??? 在他最近出版的新書《制造者新工業(yè)革命》（Makers: the New Industrial Revolution）一書中，克里斯·安德森預(yù)言，個人和小團(tuán)體制造的回歸，將撬動信息技術(shù)的力量，進(jìn)而把愛鼓搗的人重新帶回這個不是被神秘、而是被各種發(fā)現(xiàn)和賦權(quán)籠罩的世界。兩位作者都強(qiáng)調(diào)合作的重要性，但如果說安德森主要關(guān)心的是我們將往何處去，那么福奇則用更多的筆墨來描述我們過往的歷程。

????他指出美國的許多國父都是能工巧匠，這一點(diǎn)非常契合這些創(chuàng)造力十足的人的生活背景——他們生活在一個幾乎享受不到機(jī)械之便利的農(nóng)業(yè)社會。富蘭克林當(dāng)然是這方面的典范，但杰斐遜、麥迪遜和華盛頓也是創(chuàng)新者，漢密爾頓則是“今天金融界那些能工巧匠的鼻祖”。

????不幸的是，就其所宣揚(yáng)的鼓搗行為而言，《鼓搗者》一書本身卻并非一個十分成功的例證。作者似乎利用了太多的現(xiàn)成材料，進(jìn)而使整本書有時似乎缺少一個明確的目的。書中許多內(nèi)容讀起來就像是一段粗略的美國創(chuàng)新史，寫到哪里算哪里：其中既有著名的托馬斯·愛迪生的故事，又有被頻繁提及的施樂帕克研究中心（Xerox PARC）悲劇——后者差不多已經(jīng)為這家公司發(fā)明了一切，但它完全沒有把它們派上用場。

????但除了這些耳熟能詳?shù)墓适轮猓€有一些與現(xiàn)代能工巧匠有關(guān)的更加有趣的故事。比如喬治·霍茨這位黑客少年，他定制了一部能夠在T-Mobile系統(tǒng)上運(yùn)行的iPhone手機(jī)后來用它解開了索尼公司（Sony游戲平臺PlayStation 3的密碼。還有就是難以抑制創(chuàng)新沖動的迪安·卡門，由他發(fā)明但被過度炒作的賽格威（Segway）代步車掩蓋了他鼓搗醫(yī)療設(shè)備的一生。他的眾多發(fā)明不僅讓他變得富有，也改善了世界各地的人們的生活。

????知識總是危險的，福奇并未無視鼓搗行為的危害性。他將蘭德公司（RAND Corporation對公共政策采用的定量研究方式描述為一種鼓搗行為，并指控這家智囊機(jī)構(gòu)，稱其宣揚(yáng)美國在核軍備競賽中正落后于蘇聯(lián)這一觀點(diǎn)，并無意識地推動一種基于數(shù)據(jù)并最終使美國陷入越戰(zhàn)泥沼的世界觀。他指出，最近金融世界的鼓搗行為產(chǎn)生出了諸如債務(wù)擔(dān)保證券（CDD）和信用違約掉期（CDS）這樣的創(chuàng)新產(chǎn)品，而這些產(chǎn)品在2007-2008年金融危機(jī)中扮演了非常重要的角色。

????福奇依然相信鼓搗的力量，我們也應(yīng)如此。他最大的擔(dān)憂在于，我們現(xiàn)在做得還不夠。“美國或?qū)适渖袷サ墓膿v傳統(tǒng)，以及一個創(chuàng)新引擎，去驅(qū)動一個前所未有的增長時代，”他寫道。“經(jīng)濟(jì)上的成功給予了我們鼓搗的時間和資源，但它也減弱了我們這樣做的動力。”

????然而我們有理由保持樂觀。畢竟資本主義總是被譴責(zé)破壞其自身的根基。富裕和營銷腐蝕了節(jié)儉，年輕人決定投身于麥當(dāng)娜研究、而不是攻讀工程或物理學(xué)。但假以時日，文化和經(jīng)濟(jì)周期就可以產(chǎn)生強(qiáng)大的糾錯效果，敦促我們重新鼓搗。

????不要忘了技術(shù)。福奇指出，大眾融資平臺Kickstarter的到來使得初創(chuàng)企業(yè)向大眾募集資金成為可能。“此處不乏諷刺意味，”他寫道。“技術(shù)已經(jīng)重新將鼓搗行為帶到了這樣一種狀態(tài)。它不可預(yù)知、不受妨礙、充斥著各種可能性。本杰明·富蘭克林當(dāng)年肯定也有過類似的經(jīng)歷。”

????譯者：任文科

????In his recent book?Makers: the New Industrial Revolution, Chris Anderson foresees a return to individual and small group fabrication that leverages the power of information technology to, in effect, bring back tinkerers in a world enchanted not by mystery but by discovery and empowerment. Both authors emphasize the importance of collaboration, but if Anderson is mainly concerned with where we are going, Foege spends more time on where we've been.

????Many of the Founding Fathers, he notes, were accomplished tinkerers, as befits such creative men living in an agrarian society with few mechanical conveniences. Franklin was of course the archetype, but Jefferson, Madison, and Washington were innovators as well, and Hamilton was "a fitting forbear to today's financial tinkerers."

????Unfortunately,?The Tinkerers?itself is a not-entirely-successful example of the tinkering it purports to describe. The author works with materials all too readily at hand and sometimes seems to lack a clear purpose. Much of the book reads like a sketchy and haphazard history of American innovation, veering from the well-known story of Thomas Edison to the frequently cited tragedy of the Xerox PARC lab, which seems to have invented practically everything for a company that exploited almost nothing.

????But among these well-worn tales are more interesting stories of modern tinkerers such as George Hotz, a teenage hacker who customized an iPhone to work on the T-Mobile system and later unlocked a Sony PlayStation 3. Then there's the compulsively innovative Dean Kamen, whose invention of the over-hyped Segway scooter has obscured a lifetime of medical-device tinkering that has made him wealthy and improved the lives of people all over the world.

????Knowledge is always dangerous, and the hazards of tinkering aren't lost on Foege. He describes the RAND Corporation's quantitative approach to public policy as a form of tinkering, and indicts it for helping fuel the notion that we were falling behind the Soviets in the nuclear arms race, and for the mindlessly data-driven worldview that led to so much trouble in Vietnam. More recently, he notes, tinkering in the financial world produced such innovations as the collateralized debt obligations and credit default swaps that played an important role in the financial crisis of 2007-8.

????Foege still believes in tinkering, and so should we. His biggest concern is that we aren't doing enough of it. "The United States risks losing its hallowed tinkerer tradition -- as well as the engine of innovation that fueled an unprecedented era of growth," he writes. "Economic success has given us the time and resources to tinker, but it has also blunted our impetus to do so."

????Yet there are reasons for optimism. Capitalism is always being accused of undermining its own foundations, after all. Affluence and marketing subvert thrift, and the young decide to major in Madonna studies instead of engineering or physics. But over time, culture and economic cycles can have powerful corrective effects, prodding us to tinker anew.

????And don't forget about technology. Foege notes the advent of Kickstarter, for example, which enables crowd-funding of startups. "There's some irony," he writes, "in the fact that technology has helped return tinkering to a state not that far off from the way Benjamin Franklin must have experienced it: unpredictable, unencumbered, and swirling with possibility."