How China Got Religion----齐泽克论西藏及文化

2008-04-20 20:11:15 来自: leaflet

How China Got Religion
By SLAVOJ ZIZEK
THE Western liberal media had a laugh in August when China’s State Administration of Religious Affairs announced Order No. 5, a law covering “the management measures for the reincarnation of living Buddhas in Tibetan Buddhism.” This “important move to institutionalize management on reincarnation” basically prohibits Buddhist monks from returning from the dead without government permission: no one outside China can influence the reincarnation process; only monasteries in China can apply for permission.
Before we explode in rage that Chinese Communist totalitarianism now wants to control even the lives of its subjects after their deaths, we should remember that such measures are not unknown to European history. The Peace of Augsburg in 1555, the first step toward the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 that ended the Thirty Years’ War, declared the local prince’s religion to be the official faith of a region or country (“cuius regio, eius religio”). The goal was to end violence between German Catholics and Lutherans, but it also meant that when a new ruler of a different religion took power, large groups had to convert. Thus the first big institutional move toward religious tolerance in modern Europe involved a paradox of the same type as that of Order No. 5: your religious belief, a matter of your innermost spiritual experience, is regulated by the whims of your secular leader.
Contrary to the conventional wisdom, the Chinese government is not antireligious. Its stated worry is social “harmony” — the political dimension of religion. In order to curb the excess of social disintegration caused by the capitalist explosion, officials now celebrate religions that sustain social stability, from Buddhism to Confucianism — the very ideologies that were the target of the Cultural Revolution. Last year, Ye Xiaowen, China’s top religious official, told Xinhua, the official Chinese news agency, that “religion is one of the important forces from which China draws strength,” and he singled out Buddhism for its “unique role in promoting a harmonious society.”
What bothers Chinese authorities are sects like Falun Gong that insist on independence from state control. In the same vein, the problem with Tibetan Buddhism resides in an obvious fact that many Western enthusiasts conveniently forget: the traditional political structure of Tibet is theocracy, with the Dalai Lama at the center. He unites religious and secular power — so when we are talking about the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama, we are taking about choosing a head of state. It is strange to hear self-described democracy advocates who denounce Chinese persecution of followers of the Dalai Lama — a non-democratically elected leader if there ever was one.
In recent years, the Chinese have changed their strategy in Tibet: in addition to military coercion, they increasingly rely on ethnic and economic colonization. Lhasa is transforming into a Chinese version of the capitalist Wild West, with karaoke bars and Disney-like Buddhist theme parks.
In short, the media image of brutal Chinese soldiers terrorizing Buddhist monks conceals a much more effective American-style socioeconomic transformation: in a decade or two, Tibetans will be reduced to the status of the Native Americans in the United States. Beijing finally learned the lesson: what is the oppressive power of secret police forces, camps and Red Guards destroying ancient monuments compared to the power of unbridled capitalism to undermine all traditional social relations?
It is all too easy to laugh at the idea of an atheist power regulating something that, in its eyes, doesn’t exist. However, do we believe in it? When in 2001 the Taliban in Afghanistan destroyed the ancient Buddhist statues at Bamiyan, many Westerners were outraged — but how many of them actually believed in the divinity of the Buddha?
Rather, we were angered because the Taliban did not show appropriate respect for the “cultural heritage” of their country. Unlike us sophisticates, they really believed in their own religion, and thus had no great respect for the cultural value of the monuments of other religions.
The significant issue for the West here is not Buddhas and lamas, but what we mean when we refer to “culture.” All human sciences are turning into a branch of cultural studies. While there are of course many religious believers in the West, especially in the United States, vast numbers of our societal elite follow (some of the) religious rituals and mores of our tradition only out of respect for the “lifestyle” of the community to which we belong: Christmas trees in shopping centers every December; neighborhood Easter egg hunts; Passover dinners celebrated by nonbelieving Jews.
“Culture” has commonly become the name for all those things we practice without really taking seriously. And this is why we dismiss fundamentalist believers as “barbarians” with a “medieval mindset”: they dare to take their beliefs seriously. Today, we seem to see the ultimate threat to culture as coming from those who live immediately in their culture, who lack the proper distance.
Perhaps we find China’s reincarnation laws so outrageous not because they are alien to our sensibility, but because they spill the secret of what we have done for so long: respectfully tolerating what we don’t take quite seriously, and trying to contain its political consequences through the law.
Slavoj Zizek, the international director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities, is the author, most recently, of “The Parallax View.”

2008-04-22 10:57:21 Quentin (人似秋鸿来有信，事如春梦了无痕)

麻烦同仁翻译一下吧，谢了

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2008-04-22 19:11:55 追月谷

终于有人转过来了。

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2008-04-23 00:34:50 leaflet

我来翻一下大意吧。

文章一开始说中国政府颁布的不允许活佛在国外转世的法律在西方引起了嗤笑和愤怒。

但齐泽克认为西方人尊重西藏的宗教却不真正关心其内容（譬如真诚地相信活佛转世等等），他们关心的只是“文化”，而文化成为那些我们习以为常却并不真正把它当回事的事务的代名词；事实上，西方人（即齐泽克口中的“我们”）会把彻底的宗教信奉者斥为“野蛮人”或“中世纪",因为他们竟敢真的相信（宗教世界观）那一套。“我们”视那些彻底相信自己文化的人为最大的威胁，因为他们与自己的文化缺乏适当的距离。

但是由于宗教事实上是影响到地区政治，所以当权者干涉宗教的时候并以法律的手段将其纳入制度体系(如中国发布法令不许活佛在国外转世），这也是有情可原，并且在欧洲历史上也出现过先例。中国在西藏问题上所做的不过是“我们”一直通行的；尊重容忍那些我们并没有认真对待的（宗教、价值体系等），同时用法律来规范其政治后果。

------------分割线---------
时间有限，只翻了我认为比较有价值的一小部分。另外没干过翻译的干活，翻不不好请大家指正。

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2008-04-23 14:06:47 Quentin (人似秋鸿来有信，事如春梦了无痕)

谢谢楼上的翻译，齐泽克总是能一针见血的看到更深的一层，西方人实际上也不可能真正的相信宗教那一套。随着西方的科学细化及各种理论的引入，我们的世界观被切成了碎块，并被剥的里三层外三层，自己的行为和理念形成矛盾混乱也就不是什么难于理解的事了。
东方的思想更强调和谐，而不是在激化分歧中寻求进步，至少世界是个整体严整的形象，至少让我们自己不再左顾右盼中失去重心。要好好学，好好学。

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2008-04-23 20:50:26 leaflet

　　呵呵，我以为西方人对西藏文化的激情夸张点说就是叶公好龙（玩笑~)。但事实上他们不是出于认同，而是一种对稀缺性的保护的意识。这个跟罗素说的“参差百态乃幸福本源”一脉相承，君不闻西方还有学者叫嚣着要好好保护朝鲜的政治生态----彻底的封闭独裁现在也成了珍惜“物种”，要好好保存下来以便研究。
　　
　　当然这个例子举的极端了，西藏文化确有保护的必要，他们的生活方式也应该得到尊重。在这一点上我想西方人和大多数国人并不难达成共识；但不同地是，西方人只是需要西藏文化繁荣来体现世界更加美好丰富，而中国人却要因此承受相应极端的政治后果（在目前的比较敏感的情况下），也难怪中国zf在某些问题上不肯让步了。

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2008-04-24 13:33:16 Quentin (人似秋鸿来有信，事如春梦了无痕)

　　其实哪个国家对任何事都会有不同的主张，问题只是在于政客们需要什么，所以咱们的所见所闻都是经过政治加工的，政治在对内对外的交流上扮演了一个选择器的角色，而东西方不同的是，西方的选择器时常更换，而中国则认为选择器是生态的，能自我更新，质保一千年。

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2008-04-27 21:25:14 光悦 (好自由，好思考，好折腾！)

要好好保护朝鲜的政治生态----彻底的封闭独裁现在也成了珍惜“物种”，要好好保存下来以便研究。

这话可属于黑色幽默了，呵呵。

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2008-08-10 05:22:01 raulkaka

THE Western liberal media had a laugh in August when China’s State Administration of Religious Affairs announced Order No. 5, a law covering “the management measures for the reincarnation of living Buddhas in Tibetan Buddhism.” This “important move to institutionalize management on reincarnation” basically prohibits Buddhist monks from returning from the dead without government permission: no one outside China can influence the reincarnation process; only monasteries in China can apply for permission.

西方自由媒体在8月份中国国家宗教事务局颁发5号令的时候发出了嘲笑，这个法令包含“藏传佛教活佛转世管理办法”(1) 这个“制度化管理活佛转世的重要一步”基本上禁止了没有政府允许的佛教徒转世：没有人在中国境外可以影响转世过程；只有中国境内寺庙可以申请许可。

　　Before we explode in rage that Chinese Communist totalitarianism now wants to control even the lives of its subjects after their deaths, we should remember that such measures are not unknown to European history. The Peace of Augsburg in 1555, the first step toward the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 that ended the Thirty Years’ War, declared the local prince’s religion to be the official faith of a region or country (“cuius regio, eius religio”). The goal was to end violence between German Catholics and Lutherans, but it also meant that when a new ruler of a different religion took power, large groups had to convert. Thus the first big institutional move toward religious tolerance in modern Europe involved a paradox of the same type as that of Order No. 5: your religious belief, a matter of your innermost spiritual experience, is regulated by the whims of your secular leader.

在我们要对中国共产极权主义如今试图控制死去的生命产生愤怒之前，我们应该记住这样的举动对于欧洲历史来说并不是陌生的。在1555年的签订的《奥格斯堡和约》（2）中，也就是通向结束了三十年战争（3）的《韦斯特伐利亚和约》（4）的第一步，宣布了地方君主的宗教信仰即为国家的正式宗教信仰（"cuius regio, eius religio"="whose region,his religion"）。此和约目的即为结束德国天主教与新教路德宗之间的暴力冲突，但它同时意味着当一个持有不同信仰的新的统治者掌权的时候，一大群人就得改宗。因此现代欧洲第一个大的向着宗教宽容的制度化的步骤，包含着与5号令相同的佯谬：你的宗教信仰，一个关乎你内在精神体验的事情，是由你的世俗领袖的想法管理的。

　　Contrary to the conventional wisdom, the Chinese government is not antireligious. Its stated worry is social “harmony” — the political dimension of religion. In order to curb the excess of social disintegration caused by the capitalist explosion, officials now celebrate religions that sustain social stability, from Buddhism to Confucianism — the very ideologies that were the target of the Cultural Revolution. Last year, Ye Xiaowen, China’s top religious official, told Xinhua, the official Chinese news agency, that “religion is one of the important forces from which China draws strength,” and he singled out Buddhism for its “unique role in promoting a harmonious society.”

与传统智慧相反，中国政府并不反宗教。它的担心是社会“和谐”——政治意义上的宗教。为了抑制由于资本主义发展带来的日益扩张的社会分裂，官员们现在鼓励任何能够维持社会稳定的宗教，从佛教到儒教——也就是文革所要攻击的意识形态。去年，中国最高的宗教官员叶小文告诉新华社“宗教是中国保持稳定的一个重要力量。”他特别挑出佛教，因为佛教有“在促进和谐社会中的特殊角色”。

　　What bothers Chinese authorities are sects like FL Gong that insist on independence from state control. In the same vein, the problem with Tibetan Buddhism resides in an obvious fact that many Western enthusiasts conveniently forget: the traditional political structure of Tibet is theocracy, with the Dalai Lama at the center. He unites religious and secular power — so when we are talking about the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama, we are taking about choosing a head of state. It is strange to hear self-described democracy advocates who denounce Chinese persecution of followers of the Dalai Lama — a non-democratically elected leader if there ever was one.

真正让中国官方头疼的是像轮轮那样坚持要求从国家控制中独立的宗教。同样地，藏传佛教的问题也寓于一个明显的事实中，也是很多西方的积极分子很方便忘掉的：西藏的传统政治结构是神权政治，dllm位于权力中心。他掌有宗教和世俗的权力——因此当我们说到dllm的转世的问题时，我们是在说选择一个政权的首领。当听到一个自认为民主支持者的人谴责中国队dllm追随者的迫害时时很奇怪的，因为dllm本身就是一个非民主选举的领袖，如果真的曾有过的话。

　　In recent years, the Chinese have changed their strategy in Tibet: in addition to military coercion, they increasingly rely on ethnic and economic colonization. Lhasa is transforming into a Chinese version of the capitalist Wild West, with karaoke bars and Disney-like Buddhist theme parks.

最近几年，中国政府改变了他们的对藏策略：除了军事镇压外，他们加强依赖于民族和经济的殖民。拉萨伴随着卡拉OK和迪斯尼一样的佛教主题公园，正在转变为一个中国版的狂野西部。

　　In short, the media image of brutal Chinese soldiers terrorizing Buddhist monks conceals a much more effective American-style socioeconomic transformation: in a decade or two, Tibetans will be reduced to the status of the Native Americans in the United States. Beijing finally learned the lesson: what is the oppressive power of secret police forces, camps and Red Guards destroying ancient monuments compared to the power of unbridled capitalism to undermine all traditional social relations?

简单来说，媒体上粗暴的中国军人恐吓喇嘛的图像掩盖了一个更在起作用的美国式的社会经济变化：在一、二十年内，藏族人会被降低到如今土著人在美国的地位。北京终于学到了教训：相对于赤裸裸的资本主义破坏传统社会结构的能力而言，那些秘密警察、红卫兵砸古代纪念物的手法算得了什么？

　　It is all too easy to laugh at the idea of an atheist power regulating something that, in its eyes, doesn’t exist. However, do we believe in it? When in 2001 the Taliban in Afghanistan destroyed the ancient Buddhist statues at Bamiyan, many Westerners were outraged — but how many of them actually believed in the divinity of the Buddha?

去嘲笑一个无神论的统治者去管理一个在他们眼中并不存在的东西实在是太简单了。然而，我们难道相信那些吗？当2001年阿富汗的塔利班毁坏Bamiyan的古代佛像的时候，很多西方人都愤怒了——但是他们中有多少真正相信佛陀的神性？

　　Rather, we were angered because the Taliban did not show appropriate respect for the “cultural heritage” of their country. Unlike us sophisticates, they really believed in their own religion, and thus had no great respect for the cultural value of the monuments of other religions.

恰恰相反，我们愤怒是因为塔利班没有对他们国家的“文化遗产”表现出应有的尊敬。不像我们这些复杂的人，他们（塔利班）真正信仰他们的宗教，并因此不对其他宗教的纪念物的文化价值抱有那么多敬意。

　　The significant issue for the West here is not Buddhas and lamas, but what we mean when we refer to “culture.” All human sciences are turning into a branch of cultural studies. While there are of course many religious believers in the West, especially in the United States, vast numbers of our societal elite follow (some of the) religious rituals and mores of our tradition only out of respect for the “lifestyle” of the community to which we belong: Christmas trees in shopping centers every December; neighborhood Easter egg hunts; Passover dinners celebrated by nonbelieving Jews.

对西方而言重要的问题不在于佛陀和lm,而是当我们说“文化”的时候，我们到底是指什么。所有的人类科学都转为文化研究的一支。当然在西方有很多宗教信徒，特别是美国，有很多社会精英遵守宗教的礼仪，还有更多的传统受到尊敬仅仅是由于它是我们所在社区的“生活方式”：每年12月在购物中心的圣诞树；邻居的复活节彩蛋；非犹太教徒的逾越节晚餐。

　　“Culture” has commonly become the name for all those things we practice without really taking seriously. And this is why we dismiss fundamentalist believers as “barbarians” with a “medieval mindset”: they dare to take their beliefs seriously. Today, we seem to see the ultimate threat to culture as coming from those who live immediately in their culture, who lack the proper distance.

“文化”通常成为一些我们实践却又不那么当真的一些事情的总称。这也就是为什么我们鄙视那些原教旨主义的信徒为有着一颗“中世纪心态”的“野蛮人”：他们竟敢把他们的信仰当真。今天，我们似乎看到那些对文化的终极威胁来源于那些就生活在他们文化中的人，那些缺乏恰当的距离的人。

　　Perhaps we find China’s reincarnation laws so outrageous not because they are alien to our sensibility, but because they spill the secret of what we have done for so long: respectfully tolerating what we don’t take quite seriously, and trying to contain its political consequences through the law.

也许我们对中国的转世法令如此愤怒并不是因为那些法令真的对我们来说不可想象，而是因为那些法令揭穿了一个我们已经做了很久的秘密：有敬意地容忍一些我们并不太当真的东西，并试图通过法律限制它的政治后果。

　　Slavoj Zizek, the international director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities, is the author, most recently, of “The Parallax View.”

1：《藏传佛教活佛转世管理办法》（宗教局第5号令）：
http://www1.www.gov.cn/ziliao/flfg/2007-08/02/content_704414.htm

2：《奥格斯堡和约》：http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_of_Augsburg

3：三十年战争： http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirty_Years%27_War

4：《韦斯特伐利亚和约》：http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_of_Westphalia

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