Beyond Culture.docx

1、Beyond CultureThe Paradox of CultureBy Edward T.Hall (From Beyond Culture. Edward T.Hall. New York: Anchor Press/DoubledayCompany,Inc.1977.)【作者简介】爱德华特霍尔(Edward THall，1914 )是美国 20世纪最有影响和最富创见的文化人类学家之一。霍尔一生涉猎广泛，曾致力于“西方国家的民族特性”、“西方国家的工业管理”、“跨文化交际”、“美日关系及商业策略”、“人与空间”、“心理学和民族心理学”等研究。他采用逆向的文化探索方式，从各民族文化特性中

2、鲜为人知或为世人所漠视的层面上分析人类文化生活的共性和个性。由于霍尔经常运用传播学的视野去审视文化和跨文化交际活动中的问题，他在美国传播界也享有盛名。【内容简介】 “文化的悖论”(The Paradox of Culture)选自超越文化(Beyond Culture)的第1章。本文分析了思维模式的重要作用，其中典型的代表 模式为西方的“一时一事制”(MTime：一段时间内进行一项活动)和东方的“一时多事制”(PTime：一段时间内进行多项活动)。 霍尔在分析和对比两种时制各自利弊的同时，着重剖析了西方思想体系中的线型逻辑思维方式。他指出，线型模式是导致荒谬、分离人与本我、人与自然的根源。人们

3、因此过着分隔式的生活，矛盾被闭锁，日常活动受制于时、空的分割。过分地强调秩序和计划必将导致荒谬和官僚。霍尔认为所谓“纯粹习俗”的无意识文化因素与传统文化因素有着同等重要的作用。人类只有跳出传统文化定义的圈子，摆脱陈旧文化观念对人的束缚，才能积极、客观和深刻地理解与评价文化。【选 文】1. Two widely divergent but interrelated experiences，psycho- analysis and work as an anthropologist，have led me to the belief that in his strivings for order，

4、Western man has created chaos by denying that part of his self that integrates while enshrining the parts that fragment experienceThese examinations of mans psyche have also convinced me that：the natural act of thinking is greatly modified by culture；Western man uses only a small fraction of his men

5、tal capabilities; there are many different and legitimate ways of thinking; we in the West value one of these ways above all othersthe one we call “logic,” a linear system that has been with us since Socrates.2. Western man sees his system of logic as synonymous with the truth. For him it is the onl

6、y road to reality. Yet Freud educated us to the complexities of the psyche，helping his readers to look at dreams as a legitimate mental process that exists quite apart from the linearity of manifest thought. But his ideas were from the outset strenuously resisted, particularly by scientists and engi

7、neers, who were still wedded to a Newtonian model. When taken seriously, Freudian thinking shook the very foundations of conventional thought. Freuds followers, particularly Fromm and Jung, undeterred by popular stereotypes and the tremendous prestige of the physical sciences, added to his theories

8、and bridged the gap between the linear world of logic and the integrative world of dreams.1 3. Knowing that the interpretation of dreams, myths, and acts is always to some degree an individual matter,2 I cannot help asking myself what a psychoanalytically sophisticated reader would add to my own int

9、erpretation of a sequence of events reported in The New York Times concerning a police dog sighted on Ruffle Bar, an uninhabited island near New York.3 Visible only from a distance, the dog, nicknamed the King of Ruffle Bar, had sustained itself for an estimated two years, was apparently in good hea

10、lth, and presumably would have survived in his semi-wild state, barring accidents, for the rest of his natural life. However, some well-meaning soul heard about the dog and reported him to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, thereby setting the bureaucratic wheels in motio

11、n. Since the King could not be approached by people, a baited trap was set. According to the Times report. “. every day, a police launch from Sheepshead Bay takes off for Ruffle Bar, the uninhabited swampy island of the dog. Every day, a police helicopter hovers for a half hour or more over Ruffle B

12、ar.” A radio report of the broadcast at the time described how the helicopter harassed the dog in futile efforts to “catch” (sic) him (he refused to enter the trap) or at least to get a better view of him. Police were quoted as saying the dog “looked in good shape.” When questioned, representatives

13、of the ASPCA said: When we catch the dog, we will have it examined by a vet, and if it is in good health, we will find a happy home for it.”4 (italics added)4. If this story had been a dream or a myth instead of a news report, there is little doubt as to its interpretation. Both the latent and the m

14、anifest content are quite clear, possibly explaining why this local news item was given national coverage. I find, as I go over the story, that free associations come to mind on different levels. The story epitomizes the little man against the big bureaucracy. There is also a delusional side which c

15、annot be overlooked. The ASPCA became obsessed with capturing the dog. Once triggered, the ASPCA involved the police with a remorseless, mindless persistence that is too terrifyingly characteristic of bureaucracies once they are activated. Interestingly enough, the police, having known about the dog

16、 for two years, had been content to leave him on the island. Emotionally, they sided with the King, even while carrying out their orders. “Why dont they leave the dog alone?” said one policeman. Another observed, “The dog is as happy as a pig in a puddle.”55. The delusional aspects have to do with t

17、he institutionalized necessity to control everything, and the widely accepted notion that the bureaucrat knows what is best; never for a moment does he doubt the validity of the bureaucratic solution. It is also slightly insane, or at least indicative of our incapacity to order priorities with any c

18、ommon sense, to spend thousands of dollars for helicopters, gasoline, and salaries for the sole purpose of bureaucratic neatness.6. Even more recently, a New York Times news item6 reported a U. S. Park Police campaign to stamp out kite flying on the grounds of the Washington Monument. Their charter

19、to harass the kite fliers lay in an old law written by Congress supposedly to keep the Wright brothers planes from becoming fouled in kite strings.7. The psychoanalyst Laing is convinced that the Western world is mad.7 These stories of the dog and the kite fliers bolster Laings view and symbolize ma

20、ns plight as well as any recent events I know.8 However, it is not man who is crazy so much as his institutions9 and those culture patterns that determine his behavior. We in the West are alienated from ourselves and from nature. We labor under a number of delusions, one of which is that life makes

21、sense; i.e., that we are sane. We persist in this view despite massive evidence to the contrary. We live fragmented, compartmentalized lives in which contradictions are carefully sealed off from each other. We have been taught to think linearly rather than comprehensively, 10 and we do this not thro

22、ugh conscious design or because we are not intelligent or capable, but because of the way in which deep cultural undercurrents structure life in subtle but highly consistent ways that are not consciously formulated. Like the invisible jet streams in the skies that determine the course of a storm, th

23、ese hidden currents shape our lives; yet their influence is only beginning to be identified. Given our linear, step-by-step, compartmentalized way of thinking, 11 fostered by the schools and public media, it is impossible for our leaders to consider events comprehensively or to weigh priorities acco

24、rding to a system of common good, all of which can be placed like an unwanted waif on cultures doorstep. Yet, paradoxically, few anthropologists are in agreement as to what to include under the general rubric of culture. While it will be denied by some, much depends on the anthropologists own cultur

25、e, which exerts a deep and abiding influence not only over how anthropologists think but over where they draw the boundaries in such matters. Frequently, the greater portion of contemporary culture will be excluded or referred to as “mere convention”. In a practical sense the conventions of the fiel

26、d and what ones peers are studying have more to do with what anthropologists define as culture than an appraisal of ones data might indicate. Like everyone else, anthropologists use models, and some models are more fashionable than others. Most of them are handed down and modified periodically.8. Th

27、e reader may well ask, “What is a model?” or “What kind of models are you talking about?” While models and how man uses them are just beginning to be understood, one thing is certain: many different models exist. Mechanical models, such as scale models of airplanes flown in wind tunnels, show how ma

28、chines and processes work. Models for making molds can reproduce everything from machines to copies of works of art. Life models help the artist fill in gaps in a faulty visual memory. Parents and teachers may be models for the young.9. Scientists use theoretical models, often mathematical in nature

29、. These are used to symbolically express certain qualities, quantities, and relationships encountered in life. Econometricians, for example, use these models to investigate how the more measurable aspects of the economic system operate.10. Anthropologists use predominantly non-mathematical theoretic

30、al models that are rooted in culture. Since culture is itself a series of situational models for behavior and thought, the models anthropologists use are frequently highly abstract versions of parts of models that make up the entire culture (kinship systems, for example).11. Man is the model-making

31、organism par excellence. His earliest intellectual endeavors resulted in monuments that rays mystified and puzzled twentieth-century man until they were figured out. Stonehenge, for example, is a model of the solar system that enabled the early inhabitants of the Salisbury Plain to make accurate obs

32、ervations of celestial events and to keep track of the seasons, order their ceremonial life, and even predict eclipses at a time when no one would have thought such refined calculations and observations were possible. (fifteen hundred to two thousand years B. C! ).12. Grammars and writing systems ar

33、e models of language. Any school child who has struggled to make sense of what he is taught knows that some fit reasonably well, others dont. Myths, philosophical systems, and science represent different types of models of what the social scientists call cognitive systems. The purpose of the model is to enable the user to do a