譯者前言

這是一篇在美國非常有爭議的文章，文章的作者是賓夕法尼亚大學法學院的教授Amy Wax。這篇文章在美國的文化界和思想界掀起了軒然大波，美國左派群起而攻之。以至于賓夕法尼亚大學的33名教授聯名要求開除作者。而這篇文章所引發的保守派和自由派的思想交鋒在原文發表的半年後还在進行中，也許這是一場扭轉美國左傾思潮的曆史大討論。

譯文

太少的美國人真正能夠適應現代社會所需要的工作。適齡男性勞動參與率處于大蕭條以来的最低點，鸦片類毒品濫用現象非常普遍，凶杀和暴力困扰着內陆城市。几乎有一半的孩子都是非婚生子女，而更多的孩子由單身母親撫養。許多大學生缺乏基本的技能，高中生的排名低于世界上其他二十几個國家！

美國適齡男性勞動參與率曆史曲線 图由譯者補充

這些現象的成因是复杂多樣的，但這種或者那種的社會病態隱喻着這個國家资本主義傳统文化的崩潰。

過去這種资本主義文化爲我們的生活制定准則：

先結婚然後再要小孩，爲了家庭和孩子們努力維護婚姻。爲了找到高收入的工作，努力獲得所需的教育。努力工作，拒絕懶散。盡可能爲你的客戶和雇主多做一些事情。做一個愛國者，隨时准備爲國家服務。盡可能維護鄰裏和睦，具有公民意识，慈善意识。避免在公開場合使用粗俗的語言，尊重權威。避免藥物濫用和犯罪。

這些基本的文化准則统治着1940年的後期到1960年代中期的思想界。在那個时代几乎所有的人不論背景和能力，都能有效地尊崇這些規則。因此這些文化准則爲社會的生産效率提高，教育水平的提高，社會和谐起到了巨大的作用。

每個人都尊崇這些准則嗎？当然不是！任何时代總有叛逆者和伪善者，陰奉陽違這些文化准則。俗话说的好，伪善是惡披着善的外衣。即便如此，這些伪善者也很少敢公開挑战這些准則。

当這些文化准則占主導地位的时候，一切都是完美的嗎？当然不是。也有種族歧視，也有有限的性別區別對待和有限的反犹主義。但是必須承認当這些准則占主導地位的时候，婦女和少數民族的地位在稳步改善。消除歧視和增加機會並不一定需要這些文化准則的消亡作爲代價。恰恰相反，因爲這些准則的消亡，反而严重阻礙了弱势群體地位的改善。而且這種准則消亡的趨势也加速了福利國家所帶来與日俱增的破坏性後果：福利國家通過接管家庭的財政支持，抑制了家庭對两位父母的需求。

(美國單親媽媽（從未結婚）的比例從1968年的7%飙升到14年的50%)

如果社會對婚姻持强烈的保守態度，还可能抑制福利化國家的進程。而現实恰恰相反，單親家長的數量呈天文數字增長，導致兒童更容易出現學业失敗，吸毒上瘾，閑散，犯罪和贫窮。

無論哪個種族，單親家庭的贫困率远高于雙親家庭（紅色爲單親家庭贫困率，蓝色爲雙親家庭的贫困率）

這種傳统资本主義文化准則在20世紀60年代後期開始崩潰。經濟繁榮，毒品，高等教育的擴张以及圍绕越南战爭的焦慮等因素的結合促成了一種反權威，幼稚，不切实際的（ 性，毒品和搖滾樂）的文化。然而這種文化對一個成熟，繁榮的成人社會来说是行不通的。從這個时代開始看到了操縱身份認同的政治。這種政治顛覆了Martin Luther King Jr.這樣的民權領袖所期望對不要以膚色作爲评判標准的渴望。這種政治使他們反而對故意操縱種族，民族，性別以及現在的性取向话題的産生了濃厚的兴趣。

而那些本来拥有文化影響力的長者，由于種種原因放棄了他們作爲倡導尊重，文明和成熟價值觀的角色。因此，反准則文化取得了巨大的進展，特別是在學校的學者，作家，藝術家，演员和新闻工作者中間：這些人喜欢從傳统文化准則中跳出来，將自己的罪行反而歸結爲德行和獨樹一帜的階级標志。

然而並不是所有的文化都是平等的。至少有些文化並没有让自己的民衆爲推動經濟發展做好准備。好比印第安人的文化是爲游牧獵人設計的，但不適合21世紀的發達國家。在一些白人工薪階層中的單親，反社會得亚文化，在一些城市中反白人的说唱文化，在一些西班牙移民中的反融合亚文化同樣無法適應21世紀社會的需求！這些文化取向不僅與先進的自由市場經濟和可行的民主制度不相容，而且还破坏了美國人之間的团結和互惠意识。如果傳统文化的准則不能得到廣泛的恢复（美國中上層階级中依然大部分遵從這些文化准則），那么情況將對我們所有人而言會變得更加糟糕！

那些已經抛棄了傳统文化准則的普通美國人，如果重新接受這些准則是否會大大減少社會的病態？有充分的理由相信，在那些目前还遵循這些准則的人群中，無論受教育程度和富裕程度如何，凶杀率都很低，阿片類成瘾很少，贫困率也很低。那些現在按照亚文化生活的人，即便按照傳统的文化准則生活，大部分人可能还是不會成爲富人或者拥有精英工作，但他們的生活状況將比現在好得多，學校和社區會更安全，更愉快。更多的學生爲建設性的工作和民主參與做好准備。

但恢复傳统階级文化准則的主導地位，需要有文化的仲裁者-學者，媒體和好莱塢-放棄多元文化的訴苦抱怨和對被被压迫者的刻意修飾。他們不應該抨擊傳统的资本主義文化准則，而是想1950年一樣，去拥抱這種文化准則。

原文

Too few Americans are qualified for the jobs available. Male working-age labor-force participation is at Depression-era lows. Opioid abuse is widespread. Homicidal violence plagues inner cities. Almost half of all children are born out of wedlock, and even more are raised by single mothers. Many college students lack basic skills, and high school students rank below those from two dozen other countries.

The causes of these phenomena are multiple and complex, but implicated in these and other maladies is the breakdown of the country’s bourgeois culture.

That culture laid out the script we all were supposed to follow: Get married before you have children and strive to stay married for their sake. Get the education you need for gainful employment, work hard, and avoid idleness. Go the extra mile for your employer or client. Be a patriot, ready to serve the country. Be neighborly, civic-minded, and charitable. Avoid coarse language in public. Be respectful of authority. Eschew substance abuse and crime.

These basic cultural precepts reigned from the late 1940s to the mid-1960s. They could be followed by people of all backgrounds and abilities, especially when backed up by almost universal endorsement. Adherence was a major contributor to the productivity, educational gains, and social coherence of that period.

Did everyone abide by those precepts? Of course not. There are always rebels — and hypocrites, those who publicly endorse the norms but transgress them. But as the saying goes, hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to virtue. Even the deviants rarely disavowed or openly disparaged the prevailing expectations.

Was everything perfect during the period of bourgeois cultural hegemony? Of course not. There was racial discrimination, limited sex roles, and pockets of anti-Semitism. However, steady improvements for women and minorities were underway even when bourgeois norms reigned. Banishing discrimination and expanding opportunity does not require the demise of bourgeois culture. Quite the opposite: The loss of bourgeois habits seriously impeded the progress of disadvantaged groups. That trend also accelerated the destructive consequences of the growing welfare state, which, by taking over financial support of families, reduced the need for two parents. A strong pro-marriage norm might have blunted this effect. Instead, the number of single parents grew astronomically, producing children more prone to academic failure, addiction, idleness, crime, and poverty.

This cultural script began to break down in the late 1960s. A combination of factors — prosperity, the Pill, the expansion of higher education, and the doubts surrounding the Vietnam War — encouraged an antiauthoritarian, adolescent, wish-fulfillment ideal — sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll — that was unworthy of, and unworkable for, a mature, prosperous adult society. This era saw the beginnings of an identity politics that inverted the color-blind aspirations of civil rights leaders like the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. into an obsession with race, ethnicity, gender, and now sexual preference.

And those adults with influence over the culture, for a variety of reasons, abandoned their role as advocates for respectability, civility, and adult values. As a consequence, the counterculture made great headway, particularly among the chattering classes — academics, writers, artists, actors, and journalists — who relished liberation from conventional constraints and turned condemning America and reviewing its crimes into a class marker of virtue and sophistication.

All cultures are not equal. Or at least they are not equal in preparing people to be productive in an advanced economy. The culture of the Plains Indians was designed for nomadic hunters, but is not suited to a First World, 21st-century environment. Nor are the single-parent, antisocial habits, prevalent among some working-class whites; the anti-“acting white” rap culture of inner-city blacks; the anti-assimilation ideas gaining ground among some Hispanic immigrants. These cultural orientations are not only incompatible with what an advanced free-market economy and a viable democracy require, they are also destructive of a sense of solidarity and reciprocity among Americans. If the bourgeois cultural script — which the upper-middle class still largely observes but now hesitates to preach — cannot be widely reinstated, things are likely to get worse for us all.

Would the re-embrace of bourgeois norms by the ordinary Americans who have abandoned them significantly reduce society’s pathologies? There is every reason to believe so. Among those who currently follow the old precepts, regardless of their level of education or affluence, the homicide rate is tiny, opioid addiction is rare, and poverty rates are low. Those who live by the simple rules that most people used to accept may not end up rich or hold elite jobs, but their lives will go far better than they do now. All schools and neighborhoods would be much safer and more pleasant. More students from all walks of life would be educated for constructive employment and democratic participation.

But restoring the hegemony of the bourgeois culture will require the arbiters of culture — the academics, media, and Hollywood — to relinquish multicultural grievance polemics and the preening pretense of defending the downtrodden. Instead of bashing the bourgeois culture, they should return to the 1950s posture of celebrating it.

Amy Wax is the Robert Mundheim professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. awax@law.upenn.eduLarry Alexander is the Warren distinguished professor at the University of San Diego School of Law. larrya@sandiego.edu

後續

這篇文章2017年8月9號在PA最大的日報上發表之後，在美國引起了軒然大波。

8月9日，《費城问詢者報》發表文章。

8月10日，《每日費城報》采訪Wax教授：賓大法學院教授说，並不是所有的文化都是生来平等的。“‘Not all cultures are created equal’ says Penn Law professor in op-ed”

8月13日，《每日費城報》發表文章 “Campus is abuzz over Penn Law professor Amy Wax’s controversial op-ed, which called for return of ‘bourgeois’ cultural values” 進一步攻擊Wax

8月14日，《每日費城報》邀請賓大法學院的院長發表文章《On Charlottesville, free speech and diversity》 院長開始站隊，發表駁斥文

8月20日，5名賓大法學院的教职工，在《每日費城報》發表署名文章《Notions of ‘bourgeois’ cultural superiority are based on bad history》，资本主義的傳统准則优越性是基于錯誤的曆史

8月30日，33名賓大法學院的教职工在《每日費城報》發表 致賓大法學社區的公開信，要求Wax教授滾蛋。

9月1號，Wax教授在《每日費城報》上發表 《對《致賓大法學社區公開信》的回應》，我有言論自由，我才不走。

9月3號，學術網站Heterodox Academy的Jonathan Klick教授的專栏中写道我不關心Wax教授到底政治正确不正确，但是我在乎他的經驗不正确。

9月21號，賓大法學教授發表專栏文章：（我的一张大字報）Jonah Gelbach對Wax和Jon Haidt”的回應。

就是這位充滿战鬥精神的老奶奶，几乎是兵来將挡水来土掩，舌战群熊。

這個事情远没有完！在後面的斷斷續續的交鋒中，前天Wax在華爾街日報上又扔了一枚炸彈《What Can’t Be Debated on Campus》。現在静觀美國左翼社區的反擊。美國的教育系统，新闻系统，法律系统已經左道一定程度了。這種撕破脸皮大討論，對于社會的健康發展長远来看还是有益的。

也許我們正在經曆一場美國式的实踐是檢驗真理唯一標准的大討論。

長按二維碼關注我們。堅持篇篇原創。轉發就是最大的支持！