综合英语.西方思想经典选读(常俊跃黄滔)_Text B The One Against the Many（1 / 1）_综合英语.西方思想经典选读最新章节免费阅读无弹窗

Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.

Pre-reading

Arthur Meier Schlesinger (October 15, 1917-February 28, 2007) is one of the most influential American historian of the 20th century and winner of the 1946 Pulitzer Prize in History. Starting his career as a Harvard professor of history, he has also been a renowned educator, social critic and public intellectual. Much of Schlesinger’s work focused on the exploration of 20th century American liberalism and he had been an intellectual beacon for American liberals since 1940s.

Schlesinger served as special assistant to President Kennedy from 1961 to 1963. He wrote a detailed account of the Kennedy administration, from the 1960 presidential campaign to the president’s state funeral, titled A Thousand Days: J ohn F. Kennedy in the White House, which won the 1966 Pulitzer Prize in Biography or Autobiography. Schlesinger returned to teaching in 1966 as the Albert Schweitzer Professor of the Humanities at the Graduate Center of The City University of New York. After he retired from teaching in 1994, he remained involved in politics for the rest of his life through his books and public speaking tours.

Prompts for Your Reading

1.What does the title The One Against the Many mean? Find out the meaning of “one”and“many” in the passage.

2.In what way does the author believe the American experience to be instructive to new states seeking national development?

3.What factors contributed to American development according to the author? Which factor is fundamental?

4.What does the author mean by “an ideological society” (Paragraph 6)?

5.What does the author mean by ideology?

6.What does the “fox” stand for? How is the fox different from the “hedgehog”?

7.How does the author interpret the relationship between experience and abstraction?

8.How does the author differentiate ideal and ideology?

9.How is Thomas Jefferson related to the notions of ideal and ideology respectively according to the author?

10.What is wrong with faith in ideology?

11.How would an ideologist interpret human history?

12.What is meant by “the mixed society” and “the mixed economy” (Paragraph 19)?

13.How do ideologists and pragmatists see the world differently?

14.How do ideologists and pragmatists define truth differently?

[1] In an epoch dominated by the aspirations of new states for national development, it is instructive to recall that the united States itself began as an underdeveloped country.

[2] Every country, of course, has its distinctive development problems and must solve them according to its own traditions, capacities, and values. The American experience was unique in a number of ways. The country was blessed by notable advantages — above all, by the fact that population was scarce in relation to available resources. But the favorable ratio between population and resources was obviously not the only factor in American development. Had that been so, the Indians, for whom the ratio was even more favorable, would have developed the country long before the first settlers arrived from over the seas. What mattered equally was the spirit in which these settlers approached the economic and social challenges offered by the environment. Several elements seemed fundamental to the philosophy which facilitated the rapid social and economic development of the American continent.

[3] One factor was the deep faith in education. The belief that investment in people is the most essential way for a society to devote its resources existed from the earliest days of the American colonies. It arose originally from a philosophical rather than an economic commitment — from a faith in the dignity of man and from the resulting belief that it is the responsibility of society to offer man the opportunity to develop his highest potentialities. But, at the same time, it also helped produce the conditions essential to successful modernization.

[4] Modern industrial society must be above all a literate society. Economic historians attribute two-thirds of the growth in American output over the centuries of American development to increases in productivity. And increases in productivity, of course, come directly from the size of national investment in education and in research. J. K. Galbraith had rightly observed that “a dollar or a rupee invested in the intellectual improvement of human beings will regularly bring a greater increase in national income than a dollar or a rupee devoted to railways, dams, machine tools, or other tangible capital goods.” These words accurately report the American national experience.

[5] Another factor in the process of American development has been the commitment to self-government and representative institutions1. We have found no better way than democracy to fulfill man’s talents and release his energies. A related factor had been the conviction of the importance of personal freedom and personal initiative — the feeling that the individual is the source of creativity. Another has been the understanding of the role of cooperative activity, public as well as voluntary.

[6] But fundamental to all of these, and perhaps the single most important explanation of the comparative speed of American development, has been the national rejection of dogmatic preconceptions about the nature of the social and economic order. America has had the good fortune not to be an ideological society.

[7] By ideology I mean a body of systematic and rigid dogma by which people seek to understand the world — and to preserve or transform it. The conflict between ideology and empiricism has, of course, been old in human history. In the record of this conflict, ideology has attracted some of the strongest intelligences mankind has produced — those whom Sir Isaiah Berlin, termed the “hedgehogs”, who knows one big thing, as against the “foxes”, who know many small things.

[8] Nor can one suggest that Americans have been consistently immune to the ideological temptation — to the temptation, that is, to define national goals in an ordered, comprehensive, and permanent way. After all, the American mind was conditioned2 by one of the noblest and most formidable structures of analysis ever devised, Calvinist theology3, and any intellect so shaped was bound to have certain vulnerability to secular ideology ever after. There have been hedgehogs throughout American history who have attempted to endow America with an all-inclusive creed, to translate Americanism into a set of binding propositions, and to construe the national tradition in terms of one or another ultimate law.

[9] Yet most of the time Americans have foxily mistrusted abstract rationalism and rigid a priori4doctrine. Our national faith has been not in propositions but in processes. In its finest hours, the united States has, so to speak5, risen above6 ideology. It has not permitted dogma to falsify reality, imprison experience, or narrow the spectrum of choice. This skepticism about ideology has been a primary source of the social inventiveness which has marked so much of development. The most vital American social thought has been empirical, practical, pragmatic. America, in consequence, has been at its most characteristic a nation of innovation and experiment.

[10] Pragmatism is no more wholly devoid of abstractions than ideology is wholly devoid of experience. The dividing line comes when abstractions and experience collide and one must give way to the other. At this point the pragmatist rejects abstractions and, the ideologist rejects experience. The early history of the republic illustrates the difference. The American Revolution was a pragmatic effort conducted in terms of certain general values. The colonists fought for independence in terms of7 British ideals of civil freedom and representative government; they rebelled against British rule essentially for British reasons. The ideals of American independence found expression in the classical documents which accompanied the birth of the nation: the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

[11] But it is important here to insist on the distinction between ideals and ideology. Ideals refer to the long-run goals of a nation and the spirit in which these goals are pursued. Ideology is something different, more systematic, more detailed, more comprehensive, more dogmatic. The case of one of the Founding Fathers, Thomas Jefferson, emphasizes the distinction. Jefferson was an expounder both of ideals and of ideology. As an expounder of ideals, he remains a vivid and fertile figure — alive, not only for Americans but, I believe, for all those interested in human dignity and human liberty. As an ideologist, however, Jefferson is today remote8—a figure not of present concern but of historical curiosity. As an ideologist, he believed, for example, that agriculture was the only basis of a good society; that the small freehold system9 was the only foundation for freedom; that the honest and virtuous cultivator10 was the only reliable citizen for a democratic state; that an economy based on agriculture was self-regulating and, therefore, required a minimum of government; that that government was best which governed least; and that the great enemies of a free state were, on the one hand, urbanization, industry, banking, a landless working class, and all the other things which we know as characteristic of the modernization process, and, on the other hand, a strong national government with power to give direction to national development. This was Jefferson’s ideology, and had the united States responded to it, we would be today a feeble and impotent nation. By responding to Jefferson’s ideals rather than to his ideology, the united States has become a strong modern state.

[12] Fortunately, Jefferson himself preferred his ideals to his ideology. In case of conflict he chose what helped people rather than what conformed to principle. Indeed, the whole ideological enterprise contradicted Jefferson’s temper, which was basically flexible and experimental. The true Jefferson is not the ideological Jefferson but the Jefferson who said that one generation could not commit the next to its view of public policy or human destiny.

[13] What is wrong with faith in ideology? The trouble is this. An ideology is not a picture of actuality; it is a model derived from actuality, a model designed to isolate certain salient features of actuality which the model builder, the ideologist, regards as of crucial importance. An ideology, in other words, is an abstraction from reality. There is nothing wrong with abstraction or models per se11. In fact, we could not conduct discourse12 without them. There is nothing wrong with them — so long, that is, as people remember they are only models. The ideological fallacy is to forget that ideology is an abstraction from reality and to regard it as reality itself.

[14] The besetting sin of the ideologist, in short, is to confuse his own tidy models with the vast, turbulent, unpredictable, and untidy reality which is the stuff13 of human experience. And this confusion has at least two bad results — it commits those who believe in ideology to a fatalistic view of history, and it misleads them about concrete choices of public policy.

[15] Consider for a moment the ideologist’s view of history. The ideologist contends that the mysteries of history can be understood in terms of a clear-cut, absolute, social creed which explains the past and forecasts the future. Ideology thus presupposes a closed universe whose history is determined, whose principles are fixed, whose values and objectives are deducible from a central body of social dogma and often whose central dogma is confided14 to the custody of an infallible priesthood15. In the old philosophic debates between the one and the many, the ideologist stands with the one. It is his belief that the world as a whole can be understood from a single viewpoint that everything in the abundant and streaming life of man is reducible to a single abstract system of interpretation.

[16] The American tradition has found this view of human history repugnant and false. This tradition sees the world as many, not as one. These empirical instincts, the preference for fact over logic, for deed over dogma, have found their most brilliant expression in the writings of William James16 and in the approach to philosophical problems which James called “radical empiricism”. Against the belief in the all-encompassing power of a single explanation, against the commitment to the absolutism of ideology, against the notion that all answers to political and social problems can be found in the back of some sacred book17, against the deterministic interpretation of history, against the closed universe, James stood for what he called the unfinished universe — a universe marked by growth, variety, ambiguity, mystery, and contingency — a universe where free men may find partial truths, but where no mortal man will ever get an absolute grip on Absolute Truth, a universe where social progress depends not on capitulation to a single, all-consuming body of doctrine, but on the uncoerced intercourse of unconstrained minds.

[17] Thus ideology and pragmatism differ radically in their views of history. They differ just as radically in their approach to issues of public policy. The ideologist, by mistaking models for reality, always misleads as to the possibilities and consequences of public decision. The history of the twentieth century is a record of the manifold ways in which humanity has been betrayed by ideology.

[18] Let us take an example from contemporary history. It is evident now, for example, that the choice between private and public means18, that choice which has obsessed so much recent political and economic discussion in underdeveloped countries, is not a matter of religious principle. It is not a moral issue to be decided on absolutist grounds, either by those on the right19 who regard the use of public means as wicked and sinful, or by those on the left20 who regard the use of private means wicked and sinful. It is simply a practical question as to which means can best achieve the desired end. It is a problem to be answered not by theology but by experience and experiment. Indeed, I would suggest that we might well banish some overloaded words21 from intellectual discourse. They belong to the vocabulary of demagoguery, not to the vocabulary of analysis.

[19] So, with the invention of the mixed society, pragmatism has triumphed over absolutism. As a consequence, the world is coming to understand that the mixed economy offered the instrumentalities through which one can unite social control with individual freedom. But ideology is a drug; no matter how much it is exposed by experience, the craving for it still persists. That craving will, no doubt, always persists, so long as there is human hunger for an all-embracing, all-explanatory system, so long indeed as political philosophy is shaped by the compulsion to return to the womb.

[20] The oldest philosophical problem, we have noted, is the relationship between the one and the many. Surely the basic conflict of our times is precisely the conflict between those who would reduce the world to one and those who see the world as many —between those who believe that the world is evolving in a single direction, along a single predestined line, toward a single predestined conclusion, and those who think that humanity in the future, as in the past, will continue to evolve in divers directions, toward diverse conclusions, according to the diverse traditions, values, and purposes of divers peoples. It is a choice, in short, between dogmatism and pragmatism, between the theological society and the experimental society.

[21] Ideologists are afraid of the free flow of ideas, even of deviant ideas within their own ideology. They are convinced they have a monopoly on the Truth. Therefore they always feel that they are only saving the world when they slaughter the heretics. Their objective remains that of making the world over22 in the image of their dogmatic ideology. The goal is a monolithic world, organized on the principle of infallibility — but the only certainty in an absolute system is the certainty of absolute abuse.

[22] The goal of free men is quite different. Free men know many truths, but they doubt whether any mortal man knows the Truth. Their religious and their intellectual heritage join in leading them to suspect fellow men who lay claim to infallibility. They believe that there is no greater delusion than for man to mistake himself for God. They accept the limitations of the human intellect and the infirmity of the human spirit. The distinctive human triumph, in their judgment, lies in the capacity to understand the frailty of human striving but to strive nonetheless.

Notes

1.self-government and representative institutions: government of a group by the action of its own members, as in electing representatives to make its laws自治和代议制机构

2.condition: to influence people over a period of time so that they do certain things or think in a particular way

3.Calvinist theology: Calvinist theology is a system of theological thought from John Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion, including the ideas of predestination, elect, covenant and calling. Calvinist believers hold that faith, rather than sins, is what will save them.

4.a priori: (Latin) (knowledge, argument, reason or probability) based on an assumed principle, rather than on actual observed facts or experience

5.so to speak: as it were, in a manner of speaking可谓，可以说

6.rise above: be not affected or hindered by摆脱，克服，战胜

7.in terms of: in the principle of, on the basis of 依据

8.remote: irrelevant and out of date

9.small freehold system: 小产权制度

10.cultivator: farmer 农民

11.per se: by itself or in itself

12.discourse: communication of ideas and information through conversation or discussion

13.stuff: substance, or substantial nature 核心内容，本质

14.confided: revealed, told as if in private

15.the custody of an infallible priesthood: the control or guardianship by the chosen few who will never go wrong or make mistakes

16.William James: (1842-1910) an original, independent thinker in the fields of physiology, psychology and philosophy. He studied and taught at Harvard University. His masterpiece, The Principles of Psychology, contains seeds of pragmatism and has influenced generations of thinkers in Europe and America. In his later work, Pragmatism: A New Name for Old Ways of Thinking (1907), James propounded his theories of pragmatism, the quintessential American philosophy.

17.in the back of some sacred book: in the last few concluding pages of certain book that shall not be challenged, questioned or disobeyed

18.private and public means: Private means is characterized by private ownership of land and other assets, market economy and free trade; public means is characterized by state ownership and government planned economy. 此处可理解为私有制和公有制。

19.on the right: politically conservative and traditional, supporting the ideals of capitalism右翼的

20.on the left: politically supporting the ideas of socialism左翼的

21.overloaded words: words with emotional or political meanings that are likely to excite emotions or cause emotional response

22.make the world over: remake or transform the world

Questions for Further Thinking

1.In what way do you think education is conducive to the dignity of man?

2.Apart from investment in education and research, what other factors may bring about the increase of productivity?

3.According to the author, creativity and innovation can be facilitated by a number of factors. What are they? Which do you think is most essential?

4.How would a “fox” interpret, preserve and transform the world? How would a“hedgehog” do these things differently?

5.How would you evaluate proposition and process? In what ways do your tradition and education influence your interpretation of the two?

6.If Jefferson explains the distinction between ideal and ideology, can you find examples from Chinese history to explain the same thing?

7.How come the United States did not respond to Jefferson’s ideology? Explore the history of the united States and find out how the country started to develop in the direction of industrialization and urbanization.

8.Why do you think there is always human hunger for an all-embracing, all-explanatory system of rigid dogma?

9.The author says “the only certainty in an absolute system is the certainty of absolute abuse”. (Paragraph 21) Do you agree? Why or why not?

10.Was there a time in your life when you fell victim to an ideological belief? What lessons have you learned from it?

11.The author claims that America is not an ideological society. Is this completely true, particularly concerning American foreign policies?

After-reading Assignment

Oral Work

1.Explore the history of the development of China in the past century. Was there a time when China suffered great setback because of dogmatism and ideology? Share your findings and your critical evaluation of them with your classmates in a 3-minute presentation.

2.Following the principles of non-interference and peaceful co-existence in dealing with international affairs, China remains committed to pushing world multi-polarization, and advocates democracy in international relations and diversity in development models. Conduct a case study and find out how such principles work in the complexities of the world today. Report your case to your classmates.

3.How can a person avoid being ideological but at the same time stay focused on an ideal in terms of personal choice and personal life? Is there any true contradiction between being determined and being flexible? Discuss this questions with your parents, classmates, and friends online and offline. Summarize the opinions you get and report them in an organized way to your classmates.

4.Do you know any fables, folktales or idioms, in Chinese or in any other language or culture, that reveal the nature of ideology or pragmatism? Tell the story or explain the idioms to your classmates.

Written Work

1.Although this passage involves many complex concepts and the intricate relationships between these concepts, the author manages to navigate through them with ease and clarity. How does the author organize his ideas? Work on the structure of this passage and draw an idea flow chart to illustrate the movement of ideas and thoughts in this passage.

2.In order to help readers distinguish “ideal” and “ideology”, the author explicitly defined these two terms and further contrasted them by using examples and details. Combining definition, exemplification, comparison and contrast is an effective way to make clear the distinction between two related but different concepts. Follow this way and write an essay to define and contrast “model” and “actuality”. You can use the ideas given by the author for your reference.

3.The “China experience”, or the remarkable achievements of China’s opening and reform in the past few decades, is not only a matter of national progress, but also a matter of research interest that can provide guidance and inspiration to other nations. Find out what philosophical factors have facilitated the rapid social and economic development of China. Then write a summary to review what you have learned.

4.The author believes that in this universe free men may find partial truths, but no mortal man will ever get an absolute grip on Absolute Truth. How is this view related to what Russell says about the value of philosophy? Write a report summarizing what you have learned from both passages and telling how philosophy can offer instruction to individuals on both theoretical and practical levels.