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1、Unit 2 Space InvadersRichard StengelAt my bank the other day, I was standing in a line snaking around some tired velvet ropes when a man in a sweat-suit started inching toward me in his eagerness to deposit his Social Security check. As he did so, I minutely advanced toward the woman reading the Wal
2、l Street Journal in front of me, who, in mild annoyance, began to sidle up to the man scribbling a check in front of her, who absentmindedly shuffled toward the white-haired lady ahead of him, until we were all hugger-mugger against each other, the original lazy line having collapsed in on itself li
3、ke a Slinky.I estimate that my personal space extends eighteen inches in front of my face, one foot to each side, and about ten inches in back though it is nearly impossible to measure exactly how far behind you someone is standing. The phrase personal space has a quaint, seventies ring to it (Youre
4、 invading my space, man), but it is one of those gratifying expressions that are intuitively understood by all human beings. Like the twelve-mile limit around our national shores, personal space is our individual border beyond which no stranger can penetrate without making us uneasy.Lately, Ive foun
5、d that my personal space is being invaded more than ever before. In elevators, people are wedging themselves in just before the doors close; on the street, pedestrians are zigzagging through the human traffic, jostling others, refusing to give way; on the subway, riders are no longer taking pains to
6、 carve out little zones of space between themselves and fellow-passengers; in lines at airports, people are pressing forward like fidgety taxis at red lights.At first, I attributed this tendency to the population explosion and the relentless Malthusian logic that if twice as many people inhabit the
7、planet now as did twenty years ago, each of us has half as much space. Recently, Ive wondered if its the season: T-shirt weather can make proximity more alluring (or much, much less). Or perhaps the proliferation of coffee bars in Manhattan the number seems to double every three months is infusing s
8、o much caffeine into the already jangling locals that people can no longer keep to themselves. Personal space is mostly a public matter; we allow all kinds of invasions of personal space in private. (Humanity wouldnt exist without them.) The logistics of it vary according to geography. People who li
9、ve in Calcutta have less personal space than folks in Colorado. Dont tread on me could have been coined only by someone with a spread. I would wager that people in the Northern Hemisphere have roomier conceptions of personal space than those in the Southern. To an Englishman, a handshake can seem li
10、ke trespassing, whereas to a Brazilian, anything less than a hug may come across as chilliness. Like drivers who plow into your parked and empty car and dont leave a note, people no longer mutter Excuse me when they bump into you. The decline of manners has been widely lamented. Manners, it seems to
11、 me, are about giving people space, not stepping on toes, granting people their private domain. Ive also noticed an increase in the ranks of what I think of as space invaders, mini-territorial expansionists who seize public space with a sense of manifest destiny. In movie theatres these days, people
12、 are staking a claim to both armrests, annexing all the elbow room, while at coffee shops and on the Long Island Railroad, individuals routinely commandeer booths and sets of facing seats meant for foursomes. Ultimately, personal space is psychological, not physical: it has less to do with the space
13、 outside us than with our inner space. I suspect that the shrinking of personal space is directly proportional to the expansion of self-absorption: people whose attention is inward do not bother to look outward. Even the focus of science these days is micro, not macro. The Human Genome Project is ma
14、pping the universe of the genetic code, while neuroscientists are using souped-up M.R.I. machines to chart the flight of neurons in our brains. In the same way that the breeze from a butterflys wings in Japan may eventually produce a tidal wave in California, I have decided to expand the contracting
15、 boundaries of personal space. In the line at my bank, I now refuse to move closer than three feet to the person in front of me, even if it means that the fellow behind me starts breathing down my neck空间入侵者理查德斯坦格尔1 几天前，我去银行排队，队伍沿着松松垮垮的天鹅绒围栏蜿蜒前伸，这时一位身穿运动套装的男子急不可耐地从我后头向前挪步，想尽早办理社会保险支票存储业务。当他这么做的时候，我只好
16、谨小慎微地向排在我前面阅读华尔街日报的女士挪动步子。她略有不快，于是侧身向她前面那位正在涂写一张支票的男士走去，而这位男士则漫不经心地拖着脚走向他前面的银发老太。这样我们的队伍就变得七歪八扭，原来慵懒的队伍活脱脱变成了个“机灵鬼”1。2 我估计我个人空间的范围身前有18英寸，身后10英寸，两侧各1英尺尽管要估算某人站在你身后多远几乎是不可能的。“个人空间”这个词组带有一种古雅的、70年代的味道(“老兄，你侵犯了我的空间”)，但这是一个能让全人类一下子明白过来的令人满意的词组之一。就像我们国家拥有12海里领海权一样，个人空间就是我们的边界，只要有陌生人穿过这个边界，就会使我们感到不安。3 最近，我发现我的个人空间比以往任何时候所遭受的侵犯都更加厉害。电梯里，人们抢在关门之前拼命挤进来；马路上，行人奋勇向前，在人流中穿梭，推推搡搡，拒不让路；地铁中，乘客不再刻意在自己和别人之间留出狭小空间；在机场队伍中，人们拼命向前
