The Existential Crisis of Humanity and Its Resolution under the “New Alienation” of Temporal Rhythm

For millennia, numerous philosophers and great minds have extended an invitation to time, probing its essence and observing the cosmos and the world. Time has always been a subject of discourse, and in recent years it has become one of the core topics of social science research. People’s experience of time and space has undergone a fundamental change; time is no longer a uniform linear motion but an accelerated one, tending toward abstraction. People increasingly feel the tension and disorder of time, trapped in a cage of anxiety constructed by time. Therefore, it is necessary to re-examine the historical nature of temporal rhythm and its impact on human society. Some scholars argue that modern history is “reconstructed as accelerated history,” and that time is influenced by the division of labor, leading to a separation between social time and individual time, public time and private time, and internal time and external time. Other scholars point out that time has become a specific, “abstract” form; “modernity demands an abstract chronological time that can integrate various irregular but interrelated social activities into a non-simultaneous simultaneity.” The rapid movement and abstraction of time cause social life to gradually fragment and be replaced by a diversity of temporal experiences. So, what kind of distortion has the current temporal structure undergone? How does this change shape people’s daily lives? And how can we escape the predicament of human existence? The Western scholar Jonathan Crary has proposed the 24/7 system, which plunges humanity into a state of continuous non-stop activity—a social temporal model of uninterrupted service 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, covering all areas of daily life such as consumption, work, leisure, and sleep. This reveals that humanity is in a “new alienated” existential situation of time without time, rhythm without rhythm, serving as a contemporary interpretation of Lefebvre’s constructed “rhythmanalysis.” Crary points to two ways to escape the alienation of temporal rhythm: constructing a community of “waiting” and relying on sleep as a natural barrier against capitalist encroachment. Crary’s views are enlightening for understanding the temporal model of capitalist modernity, breaking the paradox of time, and rethinking critical social theory. At the same time, we should recognize that although Crary repeatedly draws on Marx’s intellectual resources, he still does not transcend Marx’s diagnosis of capitalism. This is because the various manifestations of the transformation of human existence in his work do not touch on the analysis of the inherent contradictions of capitalism; the “profit engine thesis” and the “end of sleep thesis” do not penetrate to the logic of capital accumulation. This leads Crary to explain some problems but not the whole picture, so his plan to break out of the 24/7 system can only be a plea for the good. Therefore, it is necessary to reclaim Marx’s “weapon of critique” and “critique of weapons,” and to step out of the maze of the 24/7 system from the perspective of historical materialism and the critique of political economy.

千百年来，众多哲人巨擘都向时间发出邀约，探寻时间的本质，观察宇宙和世界。时间始终被言说，近年来更成为社会科学研究的核心课题之一。人们对时间和空间的体验发生了根本性变化，时间不再是一种匀速直线运动，而是加速运动，并趋于抽象化，人们愈发觉得时间的紧张和失序，陷入由时间设置的焦虑牢笼之中。因此，必须重新审视时间节奏的历史性质及其对人类社会的影响。有学者认为，现代的历史“重构为加速的历史”,并且时间受劳动分工影响，导致社会时间与个人时间、公共时间与私人时间、内部时间与外部时间的分离。还有学者指出，时间成为一种特定的、“抽象的”形式,“现代性所要求的是一种抽象的时序时间，它能够将各种不规则但相互关联的社会活动整合成一个非同时的同步性”。时间的快速运动和抽象化，导致社会生活逐渐碎片化，且被一种多样性的时间经验所取代。那么，当下的时间结构究竟发生了怎样的畸变?这种变化如何形塑人们的日常生活?又如何走出人类的生存困境呢?西方学者乔纳森·克拉里提出了致使人类进入持续无歇状态的24/7体制，即24小时、一周7天无间断提供服务的社会时间模式，涵盖人类的消费、工作、休闲、睡眠等日常生活诸领域。其揭示了人类处于没有时间的时间、没有节奏的节奏的“新异化”生存境遇当中，成为列斐伏尔构建的“节奏分析”的当代阐释，并指出了摆脱时间节奏异化的两种方案，即构建“等待”共同体和倚重睡眠作为抵抗资本主义侵占的天然屏障。克拉里的观点对人们理解资本主义现代性的时间模式、破除时间悖论、重思社会批判理论具有启发意义。同时，我们应该看到，克拉里虽然多次提到马克思的思想资源，但是他仍旧没有超越马克思对资本主义的诊断，因为他笔下人的存在方式嬗变的种种表征没有触及资本主义内在矛盾的分析，“利润引擎说”“睡眠终结论”还没有深入到资本增殖逻辑。这就导致克拉里说明了一些问题，但并未说明问题的全部，故而他给出的突围24/7体制计划只能是一种善的诉求。因此，有必要重拾马克思“批判的武器”和“武器的批判”,在唯物史观和政治经济学批判视域中走出24/7体制的迷障。

I. “Static Redundancy” and Rhythmic Rupture: The Disenchanted World Constructed by the 24/7 System

一、“静态冗余”和节奏断裂:24/7体制构筑的祛魅世界

At the beginning of his book *24/7: Late Capitalism and the Ends of Sleep*, Crary presents three different scenes that reveal the basic logic of the 24/7 system. Whether it is the U.S. military’s sleepless plan, the alliance’s round-the-clock slogans, or the sleepless punishment in prisons, all reflect a “big Other” that is reshaping the mode of human existence. Its internal logic is to ultimately change human life rhythms by controlling sleep and the boundaries of day and night. This “big Other” is precisely the capitalist 24/7 system, whose purpose is to turn people into never-stopping machines, draining all living space and free time. As Crary states, “A new kind of human subject is being formed.” This subject’s “sensory and perceptual experience is thoroughly controlled,” falling into a “pitiable, docile state of subjection.”

克拉里在其著作《24/7:晚期资本主义与睡眠的终结》的开篇呈现了三个不同的场景，道出了24/7体制的基本逻辑。无论是美军的无眠计划，还是联盟彻夜通明的口号，抑或是监狱的无眠惩罚，都体现了某个“大他者”正在重塑现代人的存在方式，其内在逻辑是通过控制人的睡眠和日夜的界限最终改变人的生命节奏。而这里的“大他者”正是资本主义24/7体制，它的目的就是让人成为永不停歇的机器，榨干人的所有生活空间和自由时间。正如克拉里所言：“一种新的人类主体正在形成。”这种主体的“感官和知觉经验被彻底控制”,陷入“可怜的、百依百顺的主体状态”。

The above cases help people understand the paradox presented by the ever-expanding, never-stopping lifeworld under the 21st-century capitalist system. Crary emphasizes the characteristics of this situation: “Human life is largely absorbed into a state of uninterrupted continuity, where constant operation is the norm. In this state, time no longer passes; it exists outside clock time.” “No interruption” and “constant operation” become the norms of the 24/7 system. In such a mechanism society, akin to a perpetual motion machine, time loses its efficacy and becomes stagnant. This stagnation of time does not mean that time does not exist; at this very moment, time is still passing second by second, and society still operates orderly according to the measure of time. In fact, what Crary seeks to reveal is that the 24/7 system “marks a static redundancy, which negates the connection with the rhythms and cycles of human life mechanisms, implying an arbitrary weekly schema without inflection.” This round-the-clock system breaks the rhythmic, durational temporality, causing the suspension of “rhythm” and “cycle,” and reshaping human physiological functions to adapt to the operation of modern society. “Capitalism brutally separates humans from natural, seasonal rhythms.”

上述案例能够帮助人们理解在21世纪资本主义体系下，不断扩张、永不停歇的生活世界所呈现的悖论。克拉里强调了这种状况的特征：“人类生命大体上已经被裹挟进了没有间歇的持续状态，不停地运行就是其准则。这种状态下，时间不再流逝，处于时钟时间之外。” “没有间歇”和“不停运行”成为24/7体制的准则。在这样一个类似永动机的机制社会中，时间失去了效力，变得停滞。这里的时间停滞并非指不存在时间，此时此刻，时间仍在分秒地流逝，社会依然遵循时间的尺度有序运转。事实上，克拉里所要揭示的是，24/7体制“标志着一种静态冗余，它否定了与蕴含节奏和周期的人类生命机理间的联系，意味着一种任意的没有曲折变化的星期图示”。这种全天候的体制打破了有顿感的、绵延的时间性，造成了“节奏”和“周期”的悬置，人的生理机能被重新形塑以适应现代社会的运作，“资本主义残酷地将人类从自然的、季节性的节奏中分离出来”。

The French theorist of everyday life critique, Henri Lefebvre, is one of the earlier prominent theorists to focus on the issue of “rhythm.” He thematized the important concept of “rhythmanalysis” and provided its first concentrated exposition, emphasizing the significance of rhythmanalysis for the production of space [8]8 “Digital panopticon” adapts Michel Foucault’s concept of the panopticon (a prison design enabling constant surveillance) to digital platforms where users voluntarily expose themselves.. For Lefebvre, rhythm has a dual meaning. First, rhythm means “the relationship between time and space, a localized time, or a temporalized space. Rhythm is always linked to a certain place,” meaning that rhythm is “the most basic form of occupying time and space,” such as the beating of the heart, pedestrians on the street, or a waltz in a dance hall—all concrete expressions of rhythm. Second, rhythm must involve repetition. Lefebvre categorizes the repetition of rhythm into two types: cyclical repetition and linear repetition, which are closely connected and interact with each other. Correspondingly, cyclical rhythm represents natural time, or biological rhythm, closely related to the laws of natural change; while linear rhythm usually originates from social time and human activities, and this rhythm “brings a different time, a limited duration.” Lefebvre not only analyzes the key points of rhythm but also sees the crisis of everyday life caused by various technologies and socio-economic activities. On the one hand, people’s life activities are measured by both biological time and quantified time, with quantified time gradually encroaching on biological time. People’s nighttime activities multiply, overturning the concept and perception of day and night; repetitive daytime work also nibbles away at nighttime little by little, and weekend night revelry replaces traditional rest and rituals. On the other hand, the gridding of time and the clear rhythm cause people’s biological rhythms to be manipulated and deprived by social rhythms. “On a certain day in the modern world, everyone does more or less the same things at more or less the same times, but each person is alone.” Quantified time makes everyday life monotonous and fragmented, like a traffic network, where people’s activities are cut into various forms of entertainment and work with a hierarchical character. “There is no time to do everything, but every ‘doing’ has its time.”

法国日常生活批判理论家列斐伏尔是较早关注“节奏”问题的著名理论家之一，他将“节奏分析”这一重要概念主题化并最先给予集中阐释，强调了节奏分析对空间生产的重要意义[8]。在列斐伏尔那里，节奏具有双重意涵。一是节奏意味着“时间与空间的关系，一个局部的时间，或者，一个时间化的空间。节奏总是与某个地方联系在一起”,也就是说节奏是“一种时间和空间占有的最基本的形式”,如心脏的跳动、街道的行人、舞厅的华尔兹都是节奏的具象表达。二是节奏必须带有重复性，列斐伏尔将节奏的重复归为循环重复和线性重复两种类型，二者紧密联系、相互作用。与之对应，周期性的节奏表征的是自然时间或者说生物节奏，与自然界的变化规律息息相关；而线性节奏通常源于社会时间和人类活动，这种节奏“带来了一个不同的时间，一个限定的持续时间”。列斐伏尔不仅对节奏的要点进行了剖析，还看到了多种技术、社会经济活动造成的日常生活危机。一方面，人们的生命活动被生物时间和量化时间双重衡量，并且量化时间逐步侵占生物时间。人们夜间活动成倍增加，颠覆了昼夜的概念和感知；白天的重复工作也在一点点蚕食夜晚时间，周末夜的狂欢取代了传统的休息和仪式。另一方面，时间的网格化和明确的节奏使人的生物节奏被社会节奏操控和剥夺，“现代世界的某一天，每个人都会在或多或少相同的时间做或多或少相同的事情，但每个人都是独自一人”。量化的时间让日常生活变得单调和破碎，如同一个交通网络，人们的活动被切割为各种形式且具有等级制度色彩的娱乐和工作，“没有时间做每件事，但是每一件‘做’都有时间”。

When describing the shaping of individuals by the 24/7 system, Crary is also influenced by Lefebvre’s theory of the critique of everyday life. He believes that Lefebvre revealed the unchanging essential characteristic of everyday life—repetition and habit—and that everyday life is precisely the cyclical alternation of waking and sleeping, day and night, work and festivity. However, everyday life has become unrecognizable with the evolution of capitalist society. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, the results of capitalist modernization stood in opposition to everyday life; these consequences were “fundamentally cumulative, anti-cyclical, and developmental, and habits and repetition also became programmed.” What unfolds before people is a scene: social interaction and dialogue give way to shopping, fixed festivals are replaced by commercialized leisure time, false needs are constantly manufactured, and the act of sharing is degraded. In the late 1940s and 1950s, with economic modernization and the increasing refinement of the social division of labor, the concept of everyday life was regarded as a remnant of the past. “Everyday life is like a vague place where time and space gather, time and space that lie outside organized and institutionalized work, conformity, and consumerism.” Everyday life, besieged and blocked by modernity, shrank into a corner and fell silent. Since the 1980s, everyday life has faced an even more terrifying situation: “Time itself has been monetized, and the individual has been redefined as a full-time *homo economicus*.” Consumer society and the control society have become invisible shackles on new subjects. Since the late 1990s, “human subjects have been more broadly and comprehensively integrated into the continuous 24/7 form of capitalism.” Individuals are drawn into the market mechanism and “reach an agreement” with it, erasing the boundaries of various social spheres. Independent and autonomous spheres of activity find it difficult to escape the fate of being financialized, and even the cycles of the ecological environment and the rhythm of seasonal change are disrupted. Amid the elegy of everyday life becoming fragmented and its positions continuously lost, does human life still have a chance to resist?

克拉里在描述24/7体制对个体的形塑时也受到列斐伏尔日常生活批判理论的影响。他认为，列氏揭示了重复与习惯这一日常生活始终如一的本质特征，日常生活正是苏醒与睡眠、日与夜、工作与节庆的循环交替，但是日常生活随着资本主义社会的演进变得面目全非。19世纪和20世纪初，资本主义现代化的结果同日常生活相对立，这些后果“从根本上说是积累性的、反循环的和发展式的，习惯和重复也变得程序化了”。展现在世人面前的是这样一幅景观：人们的社交和对话让位于购物，固定的节庆被商业化的休闲时间取代，虚假需求被不断制造出来，分享行为遭受贬损。而在20世纪40年代末和50年代，经济现代化和社会分工日益精细化，日常生活的概念被视为过去遗存的痕迹，“日常就像一个模糊的聚集时间与空间的地方，这些时空处于被组织化和体制化的工作、一致性和消费主义之外”,日常生活遭受现代性的围追堵截而蜷缩一隅，变得沉寂。20世纪80年代以来，日常生活面临更加可怖的境地，“时间自身被货币化了，个体被重新定义成了一个全日制的经济人”,消费社会和控制社会成为新主体无形的枷锁。20世纪90年代末以降，“人类主体被更广泛更全面地整合进了持续不断的24/7式的资本主义之中”,个体被卷进市场机制并同其“达成一致”,消弭了各类社会领域的界限，独立自主的活动领域难以逃脱被金融化的命运，并且生态环境的循环和季节更替的节奏也被打断。在日常生活变得支离破碎、阵地不断失守的悲歌之下，人的生命是否还有反抗的机会?

In Crary’s view, sleep seems to have become the last stubborn resistance against the 24/7 system and the defense of life. Most seemingly non-commodifiable basic physiological needs, such as hunger, sexual desire, and emotion, have already been reshaped and have opened up space for capital accumulation. “The existence of sleep means that there are some human needs and intervals of time that cannot be colonized, nor can they be absorbed by that enormous engine of profit.” Sleep is a rigid necessity of life; it represents a rhythmic alternating cycle and rest and recuperation. During sleep, people can temporarily escape from the quagmire of desire and the state of tension, gaining a chance to catch their breath. But now, this “oasis” of sleep is also being eroded and becoming unstable. Scholars both domestically and internationally have conducted continuous surveys and research on sleep, and the results show that people’s sleep time is tending to shorten and sleep quality is deteriorating. As Teofilo Lee-Chiong said, sleep is neither a mistake in human evolution nor a brief pause in a busy schedule. To be precise, sleep coexists with waking life, and both are indispensable. Teofilo emphasizes here the inherent pause-button attribute of sleep: humans cannot work continuously like machines. It is precisely this alternating unity of sleep and waking, or static and dynamic states, that makes life full of vitality, thereby achieving a temporary reconciliation of the opposition between humans and objects.

在克拉里看来，睡眠似乎成了对抗24/7体制和保卫生命的最后倔强。大多数看似不能被商品化的基本生理需要，如饥饿、性欲、情感都已经被重新改造并为资本增殖开拓了空间，“睡眠的存在，意味着有的人类需求和间隔时间是不能被殖民的，也不能被那个巨大的利润引擎所吸纳”。睡眠是生命的刚需，它代表着一种有节奏的交替循环和休养生息，在睡眠时间里，人们可以暂时从欲望的泥沼、紧张的状态中逃离，获得喘息的机会。但如今，睡眠这块“绿洲”也遭受侵蚀，变得不稳定。国内外学者都对睡眠进行了持续的调查研究，结果显示，人们的睡眠时间趋向缩短，睡眠质量在变差。正如特奥菲洛·李琼所言，睡眠既不是人类进化过程中的失误，也不是繁忙日程表中的短暂停歇，准确地说，睡眠与清醒的生活并存，两者缺一不可。特奥菲洛在这里强调了睡眠固有的暂停键属性，人不可能像机器那样一直作业，正是生命的这种睡眠与醒来，或者说静态与动态的交替统一，才让生命充满活力，从而实现人与物对立状态的暂时和解。

Under the 24/7 system, although sleep cannot be eliminated, it can be disrupted and deprived. The market’s arbitrary manipulation of time creates a fierce conflict with human physiological rhythms, which Teresa Brennan calls “deregulation of the physiological.” Severe insomnia can only be treated with the aid of purchased medication, but insomnia is no longer a simple individual “deficiency”; rather, it is consistent with a universal state of worldlessness. The world constructed by the 24/7 system eliminates the alternation of light and shadow, waking and sleeping, allowing a homogeneous, rhythmless mode to dominate life. This breaks the balance that Arendt described between the nakedly exposed public sphere of activity and the secluded, private sphere of life. For Arendt, for individuals to cultivate excellent selves and work for the exchange of the common good, they must switch back and forth between the public sphere, symbolized by light, and the private sphere, symbolized by shadow. The former exhausts people, while the latter serves as a refueling station, thus maintaining the dynamic balance of life. However, this mutually supportive relational model faces a serious threat. Arendt noted that in consumer society, the public life and work spheres cause most people to become alienated from one another. In Crary’s view, this imbalance that Arendt recognized manifests in 21st-century cities as: public spaces are comprehensively planned to prevent people from sleeping and resting.

在24/7的体制下，睡眠虽然不能被消灭，但会被破坏和剥夺，市场对时间的肆意操控同人的生理规律之间产生激烈冲突，这被特蕾莎·布伦南称为“解除生理调节”。严重的失眠问题只有靠购买药物才能辅助治愈，但是失眠已经不是作为单纯个体的“匮乏”,而是与普遍的无世界性状态一致。24/7体制构筑的世界正是消除了光亮与阴影、清醒与睡眠的交替性，让同质的无节奏的模式宰制生命，这就打破了阿伦特所描述的赤裸暴露的公共活动领域与幽闭私密的私人生活领域之间的平衡。在阿伦特那里，个人想要培养卓越的自我并为交换共同的善效力，就必须在以光明为意象的公共领域和以阴影为意象的私人领域之间来回切换，前者使人精疲力竭，后者则是补给加油站，由此维持了生命的动态平衡。然而，这种相互支持的关系模式面临严重威胁，阿伦特注意到在消费社会中，公共生活和工作领域让大部分人彼此疏离。在克拉里看来，阿伦特意识到的这种失衡状态在21世纪的城市中表现为：公共空间经过全面规划，防止人睡眠和休憩。

II. Technological Acceleration and the Illusion of Autonomy: The Systematic Colonization of Human Perceptual Experience by the 24/7 System

二、技术加速和自主幻觉:24/7体制对人的知觉经验系统化殖民

The 24/7 system proclaims a time of the death of time. Although time scales still measure people’s daily lives, this time tends to become fragmented, a time that lacks continuity and cyclicality. The world governed by 24/7 logic dissolves any deferral of deadlines and any fluctuating value. “The timelessness of 24/7 relentlessly invades every aspect of social and private life.” Crary believes that the accelerated iteration of electronic technology brings an abundance of digital products, brutally absorbing people’s time and attention, leaving only the wreckage of daylight and no space for night, thereby reshaping people’s perceptual experience. The sense of satisfaction and superiority brought by possessing new technological products leads people to mistakenly believe they are freer. In reality, human autonomy gradually becomes the object of algorithmic-technological discipline, forming an illusion of heightened subjectivity.

24/7体制宣告了一种时间消亡的时间，尽管时间尺度仍然度量人们的日常生活，但是这种时间趋于碎片化，成为一种不具有连续和循环特征的时间。24/7逻辑支配的世界，消解了任何暂缓期限和变幻无定的价值，“24/7的无时间性无情地侵入了社会生活和私人生活的方方面面”。克拉里认为，电子技术的加速迭代带来丰盈的数码产品，残酷地吸纳人们的时间和注意力，让白昼只剩下残骸，黑夜没有存在的空间，重塑了人们的知觉经验。而对新技术产品的占有所带来的满足感和优胜感，人们误认为更加自由，实际上人的自主性逐步沦为算法技术规训的对象，形成了主体性高扬的幻觉。

Crary criticizes some people for using linear logic to explain historical periods and everyday objects, arguing that the present era does not have a successive relationship with past eras such as the “Bronze Age” or the “Steam Age.” He says: “The truth of this era is that it deliberately maintains a state of transition that is always ongoing. Whether on a social or individual level, it is impossible to ‘keep up’ with the constantly changing technological requirements. … The accelerating pace makes it impossible for us to become familiar with any given situation.” In Crary’s view, this persistent instability and the rhythm of social acceleration are dominated by the logic of modernization that has continued from the mid-19th century to the present. Indeed, in Marx’s view, capitalism has influenced the course of human history in a revolutionary way, with the social landscape undergoing intensified transformation. All traditions and the status quo are placed under the gaze of capitalism, which rewrites the world in its own image. Marx believed: “Constant revolutionizing of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones.” Unlike Marx, who explained the dual effects of the capitalist mode of production from the height of the laws governing the evolution of human social formations, Crary, from the perspective of technology, argues that the 24/7 system proclaims the disappearance of stable intervals. Technological acceleration iterates and profoundly affects people’s daily lives, constantly creating new needs in clothing, food, housing, and transportation. The life cycle of newly marketed technological products is continuously shortened. This phenomenon of acceleration is not a linear, arithmetic-level technological progress but an explosive, exponential expansion, and the logic of obsolescence envelops everyone. “When the dynamic logic of capital begins to dramatically undermine any stable or enduring perceptual structure, this logic simultaneously attempts to impose a disciplinary kingdom of attention on people.”

克拉里批评了部分人用线性逻辑去说明历史时期以及日常生活中的物品，并认为现时代与“青铜时代”“蒸汽时代”等以往时代并不具有继承关系。他说：“这个时代的真相是，它处心积虑地维持着一直在进行中的过渡状态。不论从社会还是个人的层面，‘赶上’持续变化的技术要求都是不可能的。……不断加快的节奏使得我们不可能熟悉任何给定的状况。”在克拉里看来，这种持续性的不稳定和社会加速的节奏，由19世纪中叶延续至今的现代化逻辑主导。的确，在马克思那里，资本主义以革命的方式影响了人类历史的进程，社会风貌加剧蜕变，一切传统、现状都置于资本主义按照自己面貌改写的凝视之中。马克思认为：“生产的不断变革，一切社会状况不停的动荡，永远的不安定和变动，这就是资产阶级时代不同于过去一切时代的地方。”同马克思站在人类社会形态演进规律的高度说明资本主义生产方式带来的双面效应不同，克拉里从技术层面致思24/7体制宣告了稳定间歇期的消逝。技术加速迭代并深刻影响了人们的日常生活，不断在衣食住行方面创造新的需求。新投放市场的技术产品生命周期不断缩短，这种加速的现象并非线性算术级别的技术进展，而是一种爆发式的指数级别的膨胀，淘汰的逻辑将每个人裹挟其中。“当资本的动态逻辑开始戏剧性地瓦解任何稳定或持久的知觉结构的时候，这一逻辑同时也试图给人们强加一个注意力的规训王国。”

The accelerated rhythm of technological consumption leaves people with very little time to become familiar with and adapt to the usage of a particular type of product. It is like rapidly switching slides—before one can absorb their content, they flash by, leaving people with only the experience of having visually scanned a series of slides. Similarly, products that are quickly phased out become just one of many background elements in daily life. “The purpose of the machine is itself”; its meaning lies in enabling users to handle their daily tasks more efficiently. As a result, people’s horizons and experiences are confined to processing one event after another, one message after another, one form of entertainment after another. Every gap and interval is filled, and those long-term, supra-personal concerns are cast aside, out of sight. [5]5 Jonathan Crary, American art historian and cultural theorist, known for his critique of visual culture and attention in late capitalism.Crary argues that this short-term cycle “only perpetuates and fosters uniformity, unceasing consumption, social alienation, and political powerlessness,” and it can cause some people to feel intense anxiety for fear of falling behind or suffering setbacks. This is because the ever-changing surroundings displayed on the interface constantly remind users that their personal lives must keep pace with them. In other words, when people adapt to the accelerating rhythm of acquisition and disposal, they experience a sense of satisfaction from possessing the current hot topics; otherwise, they feel loss and anxiety. “Activities in real life, if they have no online counterpart, begin to atrophy or become insignificant.” The round-the-clock, massive flow of information provided by the internet is more detailed and interesting, offering those who obtain it—and potential users—more stimulation (albeit a monotonous stimulation that gradually erodes their capacity for broader responses), thereby firmly capturing their attention. In the virtual space, compared with the passivity and uncertainty of the real environment, people consider themselves masters of the internet—what information they obtain, how long they stay on it, and how they process it all seem like autonomous activities. This illusion of control and possession is precisely how technological products reconstruct experience, replacing personal attention with repetitive operations and reactions, accelerating alienation and indifference among individuals. Even two people sitting side by side may inhabit completely different, non-communicating worlds.

加速的技术消费节奏留给人们熟悉和适应某一类产品用法的时间十分短暂，就如快速切换的幻灯片，来不及吸收其内容就转瞬即逝，给人们留下徒有视觉扫过一张张幻灯片的经历。同样，被快速淘汰的产品成了日常生活的诸多背景元素之一。“机器的目的就是其本身”,它存在的意义就是让用户更高效地处理他的日常任务。如此一来，人们的视野和经验被限制在处理一件件事件、一条条消息、一场场娱乐之中，任何的空档和间歇都被填满，那些长期的、超乎个人关切的东西被抛在两眼之外。克拉里认为，这种短暂的周期“只会延续并助长千篇一律、永不间断的消费、社会疏离和政治无力感”,会让部分人因恐惧落伍和遭受挫折而倍感焦虑。因为，界面展现的周遭日新月异的变化就是在提醒用户，个人的生活要与它们保持同步。也就是说，当人们适应了不断加快的获得和丢弃的节奏时，会有一种占有当下热点的满足感，否则就会感到失落和焦虑。“真实生活里的活动如果没有网上的对应物，就会开始萎缩，或变得无足轻重。”网络提供的全天候海量信息更加翔实、有趣，能够给予获得者和潜在的用户更多刺激(尽管是一种单调的刺激，让人逐渐失去更大范围的反应能力),从而牢牢捕获他们的注意力。在虚拟的空间中，相较于现实环境的被动和不确定性，人们自认为是网络的主宰，获取什么样的信息、在其上停留多久、如何处理这些信息仿佛都是自主活动。这种掌控和占有的幻觉正是技术产品对经验的重构，将个人的注意力置换为重复性的操作和反应，加速了个体间的疏离和冷漠，即便是近在咫尺的两个人都可能栖居于完全不同、没有交流的世界中。

The driving force behind the accelerated replacement of technological products embodies a paradox: serving life while controlling individuals. In Crary’s view, people are exhausted by the short cycles of technological products; their reaction and reception speeds lag behind the pace of technological renewal. More importantly, the emergence of new technologies also produces various mechanisms for controlling people, the core of which lies in the deprivation of human visual experience (attention). The 24/7 regime [6]6 “24/7 regime” refers to Crary’s concept of a non-stop, round-the-clock social and economic system that erodes sleep and rest. turns visual activity into an object of observation and management. People’s ability to see declines and even verges on collapse; visual discrimination gradually becomes a puppet of the technological interface, losing the awareness and capacity for social and ethical evaluation. “With endless temptation and attraction, 24/7 destroys vision through homogenization, eliminating redundancy, and accelerating this process.” It is like being in an environment of intense illumination or snow-covered ground, where there is no tonal difference, and human vision loses the meaning of discrimination. The reason people’s visual experience is damaged is that when they obtain information, browse images, or process data, their behavior is captured by electronic devices and used as raw material for further analysis. Users’ data is tightly integrated into electronic parameters, with the aim of studying how to reduce the time people take to make decisions and how to eliminate the time wasted on reflection and thought. Crary points out that taming and analysis are the primary goals of global economic financialization. With the development of platform internet technology and advances in artificial intelligence, new technological means are constantly expanding. The act of viewing itself is not merely a one-way event between subject and object; the observer themselves also becomes the object of observation. Under the 24/7 regime, the space for human autonomy is gradually eroded, and the human body and behavior are placed almost under a transparent device. [7]7 Han Byung-chul, South Korean-born German philosopher, known for his critiques of contemporary society, transparency, and digital culture.Han Byung-chul uses the term “transparent society” to describe the state of social subjects today: “People voluntarily surrender themselves to the panoramic gaze. Through self-exposure and self-display, they actively contribute to the digital panopticon.” [8]8 “Digital panopticon” adapts Michel Foucault’s concept of the panopticon (a prison design enabling constant surveillance) to digital platforms where users voluntarily expose themselves. In the transparent prison, the prisoner is both victim and perpetrator, reflecting the myth that “a transparent relationship is a relationship of death.”

技术产品加速更替的动因具有服务生活和管控个体的悖论性。在克拉里看来，人们疲于应对技术产品的短周期，反应和接受速度都落后于技术更新节奏，更重要的是，新技术的涌现也在生产各种针对人的管控机制，其核心在于对人的视觉经验(注意力)的剥夺。24/7体制让视觉活动成为观察和管理的对象，人们的观看能力下降甚至濒临瓦解，视觉辨别渐成技术界面的提线木偶，丧失了社会和伦理评价的意识和感知能力。“伴随着永无止境的诱惑和吸引，24/7通过同质化、扫除冗余和加速这一过程摧毁了视觉”,就像人处于高强度的照明和雪地的环境中，没有色调的差异，人的视觉失去了分辨的意义。之所以人们的视觉经验遭到破坏，是因为当人们获取信息、浏览图像、处理数据的时候，人的行为被电子设备所捕获，并作为进一步分析的原材料。用户的数据被紧密地整合进电子参数当中，目的是研究如何减少人做决定的时间、如何消除反应和思考所无端耗费的时间。克拉里指出，驯服和分析是全球经济金融化的首要目标，随着平台互联网技术的发展、人工智能的进步，新的技术手段不断拓展，观看行为本身并非只是主体同物体间的单向事件，观察者本身也成为被观察的对象。在24/7体制下，人类自主性的空间逐渐被消蚀，人类的身体和行为近乎置于一个透明装置之下。韩炳哲用“透明社会”说明当下社会主体所处的状态：“人们自愿地将自己交付给全景注视。他们通过自我暴露和自我展示，主动为数字化全景监狱添砖加瓦。”在透明的监狱中，囚犯既是受害者，也是作案人，折射出“透明的关系是一种死亡的关系”之迷思。

Crary not only recognizes this paradox of autonomy but also notes the capital logic behind it. He argues: “The individual act of viewing is endlessly converted into information, which not only consolidates control technologies but also becomes a form of surplus value in the market, a market built on the accumulation of user behavior data.” In the digital age, the form in which capitalists extract surplus value differs from the factory-based surplus value of Marx’s 19th century. [9]9 Slavoj Žižek, Slovenian philosopher and cultural critic, known for his work on ideology and capitalism.Žižek refers to the exploitative form of the virtual world dominated by capitalist digital platforms as “digital exploitation.” He says: “These forms are not part of value relations: a slave or a housewife does not receive wages, nor are they exploited like workers. Here, we encounter digital exploitation, where we are ‘plundered’ of our data by the capitalist digital machine that controls us.” In *Capital*, Marx discussed two forms of capitalist surplus value extraction: the production of absolute surplus value and relative surplus value. The commonality between them is that workers engaged in productive labor are gathered in the fixed space of the factory, and the increase in labor productivity brought about by changes in the machine system is also based on perceptible objects (various more refined and complex machines). The process of extracting surplus value in this way is more direct and obvious, and workers shift from a passive state of formal subsumption under capital to real subsumption. In contrast, looking at the current state of labor, although factories still exist—or spaces that produce surplus value still exist (office buildings, schools, gyms, shopping malls, etc.)—everyone who enters an internet platform becomes a “contributor” of surplus value, becoming “sleepless workers” in the digital age. In other words, the site of surplus value production is no longer limited to fixed spaces but extends to any location where electronic products mediated by the internet exist. Moreover, through the collection, absorption, and analysis of data, surplus value is more autonomously extracted from the object. This tamed, active subject is called the “achievement subject” by Han Byung-chul. The unceasing operational logic of the 24/7 regime is more concealed: “freedom and constraint arrive almost simultaneously.” The individual is both their own master and slave, both exploiter and exploited. This self-exploitation points to a paradoxical freedom.

克拉里不仅看到了这种自主性的悖论，还注意到其背后的资本逻辑。他认为：“个人的观看行为被无休止地转换成信息，这些信息不仅巩固了控制技术，还变成了市场上的剩余价值的一种形式，这个市场是建立在积累使用者行为的数据基础上的。”在数字时代，资本家获取剩余价值的形式已经不同于马克思所在的19世纪的工厂剩余价值形式。齐泽克将资本主义数字平台支配的虚拟世界的剥削形式称为“数字剥削”,他说：“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。”马克思在《资本论》中论及了资本主义获得剩余价值的两种形式，即绝对剩余价值和相对剩余价值的生产。二者的相同点在于从事生产劳动的工人聚集在工厂这一固定的空间当中，同时机器体系的变革带来的劳动生产效率的提升，也是以能够感知的物(各种更加精细、复杂的机器)为基础的。由此获取剩余价值的过程更加直接、明显，工人则以被动的状态从形式上从属资本向实质上从属资本转变。反观当前的劳动状态，尽管工厂依然存在或者说产出剩余价值的空间依旧存在(写字楼、学校、健身房、商场等等),但是进入互联网平台的每个人都是剩余价值的“贡献者”,成为数字时代的“无眠工人”。换言之，生产剩余价值的场所不再局限于固定的空间，而是以互联网为媒介的所有电子产品存在的任何场所，并且通过收集、吸收、分析数据实现对象更自主地被占取剩余价值。这种被驯服的积极主体在韩炳哲那里被称为“功绩主体”,24/7体制永不停歇的运转逻辑更加隐蔽，“自由和约束几乎在同一时刻降临”,个人既是自身的主人也是奴隶，既是剥削者也是被剥削者，这种自我剥削指涉一种悖论式自由。

Electronic surveillance devices are ubiquitous in daily life; various screens and displays are widely used. “All of this will eventually evolve into more sophisticated intervention procedures.” Individual and collective behavior is placed under a set of virtual peeping devices. For example, online platform systems recommend products by monitoring people’s traces of activity online, telling customers what to buy. “Even without any direct coercion, we act according to the instructions.” These control mechanisms not only achieve the goal of disciplining individual behavior but also give rise to an addiction disorder. When people click a mouse or swipe a touchscreen over and over again, they always expect the excitement of the next second. People cannot tolerate even a slight delay or time gap, allowing massive amounts of information to control their behavior and steal their time. Paradoxically, people do not feel pleasure; when they approach their physiological limits or are disturbed by external factors, they instead feel emptiness, numbness, and depression rushing in. “They can only fall into a machine-like fatigue; the subject is no longer a soul existing in itself but a helpless ghost suspended under the 24/7 capitalist regime.” People make uniform responses, driven only by a repetitive force, repeatedly doing the same and tedious things, indulging in the illusory world woven by the Sirens’ song. [10]10 In Greek mythology, the Sirens were creatures whose enchanting songs lured sailors to their deaths on rocky shores. Life wanders nomadically across different digital interfaces; people increasingly detach from their connection to the real world and lose their body’s perception of their surroundings. Present-day life is merely a hazy immersion, while the colorful interfaces entered as a “virtual body” are what is called “existence and reality.”

日常生活中的电子监视设备无处不在，各种各样的屏幕和显示器被广泛使用， “这一切终会演变成更娴熟的干预程序”。个人行为和集体行为被置于一套虚拟的窥视装置中，如网络平台系统通过监控人们在线上的活动痕迹推荐商品，告知顾客该买什么，“即使没有任何直接的强迫，我们也会根据指示行事”。这些控制机制不仅达到规训个体行为的目的，还衍生出一种成瘾症。当人们一遍又一遍地点击鼠标、滑动触屏时，总是期待下一秒的精彩。人们无法忍受稍许的延迟或时间空挡，任由海量信息控制行为、偷走时间。吊诡的是，人们并不会感到愉悦，当无限逼近生理极限或被外界干扰时，反而感到空虚、麻木、抑郁扑面而来，“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”。人们做出千篇一律的反应，只是被一股重复的力量驱动着，反复做着重复和乏味的事情，沉溺于塞壬歌声编织的虚幻世界。生命游牧辗转于不同的数字化界面，人们日益抽离与真实世界的联系，也失去了身体对周遭事物的感受，当下的生活只是一种飘渺的融入，而以“虚体”形式进入的多彩界面才名之为“存在与真实”。

III. Breaking the 24/7 System: Constructing a “Waiting” Community and Cherishing the Experience of Sleep

三、破除24/7体制：建构“等待”共同体与珍视睡眠经验

In Crary’s view, human society is currently in a 24/7 society that offers even less autonomy than the disciplinary society described by Foucault, the control society described by Deleuze, or the spectacle society described by Debord — that is, a “disintegrating society” controlled by the “Internet complex.” A series of round-the-clock, never-stopping technological activities penetrate every corner, and human subjects are extensively integrated into the sleepless capital machine, “most forms of social relations are quantified and measured by money.” [11]11 Jonathan Crary, *24/7: Late Capitalism and the Ends of Sleep* (London: Verso, 2013), p. 79. Individual life is laid open, becoming an object of data surveillance and quantification. He believes that the Internet and digital communication have become profit engines, financializing and commodifying more and more individuals and spheres of social life. There is no harmony between individuals and the environment filled with images and commodities; “reification has developed to the point where individuals have to reinvent a self-understanding in order to optimize or accelerate their participation and speed in the digital environment. Paradoxically, this means playing a role that lacks vitality and energy.” [12]12 Ibid., p. 99. Because individuals cannot truly enter the electronic illusion constructed by the consumerist market, attempts to build a harmonious relationship between humans and other choices are futile. This is meant to indicate that individuals in the present era cannot find a new path of self-understanding. We must ask Crary: in a society under the 24/7 system, does humanity still have hope of breaking out? If there exists a new path of “self-understanding” as Crary suggests, can this path truly guide humanity toward a better future?

在克拉里看来，人类社会正处于比福柯笔下的规训社会、德勒兹所言的控制社会、德波看到的景观社会更无自主性可言的24/7社会当中，即由“互联网综合体”布控的“瓦解社会”。一系列全天候永不停歇的技术活动渗透到每个角落，人类主体被广泛整合进无眠的资本机器之中，“大部分社会关系的形式都被量化，用货币计量”,个人生活处于敞开状态，成为数据监视和量化的对象。他认为，互联网和数字通信已经成为利润引擎，让越来越多的个体和社会生活的领域金融化和商品化，个体与被图像和商品堆满的环境之间并不和谐，“物化已经发展到了这样的地步：个人不得不重新发明出一种自我理解，从而优化或加快他们在数码环境里的参与度和速度。矛盾的是，这意味着要扮演一个没有生机和活力的角色”。由于个体无法真正进入消费主义市场构造的电子幻象，想要在人类和其他选择中间构筑和谐的关系，结果是徒劳的，这意在表明现时代的个体无法找到自我理解的新路径。我们不得不向克拉里追问，在24/7体制的社会，人类还有希望突围吗?如果存在克拉里所言的“自我理解”新路径，那么这条道路是否真的能够引导人类进入一个向好的未来?

The data world of the 24/7 system places individuals in compartments, constructing seamless walls between the self and others. “As networks of relationships and interactions become increasingly dense and efficient, individual consciousness becomes increasingly isolated and increasingly ignores the ‘other.’” [13]13 Ibid., p. 86. The continuously operating world brings people not togetherness but a cocoon-like state of mutual isolation, self-erected walls, and indifference to difference. Behind the noise and carnival lies an irrepressible sense of emptiness and powerlessness. Max Weber regarded “the inner loneliness of the individual” as the foundation of capitalist modernity, [14]14 Max Weber, *The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism* (London: Routledge, 2001), p. 104. while Guy Debord called it capitalism’s “reconstruction of a society without community,” [15]15 Guy Debord, *The Society of the Spectacle* (New York: Zone Books, 1994), thesis 180. with the spectacle being merely a diversified strategy of isolation. Based on this, reclaiming rhythm, creating pauses, and braking to decelerate constitute resistance to the 24/7 system. For Crary, this line of thinking is to construct “waiting,” implementing a rhythmic pattern of movement and stillness to sustain reciprocal politics. Crary rediscovered the meaning of “the act of waiting,” namely, creating an experience of being together, which is crucial for the formation of community. Driven by the pursuit of value augmentation, capitalist society forms a competitive society where each acts on their own, individuals fall into isolated islands, and “facing the other” encounters numerous difficulties. “Any alternative imagination of personal life is structurally prohibited. The possibility of non-monadic or communal life is considered unimaginable.” [16]16 Crary, *24/7*, p. 128. Communal life is a basic condition for the formation of community, but modern capital “has discarded all appearances of community.” [17]17 Ibid., p. 127. In the earliest communities, individuals were interdependent through family, clan, tribe, land, and other ties, but capital destroyed this strong personal dependency, replacing it with a collection of commodity exchange forms mediated by things (money). So, what is the connection between waiting and community?

24/7体制的数据世界将个体置入隔间，构筑起自我与他者间无痕的高墙。“当各种关系和交往的网络变得越来越稠密、越来越有效时，个体的意识也因此变得越来越孤立，越来越无视‘他者’。”持续不停运转的世界带给人们的并非聚合，而是相互孤立、自我筑墙、漠视异己的茧房状态，喧闹和狂欢的背后是抵挡不住的空心感、无力感。马克斯·韦伯将“个体的内在孤独”视为资本主义现代性的基础,居伊·德波则将其称为资本主义对“没有共同体的社会的重构”,景观不过是孤立的多样化策略。基于此，找回节奏，创造停歇，制动减速便是对24/7体制的反抗。在克拉里那里，这种运思便是构筑“等待”,执行动静交替的节奏模式来延续互惠的政治。克拉里重新发掘了“等待行为”的意义，即创造了一种在一起的经验，这对共同体的形成十分重要。在价值增值的驱使下，资本主义社会形成强调竞争的社会，各自为政，个体陷入孤岛，“面向他人”遭遇重重困难,“任何对个人生活的另类想象都在结构层面上被禁止了。非单子化或公共的生活的可能性被认为是难以想象的”。公共的生活是共同体形成的基本条件，但是现代资本“抛弃了共同体的一切外观”,在最初的共同体中，各个人通过家庭、氏族、部落、土地等联系相互依赖，而资本破坏了这种强人身依附关系，代之以物(货币)为媒介的商品交换形式的集合。那么，等待同共同体有什么联系呢?

Waiting is a frustrating and depressing negative experience, but from the perspective of constructing the community Crary speaks of, it has political significance. In waiting, people care for others with patience, tacitly encountering a shared period of time. “This suspended, non-productive time of waiting and taking turns is inseparable from any form of cooperation or interdependence.” [18]18 Ibid., p. 129. In the pause of waiting, Crary sees the possibility of cooperation and interdependence, because this period of stopping brings no profit — and this is precisely a positive struggle against the temporal illusion of the 24/7 system, which presents no waiting, instant gratification, and isolation from others. Whether queuing or alternating democratic speech, the act of waiting itself implements a “taking turns” mechanism. This mechanism contains a social behavioral pattern of alternating movement and stillness, which is the foundation of sharing, reciprocity, and cooperation. However, Crary falls into a dilemma here. Although the act of waiting has positive significance for neighborliness, cooperation, and creating pauses, he also recognizes that “24/7 capitalism and social behavior cannot be harmonized,” [19]19 Ibid., p. 128. that 21st-century capitalist society and society itself are irreconcilable. If constructing a “contemporary sociology of the masses” [20]20 “群学” (qunxue) is a classical Chinese term for sociology, coined by the late Qing reformer Yan Fu in his translation of Herbert Spencer’s *The Study of Sociology*. has already become difficult, and the rhythmic pattern of alternating movement and stillness fails to sustain reciprocal politics, is there still a way out of the predicament?

等待是一种让人焦躁沮丧的消极体验，但是如果从构建克拉里所言的共同体来看则具有政治意义。在等待中，人们有耐心地关照他人，彼此默契地邂逅一段共享时间。“这段暂停的没有任何生产性的等待、轮流的时间，是与任何合作或相互依存的形式分不开的。”克拉里在等待的暂停中看到了合作和依存的可能，因为这段停顿的时光不带来任何利润，而这正是对24/7体制呈现的没有等待、即可兑现、隔绝他人的时间幻觉的积极斗争。无论是排队还是交替的民主发言，等待行为本身执行的是一种“轮流”机制，这种机制蕴含了动静交换的社会行为模式，是分享、互惠、合作的基础。然而，克拉里在这里陷入了困境。尽管等待行为对睦邻友好、通力合作、创造停顿有积极意义，但是他也认识到“24/7式的资本主义与社会行为之间无法协调一致”, 21世纪的资本主义社会和社会本身具有不可调和性。如果说构建“现时代的群学”已经举步维艰，动静交替的节奏模式未能延续互惠的政治，那么还存在走出困境之道吗?

Crary writes extensively about sleep, observing changes in capitalism from the unique perspective of sleep. Compared to the accelerated financialization of originally independent spheres of social activity, “sleep has become the last remaining barrier, the only ‘natural condition’ that capitalism cannot eliminate.” [21]21 Crary, *24/7*, p. 74. When people return to the realm of dreams, can sleep become humanity’s Noah’s Ark to escape the 24/7 system? As mentioned earlier, sleep, as the last barrier against the 24/7 system, is also constantly being eroded. Why then does Crary place so much importance on sleep? He says: “Even if it has degenerated, sleep remains the recurrence of waiting and pausing in our lives. It affirms the necessity of postponement, delaying the recovery or restart of all deferred things.” [22]22 Ibid., p. 126. It can be seen that sleep is not only a physiological need for bodily recovery but also has ontological significance at the philosophical level. Sleep is care for the individual. After shedding the fleeting identities of the daytime, the individual is unbound. People in sleep inhabit the same world, able to withdraw from the activities of the 24/7 system. In another of his works, Crary also points out that a world without pauses loses the possibility of renewal and recovery, and will be suffocated by burning and waste, which he calls “scorched earth.” [23]23 Jonathan Crary, *Scorched Earth: Beyond the Digital Age to a Post-Capitalist World* (London: Verso, 2022), p. 3. From an ecological perspective, Crary uses this term to describe capitalism’s elimination of all phenomena that sustain life. “This is the reality we currently face — a desolate world that has almost lost its color, losing that elusive yet vivid uniqueness that gives life meaning.” [24]24 Ibid., p. 4. Of course, our lives are still full of vibrant colors, but under the 24/7 system, the colorful world makes life colorless and lifeless, leaving only a machine-like fatigue constrained by interface platforms.

克拉里对睡眠着墨颇多，他以睡眠的独特视角观察资本主义的变化。相较于原本独立自主的社会活动领域被加速金融化，“睡眠成了硕果仅存的一道屏障，资本主义唯一无法消灭的‘自然条件’”。当人们回到梦境时，睡眠会成为人类摆脱24/7体制的诺亚方舟吗?如前所述，睡眠作为对抗24/7体制的最后一道屏障，也不断受到侵蚀，为何克拉里还如此重视睡眠?他这样说：“纵然有所退化，睡眠依然是我们生命中等待和停顿的复现。它确证了延期的必要性，推迟恢复或重启所有被延期的事物。”可见，睡眠不仅是身体得以恢复的生理需要，更有哲学层面上的存在论意义。睡眠是对个人的关怀，在退去白昼浮光掠影的身份后，个人获得松绑，睡梦中的人们居于同一个世界，得以从24/7体制的活动中抽离出来。克拉里在其另一部著作中也指出了没有停顿的世界会丧失更新和恢复的可能性，会被灼烧和废料所窒息,他将其称为“焦土之地”。克拉里从生态角度，用该词描述了资本主义消灭维持生命的一切景象。“这就是我们当前所处的现实——一个几乎失去了色彩的荒凉世界，失去了赋予我们生命意义的那种难以捉摸却又生动的独特性。”当然，我们的生活依然充满缤纷的色彩，但是在24/7体制之下，五彩斑斓的世界却让生命变得无彩、失去生机，只存在受制于界面平台的机器般的倦怠。

Digitalized life causes people to leave real life; life becomes abstracted, and people mostly exist as virtual entities in digital space. In digital space, unceasing operation renders time meaningless, and life is overdrawn in the pursuit of traffic passwords and profit harvesting. Crary believes that, in the current era where life is colonized by technology, sleep has become the last “natural barrier” against the scorched-earth destruction of life. Sleep is a resolute negation of the 24/7 regime, allowing people to temporarily escape the coercion of the digital empire and gain a moment of respite and healing. The static and useless state of dreams can lead people into a realm not bound by objects, where they can briefly “forget evil.” Sleep, as the appearance of waiting and pause in life, is not necessarily an escape from history but is connected to the future; it exists in the form of another historical time, “ensuring the existence of a world with periodic and cyclical patterns.” In the intervals of recovery, people can discover flickering signals of a life not yet experienced, one that arrives belatedly. These fleeting images are not imposed from the outside; they are a kind of imagination that crosses boundaries, where there exists a pastoral-like life, with relatively fixed and slowly changing social and interpersonal relations, an Eden undisturbed by the 24/7 regime. The unique resilience of sleep proclaims a thorough interruption, “a refusal of the unbearable weight of global capitalism.” In Han Byung-Chul’s view, “sleep is the highest form of physical relaxation”; the characteristics of sleep can be seen as “an instinct capable of blocking and isolating,” a rejection of fatal hyperactivity. “Only through the negativity of interruption can the acting subject measure all possibilities.” This negative pause can prevent human existence from degenerating into restless, hyperactive reactions and venting activities.

数字化的生活让人们离开现实生活，生命变得抽象化，人们多以虚体的方式存在于数字空间之中。在数字空间中，永不停歇的运作让时间失去意义，生命在流量密码和利润收割中透支。克拉里认为，在生命被技术殖民化的当下，睡眠成了反抗生命焦土化的最后“自然屏障”。睡眠是对24/7体制的坚决否定，让人们得以暂时摆脱数字帝国的裹挟，获得片刻的喘息和疗伤。睡梦的静止和无用状态会把人们引向没有被物所束缚的境地中去，人们可以短暂“忘却邪恶”。睡眠作为生命中等待和停顿的出现，并不一定是逃避历史，而是联结着未来，它以另一种历史时间的形式存在，“确保了一个有着阶段性和周期性模式的世界的存在”,在恢复的间隙内，人们可以发现一种尚未经历的、延迟到来的生活的闪现信号。这些灵光一闪的画面不是外界强加的，它们是一种越过边界的想象，在那里有一种类似田园诗般的生活，社会关系和人际关系相对固定和变动缓慢，是一个不受24/7体制侵扰的伊甸园。睡眠独有的韧性宣告了一种彻底的中断，“是在拒绝全球资本主义无以复加的重量”。在韩炳哲那里，“睡眠是身体放松的最高形式”,睡眠的特性可以视为一种“能够拥有阻止、隔绝的本能”,是对致命的超积极性的拒斥，“只有借助中断的否定性，行动主体才能够衡量全部可能性”。这种否定性的停顿可以让人类的生存避免沦为烦躁不安、过度活跃的反应和发泄活动。

Conclusion

结 语

Crary’s observation of the transformation of human modes of existence under the capitalist 24/7 regime is profoundly insightful, providing beneficial inspiration for understanding the new changes in contemporary capitalism. People can deeply feel the enormous changes in their modes of existence brought about by technological acceleration under the domination of capital logic. Time and space, human behavioral patterns, perceptual experience, and so on are all drawn into the vortex of profit, and life falls into the abstract predicament of nomadism and burnout. In Rosa’s view, human society is in a state of comprehensive alienation—spatial alienation, object-world alienation, action alienation, time alienation, self-alienation, and social alienation—and the relationship between the self and the world exhibits a deep, structural distortion, that is, a distortion in the way the subject is “situated” in the world. Crary undoubtedly sees this distortion and proposes a solution of rebuilding the interpersonal rhythm of “waiting” and cherishing sleep. “Waiting” implies a cooperative community of equality and mutual benefit. As Marx and Engels stated: “Only in community with others has each individual the means of cultivating his gifts in all directions; only in the community, therefore, is personal freedom possible.” If we trace further, the evolution of community is internally determined by changes in ownership; the formation of “freedom—the true community” is the sublation of private property. However, this is a point Crary does not touch upon, which also determines that he cannot recognize that the root of the human existential crisis lies in the inherent contradiction of “productive forces—relations of production” and thus cannot provide a scientific prescription for its resolution. The “community of waiting” in Crary’s work is more of a flexible ethical and moral expectation; it cannot fundamentally eliminate the tense competitive relations that exist in waiting, and thus cannot completely break free from the shackles of the 24/7 regime. In Han Byung-Chul’s view, individuals in the “transparent society” have become new prisoners of the digital panopticon, turned into “homo sacer,” and community is no longer possible. “In a transparent society, it is impossible to form a genuine ‘community.’ Here, only ‘crowds’ or ‘masses’ composed of mutually independent individuals, or ‘selves,’ can arise by chance.” In comparison, Fraser’s political declaration is more radical; she demands the complete abandonment of the capitalist system in order to reshape the relationships between production and reproduction, private power and common power, and human society and non-human nature. However, the theoretical dilemma encountered by the aforementioned scholars is that they cannot find the subject force for constructing community and negating the capitalist system, let alone confirm the form of community that represents the bright future of humanity. And entering dreams to “imagine a future without capitalism” carries a utopian romantic flavor, because even when people are in a state of sleep, the collusion of capital and data does not stop; when they wake from dreams, people are pulled back into the world they intended to escape. In fact, no matter how the aforementioned scholars explore paths out of the predicament, they cannot transcend Marx and Engels’s important thesis that “the fall of the bourgeoisie and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable.” Therefore, the existential predicament of modern people still needs to return to the context of Marx and Engels’s critique and construction, and to seek guidance anew from historical materialism and the critique of political economy. This also indicates that only communism is the true community and the bright future of humanity, and the proletariat in the digital-intelligent era remains the executor of the demise of capitalism, that is, “only the proletariat lodged within the capitalist economic relations can bear the dawn of communism in the intelligent era.” (Notes and references omitted)

克拉里对资本主义24/7体制下的人类存在方式变革的观察富有深刻洞见，为人们理解当代资本主义的新变化提供了有益启迪。人们可以深切感受到，资本逻辑宰制下的技术加速所带来的人们存在方式的巨大变化，时间和空间、人的行为模式、知觉经验等都被卷入利润的漩涡之中，生命陷入游牧和倦怠的抽象化困境之中。在罗萨看来，人类社会处于空间异化、物界异化、行动异化、时间异化、自我异化与社会异化的全面异化状态，自我与世界的关系呈现出一种深层的、结构性的扭曲，亦即一种主体处于、“坐落”于世界当中的方式遭受扭曲。克拉里无疑看到了这种扭曲，并提出了重建人际间的“等待”节奏和珍视睡眠的解决方案。“等待”意味着一种平等互惠的合作共同体。正如马克思恩格斯所言：“只有在共同体中，个人才能获得全面发展其才能的手段，也就是说，只有在共同体中才可能有个人自由。”如果进一步追溯，共同体的演进内在规定于所有制的变化，“自由—真正共同体”的形成是对私有制的扬弃，但这一点是克拉里没有触及的，这也决定其无法认识人类存在危机的病根在于“生产力—生产关系”的固有矛盾并给出科学的化解药方。克拉里笔下的“等待共同体”更多的是一种柔性的伦理道德期待，并不能从根本上消除在等待中存在的紧张的竞争关系，也就不能彻底摆脱24/7体制的枷锁。在韩炳哲看来，处于“透明社会”的个体成为了数字化全景监狱的新囚犯，变成“神圣人”,共同体不再可能，“在透明社会中不可能形成真正意义上的‘共同体’。这里只会偶然产生由彼此独立的个体，或者说由‘自我’组成的‘人群’或‘大众’”。相比而言，弗雷泽的政治宣言更加激进，她要求彻底摒弃资本主义体制，才能重新改造生产与再生产、私人权力与共同权力、人类社会与非人类自然的关系。但是，上述学者遇到的理论困境是找不到构建共同体和否定资本主义体制的主体力量，更谈不上确证代表人类美好未来的共同体形式。而进入梦乡“想象一个没有资本主义的未来”更具有乌托邦的浪漫主义气息，因为即便人处于沉睡状态，资本和数据的合谋并未停止，当梦醒时分，人们又被拉回他们意图逃离的世界。事实上，上述学者不论如何探寻走出困境的路径，他们都无法超越马克思恩格斯“资产阶级的灭亡和无产阶级的胜利是同样不可避免的”这一重要论断。因此，现代人的存在困境仍旧需要回到马克思恩格斯的批判与建构的语境当中，重新求教于唯物史观和政治经济学批判。这也昭示了只有共产主义才是真正的共同体和人类美好的未来，数智时代的无产阶级仍是灭亡资本主义的执行者，即“寄存于资本主义经济关系中的无产阶级才能托起智能时代共产主义的曙光”。（注释、参考文献略）

(The author is a doctoral student at the School of Marxism, Beijing Normal University)

（作者系北京师范大学马克思主义学院博士研究生）

Online editor: Zhang Jian

网络编辑：张剑