现代大学英语精读第二版（第六册）学习笔记（原文及全文翻译）——9 - The One Against the Many（一个对多个）

茅慈

2023-12-01

Unit 9 - The One Against the Many

The One Against the Many

Arthur M. Schlesinger.Jr

In an epoch dominated by the aspirations of new states for national development, it is instructive to recall that the United States itself began as an underdeveloped country.

Every country, of course, has its distinctive development problems and must solve them according to its own traditions, capacities, and values. The American experience was unique in a number of ways. The country was blessed by notable advantages-above all, by the fact that population was scarce in relation to available resources. But the favorable ratio between population and resources was obviously not the only factor in American development. Had that been so, the Indians, for whom the ratio was even more favorable, would have developed the country long before the first settlers arrived from over the seas. What mattered equally was the spirit in which these settlers approached the economic and social challenges offered by the environment. Several elements seem fundamental to the philosophy which facilitated the rapid social and economic development of the American continent.

One factor was the deep faith in education. The belief that investment in people is the most essential way for a society to devote its resources existed from the earliest days of the American colonies. It arose originally from a philosophical rather than an economic commitment-from a faith in the dignity of man and from the resulting belief that it is the responsibility of society to offer man the opportunity to develop his highest potentialities. But, at the same time, it also helped produce the conditions essential to successful modernization.

Modern industrial society must be above all a literate society. Economic historians attribute two-thirds of the growth in American output over the centuries of American development to increases in productivity.

And increases in productivity, of course, come directly from the size of the national vestment in education and in research. J. K. Galbraith has rightly observed that "a dollar or a rupee invested in the intellectual improvement of human beings will regularly bring greater increase in national income than a dollar or rupee devoted to railways, dams, machine tools, or other tangible capital goods." These words accurately report the American national experience.

Another factor in the process of American development has been the commitment to self-government and representative institutions. We have found no better way than democracy to fulfill man's talents and release his energies. A related factor has been the conviction of the importance of personal freedom and personal initiative-the feeling that the individual is the source of creativity. Another has been the understanding of the role of cooperative activity, public as well as voluntary.

But fundamental to all of these, and perhaps the single most important explanation of the comparative speed of American development, has been the national rejection of dogmatic preconceptions about the nature of the social and economic order. America has had the good fortune not to be an ideological society.

By ideology I mean a body of systematic and rigid dogma by which people seek to understand the world-and to preserve or transform it. The conflict between ideology and empiricism has, of course, been old in human history. In the record of this conflict, ideology has attracted some of the strongest intelligences mankind has produced-those whom Sir Isaiah Berlin, termed the "hedgehogs," who know one big thing, as against the "foxes," who know many small things.

Nor can one suggest that Americans have been consistently immune to the ideological temptation-to the temptation, that is, to define national goals in an ordered, comprehensive and permanent way.

After all, the American mind was conditioned by one of the noblest and most formidable structures of analysis ever devised, Calvinist theology, and any intellect so shaped was bound to have certain vulnerability to secular ideology ever after. There have been hedgehogs throughout American history who have attempted to endow America with an all-inclusive creed, to translate Americanism into a set of binding propositions, and to construe the national tradition in terms of one or another ultimate law.

Yet most of the time, Americans have foxily mistrusted abstract rationalism and rigid priori doctrine. Our national faith has been not in propositions but in processes. In its finest hours the United States has, so to speak, risen above ideology. It has not permitted dogma to falsify reality, imprison experience, or narrow the spectrum of choice. This skepticism about ideology has been a primary source of the social inventiveness which has marked so much of development. The most vital American social thought has been to empirical, practical, pragmatic. America, in consequence, has been at its most characteristic a nation of innovation and experiment.

Pragmatism is no more wholly devoid of abstractions than ideology is wholly devoid of experience. The dividing line comes when abstractions and experience collide and one must give way to the other. At this point the pragmatist rejects abstractions and, the ideologist rejects experience. The early history of the republic illustrates the difference. The American Revolution was a pragmatic effort conducted in terms of certain general values. The colonists fought for independence in terms of British ideals of civil freedom and representative government; they rebelled against British rule essentially for British reasons. The ideals of American independence found expression in the classical documents which accompanied the birth of the nation: the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and Bill of Rights.

But it is important here to insist on the distinction between ideals and ideology. Ideals refer to the long-run goals of a nation and the spirit in which these goals are pursued. Ideology is something different, more systematic, more detailed, more comprehensive, more dogmatic. The case of one of the Fathers, Thomas Jefferson emphasizes the distinction. Jefferson was an expounder both of ideals and of ideology. As an expounder of ideals, he remains a vivid and fertile figure-alive, not only for Americans but, I believe, for all those interested in human dignity and human liberty. As ideologist, however, Jefferson is today remote-a figure not of present concern but of historical curiosity. As an ideologist, he believed, for example, the agriculture was the only basis of a good society; that the small freehold as the only foundation for freedom; that the honest and virtuous or was the only reliable citizen for a democratic state; that an based on agriculture was self-regulating and, therefore, required a minimum of government; that that government was best which governed least; and that the great enemies of a free state were, on the one hand, urbanization, industry, banking, landless working class, and all the other things which we know as characteristic of the modernization process, and, on the other, a strong national government with power to give direction to national development. This was Jefferson's ideology, and had the United States responded to it, we would be today a feeble and impotent nation. By responding to Jefferson's ideals rather than to his ideology, the United States has become a strong modern state.

Fortunately, Jefferson himself preferred his ideals to his ideology. In case of conflict he chose what helped people rather than what conformed to principle. Indeed, the whole ideological enterprise contradicted Jefferson's temper, which was basically flexible and experimental. The true Jefferson is not the ideological Jefferson but the Jefferson who said that one generation could not commit the next to its view of public policy or human destiny.

What is wrong with faith in ideology? The trouble is this. An ideology is not a picture of actuality; it is a model derived from actuality, a model designed to isolate certain salient features of actuality which the model builder, the ideologist, regards as of crucial importance. An ideology, in other words, is an abstraction from reality. There is nothing wrong with abstractions or models per se. In fact, we could not conduct discourse without them. There is nothing wrong with them—so long, that is, as people remember they are only models. The ideological fallacy is to forget that ideology is an abstraction from reality and to regard it as reality itself.

The besetting sin of the ideologist, in short, is to confuse his own tidy models with the vast, turbulent, unpredictable and untidy reality which is the stuff of human experience. And this confusion has at least two bad results-it commits those who believe in ideology to a fatalistic view of history, and it misleads them about concrete choices of public policy.

Consider for a moment the ideologist's view of history. The ideologist contends that the mysteries of history can be understood in terms of a clear-cut, absolute, social creed which explains the past and forecasts the future. Ideology thus presupposes a closed universe whose history is determined, whose principles are fixed, whose values and objectives are deducible from a central body of social dogma and often whose central dogma is confided to the custody of an infallible priesthood. In the old philosophic debates between the one and the many, the ideologist stands with the one. It is his belief that the world as a whole can be understood from a single viewpoint that everything in the abundant and streaming life of man is reducible to a single abstract system of interpretation.

The American tradition has found this view of human history repugnant and false. This tradition sees the world as many, not as one. These empirical instincts, the preference for fact over logic, for deed over dogma, have found their most brilliant expression in the writings of William James and in the approach to philosophical problems which James called "radical empiricism. Against the belief in the all-encompassing power of a single explanation, against the commitment to the absolutism of ideology, against the notion that all answers to political and social problems can be found in the back of some sacred book, against the deterministic interpretation of history, against the closed universe, James stood for what he called the unfinished universe-a universe marked by growth, variety, ambiguity, mystery, and contingency-a universe where free men may find partial truths, but where no mortal man will ever get an absolute grip on Absolute Truth, universe where social progress depends not on capitulation to a single, all-consuming body of doctrine, but on the uncoerced intercourse of unconstrained minds.

Thus ideology and pragmatism differ radically in their views of history. ally in their approach to issues of public policy. The ideologist, by mistaking models for reality, always misleads as to the possibilities and consequences of public decision. The history of the twentieth century is record of the manifold ways in which humanity has betrayed by ideology.

Let us take an example from contemporary history. It is evident now, for example, that the choice between private and public means, that choice which has obsessed so much recent political and economic discussion in underdeveloped countries, is not a matter of religious principle. It is not a moral issue to be decided on absolutist grounds, either by those on the right the use of public means as wicked and sinful, or by those on the ft who regard the use of private means as wicked and sinful. It is simply a practical question as to which means can best achieve the desired end. It is a problem to be answered not by theology but by experience and experiment. Indeed, I would suggest that we might well banish some overloaded words from intellectual discourse. These words no longer have clear meanings. They are sources of heat, not of light. They belong to the vocabulary of demagoguery, not to the vocabulary of analysis.

So, with the invention of the mixed society, pragmatism has triumphed over absolutism. As a consequence, the world is coming to understand that the mixed economy offered the instrumentalities through which one can unite social control with individual freedom. But ideology is a drug; no matter how much it is exposed by experience, the craving for it still persists. That craving will, no doubt, always persist, so long as there is human hunger for an all-embracing, all-explanatory system, so long indeed as political philosophy is shaped by the compulsion to return to the womb.

The oldest philosophical problem, we have noted, is the relationship between the one and the many. Surely the basic conflict of our times is precisely the conflict between those who would reduce the world to one and those who see the world as many-between those who believe that the world is evolving in a single direction, along a single predestined line, toward a single predestined conclusion, and those who think that humanity in the future, as in the past will continue to evolve in diverse directions, toward diverse conclusions according to the diverse traditions, values, and purposes of diverse peoples. It is a choice, in short, between dogmatism and pragmatism, between the theological society and the experimental society.

Ideologists are afraid of the free flow of ideas, even of deviant ideas within their own ideology. They are convinced they have a monopoly on the Truth. Therefore they always feel that they are only saving the world when they slaughter the heretics. Their objective remains that of making the world over in the image of their dogmatic ideology. The goal is monolithic world, organized on the principle of infallibility—but the only certainty in an absolute system is the certainty of absolute abuse.

The goal of free men is quite different. Free men know many truths, but they doubt whether any mortal man knows the Truth. Their religious and their intellectual heritage join in leading them to suspect fellow men who lay claim to infallibility. They believe that there is no greater delusion than for man to mistake himself for God. They accept the limitations of the human intellect and the infirmity of the human spirit. The distinctive human triumph, in their judgement, lies in the capacity to understand the frailty of human striving but to strive nonetheless.

参考译文——一个对多个

一个对多个

亚瑟·迈耶·施莱辛格

在这个新生国家渴望发展的时代，回眸美国从不发达国家开始的发展历程是很有教益的。

当然，每个国家都有各自发展的问题，而且必须根据其各自的传统、能力和价值解决它们。美国的经验在许多方面都是独特的。这个国家有着得天独厚的优势——主要是人口相对稀少而资源十分丰富。但是很明显，人口和资源之间有利的比例不是促进美国发展的唯一因素。如果真是这样的话，在人口与资源比例上更具优势的印第安人，在海外殖民者到来以前，早就应该把国家发展起来了。同样重要的还有这些殖民者在面临各种经济和社会环境的挑战时的精神。几个基本思想因素对于促进美洲大陆社会和经济迅速发展起到了至关重要的作用。

其中一个思想因素就是对于教育的深信不疑。对人员的投入是社会资源分配的最基本方式，这种信念在美国殖民地最早期就存在。它源于对思想原则的信仰，而不是出于对经济利益的追求；它源于对人的尊严的坚信以及由此而产生的信念，即给人类提供机会去发展其最大的潜能是社会的责任。但与此同时，它帮助美国奠定了走向现代化的基础。

现代化的工业社会必须首先是知识的社会。经济历史学家把美国两个世纪发展期间2/3的经济增长归功于生产力的提高。

当然，这种生产率的提高直接来源于国家对教育和研究的投入。J·K·高伯瑞曾经恰当地指出：“在智力提高上投入的每一美元或卢比所带来的国家收入，都大于将其投入铁路、水坝及其工具，或其他有形生产资料所能带来的国家收入。”这句话准确地叙述了美国的经验。

促进美国发展进程的另一个思想因素是对自治和代议制的追求。我们发现民主是使人的才智得到充分施展、人的能量得以充分发挥的最好方式。民主思想一方面确信人的自由的重要性和创新来自个人；另一方面懂得合作的作用，这种合作包括义务的和自发的两种。

但所有因素中最基本的，或许对美国发展速度最重要的一个就是美国拒绝关于社会本质和经济规律的教条式的偏见。幸运的是，美国不是一个观念性很强的国家。

在我看来，意识形态体系是指人们探索去理解、维护和改变世界时所遵循的系统的、固定的信条总和。意识形态体系与经验主义的斗争在人类历史上源远流长。在意识形态体系与经验主义斗争的历史上，意识形态体系曾吸引了人类历史上一些聪明绝顶的人物艾赛亚·伯林先生称之为“刺猬”，即懂得一件大事的人，和“狐狸”，即知道很多小事的人。

没有人能说美国始终如一地不受意识形态体系诱惑的影响，也就是不受以一种有序的全面的、永恒的方式来确定国家目标的诱惑的影响。

毕竟，美国人的思维方式深受加尔文派神学的影响，这种神学是有史以来人类创造的最崇高、最令人敬畏的分析体系之一，而如此形成的思维方式一定始终容易受到世俗意识形态体系的攻击。那些所谓“刺猬”贯穿于美国整个历史，他们企图赋予美国一个万能的信条，把美国精神转变成一系列必须遵循的主张，用一种或另一种最终规律来解释国家的传统。

然而，大多数美国人对抽象的理性主义和僵硬的先验理论持明智的不信任态度。我们的民族不相信一成不变的终极目标，而忠诚于发展中探求。在她处于最佳时期时，美国可以说超越了所有的意识形态体系，她不允许由于信仰教条的原因使现实被歪曲，使人们的实践受到束缚，使选择的范围变得十分狭小。这种对意识形态体系的怀疑是社会创造力的首要源泉。最重要的美国社会思想是经验主义、实践主义和实用主义。因此，美国最显著的特点是创新和尝试。

实用主义并不完全排斥抽象概念，就像意识形态体系不完全排斥经验一样。当抽象概念与经验发生冲突，必须做出取舍时，区别就显现出来了。在这一点上，实用主义者拒绝抽象概念，而意识形态主绝经验，共和国的早期历史阐释了这种差，美国独立战争是在某些普遍价值指导下的实用主义的尝试。殖民者们为独立而战所根据的是英国的公民自由和代议制政府的理想；他们起义反抗英国人是用了英国的理由。美国独立的理想可以在伴随国家产生的权威文献中找到表述：独立宣言、宪法以及权利法案。

保持理想与意识形态体系的差异是非常重要的。理想是指一个国家的长远目标以及它所追求的精神。意识形态体系是不同的，它更系统、更详尽、更全面、更教条。开国者托马斯·杰斐逊的事例证及权利法案明了这种差异。杰斐逊既是理想的阐述者，又是意识形态体系的阐述者。作为理想的阐述者，他仍然是一个充满活力、富于创新的人——不仅活在美国人心中，我相信也活在所有主张人的尊严和自由的人心中，然而，作为意识形态主义者，他只是一个令人好奇的历史人物，他的思想过时，与今天的现实无关。作为一个意识形态主义者，比如说他相信农业是理想社会的唯一基础，小土地所有制是自由的根基，诚实的、品德高尚的耕种者是民主国家唯一可以信赖的公民，以农业为基础的经济是最自我调节的，因此要求最小的政府，政府管得越少越好；一方面，自由国家最大的敌人是都市化、工业、银行业、无土地的工人阶级和所有其他的我们现在所知道现代化过程中的特点，另一方面是能指导国家发展的强大政府。这就是杰斐逊的意识形态体系，如果美国响应了这种思想，我们今天将是一个衰弱无能的国家。响应了他的理想而不是意识形态体系，美国成为一个强大的现代化国家。

幸运的是，杰斐逊喜欢他的理想胜过他的意识形态体系。如果发生冲突，他选择怎样对百姓有利而不是怎样符合理论原则。说实在的，杰斐逊一生在意识形态体系上所做的努力与他的性格是相矛盾的。他的性格特征基本上是灵活的、从经验出发的。真正的杰斐逊不是意识形态体系的杰斐逊而是那个曾经指出“一代人不能把他们关于公共政策和人类命运的主张强加给下一代人”的杰斐逊。

对意识形态体系的忠诚错在哪呢？问题是这样的，意识形态体系不是现实的描述，它是来自现实的模式，这一模式的创造者（意识形态主义者）把现实中至关重要的某些明显特征区分出来。也就是说意识形态体系是来自现实的抽象概念。抽象观念或模式本身并没有错。事实上，没有它们，我们就不可能进行讨论。

意识形态体系的谬误是忘记了意识形态体系是对现实的抽象概念，而把这种抽象概念本身当成了现实。简而言之，意识形态主义者不断发生的错误是他们混淆了自己整齐的模式与广阔的、汹涌的不可预见的和不整齐的人类经验的现实。这种混淆至少有两方面的恶果：让意识形态体系的信仰者犯宿命论历史观的错误；误导他们对公共政策的具体选择。

让我们思考一下意识形态主义者的历史观。他们认为历史上的奥秘可以用清晰的、绝对的、能解释过去和预测未来的社会信条来理解。意识形态体系因此预先假定了一个封闭的世界，它的历史是确定的，它的原则是一成不变的，它的价值和目标是可以从社会信条体系中推理出来的，而这个理论体系的本质掌握在永无谬误的圣人手中。在关于“一”和“多”的古老的哲学争论中，意识形态主义者支持“一”。他们坚信世界作为一个整体是可以被认知的，一个单一的观点是：丰富的、永不停顿的人类生活可以简化为一个单一、抽象的解释系统。

美国的传统发现了这种关于人类历史的观点是矛盾的、虚假的。美国传统把世界看成“多”，而不是“一”。威廉姆·詹姆斯的作品以及被詹姆斯称作“激进经验主义”的对待哲学问题的方法，最好地表达了这种经验主义的本能，即着重事实而不是推理，看重行动而不是教条。詹姆斯反对认为单一的解释就能解答历史上所有的问题这样的信念，反对认为所有政治和社会问题都能在那些圣典的结论部分找到答案的主张，反对对历史宿命论的解释，对封闭的世界。他支持被他称为“未完成的世界”个以成长性、多样性不确定性、神秘性、偶然性为特征的世界—一个自由的人们可以找到部分真理，而不是某个凡人独自掌握了绝对真理的世界；一个社会的进步不是依赖单一的学说，而是依靠自由思想不受约束的交流的世界。

因此意识形态体系和实用主义的历史观是完全不同的，就如同他们处理公共政策的方法完全不同一样。意识形态主义者错把模式当现实，总是误导关于公共决策的可能性和结果。20世纪的历史就是意识形态体系使人类多方面误入歧途的记录。

让我们看一个当代的例子。例如，选择公有制还是选择私有制的问题，在发展中国家占据了如此多的政治经济讨论，现在已经很清楚了。它不是宗教的原则。它不是一个由绝对论者意见决定的道德问题，也不能被那些认为公有制是罪恶的右派，或那些认为私有制可耻的左派来决定。它不是理论能回答的问题，只能通过经验和试验来解决。我甚至提议在思想界和学术界的讨论中摒弃某些用滥了的词语，这些词语不再有清晰的含义。这些词语只能使头脑发热，而不会给人以智慧的光芒。它们是煽动的言辞，而不是分析的话语。

随着混合社会的发明，实用主义战胜了绝对论。由此，世界明白了混合经济提供了把社会控制和个人自由有机结合的手段。但意识形态体系就像毒品；不管实践怎样揭露它，对它的渴望依然存在。这种渴望无疑会永远存在，只要还有人渴望找到一种无所不包并能解释一切的意识形态体系。真的，只要政治哲学的形成仍受到追根溯源这种冲动支配。

我们曾经提到过，最古老的问题是“一”与“多”关系的问题。我们可以确定无疑地说，我们这个时代的根本矛盾恰恰是那些想要把世界简化成“一”的人与那些认为世界是“多”的人之间的冲突——那些相信世界会朝着一个方向进化、经过单一预先设定好的路线、奔着单一预设的结局的人与那些相信人类的未来就像过去一样，根据多元化的传统、价值、目标继续朝着多个方向、奔着多种结局的人之间的冲突。简而言之，它是教条主义和实用主义、理论社会和经验社会之间的选择。

意识形态主义者害怕思想的自由流动，甚至害怕在自己思想体系内偏离主流思想。他们确信他们独占真理，因此他们总是觉得屠杀异端者是在拯救世界。他们的追求依然是根据他们的意识形态体系改造世界。他们的目标是按照确定可靠的理论，建造一个铁板一块的世界绝对的权力必然导致权利的滥用。

自由人的目标与此大相径庭。自由人掌握许多具体的真理，但他们认为没有一个凡人能够掌握绝对真理。他们宗教和理性的传统致使他们怀疑那些声称永无谬误的人。他们认为对于一个人来说，没有比把自己当成神更荒唐的了。他们承认人的智力是有限的，人的心灵是脆弱的，人类在判断力上是各具特色的。他们懂得人类奋斗是存在缺憾的，但仍然奋斗不息。

Key Words:

scarce [skɛəs]

adj. 缺乏的，不足的，稀少的，罕见的

empiricism [em'pirisizəm]

n. 经验主义，经验论

vestment ['vestmənt]

n. （尤指牧师的）法衣，官服

construe [kən'stru:]

v. 解释，翻译 vt. 解释

repugnant [ri'pʌgnənt]

adj. 令人厌恶的，讨厌的，不一致的

capitulation [kə.pitju'leiʃən]

n. 投降，投降协议

pragmatism ['prægmətizəm]

n. 实用主义

参考资料：

现代大学英语精读第二版（第六册）学习笔记（原文及全文翻译）——9 - The One Against the Many（一个对多个）

Unit 9 - The One Against the Many

参考译文——一个对多个

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