George Packer.追逐美國夢的南方白人農民、失業的非裔女工、美國總統喬·拜登的資深幕僚，還有依靠互聯網發跡的PayPal創始人——帕克筆下的主人公是4位60後美國人，他們成長於美國戰後經濟迅速增長的黃金年代，成年後經曆了南方煙草業的衰敗、鏽帶地區的去工業化、金融危機等事件，“美國夢”和他們的人生一起下墜。除了上述四位主人公，帕克還在書中穿插了幾位大人物的故事——沃爾瑪創始人山姆·沃爾頓、說唱歌手Jay-Z、共和黨元老紐特·金裏奇等，用一個個人物的經曆來講述這個國家在過去四十年裏的社會變遷。2013年，這部作品因“揭開美國的破碎裂痕”而獲得了美國國家圖書獎。
《下沉年代》 [美] 喬治·帕克 著 劉冉 譯新經典文化·文匯出版社 2021-1
在作者描述的美國過去四十年的時間裏，究竟是什麽在解體？什麽在下沉？又或者，這些現象僅僅在美國發生嗎？日前，在北京舉辦的《下沉年代》讀書分享會上，嘉賓們一同討論了美國夢的消逝。
精英階層極化敲碎了美國夢的隱形契約
《下沉年代》的英文原名為“Unwinding”，作者用來形容某種生活方式及社會結構的解體過程。那麽，解體的究竟是什麽？
活動現場，清華大學社會學係副教授嚴飛提出，對美國的長時段觀察有三個最重要評判的核心指標。第一是重疊的共識——一個社會可以聽見不同的聲音，有不同的秩序觀；大家雖然持有不同想法，但是可以彼此辯論、交流，在討論基礎上變成重疊的共識；如果一種聲音壓製另外一種聲音，一種社會秩序觀取代所有秩序觀，就會發生秩序的崩塌。第二是心靈的慣性，也是一個社會最小的單元是社區。在美國的小鎮裏，每個人都不斷勇於自發參與到公共事務中，不斷與世界，與周圍社會、組織、社群產生共鳴。第三是公共的美德，也就是彼此尊重，有道德感。
哪怕是經過體製崩塌的大風大浪，如果這三點還繼續存在，那麽社會最終不會分崩離析，還是可以繼續往前走。媒體人梁文道補充稱，在重疊的共識、小鎮公共文化以及公共美德之外，一些根本原則，例如《獨立宣言》或美國憲法對美國整個國家的維係也很重要。在曆史上，無論政見不同的各方如何爭論，總還是會相信這個美國曆史神話。但是，到了特朗普時代，美國政治已經到了可以直接懷疑建國精神的地步，“這是最近幾年美國政治最大的一個變化。”
Unwinding還有另外一層涵義，梁文道指出，在於書裏的幾位主要角色及其祖輩都曾相信，一個美國人和這個國家有一份不言自明的隱形契約：好好工作，做善良而正直的美國公民，就將有機會找到體麵的安身之所和生存之道。嚴飛也談到，他在美國讀書期間曾碰到偷渡客，這位偷渡客完全不懂英文，卻願意乘風破浪到紐約，這是因為他相信可以通過勤奮努力不斷打工，匯款給家裏蓋房，這就是美國夢的真實寫照。然而，這份隱形契約在《下沉年代》中不複存在，因為有的人飛黃騰達，有的人則不斷下墜。
背後的原因在於精英階層的極化，嚴飛說，這意味著1%的人占有99%的資源。他看到，精英學生畢業後可以去麥肯錫、波士頓谘詢公司這些頂級投行，頂級投行也願意去精英學校招人。但是精英學校的學生的來源是哪裏呢？嚴飛引用哈佛大學一位印度裔學者的研究稱，如今，美國精英學校有14.5%學生來自於全美1%的階層。曾經在矽穀生活過的嚴飛說，矽穀雖然是全美最自由、最有創新力的財富聚集地，但其背後也有很多淒涼的故事——這裏有很多無家可歸的流浪漢，沒有地方睡覺，不願睡在公園長椅上，就會花兩美金買票坐22路公交，一路大概一個半小時，睡到終點站被叫醒後，帶著全部家當下車，再換另外一輛車返回，四趟八美金就可以解決一晚的住宿問題。
嚴飛 出版社供圖
嚴飛說，《下沉年代》中也有類似的“unwinding”例子，書中有一位主人公叫塔米，本來塔米連續工作幾十年，可以獲得相對穩定的收入，每小時25美元，並有退休金。但突然有一天，塔米被告知這家工廠要裁員1.5萬人，員工要麵臨一個選擇：買斷剩下所有工齡，一次性拿走14萬美金，或是原來25美金的時薪降為13美金，工作量增加一倍。原本隻要勤奮工作就可以獲得尊嚴、自由和社會地位的信仰，一下子崩塌了——整個工廠都在哭泣。
貧富差距懸殊成為一種全球現象
《下沉年代》的寫法是跟隨幾個主要人物，觀察他們在不同年代的經曆，中間穿插很多小篇幅，講述一些大人物的故事。梁文道認為：“這本書厲害的地方在於，雖然隻是四個人物，但是作者通過描寫他們周邊的社會環境，就能讓讀者感覺到這四個人不隻是個體，而是反映了美國社會的很大一部分。”嚴飛則看到，有的人說這本書缺少理論框架，但讀者依然可以從中看到，個人的困境可能是由結構性變化推動的。
《下沉年代》看起來是一部唱衰美國的作品，事實如何？英國《金融時報》專欄作家馬丁·沃爾夫在今年撰文稱，中國精英千萬不要相信美國已經衰落。他認為，美國仍掌握著大量資源，尤其是在經濟領域。馬丁·沃爾夫看到，全世界最有價值（注：全世界最有價值的公司是根據市值來進行評定的，即公司發行的股票數量乘以一股價值計算得出）的10家公司中，有7家總部設在美國，前20強中有14家總部設在美國；科技公司前20強中有12家是美國公司；在生命科學領域，美國公司在前10名中占據了7席。從這些例子來說，美國仍是全球最有創意的經濟體。而梁文道在活動中反駁了馬丁·沃爾夫的觀點，他認為，《下沉年代》一書中最大的醜角就是華爾街，這裏有一群貪婪、自私的人，當年美國的金融風暴要由他們來負責，但最後他們平安無事，該賺錢照樣賺錢。這樣的資本力量以及沃爾夫談到的影響未來經濟的全球大公司，和美國中下層社會是沒有關係的。
梁文道看到，沃爾瑪創始人山姆·沃爾頓去世時，其家族六位成員的財富加起來等於全美國30%底層人民的全部財富。而貧富差距懸殊也早就不是一個國家的問題，在今天已經成為全球問題。在全世界範圍內，城市是全球化經濟網絡裏麵的節點，獲益最多，離它稍遠的郊區則被排除在外，梁文道有這樣一種印象，並不是僅僅隻有美國在下沉，全世界都麵臨著這樣的狀況。因此，也不僅僅在美國，全球很多地方的年輕人都“產生了厭倦、倦怠的情緒”。
The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America
https://www.amazon.ca/Unwinding-Inner-History-New-America/dp/0374534608
by George Packer;United States; English, 2013
American democracy is beset by a sense of crisis. Seismic shifts during a single generation have created a country of winners and losers, allowing unprecedented freedom while rending the social contract, driving the political system to the verge of breakdown, and setting citizens adrift to find new paths forward. In The Unwinding, George Packer tells the story of the past three decades by journeying through the lives of several Americans, including a son of tobacco farmers who becomes an evangelist for a new economy in the rural South, a factory worker in the Rust Belt trying to survive the collapse of her city, a Washington insider oscillating between political idealism and the lure of organized money, and a Silicon Valley billionaire who arrives at a radical vision of the future. Packer interweaves these stories with sketches of public figures, from Newt Gingrich to Jay-Z, and collages made from newspaper headlines, advertising slogans, and song lyrics. Packer's novelistic and kaleidoscopic history of the new America is his most ambitious work to date.
The Unwinding
From Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unwinding
The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America is a 2013 non-fiction book by the American journalist George Packer. The book uses biographies of individual Americans as a means of discussing important forces in American history from 1978 to 2012, including the subprime mortgage crisis, the decline of American manufacturing, and the influence of money on politics. The Unwinding includes lengthy profiles of five subjects: a Youngstown, Ohio factory worker turned community organizer, a biodiesel entrepreneur from North Carolina, a Washington lobbyist and Congressional staffer, the Silicon Valley entrepreneur Peter Thiel, and people involved in the distressed housing market in Tampa, Florida. Interspersed with these longer accounts are ten briefer biographical sketches of famous Americans such as the rapper Jay-Z, the politician Newt Gingrich, and the restaurateur and food activist Alice Waters.
In an interview with PBS NewsHour, Packer defined the book's theme as the unraveling of
The Unwinding follows the decline of a number of American institutions that Packer believes underpinned this contract, including locally owned businesses, unions, and public schools. According to Packer, the "void" left by the decline of these institutions "was filled by the default force in American life, organized money."[2]
The book's format and style were inspired by John Dos Passos' U.S.A. trilogy, a series of novels published in the 1930s. Like The Unwinding, the U.S.A. trilogy combined longer narrative accounts of its main characters with short biographies of influential figures of the time period and collections of newspaper headlines and song lyrics.[3][4]
The Unwinding won the 2013 National Book Award for Nonfiction[5] and was a finalist for the 2013 National Book Critics Circle Award.[6]
Contents[edit]
Jeff Connaughton[edit]
Jeff Connaughton began a decades-long affiliation with Senator Joe Biden in 1979 when, as a student at the University of Alabama, he invited the Senator to speak to a campus group. Connaughton was so impressed by Biden that he committed to working for Biden if the Senator ever ran for President. After earning an M.B.A. degree and working for a few years in the financial industry, Connaughton joined Biden's 1988 presidential campaign as a fundraiser. After the campaign imploded, Connaughton found a job on the staff of the Senate Judiciary Committee. He later worked for Abner Mikva in the White House Counsel's office during the Clinton administration. Although Connaughton was identified in Washington as a "Biden guy" he was deeply disappointed with what he perceived as ingratitude by Biden – for instance, the Senator refused to call Mikva to recommend Connaughton. Still, after leaving the White House, Connaughton parlayed his connections into a career as a lobbyist for the firm Quinn Gillespie & Associates, representing clients such as Laurent Gbagbo, the President of the Ivory Coast. Connaughton held frequent fundraisers for politicians in order to gain access to their offices.
When Biden became Vice President and Ted Kaufman, Biden's former Chief of Staff was appointed to fill Biden's Senate seat, Connaughton went to work for Kaufman. Together, Kaufman and Connaughton worked on reform of the financial services industry in the wake of the Great Recession. They encouraged criminal prosecution of financial fraud cases as well as limits to the size of banks, but met with limited success. Connaughton found that the lobbyists he used to work with had better information and more input on financial reform regulation than he had as a Senate aide. Connaughton believed that advocates for U.S. financial system reform, such as the group Americans for Financial Reform, were being overwhelmed by industry lobbyists. After Kaufman's term ended, Connaughton, disillusioned with Obama/Biden and Washington, moved to Savannah, Georgia and published a memoir of his experiences, The Payoff: Why Wall Street Always Wins.
A version of this section of The Unwinding was published in The New Yorker, where Packer is a staff writer.[7]
Dean Price[edit]
Dean Price came from a family of tobacco farmers in the Piedmont Triad region of North Carolina. A devotee of the self-help books of Napoleon Hill, Price opened a number of fast-food restaurants, convenience stores and gas stations along U.S. Route 220. Price witnessed the decline in the 1990s of all three of the region's important industries: tobacco, textiles and furniture. After Hurricane Katrina led to diesel shortages, Price became enamored with the idea of biodiesel. He believed that biodiesel, made from locally-grown crops, could help struggling local farmers while also avoiding what he believed would be the catastrophic consequences of peak oil. With partners, Price founded a business that would refine locally-grown canola into biodiesel, which was then sold at Price's gas stations. This was the first establishment of its kind in the country and it attracted the attention of the local Congressman, Tom Perriello and the Obama Administration. However, Price's restaurants and gas stations failed amidst the Great Recession and Price lost control of the biodiesel company. After these failures, Price began a new venture: using used cooking oil from restaurants to provide fuel for local school buses.
Tammy Thomas[edit]
Tammy Thomas is an African American woman from Youngstown, Ohio. The child of a heroin addict, she was raised by her great-grandmother, a maid. Thomas witnessed the dramatic consequences of the collapse of Youngstown's steel industry in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The city's population declined from 140,000 in 1970 to 95,000 in 1990[8] (it was about 67,000 in 2010) and crime increased precipitously. Despite becoming a mother as a teenager, Thomas was the first member of her family to graduate from high school. Determined not to become dependent on welfare, in 1988 she got a union job at a Packard Electric plant that made automotive parts for General Motors. The job enabled Thomas to become a homeowner and send her three children to college. In 2006 Packard Electric's successor company, Delphi Automotive, announced that it would close most of its American plants, including those in Youngstown, as it shifted production to Mexican maquiladoras. Thomas took a buyout offer from Delphi. Thomas found a new job as a community organizer in Youngstown, recruiting local residents to advocate for neighborhood improvement and mapping the city's many abandoned properties.
