【外交政策 20150424】中国的“自由”与“保守”

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【中文标题】中国的“自由”与“保守”
【原文标题】What it Means to Be ‘Liberal’ or ‘Conservative’ in China
【登载媒体】外交政策
【原文作者】TAISU ZHANG
【原文链接】https://foreignpolicy.com/2015/04/24/what-it-means-to-be-liberal-or-conservative-in-china/


让我们来看看这个国家最显著的政治分歧。



哈佛大学学者詹妮弗•潘和麻省理工学院学者许一清在4月12日发表了一份被广为转载的论文《中国的意识形态图谱》，这是第一次有人通过大规模的经验数据来描述中国人口的意识形态转换趋势。中国的学者当然也为此花费了大量的时间，不切实地做一些投入，人们是无法对中国的政治社会变化得出一个连贯的结论的。但是他们的观点主要依据的是个人经验和一些轶事。潘和许的论文在学术和政策角度为这样的讨论提供了强大的理论基础。

这篇论文并不能被用来准确衡量中国人口意识形态倾向的程度，一个自愿参与的网络调查群体具有内在的选择性，因此不能得到客观的信息。但是它可以衡量一系列的相关性因素，它们之间具有或许正向或许反向的相互作用。它还可以让我们看到外部因素，比如收入和教育，如何影响这些因素之间的相关性。（上面从论文中的截图显示了未加权的各省意识形态排名，最自由的省份是蓝色，最保守的省份是红色，处于中间地带的省份是紫色。灰色省份表示缺少足够的数据。）

很多发现（还未经同行评审，有可能会修改）印证了那些对中国意识形态趋势有基本了解的人的直觉感受，也就是说，爱国主义情绪比较强的人既支持目前的“中国社会主义”政治制度，包括对民权和自由的限制，也支持国家对经济的掌控。与此相反的是，那些比较喜欢西方观点的人更加支持宪政民主、人权和自由市场改革。在中国的政治术语中，前者被称为“左派”，后者被称为“自由派”。

这些术语并非仅仅是描述性的标签，它们代表了明确的、有意识地相互对立的知识和政治派别。潘和许发现，左派得到了内陆地区低收入群体的广泛支持，其对立面是沿海富裕省份的“自由派”。

其它一些发现还需要人们更加深入的思考。论文认为，左派思想与所谓的“文化保守主义”——也就是对“传统、儒家思想”的支持——之间存在着关联，或者至少说对传统的、带有某种儒家思想色彩的知识体系有好感。例如，那些赞成“当代中国社会需要儒家思想”或者“《周易》可以解释很多现象”等观点的人，也倾向于认为国家保持对部分社会活动的控制“对国家经济和人民生活是重要的”。

对当代中国的知识界相关情况的调查，似乎印证了这种关系的存在。除了一些例外状况，中国最积极的那些新儒家思想提倡者在近些年经常会表现出对左派社会经济观点的强烈倾向性。相应地，一大批著名左派知识分子都认为儒家思想与中国社会主义制度具有意识形态上的一致性，或者，他们会引用中山大学学者甘阳的《通三统》。这让人们很自然地认为，文化保守主义——或者至少是潘和许在论文中提到的儒家思想版本的文化保守主义——与中国左派之间正在萌发某种必然的联系。

这是一个耐人寻味的现象。历史上，左派与文化保守主义之间的关系，即使用最温和的语言来形容也是敌对的。在20世纪的大部分时间里，左派一直冲在被他们称为“中国最没有人性的、最反动的”传统文化批判最前线。儒家思想尤其成为多次政治和文化运动的靶子，从五四运动，到文化大革命期间的“批林批孔”运动。

而且，早期儒家思想持有者与当代中国左派之间的意识形态矛盾颇为突出。很多——甚至大部分——清朝学者都倾向于有限的政府管制、世袭自治和经济去集中化观点。即使按照目前的标准来看，清朝的国家机器规模很小，其在国民收入中的占比与早期的日本和英国远远无法相比。而大部分当代中国左派人士持与此相反的观点，他们支持国家更强有力地干涉社会经济生活，甚至部分回归计划经济时代。总体而言，传统保守主义与左倾思想在近期的融合，代表一些长期形成的、根深蒂固的意识形态观点出现了重大的转移。

当然，意识形态的确会随着时间的推移发生变化。一个像儒家思想那样命运多舛的意识形态必然会进化，或许是彻底的改头换面，来迎合当代的民众。尽管如此，人们依然会想，为什么中国大陆文化保守主义在当代的变化会走亲左派的路线，而不是自由化的道路？台湾和香港在50年代和60年代所出现的一些运动，产生了一种与西方民主和自由市场观念相融合的新版本儒家思想。为什么中国大陆的文化保守主义拐到了另外一个方向？而且，同样重要的是，为什么中国大陆的左派愿意接受——或者至少是容忍——这样的转变呢？

或许有人会用儒家思想自古就是亲政府、亲权威这种陈腔滥调来回答这个问题，所以它在当代中国的政治图谱中，自然会倾向于左派，而不是右派。但是，这种观点来源于对儒家思想政治理念的错误理解。如上面所提到的，很多晚清儒家思想精英在意识形态上更加支持去集中化的社会经济和政治制度，反对政府过度监管。当然也存在相反的观点，但是我们很难相信儒家思想在内部层面上符合当代左派的亲政府形象。

更为合理的解释是，像儒家思想这种饱受摧残的意识形态支持者在寻求社会的认可，所以通过改变来让自己与主流意识形态合拍。香港和台湾版本的新儒家思想所出现的社会，对西方政治观点有极强的认同感，而中国大陆的文化保守主义在文化大革命后的浴火重生时，中国的社会依然主要是“具有中国特色的社会主义”。

这种观点听起来引人入胜，但也存在着经验主义的问题。仅在几年前，中国知识界主流的社会经济和政治观点还明显倾向于自由化，大部分知识分子希望国家机构尽量少地干预社会活动、提倡自由市场改革、更好地保护公民的政治权力。即使在今天，潘和许的论文也发现，受教育水平更高的人更倾向于自由化。当文化保守主义在90年代末以一种颇具影响力的意识形态形象再次出现时，它的支持者应该是那些通过主张自由化倾向，比左派人士获取了更多社会利益的人。但事实并不是这样。

为什么呢？读过当代著名新儒家知识分子——比如蒋庆和陈明——的早期作品之后，你可以发现，这其实是仔细权衡，甚至具有一定原则性的决定。他们认为自己是在捍卫中国传统，与明显具有敌意的西方自由思想做斗争。他们斗争的对象，并不是社会主义和左派思想的某些翻版，这在他们看来是无关紧要的小角色，而是在他们看来无法忍受的自由主义，这种思想自80年代以来就主导了中国的社会政治领域。

无论人们对这种观点如何理解，应该可以肯定地说，中国知识界在80年代到90年对政治经济问题充斥着自由化的观点，并且对传统文化保持敌意。具有深远影响力的纪录片《河殇》既抨击了儒家思想，又遮遮掩掩地批评了一党专政的国家机器，这仅仅是一个例子。中国的自由主义的确对传统的家族观念、社会结构和被它视为是落后的儒家政治经济思想持反对态度。至少在知识分子的头脑中，中国的文化保守主义和左派有两个共同点：它们都是面对自由思想的少数派观点，它们都遭到了主流思想的敌视。

这或许就是我们尚未意识到的原因所在。意识形态总是要把自己定义为反对“其他人”的斗士，在目前的情况下，的确存在着一个强大的“其他人”让文化保守主义和政治左派联合起来反对。这同时可以解释为什么左派从90年代开始，逐渐容忍，甚至接受它们在整个20世纪中不断反对的文化保守主义。它们需要积累意识形态资源来与强大的西方自由化“其他人”相抗争，这个理由足够让它们抛弃两个意识形态阵营在历史上的敌意和观点分歧。

如果事实的确如此，那么我们从潘和许的论文中得到的重要启示就是，受过教育的中国民众依然会形成反对或者支持西方观点的意识形态。从根本上说，我们依然在用西方的视角来定义我们自己。这实际上就是中国知识界和政治界自晚清时代——西方的科学技术、政治制度和思想观念迫使儒家思想代表人物的意识形态发生根本改变的时候——以来的运作模式。或许除了那些对儒家文化的错误理解，这才是我们在思考历史传统对当代中国社会的影响问题时，最应当得出的结论。




原文：

The paper is not intended as an accurate temperature reading of the Chinese population’s ideological leanings. A voluntary online survey, with its inherent selection biases, cannot do that. What it can do, however, is measure a number of relative and relational factors: which beliefs correlate positively or negatively with each other, whether different regions lean in different directions, and whether exogenous factors such as income or education affect those relative leanings. (The excerpted image above this article shows unweighted data for provincial ideological rank; the most liberal provinces are blue, the most conservative are red, and those in the middle are purple. Grey areas indicate insufficient data.)

Many of the findings (which have not yet been peer reviewed, and are subject to change) are intuitive to those who have some basic familiarity with Chinese ideological trends: Respondents who are more nationalist also tend to support both the current “Chinese Socialist” political system — along with the limitations it places on civil rights and liberties — and state control over the economy. In contrast, those who view Western ideals more favorably tend to support constitutional democracy, human rights, and free market reforms. In Chinese political terminology, the former are commonly called “leftists,” and the latter “liberals.”

These terms are more than mere descriptive labels; they represent fairly coherent intellectual and political factions that are consciously antagonistic towards each other. Pan and Xu find that leftists enjoy greater popular support in lower-income, inland regions, compared to wealthier coastal provinces, whereas the opposite is true for “liberals.”

Other findings require more effort to digest: The paper finds a strong correlation between leftist beliefs and what it terms “cultural conservatism” — defined as those who support “traditional, Confucian values,” or at least are favorably disposed towards traditional, somewhat Confucian, bodies of knowledge. For example, those who agree that “modern Chinese society needs Confucianism,” or that “the … Book of Changes (Zhouyi) can explain many things well,” also tend to believe in maintaining state control over sectors important “to the national economy and people’s livelihoods.”

A quick survey of the current Chinese intellectual landscape tends to reinforce these correlations. With some noticeable exceptions, China’s most visible Neo-Confucian advocates have, in recent years, often displayed a fairly strong affinity for leftist socioeconomic positions. Correspondingly, a number of prominent leftist intellectuals have argued for ideological continuity between Confucianism and Chinese Socialism, or, to quote the prominent Sun Yat-sen University scholar Gan Yang, “tong san tong” (“connecting the three canons”). It is hard to escape the impression that there has been a budding relationship between cultural conservatism — or, at least, the Confucianism-oriented version discussed in the Pan and Xu paper — and the Chinese Left.

This is a curious development indeed. Historically, the relationship between the left and cultural conservatism has been predominantly antagonistic, to put it lightly. For most of the 20th century, leftists led the charge against what they routinely condemned as China’s inhumane and counterproductive traditional culture. Confucianism, in particular, was the target of multiple political and intellectual campaigns, ranging from the May 4th Movement to the “Criticize Lin Biao, Criticize Confucius” campaign during the Cultural Revolution.

Moreover, the ideological incompatibilities between the mainstream political views of early modern Confucian literati and the contemporary Chinese left are serious. Many, arguably most, Qing dynasty (1644 to 1911) elites believed strongly in limited government, lineage self-regulation, and economic decentralization. Correspondingly, the Qing state apparatus was extraordinarily small even by early modern standards, pulling in only a fraction of the annual revenue (relative to estimated GDP) that the early modern Japanese and English states collected. Most contemporary Chinese leftists champion the opposite position: They press for more robust state intervention into socioeconomic life, and perhaps for a partial return to a state-planned economy. All in all, the recent convergence between cultural conservatism and leftism represents a dramatic reversal of some longstanding and deeply entrenched ideological positions.

Ideologies do, of course, transform over time. An ideology that has experienced as much turbulence as Confucianism is bound to evolve, perhaps radically, to appeal to modern populations. Nonetheless, one still has to wonder why the modern transformation of Mainland Chinese cultural conservatism took a predominantly leftist-friendly turn, as opposed to a more liberal one. A precursor movement in Taiwan and Hong Kong during the 1950s and ’60s, for example, produced a version of Neo-Confucianism that emphasized its compatibility with Western democratic and free market ideals. Why did Mainland cultural conservatism turn in a different direction, and, equally importantly, why were Mainland leftists willing to embrace — or at least tolerate — such a turn?

One could potentially answer this question by rehashing the old argument that Confucianism is inherently pro-government or pro-authority, and therefore naturally inclined to lean left, rather than right, on the current Chinese political spectrum. This relies, however, on a flawed conception of Confucian political ideology: As noted above, many late-Qing Confucian elites were more likely to ideologically support a decentralized socioeconomic and political system than a state-controlled one. Alternative perspectives certainly existed, but it is nonetheless difficult to argue that Confucianism is inherently pro-government in the contemporary leftist sense.

A better explanation is that supporters of beleaguered ideological traditions such as Confucianism seek sociopolitical acceptance, and therefore do so by aligning themselves with mainstream ideologies. Hong Kong and Taiwanese versions of Neo-Confucianism emerged in societies that had significant affinity for Western political ideals, whereas Mainland cultural conservatism reemerged after the Cultural Revolution in a society that remained substantially “Chinese Socialist.”

Compelling as it may seem, this argument, too, has some empirical difficulties: Until the past few years, the dominant socioeconomic or political positions in the Chinese intellectual world were clearly liberal ones: most intellectuals argued for greater institutional restraints on state activity, free market reforms, and stronger protection of civil and political rights. Even today, Pan and Xu’s paper finds that highly educated individuals are generally more liberal than less educated ones. When cultural conservatism reemerged as a somewhat influential ideological position during the later 1990s, its proponents could arguably reap greater social benefits by developing a liberal affinity, rather than a leftist one. For the most part, this did not happen.

Why not? Reading the early work of prominent contemporary Neo-Confucian intellectuals such as Jiang Qing or Chen Ming, one feels that this was a carefully considered — even principled — decision: They saw themselves as defending Chinese traditions against a distinctly hostile Western liberal intellectual mainstream. The “other” they defined themselves against was not some version of socialism or leftism, which at this time was clearly a minority position, but rather a supposedly intolerant liberalism that had dominated Chinese sociopolitical thought since the 1980s.

Whatever one thinks of this position, there is probably some truth to the claim that the Chinese intellectual world of the 1980s and 1990s was both predominantly liberal on political and economic issues, and distinctly hostile to traditional culture. The enormously influential documentary series River Elegy, which combined express attacks on Confucianism with thinly veiled criticisms of the party-state apparatus, is but one example of this. Chinese liberalism was indeed often critical of traditional family structures, social hierarchies, and what it perceived as backwards elements of Confucian political and economic thought. In the intellectual world, at least, Chinese cultural conservatism and leftism did share two important commonalities: Both were minority positions facing a perceived liberal majority, and both encountered significant hostility from this perceived majority.

This may, in fact, be the missing explanatory element. Ideologies regularly define themselves against a perceived “other,” and in this case there was quite plausibly a common and powerful “other” that both cultural conservatism and political leftism defined themselves against. This also explains why leftists have, since the 1990s, become considerably more tolerant, even accepting, of cultural conservatism than they were for virtually the entire 20th century. The need to accumulate additional ideological resources to combat a perceived Western liberal “other” is a powerful one, and it seems perfectly possible that this could have overridden whatever historical antagonism, or even substantive disagreement, existed between the two positions.

If this is true, then one of the most important takeaways from Pan and Xu’s paper is that the educated Chinese population continues to formulate its ideological positions either against or in support of some perception of the West. In some fundamental way, we continue to define ourselves in relation to the Western other. This is, in fact, how the Chinese intellectual and political world has operated since the late Qing, when the influx of Western technology, institutions, and thought forced Confucian elites to fundamentally reorient their ideological commitments. Perhaps more than any flawed conception of Confucian culture, this is what we should be grappling with when considering the influence of historical tradition on contemporary Chinese society.

仙外飞天

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仙外飞天 发表于 2015-5-8 09:06
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