重磅新书 | 国家“心理学”：评戴蒙德的《激变》

贾雷德·戴蒙德（Jared Diamond）

这本书目前尚无中文版，可略译为《大变革》或《巨变》。本书试图通过分析世界历史上七次大的社会变革，将心理学内容套用到国家层面，从而指导国家应对危机和变革，视角独特，但在书评中，作者十分不认同这一做法，并从历史的复杂性、偶然性，解读历史的众多视角以及面对现代社会问题时政党团队的分歧等方面进行了论述。态度鲜明，观点明确。精读此类文章，能够使我们在准确用词表达观点方面得到提高。 implausible、quixotic、fanciful等词都相当精准。文中对于芬兰是Scandinavian国家还是Nordic国家的质疑，略显吹毛求疵。对此，我简单搜索了一下，做为一个冷知识附在文末。

Upheaval: How Nations Cope with Crisis and Change. By Jared Diamond.Little, Brown and Company; 512 pages; $35. Allen Lane; £25.

译文

Learning from the past （以史为鉴）

The psychology of nations

国家“心理学”

A bold overview of major crises illuminates the slipperiness of history 

对大变革事件的概览以期搞定棘手的历史

从书本身看，这本书没有成功。但作为对这浮躁的世界的思考，这本书还是值得一读。

Jared Diamond sets out to construct a diagnostic framework for political systems in turmoil. What enables some societies to cope with a crisis but condemns others to mayhem? Do past crises reveal patterns that could guide today’s leaders as they gaze into the contemporary abyss? Mr Diamond readily acknowledges that his book is just a first stab at answering these questions. He hopes that Upheaval will encourage other scholars to take up his ideas and mould them into something more rigorous. It may instead convince them that the project is doomed.

贾雷德·戴蒙德的目标是给混乱的政治体系建立一套诊断准则。是什么授权一些社会体制仅仅通过将骚乱的源由归咎于他人的办法来处置危机？以往处置危机的模式能否在现代领导者面临危机时提供参考？戴蒙德自认为本书是首次尝试解答这类问题。他希望《激变》会促使其它学者接受书中观点，并将其塑造的更为缜密。而不是告诉他们这一尝试注定失败。

Even so, the journey towards failure, via seven countries at turning-points in their pasts, is enjoyable and informative. Mr Diamond is the doyen of a class of scientifically literate, anthropologically aware and culturally astute thinkers. He is an enlightened guide and a sympathetic observer. Though “Upheaval” cannot achieve its implausible goals, this quixotic effort illuminates what it means to learn from history.

尽管结果注定失败，对七个国家历史转折点的分析之旅，也是有趣也有价值的。戴蒙德是有科学素养、有人类学意识、精通相关文化的思想者团体的元老。他是睿智的向导和敏感的观察者。虽然《激变》未能实现他的远大目标，这一大胆的尝试探讨了向历史学习的意义。

The idea at the heart of “Upheaval” is that the insights which help people cope with personal crises, such as crushing disappointment, divorce or bereavement, can also shed light on those that afflict states. Therapists seek to get their patients to acknowledge that they are in trouble and that they are empowered to do something about it. Individuals can learn from the behaviour of others. They can identify what it is about them that needs to change—and what should remain the same.

《激变》的核心理念是人们处理类似严重挫折、离婚、亲友丧亡等情感危机时体现的能力，也能用于处理国家范围的危机。心理治疗师寻求使患者认识到他们出现了问题，也需要解决问题。单一个体能够从其它个体行为中学习。能够分辨出哪些要改变，哪些要保留。

Countries are not people, of course. But Mr Diamond believes the parallels are instructive. Are a country’s politicians and media honest about their situation? Do they take responsibility for fixing a problem, or simply blame others? Can they learn from what has happened elsewhere? Are they willing to adapt, even as they cleave to what makes their society work?

当然，国家肯定不同于个人。而戴蒙德相信将两者类比是有帮助的。政客和媒体是否诚信？是否负责任地解决问题，还是简单的归咎于他人？是否从其它事故中吸取经验？是否与时俱进？

As the spectre of nationalist populism hovers overhead, “Upheaval” develops this framework by examining such crises as the modernisation of Japan after Matthew Perry’s black ships sailed into Tokyo bay in 1853, the mass slaughter when Indonesia put down a communist revolt in 1965 and the coup against Salvador Allende in Chile in 1973.

出于对萦绕在头顶的国家民粹主义的恐惧，《激变》一书通过调查下述危机来完成判断原则，这些危机包括1853年黑船事件后日本的现代化进程，1965年印尼镇压共产党的大屠杀，1973年智利针对总统萨尔瓦多·阿连德的政变。

Finland’s dealings with the existential threat from the Soviet Union during and after the second world war are another good example. Mr Diamond reckons that Finnish leaders displayed many of the coping characteristics of resilient individuals. They were brutally realistic about their vulnerability. Finland is a small place that could not depend on help from other countries; its best chance of remaining independent was to persuade the Soviet Union that it was not worth conquering. That meant fighting to the last man when Soviet troops invaded during the war, but then working closely with Moscow in peace time, even though Stalin had just ravaged eastern Finland. By following this pragmatically deferential policy—which came to be known as “Finlandisation”—Finns conceded what they had to, but would not compromise over their independence.

二战及其之后时期，芬兰应对来自苏联的生存威胁也是一个好的例子。戴蒙德认为芬兰领导人在处理国家危机时展示出了很多的单一个体应对危机时的性格特征。他们清醒的认识到自身的脆弱。芬兰领土狭小不能依靠其它国家的帮助。保持独立的唯一机会就是使苏联认识到芬兰不值得占领。意思是在一旦苏军入侵，芬兰将战斗到最后一人；但如果保持和平，则会配合莫斯科的意图。即使这样，S大林还是侵吞了芬兰东部领土。执行这一被称为“芬兰化”的务实妥协政策，也不得不这样做，保证了芬兰的独立。

Here Mr Diamond’s method tells you plenty about Finland’s travails in the 20th century. But as an exercise in political science it falls short. You cannot compress history into a self-help guide. For one thing, even if the grand sweep is relayed accurately, it is a superhuman task to gather the underlying facts—even the assiduous Mr Diamond labels Finland “Scandinavian” when Finns call themselves Nordic. For another, the notion that individual psychology can be projected onto nations is fanciful. People talk about a “national character”, but it is a slippery metaphor that leads to cartoonish over-simplification.

戴蒙德的书披露了20世纪芬兰为此所做的大量努力。但这并不能做为政治科学的实例。你不能将历史浓缩为自助指南。原因之一是即使历史大事件的记录足够精准，但收集相关事实的任务也只有超人能做到—即使勤勉如戴蒙德，也将芬兰称为“北欧”，而芬兰人自称为“斯堪的纳维亚”。另一方面，将个体心理学的概念套用在国家上也过于异想天开。人们使用国家性格一词，是对其简单卡通化不恰当隐喻。

Most of all, Mr Diamond’s approach depends upon a flawed understanding of what history is. For his scheme to succeed, he needs to be able to pin history down to an interpretation, as if it were a laboratory specimen. History is not so compliant. In a scientific sense it is unique—an experiment without controls. In another way it is too abundant, overflowing with facts that might or might not be salient. The past is endlessly open to interpretation, as historians rifle through it for the perspectives that grab them.

最重要的是，戴蒙德先生的方案依赖于对历史是什么这一问题的不完善的理解。为了使用他的设想成立，需要像对待实验样本一样，强行解读历史。历史不是如此单一。在科学的角度，历史是独一无二的，就像是一次无法掌控的试验。换个角度，历史也是繁杂的，充斥着或明或暗的史实。像历史学家因切入视角而忙碌一样，对历史解读有无数种结果。

To crown it all, supposing you can agree on the meaning of the past, Mr Diamond’s method requires a consensus about the challenges of the present, too. Good luck with that in Westminster or Washington.

为了涵盖所有，假定你同意历史的意义，戴蒙德的方案也需要就现实挑战达成一致。但愿他能在华盛顿（美国议院）或威斯敏斯特（英国议院）取得好运。

Those who do not want to repeat it should learn history. Mr Diamond is right about that. But the lesson it teaches comes as a parable, not an algorithm.

不想重蹈覆辙的话就应该学习历史，戴蒙德的做法是对的。但历史留给我们的是寓言而不是算法。