On Thinking for One’s Self论独立思考

A. G.加德纳 林羽竹

A friend of mine， to whom I owe so much of my gossip that I sometimes think that he does the work and I only take the collection， told me the other day of an incident at a picture exhibition which struck me as significant of a good deal that is wrong with us to-day. He observed two people in ecstasies before a certain landscape. It was quite a nice picture， but my friend thought their praises were extravagant. Suddenly one of the two turned to the catalogue. “Why， this is not the Leader picture at all，” said she. “It is No. So-and-so.” And forthwith the two promptly turned away from the picture they had been admiring so strenuously， found No. So-and-so， and fell into raptures before that.

Now I am not going to make fun of these people. I am not going to make fun of them because I am not sure that I don’t suffer from their infirmity. If I don’t I am certainly an exceptional person， for the people who really think for themselves are almost as scarce as virtuous people were found to be in the Cities of the Plain1. We are most of us second-hand thinkers， and second-hand thinkers are not thinkers at all. Those good people before the picture were not thinking their own thoughts： they were thinking what they thought was the right thing to think. They had the luck to find themselves out. Probably it did not do them any good， but at least they knew privately what humbugs they were， what empty echoes of an echo they had discovered themselves to be. They had been taught—heaven help them！—to admire those vacant prettinesses of Leader and they were so docile that they admired anything they believed to be his even when it wasn’t his.

It reminds me of the story of the two Italians who quarrelled so long and so bitterly over the relative merits of Tasso and Ariosto that at last they fought a duel. And as they lay dying on the ground one of them said to the other， “And to think that I have never read a line of them.” “Nor I either，” said the other. Then they expired. I do not suppose that story is true in fact， but it is true in spirit. Men are always dying for other people’s opinions， prejudices they have inherited from somebody else， ideas they have borrowed second-hand. Many of us go through life without ever having had a genuine thought of our own on any subject of the mind. We think in flocks and once in the flock we go wherever the bellwether leads us.

It is not only the ignorant who are afflicted with this servility of mind. Horace Walpole was enraptured with the Rowley Poems when he thought they were the work of a mediæval monk： when he found they were the work of Chatterton himself his interest in them ceased and he behaved to the poet like a cad. Yet the poems were far more wonderful as the productions of the “marvellous boy” of sixteen than they would have been as the productions of a man of sixty. The literary world of the eighteenth century thought Ossian2 hardly inferior to Homer; but when Macpherson’s forgery was indisputable it dropped the imposture into the deepest pit of oblivion. Yet， as poetry， it was as good or bad—I have never read it—in the one case as in the other.

There is a delicious story told by Anatole France which bears on this subject. In some examination in Paris the Military Board gave the candidates a piece of dictation consisting of an unsigned page. It was printed in the papers as an example of bad French. “Wherever did these military fellows，” it was asked， “find such a farrago of uncouth and ridiculous phrases？” In his own literary circles Anatole France himself heard the passage held up to laughter and torn to tatters. The critic who laughed loudest， he says， was an enthusiastic admirer of Michelet. Yet the passage was from Michelet himself， from Michelet at his best， from Michelet in his finest period. How the great sceptic must have enjoyed that evening！

It is not that we cannot think. It is that we are afraid to think. It is so much easier to go with the tide than against it， to shout with the crowd than to stand lonely and suspect in the midst of it. Even some of us who try to escape this hypnotism of the flock do not succeed in thinking independently. We only succeed in getting into other flocks. Think of that avalanche of crazy art that descended on us some years ago， the Cubists and Dottists and Spottists and Futurists and other cranks， who filled London with their shows， and set all the “advanced” people singing their praises. They were not real praises that expressed genuine feeling. They were the artificial enthusiasms of people who wanted to join in the latest fashion. They would rave over any imbecility rather than not be in the latest fashion—rather than not be thought clever enough to find a meaning in things that had no meaning.

We are too timid to think alone， too humble to trust our own feeling or our own judgment. We want some authority to lean up against， and when we have got it we mouth its shibboleths with as little independent thought as children reciting the “twice-times” table. I would rather a man should think ignorantly than that he should be merely an echo. I once heard an Evangelical clergyman in the pulpit， speaking of Shakespeare， gravely remark that he “could never see anything in that writer.” I smiled at his naïveté， but I respected his courage. He couldn’t see anything in Shakespeare and he was too honest to pretend that he could. That is far better than the affectations with which men conceal the poverty of their minds and their intellectual servility.

In other days the man that dared to think for himself ran the risk of being burned. Giordano Bruno， who was himself burned， has left us a description of the Oxford of his day which shows how tyrannical established thought can be. Aristotle was almost as sacred as the Bible， and the University statutes enacted that “Bachelors and Masters who did not follow Aristotle faithfully were liable to a fine of five shillings for every point of divergence and for every fault committed against the Logic of the Organon.” We have liberated thought from the restraints of the policeman and the executioner since then， but in liberating it we have lost our reverence for its independence and integrity. We are free to think as we please， and so most of us cease to think at all， and follow the fashions of thought as servilely as we follow the fashions in hats.

The evil， I suppose， lies in our education. We standardise our children. We aim at making them like ourselves instead of teaching them to be themselves—new incarnations of the human spirit， new prophets and teachers， new adventurers in the wilderness of the world. We are more concerned about putting our thoughts into their heads than in drawing their thoughts out， and we succeed in making them rich in knowledge but poor in wisdom. They are not in fear of the stake， but they are in fear of the judgment of the world， which has no more title to respect than those old statutes of Oxford which we laugh at to-day. The truth， I fear， is that thought does not thrive on freedom. It only thrives under suppression. We need to have our liberties taken away from us in order to discover that they are worth dying for.

不久前，我的一位朋友（我從他那里得到的内幕消息如此之多，以至于我有时认为，他才是为报社写新闻稿的人，而我只是个收集者）告诉了我一件发生在画展上的事。我认为这件事很重要，它让我们了解到现在的问题。他注意到有两个人在某幅风景画前显得很是入迷。那幅画相当不错，但我朋友认为他们的夸赞有点儿过。突然，那两人中的一人看向作品一览表。她说：“哎呀，这画根本就不是首推画，首推的是某某号。”然后，两人便毫不犹豫地离开了刚刚还在热烈赞美的那幅画，找到了某某号，又心醉神迷地看起来。

我不是要在此笑话这些人。之所以不会笑话他们，是因为我不能确定自己没有他们这个缺点。如果我没有，那我肯定是个出类拔萃的人，因为真正独立思考的人几乎就同《平原上的城市》中有德行的人一样稀少。大多数人都是二手思考者，而这样的思考者根本不算思考者。最初那幅画作前驻足夸赞的善心人没有自己的想法：他们想的是他们认为对的事。他们有幸发现了自我。这或许不能给他们带来任何好处，但至少他们私下发现了自己是什么样的骗子，是对某回声所作的多么空洞的附和。他们受到的教育——老天爷，帮帮他们吧！——就是欣赏首推画作种种空虚的美丽，他们是如此顺从，以至于只要他们认为是那位画家的作品，他们就予以赞美，即使那其实不是他创作的。

这让我想起关于两个意大利人的故事：他们为了塔索与阿里奥斯托的优缺点而争吵，吵了很长时间，并且非常激烈，最终以决斗了结。当二人躺在地上奄奄一息时，一个人对另一个人说：“想了想，这两人的作品我一句也没读过。”另一个说：“我也没读过。”然后他们便断了气。我不认为故事是真的，但其内在意义是真的。人们总是为他人的意见争得你死我活，即从他人那里继承的偏见、传播的二手观点。很多人终其一生都不曾对任何需要思考的事物有过真正属于自己的想法。我们人云亦云，一旦从众，就只会盲目跟从意见领袖。

遭受这种思维奴性之苦的不只是无知的人。贺拉斯·沃波尔曾对《罗利诗集》很入迷，他以为这是一位中世纪僧人的作品;当他发现这本诗集是查特顿本人的作品时，他立马就没了兴趣，还像个无赖似的对待那位诗人。然而，同样那些诗，出自一个16岁的“了不起的男孩”可比出自一个60岁的老翁要精彩得多了。18世纪文学界的人认为，奥西恩几乎不亚于荷马;不过，当麦克弗森的伪作被坐实后，该作品被扔进了遗忘的深渊。然而，作为诗歌，好坏是不变的（我尚未读过那些诗）。

阿纳托尔·法郎士讲过一个有趣的故事，就是关于这个话题的。在巴黎举行的某场考试中，陆军部发给参加考试的人一页没有作者名字的听写材料。这份材料还作为糟糕法语的典型上了报。有人质问：“军队里这些人究竟是从哪里找到如此不雅的荒唐文字的？”在法郎士所处的文学圈子中，他听到人们嘲笑、贬低那段文字。他说，笑得最响的评论家是米舍莱的狂热崇拜者。然而，这段文字就出自米舍莱本人，是处于最佳状态、处于创作巅峰期的米舍莱写的。那个伟大的怀疑论者那天晚上如果听说了这个故事一定很开心！

我们并非不能思考，而是害怕思考。随波逐流要比逆流而行容易得多，人云亦云要比独持质疑容易得多。即使我们之中一些想逃离群体性催眠的人也没能做到独立思考，只是成功进入了其他群体。想想几年前我们遭遇的那场疯狂艺术的雪崩吧。立体派、圆点派、斑点派、未来派和其他形形色色的古怪画家，在伦敦大搞画展，让所有的“开明”人士为他们大唱赞歌。那些不是表达真情实感的真赞美，只是想跻身最新时尚之人的假热情。他们会热烈赞美任何愚蠢的言行，只要能跟上最新潮流，只要不会被认为不够聪明，无法在毫无意义的事物中找到意义。

我们太胆小，以至于不能独自思考;我们太谦虚，以至于不能相信自己的感情或者判断。我们想依靠某些专家，当我们有了专家，我们就会说专家说过的话，像背诵死板表格的儿童一样不做独立思考。我宁愿有人无知地思考，也不愿看到他只是做个传声筒。我曾听到一位福音派神职人员在讲坛上谈到莎士比亚，他严肃地表示，他“从未发现那位作家有何过人之处”。他的质朴让我发笑，但我尊重他的勇气。他发现不了莎士比亚有任何过人之处，他也太过诚实，不肯装出能欣赏的样子。这比人们为掩盖思想的贫乏和智力的奴性而装出的样子要好多了。

如果是从前，敢于独立思考的人要冒被烧死的风险。佐旦奴·布鲁诺就是被烧死的，他为我们描写了当时的牛津大学，揭露出名人的既定思想能有多专横。亚里士多德几乎就像《圣经》一样神圣，大学的规章规定：“不忠实追随亚里士多德的学士和硕士，每次与《工具论》的逻辑产生分歧及违反《工具论》的逻辑时，都将被罚款五先令。”此后，我们已经将思想从警察和刽子手的限制中解放了出来，但在解放思想的过程中，我们失去了对思想的独立性和完整性的尊重。我们现在想怎么思考就怎么思考，于是大多数人干脆停止了思考，就像卑躬追求时尚帽子那样追求时尚思潮。

我认为，这样的罪恶来自教育。我们按统一的标准教导孩子。我们的目标是把他们教得跟我们一样，而不是教他们成为他们自己——人类精神的新化身、新预言家和教师、世界荒野中的新冒险者。我们更关心的，是将我们的想法灌入他们的头脑中，而不是将他们的思想引出来。我们成功地使他们拥有丰富的知识，却让他们智慧贫乏。他们不怕火刑，却怕世人的评判，这并不比我们今天所嘲笑的牛津的陈旧规章更值得尊重。恐怕，事实是思想在自由的环境中无法茁壮成长。它只有在压迫下才能旺盛发展。我们需要让自由被剥夺，这样才能发现，自由值得我们付出生命去争取。