The Symbolism of Long：（龙）:The Sinic World in Perspective

TU Weiming
Peking University and Harvard University

“龙”的象征意义：视域中的汉文化世界

杜维明
北京大学、哈佛大学

Edwin Reschauer, in his seminal essay published in Foreign Affairs in 1974 argues against Japanese exceptionalism.  He critiques the assumption that Japan, unlike other countries in the Confucian cultural area, is unique in her ability to definitively depart from her feudal past, the outmoded Confucian legacy of Edo shogunate, and ingeniously embrace Western modernity.  This widely accepted interpretive stance of the Meiji Restoration assumes that, the main cultural difference between Japan and the other East Asian societies, notably China, was Japan’s ability to abandon her past mired in Confucian particularism and capture the wave of the future characterized by Western, especially American, universalism.

埃德温·雷绍尔在其颇具开创意义的论文（1974年发表于《外交事务》）中，明确反对日本“例外论”，批评这样的假设——即日本与其他儒家文化圈的国家不同，其独特性在于她能够完全脱离往昔的封建社会——江户幕府时代过时的儒家遗产，且独具创造性地接受了西方现代性。这种关于“明治维新”的诠释立场被广为接受，它认为日本与其他东亚社会（尤其是中国）的主要文化差异在于，她能够抛弃陷于儒家特殊主义的过去，抓住以西方（尤指美国）之普适性为特征的未来浪潮。

In light of Japan’s rapid economic rise only two decades after the disastrous defeat of World War II, a consensus emerged among East Asian scholars.  Japan’s economic miracle should be understood in terms of Japan success in her successful Westernization since 1868 when the Meiji intellectuals designed a developmental strategy based on Fukuzawa Ukiji’s vision of “detaching from Asia and entering Europe.”  Reschauer, however, argued that if Japan’s economic strength is attributable to deep-rooted cultural praxis such as the group spirit, hard work, frugality, delaying gratification, communal participation, elite responsibility, mutual aid, commitment to the public good, and meritocracy, we must put Japan in the context of the Sinic world.

鉴于日本在二战战败20多年后就实现了经济飞速增长，东亚学者之间达成了某种共识：日本的经济奇迹应从其始自1868年的成功西化理解；基于福泽谕吉“脱亚入欧”的愿景，明治时期的知识分子设计了发展策略。然而，雷绍尔却认为，如果日本的经济强大可归功于深层的文化实践，如团队精神、努力工作、节俭、延迟享乐、社会参与、精英意识、互助、致力公益及选贤举能，那么她必须被置入汉文化世界的语境之中。

Reschauer prophetically reasoned that culture matters and that, in additional to economic, political, and social factors, the “habits of the heart” feature prominently in Japan’s impressive GDP growth.  Following this seemingly straightforward assumptive reasoning, the leading Sinologist/Japanologist who also served as the American ambassador to Japan under the Kennedy Administration predicted the rise of South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore even before the coinage of the Four Mini-Dragons.  He also reasoned that, one year before the end of the Vietnam War (1975), Vietnam, a country blessed with profound Confucian heritage, would rise like a phoenix from the ashes of American militarism.  His short reference to mainland China is also memorable: if she became liberated from the dead hand of planned economy, she would also flourish.

雷绍尔先见性地指出不仅文化在日本GDP的大幅增长中起了重要作用，经济、政治和社会因素之外的“心理习惯”（habits of the heart）也表现突出。遵循这一看似简单的假定，这位重要的汉学家/日本学家（曾任肯尼迪内阁美国驻日大使）在“四小龙”一词被创造之前就预言了韩国、台湾、香港和新加坡的崛起。在越南战争结束的前一年（1975），雷绍尔又断言，获得儒家文化之丰厚滋养的越南，将在美国军国主义的战火中如凤凰般涅槃重生。令人记忆犹新的是他还简要地提到了中国大陆：如果能从计划经济的桎梏中获得自由，她也会繁荣富强。

  Roderic MacFarquhar, in his 1982 essay in the Economist, emphasizes the cultural factor in the “post-Confucian challenge” to the West.  He envisioned that what the post-Confucian countries, mainly Japan and industrial East Asia, symbolize is not simply military threat, like the Soviet Union, or economic threat, like the OPEC, but a holistic challenge involving most noticeably the cultural dimension to Western civilization.  Ezra Vogel’s systematic inquiry into industrial East Asian societies is also prophetic in underscoring the importance and significance of the Confucian cultural area for understanding the limits of Westernization.

在1982年发表于《经济学家》的论文中，罗德里克·麦克法夸尔强调了文化因素在应对西方的“后儒学的挑战”（post-Confucian challenge）中的重要性。他设想，“后儒学”国家（主要是日本及东亚的工业化国家）所代表的不仅仅是军事威胁（如苏联）或经济威胁（如“欧佩克”），而是一种全盘的挑战，其中最引人注目的就是在文化维度上对西方文明的挑战。埃兹拉·沃格尔对东亚工业社会的系统追问同样预言性地强调了儒家文化圈对于理解西化之局限的重要性和意义。

Implicit in this master narrative, the aforementioned Harvard professors have communally, if not self-consciously, advocated the thesis that the time is right for American scholars to perceive the Sinic world not as the “Far East,” the radical otherness on the other side of the Pacific, but a great and enduring civilization, despite all the calamities afflicted from the outside and domestically generated violence and barbarism, will continue to survive and flourish.  Indeed, its survivability and eventual flourishing carries a heuristic message for the English-speaking world with profound implication for the human community.

前述哈佛教授们的重要叙述，其隐而未发之意都在表明（即使不是自觉地），对于美国学者而言，是时候不再将汉文化世界视为“远东”（一个在太平洋对面的绝对的“他者”），而应将其视为一种广大而悠久的文明——尽管遭受了各种灾难（自外及自内的暴力与野蛮），但仍然顽强生存且渐趋繁荣。确实，她的生命力与最终的繁荣为英语世界带来了启示性的信息，同时揭示出人类社会的深刻内涵。

Dwight Perkins, the developmental economist with deep knowledge about things Chinese and a penetrating vision about how the Chinese economy actually worked, against overwhelming odds correctly predicted the rise of China as an economic giant in the early 1990s when the highly visible MIT professor Leslie Thurow boldly asserted that Germany was the winner in a three-way “head to head” competition on the world economic stage.  His justification for delegating the Chinese factor to the background was simply that statistically the size of the Chinese economy was merely one-tenth of that of the Japan’s.

当备受瞩目的麻省理工大学教授莱斯利·瑟罗声称在世界经济舞台的三向正面竞争中德国是胜利者时，深谙中国事务并对中国经济的实际运作见解独到的发展经济学家德怀特·珀金斯，力排众议，极为正确地预言了20世纪90年代初中国作为经济巨人的崛起。他将中国因素纳入考虑的原因仅仅是，当时中国的经济总量在数据上只为日本的十分之一。

Nowadays the dynamism of China as an economic giant and a political heavy weight is widely recognized, but the perception that it will take decades for China to become a cultural presence in the global community is pervasive.  In the international mass media, it is taken for granted that China does not have much soft power and the concerted effort on the part of the government to build it, such as the movement of the Confucius Institutes, is an uphill struggle.  Many Chinese officials and scholars share the pessimism and cynicism.

如今，中国作为经济巨人的活力和政治上的重要性已经得到普遍认同，但是关于中国需要几十年的时间才能从文化上在全球共同体中占据一席之地的观点仍很普遍。国际大众传媒想当然地认为，中国缺乏足够的软实力，政府为构建这一实力的协同努力（如孔子学院的兴建）也只是一种艰难的斗争。很多中国官员和学者都表现出同样的悲观与怀疑。

This essay does not offer an alternative predication.  Nor does it make an empirical observation about the likely scenario in the near future.  My intention is to present the symbolism of long as a way of offering a personal perspective on the Sinic world as a cultural system for the 21st century:

本文并不想提供一种非此即彼的论断，也不想对未来之可能方案提供经验性的观察。我的意图是呈现“龙”的象征意义，为作为21世纪的文化系统之一的汉文化世界提供某种个人性的视域：

  1. A methodological note. Personal rather than private.
  2. Distinctive characteristics of Chinese civilization: creative, fluid,  dynamic, inclusive, transformative, all-embracing, comprehensive, cosmopolitan, and synergetic.
  3. Modes of symbolization:
  1. Composite totem
  2. The Five Agents
  3. Border crossing
  4. The concept of Heaven
  5. Core values in the Confucian tradition
  6. Reflection on the Enlightenment mentality of the modern West
  7. Comprehensive and integrated “spiritual humanism”  

(Prepared for the 4th International Conference on Sinology sponsored by Renming University, November 3, 2012) 

⑴ 方法论上的注释。个人性的而非私人性的。

⑵ 中华文明的独特性：创造的、流动的、动态的、包容的、变易的、包罗万象的、综合的、世界性的和和合的。

⑶ 象征化的模式：

  • ⒈综合性的图腾
  • ⒉五行
  • ⒊越界
  • ⒋天的概念
  • ⒌儒家传统的核心价值
  • ⒍对现代西方之启蒙精神的反思