Patriotism and Other Mistakes 爱国主义及其他错误.pdf
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1、 Patriotism and Other Mistakes G E O R G E K A T E B Patriotism and Other Mistakes Yale University Press New Haven their names appear in the acknowledgments of the individual articles. I have also benefi ted from the intellectual company of Sharon Cameron, Arien Mack, Morton Schoolman, Tracy Strong,
2、 Dana Villa, and James P. Young. I wish to acknowledge the encouragement and support of John Kulka, se- nior editor at Yale University Press, who proposed collecting the essays and helped me think about the shape and point of the book. xAcknowledgments Last, I owe more than I can briefl y say to the
3、 two scholars to whom this book is dedicated in admiration. The previously published articles are here reprinted with some changes. Per- mission to reprint is gratefully acknowledged. The following appeared in Social Research: Notes on Pluralism, vol. 61, Fall 1994; Technology and Philosophy, vol. 6
4、4, Fall 1997; Can Cultures Be Judged? Two Defenses of Cultural Pluralism in Isaiah Berlins Work, vol. 66, Winter 1999; Is Patriotism a Mistake?, vol. 67, Winter 2000; On Being Watched and Known, vol. 68, Spring 2001; Ideology and Storytelling, vol. 69, Summer 2002; Undermining the Constitution, vol.
5、 70, Summer 2003; Courage as a Virtue, vol. 71, Spring 2004; A Life of Fear, vol. 71, Winter 2004. The following appeared in Political Theory (published by Sage Publica- tions): Hobbes and the Irrationality of Politics, vol. 17, August 1989; Aes- theticism and Morality: Their Cooperation and Hostili
6、ty, vol. 28, February 2000; The Adequacy of the Canon, vol. 30, August 2002. Socratic Integrity appeared in NOMOS, vol. xl, 1998 (published by New York University Press), Integrity and Conscience, edited by Ian Shapiro and Robert Adams. The Judgment of Arendt appeared in Revue Internationale de Phil
7、oso- phie, vol. 53, June 1999, 133154, edited by Dana Villa. xi Introduction It is easy to think that few events or conditions in politics should unsettle the seasoned observer. Leaders and followers have all the familiar passions that drive people to pursue their interests and to use force and frau
8、d when rules and conventions get in the way. What would one expect? Human beings are what they are. As the ancient Athenians put it, The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must (Thucydides, V:81, p. 381). If the weak became strong they would do what is now being done to them; they
9、 would do what the strong always do; they, too, would ruthlessly pursue their interests as defi ned by their passions and, where need be, act brutally. What is there in all this that is out of the ordinary? My own disposition is to fi nd political life unsettling more often, I suppose, than a season
10、ed observer would want. The essays in this collection are united by an attempt to record the idea that political life should often arouse surprise or amazement and, what is more, a good amount of baffl ement. I fi nd, to begin with, baffl ement about causes, about the passions and crav- ings that dr
11、ive political life, and I therefore speculate about these causes. But even if I think that I have relieved some of my baffl ement, the events and policies of political life often remain amazing. The strong do what they can. These words betray the presence of some- thing extraordinary in Athenian act
12、ion. The ruthless pursuit of interests or xiiIntroduction ends is implicitly posited in this statement, but the thrust beyond interests and ends to empire, and beyond empire to pure dynamism, is not explained. That thrust requires interpretation, despite the risk of appearing implausible or overly i
13、ngenious. Years before these words were uttered, on the eve of war with Sparta, Athenian spokesmen adduced fear, interest, and honor to ac- count for their imperialist conduct, but then added that it is the law that the strong should rule over the weak, as if that proposition simply summarized the c
14、ustomary action of humanity (Thucydides, I:76, p. 44). But when the strong do all they are able to do, and then justify their deeds by reference to the immemorial nature of the gods, they are not merely invoking fear, interest, and honor, despite the allegedly irresistible pressure of these motives.
15、 The strong everywhere, not only the Athenians, are at a certain point making a leap, and rationalization makes a comparable leap. There is an unexplained surplus in the action that is sometimes registered in the stated reasons for action. There are urges behind some political deeds and policies tha
16、t are not simple or clear, no matter how customary the deeds and policies might be. To be sure, the Athenian speakers wanted their audience to think that they took the presence of these urges or cravings for granted, as nothing extraordinary, nothing re- markable. We should not be so hardened; one d
17、anger is that we thereby grow more gullible, not less. The model for political projects, for the initiation of political deeds and poli- cies of any degree of ambition, is not a group of hungry men and women using any possible means to end their starvation, or frightened men and women trying to over
18、come the forces that threaten them with massacre or enslave- ment. Political life is ruthless or brutal, but not from desperation. Of course, people can be thrown into desperation by the effects of a political initiative. But the motive energy of politics exists beyond the realm of bodily and mate-
19、rial necessity. And even the search for honor in the eyes of others, which certainly lies beyond the realm of necessity, still does not take us far enough in the effort to come to terms with the extraordinary qualities of much of politi- cal life. When something shocking happens in political life, w
20、e should try to resist asking: What would we expect? Even though much of history is wrongdoing, we should do better than say: What would we expect? Yes, the human tendency to wrongdoing is indelible. Even so, analysis of any given example of it is often diffi cult, sometimes impossible, even when th
21、e example is not extraordinary. But if wrongdoing is characterized by excess, extremism, enormity, then anal- ysis becomes harder. Even an infl ated sense of necessitythe dominion of fear, interest, and honor, the dominion of standard power politicsdoes not appear very often to account adequately fo
22、r the urges of activist policy. Introductionxiii Where the strong keep enhancing their strength and improving their means, keep extending the boundaries of their exertion, keep fi nding in every gain a mere foothold for a further gain and without end, should we not be at least a little perplexed? Is
23、 not empire, for example, somewhat puzzling even though it is one of the most persistent political phenomena in the human record? Fear, interest, and honor do not exhaust the possibilities of analysis when the sub- ject is imperialism. In fact, these motives of infl ated necessitybedeviled as they a
24、re with conceptual and psychological diffi cultiesprovide only a start- ing point for understanding merely standard power politics and always need fi lling out. The Athenian references to the inveterate behavior of the strong divine and human, and both animal-liketouch on some passion or delusion th
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