王小波：学院派（老妓女） vs. 自由派（小妓女）

王小波，长篇小说《万寿寺》。

……

妓女这种职业似乎谈不上贞节，这种看法只在一般情况下是对的。有些妓女最讲贞节，老妓女就是这种 妓女中的一个。她从来不看着男人的眼睛说话，总是看着他的脚说话；而且在他面前总是四肢着地的爬。据她自己说，干了这么多年，从来没见过男人的生殖器官。 当然，她也承认，有时免不了用手去拿。但她还说：用手拿和用眼看，就是贞节不贞节的区别。老妓女说，她有一位师姐，因为看到了那个东西，就上吊自杀了。上 吊之前还把自己的眼睛挖掉了。有眼睛的人在拿东西时总禁不住要看看，但拿这样东西时又要扼杀这种冲动。所以还不如戴个墨镜。顺便说一句，老妓女就有这么一 副墨镜，是烟水晶制成的，镶在银框子上。假如把镜片磨磨就好了，但是没有磨，因为水晶太硬，难以加工。所谓镜片，只是两块六棱的晶体。这墨镜戴在鼻子上， 整个人看上去像穿山甲。当然，她本人的修为很深，已经用不着这副眼睛，所以也不用再装成穿山甲了。

……

综上所述不难看出，在唐朝，妓女这个行业分为两派。老妓女所属的那一派是学院派，严谨、认真，有 很多清规戒律，努力追求着真善美。这不是什么坏事，人生在世，不管做着什么事，总该有所追求。另一派则是小妓女所属的自由派，主张自由奔放、回归自然，率 性而行。我觉得回归自然也不是坏事。身为作者，对笔下的人物应该做到不偏不倚。但我偏向自由派，假如有自由派的史学，一定会认为，《老佛爷性事考》、《历 史脐带考》都是史学成就。不管怎么说吧，这段说明总算解释了老妓女为什么要收拾小妓女──这是一种门派之争。……

……

不管怎么说吧，老妓女已经决定杀小妓女，而且决心不可动 摇。但小妓女还不甘心，她把反驳老妓女的话说了好几遍，还故意一字一字，鼓唇作势，想让她听不见也能看见。但老妓女只做没听见也没看见，心里却在想反驳的 道理，终于想好了，就把手从耳朵上放下来，说道：小婊子；你既是败类，就不是同行姐妹。我杀你也不是败类。说毕，把刀抢到手里，上前来杀小妓女。要不是小 妓女嘴快，就被她杀掉了。她马上想到一句反驳的话：不对，不对，我既不是同行姐妹，就和你不是一类，如何能算是败类。所以和你还是一类。老妓女一听话头不 对，赶紧丢下刀子，把耳朵又捂上了。我老婆后来评论道，这一段像金庸小说里的某种俗套，但我不这样想。学院派总是拘泥于俗套，这是他们的弱点，可供利用。 可惜自由派和学院派斗嘴，虽然可以占到一些口舌上的便宜，但无法改善自己的地位，因为刀把子捏在人家的手里。

……

Semiotic “Fishnet” and Sensuous Acquaintance/ 符号之“网”与感性之“鱼”

William M. Ivins, Jr., Prints and Visual Communication (New York: Da Capo Press, 1969), 53, 59, 63.

(Excerpted passages. Subtitles are my own.)

The Net

The only way that anyone can gain acquaintance which objects, as distinguished from knowledge of them, is through immediate sense awareness of them. It is thus necessary to keep clear the distinction between sensuous acquaintance on the one hand and knowledge by description on the other, for otherwise we are certain to fool ourselves on crucial occasions. We have many different ways of symbolizing both acquaintance and knowledge, but of them all the most important are words and visual images. Both words and visual images may very well be compared to fish nets. When a fisherman tells us that there are no fish in the bay today, what he really means is that he has been unable to catch any in his net—which is quite a different thing. The fish that are too big do not get into his net, and those that are too small simply swim through it and get away. So far as the fisherman is concerned fish are only such creatures as he can catch in his net. In the same way words and visual images catch only the things or qualities they are adequately meshed for. Among the things no word net can ever catch is the personality of objects which we know by acquaintance.

The Classification Problem

The actual object always has something about it that defies neat classification, unless you can manage always to stay in the middle of your definition and not get out towards its shadowy and slippery edges. In other words, our verbal definitions are only good so long as we do not have to think just what they mean. When we do have to think just what they mean we are more than apt to wind up with a very temperamental and wholly chance five to four decision.

The Syntax

Plato’s Ideas and Aristotle’s forms, essences, and definitions, are specimens of this transference of reality from the object to the exactly repeatable and therefore seemingly permanent verbal formula. An essence, in fact, is not part of the object but part of its definition. Also, I believe, the well-known notions of substance and attributable qualities can be derived from this operational dependence upon exactly repeatable verbal descriptions and definitions—for the very linear order in which words have to be used results in a syntactical time order analysis of qualities that actually are simultaneous and so intermingled and interrelated that no quality can be removed from one of the bundles of qualities we call objects without changing both it and all the other qualities. After all, a quality is only a quality of a group of other qualities, and if you change anyone of the group they all necessarily change. Whatever the situation may be from the point of view of a verbalist analysis, from the point of view of visual awarenesses of the kind that have to be used in an art museum the object is a unity that cannot be broken down into separate qualities without becoming merely a collection of abstractions that have only conceptual existence and no actuality. In a funny way words and their necessary linear syntactical order forbid us to describe objects and compel us to use very poor and inadequate lists of theoretical ingredients in the manner exemplified more concretely by the ordinary cook book recipes.

汴京往事/ Once upon a time in Capital Bianliang—circa 1100

駕回儀衛

駕回﹐則御裹小帽簪花乘馬﹐前後從駕 ﹑臣寮﹑百司﹑儀衛悉賜花。大觀初﹐乘驄馬。至太和宮前﹐忽宣小烏﹐其馬至御前﹐拒而不進﹐左右曰﹕“此願封官。”敕賜龍驤將軍﹐然後就轡。蓋小烏平日御愛之馬也。莫非錦繡盈都﹐花光滿目﹐御香拂路﹐廣樂喧空﹐寶騎交馳﹐綵棚夾路﹐綺羅珠翠﹐戶戶神仙﹐畫閣紅樓﹐家家洞 府﹐遊人士庶﹐車馬無數。妓女舊日乘驢﹐宣政間惟乘馬﹐披涼衫將蓋頭背繫冠子上。少年狎客﹐往往隨後。亦跨馬﹐輕衫小帽﹐有三五文身惡少年控馬﹐謂之﹐“花褪馬。”用短韁促馬頭﹐刺地而行﹐謂之﹐“鞅韁。”呵喝馳驟﹐競逞峻逸。遊人往往以竹竿挑掛終日關撲所得之物而歸。仍有貴家士女小轎﹐插花不垂簾縸。自三月一日至四月八日閉池﹐雖風雨亦有遊人﹐略無虛日矣。

根據孟元老《東京夢華錄》的記載﹐北宋末年的汴京是一個和諧社會。皇家的金明池定期向百姓開放﹐從道君皇帝到市民妓女小流氓﹐各得其樂﹐同一個大宋﹐同一個夢想。

以前上 Stephen West （奚如谷）教授的課的時候﹐念過這一段﹐覺得太酷了﹐所以記憶猶新。

下面是 Stephen West 教授的翻譯, quoted from his paper, “Spectacle, Ritual, and Social Relations: The Son of Heaven, Citizen, and Created Space in Imperial Gardens in the Northern Song.”

“Ceremonial Guard of the Return of the Auriga”

When the Auriga returns, his head is wrapped in a small cap, and he has flowers stuck in his hair as he rides his horse. His retinue, the high officials, and hundred officials, and his ceremonial guard all are given flowers. At the beginning of the Daguan era, he rode a bayard. He would come to the front of the Palace of Grand Harmony and then suddenly call for Reddy and the horse would come before the emperor. The horse would be held back and not allowed to go forward and the servants would say, “By this he desires to be enfeoffed.” The emperor granted the title of Dragon Courser General, and then Reddy would take the bit. Now Reddy was the horse that the emperor really loved.

It was all:

Damask and brocade filling the capital,
dowers’ radiance flooding the eyes,
imperial scents sweeping the road,
grand music ringing discordant in the air,
jeweled mounts racing hither and yon,
bunted boxes lining the road.
Gauze and silks, pearls and kingfisher feathers—
door after door of spiritual transcendents;
painted galleries and red lofts—
every house a grotto precinct.
Roamers both noble and common,
horses and carts numbered in the thousands.

Singsong girls mostly road asses in the old days, but during the Xuanhe and Zhenghe reigns they only rode horses, mantled in their “cool dusters” with their head coverings tied to the backs of their caps. Young brothel rats often followed behind them, also astride horses and dressed in light gowns and small caps. Three or four tattooed young toughs controlled the girls’ horses, and they were called “flowers falling from the horse.” They controlled the horses’ heads with short tethers, and struck at the ground as they went along, which was called “breast tether.” They shouted and yelled as they raced and ran, competing to show off their spirited elegance. Roamers often went home with the goods they had won gambling the day long, hanging from a bamboo pole. As before, there were the young girls of noble families, in small palanquins studded with flowers, who neither let their curtains nor screens down. From the first of the third month until the eighth of fourth month, when they closed the Reservoir, there were always roamers, not a single day was ever skipped.

關於對“小烏”的翻譯﹐Stephen West 教授有如下註解﹕

Wu is shortened from the horse’s full name, Uhulan 烏護蘭, which is an Altaic word for “red.” (private communication from James Bosson). See Zhang Zhifu 張知甫, Keshu 可書 (SKTY ed.) (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1991 photolith.) 2b; 1038.709.

The Rousseau Strain in the Contemporary World/ 对卢梭的思考

[卢梭（1717-1778）的油画像，寻自 Wikipedia。]





Benjamin I. Schwartz, “The Rousseau Strain in the Contemporary World” (1978) in China and Other Matters (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1996), 217-218, 220-221.

...

With the strong emergence of the notion of an impersonal, progressive history after the French Revolution, one witness the transformation of both the Rousseau strain and the engineering strain in modern thought. They are, as it were, both “historicized.” History itself, it was now proclaimed, would bridge the gap between the way things are and the way they ought to be. Yet both strains continue to find expression in quite different images of historic progress. Technology itself, instead of being a transaction between the technologist and the material on which he works, becomes “the process of technological development.” “Industrialization,” “economic forces,” “technological development” become the dominant categories in what might be called the technicoeconomic version of inevitable human progress. Rousseau’s influence, however, also finds its own transformation in those versions of history which treat history as primarily an ethical drama. Despite all of Hegel’s reservations about Rousseau, his account of human history as a march to the realization of freedom as he understands that term is essentially an account of history as a spiritual-ethical drama. When one looks at the work of Marx from this perspective, one finds that what makes him so fascinating is that his later work seems to create an impressive synthesis of both strains. While sharing with Rousseau the view that the progress of the arts and sciences in its broadest sense as technicoeconomic history has been the occasion of enormous injustice and exploitation, he nevertheless finds it “objectively progressive.” He is thus able to regard the progress of industry with both the somber indignation of a Rousseau and the complacent self-congratulation of those who marvel at man’s technical genius. He would have us believe, as it were, that Satan himself may carry to completion the work of the Lord. His good society is, of course, not the same as Rousseau’s Spartan utopia. Individuals in that society would reap the fruits of both the arts and the sciences even while embodying the social virtues dreamt of by Rousseau. These social virtues would furthermore no longer depend on the religion of la patrie.

However impressive this Marxist synthesis may be, I would urge that it has proven unstable among his followers. The question of how history as ethical drama relates to history as technicoeconomic development and as “rationalization” of society remains unresolved. Rousseau has not yet been fully reconciled with Saint-Simon.

...

It might also be added that the historicization of eighteenth-century thought has itself not been entirely successful. The need for legislators has not wholly vanished. The great nineteenth-century accounts of human progress had by the end of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries become subject to serious doubts. There was the growing feeling that, in order to realize the hopes projected by these various schemes of historic progress, one would no longer be able to rely wholly on the operation of larger impersonal forces. Human intervention, whether by revolutionary vanguards or a social engineering elite, would be necessary to guide the historic processes along their proper channels. This may not have amounted to a full rehabilitation of the great legislator of the Enlightenment nor a full retreat from faith in the forces of history or “development,” but it would indicate that the role played by the legislator in Enlightenment thought had not been rendered entirely superfluous.

...

"Healthy and wealthy without you!"—The German's Historical Trouble with Coffee/ 德国人与咖啡的历史纠缠

Wolfgang Schivelbusch, Tastes of Paradise: A Social History of Spices, Stimulants, and Intoxicants (New York: Pantheon Books, 1992), 72-73, 76.

...

The German relationship to coffee was an index of Germany's relationship to the advanced nations of the West. Coffee, in fact, would never have attained the eminent position it did in German middle-class life had it not already been a beverage that symbolized the power England and France had assumed in the world at that time. With coffee, the German middle class got to sample, as it were, a bit of Western urbanity it had not yet achieved for itself. The same mechanisms were at play as those that made English literature the supreme model for eighteen-century German authors and that prompted Lessing, for instance, to give his heroines English names.

The German relationship to coffee was further complicated by political-economical problems. These too were intimately tied to Germany's non participation in world history, that is world economy. For colonial powers such as England, Holland, and France, procuring coffee posed no problems. Until about the end of the seventeenth century they obtained their supplies directly from Arabia. When it became clear that the popularity of coffee would not be a passing phenomenon, that coffee had indeed become the daily beverage of increasingly broader sectors of the population, these nations began to produce it independently.

Germany, which had no colonies, had to satisfy its demand for coffee through imports procured through middlemen. In this way vast sums of money left the country. For the most part, they flowed into Dutch and French coffers, since the coffee plantations of the French and the Dutch produced not only to meet their own demands, but also for export to third nations, particularly Germany.

…

"Healthy and wealthy without you!" The attempt to reduce coffee consumption through prohibitions and to return to beer was to remain an isolated episode. An entirely different development eventually led to the solution of the foreign exchange problem and at the same time to an acquired taste for a specifically German coffee flavor. This was the discovery of a coffee substitute, namely chicory coffee. The similarity in taste and color between chicory and coffee had been noted as far back as the eighteenth century. Twenty years later, at the height of active opposition to coffee, the hotel keeper Christian Gottlieb Forster saw an occasion for trying out the substitute. He applied for, and received, from the Prussian state of Frederick II, a six-year privilege to grow, process, and sell chicory coffee. The raison d'etre of chicory coffee was graphically presented on the package in which it was sold. In the background we see an exotic landscape and a sailing ship carrying sacks of coffee, in the foreground a German peasant, sowing chicory and waving away the ship with a gesture of his hand. The caption reads, "Healthy and wealthy without you!"
…

The Nature of Knowledge

Jean Piaget, Psychology and Epistemology: Towards a Theory of Knowledge (London: Penguin Books, 1972), 65.

...

Clearly there is none which would unite all thinkers: the concept of knowledge as a whole is still (and perhaps always will be) a matter of provisional synthesis, a synthesis which is in part subjective because it is in fact dominated by value judgments which are not universally applicable but are specific to certain schools of thought or even to certain individuals. This is why all intelligent men educated as scientists, however enamored they may be of the philosophical ideal of knowledge as a cohesive whole, must eventually agree with Descartes that philosophical meditation should not exceed ‘one day a month’, the remainder of the time being more usefully set aside for experiment and calculation!

...