可惜流年

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最近看了很多网上奥运开幕式的评论, 我看到的大多数是持批评态度的. 也许喜欢写字的人要求都普遍比较高吧, 想法也很深刻. 其中比较多的是在执行层面上的批评, 比如团体操, 麻将桌之类的, 另有一部分是从政治角度出发的, 比如开幕式对中国文化的阐释的官方意识. 但我唯独没有看到哪怕一篇评论是从文化的角度来评价的. 即以中国为代表的东方式的价值观对开幕式的影响. 比如为什么中国人那么喜欢用人数众多的”团体操”式的表演? 这背后的深层的文化心理是什么? 其实在开幕式后召开的编导新闻发布会上, 有一位英国记者提到了这个问题, 张艺谋当时给的回答是: 因为开幕式是一种广场艺术, 在硕大的广场的表演平台上, 需要比较多的表演者才能呈现出表演效果, 如果仅五,六人的表演, 可能现场的观众无法欣赏到表演的细节.  这是从视觉艺术的角度来说事, 仍然没有触及到文化心理的层面.  然而, 昨天一位美国朋友转发了一篇<纽约时报>的文章给我, 令我惊讶的是, 这位作者的观点似乎终于谈到了东西方不同的文化心理. 我看了以后觉得很有点道理. 于是转贴在下面, 聊备一格.  

他文章的主要意思是说西方文明起自希腊, 崇尚的是个人英雄主义的, 整个西方的历史发展也是在向越来越个人主义的方向走, 而以亚洲为代表的东方文明则起源于族群文化, 或因为地理位置而注重团体性. 所以现在的世界可以有一种分类法, 即西方的个人主义相对东方的集体主义. 他认为北京的开幕式正体现了东西方两种文化心理的对话, 中国想要告诉世界, 发展并不一定只在西方的个人主义世界中可行, 也同样可以以东方集体主义的方式实现. 而现在的时代, 西方的个人主义文化已经不可能再像以前那样横扫世界, 最后他拿出西方科学家的研究结果说个人主义常常会沦为幻想, 在现实中, 可能集体主义的文化心理更是一种正确的选择. 所以他结论说中国的崛起不仅仅是一个经济事件, 也是一个文化现象. 中国所倡导的和谐的集体主义价值观对世界也许会和个人主义的美国梦一样吸引人.  

这当然也是一家之言, 中国的问题有很多, 我个人并不完全肯定中国官方倡导的”和谐社会”的价值观对世界会有多大的影响力. 本来”和谐社会”的提法也是政治上的原因要多于文化上的原因. 然而, 用个人主义和集体主义来探讨东西方文化心理的区别却是一个比较到位的角度. 相对我看到的其他评论, 这篇更有种超越政治意识形态和个人审美标准的深入客观的态度. 而这种态度正是批评需要的前提.   

Harmony and the Dream

 By DAVID BROOKS

Published: August 11, 2008  

The world can be divided in many ways — rich and poor, democratic and authoritarian — but one of the most striking is the divide between the societies with an individualist mentality and the ones with a collectivist mentality. This is a divide that goes deeper than economics into the way people perceive the world. If you show an American an image of a fish tank, the American will usually describe the biggest fish in the tank and what it is doing. If you ask a Chinese person to describe a fish tank, the Chinese will usually describe the context in which the fish swim.These sorts of experiments have been done over and over again, and the results reveal the same underlying pattern. Americans usually see individuals; Chinese and other Asians see contexts.When the psychologist Richard Nisbett showed Americans individual pictures of a chicken, a cow and hay and asked the subjects to pick out the two that go together, the Americans would usually pick out the chicken and the cow. They’re both animals. Most Asian people, on the other hand, would pick out the cow and the hay, since cows depend on hay. Americans are more likely to see categories. Asians are more likely to see relationships. You can create a global continuum with the most individualistic societies — like the United States or Britain — on one end, and the most collectivist societies — like China or Japan — on the other. The individualistic countries tend to put rights and privacy first. People in these societies tend to overvalue their own skills and overestimate their own importance to any group effort. People in collective societies tend to value harmony and duty. They tend to underestimate their own skills and are more self-effacing when describing their contributions to group efforts. Researchers argue about why certain cultures have become more individualistic than others. Some say that Western cultures draw their values from ancient Greece, with its emphasis on individual heroism, while other cultures draw on more on tribal philosophies. Recently, some scientists have theorized that it all goes back to microbes. Collectivist societies tend to pop up in parts of the world, especially around the equator, with plenty of disease-causing microbes. In such an environment, you’d want to shun outsiders, who might bring strange diseases, and enforce a certain conformity over eating rituals and social behavior.Either way, individualistic societies have tended to do better economically. We in the West have a narrative that involves the development of individual reason and conscience during the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, and then the subsequent flourishing of capitalism. According to this narrative, societies get more individualistic as they develop.But what happens if collectivist societies snap out of their economic stagnation? What happens if collectivist societies, especially those in Asia, rise economically and come to rival the West? A new sort of global conversation develops.The opening ceremony in Beijing was a statement in that conversation. It was part of China’s assertion that development doesn’t come only through Western, liberal means, but also through Eastern and collective ones.The ceremony drew from China’s long history, but surely the most striking features were the images of thousands of Chinese moving as one — drumming as one, dancing as one, sprinting on precise formations without ever stumbling or colliding. We’ve seen displays of mass conformity before, but this was collectivism of the present — a high-tech vision of the harmonious society performed in the context of China’s miraculous growth. If Asia’s success reopens the debate between individualism and collectivism (which seemed closed after the cold war), then it’s unlikely that the forces of individualism will sweep the field or even gain an edge. For one thing, there are relatively few individualistic societies on earth. For another, the essence of a lot of the latest scientific research is that the Western idea of individual choice is an illusion and the Chinese are right to put first emphasis on social contexts.Scientists have delighted to show that so-called rational choice is shaped by a whole range of subconscious influences, like emotional contagions and priming effects (people who think of a professor before taking a test do better than people who think of a criminal). Meanwhile, human brains turn out to be extremely permeable (they naturally mimic the neural firings of people around them). Relationships are the key to happiness. People who live in the densest social networks tend to flourish, while people who live with few social bonds are much more prone to depression and suicide.The rise of China isn’t only an economic event. It’s a cultural one. The ideal of a harmonious collective may turn out to be as attractive as the ideal of the American Dream. It’s certainly a useful ideology for aspiring autocrats.