Does Your Language Shape How You Think? 语言是否塑造了你的思维方式？ 作者：Guy Deutscher @ 2010-8-26 译者：尼克基得慢（@尼克基得慢） 校对：沈沉（@你在何地-sxy） 来源：NYtimes，http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/29/magazine/29language-t.html?_r=0 Seventy years ago, in 1940, a popular science magazine published a short article that set in motion one of the trendiest intellectual fads of the 20th century.At first glance, there seemed little about the article to augur its subsequent celebrity. Neither the title, “Science and Linguistics,” nor the magazine, M.I.T.’s Technology Review, was most people’s idea of glamour. 在七十年前的1940年，一份大众科学杂志发表了一篇短文，开启了二十世纪最新潮的思想风尚之一。乍看这篇文章，很难预料到它之后的名气。无论是文章标题《科学和语言学》，还是刊登的杂志《麻省理工科技评论》，都跟大多数人心目中的魅力不沾边。 And the author, a chemical engineer who worked for an insurance company and moonlighted as an anthropology lecturer at Yale University, was an unlikely candidate for international superstardom. And yet Benjamin Lee Whorf let loose an alluring idea about language’s power over the mind, and his stirring prose seduced a whole generation into believing that our mother tongue restricts what we are able to think. 而且，身为保险公司的化学工程师，同时兼职担任耶鲁大学人类学讲师，作者的这种身份并没有成为国际超级巨星的潜质。然而Benjamin Lee Whorf提出了一种关于语言对思维影响的诱人观点，而且他激动人心的文章诱使整整一代人相信，我们的母语限制了我们所能思考的内容。 In particular, Whorf announced, Native American languages impose on their speakers a picture of reality that is totally different from ours, so their speakers would simply not be able to understand some of our most basic concepts, like the flow of time or the distinction between objects (like “stone”) and actions (like “fall”). 特别是，Whorf宣称，美洲土著语言令它们的使用者形成了与我们完全不同的现实图景，所以美洲土著完全不能理解我们的一些最基本概念，比如时间的流逝，以及物体（比如“石头”）与动作（比如“下落”）的区分。 For decades, Whorf’s theory dazzled both academics and the general public alike. In his shadow, others made a whole range of imaginative claims about the supposed power of language, from the assertion that Native American languages instill in their speakers an intuitive understanding of Einstein’s concept of time as a fourth dimension to the theory that the nature of the Jewish religion was determined by the tense system of ancient Hebrew. 几十年来，学术圈和普罗大众都为Whorf的理论所折服。在他的巨大影响下，其他人基于设想中的语言之威力提出了很多富有想象力的断言，比如断言美洲土著语言赋予了美洲土著对爱因斯坦将时间作为第四维这一观念的直观理解，又如提出犹太教的本质决定于古希伯来语时态系统的理论。 Eventually, Whorf’s theory crash-landed on hard facts and solid common sense, when it transpired that there had never actually been any evidence to support his fantastic claims. The reaction was so severe that for decades, any attempts to explore the influence of the mother tongue on our thoughts were relegated to the loony fringes of disrepute. 最终，当人们发现Whorf的荒诞断言从未有证据支持时，他的理论在坚硬的事实和可靠的常识面前败退了。这一反弹的后果如此严重，以至于数十年里，任何探究母语对于我们思考之影响的尝试都被贬斥为不光彩的疯狂之举。 But 70 years on, it is surely time to put the trauma of Whorf behind us. And in the last few years, new research has revealed that when we learn our mother tongue, we do after all acquire certain habits of thought that shape our experience in significant and often surprising ways. 但是70年过去了，是时候把Whorf造成的不幸放诸脑后了。在过去几年里，新近研究表明，我们在学习母语时确实会养成一些思维习惯，这些习惯会以重要且出乎意料的方式塑造我们的体验。 Whorf, we now know, made many mistakes. The most serious one was to assume that our mother tongue constrains our minds and prevents us from being able to think certain thoughts. The general structure of his arguments was to claim that if a language has no word for a certain concept, then its speakers would not be able to understand this concept. If a language has no future tense, for instance, its speakers would simply not be able to grasp our notion of future time. 我们现在知道Whorf犯了许多错误。最严重的一个就是，他假定我们的母语会限制我们的思维，而且使我们无力思考某些概念。他论证的大体框架就是声称，如果一种语言没有某种概念对应的词汇，该语言的使用者就不能理解这种概念。例如，假设一种语言没有将来时态，它的使用者就无法理解未来时间的概念。 It seems barely comprehensible that this line of argument could ever have achieved such success, given that so much contrary evidence confronts you wherever you look. When you ask, in perfectly normal English, and in the present tense, “Are you coming tomorrow?” do you feel your grip on the notion of futurity slipping away? Do English speakers who have never heard the German word Schadenfreude find it difficult to understand the concept of relishing someone else’s misfortune? Or think about it this way: If the inventory of ready-made words in your language determined which concepts you were able to understand, how would you ever learn anything new? 我们很难理解为什么这一论点竟能获得如此巨大的成功，因为你随处可见大量相反的证据。当你用完全标准的英语以现在时态问出“Are you coming tomorrow?”这句话时，难道你就感觉到对未来这一概念的理解随之消逝了吗？难道从未听说过德语单词Schadenfreude的英语使用者就很难理解幸灾乐祸这一概念吗？或者这样思考一下：如果你的母语中现存的全部词汇决定了你可以理解哪些概念，那你又如何可能学到任何新东西呢？ SINCE THERE IS NO EVIDENCE that any language forbids its speakers to think anything, we must look in an entirely different direction to discover how our mother tongue really does shape our experience of the world. Some 50 years ago, the renowned linguist Roman Jakobson pointed out a crucial fact about differences between languages in a pithy maxim: “Languages differ essentially in what they must convey and not in what they may convey.” This maxim offers us the key to unlocking the real force of the mother tongue: if different languages influence our minds in different ways, this is not because of what our language allows us to think but rather because of what it habitually obliges us to think about. 既然并无证据表明任何一种语言会令其使用者无法思考某些事情，我们必须从反方向来探究我们的母语如何确实塑造了我们对世界的感受。大概五十年前，著名语言学家Roman Jakobson 用一句精辟箴言指出了关于不同语言之差异的一个关键事实：“语言实质上区别于它们所必须表达的内容，而不是它们可能表达的内容。”这句箴言给我们提供了解开母语真实威力的钥匙：如果不同的语言会以不同的方式影响我们的思维，这不会是由于语言允许我们思考什么内容，而会是由于语言内在地强制我们思考什么内容。 Consider this example. Suppose I say to you in English that “I spent yesterday evening with a neighbor.” You may well wonder whether my companion was male or female, but I have the right to tell you politely that it’s none of your business. But if we were speaking French or German, I wouldn’t have the privilege to equivocate in this way, because I would be obliged by the grammar of language to choose between voisin or voisine; Nachbar or Nachbarin. 考虑这样一个例子。假设我用英语对你说“我昨天晚上跟我的邻居一起”。你或许会想知道我的同伴是男还是女，但是我有权礼貌地告诉你这事与你无关。但是如果我们讲法语或者德语，我就没有这样含糊其辞的特权了，因为语法强制我必须从voisin与voisine或者Nachbar与Nachbarin中选择一个。 These languages compel me to inform you about the sex of my companion whether or not I feel it is remotely your concern. This does not mean, of course, that English speakers are unable to understand the differences between evenings spent with male or female neighbors, but it does mean that they do not have to consider the sexes of neighbors, friends, teachers and a host of other persons each time they come up in a conversation, whereas speakers of some languages are obliged to do so. 这些语言强迫我将同伴的性别告知你，不管我是否认为你与此事有什么干系。当然，这并不意味着英语使用者就无法理解与男邻居共度的夜晚和与女邻居共度的夜晚之间的区别，但这确实意味着他们并不需要思考在对话中出现的邻居、朋友、老师和其他许多人的性别，然而某些语言的使用者却必须这么做。 On the other hand, English does oblige you to specify certain types of information that can be left to the context in other languages. If I want to tell you in English about a dinner with my neighbor, I may not have to mention the neighbor’s sex, but I do have to tell you something about the timing of the event: I have to decide whether we dined, have been dining, are dining, will be dining and so on. 另一方面，英语也会强制你明确说明某些类型的信息，而这些信息在其他语言里可以留在语境里面。如果我想用英文给你讲我跟邻居的一顿晚餐，我可能不用必须提到我邻居的性别，但是我却必须告知你有关事件发生时间的一些东西：我必须选择我们是已经吃过晚饭了（we dined）、已经在吃着晚饭（have been dining）、正在吃着晚饭（are dining）还是将要吃晚饭（will be dining）等。 Chinese, on the other hand, does not oblige its speakers to specify the exact time of the action in this way, because the same verb form can be used for past, present or future actions. Again, this does not mean that the Chinese are unable to understand the concept of time. But it does mean they are not obliged to think about timing whenever they describe an action. 与此不同，汉语则并不强制其使用者这样详细说明动作的具体时间，因为汉语中同样的动词可以用于指称过去的、现在的和将来的动作。同样地，这并不意味这中国人就无法理解时间的概念。但是这确实意味着，无论何时描述一个动作，他们都不会被强制去考虑时间的问题。 When your language routinely obliges you to specify certain types of information, it forces you to be attentive to certain details in the world and to certain aspects of experience that speakers of other languages may not be required to think about all the time. And since such habits of speech are cultivated from the earliest age, it is only natural that they can settle into habits of mind that go beyond language itself, affecting your experiences, perceptions, associations, feelings, memories and orientation in the world. 当你所用的语言经常强制你去说明特定种类的信息时，它会迫使你关注世界中的某些特定细节和经历中的某些特定方面，而这可能是其他语言的使用者不必一直思考的。因为这些说话的习惯从很小就开始养成，他们很自然就会变成超越语言本身的思维习惯，影响你在世上的体验、知觉、联想、感觉、记忆和倾向。 BUT IS THERE any evidence for this happening in practice? 但是有证据表明上述影响在现实中发生过吗？ Let’s take genders again. Languages like Spanish, French, German and Russian not only oblige you to think about the sex of friends and neighbors, but they also assign a male or female gender to a whole range of inanimate objects quite at whim. What, for instance, is particularly feminine about a Frenchman’s beard (la barbe)? Why is Russian water a she, and why does she become a he once you have dipped a tea bag into her? 我们再以性别为例。像西班牙语、法语、德语和俄语这样的语言不仅强制你思考朋友和邻居的性别，而且还心血来潮地赋予各种无生命的物体以性别。例如，法国人胡须怎么就成了阴性的？为何俄语中水是阴性的，但是把一个茶包放进她里面，她为何又会变成了他呢？ Mark Twain famously lamented such erratic genders as female turnips and neuter maidens in his rant “The Awful German Language.” But whereas he claimed that there was something particularly perverse about the German gender system, it is in fact English that is unusual, at least among European languages, in not treating turnips and tea cups as masculine or feminine. 众所周知，Mark Twain曾用“糟糕透顶的德语”一语来痛斥其稀奇古怪的词性，比如阴性的萝卜和中性的少女。尽管他声称德语的词性系统有些特别不合常理之处，但事实上，至少在欧洲各语言里，像英语这样不把萝卜和茶杯看作阴性或者阳性的，才真正是不同寻常。 Languages that treat an inanimate object as a he or a she force their speakers to talk about such an object as if it were a man or a woman. And as anyone whose mother tongue has a gender system will tell you, once the habit has taken hold, it is all but impossible to shake off. When I speak English, I may say about a bed that “it” is too soft, but as a native Hebrew speaker, I actually feel “she” is too soft. “She” stays feminine all the way from the lungs up to the glottis and is neutered only when she reaches the tip of the tongue. 那些把无生命物体当作他或她对待的语言，会迫使其使用者以它是一个男人或女人的方式来谈论该物体。而且，母语有性别系统的人会告诉你，一旦养成这种习惯，就不可能改掉了。当我说英语时，我可能会说一张床“它”太软了，但作为一个生来就讲希伯来语之人，我实际上是感觉到“她”太软了。从肺部上至声门，“她”一直都是阴性的，只有当她到达舌尖时才会变成中性。【编注：作者是犹太人，生于以色列特拉维夫市，在荷兰莱顿大学任教授】 In recent years, various experiments have shown that grammatical genders can shape the feelings and associations of speakers toward objects around them. In the 1990s, for example, psychologists compared associations between speakers of German and Spanish. There are many inanimate nouns whose genders in the two languages are reversed. A German bridge is feminine (die Brücke), for instance, but el puente is masculine in Spanish; and the same goes for clocks, apartments, forks, newspapers, pockets, shoulders, stamps, tickets, violins, the sun, the world and love. 近几年，不同实验均表明，语法上的性别可以塑造说话人对周围物体的感觉和联想。比如1990年代，心理学家比较了德语使用者和西班牙语使用者的联想。两种语言中有很多无生命名词的性别是相反的。比如德语中的桥是阴性的(die Brücke)，但是在西班牙语中桥(el puente)是阳性的。同样，时钟、公寓、叉子、报纸、口袋、肩膀、邮票、票、小提琴、太阳、世界和爱都是如此。 On the other hand, an apple is masculine for Germans but feminine in Spanish, and so are chairs, brooms, butterflies, keys, mountains, stars, tables, wars, rain and garbage. When speakers were asked to grade various objects on a range of characteristics, Spanish speakers deemed bridges, clocks and violins to have more “manly properties” like strength, but Germans tended to think of them as more slender or elegant. With objects like mountains or chairs, which are “he” in German but “she” in Spanish, the effect was reversed. 另一方面，对德国人来说，苹果是阳性的，但是在西班牙语中则是阴性的，椅子、扫帚、蝴蝶、钥匙、山岳、星星、桌子、战争、雨和垃圾也是如此。当说话者被要求对不同物体的一系列特征进行评分时，说西班牙语的人认为桥梁、时钟和小提琴拥有更多“男性特质”，比如力量；但是德国人则倾向于认为它们更加纤弱或雅致。对于像山岳或椅子这样德语中为阳性而在西班牙语为阴性的物品来说，效果正好相反。 In a different experiment, French and Spanish speakers were asked to assign human voices to various objects in a cartoon. When French speakers saw a picture of a fork (la fourchette), most of them wanted it to speak in a woman’s voice, but Spanish speakers, for whom el tenedor is masculine, preferred a gravelly male voice for it. More recently, psychologists have even shown that “gendered languages” imprint gender traits for objects so strongly in the mind that these associations obstruct speakers’ ability to commit information to memory. 在另一个实验中，说法语和西班牙语的人被要求为卡通中的不同物体配上人类发音。说法语的人看到一幅叉子(la fourchette)的图片时，大多数就想要为它配上女性声音，但在西班牙语中，叉子(el tenedor)是阳性的，其使用者就会更倾向于给它一个沙哑的男性声音。心理学家最近甚至揭示，“名词具有词性的语言”会将物体的性别特性在思维上留下极为深刻的印记，以致于这种联想甚至会阻碍语言使用者记忆信息的能力。 Of course, all this does not mean that speakers of Spanish or French or German fail to understand that inanimate objects do not really have biological sex — a German woman rarely mistakes her husband for a hat, and Spanish men are not known to confuse a bed with what might be lying in it. Nonetheless, once gender connotations have been imposed on impressionable young minds, they lead those with a gendered mother tongue to see the inanimate world through lenses tinted with associations and emotional responses that English speakers — stuck in their monochrome desert of “its” — are entirely oblivious to. 当然，所有这些并不意味着说西班牙语、法语或者德语的人不能理解无生命物体并没有真正的生物性别——一个德国女性很少会把她的丈夫错认为一顶帽子，西班牙男性也并不以混淆床和床上的东西而著称。然而，一旦性别涵义强加于易受影响的年轻头脑上，它们就会使得母语中名词具有词性的人通过联想和感性回应的滤镜来看待这无生命的世界，而这是困在单色的“its”沙漠中的英语使用者完全察觉不到的。 Did the opposite genders of “bridge” in German and Spanish, for example, have an effect on the design of bridges in Spain and Germany? Do the emotional maps imposed by a gender system have higher-level behavioral consequences for our everyday life? Do they shape tastes, fashions, habits and preferences in the societies concerned? At the current state of our knowledge about the brain, this is not something that can be easily measured in a psychology lab. But it would be surprising if they didn’t. 例如，“桥梁”在德语和西班牙语中相反的性别会对两国桥梁的设计有影响吗？词性系统所设置的情感地图对我们的日常生活会产生更高级别的行为后果吗？它们会影响相关社会的品味、时尚、习惯和倾向吗？在我们有关大脑的现有知识状态下，这并不是能在心理学实验室轻松测量出来的事情。但是如果它们没有影响，这会叫人意外。 The area where the most striking evidence for the influence of language on thought has come to light is the language of space — how we describe the orientation of the world around us. Suppose you want to give someone directions for getting to your house. You might say: “After the traffic lights, take the first left, then the second right, and then you’ll see a white house in front of you. Our door is on the right.” But in theory, you could also say: “After the traffic lights, drive north, and then on the second crossing drive east, and you’ll see a white house directly to the east. Ours is the southern door.” 我们在某个领域已经发现了有关语言影响思想的最引人注目的证据。这一领域就是有关空间的语言——我们如何描述我们周围世界的方向。假设你想给要去你家的某人指路。你可能会说：“过了红绿灯后，第一个路口左转，然后第二个路口右转，然后你会看到面前有一栋白房子。我家门在右边。”但是理论上，你也可以说：“过了红绿灯后，向北开，然后在第二个十字路口往东开，然后你会看到正东方向有栋白房子。我家门是南边那个。” These two sets of directions may describe the same route, but they rely on different systems of coordinates. The first uses egocentric coordinates, which depend on our own bodies: a left-right axis and a front-back axis orthogonal to it. The second system uses fixed geographic directions, which do not rotate with us wherever we turn. 这两组指令描述的是同一路线，但是它们依赖不同的坐标系统。第一种使用了依赖自己身体的自我中心坐标：左右坐标轴和与之垂直的前后坐标轴。第二种系统使用固定的地理方向，不论我们转向何处都不会随我们旋转。 We find it useful to use geographic directions when hiking in the open countryside, for example, but the egocentric coordinates completely dominate our speech when we describe small-scale spaces. We don’t say: “When you get out of the elevator, walk south, and then take the second door to the east.” The reason the egocentric system is so dominant in our language is that it feels so much easier and more natural. After all, we always know where “behind” or “in front of” us is. We don’t need a map or a compass to work it out, we just feel it, because the egocentric coordinates are based directly on our own bodies and our immediate visual fields. 我们发现有时使用地理方向很有用，比如当我们在开阔的野外徒步时。但是当我们描述小型空间时，自我中心坐标在我们的言谈中占绝大多数。我们并不会这么说：“出电梯后，往南走，然后在第二个门往东走。”自我中心坐标在我们的语言中如此重要，原因是我们觉得用起来更容易、更自然。毕竟，我们总是会知道我们的“后面”或者“前面”在哪。我们不需要地图或者指南针来辨别前后，我们只需靠感觉，因为自我中心坐标直接基于我们的身体和当下的视野。 But then a remote Australian aboriginal tongue, Guugu Yimithirr, from north Queensland, turned up, and with it came the astounding realization that not all languages conform to what we have always taken as simply “natural.” In fact, Guugu Yimithirr doesn’t make any use of egocentric coordinates at all. The anthropologist John Haviland and later the linguist Stephen Levinson have shown that Guugu Yimithirr does not use words like “left” or “right,” “in front of” or “behind,” to describe the position of objects. Whenever we would use the egocentric system, the Guugu Yimithirr rely on cardinal directions. 可是且慢，一种生僻的澳洲土著语言——北昆士兰的Guugu Yimithirr语——冒了出来，它让人们震惊地意识到，并不是所有语言都符合我们理所当然认定的“自然”。事实上，Guugu Yimithir语根本不使用自我中心坐标。先是人类学家John Haviland，后来又有语言学家Stephen Levinson，都表示Guugu Yimithirr语并不使用诸如“左”或“右”、“前”或“后”这些词来描述物体的方位。在任何我们使用自我中心坐标的场合，Guugu Yimithirr语都依赖于东西南北这种基本方向。 If they want you to move over on the car seat to make room, they’ll say “move a bit to the east.” To tell you where exactly they left something in your house, they’ll say, “I left it on the southern edge of the western table.” Or they would warn you to “look out for that big ant just north of your foot.” Even when shown a film on television, they gave descriptions of it based on the orientation of the screen. If the television was facing north, and a man on the screen was approaching, they said that he was “coming northward.” 如果他们想让你在车座上挪出点空位来，他们会说“往东移一点。”为了告诉你他们忘在你家的东西的具体位置，他们会说，“我把它落在西边桌子的南边了。”他们还会警告你，“小心你脚北边的大蚂蚁。”甚至当电视上播放电影时，他们也会基于屏幕的朝向来描述电影。如果电视机朝北，屏幕上的男人正在靠近，他们会说他“正在往北走”。 When these peculiarities of Guugu Yimithirr were uncovered, they inspired a large-scale research project into the language of space. And as it happens, Guugu Yimithirr is not a freak occurrence; languages that rely primarily on geographical coordinates are scattered around the world, from Polynesia to Mexico, from Namibia to Bali. Guugu Yimithirr语的这些怪异特性的发现，激发了对于空间语言的一项大规模研究项目。经过研究发现，Guugu Yimithirr语并不是不寻常的事情；主要依靠地理坐标的语言散落在世界各地，从波利尼西亚到墨西哥，从纳米比亚到巴厘岛。 For us, it might seem the height of absurdity for a dance teacher to say, “Now raise your north hand and move your south leg eastward.”But the joke would be lost on some: the Canadian-American musicologist Colin McPhee, who spent several years on Bali in the 1930s, recalls a young boy who showed great talent for dancing. As there was no instructor in the child’s village, McPhee arranged for him to stay with a teacher in a different village. 对于我们来说，如果一位舞蹈老师说“现在举起你北边的手，向东移动你的南腿”，可能听起来十分荒谬。但是某些情况下就不好笑了：曾于1930年代在巴厘岛生活过几年的美籍加拿大音乐学家Colin McPhee回忆说，他在那儿遇到过一个有着极佳舞蹈天赋的男孩。由于男孩的村子没有老师，McPhee就安排他跟着另一个村子的老师。 But when he came to check on the boy’s progress after a few days, he found the boy dejected and the teacher exasperated. It was impossible to teach the boy anything, because he simply did not understand any of the instructions. When told to take “three steps east” or “bend southwest,” he didn’t know what to do. The boy would not have had the least trouble with these directions in his own village, but because the landscape in the new village was entirely unfamiliar, he became disoriented and confused. Why didn’t the teacher use different instructions? He would probably have replied that saying “take three steps forward” or “bend backward” would be the height of absurdity. 但是几天后当他检查男孩的进展时，他发现男孩情绪低落而且老师充满怒气。因为男孩根本不能理解任何指令，所以没法教他任何事情。当被告知“向东三步”或者“往西南弯曲”时，他不知道该怎么做。男孩在他自己的村子就不会有这些方向上的麻烦，但是因为新村子的地貌完全不熟悉，他变得困惑，分不清方向。为什么老师不用不同的指令呢？他的回答大概是：说“往前三步”或者“向后弯曲”是极度荒谬的。 So different languages certainly make us speak about space in very different ways. But does this necessarily mean that we have to think about space differently? By now red lights should be flashing, because even if a language doesn’t have a word for “behind,” this doesn’t necessarily mean that its speakers wouldn’t be able to understand this concept. Instead, we should look for the possible consequences of what geographic languages oblige their speakers to convey. In particular, we should be on the lookout for what habits of mind might develop because of the necessity of specifying geographic directions all the time. 所以不同语言确实让我们对于空间的描述十分不同。但是这一定表明我们必须对空间有不同的思考吗？到此红灯应该闪起来了，因为即使一种语言没有“后面”这一个词，这不一定意味着说这种语言的人不能理解这个概念。相反，我们应该寻找地理语言强制它们的使用者传达某些内容所带来的后果。特别是我们应该留神观察，由于他们一直需要明确地理位置，他们的思维会形成什么样的习惯。 In order to speak a language like Guugu Yimithirr, you need to know where the cardinal directions are at each and every moment of your waking life. You need to have a compass in your mind that operates all the time, day and night, without lunch breaks or weekends off, since otherwise you would not be able to impart the most basic information or understand what people around you are saying. Indeed, speakers of geographic languages seem to have an almost-superhuman sense of orientation. Regardless of visibility conditions, regardless of whether they are in thick forest or on an open plain, whether outside or indoors or even in caves, whether stationary or moving, they have a spot-on sense of direction. 为了讲一种像Guugu Yimithirr这样的语言，你需要在你醒着的每一刻都知道基本方向在哪。你的脑中需要有一个一直运行的指南针，无论白天还是晚上，没有午休或者周末休息，否则你就无法表述最基本的信息，也无法理解周围人在说什么。确实，地理语言的使用者好像拥有近乎超人般的方向感。不管视线条件如何，不管他们在茂密的森林或是开阔的平原，不管在户外或是室内乃至洞穴中，不管静止还是移动，他们都有准确的方向感。 They don’t look at the sun and pause for a moment of calculation before they say, “There’s an ant just north of your foot.” They simply feel where north, south, west and east are, just as people with perfect pitch feel what each note is without having to calculate intervals. 他们不看太阳，也无需停下片刻计算一番，就能脱口而出“你脚的北边有一只蚂蚁。”他们凭感觉就能知道哪是北方、南方、西方和东方，就像有完美音调的人不用计算音程就能感觉出每个音调是什么。 There is a wealth of stories about what to us may seem like incredible feats of orientation but for speakers of geographic languages are just a matter of course. One report relates how a speaker of Tzeltal from southern Mexico was blindfolded and spun around more than 20 times in a darkened house. Still blindfolded and dizzy, he pointed without hesitation at the geographic directions. 在我们看来似乎不可思议的定位奇迹，对于使用地理语言的人来说是理所当然的事，关于此有太多故事可讲。一份报告描述了南墨西哥说Tzeltal语的人被蒙住眼睛在漆黑的屋子里转二十多圈的故事。转完后，虽然仍旧被蒙住双眼而且头昏，他还是毫不犹豫地指出了地理方向。 How does this work? The convention of communicating with geographic coordinates compels speakers from the youngest age to pay attention to the clues from the physical environment (the position of the sun, wind and so on) every second of their lives, and to develop an accurate memory of their own changing orientations at any given moment. So everyday communication in a geographic language provides the most intense imaginable drilling in geographic orientation (it has been estimated that as much as 1 word in 10 in a normal Guugu Yimithirr conversation is “north,” “south,” “west” or “east,” often accompanied by precise hand gestures). 这是怎么实现的呢？用地理坐标进行交流的习惯，使得说话者从很小开始就在生命中每一秒都去留意有关物理环境的线索（太阳的位置，风等等），培养出了在任何时刻都能记住自己方位变化的精确记忆力。所以在地理语言中，日常交流提供了对地理方位最大强度的想象训练（据估计，一次普通的Guugu Yimithirr语谈话中，每十个词就有一个是“北”“南”“西”或“东”，而且经常伴有准确的手部姿势）。 This habit of constant awareness to the geographic direction is inculcated almost from infancy: studies have shown that children in such societies start using geographic directions as early as age 2 and fully master the system by 7 or 8. With such an early and intense drilling, the habit soon becomes second nature, effortless and unconscious. When Guugu Yimithirr speakers were asked how they knew where north is, they couldn’t explain it any more than you can explain how you know where “behind” is. 这种恒常知晓地理方向的习惯从婴儿时期就开始得到灌输。研究表明，这种社会中的儿童最早在2岁就开始使用地理方向了，到了7、8岁就能完全掌握。有了这样早且高强度的训练，这种习惯很快就变成了毫不费力且不会察觉的第二本能。当Guugu Yimithirr语的使用者被问到他们如何知道哪是北方时，他们无法解释，就像你不能解释你怎么知道“后方”是哪一样。 But there is more to the effects of a geographic language, for the sense of orientation has to extend further in time than the immediate present. If you speak a Guugu Yimithirr-style language, your memories of anything that you might ever want to report will have to be stored with cardinal directions as part of the picture. One Guugu Yimithirr speaker was filmed telling his friends the story of how in his youth, he capsized in shark-infested waters. 但是地理语言的影响还不仅如此，因为方向感要求在当下时间的基础上有所延伸。如果你讲的是Guugu Yimithirr类型的语言，你对于自己想要说的任何东西的记忆都会将基本方向作为记忆画面的一部分来存储。一位讲Guugu Yimithirr的人曾被拍摄到向他的朋友讲述自己年轻时如何在遍布鲨鱼的水域里翻船的故事。 He and an older person were caught in a storm, and their boat tipped over. They both jumped into the water and managed to swim nearly three miles to the shore, only to discover that the missionary for whom they worked was far more concerned at the loss of the boat than relieved at their miraculous escape. Apart from the dramatic content, the remarkable thing about the story was that it was remembered throughout in cardinal directions: the speaker jumped into the water on the western side of the boat, his companion to the east of the boat, they saw a giant shark swimming north and so on. 他和一个年纪稍大的人被困在风暴中，他们的船翻了过来。他们都跳入水中，奋力游了3英里才到了海岸，却发现雇佣他们的传教士只关心船只损失，毫不庆幸他们奇迹般的死里逃生。除了这戏剧性的内容之外，值得注意的事情是整个故事都是通过基本方向来记忆的：说话者从船的西侧跳入水中，他的同伴在船的东侧跳下，他们看见了一条大鲨鱼从北面游来等等。 Perhaps the cardinal directions were just made up for the occasion? Well, quite by chance, the same person was filmed some years later telling the same story. The cardinal directions matched exactly in the two tellings. Even more remarkable were the spontaneous hand gestures that accompanied the story. For instance, the direction in which the boat rolled over was gestured in the correct geographic orientation, regardless of the direction the speaker was facing in the two films. 有没有可能，其中提到的基本方向只是临时想到的呢？很巧合的是，同一个人几年过后又被拍摄讲同样的故事。两次描述中的基本方向完全相符。更加引人注意的是伴随故事而出现的自发手势。例如，在讲述船往哪个方向摇晃时，他的手能够指向正确的地理方向，不管说话者在两段视频中面向哪个方向。 Psychological experiments have also shown that under certain circumstances, speakers of Guugu Yimithirr-style languages even remember “the same reality” differently from us. There has been heated debate about the interpretation of some of these experiments, but one conclusion that seems compelling is that while we are trained to ignore directional rotations when we commit information to memory, speakers of geographic languages are trained not to do so. 心理学实验也表明，在某些情况下，对于“同一个事实”，说Guugu Yimithirr型语言的人甚至会与我们有不同的记忆。关于如何解释部分此类实验，人们一直都有一些热烈的争议，但是有一个结论非常令人信服：尽管我们受到的思维训练是在记忆信息时忽略方向变化，但是说地理语言的人却被训练得不去这么做。 One way of understanding this is to imagine that you are traveling with a speaker of such a language and staying in a large chain-style hotel, with corridor upon corridor of identical-looking doors.Your friend is staying in the room opposite yours, and when you go into his room, you’ll see an exact replica of yours: the same bathroom door on the left, the same mirrored wardrobe on the right, the same main room with the same bed on the left, the same curtains drawn behind it, the same desk next to the wall on the right, the same television set on the left corner of the desk and the same telephone on the right. In short, you have seen the same room twice. 理解这种区别的一个方法是：想象你正与一个说这种语言的人一同旅行，住在一家各层走廊两边的门都一模一样的大型连锁酒店。你的朋友住在正对着你的房间，当你走进他的房间里时，你会看见跟你完全一样的房间：卫生间门一样在左侧，带镜衣柜一样在右侧，一样的主卧，床也一样在主卧的左边，后面一样是窗帘，靠右侧墙也一样摆着桌子，桌子的左边一样是电视，电话一样在右边。简言之，你两次看到的是相同的房间。 But when your friend comes into your room, he will see something quite different from this, because everything is reversed north-side-south. In his room the bed was in the north, while in yours it is in the south; the telephone that in his room was in the west is now in the east, and so on. So while you will see and remember the same room twice, a speaker of a geographic language will see and remember two different rooms. 但是当你的朋友进到你的房间时，他会看见相当不同的东西，因为所有事情都是南北颠倒的。在他的房间床是在北边，而在你的房间床是在南边；他房间里的电话是在西边，而你的在东边等等。所以尽管你两次看到并记住相同的房间，地理语言的使用者则看见和记住了两间不同的房间。 It is not easy for us to conceive how Guugu Yimithirr speakers experience the world, with a crisscrossing of cardinal directions imposed on any mental picture and any piece of graphic memory. Nor is it easy to speculate about how geographic languages affect areas of experience other than spatial orientation — whether they influence the speaker’s sense of identity, for instance, or bring about a less-egocentric outlook on life. 说Guugu Yimithirr的人把基本方向的十字瞄准器加诸于任何精神画面和图像记忆之上，我们很难想像他们是如何感受这个世界的。同时也很难猜测地理语言如何影响除了空间定向外的体验领域——比如它们是否会影响说话者对个体身份的理解或者是否会导致对于人生更少自我中心的看法。 But one piece of evidence is telling: if you saw a Guugu Yimithirr speaker pointing at himself, you would naturally assume he meant to draw attention to himself. In fact, he is pointing at a cardinal direction that happens to be behind his back. While we are always at the center of the world, and it would never occur to us that pointing in the direction of our chest could mean anything other than to draw attention to ourselves, a Guugu Yimithirr speaker points through himself, as if he were thin air and his own existence were irrelevant. 但是有个证据颇能说明问题：如果你看到一个说Guugu Yimithirr语的人指向他自己，你会自然地假设他有意引起对他自己的注意。事实上，他正在指向一个方向，刚好在他背后。尽管我们总是处于世界的中心，而且从来不会意识到，指向我们胸部方向的动作除了是想要引起对自己的注意之外，还能有什么别的意思，但是一个说Guugu Yimithirr语的人会指穿他自己，仿佛他是稀薄的空气，他自己的存在并不相关。 IN WHAT OTHER WAYS might the language we speak influence our experience of the world? Recently, it has been demonstrated in a series of ingenious experiments that we even perceive colors through the lens of our mother tongue. There are radical variations in the way languages carve up the spectrum of visible light; for example, green and blue are distinct colors in English but are considered shades of the same color in many languages. 我们所说的语言会在其他什么方面影响我们对世界的感受呢？最近，一系列别出心裁的实验表明，我们甚至是通过母语的滤镜来观察颜色的。在区分可见光光谱方面，各语言有很大的不同；例如，英语中绿色和蓝色是不同的颜色，但是在很多语言中它们却是同种颜色的不同色调。 And it turns out that the colors that our language routinely obliges us to treat as distinct can refine our purely visual sensitivity to certain color differences in reality, so that our brains are trained to exaggerate the distance between shades of color if these have different names in our language. As strange as it may sound, our experience of a Chagall painting actually depends to some extent on whether our language has a word for blue. 我们还发现，我们的语言所经常性地强制我们加以区分的颜色，会修正我们对于现实中特定颜色区别的视觉敏感性，所以如果这些颜色在我们的语言中有不同的名字，我们的大脑就会被训练得夸大不同色度颜色的差距。虽然这听起来很奇怪，但是我们对于Chagall画作的感受某种程度其实依赖于我们语言中是否有蓝色这一单词。 In coming years, researchers may also be able to shed light on the impact of language on more subtle areas of perception. For instance, some languages, like Matses in Peru, oblige their speakers, like the finickiest of lawyers, to specify exactly how they came to know about the facts they are reporting. You cannot simply say, as in English, “An animal passed here.” You have to specify, using a different verbal form, whether this was directly experienced (you saw the animal passing), inferred (you saw footprints), conjectured (animals generally pass there that time of day), hearsay or such. 在未来几年，研究人员或许能发现语言对更细微的感知领域的影响。例如，一些语言，像秘鲁的Matses，会像最挑剔的律师一样强制其使用者详细说明他们如何知晓正在讲述的事实。你不能像在英语中那样简单地说，“一动物经过了此处。”你必须用不同动词形式详细说明，这是直接经历的（你看到了一动物正在经过）、还是你推断的（你看到了脚印）、还是你猜测的（动物一般都会在一天中的那个时间经过那里），还是你听说的，诸如此类。 If a statement is reported with the incorrect “evidentiality,” it is considered a lie. So if, for instance, you ask a Matses man how many wives he has, unless he can actually see his wives at that very moment, he would have to answer in the past tense and would say something like “There were two last time I checked.” After all, given that the wives are not present, he cannot be absolutely certain that one of them hasn’t died or run off with another man since he last saw them, even if this was only five minutes ago. 如果提出一份陈述时的“证据性质”不正确，该陈述就会被认为是谎言。所以，举例来说，如果你问一个Matses男性他有多少老婆，除非他在那时能看到他妻子，否则他必须用过去时回答，会说一些“上次核实时，我有两个老婆”这样的话。毕竟，鉴于他的老婆并不在场，他不能绝对确定自从他上次看到她们后，他们中的一个有无死亡或者跟其他男人跑掉，即使“上次核实”也就在5分钟之前。 So he cannot report it as a certain fact in the present tense. Does the need to think constantly about epistemology in such a careful and sophisticated manner inform the speakers’ outlook on life or their sense of truth and causation? When our experimental tools are less blunt, such questions will be amenable to empirical study. 所以他不能用现在时把这作为一个确定事实来说。这种如此小心复杂地思考认识论的需要，会影响说话者对人生的看法或者他们对真相和起因的理解吗？只有在我们的实验工具足够锐利时，这些问题才能经受实证研究的检验。 For many years, our mother tongue was claimed to be a “prison house” that constrained our capacity to reason. Once it turned out that there was no evidence for such claims, this was taken as proof that people of all cultures think in fundamentally the same way. But surely it is a mistake to overestimate the importance of abstract reasoning in our lives. After all, how many daily decisions do we make on the basis of deductive logic compared with those guided by gut feeling, intuition, emotions, impulse or practical skills? 很多年来，我们的母语被称为限制我们理性能力的“牢笼”。一旦证明这样的说法没有证据，人们就以为这证明了所有文化的人根本上都以相同的方式进行思考。但是，过分高估抽象推理在我们生命中的重要性，这显然是个错误。毕竟，与那些在感觉、直觉、情感、冲动或实用技能指导下做出的日常决定相比，我们有多少决定是在演绎逻辑的基础上做出的呢？ The habits of mind that our culture has instilled in us from infancy shape our orientation to the world and our emotional responses to the objects we encounter, and their consequences probably go far beyond what has been experimentally demonstrated so far; they may also have a marked impact on our beliefs, values and ideologies. We may not know as yet how to measure these consequences directly or how to assess their contribution to cultural or political misunderstandings. But as a first step toward understanding one another, we can do better than pretending we all think the same. 我们的文化从婴儿时期就灌输进我们大脑的习惯，会影响我们在世界中的定向，和对我们所遇到的东西的情感回应，它们的影响可能比目前实验所揭示的要更深远；它们可能对我们的信仰、价值观和思想体系也有显著影响。我们可能还不知道如何直接测量这些影响，或者如何评估它们对于文化或政治误解的作用。但是作为迈向理解彼此的第一步，我们还可以做的更好，不能假装所有人都以相同方式思考。 Guy Deutscher is an honorary research fellow at the School of Languages, Linguistics and Cultures at the University of Manchester. His new book, from which this article is adapted, is “Through the Language Glass: Why the World Looks Different in Other Languages,” to be published this month by Metropolitan Books. Guy Deutscher是曼彻斯特大学语言与文化学院的荣誉研究员。他的新书《透过语言之镜：为何其他语言中的世界看起来如此不同》这个月将由Metropolitan Books出版，本文即选摘自此书。 （编辑：辉格@whigzhou） *注：本译文未经原作者授权，本站对原文不持有也不主张任何权利，如果你恰好对原文拥有权益并希望我们移除相关内容，请私信联系，我们会立即作出响应。

——海德沙龙·翻译组，致力于将英文世界的好文章搬进中文世界——

Nearly 1,000 People Move From Blue States to Red States Every Day. Here’s Why. 每天将近有1000人从蓝州搬到红州，这自有缘由。 作者：Stephen Moore @ 2015-10-9 译者：董慧颖 校对：沈沉（@你在何地-sxy） 来源：The Daily Signal，http://dailysignal.com/2015/10/09/nearly-1000-people-move-from-blue-states-to-red-states-every-day-heres-why/ The so-called “progressives” love to talk about how their policies will create a worker’s paradise, but then why is it that day after day, month after month, year after year, people are fleeing liberal blue states for conservative red states? 那些所谓的“进步人士们”喜欢谈论他们的政策将如何创造出一个工人的天堂。可是，为什么日复一日，月复一月，年复一年，人们总是在从自由派的蓝州逃到保守派的红州去呢？ The new Census data on where we live and where we moved to in 2014 shows that the top seven states with the biggest percentage increase in in-migration from other states are in order: North Dakota, Nevada, South Carolina, Colorado, Florida, Arizona, and Texas. All of these states are red, except Colorado, which is purple. 2014年最新人口普查中关于居住地和搬迁地的数据显示，按照迁入量增长的百分比计算，有他州居民迁入的前七大州依次是：北达科他，内华达，南卡罗来纳，科罗拉多，佛罗里达，亚利桑那和德克萨斯。这些州中除了科罗拉多是紫色以外，其他都是红州。 Meanwhile, the leading exodus states of the continental states in percentage terms were Alaska, New York, Illinois, Connecticut, New Mexico, New Jersey, and Kansas. All of these states are blue, except Alaska and Kansas. 同时，以百分比计算，大陆州中主要的外流州是：阿拉斯加，纽约，伊利诺伊、康涅狄格，新墨西哥，新泽西和堪萨斯。这些州中除了阿拉斯加和堪萨斯外，其他都是蓝州。 The latest Rich States, Poor States document (which I co-author), published by ALEC, the state legislative organization, finds that nearly 1,000 people each day on net are leaving blue states and entering red states. This migration is changing the economic center of gravity in America—moving it relentlessly to the South and West. 最新的《富州和穷州》报告（我是合著者），由专注各州立法的美国立法交流委员会（ALEC）出版，发现每天离开蓝州进入红州的人数净值接近1000。这一迁徙正在改变美国的经济重心，使之持续不断地向南、向西转移。 Travis Brown, the author of the indispensable book “How Money Walks,” shows that two of the leading factors behind this movement of human capital are 1) whether a state has a right to work law (half of the states do) and 2) how high the top income tax rate is in the state. Nine states have no income tax today, and they are creating twice the pace of jobs as are high-income tax states. 特拉维斯·布朗写作了一本不可或缺的书：《钱如何走路》。他指出，在人力资本的上述流动背后，有两个主要的影响因素：1）该州是否有权制定工作法（一半的州都有），2）该州最高的所得税税率有多高。如今有九个州没有所得税，而他们创造的工作机会是高所得税州的两倍。 Data from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) show a similar trend. Each year the IRS issues a migration data report that examines how many tax filers (and dependents) in the year changed their residency and how much income was transported from one state to another. The numbers for the most recent year (tax filing year 2013) are gigantic and put the lie to the claim that interstate migration is too small to matter in terms of the wealth and economic opportunity in one state versus another. 国税局的数据也显示了类似的趋势。每年国税局都会发布一份移民数据报告，分析当年度有多少报税人（及其家属）改变了他们的居住地以及有多少收入从一个州转移到另一个。最新一年（2013报税年度）的数字非常之大，证明下述断言就是扯谎：州际迁移太小，不会对各州之间财富和经济机会造成影响。 In 2013, Florida gained $8.2 billion in adjusted gross income from out-of-staters. Texas gained $5.9 billion—in one year. Five of the seven states with the biggest gains in income have no income tax at all: Florida, Texas, Arizona, Washington, and Nevada. New York was again the big loser, with another 112,236 tax filers leaving and taking $5.2 billion with them. (So much for those TV ads trying to lure businesses into America’s 2nd highest taxed state with temporary tax breaks.) Illinois lost nearly 67,000 tax filers and $3.7 billion of income it can no longer tax. 2013年，佛罗里达从外州来者身上获得了共计82亿美元的调整后总收益。德克萨斯在一年内获得了59亿美元。收益增加最多的七个州中有五个没有任何所得税：佛罗里达、德克萨斯、亚利桑那、华盛顿州和内华达。纽约州又是最大的输家，又有112236名纳税人离开，一并带走了52亿美元。（那么多电视广告企图用临时税收减免来引诱企业到全美税负第二重的州去发展，还是打住吧。）伊利诺伊失去了近67000名纳税人，可征税收入中流走了中37亿美元。 I’ve never met a Democrat who could come up with even a semi-plausible explanation for why families and businesses are hightailing it out of blue states. They are leaving states with high minimum wages, pro-union work rules, high taxes on the rich, generous welfare benefits, expansive regulations to “help” workers, green energy policies, etc. People are voting with their feet against these liberal policies. 我从来没有见过任何一个民主党人能想出半个理由，能解释为什么家庭和企业都在从蓝州逃离。他们正在离开的这些州，都有很高的最低工资，有利于工会的工作规定，对富人的高税收，慷慨的福利待遇，无孔不入的旨在“帮助”工人的管制，绿色能源政策，等等。人们正在用脚投票，反对这些自由派政策。 When I debated Paul Krugman this summer, I confronted him with this reality. His lame explanation for the steady migration from liberal North to conservative South was that “air conditioning” has made the South more livable. Americans are evidently moving because of the weather. 今年夏天当我和保罗·克鲁格曼辩论时，我用这样的事实与他对质。他对从自由派北部到保守派南部间的稳定移民的蹩脚解释是，“空调”使南部更适于居住。美国人显然是由于天气原因才搬家的。 There are two glaring problems with this theory: California and North Dakota. In the last decade ending in 2013, 1.4 million more Americans left California than moved into the once-Golden State. It’s a good bet these California refugees didn’t leave for more sunshine or better weather. 这个想法面临着两个突出的困难：加利福尼亚和北达科塔。到2013年为止的十年间，从曾经的黄金州加利福尼亚迁出的人口比迁入的多出140万。可以肯定地说，这些离开加利福尼亚州的难民并不是为了追寻更多的阳光或更好的气候。 And if warm weather is what is attracting people to the South—and surely there is some truth to that—why did the coldest state outside Alaska, North Dakota, have the biggest population gain in percentage terms in the most recent year? The answer is that workers went to get jobs created by the Bakken Shale oil and gas boom. By the way, California is one of the oil- and gas-richest states in the nation, but its “green” politicians are regulating that industry out of businesses. So much for caring about working-class Americans. 如果温暖的气候是吸引人们迁往南方的原因——当然这也有一定的道理——那为什么最近一年中，除阿拉斯加以外最寒冷的州——北达科塔——却有着最大的人口增长百分比？答案是，工人们是去追寻因巴肯页岩油气繁荣而创造出来的工作。顺便提一下，加利福尼亚是全国石油和天然气最为富集的州之一，但该州的“绿色”政治家们正通过管制逼死油气行业。别再说什么关心工薪阶层美国人了。 The latest Census and IRS data merely confirm what Americans can see every day with their own two eyes. Red states are a magnet. There’s a downside to this for sure. Conservatives have a legitimate gripe that as blue-staters come into their prosperous red states, they try to turn them blue. That’s happened in New Hampshire, where Massachusetts transplants vote for the left-wing policies they just fled. 最新的人口普查和国税局的数据只是证实了美国人每天用自己的两只眼睛都能看到的事情。红州是一块磁铁。这肯定会有消极面。保守派的抱怨合情合理，蓝州人在进入繁荣的红州后，正试图将他们的红州变蓝。这种事已经在新罕布什尔发生，来自马萨诸塞的移民投票支持他们方才逃离的左翼政策。 But the underlying trend is unmistakable: Liberal blue states are economic dinosaurs. Will they change their ways before they go the way of Detroit and become extinct? 但基本的趋势是显而易见的：自由派的蓝州是经济的巨大障碍。在重蹈底特律的覆辙走向灭绝之前，他们会改变自己的方式吗？ （编辑：辉格@whigzhou） *注：本译文未经原作者授权，本站对原文不持有也不主张任何权利，如果你恰好对原文拥有权益并希望我们移除相关内容，请私信联系，我们会立即作出响应。

——海德沙龙·翻译组，致力于将英文世界的好文章搬进中文世界——

Obama’s shameful Afghanistan retreat: This will embolden the Taliban, Al Qaeda and ISIS 奥巴马撤离阿富汗之举很可耻：这会鼓励塔利班、基地组织和伊斯兰国 作者：Frederick Kagan @ 2015-10-18 译者：沈沉（@你在何地-sxy） 校对：Whig zhou（@whigzhou） 来源：NEW YORK DAILY NEWS，http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/frederick-kagan-obama-shameful-afghanistan-retreat-article-1.2400776 The headlines should read: “Obama to slash U.S. troops in Afghanistan by over 40% weeks before he hands over responsibility to a new President.” Instead they say: “Obama extends U.S. military presence in Afghanistan.” Talk about controlling the narrative. 新闻头条应该这么写：“在向新总统移交责任数周前，奥巴马将削减驻阿美军40%以上”。但实际上它们是这么写的：“奥巴马延长美军驻阿时间。”看看什么叫做控制叙事方式。 We’re missing the plot here. The President announced on Thursday the most irresponsible decision he could have made about Afghanistan — second only to the promise he had made earlier to pull almost all U.S. troops. The right decision would have been to keep forces at current levels, or, better, send reinforcements. 我们错过了重点情节。总统本周四宣布了他在阿富汗问题上可能做出的最不负责任的决定——仅次于他此前做出的撤离全部美军的承诺。正确的决定应当是，保持当前的驻军水平，最好是能增加援军。 For we are losing in Afghanistan, again. Security is deteriorating. The Taliban seized and briefly held the capital of an important province north of Kabul. They are threatening another one a short drive southwest of Kabul. U.S. forces destroyed two Al Qaeda training camps in Kandahar, one very large. The Islamic State controls part of Nangarhar Province, east of Kabul. Afghan security forces cannot hold what they have, let alone regain what they have lost. 因为，又一次，我们正在失去阿富汗。安全形势正在恶化。塔利班攻占并短暂占据了喀布尔以北一个重要省份的首府。他们现在还对喀布尔以南车程很近的另外一座首府构成威胁。美军摧毁了基地组织位于坎大哈的两座训练营，其中一座非常之大。伊斯兰国控制了喀布尔以东楠格哈尔省的部分地区。阿富汗安全部队根本守不住他们的地盘，更别说收复失地。 The Taliban had been driven out of almost all the important areas in southern Afghanistan and disrupted elsewhere by the additional forces Obama sent in 2010. The premature reduction of American and allied troops and the operational restrictions imposed on the remaining troops have let the Taliban rebuild. 由于奥巴马在2010年派出增援部队，塔利班曾被赶出阿富汗南部的几乎所有重要区域，在其它地区也遭到破坏。但过早的削减美军及联军部队，并对留守部队施加行动限制，已经让塔利班得以重建。 A couple of years ago the Taliban would not have dared mass forces for an offensive against a major city, because American airpower supporting U.S. and Afghan troops would have decimated them. No more. Now the enemy masses and maneuvers as they did from 2006 to 2009, when they nearly toppled the Afghan government. 数年之前，塔利班根本不敢集结力量攻打任何主要城市，因为支援美军和阿富汗部队的美国空军会将其加以摧毁。现在不再如此了。如今，敌人像他们在2006年至2009年期间那样集结和运动，当时他们差点推翻了阿富汗政府。 A limited number of American forces with the right authorities could prevent them from doing that. But Obama has chosen to allow the Taliban the freedom of action to threaten the survival of the Afghan state once again. 有限数量的美军，如果具有正确的权限，也可以阻止敌人这么做。但奥巴马所做的选择，给了塔利班再次威胁阿富汗政权生存的行动自由。 American forces with Afghan partners drove Al Qaeda almost entirely out of Afghanistan in 2002. U.S., Afghan and allied troops kept them out for a decade — the one enduring success against Al Qaeda President Obama had maintained. 2002年，美军联同阿富汗盟友几乎已将基地组织完全赶出阿富汗。美国、阿富汗和联军部队连续十年将它们拒之门外——这是奥巴马总统对基地组织取得的唯一持久成功。 Now they’re back. The President has thus put in danger even the most limited of the goals he had identified in Afghanistan. 如今他们又回来了。因此，甚至是总统在阿富汗定下的最有限目标，都已被他自己置于摇摇欲坠之地。 The emergence of fighters loyal to the Islamic State in Afghanistan is even more disturbing. The vast majority of them are local insurgents who had been fighting under other banners, so it’s not as if new forces have invaded Afghanistan. But the ISIS brand is much more virulent, violent and extreme even than al Qaeda. It makes the Taliban look moderate. 更令人忧心的是，效忠伊斯兰国的战士也出现于阿富汗。他们中的绝大多数都是当地的叛乱者，此前一直在其他旗帜下战斗，因此并不是说有新的力量入侵阿富汗了。但伊斯兰国的标签更为恶性、更为暴力、更为极端，甚至连基地组织都相形见绌。塔利班看起来都是温和派了。 That such a group has drawn Afghans under its banner is proof of the failure of U.S. efforts against ISIS broadly. Success attracts followers. ISIS will likely radicalize those followers even further, while preparing to unleash greater violence against Afghan forces and U.S. troops. That will be further proof to potential recruits of its success and power, encouraging radicals elsewhere to join ISIS. It is a disaster in every respect. 这一组织已将阿富汗人吸引到其旗帜之下，这是美军全面打击伊斯兰国之努力遭遇失败的明证。成功才能吸引追随者。伊斯兰国很有可能将会使这些追随者进一步激进化，同时准备对阿富汗武装力量和美军部队发动更大规模的暴力活动。而这将进一步向其潜在追随者提供成功与力量的证据，鼓励其他地方的激进分子参加伊斯兰国。方方面面来看，这都是灾难性的。 The Afghan security forces, meanwhile, are suffering badly. Losses and desertion rates are too high. They lack the equipment to prosecute a modern war against a serious enemy. We built those forces on the assumption that the U.S. and its allies would continue to provide meaningful and reliable air support, help with logistics, planning and intelligence and more. As we have withdrawn that support, they have faltered. 与此同时，阿富汗安全部队正在遭受巨大损失。伤亡率和逃兵率居高不下。他们缺乏装备，没法与可怕的敌人开展一场现代战争。我们建立这些部队时曾假定，美国及其盟友会持续提供有意义的、可靠的空中支援，并在后勤、部署和情报及其他方面给予帮助。随着我们撤销这类支援，他们就变得力不从心。 All this was both predictable and avoidable. The President was warned that he had announced too aggressive a drawdown plan in 2009. He disdained recommendations to keep 20,000 or 30,000 troops in place after the drawdown. He is once again disregarding advice to maintain the current — inadequate — force level in favor of scheduling yet another unjustifiable withdrawal. 所有这些都既可以预测，也可以避免。2009年，已经有人警告总统，他宣布的撤军计划过于激进。他无视了在撤军之后保持20000或30000驻军的建议。现在，他又一次无视了保持当前——尚不足够——驻军数量的建议，而支持新一轮毫无依据的撤军计划。 All Presidents make mistakes. Most come to recognize and learn from them. Others double down. In this case, doubling down on retreat is doubling down on failure. 所有的总统都会犯错。他们中大多数都会承认错误并吸取教训。其他人则加倍下注。在当前例子中，在撤军上面加倍下注就是在加倍失败。 （编辑：辉格@whigzhou） *注：本译文未经原作者授权，本站对原文不持有也不主张任何权利，如果你恰好对原文拥有权益并希望我们移除相关内容，请私信联系，我们会立即作出响应。

——海德沙龙·翻译组，致力于将英文世界的好文章搬进中文世界——

The Most Misunderstood Libertarian 最为人所误解的自由意志主义者 作者:Alberto Mingardi @ 2015-9-28 译者:沈沉(@你在何地-sxy) 校对:混乱阈值(@混乱阈值) 来源:Library of Law & Liberty,http://www.libertylawsite.org/book-review/the-most-misunderstood-libertarian/ To the surprise of many, scholarship on Herbert Spencer (1820-1903) has flourished in the last few years. A towering figure in Victorian Britain, Spencer was all but forgotten after his death. His works, which taken together form a “Synthetic Philosophy,” seemed alien to 20th century academics in an age of meticulous specialization. Also his commitment to individual liberty and (seriously) limited government has not been too common in the discipline that he helped establish, sociology. Talcott Parsons famously called him a victim of the very God he adored: evolution. 关于赫伯特·斯宾塞(1820-1903)的学术研究过去几年活跃了起来,这让许多人感到惊讶｡斯宾塞是英国维多利亚时代的一位杰出人物,死后却几乎被人遗忘｡他的各种著作构成一个“综合哲学”整体,与20世纪专业细分的学术界格格不入｡并且,他对个体自由和(极度的)有限政府的信奉,在他所帮助建立的社会学学科中历来并不十分流行｡塔儿科特·帕森斯曾出了名地把他称为他所推崇的那个上帝——进化——的牺牲品｡ Toward the end of the 20th century, however, interest in Spencer began to revive. In 1974, J.D.Y. Peel published Herbert Spencer: The Evolution of a Sociologist and Robert Nisbet dealt at length with Spencer in his 1980 History of the Idea of Progress. In Anarchy, State and Utopia (1974), Robert Nozick adapted his “tale of the slave” on taxation and democracy from Spencer’s 1884 The Man versus the State. In 1982, the journal History of Political Thought published contributions on Spencer from John Gray, William Miller, Jeffrey Paul, and Hillel Steiner that remain a landmark. 不过,到20世纪快要结束时,人们又重新燃起对斯宾塞的兴趣｡1974年,J. D. Y. Peel出版了《赫伯特·斯宾塞:一位社会学家的进化》;1980年,Robert Nisbet在其《进步观念史》中对斯宾塞进行了长篇讨论｡在《无政府､国家与乌托邦》(1974)中,罗伯特·诺齐克讨论税收和民主问题时所用的“奴隶的故事”源自于斯宾塞1884年的著作《人与国家》｡1982年,《政治思想史》杂志刊登了John Gray､William Miller､Jeffrey Paul和Hillel Steiner等人论斯宾塞的多篇文章,至今仍有里程碑意义｡ New monographs and studies were later published, and today a number of scholars in different disciplines (history of political thought, sociology, anthropology) can be counted among the Spencer connoisseurs. But few of them have come from the classical liberal camp. (The most notable exception is George H. Smith.) 其后关于斯宾塞的新专著和新研究时有出现｡时至今日,分处不同领域(政治思想史､社会学､人类学)的许多学者可以被视为斯宾塞行家｡但其中几乎无人来自古典自由主义阵营｡(George H. Smith是最著名的例外｡) Spencer may be routinely included among the forerunners of modern libertarianism but it is rather uncommon to find a contemporary individualist thinker deliberately appealing to his insights. Take F.A. Hayek: Long ago, John Gray pointed out that Hayek and Spencer share the “same aspiration of embedding the defense of liberty in a broad evolutionary framework,” but Hayek himself appeared to have been largely unaware of this affinity. More recently, Gray wrote that Hayek told him he never read Spencer. 斯宾塞或许会被习惯性地列为现代自由意志主义的先驱之一,但要在当代个人主义思想家中找到一个刻意诉诸斯宾塞见解的人,这可并非易事｡以F. A. 哈耶克为例:John Gray早已指出哈耶克和斯宾塞都具有“同一种抱负,那就是把对自由的辩护牢固树立于一种广义的进化论框架中”,但哈耶克本人似乎基本上没有意识到这种共鸣｡最近,Gray写道,哈耶克曾告诉他说自己从没读过斯宾塞｡ The paradox of one of the fiercest libertarians ever to be ignored by libertarians emerges vividly from Herbert Spencer: Legacies, edited by Mark Francis and Michael Taylor. Interestingly, the two editors have published extensively on Spencer in the past, but their interpretations of him do not overlap. 史上最为狂热的自由意志主义者之一却被自由意志主义者们所忽略,这一乖谬在由Mark Francis和Michael Taylor主编的《赫伯特·斯宾塞:遗产》一书中表现得极为生动｡有趣的是,两位主编过去都已就斯宾塞发表过大量文章,不过他们各自对斯宾塞的解读并不相同｡ Francis, as he attempts to rescue Spencer’s philosophy from oblivion, in his Introduction calls The Man Versus the State and also Social Statics (1851) “popular works” that, “while they were liberal and progressive, . . . were not scientific or philosophical.” Taylor, in contrast, deals at length with Social Statics—as Stephen Tomlinson does in his chapter in this volume. Francis尝试将斯宾塞的哲学从被人遗忘的状态中拯救出来,并在他为该书所写的“导论”中将《人与国家》和《社会静力学》(1851)称为“流行作品”,“尽管是自由主义､进步主义的……并不具备科学性或哲学性”｡与之相反,Taylor则对《社会静力学》进行了长篇讨论——同书中由Stephen Tomlinson所写的一个章节也是如此｡ Spencer’s legacy is plural, as the title of this collection suggests, and may have come to us mediated by subsequent developments in different fields. The plural nature of the “legacies” is stressed throughout, and has multiple dimensions: disciplinary, political, and even geographical given the “migration” of Spencerian theories all over the world. 正如这一文集的复数形式的标题所暗示的那样,斯宾塞的遗产是多重的｡而且这些遗产可能是通过多个不同领域的后续发展传递给我们的｡对“legacies”复数性质的强调贯穿本书首尾,并具有多个不同维度:学科维度､政治维度､甚至还有地理维度(因为斯宾塞的理论曾在全世界“迁移”)｡ Sometimes, however, by looking far away you disregard what you have nearby. Bernard Lightman, for example, focuses his essay “Spencer’s British Disciples” on Beatrice Potter Webb and Grant Allen, quickly dismissing Auberon Herbert as a not very influential British disciple of Spencer. 不过,有些时候,由于过于关注远方,你会忽视眼前事物｡比如,Bernard Lightman在他的文章“斯宾塞的英国门徒”中,主要聚焦于Beatrice Potter Webb和Grant Allen,却急匆匆地略过了Auberon Herbert,视其为斯宾塞的一位影响不大的英国门徒｡ There might be a problem here: the influence the disciples themselves had may have to be disentangled from the thinking of the disciples qua disciples. Lightman presents in fascinating and plentiful detail the most interesting paths of Webb and Allen, who both turned socialist to the disappointment of the master. 这里可能有个问题:这些门徒自身所具有的影响力,可能必须和身为门徒的他们的思想区分开来｡Lightman以引人入胜和细节丰富的方式为我们介绍了Webb和Allen所走过的最为有趣的道路｡他们俩都转变成了社会主义者,令其师父大失所望｡ It would be hard to overemphasize the emotional nature of the relationship between Webb and Herbert Spencer. He was a family friend and a confidant of Laurencina Potter, Beatrice Potter Webb’s mother. A solitary man, Spencer bestowed unlimited affection on his dear friends’ kids. Webb和赫伯特·斯宾塞之间的情感再怎么强调都不为过｡斯宾塞是Webb一家的世交,是Beatrice Potter Webb的母亲Laurencina Potter的知己｡未曾娶妻的斯宾塞将无限的情感倾注于他这位密友的孩子身上｡【编注:Beatrice Potter Webb是著名经济学家,伦敦经济学院和费边社的核心成员,这两个机构也是20世纪初英国社会主义运动的主要推动者｡】 Young Beatrice grew up thinking that he was her best ally and the only adult truly interested in her intellectual development. Spencer, as Webb later wrote, pressed her “to become a scientific worker” and to a certain extent he became a model, for the “continuous concentrated effort in carrying out, with an heroic disregard of material prosperity and physical comfort, a task which he believed would further human progress.” 小Beatrice在成长过程中一直把斯宾塞当成最好的伙伴,认为他是唯一真正对她的智识进步感兴趣的成年人｡如Webb后来所写的那样,是斯宾塞敦促她“成为一个科学工作者”,而他在某种程度上已然是一个典范,因为,“为了实施一项他认为能够推动人类进步的事业,他能持续集中地努力,为此奋而不顾物质财富和生理舒适｡” In her 1926 memoir My Apprenticeship, Webb described at length the old friend, in a portrait very familiar to modern readers. She saw in him “the mental deformity which results from the extraordinary development of the intellectual faculties joined with the very imperfect development of the sympathetic and emotional qualities.” 在其1926年的回忆录《我的学徒生涯》中,Webb花大量笔墨描绘了这位老朋友,其形象现代读者非常熟悉｡她在他身上看到“一种精神上的畸形,它是智识能力非凡发达与同情和情感极度不完善两相结合的产物｡” Webb’s Spencer is a human being obsessed with rationality and purpose who paid the price on the affective side. Though Webb is not stingy of kind words or affectionate recollections, it is hard not to speculate that her portrait of Spencer evokes magnificently all she disliked in unregulated capitalism: a purported organizational efficiency with little humanity to spare for those who are needy. Webb眼中的斯宾塞是个痴迷于理性和目的,并为此在情感方面付出相应代价的人｡尽管Webb并不吝啬写出赞誉之词或深情回忆,我们仍很难不这样推测:她对斯宾塞的描绘极好地再现了她对毫无限制的资本主义——一种对匮乏者冷酷无情的所谓的组织化效率——的所有憎恶｡ It is indeed true that Spencer was the one who, as Lightman writes, “originally taught” Beatrice Webb “to value the scientific method and to think about social issues from a scientific perspective.” One wonders, however, exactly how much of Spencer’s insights she kept in her later thinking. 毫无疑问,如Lightman所写的那样,正是斯宾塞“最初教导”Beatrice Webb去“重视科学方法,并从一种科学的视角来考虑社会问题”｡不过,人们不禁会怀疑,在她后来的看法中到底保留有多少斯宾塞的观点｡ As for Auberon Herbert, certainly a less grand figure, he was an advocate of a libertarianism “that verged on anarchism,” in Taylor’s words. Reading Spencer was for him a truly life-changing experience. It made him lose “faith in the great machine” of politics and convinced him to become an apostle of freedom. Herbert’s libertarian anarchism is one of the “legacies” Michael Taylor examines in his essay. 至于Auberon Herbert,相较而言当然没那么出名｡用Taylor的话说,他鼓吹的是一种“接近于无政府主义”的自由意志主义｡阅读斯宾塞对他来说确实是真正改变人生的一种体验,让他丧失了对于政治“这台大机器的信念”,并说服他成为了一位传播自由的使徒｡Herbert的自由意志论无政府主义是Michael Taylor在其文章中检视的多重“遗产”中的一种｡ He approaches Spencer as a historian of political thought. The Taylor chapter, on the one hand, presents Social Statics as a text that inspired multiple legacies, including the work of Henry George (who resented the fact that Spencer wanted the 1892 revised edition of this 1851 work to leave out the original chapter on land) and Piotr Kropotkin. Taylor以一种政治思想史家的方式讨论斯宾塞｡他所写作的那一章,一方面将《社会静力学》呈现为一份激发了多重遗产的文本,其中包括Henry George(斯宾塞要求《社会静力学》1892年修订版删除1851年原版中论土地一章,George对这一做法感到非常不满)和Piotr Kropotkin的著作｡【编注:Henry George是乔治主义改革运动的创始人,该运动最初主张以单一土地税代替其他所有税种,以便削弱地租收益而提高其他创造性活动的激励,但后来一些追随者将其改造成了土地国有化再分配主张｡】 Taylor stresses how Spencer goes for voluntary and spontaneous arrangements, not necessarily for institutional settings based on the price system. But this won’t sound particularly controversial or new to libertarians, who, despite the caricature often made of them, understand that not everything in life is tradable at a money price. Their point is more subtle (and Spencerian): that is, top-down government intrusions may retard or altogether stop the spontaneous evolution (or adaptation to new circumstances) of human societies. Taylor强调了斯宾塞支持自愿和自发的安排,而不一定支持基于价格体系的制度设置的做法｡但这对于自由意志主义者来说,并不会特别富于争议或新颖,因为尽管他们经常在这一点上遭到夸张嘲弄,但他们知道并非生命中的每样事物都可以用某种货币价格进行交换｡他们的观点更精致(也更斯宾塞式):即,从上至下的政府干预可能会妨碍或完全阻止人类社会的自发进化(或对新环境的适应)｡ On the other hand, Taylor puts in context Spencer’s later, famous polemics against an intrusive state. The articles included in The Man Versus the State were by and large a reaction to the “drift to the left” of William Gladstone’s 1880 government. Taylor emphasizes that “although Liberals were always suspicious of an overextended sphere of state action, the prevalent attitude was one of wariness of government overreach rather than an outright opposition to a positive role for the state.” 在另一方面,Taylor又结合语境分析了斯宾塞晚年反对干预性国家的著名论战文章｡收在《人与国家》一书中的文章大体上都是针对1880年威廉·格莱斯顿政府“左倾转向”而发的反对｡Taylor强调说:“尽管自由派历来对都国家行动范围的过度扩张心怀疑虑,但当时的流行观点只是对政府的过度扩张保持警惕,并不直接反对国家扮演积极角色｡” In other words, Spencer belonged to a minority of truly committed minimal government types that was never hegemonic in the intellectual realm, let alone in the pragmatic world of politicians. Fair enough, though the younger Spencer certainly saw himself as surrounded by writers with ideas rather close to his, particularly after the abolition of the Corn Laws. 换句话说,斯宾塞属于真正信奉最小政府的少数派,这种人在知识界从未成为主流,更不用说在政客们所处的实务世界｡这说得很对,不过,青年斯宾塞当然认为自己周围有许多作家持有近似于己的观点,特别是在《谷物法》废除以后｡ But the opposite is also true. Many critics have used against Spencer the same argument they later employed against Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom: namely, that pointing to the slippery slope of state interventionism was ridiculous given that government was pursuing just limited (particularly in Spencer’s times) and benevolent interventions. In the 1870s, government spending was less than 10 percent of the British GDP—but increased rapidly in the new century. 然而,反对斯宾塞的也大有人在｡许多批评者在反对斯宾塞时已经用到了他们后来用于反对哈耶克《通往奴役之路》的同一论证:即,认为国家干预主义会急剧膨胀恶化是可笑的,因为政府所追求的只是有限的(在斯宾塞的时代尤其如此)､善意的干预｡在1870年代,政府支出还不到英国GDP的10%——尽管在接下来的新世纪里增长迅速｡ One of the many take-aways of this book is that Spencer was a far more complex thinker than those who only know him as a diabolical “social Darwinist” may believe. Its essays might, for example, open the eyes of those who still have in mind the Herbert Spencer largely manufactured in the 1940s by Richard Hofstadter in a book that made history as a beautifully written and yet quite misleading tirade. 本书的诸多简便结论之一是,作为一位思想家,斯宾塞非常复杂,远超那些只知他是个凶恶的“社会达尔文主义者”的人心中所想｡比如,有些人心目中的斯宾塞仍是由理查德·霍夫斯塔特写于1940年代的一本书(该书将历史编成一份整齐漂亮但却颇为误人子弟的长篇檄文)所塑造【译注:指《美国思想中的社会达尔文主义》一书】,而本书所收论文可以让这些人大开眼界｡ Taylor explains that Spencer never thought that “social existence involved an unrelenting struggle for survival in which the richest were the most successful and the poor should go to the wall.” He quotes Thomas Leonard’s important study on the Hofstadterian myth. Taylor引用Thomas Leonard对“霍夫斯塔特迷思”的重要研究解释说,斯宾塞从未认为“社会存在中包含一种永不休止的生存斗争,在这场斗争中,最富裕的人就是最成功的,而最贫穷的人就应该碰壁失败｡” Jonathan H. Turner explains Spencer’s view of evolution as a process of continuous differentiation, which entailed at the same time more interdependence among the parts of the “social organism” and the need for a flexible regulation that allows for ever further differentiation and specialization. The pace of civilization, so to say, is limited by the extent of the division of labor. Jonathan H. Turner将斯宾塞的进化观解释为一种持续分化的进程,而这就意味着“社会有机体”各个部分之间更大程度的相互依赖,而同时也要求实施弹性管理,以允许更进一步的分化和特化｡可以说文明的步伐是受限于劳动分工水平｡ Francis, who like his co-editor cites the Leonard monograph, also makes clear Spencer’s commitment to pacifism: “Spencerians believed that imperial conquest might have been a natural phenomenon when employed by ancient states, but was an archaic activity in modern times” and a most immoral one. The thread running through all of Spencer’s works is the idea that society progresses toward the minimization of violence, which had been needed at earlier stages of civilization. Francis跟共同主编Taylor一样引用了Leonard的论文,也明确指出了斯宾塞对和平主义的信奉:“斯宾塞主义者相信,当帝国征服发生于古代国家手中时,它们也许是种自然现象,但在现时代,它就是一种过时的活动”,同时也是最不道德的活动之一｡贯穿斯宾塞所有著作的一条主线就是这样一种观念:暴力在文明的最初阶段是需要的,但社会进步的方向就是暴力的最小化｡ This book may convey a sense of Spencer’s true understanding of complexity. In the last pages of Social Statics, which revolves around the idea of betterment and progress, he explains that “the institutions of any given age exhibit the compromise made by these contending moral forces at the signing of their last truce.” His magnificent The Study of Sociology (1873) would be a relevant work for those interested in the proper role of the social sciences and their limits, if only they read it. 本书可能向我们传达了一些斯宾塞对于复杂性的真正理解｡在《社会静力学》的最后部分,斯宾塞讨论的是改良与进步｡他解释说,“任何给定时代的制度都呈现出妥协,这些妥协是彼此竞争的道德力量在签订最终停战协定时所达成的｡”对于那些对社会科学的恰当角色及其局限所在感兴趣的人来说,斯宾塞的皇皇巨著《群学肆言》(1873)很值得关注,当然前提是你能读一读｡ Turner’s essay, possibly the most thorough in this collection, claims Spencer’s centrality in the development of sociology. Turner is sure that Spencer was “a theorist, not in the often sloppy and vague social theory sense, but in the hard-science view of theory as a series of abstract laws that explain the operation of some portion of the universe.” Unfortunately, he writes, though “many of his ideas have endured,  . . . most people do not know that they come from Spencer, so ingrained is the avoidance of anything Spencerian.” Turner的文章可能是这本文集中最为深入的,它认为斯宾塞在社会学的发展过程中占据中心位置｡Turner认定斯宾塞是“一位理论家,这里所说的理论不是社会理论意义上的那种很马虎或含糊的理论,而是表现为一系列抽象规则､能够解释宇宙某一部分之运转的那种硬科学意义上的理论｡”不幸的是,他写道,尽管“他的许多观点延续不朽……绝大多数人并不知道它们来自斯宾塞｡对任何斯宾塞主义的东西都避而不谈的做法是如此顽固｡” Turner signals, for example, that Spencer had a very perceptive and thorough vision of power and the dynamics of the mobilization of coercive resources, which also anticipates the analysis of political elites by Vilfredo Pareto (not by chance, an avid reader of Spencer’s). 比如,Turner表明,斯宾塞对于权力和强制性资源的动员过程持有一种认知透彻､细察入微的理解,这也早于维弗雷多·帕累托对于政治精英的分析(帕累托是斯宾塞的热心读者,这并非偶然)｡ Spencer’s dichotomy of militant and industrial societies is not the naive teleology many assumed. “Militant societies are always centralized because they must deal with conflict and war, whereas” industrial societies “are not centralized and allow individuals and corporate units considerable freedom of activity.” Nations may go in one direction or another, depending on many factors. 斯宾塞对于军事社会和工业社会的二分并不是许多人所理解的那种幼稚的目的论｡“军事社会总是中央集权的,因为它们必须应付冲突和战争”,而工业社会“并不中央集权,并允许个体和团体拥有可观的行动自由｡”国家可能走向完全不同的方向,这取决于许多不同因素｡ Spencer learnt it the hard way. His alleged “drift to conservatism,” or the fact that the tone of his articles and political pamphlets got drier, is due to his understanding of developments in England, which he considered revealed a resurgence of the militant spirit. 斯宾塞是历经艰难困苦才得出这一观点的｡他那被指为“保守主义转向”的转变,以及他的文章和政论日益冷峻这一事实,源自他对于英国内部变化的理解｡他认为这种变化表明了军事精神的复活｡ If I had any quibble about this impressive collection, it would be that the propensity to consider The Man Versus the State as “just” a political pamphlet causes the contributors to overlook that this is perhaps the first work whose arguments are truly centered around the notion of unintended consequences. All in all, though, Herbert Spencer: Legacies may foster a better understanding of this seminal thinker and raise yet more interest in his underappreciated writings. 如果说我对这本令人印象深刻的文集还有什么挑剔的话,那就是作者们将《人与国家》仅仅视作一本政论册子的倾向导致他们忽视了一点:它可能是第一本真正集中围绕“非意图后果”这一概念进行论证的书籍｡总而言之,《赫伯特·斯宾塞:遗产》可能增进我们对这位重要思想家的更好理解,同时进一步增加人们对于他的那些明珠蒙尘之作的更大兴趣｡ （编辑：辉格@whigzhou） *注：本译文未经原作者授权，本站对原文不持有也不主张任何权利，如果你恰好对原文拥有权益并希望我们移除相关内容，请私信联系，我们会立即作出响应。

——海德沙龙·翻译组，致力于将英文世界的好文章搬进中文世界——

【2016-05-23】 1）达尔萨斯主义者（Darthusian）和古典自由主义者的根本区别在于：不许诺一个共同富裕普遍康乐的前景，并认为那注定是个虚假的许诺， 2）尽管我们相信（也乐意称颂）自由市场可以最大限度的拓展合作共赢的领域，也承认（统计上）自由社会的最穷困阶层也比非自由社会的普通人状况更好，但不会否认自由竞争终究会有失败者，自由化甚至可能在绝对水平上恶化一些人的处境， 3）马尔萨斯法则为这一判断提供了兜底保证，尽管不是唯一理由， 4）达尔文的启示在于，这完全不是坏事，而是文明进步的动力，试图消除它的努力将摧毁文明赖以繁荣的基础， 5）只有认清这一点才能将自由主义建立在真实而牢靠的基础上，而虚假承诺终究会被现实所揭穿， 6）这也是为何许诺共同康乐的强共同体难以长久维系，除非它能通过周期性重组摆脱一部分成员， 7）或者像罗马那样有着永无止境的拓殖边疆让他得以向其贫穷公民许诺美好前程， 8）对达尔萨斯主义者，自由的伦理基础不是帕累托效率，而是契约合意：我们同意这样的竞争规则，无论结果是谁赢——通俗的说，就是愿赌服输，  

【2016-05-22】 @whigzhou: 大英帝国犯下的最大错误是让听任普鲁士统一德国，结果在一战时只好派自己的陆军上场，而不能像以前那样，只要花钱雇一批德国人打另一批德国人就行了。#后见之明 @whigzhou: 大英走的是弱共同体路线，这条路线有利于自由、繁荣和个人主义，以及为一个族群/文化高度混杂的社会建立普遍秩序，弱点是动员能力不足，难以像强共同体路线的德国那样建立庞大陆军，只能倚重于重资产轻人力的海军，拼钱不拼人头，靠金钱、外交和战略性封锁勉力维持平衡。 @whigzhou: 但这就要求他必须阻止欧洲后院出现任何过于强大的民族国家，强大到能够建立一支他无法扶持装备几个盟友即可轻易打败的陆军  

【2016-05-21】 @深大-子豪:辉总，冒昧问句，能否略微点评一下《无穷的开始：世界进步的本源》这本书？打扰了。 @whigzhou: 没读过，看了看介绍，感觉我不会有兴趣，这个人的念头听起来挺幼稚的 @whigzhou: 【不懂量子力学，我就随便嘀咕几句】1）多重世界，多么偷懒而幼稚的一张膏药啊，2）Deutsch对波普证伪主义的解读，好像还是很朴素的那种，3）同时推崇多重世界膏药和证伪主义，不觉得哪里有问题？4）有关模因已有了各种幼稚理论，Deutsch又添了一个，5）基因和模因居然能和多重世界扯上关系，惊了～ 1）我把一些理论称为膏药，是因为我认为它们背离了可证伪性原则， 2）按我所采用的贝叶斯阐释，所谓可证伪性，就是能够就如何（结构性地）修正我们的贝叶斯信念网络有所建议， 3）科学是我们构建和调整信念网络的一种方法，库恩的范式可理解为信念网络的结构模式，它决定一个信念网络由哪些节点组成， 3.1）当然，范式的内容还包括如何为信念网络获取输入的操作性规范。 4）拉卡托斯的纲领可理解为多层信念网络，所谓硬核就是最底层的那些节点，拉卡托斯为如何在接受新输入后调整信念网络给出了原则性指导：优先尝试调整上层结构，尽量别动下层结构， 5）范式给出之后，特定科学理论/假说为节点间向量赋值， 6）接受证伪的不是单一节点或向量，而是整个多层信念网络，或某一特定网络的某个局部，通常是某个高度内聚的局部， 7）一场科学地震的震级，是指整个信念网络的多大一部分需要拆掉重建， 8）丹内特的波普造物就是一部自学习的贝叶斯推断机， 9）波普说的客观知识就是一个外部（外于人脑）贝叶斯网络， 10）科学supposed to be一部由科学社区共同维护的贝叶斯推断机， 11）丹内特说的格里高列造物就是一部学会利用外部贝叶斯网络的贝叶斯推断机，  

【2015-09-29】 @tertio 大胆猜想一个：动物也有代代相传的meme @tertio: 验证方法，在某一代抚养下一代的时候给予外界干预让其养成一种行为模式，会不会看到这个模式传播到下一代？ @whigzhou: 会，但动物的可教化性比人类差太远了，教化作用通常只是表现为：在极为有限的几种可能行为模式中，激活其中特定一种 @whigzhou: 比如对特定危险源的恐惧，有研究显示，幼猴很容易从长辈的反应中学会对某些危险源（比如蛇）的恐惧，但学不会对其他的 @whigzhou: 再如日本猕猴洗土豆的故事，是meme传播的著名案例，起初研究者认为猕猴是通过观察模仿学会的，但更细致的研究发现，其实更像是因为新手被老手吸引到了恰当情境下，而一旦它进入这一情境，自己就能琢磨出该怎么做，不必模仿，所以说对待此类案例要小心，动物在特定情境下的反应模式可能很有限 @whigzhou: 另一类常被谈论的meme传播现象是鸟鸣，鸣叫风格确实可以传播（所以养鸟的人也有“学脏嘴”一说），不过这事情可供发挥的余地不大，因为鸣叫风格没有太多功能性含义 @北方小米: 这种恐惧不是先天的么？我对蛇的厌恶无以言表，而父母没有这种感觉。 @whigzhou: 对某些危险源的恐惧是先天的，有些则只是有先天基础，很容易激活，另一些则需要特殊训练（比如巴甫洛夫式训练）才学得会，对于蛇，多数灵长类都属于第一或第二类  

【2015-09-28】 @whigzhou: 安倍经济学应该算是新凯恩斯主义迄今为止最理想的实验了吧，几年后看结果吧，呵呵 @whigzhou: 不过到时候他们肯定会找出各种说辞来证明实验条件还是很不理想～ @证券狂人_GOP: 安倍不是努力地给企业减税、减少财政赤字吗？日元如此巨大贬值cpi依旧疲软，说明日元在安倍上台前的确有高估，这些不是都在证明安倍在做正确的事啊？ @whigzhou: 减税是对的，市场开放也有一些，但安倍的核心武器是用大规模公共开支向系统灌入大量货币，依我看不会有什么好结果 @whigzhou: 宽松货币我完全同意，但通过政府灌钱达到宽松效果，有害无益，无奈结构改革效果太慢，政客都喜欢任期内可以见效的方法 @证券狂人_GOP:果然真是大规模开飞机撒钞票的话，应该会有通胀啊，可目前cpi依旧在0附近徘徊，好像有些奇怪啊？ @whigzhou: 因为它会挤出私人开支啊，只要银行和个人仍然是财务负责的，并且看不到这些公共开支提升收入的前景，灌进去的钱就不会变成消费，反而扭曲银行的正常信贷机制 @whigzhou: 大规模公共开支不光扭曲信贷，还扭曲实体经济的资源配置，抬高私人部门的要素成本，效果类似于4万亿对私人部门的挤压

【2016-05-18】 1）美国向来是个平民社会，阶层分化度低，中产比例高， 2）长久以来，这也是其文化与政治特性的基础，这一点在战后繁荣期尤为显著， 3）但并没有什么原理确保他永远会这样，这更可能只是一种阶段性特征，而原因在于： A）移民不断涌入使其人口结构非常新， B）移民筛选机制， C）边疆直到一百多年前才消失， 4）一旦边疆消失，人口结构稳定下来，在常规的社会选择/分化机制持续作用下，古老社会中所常见的那种阶层结构便会重新浮现， 5）所以[[Charles Murray]]（比如在[[Coming Apart]]里）所担忧的那种情况，其实在长期注定会是常态， 6）问题是，美国政治立基于平民化的时间或许太久了，当它消失时，前景难料，  

【2016-05-18】 1）纳税额与投票权的分离是近代政治堕落的基础动力之一， 2）没有堕落的更彻底是因为庞大中产阶级的存在， 3）福利制度在不断放大食税阶层， 4）离开其社会结构基础，三权分立并不能自我维持，最高法院的刹车皮并非永远指望得上， 5）州权避免让事情变得更坏，但效果也颇为有限， 6）未来政治对立将更多表现为州际差异， 7）所以问题之一是保守派是否能赢得足够多的州从而控制参议院，而这取决于人口分布，食税人口向大城市化聚集或许是好事， 8）总有一天众议院也会拿参院开刀，就像当初下院对上院动手一样， 9）未来保守州会更强硬的抗拒联邦权力， 10）当这种抗拒达到禁止联邦官员入境执法的程度时，分裂便开始了 11）宗教是抵抗国家权力越来越深介入私人生活的另一把保护伞，宗教自由也是近年来能够帮助个人避免政府管制/干预的少数几条还在起效的宪法原则之一，但自由派正在不遗余力地摧毁这把保护伞， 12）好消息是，这一对抗将让更多基督教派站到自由一边，或许libertarians也不得不创个教派才能在法庭赢得对抗国家干预的豁免权 13）从百年以上的长期看，保守派终将凭借生育率而取胜，问题是在此之前文明崩坏到何种程度，制度重建会有多艰难 14）另一个好消息是，到目前为止文明世界还足够大，一处之崩坏会让其他几处觉醒，从人口/社会结构看，比如澳洲在被食税者彻底绑架之前觉醒的机会比较大 15）第三个好消息是，欧洲在不久之后便会经历一次大觉醒，至少其中一些国家会，最快可能会在下届选举中就会表现出来 16）福利制度是食税阶层的创造，而最低工资和智能机器将是其放大器，后两项都正在大跃进之中，未来福利负担的膨胀将非常惊人 17）随着州际差异扩大，财富创造者逃离福利州，福利州财政崩溃，福利负担大规模向联邦政府转移，联邦增税不可避免，此时州与联邦的对抗将迅速加剧，到时候假如保守派能够长期控制参院，自由派可能会推动一场分州运动，比如把加州分成两个，旧金山和洛杉矶各归一州，这样他们在参院就多出两席，无论如何，一场大型宪法对抗不可避免，分州之争也是一种可能方式 @黄章晋ster:如果洲际差异足够大，我想保守派的洲未必有足够大的动力去与联邦权力对抗，至少我目前想不出来，难道会为类似同性恋婚姻这样的事情发生冲突吗？如果不涉及到广泛的经济利益冲突，这种冲突就是在一定范围内的。 @whigzhou: 仅仅出于抗拒联邦税的理由也可以让这事情发生 @Helen干杯:第7条不是很明白。大城市多聚集福利人口多倾向所谓自由主义者, 从德州情况看,其城市增长快,流入人口多,我觉得有生之年会看到德州从红州变蓝州的。老师为什么说福利人口向城市聚集对保守派是好事? @whigzhou: 我说的是只有少数一些州才有的超级大都市，向那里聚集占的州就少了嘛 @Helen干杯:目前, 有意加无意, 主动加被动, 北美欧洲都在进行各种风格的种族和文化的融合。福利制度不是这个社会大实验的产品,但其存在至少在欧洲减少了融合过程可能引起的不适症状。如果因"觉醒"而停止, 也会对融合过程有负面影响。甚为遗憾。 @whigzhou: 福利制度不可能有助于种族/文化融合 @whigzhou: 内战后美国的种族融合一直在加速，直到六十年代平权法案和福利大扩张才嘎然而止，参见索维尔的两篇书评：《拜托，别再帮助我们了》 《自由派带给黑人的福利》，还有这篇：《为何伊朗移民成于美国却败于瑞典》 @卫东屯的Porco:纳税额和投票权挂钩不会催生新独裁吗？ @whigzhou: 从1295年模范国会直到1918年，选举权一直和纳税义务关联着，选出了几个独裁者？不负责任的选民才最喜欢独裁者，墨索里尼希特勒查韦斯无一不是在暴民无产者欢呼拥戴之下上台的 @書筆雅歌:糠港不就是如此，糠港不能有普选的理论依据找到了。 @whigzhou: 举香港为例实在是太恭维我了，当前香港迫切需要普选权是因为她正在一步步落入熊猫的魔爪，直选是抵抗熊猫的最后防线，不是因为原有的选举制不好，要不然她一个半世纪的自由繁荣是怎么来的？ @whigzhou: 【给大家支个招】支持普选权最有说服力的理由是军事动员能力，从19世纪后半叶到20世纪前半叶，随着选举权扩展，欧洲各国动员能力越来越强，到二战时已经能把一大半适龄男性拉上战场，所以一旦一个大国开始推行普选，其他只好跟进 @whigzhou: 这一点从德国近代史可以看得最清楚，从普鲁士到德意志帝国到魏玛共和国，普选权/福利制度/动员能力/民族主义/社会主义/军国主义/全民战争，妖魔鬼怪相伴而生，普选权和福利制度是俾斯麦改革的两大重点 @whigzhou: 但这个理由现在已经不成立了，战争越来越不是劳动密集型产业了 @蚯蚓爱钩钩:问题是现在有什么办法剥夺一部分人的选举权呢？除了咱…… @whigzhou: 嗯嗯没办法，或许未来逃到火星上建新国家时可以考虑一下，反正这事情不归我管～ @蚯蚓爱钩钩:如果是为了防止民众的狂热无知，那么只能说没有根本解决方案。不可能有一个完全避免民众犯错而又不造成灾难的方案，如果民众必然犯错，在制度上能做到的只有设法拖延等待民众清醒。 @whigzhou: 对啊，没有什么根本解决方案，也不需要  

【2016-05-17】 @黄章晋ster 你很难说，猫主席发动史无前例时，到底是因为有运动群众的偏好，还是不得已才如此。我们也可以这样说，秦始皇当年不能像东德苏联一样把所有人都纳入专政机关的监督视线之内，不是他不想这么做，而是他没有足够的社会财富可以做到这一点。 °城市化率与清洗模式的选择 http://t.cn/RqDaFh2 @whigzhou: 另一组数字也值得注意，1911年时俄罗斯帝国人口1.67亿，扣掉波兰部分大概1.55亿，此后经历各种杀戮，和1932-33大饥荒，到1936年斯大林开始大清洗时，苏联人口仍不足1.6亿，对比猫国，1948-1966年间，人口约增长50%。 @Liittma是我:说明了什么？ @whigzhou: 说明那段时间苏联的马尔萨斯弹簧压的更低，因而剩余率更高，能够供养更庞大的专政机器 @whigzhou: 实际上，苏联的强行集体化和工业化过程，（无论是否故意）就是通过系统性的消灭部分农业人口，提高剩余率，从而供养更多非农人口，这方面猫国的力度远远不及 @whigzhou: 1932-33年的饥饿疗法直接消灭了乌克兰1/5的农民，在马尔萨斯极限边缘，农民主要是吃饭的嘴而不是创造余粮的工具 @黄章晋ster: 如果主席一直活到现在，中国的城市化率大概会跌到10%以下。 @whigzhou: 于是城市果真就被农村包围了～ @黄章晋ster:哈萨克斯坦和乌克兰官方的说法是，大饥荒消灭了他们近三分之一的人口。 @whigzhou: 嗯嗯，那可能还计入了几百万非直接饿死的受害者  

【2016-05-15】 @whigzhou: 从上世纪中后期开始，基督教在全球范围的扩张势头逐渐消退…………除了其中最保守、生育率最高的那些教派，目前，加纳有6万多摩门教徒，肯尼亚有15万贵格派教徒，门诺派在埃塞俄比亚有47万信徒（其中26万已受洗），当然，对于主流媒体，这些事情根本没有发生。 @zeroclyy:去年埃博拉病毒感染的医生全家都是传教士，一边治病教书一边传教，感召上帝，奉献自己，传播福音。媒体不在乎，美国福音派和摩门教一直坚持在全球传教，而且都是自愿的，竟然有人说是强迫的!!!,你去强迫试一试？ @whigzhou: 非洲少有的一股积极力量  

现在总算可以回过头来，看看衣冠之猿究竟与裸猿有何不同了。 首先，和其他生物一样，我们也是适应环境的结果，漫长的适应过程产生了大量适应器，它们相互配合，组成了一套完整的生存繁殖方案，叫作天性或本能，而其中人类所独有（且人类普遍拥有）的那些，则被称为人性；当然，人性并非永恒，自从智人物种确立，特别是其中一支走出非洲散布全球之后，又发生了许多适应和改变。 假如到此为止，那我们就仅仅是裸猿，但人类还获得了另一组适应器——诸如制造弓箭或渔网的方法——，它们并不存在于个体天性之中，表现为生理或心理特性（尽管它们依赖某些生理或心理机能），而是以口述传统或文字记载之类的形式，存在于群体文化之中，但和生理心理适应器一样，它们也是我们生存方案不可或缺的组成部分。 由于这些适应器存在于群体文化，个人必须成长于群体之中才能获得全套生存技能；但个人对群体和文化的依赖不止于此，尽管有些技能（比如制造弓箭）一旦习得便可离群单独使用，就像有些手机应用下载安装之后便可离线使用，但还有大量被称为社会性技能的应用——诸如沟通、欺骗、说服、恐吓、劝诫、引诱、煽动、组织、指挥、合谋、圈套……——不仅需要在线安装，也只能在线使用。 这是人之社会性的第一层含义，还有第二层：上面提到的那些适应器，尽管须从社会获得，也必须在社会中实现其功能，但总归是服务于个体利益的，是个体的适应器，但并非所有文化元素都是如此，文化自有其传播途径和变异方式，其复制变异兴衰存灭更多系于群体而非个人，因而许多文化元素——诸如伦理规范、部落认同、战士荣誉、集体纪律、民族主义——可能更多服务于群体利益，或干脆只服务于个别模因的利益。 群体与个体的利益虽多有重合，但并不一致，而文化是成套习得而非随意挑选组合的，于是个人便处于本能和文化两股力量的牵引之下；甚而，组成这两股力量的各种成份，其牵引方向也不尽相同，因为人类在不同进化阶段所获得的适应器，在当前条件下的适应程度各有不同，比如对糖的嗜好在当代富裕社会就有点过头，部落认同在现代城市社会也已过时。 更一般而言，许多适应器（无论是生物的还是文化的）正是通过对已有适应器进行抑制、修正和调控而起作用的；比如勇气是对恐惧和逃跑本能的抑制，拘谨是在社交场合抑制某些行为以免失态；还有对一阶抑制的二阶抑制：我们可以抑制拘谨而让自己“显得放松些”，或者“故作拘谨”以避免与人发展亲密关系，甚至“故作失态”以发出轻蔑或挑衅信号。 这样看来，个人的情感、价值、观念和行为，是我们在进化史上先后获得的种种本能，和在成长经历中依次习得的种种传统、习俗、知识和技能，所有这些力量共同牵引的结果，而所谓人性，便是所有这些元素的复合体。 如此描绘人性，难免会引来这样的质疑：难道我们只是被众多绳索拉扯的木偶？那我们的理性和自由意志又在哪里？ 对此我的回答是：我们确实拥有自由意志，但这不是说，在上面罗列的元素之外，还有一颗独立于它们的心灵，一个不受推动的推动者（unmoved mover），而是说，这些元素相互组合、共同起作用的方式，形成了一种有序结构，被称为“意识”，它赋予我们对世界（包括自我）进行表征和模拟、并据此而对不同选项的后果作出预测和评估的能力，所谓自由意志，即是指这种能力，当我们充分运用这一能力时，便体会到自己是自由的。 也就是说，自由并不意味着超脱于因果关系之外，影响我们行动的诸因素，并不是在竞相说服我们的心灵——根本不存在这样一个笛卡尔式心灵，相反，这些因素相互竞争和调控的方式，恰恰构成了我们的心灵；它让我们能够斟酌权衡面临的各种选项，但不是因为我们的抉择过程独立于各种影响，而是影响抉择的各股力量偏爱不同选项，它们之间的较量过程恰恰构成了我们的斟酌。 【意识、自由意志、理性，都是复杂而困难的主题，上面这样充满象征和跳跃的简短表述，恐怕会让注重逻辑连贯性的细心读者感到不满，而它们在我对人性的解读中又处于相当关键的位置，所以我决定在本书附录中用一篇稍长的文章来说明这组概念的确切含义，以及它们对人性意味着什么。】 尽管并无神秘之处，但自由意志在人性中的地位至关重要，堪称人性之王冠；预见后果并作出选择的能力，赋予我们承担道德责任的资格，让我们成为可以被赞美或谴责的对象（正因此，人类才被称为道德动物），离开这个前提，便谈不上善良、邪恶、荣誉或耻辱，许诺、希望、努力、成就、遗憾、懊悔等等词汇也将丧失其意义。 然而，自由意志的独特性和复杂难懂也造成了一种广泛流行的谬误，每当识别出一种元素（无论来自本能还是文化），它以某种因果链对行为产生影响，有人就会拒绝承认那是组成他的一部分，“那不是我的决定，那不是真正的我”，并声称他被本能控制了，被荷尔蒙操纵了，被传统或习俗奴役了，被时尚潮流裹挟了，被贫困状况或教育背景“锁定”了。 可是如此一来，最终他会发现，没有什么是真正属于自己的，用丹内特的话说，“只要你把自己变得足够小，你几乎可以外部化任何东西”；这一谬误在伦理上表现为道德退化主义：随着科学（特别是心理学）的发展，对人性认识的加深，行为影响因素被不断识别出来，于是越来越多的行为被解释为“不是他自己的选择，他不能对此负责”，道德责任也就一项项被撤销。 在生活态度上，该谬误表现为自寻烦恼式的自我排斥，即：对于自己身上任何被发现有着客观来源且并非自己有意识选择的元素，一概加以拒斥；诚然，适当的自我否定是有益的，排除某些元素可能会让剩下的更协调，但扫射式的自我攻击只能带来挫折和痛苦。 常听到这样的故事：某人按部就班随波逐流了几十年，突然有一天觉得不能这么浑浑噩噩度过一生，要做点自己想做的事情，来一次说走就走的旅行，去过自己真正想要的生活；假如他果真去做了，并且过的很开心，便体会到前所未有的自由，感觉自己掌握了命运，终于成为了“真正的自己”。 这当然很好。可是，首先，这样的念头不会凭空而来，或许他是被某部电影某篇文章某句歌词触动了，或许是一位亲友的离世让他意识到人生苦短，或者只是某次痛饮之后心理状态发生了微妙变化；其次，使得他能够被这些事件激发出如此念头的心理基础，也不是没有来由的；而且，这一念头之下，具体哪些事情会被他视为“真正想做的”，同样不是毫无缘由，就连说走就走的目的地——无非是西藏大理非洲塔希提之类——，往往也早被流行文化安排好了。 既然这些念头同样源自其意识控制以外的事件，念头的内容也同样由进化史、文化环境和个人经历所加之于他的种种特性和知识所决定（否则就很难解释，为何人们总是被极为相似的台词所打动，并作出极为相似的反应），那么，何以认为听从这些念头而生活才算是找回了真正的自我？为何这部分念头比其他念头更有资格代表“自我”？ 实际上，这些念头的内容及引出的行为，本身并无特别之处，比如有些人的经历看起来刚好相反：起初怀抱鸿鹄大志，意气昂扬要做番事业，经过一番折腾并作出反思之后，觉得还是听从本能与传统的指引，安享平静生活与天伦之乐更加合意；也有人在反思之后，并未改变生活轨道，只是消除了原先的自卑或焦虑，坦然接受自己向来的秉性和状态。 似乎没有理由认为，说走就走的那位就比他们更高明；真正重要的是，这些都证明了他们拥有被某些事件触发而对自我与生活进行审视和反思的能力，正是这一能力将人类和其他动物区分了开来，至于反思之后做了什么，倒在其次；而反思能力在人性中的地位之所以如此特殊，是因为它揭示了意识这一心理机能的独特与强大。 意识是一种基于语义表征的模拟系统，由于我们的语言原则上可以做到图灵完备，它可以用来表征任何东西，因而意识可以将其表征和模拟能力运用于任何对象，当它指向现实世界时，形成了世界图景（即波普第二世界），当它指向其本身（准确说是它的运行历史）时，形成了自我意识，当它指向其他个体的意识时，便产生了所谓的移情。 随着文化发展，知识系统不断积累膨胀，教育程度提高，意识的模拟能力也在不断增强和拓展[1]，同时也将我们的观念世界从早先的蒙昧状态变成文明时代的丰富开放头脑；特别是在文字出现之后，借助书面语的抽象与构造能力，意识的表征和模拟能力也大幅提升了，此后科学方法和形式化程度更高的人工语言，为意识提供了更强大的外部辅助。 这些构成第三世界的知识和表征手段，让个体意识就像配备了一套强大的感知增强系统（谷歌眼镜和战斗机仪表盘是很贴切的类比），正是这一整套装备，让我们登上了灵性之巅，从那里傲视众生，内观自我，谈论我们身处的宇宙和把我们带到这儿的历史；若文明有幸得以延续，我们的子孙会继续堆高这座山峰，令人性变得更丰厚，生命变得更精彩。 ------------------------------- [1]这部分体现为弗林效应（[[[Flynn effect]]），即智商测试的平均得分随社会发展和教育条件改善而提高的现象。

【2016-05-13】 @海德沙龙 《自由市场环保主义》 环境问题向来都被视为市场失灵的一种表现，许多经济学家也认为，市场本身无法处理像环境污染这样的“外部性”问题，良好环境是一种“公共品”，只能由政府提供（以管制或庇古税的方式），可实际上，无论是理论还是经验都告诉我们，自由市场能够处理环境问题 @whigzhou: 福利经济学作为一种思考问题的方式是有益的，像外部性、公共品、帕累托最优等概念，对不同税种之经济性质的分析，等等，但许多自以为是的福利经济学家总是得出一些可笑的结论，然后就被现实打耳光，比如他们总是认为收益未能内化的产品不可能由私人企业提供，或至少是供给不足的，需要政府补贴， @whigzhou: 可是谷歌服务的收益内化了百分之多少呢？开源社区呢？维基呢？所有这些产业需要多少政府补贴才算够？ @whigzhou: 还有，在书呆子福利经济学家看来，像基础研究这种不能带来短期利益即便带来了也不是一家独享的事情，私人企业是不可能去做的，事实上呢？贝尔实验室，IBM实验室，1960年代由石油企业引领的地质学革命，耳光piapia的～ @whigzhou: 更好笑的是，当私人企业在诸如此类看不到眼前利益的事情上表现过于热情时，另一批经济学家又会跳出来大叫：泡沫！泡沫！急杀太监了～