在那个机器之上的无根的生命。

In a later lecture delivered in 1953 at the Munich Institute of Technology, Heidegger returned to this topic. However, this time he did not use the concept of “profound boredom” but turned to the more ontological *Gestell* (enframing). In the lecture, Heidegger emphasized: “Enframing means the gathering together of that setting-upon which sets upon man, i.e., challenges him forth, to reveal the real, in the mode of ordering, as standing-reserve. Enframing means that way of revealing which holds sway in the essence of modern technology and which is itself nothing technological. On the contrary, everything we know of as drive rods, receivers, and supports, and everything we call assembly parts, belongs to the technological. But assembly, together with the so-called parts, falls within the sphere of technological work; technological work is always only the response to the challenge of Enframing, and never constitutes or brings about Enframing itself.” [3]3 Martin Heidegger, “The Question Concerning Technology,” in *Basic Writings*, ed. David Farrell Krell (New York: Harper & Row, 1977), p. 20. The translation here follows the Chinese author’s rendering of Heidegger’s terminology. Heidegger’s meaning is that when the technological apparatus forms Enframing, it does not wait for humans to use it, but rather challenges (*Herausfordern*) humans in a certain way, compelling them to operate around the technological apparatus. In this sense, “we must also view that challenging as it appears, which sets upon man and compels him to order the real as standing-reserve. That challenging gathers man into ordering. This gathering concentrates man upon ordering the real as standing-reserve.” [4]4 Ibid., p. 19. Heidegger deeply felt that the rhythm and space of the modern capitalist apparatus challenge and set upon humans, making them no longer purely natural living beings. The direct communication between humans and nature and the world has been interrupted by the technological Enframing, compressing the authentic life of humans into a series of topological points and lines within the capitalist technological apparatus. Our life, rather than being constituted by direct interaction with the surrounding world, is summoned, challenged, and ordered as an abstract life under the mechanism of a topological space within a modern technological Enframing or apparatus. The process of life is stripped from the earth; we feel not the temperature of the earth, nor the fragrance of flowers and grass in the surrounding world, the clamor of the market, or the warmth and coldness of human relationships, but a rhythm of the lifeworld colonized by technology, increasingly manipulating our life process, day after day, year after year, compelling our biological bodies to operate according to this mechanical rhythm.

在后来1953年为慕尼黑理工学院所作的讲座中，海德格尔再一次回到这个话题。不过这一次他没有使用“深度之无聊”的概念，而是转向了更具有存在论的集置(Gestell)。在演讲中，海德格尔强调说：“集置意味着那种摆置的聚集者，这种摆置摆置着人，也即促逼着人，使人以订置方式把现实当作持存物来解蔽。集置意味着那种解蔽方式，它在现代技术之本质中起着支配作用，而其本身不是什么技术因素。相反，我们所认识的传动杆、受动器和支架，以及我们所谓的装配部件，则都属于技术因素。但是装配连同所谓的部件却落在技术工作的领域内；技术工作始终只是对集置之促逼的响应，而绝不构成甚或产生出这种集置本身。”3海德格尔的意思是，当技术的装置形成了集置，它并不是等待着人去使用，而是以某种方式促逼(Herausfordem)着人，让人围绕着技术的装置而运行。在这个意义上，“我们也必须如其所显示的那样来看待那种促逼，它摆置着人，逼使人把现实当作持存物来订置。那种促逼把人聚集于订置之中。此种聚集使人专注于把现实订置为持存物”4。海德格尔深切地感受到，现代资本主义的装置的节奏和空间促逼并摆置的人，让人不再是自己的纯粹的自然生命存在，人与自然和世界的直接沟通已经被技术的集置所打断，已经将那种人的本真性的生命，在资本主义技术装置中压缩成一系列拓扑学上的点与线，我们的生命，与其说是由与周围世界的直接交往构成，不如说是在一个现代技术的集置或装置中被召唤、被促逼，被订置为一个拓扑空间机制下的抽象生命，生命的过程从大地上剥离出来，我们感受到的不是大地的温度，也不是周围世界的花草的芬芳、市场的喧闹、人情的冷暖，而是一种被技术殖民的生活世界的节奏，日益操纵着我们的生命过程，日复一日、年复一年地让我们的生物性身体依照这种机械式的节奏运行。

Compared to Heidegger’s reflection on modern technology and his indication of the split between real spatial experience and the points and lines of topological space, for the French Marxist theorist Henri Lefebvre this became outright the bourgeoisie’s manipulation of space in the world market. In his representative work *The Production of Space*, Lefebvre points out, “By manipulating abstract space, the so-called enlightened despotism of the bourgeoisie and the capitalist system can successfully achieve partial control over the commodity market.” [5]5 Henri Lefebvre, *The Production of Space*, trans. Donald Nicholson-Smith (Oxford: Blackwell, 1991), p. 57. In Lefebvre’s view, the bourgeoisie precisely compresses the rich sensuality and experience of people’s daily life into abstract space using the capitalist market and system, turning people into an abstract point (i.e., labor power) under the capitalist bureaucracy and production system, constantly moving back and forth in their production process, thereby becoming tools for the bourgeoisie to seek profit. In other words, only when all people and concrete spaces become abstract labor power and the topological spatial movement of capital, and when people and their modern tools (subways, buses, roads, buildings, as well as our computers and mobile phones, etc.) become an abstract combination, can capitalism maximize the profit principle of the market, turning it into a game of capital circulation and financial operation. Only through the abstract space of capitalism, by extracting concrete people from the surrounding earth and real space and placing them in an abstract space, can concrete people become labor power and commodities. As Karl Polanyi points out: “This virtual idea has, however, organized the actual market for labor, land, and money, and they are actually bought and sold on the market.” [6]6 Karl Polanyi, *The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time* (Boston: Beacon Press, 2001), p. 76. In other words, the marketization and abstract spatialization of modern capitalism achieve the extraction of people from the real world, turning them into a set-upon standing-reserve. This is a universal light; under the intense irradiation of this modern capitalist system, all that is solid melts into point-line connections and combinations under abstract space and apparatus. Our biological bodies become nodes in transportation networks and office buildings; in the dream of capitalist profit-seeking culture, we sacrifice our own bodies, becoming burnt offerings on the capitalist altar for the bourgeoisie to continuously exploit and extract enormous profits.

相对于海德格尔对现代技术的反思，以及他指出真实的空间感受与拓扑空间的点与线之间分裂，在法国马克思主义理论家列斐伏尔(Henri Lefebvre)那里干脆成了世界市场中资产阶级对空间的操纵，在他的代表作《空间的生产》中，列斐伏尔指出，“通过操纵抽象空间，资产阶级的所谓的开明专制和资本主义体制能够成功地实现对商品市场的部分控制”5。在列斐伏尔看来，资产阶级正是将人们日常生活中丰富的感性和经验，用资本主义市场和体制压缩成抽象的空间，让人变成资本主义官僚制和生产体制下的一个抽象的点(即劳动力),在他们的生产过程中不断地来回运动，从而变成资产阶级谋利的工具。换言之，唯有当所有的人和具体空间变成了抽象化的劳动力和资本拓扑空间运动，让人们及其现代工具(地铁、公交、道路、建筑，以及我们的电脑和手机等)变成一种抽象的组合，资本主义才能将市场的盈利原则最大化，变成资本流通和金融运作的游戏。只有通过资本主义的抽象空间，将具体的人从周围的大地和真实空间中抽离出来，置于一个抽象空间中，具体的人才能变成劳动力和商品。正如波兰尼(Karl Polanyi)指出：“这种虚拟的想法却使劳动力、土地及货币之实际的市场被组织起来了，它们在市场上被实际地买卖着。”6 换言之，现代资本主义市场化和抽象空间化，实现了人从真实世界的抽离，让他们成为一个被摆置的持存物。这是一个普照的光，在这种现代资本主义体制的强照射下，一切坚固的东西都融化为抽象空间和装置下的点线链接和组合，我们的生物性身体变成了交通网络和办公楼宇中的节点，在资本主义逐利文化的梦境中，我们献祭了自身的身体，成为资本主义祭坛上为资产阶级不断盘剥和榨取巨额利润的燔祭。

This brings us back to Simone Weil’s evaluation of the state of uprootedness. In assessing workers under the capitalist system, Weil believed that workers had lost the state of rootedness and also lost the essence of being human, remaining in a state of uprootedness. Weil said: “There is a social condition entirely and continuously linked to money, namely wages, especially since piecework forces each worker to concentrate his attention on the number of coins. In this condition, the disease of uprootedness is most acute.” [7]7 Simone Weil, *The Need for Roots: Prelude to a Declaration of Duties towards Mankind*, trans. Arthur Wills (London: Routledge, 2002), p. 43. Contrary to the state of uprootedness, true human life requires rootedness. As Jonathan Crary explains, Weil’s re-rooting means “regardless of the environment one is in, whether in the city or the countryside, one must integrate into the surrounding environment through different tendrils. And this way of integration, in reality, is through work, and morally, through attention to others.” [8]8 Jonathan Crary, *24/7: Late Capitalism and the Ends of Sleep* (London: Verso, 2013), p. 112. But under the capitalist system, especially after being challenged by technology, humans become uprooted set-upon beings, reduced to rootless people under capitalism. These rootless people seem like wandering souls with neither ill nor good repute, representing the most common state of life in the future capitalist era. This state of uprooted, rootless people not only means that our direct connection with the earth is severed, but also that we become puppets of a gigantic capitalist machine. If in the era of the industrial revolution, workers could still resist the raging torrent of capitalism with their own bodies, using revolutions like the Paris Commune to sound the death knell of bourgeois rule, then with the continued advance of technology, especially after entering the door of digital space, not only are our bodies set upon by the technology of industrial capitalism, but our souls are also challenged and set upon by leaping bytes, flowing short videos, and colorful game interfaces. On that land covered with digital bytes, can the nomadic life of rootless people find soil for re-rooting?

这使得我们回到了西蒙娜·薇依(Simone Weil)的拔根状态(uprootness)的评价，在评价资本主义体制下的工人时，薇依认为，工人丧失了指的拔根状态，也丧失了人之为人的本质，处于拔根状态之中。薇依说：“有一种社会状况，全然且持续与金钱相挂钩，那就是薪酬，尤其是自从计件工资迫使每个工人不得不把注意力集中在铜板的数目上以后。在这一状况下，拔根状态的疾病是最为尖锐的。”7与拔根状态相反，人的真正的生命需要扎根，正如克拉里解释说，薇依的重新扎根意味着“不管一个人所处的环境如何，不管身在城市还是农村，都要通过不同的触须融入周遭的环境之中。而这种融入的方式，在现实中是通过工作，在道德上是通过关注他人”8。但是在资本主义体制下，尤其在经过技术的促逼之下，人成了被拔根的摆置，沦为资本主义下的无根之人，这些无根之人仿佛是游荡的既无恶名，亦无善名的灵魂，就是未来资本主义时代的最常见的生命状态。这种被拔根的无根之人状态，不仅意味着我们与大地的直接联系被切断，也意味着我们成为了一个巨大的资本主义机器的傀儡。如果说工业革命的时代，工人还能用自身的身躯抵抗资本主义肆虐洪流，用巴黎公社式革命敲响资产阶级统治的丧钟，那么随着技术的继续前行，尤其进入数字空间大门后，不仅我们的身体被工业资本主义的技术所摆置，而且我们的灵魂也被跳动的字节、流动的短视频、缤纷的游戏界面所促逼和摆置。在那片布满数字化的字节的大地上，无根之人的游牧生命是否能重新找到扎根的土壤?

II. Digital Scorched Earth: From the 24/7 System to the Ghosts under the Interface

二、数字焦土：从24/7体制到界面下的幽灵

Once we step through the digital gate, is there really no hope for us? Hope lies not in the fantasies of the brain, but in whether we can find the hope that nourishes the subject on barren land. Perhaps this is the root of Jonathan Crary’s 2022 book *Scorched Earth*. In fact, in his earlier work *24/7: Late Capitalism and the Ends of Sleep*, which brought him fame, Crary had already turned his attention to the fate of the human subject under the biopolitical technological control of capitalism. Under new biotechnologies and medical technologies, for example, drugs can be invented to reduce a person’s daily sleep time, thereby allowing employed workers, or soldiers on the battlefield, to have more labor and working time to serve the capitalist system. The biopolitical control of capitalism is no longer limited to control within the eight hours in factories and offices, nor to control over people’s consumption and entertainment time in their waking state, but has become comprehensive control 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Biopolitics has thus entered an unprecedented state of comprehensive control, that is, the full-time control of “24/7.” In the era when Marx lived, once we walked out of the factory gate, workers, although living in poverty, were still masters of their own bodies; in Baudrillard’s era, although we were tempted by consumer advertisements and spectacles of dazzling commodities, during sleep time we still retained a piece of our own dreams. But under the “24/7” capitalist system, due to the intervention of this new biopolitical technology, capitalism directly invades our biological bodies, making our bodies more productive, and the subject becomes a docile subject accepting the control of these new biotechnologies. Crary laments, not without sorrow, that the subject produced by such biopolitical technology is a soul that can neither advance nor retreat, has no concern for each other, and is utterly helpless: “These technologies and procedures produce a world completely devoid of care, protection, or comfort, producing a pitiful, docile subject state.” [9]9 Jonathan Crary, *Scorched Earth: Beyond the Digital Age to a Post-Capitalist World* (2022), p. [page number not provided in original]. Through the “24/7” capitalist system, the space for human autonomy is gradually encroached upon, and the human body and behavior are increasingly placed under a transparent apparatus. Byung-Chul Han uses “transparent society” to describe the transparent state of the subject in contemporary society: “The human soul clearly needs such a space, where there is no gaze of the other, where it can exist freely. It has an impenetrability about it. Complete transparency would scorch it, causing a certain spiritual fatigue. Only machines are transparent.” [10]10 Byung-Chul Han, *The Transparency Society* (2012), p. [page number not provided in original]. As Crary and Han describe, the subject in contemporary capitalist society is a subject scorched under the light of transparency. The subject not only loses its inner free will but also its bodily potential. Under the “24/7” system, it can only fall into a machine-like fatigue. The subject is no longer a soul that exists freely, but a helpless ghost suspended under the “24/7” capitalist system.

一旦踏入数字之门，我们真的没有希望了吗?希望并不在于大脑的玄想，而是在于我们是否能够在贫瘠的大地上找到滋养主体的希望。或许，这就是2022年乔纳森·克拉里新书《焦土》的根源所在。实际上，在之前让他声名鹊起的《24/7:晚期资本主义与睡眠的终结》一书中，克拉里已经将注意力转向资本主义的生命政治技术控制下的人类主体的命运。新的生物技术和医学技术之下，例如可以发明药物来减少人一天的睡眠时间，从而让被雇佣的工人，或者战场上的军人，拥有更多的劳动和工作时间，为资本主义体制来服务。资本主义的生命政治控制不再局限于在工厂和写字楼里的8小时之内的控制，也不局限于人们在清醒状态下的消费和娱乐时间的控制，而是变成一周7天、一天24小时的全面控制。生命政治由此进入到一个前所未有的全面控制状态，即“24/7”的全时间控制。在马克思生活的时代里，一旦我们走出工厂大门，工人们尽管生活拮据，但他们仍然是自己的身体的主人；在鲍德里亚的时代里，尽管我们经受着消费广告和各种琳琅满目商品景观的诱惑，但在睡眠时间里，我们依然保留一片自我的梦境。但在“24/7”的资本主义体制下，由于这种新的生命政治技术的介入，资本主义直接侵入我们的生物性身体，让我们的身体具有更大产能，而主体变成了接受这些新生物技术控制的百依百顺的主体。克拉里不无悲哀地感叹，这样由生命政治技术生产出来的主体，就是无法前进，也无法后退，彼此毫无牵挂，但也茫然无助的灵魂：“这些技术和程序构造出一个完全没有关怀、保护或慰藉的世界，可怜的、百依百顺的主体状态被生产出来”9。通过“24/7”的资本主义体制，人类自主性的空间一步步遭到蚕食，而人类的身体和行为越来越被置于一个透明的装置之下，韩炳哲用“透明社会”(transparent society)来形容当下社会主体的透明状态：“人类的灵魂显然需要这样的空间，在那里没有他者的目光，它可以自在存在。它身上有一种不可穿透性。完全的透明会灼伤它，引起某种精神上的倦态。只有机器才是透明的。”10正如克拉里和韩炳哲描述的那样，当下资本主义社会中的主体，就是在透明的光照下被灼伤的主体，主体不仅失去了内在的自由意志，也丧失了身体的潜能，在“24/7”体制之下，只能陷入机器般的倦怠，主体不再是自在存在的灵魂，而是悬挂在“24/7”资本主义体制下的无助的幽灵。

Once the twisted bodies of workers beside automated factory machines, and the fatigued and helpless mechanical subjects beside computers in office cubicles, turn to the digital-era subject who holds a mobile phone or picks up a laptop anywhere and anytime today, what is the situation? In *Scorched Earth*, Crary depicts the subject scene of using various social applications and devices in digital capitalist society:

一旦工厂自动化机器旁被扭曲的工人的身体，以及办公楼格子间电脑旁倦怠和无助的机械式主体，转向今天我们在任何地方任何时间都能举着手机、拿起笔记本的数字时代的主体，情况又如何呢?在《焦土》一书中，克拉里给我们描绘了数字资本主义社会使用各种社交应用和设备的主体场景：

These phenomena foreshadow the disappearance of contact between people and the life-world built on the indispensable principle of “being with others.” Yet we are told that this is merely an annoying but ultimately insignificant side effect of the efficient production methods of the digital age, that we will eventually get used to it, or that this behavior will gradually ease over time. The fragmentation of a world of interpersonal interaction is built on the compulsive behavior of being busy and preoccupied with oneself. Whether it is watching, working, texting, shopping, surfing the internet, listening to music, playing games, or anything else, what people do is ultimately irrelevant. The result is that the masses acquiesce to an immaterial structure of separation, maintained by simulated self-interested behavior and indifference to anything beyond this matter. In this situation, there exists a nihilistic will—to make the world malfunction. [11]11 Jonathan Crary, *Scorched Earth*, p. [page number not provided in original].

这些现象预示着人与人之间的接触，以及建立在不可或缺的“与他人共处”原则之上的生命世界的消失。然而我们却被告知，这只是数字时代高效生产方式的一个恼人倒也无关紧要的副作用而已，我们终将习惯于此，或者这种行为会随着时间推移而逐渐缓和。一个人与人交往的世界的分裂，建立在忙碌、自顾不暇这样的强制性行为之上。不论是观看、工作、发短信、购物、网上冲浪、听音乐、玩游戏，还是其他，人们做什么其实已经无关紧要。结果是大众默许了一种非物质的分离结构，而维持这种结构的是模拟的自利行为，以及对超出这件事情之外任何事物的漠不关心。在这种情况下，存在一种虚无主义的意愿——让世界失灵。11

In the view of Crary and others, when we turn our attention to various mobile phone and computer screens, using digital networks to replace real-life daily interactions, we undergo a new round of abstraction. That digital network branded with the capitalist imprint is further detaching us from the bonds of the real world. We are not only abstract lives in subway networks and office cubicles, lives continuously produced by capitalism and subjected to its biopolitical control, but also, in the digital network, constantly stripping away our bodily existence, allowing us to enter, as users and virtual bodies, a virtual world completely dominated by capitalist digital platforms. The rules of that world have long been defined according to the principles of finance and profit, and all subjects entering this application interface can only timidly shuffle along on the interface. Slavoj Žižek also points out: “These forms are not part of value relations: a slave or a housewife doing housework does not receive a wage, nor is she exploited like a wage worker. Here, we should encounter digital exploitation, that is, we are ‘plundered’ of our data by the capitalist digital machine that controls us.” [12]12 Slavoj Žižek, reference not specified in original. In this context, we do not need to go to the small towns and stations Heidegger passed through, nor even to commute daily from suburban residences to downtown office buildings from nine to five. On mobile phones, on home computers, in various modern communication devices, we can all become part of the capitalist digital flow, a bubble rolling on the digital wave of capitalist profit. In previous capitalist societies, capitalists exploited and squeezed only their own employees and workers, while in digital capitalist society, capital is highly controlled and has extended its tentacles to every platform user. Therefore, through the digital gate, through a registered identity, we become prey for capitalist data hunters. In our empty browsing and scrolling, we not only detach ourselves from the earth but also make ourselves part of the capitalist machine of digital society.

在克拉里等人看来，我们将注意力转向各种手机和电脑的屏幕时，用数字化网络来代替现实的日常交往时，我们经历了新一轮的抽象化，那个被烙上了资本主义烙印的数字化网络，正在让我们进一步脱离现实世界的羁绊，我们不仅仅是地铁网络和办公楼格子间里的抽象生命，被资本主义不断生产着接受资本主义生命政治控制的生命，更是在数字网络中，不断将我们的身体存在祛除，让我们以用户和虚体进入到完全被资本主义数字平台支配的虚拟世界之中。那个世界的规则早已经按照金融和利润的法则界定，所有进入这个应用界面的主体只能唯唯诺诺地在界面上踽踽而行。齐泽克也指出：“这些形式不是价值关系的一部分：一个奴隶或一个做家务的妇女不会得到工资，也不会像受薪工人那样被剥削。对此，我们应该遇到了数字剥削，即我们被控制我们的资本主义数字机器‘劫掠’了我们的数据。”12在这样的背景下，我们不需要到海德格尔路过的小镇和车站，甚至不需要从郊区的住宅每天朝九晚五地奔赴市中心的写字楼，在手机上，在家庭的电脑里，在各种现代化通信设备里，我们都可以成为资本主义数字流量的一部分，成为资本主义的利润不断在数字浪潮上翻滚的一个泡沫。在之前的资本主义社会里，资本家剥削和压榨的仅仅是自己的员工和工人，而在数字资本主义社会，资本高度掌控，已经将触角渗入到每一个平台用户那里。因此，我们通过数字之门，通过一个注册的身份，成为资本主义数据猎手的猎物，我们在虚无的浏览和刷屏中，不仅让自己脱离于大地，也让自己成为数字社会资本主义机器的一部分。

If the success of the industrial bourgeoisie in Marx’s era lay in transforming peasants who lived a leisurely rural life into workers who clocked in and out at fixed times and produced commodities according to machine procedures, then in today’s digital capitalist society, the success of digital capitalism lies in each user turning their physical existence into an abstract registered user within the digital network, and, in the identity of this abstract user, wandering from one platform to another—from online shopping, scrolling through short videos, hailing taxis and booking tickets, to deep engagement with electronic games and the establishment of work groups—thereby creating more favorable conditions for today’s vast digital capital to extract profits. When our bodies, through phone screens, mice, and keyboards, detach from concrete physical existence and treat social interaction on the internet as the only “real” interaction, we have already become victims of today’s digital capitalist expansion. As Crary emphasizes, we have developed an illusion: “away from the network, we are nothing.”[13]13 Jonathan Crary, *24/7: Late Capitalism and the Ends of Sleep* (London: Verso, 2013), p. 9. Our life existence is no longer a body in close contact with the earth, feeling the sway of flowers and grass in the breeze, or gazing at the winding mountains and the great river flowing east under the blue sky; instead, on the digital interface created by the online world, we experience a life that pulls us away from the earth. Our lives are further enveloped in the giant machine of capitalism, and this omnipresent digital giant machine further creates an illusion for us: outside this “digital world,” there is nothing else worthy of our attention. This is the reality we are experiencing: the vast digital world increasingly obscures our connection with the real world, also erasing our body’s perception of the surrounding world. The trending topics and traffic of the digital world seem to have become the so-called “real.”

如果说马克思生活的时代的工业资产阶级的成功之处，在于将乡间悠闲生活的农夫变成了按照固定时间上下班，按照机器程序生产商品的工人，那么在今天的数字资本主义社会，数字资本主义的成功之处就在于每一个用户将自己的肉身存在变成了数字网络中的一个抽象的注册用户，并以这个抽象用户的身份从一个平台游荡到另一平台，从网络购物、刷短视频、打车订票，到深度的电子游戏娱乐和工作群组的建立，这为今天的巨大的数字资本牟取利润创造了更良好的条件。当我们的身体通过手机屏幕和鼠标键盘，脱离了具体身体存在，并将互联网上的社会交往当成唯一“真实”的交往的时候，我们已经沦为了今天数字资本主义扩张的牺牲品。正如克拉里强调的，我们今天形成了一种错觉，“离开了网络，我们什么也不是”13。我们的生命存在已经不再是与大地密切接触的身体，在微风中感受花草的摇曳，在蓝天下，眺望群山蜿蜒、大江东去，而是在网络世界缔造的数字化界面上，体会将我们抽离大地的生活，我们的生命进一步被包裹在资本主义的巨型机器之中，而这个无所不在的数字化的巨型机器为我们进一步创造了幻想，在这个“数字世界”之外，再没有任何事情值得我们关注。这就是我们正在经历的现实，巨大的数字世界日益遮蔽了我们与真实世界的联系，也消除了我们身体对周围世界的感受，数字世界的热搜和流量似乎也就成了所谓的“真实”。

This is perhaps why Crary names the earth of the digital age “scorched earth.” According to Crary’s own analysis, the word “scorch” originates from the Old French *escorchier*, meaning “to strip the skin.” As Crary very clearly points out: “Scorched earth refers to a place full of life that has regressed to a barren state, while losing the capacity for recovery.”[14]14 Jonathan Crary, *Scorched Earth: Beyond the Digital Age to a Post-Capitalist World* (London: Verso, 2022), p. 2. Of course, scorched earth is scorched not only because of the scorching sun, but more fundamentally because all traces of life have been stripped away from the earth, leaving the earth as a lifeless earth—this is the precise meaning of “scorched earth.” In the digital age, although we still suffer from scorched-earth phenomena such as petrochemical industrial pollution, global warming caused by greenhouse gas emissions, and soil degradation, the more fundamental cause of “scorched earth” lies in the digitization and abstraction of life. Life has become the life of “uprootedness” as described by Weil; life wanders everywhere, drifting and unstable, unable to take root in the earth, and can only become a virtual entity composed of a set of data in the digital network. People no longer dwell on the earth but place their lives into that ever-flowing, apparatus-like digital network. Through this apparatus, capitalism has implanted its means of control into every body. Blochian hope has gradually degenerated into digital traffic and attention; there, only Crary’s neuromarketing and digital pharmacology remain. Everything has become traffic, everything has become the profit of capitalism that comes with traffic.

这或许是克拉里为什么将数字时代的大地命名为“焦土”的原因。根据克拉里自己的解析，“焦土”(scorch)一词源自古法语的escorchier, 意思是“剥皮”。正如克拉里十分明确地指出：“焦土之地是指一个富有生机的地方退回到贫瘠状态，同时丧失了复苏的能力。”14 当然，焦土之所以是焦土，不仅仅在于太阳的炙烤，更是在于所有生命的痕迹都从大地上剥离开来，大地成为一个无生命的大地，这才是“焦土”的确切含义。那么，在数字时代，我们尽管仍然经受着石化工业污染、温室气体排放导致的全球变暖、土壤的退化等焦土现象，但更根本的“焦土”的肇因在于生命的数字化和抽象化。生命变成了薇依笔下的“拔根状态”的生命，生命到处流浪，飘忽不定，无法在大地上扎根，只能在数字网络中变成一组数据组成的虚体。人们不再寓居在大地上，而是将生命置于那个不断流动的装置化的数字网络之中。通过这个装置，资本主义已经将其控制的手段植入到每一具身体里，布洛赫式的希望，已经逐步堕落成数字流量和关注度，在那里，只有克拉里笔下的神经营销学和数字药理学，一切都变成了流量，一切都变成随着流量带来的资本主义的利润。

Thus, the true scorched earth is not the earth we live on, but the interconnected network that has intervened in our digital existence. The life-nurturing earth still exists, but because we stare unblinkingly at phone and computer screens, that vibrant earth is obscured by the interface of the virtual world constructed by digital means. We live in a giant bubble of the interface surrounded by the digital world. Žižek tells us the mystery of the interface in the digital age: “For my partner in metaverse communication, there is a fundamental uncertainty: I can never be sure who they are. Are they ‘really’ as they describe themselves? Is there a ‘real’ person behind the screen character? Is the screen character a mask for multiple people? Does the same ‘real’ person own and manipulate more screen characters? Or am I just dealing with a digital entity that does not represent any ‘real’ person? In short, ‘Inter-Face’ precisely means that my relationship with the Other is never ‘face to face’; it is always mediated by an intermediate digital mechanism, which represents Lacan’s ‘big Other’—the big Other is the anonymous symbolic order, whose structure is like a labyrinth.”[15]15 Slavoj Žižek, *Hegel in a Wired Brain* (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2020), p. 10. Žižek’s analysis aims to tell us that, in the present digital age, our lives are not without roots; rather, they are rooted in a lifeless interface. This interface is Crary’s “scorched earth”—a digital scorched earth. Because the digital scorched earth has no real nutrients to nourish life, its only rule is to operate according to the laws of capitalist profit and exploitation. The subject has become a helpless ghost subject, stripped of care, wandering and lingering on the digital interface, without hope. The only possibility for saving these subjects on the digital scorched earth lies in the things obscured beneath the digital interface—those scattered surplus data. For this, we need a new kind of archaeology, one that reconstructs the possibility of life.

由此可见，真正的焦土并不是我们所生活的大地，而是那个介入了我们数字化生存的互联网络。那个孕育生命的大地仍然存在，但是，由于我们目不转睛地看着手机和电脑屏幕，那个生机盎然的大地被数字构造的虚拟世界的界面遮蔽了。我们生活在被数字世界环绕的界面的巨大气泡中，齐泽克告诉我们数字时代的界面的奥秘在于：“对于我在元宇宙交流中的伙伴，这里存在着根本的不确定性，我永远无法肯定他们是谁。他们是否‘真的’像他们所描述的那样，在屏幕角色的背后是否有一个‘真正的’人，屏幕角色是否是多种人的面具，同一个“真正的”人是否拥有并操纵着更多的屏幕角色，或者我只是在与一个数字化的实体打交道，它并不代表任何‘真正’的人?简而言之，‘界面’(Inter-Face)恰恰意味着我与他者的关系从来不是‘面对面’的，它总是被中间的数字机制所中介，它代表着拉康的‘大他者’,‘大他者’是匿名的象征秩序，其结构就像一个迷宫。”15齐泽克的分析旨在告诉我们，在数字化的当下，我们的生命并不是没有扎根，而是扎根在一个无生命的界面上，这个界面就是克拉里的“焦土”,一片数字化的焦土。由于数字焦土没有真正滋养生命的营养，它唯一的规则就是按照资本主义的利润和剥削法则运行，主体变成了失去了关怀、无助的幽灵主体，他们在数字界面上流浪，徘徊，没有希望。而拯救这些数字焦土上的主体的唯一可能，就在于数字界面下被遮蔽的物，那些零散的剩余数据。为此我们需要的是一种新的考古学，在这种考古学下重建生命的可能性。

III. The Archaeology of Surplus Data

三、剩余数据的考古学

In an outline on history left by Walter Benjamin in his later years, he wrote in a prophetic tone: “History is a discipline whose structure is not built on homogeneous, empty time, but on time filled with the ‘now’ (Jetztzeit). Thus, for Robespierre, ancient Rome was a past charged with the time of the now that he blasted out of the continuum of history.” [16]16 Walter Benjamin, “On the Concept of History,” Thesis XIV. The translation here follows the standard English version, with “Jetztzeit” rendered as “now-time” in most editions. When Benjamin says that history is a homogeneous and coherent narrative thread of time, this means that a coherent historical narrative inevitably obscures a vast number of ‘nows’ that are inconsistent with the mainstream historical narrative. It is precisely these moments of the ‘now’ that question and deconstruct the coherent mainstream historical narrative of the ancient Roman type, viewing this historical narrative as a tool used by the ruling class to maintain its rule. It is in this sense that countless ‘nows’ inconsistent with ancient history are brought to light. The emergence of these inconsistent ‘nows’ signifies not only the rupture of the ancient Roman type of historical narrative but also the birth of a new calendar. Benjamin called out: “The revolutionary class has a typical consciousness when it acts, believing that it is about to shatter the continuous, unified course of history. The great revolution brought a new calendar; the first day of the calendar functions as a slow-motion camera that takes a snapshot of history.” [17]17 Ibid., Thesis XV. This is the true meaning of revolution: not only revolution in the body, but also a complete rupture in historical narrative of the ruling class’s coherence. Thus, Benjamin’s philosophy of history is a philosophy of rupture. Historical salvation does not lie in a high and mighty deity saving us, but rather in the fact that when we face a historical narrative as hard as steel, before that residue that cannot be digested by history, the coherent, orderly, and smooth surface of history cracks. In Benjamin’s view, not only is history like this, but our insight into the world is also the same: within a complete field of vision, there are always some missing things. Here we encounter Schelling’s concept of the “never-to-be-eliminated residue” (der nie aufhebbare Rest). Žižek comments that Schelling’s “‘never-to-be-eliminated residue’ is a residue that has escaped the formal structure, like the trash that legend says hinders the smooth operation of a machine, and the pure formal distortion of the machine itself, which turns it back on itself. These two are strictly correlated: this piece of trash gives the distortion of the machine itself, and it is impossible to determine which comes first.” [18]18 Slavoj Žižek, *The Sublime Object of Ideology* (London: Verso, 1989), p. 76. The reference is to F.W.J. Schelling’s concept of an irreducible remainder in his philosophical system. This “never-to-be-eliminated residue” hinders the operation of the overall mechanism, and also hinders the mechanism that incorporates all things into the same structure with a unified principle. They become trash precisely because of their absolute incompatibility with the unified structure. Perhaps only in this trash can we find the truth obscured by capitalism. It is for this reason that, in the streets and alleys of Paris, Benjamin was more keen on picking up the trash that was utterly incompatible with the arcades of real commercial capitalism. Only those residues, incompatible with the prosperity of capitalism, could awaken the bourgeois masses obsessed with commodity fetishism from their slumber, allowing them to witness the ruins at the cracks of prosperity. At that moment, the illusion of the unity of capitalist commodities and prosperity could be torn apart.

在本雅明(Walter Benjamin)晚期留下的一份关于历史的提纲中，他以一种预言家的口吻写道：“史学是这样一门学科，其结构不是建筑在匀质的、空洞的时间之上，而是建筑在充满着‘当下’(Jetztzeit)的时间之上。因此，对于罗伯斯庇尔来说，古罗马是一个他从连续统一的历史过程中爆破出来的一个填注着当下时间的过去。”16当本雅明说史学是一个匀质而连贯的叙事时间线索的时候，意味着连贯性的历史叙事必然遮蔽了大量与主流历史叙事不一致的无数的“当下”,正是这些“当下”的瞬间，质疑并解构了古罗马式的连贯性主流历史叙事，并将这种历史叙事看成统治阶级用来维护自己统治的工具。正是在这个意义上，无数与古代历史不一致的“当下”呈现出来。这些不一致的“当下”被呈现出来，不仅意味着古罗马式的历史叙事的崩裂，而且也意味着一种新历法的诞生，本雅明呼唤道：“革命阶级在行动之时有一种典型意识，认为他们行将让连续统一的历史进程土崩瓦解。大革命带来了一种新的历法，历法的第一天起着一种为历史存照的慢镜头照相机的作用。”17这就是革命的真正含义，不仅在身躯上革命，也需要在历史叙事上彻底让统治阶级连贯性的叙事崩裂。由此可见，本雅明的历史哲学是一种断裂性的历史哲学，历史的救赎并不在于一个高高在上的神灵能拯救我们，而是在于，当我们面对如同钢铁般坚硬的历史叙事时，在那个无法被历史消化的残余物面前，历史连贯的、整齐的、光滑的表面崩裂了。在本雅明看来，不仅历史是如此，我们对世界的洞见亦是如此，在一个完整的视野里，总是存在着某些丢失的东西。在这里我们遭遇了谢林意义上的“无法消除的剩余物”(der nie aufhebbare Rest)的概念，齐泽克评述道，谢林的“‘无法消除的剩余物’是一种摆脱了形式结构的剩余物，就像传说中阻碍机器顺利运行的垃圾，以及机器本身的纯粹形式扭曲结构，使它自己转过来。这两者是严格相关的：这块垃圾给了机器本身的扭曲，而哪个先出现是无法确定的。”18这个“无法消除的剩余物”阻碍着整体机制的运行，也阻碍了将所有事物都纳入同一结构并有着统一原则的机制之中，它们之所以成为垃圾(trash),恰恰在于它与统一结构的绝对的格格不入。或许只有在这片垃圾之中，我们才能找到被资本主义所遮蔽的真理。也正因为如此，在巴黎的街巷里，本雅明更热衷于拾掇那些与现实商业资本主义的拱廊街格格不入的垃圾，只有那些作为与资本主义的繁华不相容的残余物，才能让那些痴迷于商品拜物教的布尔乔亚的大众从沉睡中惊醒，目睹那繁华裂缝处的废墟。在那一刻，资本主义商品和繁荣的统一性的幻象才能被撕裂。

Similarly, under the control of capitalism, the digital interface also possesses a similar continuity. However, we are no longer facing the historical narrative under Benjamin’s pen, nor can we, like his Baudelaire, stroll through the streets of Paris “picking up trash.” For once we enter the digital gate, the law of unity does not lie on the surface, but in the underlying protocols of the digital interface. These most basic algorithmic protocols have already determined that anything incompatible with the interface of digital capitalist society will not appear on the interface. This means that today’s digital space or metaverse space is a smoother space than Benjamin’s arcades. These platforms create for us a rule system without “trash,” a world without residues. We cannot find cracks on the surface of the capitalist interface by idling in the streets and alleys. Everything is hidden, all residues vanish into thin air. The solid fortress is further reinforced before the user, as impregnable as a military stronghold. All pious things can only circulate in digital space after being stamped with a digital seal. The question is: can we still, like Benjamin, find a “never-to-be-eliminated residue” in the virtual space created by digital capitalism, to break the illusion of unity under the digital interface, and further reshape hope on the digital scorched earth?

同样，在资本主义控制下的数字界面也有着类似的连续性，不过，我们面对的不再是本雅明笔下的历史叙事，也无法像他笔下的波德莱尔那样，漫步在巴黎街头“拾掇垃圾”。因为一旦我们进到数字之门，统一性的法则并不在表象上，而是在数字界面的底层协议中，这些最基层的算法协议已经决定了任何与数字资本主义社会界面不相容的东西，都不会在界面上表象出来，这意味着，今天的数字空间或元宇宙空间，是一个比本雅明的拱廊街更加平滑的空间。这些平台为我们营造没有“垃圾”的规则系统、没有残余物的世界，我们不能通过在街巷里闲逛就能找到资本主义界面上行的裂缝。一切都被掩藏了，一切残余物都烟消云散了，坚固的堡垒在用户面前进一步得到了加固，如同军事要塞一般牢不可破，一切虔诚的东西只有在烙了数字钢印之后，才能在数字空间中流传。问题在于，我们是否还能像本雅明那样，在数字资本主义营造出来的虚拟空间中，找到一个“无法消除的剩余物”,来打破数字界面下的统一性幻象，进一步在数字焦土之上重塑希望?

Against this background, we can perhaps more clearly understand Foucault’s motivation for writing *The Archaeology of Knowledge*. After completing *The Order of Things*, Foucault proposed the concept of the power of discourse, because discursive formation itself implies the synthesis of a continuous and smooth system of discourse over the system of things. Rebellion against the power of discourse cannot be carried out within the power of discourse itself. We cannot defeat historical narrative with historical narrative, nor can we defeat digital platforms with digital platforms, because they all belong to the same system. No matter what kind of narrative power or platform algorithm, they all incorporate people under the expected system, acting according to its rules and protocols. Under these rules and protocols, we can only see what we are allowed to see, we can only speak the words we are permitted to speak, we can only think the meanings we are allowed to think. Against this coherent power of discourse, Foucault’s strategy is archaeology. Foucault wrote: “Archaeology does not try to rediscover continuous, imperceptible transitions that slowly link discourses to what precedes, surrounds, or follows them. Archaeology does not wait for the moment when discourses, based on what they are not yet, become what they are; nor does it wait for the moment when discourses, after resolving the stability of their forms, gradually lose their identity. Instead, archaeology’s problem is to determine discourses in their specificity, to indicate in what respects the set of rules they employ is irreducible to anything else, to trace them along their external contours and in order to better highlight them.” [19]19 Michel Foucault, *The Archaeology of Knowledge* (London: Routledge, 2002), p. 139. The translation here is adapted from the standard English edition. Just as Foucault attempted to verify the possibility of another history by finding obscure documents in the archives of the Bastille collected in the French National Archives, when we conduct archaeological research on historical documents, the previously coherent and smooth historical narrative will stir up waves.

在这个背景下，我们或许可以更清楚地理解福柯撰写《知识考古学》的动机。在撰写完《词与物》之后，福柯提出了话语的权力的概念，因为话语构型(formation discursive)本身意味着连续和平整的话语体系对物的体系的综合，而对于话语权力的反叛，完全不能在话语权力内部来开展，我们不能通过历史叙事打败历史叙事，也不能通过数字平台来打败数字平台，因为它们都属于同一个体系。无论何种叙事权力和平台算法，它们都将人们纳入预期体系之下，按照其规则和协议而行事，在这些规则和协议之下，我们只能看到我们能看到的东西，我们只能言说被允许说出的话语，我们只能思考可以思考的内涵。对于这种连贯性的话语力量，福柯的策略是考古学，福柯写道：“考古学并不试图去重新发现连续的、不可察觉的转变，这种转变缓缓地将诸话语与它们之前的、周围的或之后的东西联系起来。考古学不等待诸话语基于它们尚不是的东西来变成它们所是的东西的时机，它也不等待诸话语在解决它们的形态的稳固性之后逐渐丧失它们的同一性的时机。考古学的问题反而把诸话语放在它们的特殊性中来确定，指出它们所使用的成套规则在什么方面不可简化为任何其他东西，沿着它们的外部轮廓和为了更好地突出它们来追踪它们。”19正如福柯试图通过在法国国家档案馆收藏的巴士底狱的文献中，找出那些寂寂无闻的文献，来验证另一种历史的可能性，当我们进行历史文献考古学研究的时候，之前那个连贯而平滑的历史叙事，便会掀起波澜。

So, can we find traces on the scorched earth of digital capitalist society that are available for archaeological research? The French philosopher of technology Bernard Stiegler gives us an affirmative answer: there must be something that cannot be digested by capitalist algorithms and data platforms, which we can call “surplus data” (surplus data).[20]20 The term “surplus data” (剩余数据) is a neologism coined by the author, drawing an analogy to Marx’s concept of surplus value. Borrowing the concept of “tertiary retention” (souvenir tertiaire), Stiegler points out that any of our actions today in digital networks leave data, “which constitutes a threat through a system of total computerization and automation that utilizes the traces transmitted and received by screens, which constitute various interfaces: systems of social networks, user archives, smart cities, etc., through which they intercept to channel ‘massive data,’ and then develop so-called big data using real-time (light-speed) intensive computing technology.”[21]21 Bernard Stiegler, *The Automatic Society*, vol. 1: *The Future of Work*, trans. Daniel Ross (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2016), p. 12. In other words, for any user’s behavior, whether conscious or unconscious, even an inadvertent browsing, data is generated on the network and persists in digital space. The problem is that this data does not always manifest itself; various platforms extract large amounts of data, but these digital platforms controlled by capital do not directly adopt and analyze all data. The algorithms developed by platforms aim only at refining and analyzing data for the capitalized platform, extracting data that can be used by them. In other words, the data that can be used by the platform is a very small part of all data generated by users participating in digital space and interconnected networks. The vast majority of data is merely stored on servers and at some anonymous terminal, like documents in libraries and archives that have been dust-covered for a century and never consulted.

那么，我们是否可以在数字资本主义社会的焦土之上，找到可供开展考古学研究的痕迹?法国技术哲学家贝尔纳·斯蒂格勒给予我们肯定的回答，一定有某种无法被资本主义算法和数据平台消化的数据，我们可以称之为“剩余数据”(surplus data)20。斯蒂格勒借用“第三持存”(souvenir tertiaire)的概念指出，我们今天任何在数字网络中的行为，都会留下数据，“它通过全面电脑化和自动化的系统构成一种威胁，这种系统利用屏幕传送和接收的痕迹，而屏幕构成了各种各样的界面：社交网络的系统、用户归档、智能型城市，等等，通过它们截取以疏导‘大量的数据’,然后用实时的(光速的)密集计算的技术来开发所谓的大数据”21。换言之，对于任何用户的行为，无论是有意识还是无意识，甚至一个不经意的浏览中，都会在网络上产生数据，并在数字空间中持存下来。问题在于，这些数据并不会始终表现出来，各种平台提取了大量的数据，但这些被资本控制的数字平台并不会直接采用和分析所有数据。平台开发出来算法，目标仅仅在于为资本主义化的平台进行数据精炼和分析，提取出可以被它们所用的数据，换言之，能够得到了平台使用的数据，是所有用户参与数字空间和互联网络中数据中的极少部分，绝大多数数据只是在服务器和某个匿名终端那里保存着，就像图书馆和档案馆里被尘封百年，始终无人问津的文献一样。

However, the contribution of Foucault’s archaeology of knowledge lies not merely in these beings, but in the need to invent a new discourse, to bring these “vanished” and obscure documents back before people’s eyes. Foucault says: “Archaeology places the following statements as guiding statements at the root: they concern the determination of observable structures and the range of possible objects; they prescribe the forms of description and the perceptual criteria that can be used for the range of possible objects; they bring about the emergence of the most general possibilities of characterization and thereby open up the entire field of concepts to be constructed; they ultimately leave the greatest room for future choices in constituting strategic choices. And archaeology will rediscover ‘discoveries’ (such as the discovery of fossil series), conceptual shifts (such as new definitions of species), the emergence of never-before-seen or unheard-of ideas (such as the idea of mammals or organisms), and technical adjustments (the organizing principles of specimens, methods of classification and taxonomy) at the top of the derivative tree or at least throughout the thorny course.”[22]22 Michel Foucault, *The Archaeology of Knowledge*, trans. A. M. Sheridan Smith (New York: Pantheon Books, 1972), p. 66. Only by inventing new statements and narratives can those concealed documents and remains open their secrets to us. Their secret lies not in themselves, but in the discursive system they depend on, that is, Benjamin’s new calendar. The revolutionary effort lies in creating a new discourse, a new platform, a new calendar, so that the data, traces, documents, and remains that previously existed but were obscured can be made manifest again to the world, thereby breaking the old discourse, dissolving these “irremovable residues,” and turning impossible events into historical possibilities.

不过福柯知识考古学的贡献并不仅仅在于对这些存在者，而是需要发明一种新的话语，让这些“消逝”的寂寂无闻的文献重新出现在人们面前。福柯说：“考古学将下述陈述作为导向性的陈述放在根部：它们关系着对可观察的结构和可能对象的范围的确定，它们规定着描述的形式和可能对象 的范围可以利用的感知准则；它们促使特征化的最一般的可能性出现并由此打开有待建构的概念的整个领域，它们最终在构成策略选择时给今后最多的选择留有余地。而且考古学将在派生树的最顶端或至少在整个荆棘丛生的历程中重新找到‘发现’(如化石系列的发现)、概念的转换(如种的新定义)、从未见过或听过的观念的出现(如哺乳动物或有机体的观念)、 技术的调整(标本的组织原理、分类与术语分类的方法)。”22只有通过发明新的陈述和叙事，那些被掩盖的文献和遗迹，才能向我们敞开它的奥秘，它的奥秘不在于它本身，而在于它所依附的话语体系，即本雅明的新的历法。革命性的努力在于创造一种新话语、新平台、新历法，让之前存在着但被遮蔽的那些数据、痕迹、文献、遗迹再次昭然于天下，从而破除旧有话语，消解这些“无法消除的剩余物”,让不可能的事件变成历史的可能性。

Following the spiritual aspirations of Benjamin and Foucault, on this scorched earth ruled by algorithms and platforms in digital capitalist society, what modern people need is an archaeology of surplus data. Those data intentionally or unintentionally abandoned by platforms and algorithms still exist, right beside each of us. The reason we cannot see these data is merely that we have become subjects mediated by digital interfaces; our intersubjectivity is also a product of interfaces and platforms. Hence, we can only see the characters, information, and images provided by the platform, interact with fixed objects, and only advance along the paths predicted and planned by platform algorithms. Even if those “irremovable residues” are right under our feet, we turn a blind eye to them. The existence of those surplus data is an existence not modeled by algorithms. Modern people cannot, like Foucault and Benjamin, obtain these documents buried in the dust of history by wandering and picking up garbage, nor can they, like Žižek, “look awry” and use the “view of parallax” to discover those invisible clues.

沿着本雅明和福柯的精神志向，在数字资本主义社会用算法和平台统治着的这片焦土之上，现代人需要的就是一种剩余数据的考古学。那些被平台和算法有意或无意遗弃的数据，仍然存在着，就在我们每一个人身边，我们之所以看不到这些数据，仅仅是因为我们已经是被数字界面中介后的主体，我们的主体间性也是界面和平台的产物，故而我们只能看见平台提供给我们的字符、信息、图像，与固定的对象互动，我们只会按照平台算法预测和规划的路径前进。即便那些“无法消除的剩余物”就在我们的脚下，我们也对它视而不见。那些剩余数据的存在，是一个未被算法建模的存在，现代人无法像福柯和本雅明一样，用流浪和拾掇垃圾的方式来获得这些掩埋在历史尘埃中的文献，甚至无法像齐泽克那样“斜目而视”,用“视差之见”(view of parallax)发现那些看不见的线索。

In other words, it is difficult for modern people to discover buried surplus data through changes in the subject. The archaeology of surplus data is not based on inter-subjectivity, but on the inter-objectivity of direct communication and exchange between data and data, object and object, allowing things and surplus data to appear in digital space and before people’s eyes in new ways. At the moment when the algorithm controlled by capital is intervened by a new algorithm of inter-objectivity, Charon, who masters the crossing between the virtual and the real, will slowly fade in color and become a hollow of the digital interface. At the moment Charon’s body dissolves, the hopeful road to the real also looms faintly behind the “digital door.” There, under the data archaeology of inter-objectivity, hope has not vanished but is obscured by Charon’s body controlled by capital. Once modern people find the path to the archaeology of surplus data, they are no longer obscure souls but lives that can pursue hope.

换言之，现代人很难通过主体的变动来发现被掩埋的剩余数据，剩余数据的考古学不是建立在主体间性(inter-subjectivity)之上，而是建立在数据对数据、对象与对象直接沟通和交流的物体间性(inter-objectivity),让物和剩余数据以新的方式呈现在数字空间中，呈现在人们面前，在被资本控制的算法被新的物体间性的算法介入那一刻，掌握着泅渡在虚拟与现实之间的卡戎才会慢慢褪去色彩，变成一种数字界面的空洞。在卡戎身体消融的那一刻，通向真实的希望之路也在“数字之门”背后若隐若现。在那里，在物体间性的数据考古学之下，希望并没有消弭，而是被资本控制的卡戎身体所遮掩。一旦现代人找到通向剩余数据的考古学之路，就不再是寂寂无闻的灵魂，而是可以追寻希望的生命。

(The author is a professor and doctoral supervisor in the Department of Philosophy at Nanjing University, and a young scholar under the Ministry of Education’s “Changjiang Scholars Award Program.”)

（作者系南京大学哲学系教授、博士生导师，教育部“长江学者奖励计划”青年学者）

Online editor: Zhang Jian

网络编辑：张剑