深度爽文

[zhangulei]

美国《外交政策》杂志专栏作家詹姆斯·特劳布2017年12月19日在《外交政策》网站发表评论文章：《堕落失道的美利坚合众国》

也许在一个民主国家，堕落的明显特征不是放荡，而是极端专注于自我——集体行动能力的丧失、共同信仰的陨落，甚至是理性的丧失。我们听着那些巫师预言伟大的未来，可他们却带领我们陷入灾难；我们嘲笑着“公众”的观念，对我们的同胞加以蔑视；我们还认为任何不追求私人利益的人都是傻瓜。

我们不能把所有事情都推到唐纳德·特朗普一个人身上，尽管我们很想这样做。在罗马帝国的衰落时期，在路易十六治下法国的颓废阶段，或者罗伯特·穆希尔（Robert Musil）在《没有个性的人》（The Man Without Qualities）中极为精准地捕捉到的哈布斯堡王朝的垂死时日，堕落的气味都从统治者缓缓向下渗透到被统治者身上。但在一个民主国家，这个过程是相互作用的——腐化的精英为堕落的行为颁发许可证，颓败的公众选举出最坏的统治者，然后我们的尼禄（Nero，古罗马暴君）迎合着我们最坏的属性，而我们会回馈他的行为。

简而言之，“堕落”描绘了一种文化、道德和精神的错乱——我们内心的唐纳德·特朗普。当然，是右派首先将文明衰落的表述引入美国的政治话语。25年前，帕特里克·布坎南（Patrick Buchanan）在共和党全国代表大会上曾大声指出，两党正在“为美国的灵魂而进行着一场宗教战争”。前议长金里奇（Newt Gingrich）曾指责民主党人推行“多元文化的虚无享乐主义”，蔑视普通美国人的价值观，施行不道德甚至非法的政策。共和党的全部声音就是指责一切。如今，威胁着美国文明的并非罗马帝国式的虚无享乐主义，而是由金里奇及其朋党所释放的愤怒。

2016年的共和党初选是一场招标战，其中相对平静的声音——杰布·布什（Jeb Bush）和马可·卢比奥（Marco Rubio）在最初的几轮后就退出，而极度令人讨厌的泰德·克鲁兹（Ted Cruz）与极度愤世嫉俗的唐纳德·特朗普站到了决斗台上。一年多来，特朗普的愤世嫉俗、自私和愤怒一再激发了支持者的胃口。上周，在阿拉巴马州参议院特别选举中曾名列前茅的民主党提名人道格·琼斯（Doug Jones）落选，美国终于逃过了一劫，而事实上阿拉巴马州的教徒民众似乎已经完全准备好要迎接这位种族主义者和恋童癖成为参议员。另外，共和党候选人罗伊·摩尔（Roy Moore）也差点被选为参议员，他曾策划了一场对另一名候选人几乎是非人道的仇恨运动。

特朗普成为了这种群众性蔑视文化的粗暴标识。当然，他已经使仇外和种族仇恨的语言合法化了，他还合法化了自私的语言。在竞选期间，特朗普甚至没有做出类似于2012年米特·罗姆尼（Mitt Romney）用公共利益来包装自己赚钱生涯的努力，他只是一再吹嘘自己为避税而玩弄的各种花招。是的，当时他已经积累了大量债务，转身抛弃了他堆砌的大西洋城的残骸。当时的副总统拜登（Joe Biden）在民主党大会上回忆说，他听到的最可怕的话就是：“你被开除了”。拜登可能以为他受到了沉重的打击。然后美国人选择了那个用恶魔般的欢乐说出这些话的人成为总统，选民们将这种残酷而赤裸裸的自我夸耀看作是钢铁般决心的表现。

也许我们可以用“我们”一词日渐递减的相关性来衡量民主的衰落。毕竟民主政治的前提是，大多数人在做出选择的时候能够从集体利益的角度出发。半个世纪以前，在民权时代和林登·约翰逊（Lyndon B.Johnson）治下的鼎盛时期，民主党的多数人甚至同意将大量金钱花在被排斥的少数族群身上而非留给他们自己，这个承诺在今天听来几乎是骑士精神的体现。而我们如今的任何一个领导人是否有胆量提出这样的意见：有可能会损害一个阶级的税收政策——至少是一个政治上有力的阶级——也许会给国家带来好处呢？

事实上，没有比特朗普总统即将签署的税改法案更典型的政治堕落的例子了。当然，法律总是有利于富人的。共和党供给学派认为，对投资者阶层的减税能够促进经济增长。但这一轮减税和罗纳德·里根（Ronald Reagan）或乔治·W·布什（George W.Bush）的减税政策有以下三点区别：

首先，是他们通过取消替代性最低税率和给予房地产收入特殊待遇的方式来公然地造福于总统本人，并将成本转嫁给消费者。我们美国人太麻木了，我们甚至意识不到这是我们选出的“公仆”对所谓公益事业的入骨嘲弄。

其次，同样不同寻常的是，这轮减税的目标是通过取消或者大幅度削减州和地方的税收的方式，为共和党选民谋利并损害民主党人的利益。我当然没有赞美罗纳德·里根的意思，但我实在无法想象他会用税收政策来奖励自己的支持者并惩罚对手。他可能会认为这是极不爱国的表现。新的减税措施构成了“不公正选区划分”的经济等同物。的确，两党都在玩这个游戏，但是今天的共和党却把选举中的不公正选区划分操控到了某种极端，破坏了“一人一票”的宪法原则。在共和党内，大多数人对剥夺民主党选民的权利没有任何异议，也不认为这是不正当的行为。因为民主党人并不属于“我们”。

最后，减税是一个既任性又盲目的政策。毫无疑问，1981年里根的减税政策也是如此，由于共和党和民主党都不愿意削减预算以抵消财政亏空，可以想见，不考虑实际情况的税收减免政策最终导致了前所未有的财政赤字。然而在当时，白宫和国会的一大批官员在某些场合强烈地呼吁和争取这样的税收减免，他们接受了独立于自己的愿望之外存在着的客观现实。但在2017年，当国会预算办公室和其他中立的仲裁者认为减税会导致政府入不敷出时，白宫和国会领导人只是简单地将这一预测贬斥为“过于悲观”而不予理睬。

这是我们这个时代真正的新现象：我们不仅缺乏共同的公民意识和集体利益意识，而且缺乏共同的事实认同以及集体的理性思考能力。我们倾向于认定，凡是我们希望是真的的东西便是真的，凡是我们希望它不是真的的东西，那便是假的。在这种逻辑下，全球变暖便成了一个骗局，奥巴马则出生在非洲，中立预测机构指出的减税对预算的影响必定是错误的，因为他们预见到的影响是消极的。

当然，正是我们的总统先生在抽烟时碰巧发现了关于未来的伟大和繁荣的证明。把所有不愉快的事实和叙述都归结为“假新闻”，这将成为唐纳德·特朗普对美国文化最持久的贡献之一，这一影响将远远超出他自己的任期。他实际上已经把“不公正选区划分”的手段熟练应用到了认知领域：你的故事和我的故事产生了分歧，但只要我能让更多的人加入我的阵营，我的故事就成了真相。然而，与其说特朗普是我们国家发生混乱的原因，不如说特朗普的出现是这个国家发生混乱的外在表现。

《华盛顿邮报》近日报道说，疾病控制中心的官员被要求停止使用类似于“基于科学的”这样的词语，显然这些词汇现在被认为是使人消除行动意志的左倾话语。《纽约时报》进一步的报道似乎表明，这个命令并非来自白宫里特朗普的奉承者，而是来自某些担心国会将因为这些冒犯性语言而否决拨款提案的官员。也就是说，我们国家两大主要政党之一及其支持者现在把“科学”视为一个有争议的词语。我们的罗伯特·穆西尔（Robert Musil）在哪？当我们需要他（或她）的时候，我们无情的讽刺作家和道德卫士们在哪呢？

当一个民主社会的政治——即其基本的裁决手段，在道德和智力上陷入腐化时，这个民主社会就会变得腐朽、堕落。但是，这种对于共识的尊重的普遍缺失不仅仅局限于政治行为或政治权利的范围，我们只需要想一想有关哈维·温斯坦（Harvey Weinstein）不断展开的报道，它不仅让我们单单认识到这一个可怕的人，更是让我们看到一群受过良好教育、高收入、拥有高度名望的专业人才是如何集体保护着这头野兽并心安理得地过着舒适生活的。正如他的一位律师精心给出的建议：“只要能迅速解决问题，就没有必要了解所有事实”。

当然，这本来就是律师的职责所在，就像会计师领取高薪后理所当然会帮助企业将利润转移到避税天堂一样。然而，如今出现了某种独特的新现象，即那些专业人才丝毫不会为自己的行为道歉或感到尴尬，他们享受着蔑视公众利益的纯粹快乐。当泰迪·罗斯福（Teddy Roosevelt）称他那个时代的垄断者为“巨富的犯罪分子”时，这个形容词曾刺痛那些人。而现在，那些银行家、经纪人以及私募股权大亨，在因为其曾在2008年使国家经济陷入低谷而受到指责的时候，却表现出极大的愤怒。在他们看来，只要你是“财富创造者”就意味着你永远不必说对不起。从结果来看，有足够多的选民认可这一说法，而唐纳德·特朗普也并没有为这种毫无歉意的贪婪付出过任何政治代价。

对市场的崇拜，也就是把自私抬高为公德的同义词，它是与我们的自由主义权利相联系的一种学说，这种学说已经成为了某种自我辩护的意识形态，专为富人阶层辩护并提供政治说辞——也许同样为那些梦想成为富人的人提供了说辞。

堕落通常被理解为某种不可逆转的状态——彻底崩溃之前的最后阶段。最后一个控制整个帝国的穆罕默德王朝，在波斯军队的马蹄向着德里红堡飞驰时，仍然迷失在音乐和舞蹈中。

正如美国的堕落是独特的，或许美国的命运也会同样独特。即便中国注定将取代美国成为世界上最强大的国家，历史上其他帝国——英国是最明显的例子也是其中唯一的民主国家——在交出全球霸权的时候都没有像如今的美国那样陷入彻底的堕落。

美国能模仿它曾经超越的那个国家吗？我在想。英国人有着讽刺现实的天赋，当退出舞台的时刻终于到来时，他们只是有些尴尬地耸了耸肩。那当然不是美国人的反应方式。当舞台经理召唤我们退出舞台中心时，我们总会寻找某个发泄的对象——彼此之间、移民、穆斯林或其他任何“非我”的族类。当发现自己身处某种无法接受的状况时，就像伊朗国王被蛊惑的朝臣一样，我们陷入了一种致命的幻觉。

但是，因为我们是民主国家，因为我们的价值观和心理习惯在从人民向上移动的同时，也在从领导者向下移动，这种双向影响是无法停止的。几乎将罗伊·摩尔送到参议院的结果迫使许多保守的共和党人开始了痛苦的自我反省，对于大规模性虐待行为的报道和揭露也给了我们一个自我净化和自我认知的机会——只要我们不要对那些似乎统治着我们几乎全部生活的现象变得冷漠，而保持着某种痛苦的清醒，甚至是歇斯底里的过度反应。

只要我们继续由他们统治，那些政治精英将继续致力于满足我们最不堪的冲动。我们当前唯一的出路是扑灭唐纳德·特朗普已经点燃的火焰，找回我们在政治、道德、甚至是认知方面的共识。发生在我们身上的最糟糕的事情并不是输给中国，而是失去自我。

 

[zhangulei]

这哥们写的好爽啊。可奥巴马8年之后，为什么美国堕落失道了呢？别说是中国逼的。

 

[ccc]

The United States of America Is Decadent and Depraved
The problem isn’t Donald Trump – it’s the Donald Trump in all of us.
By James Traub | December 19, 2017, 1:08 PM

Then-president-elect Donald J. Trump arrives at his inauguration at the United States Capitol on Jan. 20, in Washington, D.C. (Doug Mills - Pool/Getty Images)

In The History of the Decline and Fall of The Roman Empire, Edward Gibbon luridly evokes the Rome of 408 A.D., when the armies of the Goths prepared to descend upon the city. The marks of imperial decadence appeared not only in grotesque displays of public opulence and waste, but also in the collapse of faith in reason and science. The people of Rome, Gibbon writes, fell prey to “a puerile superstition” promoted by astrologers and to soothsayers who claimed “to read in the entrails of victims the signs of future greatness and prosperity.”

Would a latter-day Gibbon describe today’s America as “decadent”? I recently heard a prominent, and pro-American, French thinker (who was speaking off the record) say just that. He was moved to use the word after watching endless news accounts of U.S. President Donald Trump’s tweets alternate with endless revelations of sexual harassment. I flinched, perhaps because a Frenchman accusing Americans of decadence seems contrary to the order of nature. And the reaction to Harvey Weinstein et al. is scarcely a sign of hysterical puritanism, as I suppose he was implying.

And yet, the shoe fit. The sensation of creeping rot evoked by that word seems terribly apt.

Perhaps in a democracy the distinctive feature of decadence is not debauchery but terminal self-absorptionPerhaps in a democracy the distinctive feature of decadence is not debauchery but terminal self-absorption — the loss of the capacity for collective action, the belief in common purpose, even the acceptance of a common form of reasoning. We listen to necromancers who prophesy great things while they lead us into disaster. We sneer at the idea of a “public” and hold our fellow citizens in contempt. We think anyone who doesn’t pursue self-interest is a fool. Perhaps in a democracy the distinctive feature of decadence is not debauchery but terminal self-absorption

We cannot blame everything on Donald Trump, much though we might want to. In the decadent stage of the Roman Empire, or of Louis XVI’s France, or the dying days of the Habsburg Empire so brilliantly captured in Robert Musil’s The Man Without Qualities, decadence seeped downward from the rulers to the ruled. But in a democracy, the process operates reciprocally. A decadent elite licenses degraded behavior, and a debased public chooses its worst leaders. Then our Nero panders to our worst attributes — and we reward him for doing so.

“Decadence,” in short, describes a cultural, moral, and spiritual disorder — the Donald Trump in us. It is the right, of course, that first introduced the language of civilizational decay to American political discourse. A quarter of a century ago, Patrick Buchanan bellowed at the Republican National Convention that the two parties were fighting “a religious war … for the soul of America.” Former Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) accused the Democrats of practicing “multicultural nihilistic hedonism,” of despising the values of ordinary Americans, of corruption, and of illegitimacy. That all-accusing voice became the voice of the Republican Party. Today it is not the nihilistic hedonism of imperial Rome that threatens American civilization but the furies unleashed by Gingrich and his kin.

The 2016 Republican primary was a bidding war in which the relatively calm voices — Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio — dropped out in the early rounds, while the consummately nasty Ted Cruz duked it out with the consummately cynical Donald Trump. A year’s worth of Trump’s cynicism, selfishness, and rage has only stoked the appetite of his supporters. The nation dodged a bullet last week when a colossal effort pushed Democratic nominee Doug Jones over the top in Alabama’s Senate special election. Nevertheless, the church-going folk of Alabama were perfectly prepared to choose a racist and a pedophile over a Democrat. Republican nominee Roy Moore almost became a senator by orchestrating a hatred of the other that was practically dehumanizing.

Trump functions as the impudent id of this culture of mass contemptTrump functions as the impudent id of this culture of mass contempt. Of course he has legitimized the language of xenophobia and racial hatred, but he has also legitimized the language of selfishness. During the campaign, Trump barely even made the effort that Mitt Romney did in 2012 to explain his money-making career in terms of public good. He boasted about the gimmicks he had deployed to avoid paying taxes. Yes, he had piled up debt and walked away from the wreckage he had made in Atlantic City. But it was a great deal for him! At the Democratic convention, then-Vice President Joe Biden recalled that the most terrifying words he heard growing up were, “You’re fired.” Biden may have thought he had struck a crushing blow. Then Americans elected the man who had uttered those words with demonic glee. Voters saw cruelty and naked self-aggrandizement as signs of steely determination.Trump functions as the impudent id of this culture of mass contempt

Perhaps we can measure democratic decadence by the diminishing relevance of the word “we.” It is, after all, a premise of democratic politics that, while majorities choose, they do so in the name of collective good. Half a century ago, at the height of the civil rights era and Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society, democratic majorities even agreed to spend large sums not on themselves but on excluded minorities. The commitment sounds almost chivalric today. Do any of our leaders have the temerity even to suggest that a tax policy that might hurt one class — at least, one politically potent class — nevertheless benefits the nation?

There is, in fact, no purer example of the politics of decadence than the tax legislation that the president will soon sign. Of course the law favors the rich; Republican supply-side doctrine argues that tax cuts to the investor class promote economic growth. What distinguishes the current round of cuts from those of either Ronald Reagan or George W. Bush is, first, the way in which they blatantly benefit the president himself through the abolition of the alternative minimum tax and the special treatment of real estate income under new “pass-through” rules. We Americans are so numb by now that we hardly even take note of the mockery this implies of the public servant’s dedication to public good.

Second, and no less extraordinary, is the way the tax cuts have been targeted to help Republican voters and hurt Democrats, above all through the abolition or sharp reduction of the deductibility of state and local taxes. I certainly didn’t vote for Ronald Reagan, but I cannot imagine him using tax policy to reward supporters and punish opponentsI certainly didn’t vote for Ronald Reagan, but I cannot imagine him using tax policy to reward supporters and punish opponents. He would have thought that grossly unpatriotic. The new tax cuts constitute the economic equivalent of gerrymandering. All parties play that game, it’s true; yet today’s Republicans have carried electoral gerrymandering to such an extreme as to jeopardize the constitutionally protected principle of “one man, one vote.” Inside much of the party, no stigma attaches to the conscious disenfranchisement of Democratic voters. Democrats are not “us.”I certainly didn’t vote for Ronald Reagan, but I cannot imagine him using tax policy to reward supporters and punish opponents

Finally, the tax cut is an exercise in willful blindness. The same no doubt could be said for the 1981 Reagan tax cuts, which predictably led to unprecedented deficits when Republicans as well as Democrats balked at making offsetting budget cuts. Yet at the time a whole band of officials in the White House and the Congress clamored, in some cases desperately, for such reductions. They accepted a realm of objective reality that existed separately from their own wishes. But in 2017, when the Congressional Budget Office and other neutral arbiters concluded that the tax cuts would not begin to pay for themselves, the White House and congressional leaders simply dismissed the forecasts as too gloomy.

Here is something genuinely new about our era: We lack not only a sense of shared citizenry or collective good, but even a shared body of fact or a collective mode of reasoning toward the truthWe lack not only a sense of shared citizenry or collective good, but even a shared body of fact or a collective mode of reasoning toward the truth. A thing that we wish to be true is true; if we wish it not to be true, it isn’t. Global warming is a hoax. Barack Obama was born in Africa. Neutral predictions of the effects of tax cuts on the budget must be wrong, because the effects they foresee are bad ones.We lack not only a sense of shared citizenry or collective good, but even a shared body of fact or a collective mode of reasoning toward the truth

It is, of course, our president who finds in smoking entrails the proof of future greatness and prosperity. The reduction of all disagreeable facts and narratives to “fake news” will stand as one of Donald Trump’s most lasting contributions to American culture, far outliving his own tenure. He has, in effect, pressed gerrymandering into the cognitive realm. Your story fights my story; if I can enlist more people on the side of my story, I own the truth. And yet Trump is as much symptom as cause of our national disorder. The Washington Post recently reported that officials at the Center for Disease Control were ordered not to use words like “science-based,” apparently now regarded as disablingly left-leaning. But further reporting in the New York Times appears to show that the order came not from White House flunkies but from officials worried that Congress would reject funding proposals marred by the offensive terms. One of our two national political parties — and its supporters — now regards “science” as a fighting word. Where is our Robert Musil, our pitiless satirist and moralist, when we need him (or her)?

A democratic society becomes decadent when its politics, which is to say its fundamental means of adjudication, becomes morally and intellectually corrupt. But the loss of all regard for common ground is hardly limited to the political right, or for that matter to politics. We need only think of the ever-unfolding narrative of Harvey Weinstein, which has introduced us not only to one monstrous individual but also to a whole world of well-educated, well-paid, highly regarded professionals who made a very comfortable living protecting that monster. “When you quickly settle, there is no need to get into all the facts,” as one of his lawyers delicately advised.

This is, of course, what lawyers do, just as accountants are paid to help companies move their profits into tax-free havens. What is new and distinctive, however, is the lack of apology or embarrassment, the sheer blitheness of the contempt for the public good. When Teddy Roosevelt called the monopolists of his day “malefactors of great wealth,” the epithet stung — and stuck. Now the bankers and brokers and private equity barons who helped drive the nation’s economy into a ditch in 2008 react with outrage when they’re singled out for blame. Being a “wealth creator” means never having to say you’re sorry. Enough voters accept this proposition that Donald Trump paid no political price for unapologetic greed.

The worship of the marketplace, and thus the elevation of selfishness to a public virtue, is a doctrine that we associate with the libertarian right. But it has coursed through the culture as a self-justifying ideology for rich people of all political persuasions — perhaps also for people who merely dream of becoming rich.

Decadence is usually understood as an irreversible condition — the last stage before collapse. The court of Muhammad Shah, last of the Mughals to control the entirety of their empire, lost itself in music and dance while the Persian army rode toward the Red Fort. But as American decadence is distinctive, perhaps America’s fate may be, too. Even if it is written in the stars that China will supplant the United States as the world’s greatest power, other empires, Britain being the most obvious example and the one democracy among them, have surrendered the role of global hegemon without sliding into terminal decadence.

Can the United States emulate the stoic example of the country it once surpassed? I wonder.Can the United States emulate the stoic example of the country it once surpassed? I wonder. The British have the gift of ironic realism. When the time came to exit the stage, they shuffled off with a slightly embarrassed shrug. That, of course, is not the American way. When the stage manager beckons us into the wings we look for someone to hit — each other, or immigrants or Muslims or any other kind of not-us. Finding the reality of our situation inadmissible, like the deluded courtiers of the Shah of Iran, we slide into a malignant fantasy.Can the United States emulate the stoic example of the country it once surpassed? I wonder.

But precisely because we are a democracy, because the values and the mental habits that define us move upward from the people as well as downward from their leaders, that process need not be inexorable. The prospect of sending Roy Moore to the Senate forced a good many conservative Republicans into what may have been painful acts of self-reflection. The revelations of widespread sexual abuse offer an opportunity for a cleansing moment of self-recognition — at least if we stop short of the hysterical overreaction that seems to govern almost everything in our lives.

Our political elite will continue to gratify our worst impulses so long as we continue to be governed by them. The only way back is to reclaim the common ground — political, moral, and even cognitive — that Donald Trump has lit on fire. Losing to China is hardly the worst thing that could happen to us. Losing ourselves is.