The Paradox of Culture
By Edward T.．Hall 用英语简单介绍自己
(From Beyond Culture. Edward T.．Hall. New York: Anchor Press/Doubleday﹠Company,Inc.1977.)
3月缩写【作者简介】
爱德华·特·霍尔(Edward T．Hall，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”(M—Time：一段时间内进行一项活动梦见自己和别人吵架是什么意思)和东方的“一时多事制”(P—Time：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。有关酒的诗词
【选 文】
1. Two widely divergent but interrelated experiences，psycho- analysis and work as an anthropologist致青年，have led me to the belief that in his strivings for order，Western man has created chaos by denying that part of his lf that integrates while enshrining the parts that fragment experience．The examinations of man’s psyche have also convinced me
that：the natural act of thinking is greatly modified by culture；Western man us only a small fraction of his mental capabilities; there are many different and legitimate ways of thinking; we in the West value one of the ways above all others—the one we call “logic,” a linear system that has been with us since Socrates.
2. Western man es his system of logic as synonymous with the truth. For him it is the only 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 outt strenuously resisted, particularly by scientists and engineers, who were still wedded to a Newtonian model. When taken riously, Freudian thinking shook the very foundations of conventional thought. Freud's followers, particularly Fromm and Jung, undeterred by popular stereotypes and the tremendous prestige of the physical sciences, added to his theories 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 mylf what a psychoanalytically sophisticated reader would add to my own interpretation of a quence of events reported in The New York Times concerning a police dog sighted on Ruffle Bar, an uninhabited island near New York.塞内加尔足球3 Visible only from a distance, the dog, nicknamed the King of Ruffle Bar, had sustained itlf for an estimated two years, was apparently in good health, and presumably would have survived in his mi-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 tting the bureaucratic wheels in motion. Since the King could not be approached by people, a baited trap was t. 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 Bar.” A radio report of the broadcast at the time described how the helicopter harasd the dog in futile efforts to “catch” (sic) him (he refud to enter the trap) or at least to get a better vi
ew of him. Police were quoted as saying the dog “looked in good shape.” When questioned, reprentatives 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 manifest 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 cannot be overlooked. The ASPCA became obsd with capturing the dog. Once triggered, the ASPCA involved the police with a remorless, mindless persistence that is too terrifyingly characteristic of bureaucracies once they are activated. Interestingly enough, the police, having known about the dog 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 don't they leave the dog alone?” said one policeman. Another obrved, “The dog i
s as happy as a pig in a puddle.”5
5. The delusional aspects have to do with the 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 common n, to spend thousands of dollars for helicopters, gasoline, and salaries for the sole purpo 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 to harass the kite fliers lay in an old law written by Congress suppodly to keep the Wright brothers' planes from becoming fouled in kite strings.
卤鸡胗7. The psychoanalyst Laing is convinced that the Western world is mad.7 The stories of the dog and the kite fliers bolster Laing's view and symbolize man's plight as well as a
ny recent events I know.8 However, it is not man who is crazy so much as his institutions9 and tho culture patterns that determine his behavior. We in the West are alienated from ourlves and from nature. We labor under a number of delusions, one of which is that life makes n; i.e., that we are sane. We persist in this view despite massive evidence to the contrary. We live fragmented, 酵母的作用与功效compartmentalized lives in which contradictions are carefully aled off from each other. We have been taught to think linearly rather than comprehensively, 10 and we do this not through conscious design or becau we are not intelligent or capable, but becau 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 cour of a storm, the 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 according to a system of common good, all of which can be placed like an unwanted waif on culture's 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 anthropologist's own culture, 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 n the conventions of the field and what one's peers are studying have more to do with what anthropologists define as culture than an appraisal of one's data might indicate. Like everyone el, anthropologists u models, and some models are more fashionable than others. Most of them are handed down and modified periodically.
8. The reader may well ask, “What is a model?” or “What kind of models are you talking about?” While models and how man us 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 machines and process 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 u theoretical models, often mathematical in nature. The are ud to symbolically express certain qualities, quantities, and relationships encountered in life. Econometricians, for example, u the models to investigate how the more measurable aspects of the economic system operate.
