UPenn法學院教授Amy Wax被33員工要求開除的言論看了嗎？如今學術界一大話題。娃可以看看

來源: soldanella 於 2018-02-27 16:58:18 [檔案] [博客] [舊帖] [給我悄悄話] 本文已被閱讀：次 (16510 bytes)

譯者前言

這是一篇在美國非常有爭議的文章，文章的作者是賓夕法尼亞大學法學院的教授Amy
Wax。這篇文章在美國的文化界和思想界掀起了軒然大波，美國左派群起而攻之。以至
於賓夕法尼亞大學的33名教授聯名要求開除作者。而這篇文章所引發的保守派和自由派
的思想交鋒在原文發表的半年後還在進行中，也許這是一場扭轉美國左傾思潮的曆史大
討論。

譯文

太少的美國人真正能夠適應現代社會所需要的工作。適齡男性勞動參與率處於大蕭條以
來的最低點，鴉片類毒品濫用現象非常普遍，凶殺和暴力困擾著內陸城市。幾乎有一半
的孩子都是非婚生子女，而更多的孩子由單身母親撫養。許多大學生缺乏基本的技能，
高中生的排名低於世界上其他二十幾個國家！

（圖一）美國適齡男性勞動參與率曆史曲線圖由譯者補充

這些現象的成因是複雜多樣的，但這種或者那種的社會病態隱喻著這個國家資本主義傳
統文化的崩潰。

過去這種資本主義文化為我們的生活製定準則：
先結婚然後再要小孩，為了家庭和孩子們努力維護婚姻。為了找到高收入的工作，努力
獲得所需的教育。努力工作，拒絕懶散。盡可能為你的客戶和雇主多做一些事情。做一
個愛國者，隨時準備為國家服務。盡可能維護鄰裏和睦，具有公民意識，慈善意識。避
免在公開場合使用粗俗的語言，尊重權威。避免藥物濫用和犯罪。

（圖二）
這些基本的文化準則統治著1940年的後期到1960年代中期的思想界。在那個時代幾乎所
有的人不論背景和能力，都能有效地尊崇這些規則。因此這些文化準則為社會的生產效
率提高，教育水平的提高，社會和諧起到了巨大的作用。

每個人都尊崇這些準則嗎？當然不是！任何時代總有叛逆者和偽善者，陰奉陽違這些文
化準則。俗話說的好，偽善是惡披著善的外衣。即便如此，這些偽善者也很少敢公開挑
戰這些準則。

當這些文化準則占主導地位的時候，一切都是完美的嗎？當然不是。也有種族歧視，也
有有限的性別區別對待和有限的反猶主義。但是必須承認當這些準則占主導地位的時候
，婦女和少數民族的地位在穩步改善。消除歧視和增加機會並不一定需要這些文化準則
的消亡作為代價。恰恰相反，因為這些準則的消亡，反而嚴重阻礙了弱勢群體地位的改
善。而且這種準則消亡的趨勢也加速了福利國家所帶來與日俱增的破壞性後果：福利國
家通過接管家庭的財政支持，抑製了家庭對兩位父母的需求。

（圖三）(美國單親媽媽（從未結婚）的比例從1968年的7%飆升到14年的50%)

如果社會對婚姻持強烈的保守態度，還可能抑製福利化國家的進程。而現實恰恰相反，
單親家長的數量呈天文數字增長，導致兒童更容易出現學業失敗，吸毒上癮，閑散，犯
罪和貧窮。

（圖四）無論哪個種族，單親家庭的貧困率遠高於雙親家庭（紅色為單親家庭貧困率，
藍色為雙親家庭的貧困率）

這種傳統資本主義文化準則在20世紀60年代後期開始崩潰。經濟繁榮，毒品，高等教育
的擴張以及圍繞越南戰爭的焦慮等因素的結合促成了一種反權威，幼稚，不切實際的（
性，毒品和搖滾樂）的文化。然而這種文化對一個成熟，繁榮的成人社會來說是行不
通的。從這個時代開始看到了操縱身份認同的政治。這種政治顛覆了Martin Luther
King Jr.這樣的民權領袖所期望對不要以膚色作為評判標準的渴望。這種政治使他們反
而對故意操縱種族，民族，性別以及現在的性取向話題的產生了濃厚的興趣。

（圖五）
而那些本來擁有文化影響力的長者，由於種種原因放棄了他們作為倡導尊重，文明和成
熟價值觀的角色。因此，反準則文化取得了巨大的進展，特別是在學校的學者，作家，
藝術家，演員和新聞工作者中間：這些人喜歡從傳統文化準則中跳出來，將自己的罪行
反而歸結為德行和獨樹一幟的階級標誌。

然而並不是所有的文化都是平等的。至少有些文化並沒有讓自己的民眾為推動經濟發展
做好準備。好比印第安人的文化是為遊牧獵人設計的，但不適合21世紀的發達國家。在
一些白人工薪階層中的單親，反社會得亞文化，在一些城市中反白人的說唱文化，在一
些西班牙移民中的反融合亞文化同樣無法適應21世紀社會的需求！這些文化取向不僅與
先進的自由市場經濟和可行的民主製度不相容，而且還破壞了美國人之間的團結和互惠
意識。如果傳統文化的準則不能得到廣泛的恢複（美國中上層階級中依然大部分遵從這
些文化準則），那麽情況將對我們所有人而言會變得更加糟糕！

（圖六）
那些已經拋棄了傳統文化準則的普通美國人，如果重新接受這些準則是否會大大減少社
會的病態？有充分的理由相信，在那些目前還遵循這些準則的人群中，無論受教育程度
和富裕程度如何，凶殺率都很低，阿片類成癮很少，貧困率也很低。那些現在按照亞文
化生活的人，即便按照傳統的文化準則生活，大部分人可能還是不會成為富人或者擁有
精英工作，但他們的生活狀況將比現在好得多，學校和社區會更安全，更愉快。更多的
學生為建設性的工作和民主參與做好準備。

但恢複傳統階級文化準則的主導地位，需要有文化的仲裁者-學者，媒體和好萊塢-放棄
多元文化的訴苦抱怨和對被被壓迫者的刻意修飾。他們不應該抨擊傳統的資本主義文化
準則，而是想1950年一樣，去擁抱這種文化準則。

原文

Too few Americans are qualified for the jobs available. Male working-age
labor-force participation is at Depression-era lows. Opioid abuse is
widespread. Homicidal violence plagues inner cities. Almost half of all
children are born out of wedlock, and even more are raised by single mothers
. Many college students lack basic skills, and high school students rank
below those from two dozen other countries.

The causes of these phenomena are multiple and complex, but implicated in
these and other maladies is the breakdown of the country’s bourgeois
culture.

That culture laid out the script we all were supposed to follow: Get married
before you have children and strive to stay married for their sake. Get the
education you need for gainful employment, work hard, and avoid idleness.
Go the extra mile for your employer or client. Be a patriot, ready to serve
the country. Be neighborly, civic-minded, and charitable. Avoid coarse
language in public. Be respectful of authority. Eschew substance abuse and
crime.

These basic cultural precepts reigned from the late 1940s to the mid-1960s.
They could be followed by people of all backgrounds and abilities,
especially when backed up by almost universal endorsement. Adherence was a
major contributor to the productivity, educational gains, and social
coherence of that period.

Did everyone abide by those precepts? Of course not. There are always rebels
— and hypocrites, those who publicly endorse the norms but transgress them
. But as the saying goes, hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to virtue. Even
the deviants rarely disavowed or openly disparaged the prevailing
expectations.

Was everything perfect during the period of bourgeois cultural hegemony? Of
course not. There was racial discrimination, limited sex roles, and pockets
of anti-Semitism. However, steady improvements for women and minorities were
underway even when bourgeois norms reigned. Banishing discrimination and
expanding opportunity does not require the demise of bourgeois culture.
Quite the opposite: The loss of bourgeois habits seriously impeded the
progress of disadvantaged groups. That trend also accelerated the
destructive consequences of the growing welfare state, which, by taking over
financial support of families, reduced the need for two parents. A strong
pro-marriage norm might have blunted this effect. Instead, the number of
single parents grew astronomically, producing children more prone to
academic failure, addiction, idleness, crime, and poverty.

This cultural script began to break down in the late 1960s. A combination of
factors — prosperity, the Pill, the expansion of higher education, and the
doubts surrounding the Vietnam War — encouraged an antiauthoritarian,
adolescent, wish-fulfillment ideal — sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll — that
was unworthy of, and unworkable for, a mature, prosperous adult society.
This era saw the beginnings of an identity politics that inverted the color-
blind aspirations of civil rights leaders like the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther
King Jr. into an obsession with race, ethnicity, gender, and now sexual
preference.

And those adults with influence over the culture, for a variety of reasons,
abandoned their role as advocates for respectability, civility, and adult
values. As a consequence, the counterculture made great headway,
particularly among the chattering classes — academics, writers, artists,
actors, and journalists — who relished liberation from conventional
constraints and turned condemning America and reviewing its crimes into a
class marker of virtue and sophistication.

All cultures are not equal. Or at least they are not equal in preparing
people to be productive in an advanced economy. The culture of the Plains
Indians was designed for nomadic hunters, but is not suited to a First World
, 21st-century environment. Nor are the single-parent, antisocial habits,
prevalent among some working-class whites; the anti-“acting white” rap
culture of inner-city blacks; the anti-assimilation ideas gaining ground
among some Hispanic immigrants. These cultural orientations are not only
incompatible with what an advanced free-market economy and a viable
democracy require, they are also destructive of a sense of solidarity and
reciprocity among Americans. If the bourgeois cultural script — which the
upper-middle class still largely observes but now hesitates to preach —
cannot be widely reinstated, things are likely to get worse for us all.

Would the re-embrace of bourgeois norms by the ordinary Americans who have
abandoned them significantly reduce society’s pathologies? There is every
reason to believe so. Among those who currently follow the old precepts,
regardless of their level of education or affluence, the homicide rate is
tiny, opioid addiction is rare, and poverty rates are low. Those who live by
the simple rules that most people used to accept may not end up rich or
hold elite jobs, but their lives will go far better than they do now. All
schools and neighborhoods would be much safer and more pleasant. More
students from all walks of life would be educated for constructive
employment and democratic participation.

But restoring the hegemony of the bourgeois culture will require the
arbiters of culture — the academics, media, and Hollywood — to relinquish
multicultural grievance polemics and the preening pretense of defending the
downtrodden. Instead of bashing the bourgeois culture, they should return to
the 1950s posture of celebrating it.

Amy Wax is the Robert Mundheim professor at the University of Pennsylvania
Law School. awax@law.upenn.edu
Larry Alexander is the Warren distinguished professor at the University of
San Diego School of Law. larrya@sandiego.edu

後續

這篇文章2017年8月9號在PA最大的日報上發表之後，在美國引起了軒然大波。
8月9日，《費城問詢者報》發表文章。
8月10日，《每日費城報》采訪Wax教授：賓大法學院教授說，並不是所有的文化都是生
來平等的。 “‘Not all cultures are created equal’ says Penn Law professor
in op-ed”
8月13日，《每日費城報》發表文章 “Campus is abuzz over Penn Law professor
Amy Wax’s controversial op-ed, which called for return of ‘bourgeois’
cultural values” 進一步攻擊Wax
8月14日，《每日費城報》邀請賓大法學院的院長發表文章《On Charlottesville,
free speech and diversity》院長開始站隊，發表駁斥文
8月20日，5名賓大法學院的教職工，在《每日費城報》發表署名文章《Notions of ‘
bourgeois’ cultural superiority are based on bad history》，資本主義的傳統
準則優越性是基於錯誤的曆史
8月30日，33名賓大法學院的教職工在《每日費城報》發表致賓大法學社區的公開信，
要求Wax教授滾蛋。
9月1號，Wax教授在《每日費城報》上發表《對《致賓大法學社區公開信》的回應》，
我有言論自由，我才不走。
9月3號，學術網站Heterodox Academy的Jonathan Klick教授的專欄中寫道我不關心Wax
教授到底政治正確不正確，但是我在乎他的經驗不正確。
9月21號，賓大法學教授發表專欄文章：（我的一張大字報）Jonah Gelbach對Wax和Jon
Haidt”的回應。

（圖七）就是這位充滿戰鬥精神的老奶奶，幾乎是兵來將擋水來土掩，舌戰群熊

這個事情遠沒有完！在後麵的斷斷續續的交鋒中，前天Wax在華爾街日報上又扔了一枚
炸彈《What Can’t Be Debated on Campus》。現在靜觀美國左翼社區的反擊。美國的
教育係統，新聞係統，法律係統已經左道一定程度了。這種撕破臉皮大討論，對於社會
的健康發展長遠來看還是有益的。

也許我們正在經曆一場美國式的實踐是檢驗真理唯一標準的大討論。

2018-02-18 Amy Wax 雷尼爾譯西雅圖雷尼爾