龔鵬程x曼德勒｜“國民性”具有政治功能

龔鵬程對話海外學者第八十六期：在后現代情境中，被技術統治的人類社會，只有強化交談、重建溝通倫理，才能獲得文化新生的力量。這不是誰的理論，而是每個人都應實踐的活動。龔鵬程先生遊走世界，并曾主持過“世界漢學研究中心”。我們會陸續推出“龔鵬程對話海外學者”系列文章，請他對話一些學界有意義的靈魂。范圍不局限于漢學，會涉及多種學科。以期深山長谷之水，四面而出。

彼得·曼德勒教授（Professor Peter Mandler）

劍橋大學現代文化史教授

龔鵬程教授：您好，我特別想聽您再闡述一下“英國性”。

彼得·曼德勒教授：龔教授，您好。“英國性”可以指許多不同的東西——文化景觀的獨特特征或民族認同感，或基于個人國籍而賦予其的特征。它經常被非常松散地用來挑出任何可能與這個特定國家有關的特征——例如雙層巴士或“家鄉諸郡”景觀或1970年代電視上的某種喜劇節目——然后這被說成是 "典型的 “英國人”。

但說到“典型”，卻可能沒有什么真正的理解。典型表現在什么方面？每個人的典型特征？在所有時期？ “代表”性？也許這所謂的“典型”可能只是一些獨特的東西，然后其使用者想把它們吹成更普遍和永久的東西。

'Englishness' can refer to many different things - distinctive features of the cultural landscape or a sense of national identity or features attributed to individuals on the basis of their nationality. It is often used very loosely to single out anything that might be distinctive about this particular nation - e.g. double-decker buses or 'Home Counties' landscape or a certain kind of comedy show on TV in the 1970s - and then this is said to be 'typically' English, without any real understanding of what 'typical' might mean. Typical in what way? Typical of everyone? At all periods? 'Representative'? Or just something distinctive which the user then wants to blow up into something more pervasive and permanent.

龔鵬程教授：在“英國性”的研究方面，您自己覺得最特別的貢獻是什么？

彼得·曼德勒教授：我自己的貢獻主要是專注于“英國性”的一個方面，即關于 “國民性”的思想。這個思想意味著一個國家的所有成員都有一些基本的心理特征。由于英國在20世紀之前一直是一個等級森嚴的社會和政體，國民性的概念主要被民主人士充分接受，他們試圖為被排除在選舉權之外的廣大公民的國民氣節提出主張。 (在此之前，許多談論 "國民性 "的人實際上只是在描述精英階層的特點)。

只有到了20世紀，這種思想才得到了更廣泛的傳播。即使在那時，關于精英階層的舊觀念也必須進行"改造"，以適應更廣泛的人群。

自20世紀60年代以來，多元化和個性化已經成為英國文化的一個固定組成部分，人們越來越不愿意接受他們的個人“性格”是由某種集體，至少是國家力量決定的。但如上所述，它仍然吸引著人們以一種隨意的方式來開玩笑，而不去認真研究其前提。

My own contribution has been principally to focus on one aspect of 'Englishness', that is the idea of 'national character'. This idea implies that all members of a nation share some fundamental psychological traits. Because England was a hierarchical society and polity until the 20th century, the idea of national character was embraced to its full extent mostly by democrats who sought to make claims for the national integrity of the mass of the citizenry excluded from the franchise. (Before then many people who talked about 'national character' were in reality only characterising the elite.) Only in the 20th century did the idea become more widely diffused. Even then older ideas of elite character had to be 'retrofitted' to suit a wider population. Increasingly since the 1960s, pluralism and individuality have become so much a fixture of English culture that people are less and less willing to accept that their individual 'character' is determined by some collective, least of all national force. But as above it remains appealing to people to joke about this in a casual way without seriously examining the premises.

龔鵬程教授：關于英國性的研究，與百年前流行一時的“國民性研究”有何關系？

彼得·曼德勒教授：這方面有幾個浪潮。 其一是戰時對“英國人”的研究浪潮，主要是由歐洲大陸人士進行的，正如我在上面所說的，這是由英國民主的出現以及對英國不尋常的地緣政治狀況的認識所刺激的，特別是相對于法國和德國而言。

另一個浪潮出現在20世紀40年代，當時人類學家試圖將他們在“原始”社會的文化形成理論應用于“現代”社會，以便將其應用于第二次世界大戰期間（Ruth Benedict對日本人的研究是最著名的）。

這并不順利，因為在冷戰時期，把國家看作是不同的、被大的意識形態集團所控制，人們對其沒什么興趣。

There have been several waves. One was an interwar wave of studies of 'the English' mostly by Continental European figures, stimulated as I say above by the advent of democracy in Britain and also by awareness of Britain's unusual geopolitical situation especially vis-a-vis France and Germany. Another wave came during the 1940s when anthropologists tried to apply their theories of cultural formation in 'primitive' societies to 'modern' societies, for use during the Second World War (Ruth Benedict's study of the Japanese being the most famous). This didn't work out well, as in the Cold War there was less interest in seeing nations as different, overwhelmed by the big ideological blocs.

龔鵬程教授：中國人的國民性批判，是從日本轉過來的，經由魯迅的提倡或發揚，影響中國人心理和社會發展巨大。英國性的研究，也有類似的情況嗎？

彼得·曼德勒教授：如上所述，我自己并不相信 "國民性"實際上決定了數百萬人的個性。但那些相信國民性的人對國民性的傳統看法也是由外國人的批評（或贊揚）形成的，特別是在我提到的那個戰時時刻。其中至少有一本是由中國作家林語堂寫的《中國說——帶著微笑：關于英國人的智慧和幽默》。

我很欣賞國民性這個具有相當大文化影響力的概念，我知道人們在心理上需要一套定式思維來理解這個世界。但是，旨在涵蓋數百萬人的思維定式在實踐中很少是有用的或現實的。

例如，英國作家和外國人對英國人的許多刻板印象只適用于（如果有的話）過去的某種中產階級對家鄉諸郡家庭——僵硬的上唇、得過且過、孤僻，等等。我甚至不確定有多少年輕人甚至不再擁有這些刻板印象。大多數年輕人對與個人或同齡人群體有關的身份類別更感興趣。

“國民性”具有政治功能，所有關于國家的概念化也是如此。歷史學家幾十年來一直在寫國家觀念的政治功能，“國民性”有一些具體的功能——它是為了讓人民密切參與，把他們的個人特征與國家聯系起來——但同樣地，相對于基于愛國忠誠象征的對國家的松散理解，它使用起來就沒那么容易。

As above, I am not myself a believer in 'national character' as actually determining millions of people's personalities. But conventional views of the national character among people who did believe in it were also shaped by foreigners' criticisms (or praise), especially in that interwar moment I mention. At least one of these was by a Chinese author, Lin Yu-Tang, 'China Speaks - With a Smile: Wisdom and Humour about the English'.

I appreciate national character as a concept with considerable cultural clout, and I know the psychologically people need stereotypes to make sense of the world. But stereotypes that are meant to cover so many millions of people are rarely in practice either useful or realistic. For example, many of the stereotypes of Englishness embraced by English writers and by foreigners apply only (if at all) to a certain kind of middle-class Home Counties family of yesteryear - the stiff upper lip, muddling through, insularity, and so on. I'm not even sure how many younger people even possess these stereotypes any longer. Most younger people are more interested in identity categories that are individual or peer-group related.

‘National character’ has political functions; so do all conceptualizations of the nation. Historians have been writing about the political functions of ideas of nation for decades and decades; 'national character' has some specific functions - it's meant to engage the people intimately, by associating their personal characteristics with the nation - but by the same token it's not as easy to use as looser understandings of nation based on symbols of patriotic loyalty.

龔鵬程，1956年生于臺北，臺灣師范大學博士，當代著名學者和思想家。著作已出版一百五十多本。

辦有大學、出版社、雜志社、書院等，并規劃城市建設、主題園區等多處。講學于世界各地。并在北京、上海、杭州、臺北、巴黎、日本、澳門等地舉辦過書法展。現為中國孔子博物館名譽館長、美國龔鵬程基金會主席。