文章
大学和“轻信者的民主”
技术昌明,科学进步,改变了我们与世界相处的方式。经济学为重的办法已经取代人文学科的作用。此情此景之下,大学不免落入两难境地:是要强调专业技能,训练专精于生产的技术员,还是重视素质教育,培育能够思考社会未来的毕业生?经济现实主义不可能是化解今日挑战的唯一对策。
吉恩·温安德
在21世纪初特有的现象中,最为显著的莫过于社会寻找方向所用的标志消失了,个人越来越难设想自己乐观美好的未来。战争、大规模移民,这种景象每天都在发生,更加加重了这种感受。
除此之外,对于生活世界的实质,我们也抱有诸多疑问——如何维持生态系统,民主和个人自由如何运行,国家怎样发挥作用,国家与多国公司之间应建立什么样的关系——因为多国公司能调动运用诸多手段,控制知识和信息的收集、传播与保存,也控制自身的转型和开发。当今世界,一些富裕的国家独善其身,民粹主义兴起,完整主义运动气势陡增,让我们不由得相信,那些信奉迅速、快捷解决手段(就算不是简单粗暴手段)的人,正逐步将权力攫取在手中。
面对当今世界的种种烦忧,人们不禁设想,历来以开启我们生活世界奥秘为核心任务的人文学科,将要承担起更加突出的任务。但是,除了社会学或能幸免之外,在当前的辩论中,人文学科在很大程度上仍然处在幕后,并且逐渐从大学院校的课程中消失。
传统上为人文学科保留的空间显然正在萎缩,世界各地几乎都是这种情况,发达国家尤甚。一方面,人文学科的范围正在缩小——它们传达的信息对技术学科而言已经无关痛痒。而与此同时,无论是在教学还是在研究方面,划拨给人文学科的资源也始终未见增长。
加重人文学科这种局面的原因太多,在此无法一一详述。我只想重点谈一谈政治权力在这方面起到的作用。
政策以什么为重?
世界不再确保充分就业,培训与能够带来就业的行业之间几乎等量的对应,就成了一种真实的困扰。现在看来,使毕业生一离开学校就能胜任具体工作,而不仅仅是获得一个大而化之的学位,这种培养方式似乎更受欢迎。例如,日本政府2015年6月宣布,打算在公立大学大幅削减(虽然不是取消)人文学科、社会科学、哲学和艺术等系。日本首相当时表示,与其支持更多形而上学的学术研究,不如开设更多实用的课程,更好地预见社会的需求。
但是大学,难道能以培训出除了自身专业之外一无所知的专业技术人员而自得吗?现在都到了这种地步,我们不得不问问自己,那些负责制定战略目标的政治家们是否明白有必要培养能够运用批判性思维,进行更普遍思考的人?在有些国家,回答显然是否定的。在其他许多国家,这个问题已经不是,或者说已经不再得到重视——有时甚至大学机构本身也对此漫不经心,反而沉迷于怎样盈利,如何收益。
在一个越来越难以找到哲学和道德指南的世界里,公众仍然对大学抱有良好信任。但是,大学必须不断地树立良好的榜样形象,才能保持和加强这种信任。科学家总是不能免于被人指责知识不全面。
因此越来越多的人以怀疑的眼光看待科学。呈示所谓的“可择事实”就是这方面的一个有趣例子。气候变化的实际情况如何?出现了各种持怀疑态度的观点,甚至政府最高层有时也抱有质疑的态度;物种进化理论和神创论孰对孰错,争论似乎不分轩轾;此处大概非适宜详述之处。在这个不断变化的背景下,大学可以成为捍卫自由的堡垒。当然,这在很大程度上取决于大学本身的态度,但政府需要保证提供足够的资源,确保大学真正享有自主权。
人文学科的作用
在理想化的大学里,人文学科将发挥至关重要的作用。然而当今,人文学科却没有得到重视。常见的情况是,这些学科为了存活下去,几乎必须强迫自己工具化,服务于其他目的。例如,我们不难同意,解决生命科学面临的道德伦理问题离不开哲学的洞见,却看不到支持研究康德(Immanuel Kant,1724—1804年,德国哲学家)中世纪哲学或现象学有什么用。
在许多科学家的观念里,人文科学研究不是真正的科学。这种认识上的不足,尤其源于一个事实,即自然科学将自身的认识论范式,或者说至少是自身的研究实践,强行扩大适用于整个科学。由于人文学科的专门领域首先是意义的领域,所以就不可避免地断定人文学的研究结果带有一定的相对性。
另外,没有人想去苛责技术精英,人们尊重他们在经济财富、人类身体健康和物质享受方面作出的贡献。知识精英则不然,其使命就是通过对社会提出质疑,对当局持批判性立场,对裹挟了所有人的信息洪流下所隐藏、伪装或模糊化处理的意义,也一直是意义进行解读,从而打破常规。
人文学科从不用二元范畴思考,正是因为有了人文学科,我们才拥有了理解周围复杂世界所需的工具。如果没有人文学科,借用法国社会学家热拉尔德·布罗内(Gérald Bronner)的话来说,将会逐渐地甚至可能不可逆转地出现“轻信者的民主”。
值得警惕的蒙昧主义迹象
当代世界的演进带来了巨大挑战,无与伦比的技术发展使我们的社会模式受到深刻质疑,面对此种局面,即使显然必须坚持基本的最低标准,特别是在最不发达国家,但绝不能仅将追求经济福利作为唯一的解决之道。坚持经济至上原则,至多也不过是一片遮羞的无花果叶,根本无法掩盖更为复杂和本质的现实。理解我们生活的这个世界的智慧,才是唯一适当的对策。
要形成这种理解,取决于文化,一种深刻的文化,不是——或者说在任何情况下都不只是——一种娱乐文化。它需要一种得到广阔历史滋养的文化;一种多语言文化,一种关注并研究自身的起源,尝试加深我们对其起源的理解,从而试图理解现在,设想未来的文化。然后还需要一种充分知情的文化,只有通过人文学科不可替代的贡献才能充分知情的文化。
为了认识人类在宇宙中的地位,了解人类的历史和文化,而不失于肤浅,我们就需要掌握有时可能非常严格的方法。而对这些事物的无知,对这些事物的捍卫者的轻视甚或蔑视,历来都是权力主义和蒙昧主义的先兆。
领导人要走仅崇尚经济现实主义的道路,其借口,在最好的情况下,不过是蒙昧无知,而在最坏的情况下,就是意欲用残酷手段使人臣服的迹象。我说,人们如何看待人文学科在社会中的地位和作用,存在着一大民主挑战,本意就是这个。
By Jean Winand
Among the phenomena that characterize the early twenty-first century, the most significant must be the disappearance of the landmarks that society uses to find its bearings, and the increasing difficulty that individuals have in visualizing an optimistic future for themselves – a feeling exacerbated by following a daily spectacle of wars and mass migrations.
To this can be added our questions about the nature of the living world – the maintenance of our ecosystems, the workings of our democratic and individual freedoms, the role of the State, relationships between States and multinational corporations – that are able to mobilize enormous means to control the gathering, distribution and preservation of knowledge and information, as well as their transformation and exploitation.
The isolationism of some rich countries, the rise of populism and the dramatic reinforcement of integralist movements, leads us to believe that power is progressively being seized by those who believe in quick and easy – if not simplistic – solutions.
Faced with these concerns about the contemporary world, one would imagine that the humanities – with one of its central missions being precisely to provide the keys to interpret the world in which we live – would have assumed a more prominent role. But, with the possible exception of sociology, the humanities have remained largely in the background in current debates and are slowly disappearing from university curricula.
The place traditionally reserved for the humanities is clearly diminishing, just about everywhere in the world, but particularly in developed countries. On the one hand, their scope is shrinking – the messages they convey have ceased to be relevant for technical disciplines. At the same time, the resources allocated to the humanities, for both teaching and research, are at a constant low level.
The causes contributing to this situation are too numerous to be detailed here. I will restrict myself to the role of the political authorities.
What priorities for policy?
In a world where full employment is no longer a certainty, the almost isometric correspondence between training and a trade that can lead to employment has become a real obsession. It now seems preferable to train graduates who are immediately ready for specific tasks, rather than offer them a more general degree. For example, in June 2015, the Japanese government announced its intention to drastically reduce, if not abolish, departments of humanities, social sciences, philosophy and the arts, in the universities it controls. The Japanese Prime Minister stated at the time, that rather than backing more academic research, which is very theoretical, it was preferable to provide more practical courses, which would better anticipate the needs of society.
But can universities content themselves with training specialized technicians who remain ignorant of anything outside the limited area of their discipline? It has come to the point where we have to ask ourselves if politicians, who are responsible for setting strategic objectives, see the need to train people who can think more generally, with a critical mind. In some countries, the answer is clearly no. In many others it is not, or is no longer seen as a priority – sometimes even by the university establishment itself, now obsessed with questions of profitability.
In a world where it is becoming harder to find a philosophical and moral compass, universities still enjoy a good measure of trust with the public. But, in order to maintain and reinforce this trust, they have to continue to set a good example. Scientists are not always immune to certain criticisms of their intellectual integrity. So science has become suspect in the eyes of a growing proportion of the population. The presentation of what is called ‘alternative facts’ is an interesting case in point. This is probably not the place for a lengthy exposition of the various skeptical views – which are sometimes held at the highest levels of government – on the reality of climate change, or arguments – as if they were two equivalent opinions – about the theory of the evolution of species and creationism. In this changing context, universities can be strongholds of freedom. This depends, of course, to a large extent on the institutions themselves, but governments need to guarantee sufficient resources to ensure their real autonomy.
The role of the humanities
In an ideal university, the humanities would have a central role to play. And yet they are not taken seriously today. Too often the survival of these disciplines depends on an instrumentalization that is almost forced. For example, we can easily agree that a philosophical insight is necessary on ethical issues in the life sciences, but we don’t see the use of supporting research on Kant [Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), German philosopher] medieval philosophy or phenomenology.
For many scientists, research in the human sciences is not real science. The lack of understanding stems particularly from the fact that the natural sciences impose their epistemological paradigm – or at least their research practices – on science as a whole. As the preserve of the humanities is first and foremost that of meaning, it inevitably follows that there will be a certain relativity in their findings.
Also, no one thinks of criticizing the technical elite, respected for their contributions to economic wealth, our physical well-being and our material comfort. The same is not true of the intellectual elites, whose mission is also to be disruptive, by the questions they pose to society, by the critical position they take vis-à-vis the authorities, or the way they decode the meaning – always the meaning – that is hidden, disguised or obscured under the continuous flow of information, in which we are all submerged.
But it is precisely the humanities – which do not think in terms of binary categories – that are able to provide the tools we need to understand the complex world around us. By default, what will gradually, and perhaps irreversibly, emerge, is the “democracy of the gullible”, to borrow a term from the French sociologist, Gérald Bronner.
The warning signs of obscurantism
Confronted with the colossal challenges posed by the evolution of the contemporary world, by the extraordinary technological developments that profoundly question our models of society, the only possible response cannot lie solely in a search for economic well-being – even if there obviously have to be basic minimum standards, especially in the least developed countries. But sticking to that principle would at best be a fig leaf, used to conceal more complex and essential realities. The only adequate response lies in the comprehension of the intelligence of the world in which we live.
This understanding depends on culture, a profound culture, not – or in any case, not only – a culture of entertainment. It demands a culture nurtured by the breadth of history; a multilingual culture, a culture which is concerned with its origins, which researches them, tries to deepen our understanding of them, and thus tries to understand its own present and envisage its future. A culture, then, that is fully informed, and which can only be so through the irreplaceable contribution of the humanities.
In order to understand the position of humans in the universe, along with their history and culture, in more than a superficial manner, we need to acquire methods that can sometimes be very exacting. Yet the ignorance of these things, along with the disdain or even contempt for those who defend them, have always been the harbingers of authoritarianism and obscurantism.
The excuse of leaders who would follow a path based solely on economic realism is, at best, stamped with the seal of ignorance. At worst, it is the trace of a desire to subjugate people by brutalizing them. This is what I was referring to when I spoke of a major democratic challenge in the way we conceive the status and the role of the humanities in our societies.
Jean Winand
Jean Winand (Belgium) is a professor at the University of Liège, and an expert in the languages and literature of ancient Egypt. He was Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters between 2010 and 2017, and elected a member of the Royal Academy of Belgium in 2017. He co-chaired the International Programme Committee of the World Conference on the Humanities held in August 2017 in Liège, in partnership with UNESCO.