Books & Culture, May/June 2006
Goodbye, Blog
The friend of information but the enemy of thought.
by Alan Jacobs
About two years ago, my online life began to be centered on a computer application: not my word processing program, or my email program, but my rss news reader. rss (which apparently stands for Really Simple Syndication, though there is some debate about that) is a technology for capturing news headlines and summaries of stories, or their first few sentences, from websites. A site that offers these headlines is said to be providing news “feeds” to those who ask for them. The advantage of such syndication is that you can scan many headlines quickly, and open in your browser only the ones you really want to read.
Using NetNewsWire, I found I could get news from dozens of sources every day and thereby keep myself informed on pretty much everything I am interested in. For me the most exciting features of NetNewsWire were two: first, I could set the frequency with which I wanted to check my sites for new items, as often as every half-hour; and second, I could organize my sites in folders. Pretty soon I had a Technology folder, a Macintosh folder, a News folder, a Culture folder, a Literature folder, a Christianity folder, and so on.
Some of these sites were from what online writers call the msm (for “mainstream media”), but most of them were blogs, and with blogs you never know when someone is going to postexcept for Glenn Reynolds, the InstaPundit, who posts all day every day. Normal people might write an entry three out of four days, and then go on a fortnight’s hiatus; it gets tiresome to peek in at the website every day. NetNewsWire did the peeking for me, and let me know when it found something.
At first my interest was in newswhether about technology or politics or culturebut increasingly I became excited by the idea that the blogosphere could be a great venue for the exchange and development of ideas. One of the first blogs I got really attached to was called Invisible Adjunct. Now, alas, defunct, it was written by a woman who worked as an adjunct (that is, part-time and temporary) faculty member at a New York university, and her entries generated a fascinating conversation about the way the American university works, the way it should work, and how to get from Point A to Point B. I would read the site and think, “Yes, this is the way revolutions get started! Spontaneous communities of committed, thoughtful people testing their ideas against one anotheriron sharpening iron!” Granted, I was excitable in those early days, and talk of “revolution” was certainly misplaced, but I think I was right to be intrigued. As a member of the professoriate, I had long since gotten frustrated with the game-playing and slavishly imitative scholarship of the official academic worldall choreographed in advance by the ruthless demands of the tenure systemand I thought that the blogs could provide an alternative venue where more risky ideas could be offered and debated, where real intellectual progress might take place outside the System.
And sometimes this happens. Last year, on the group blog Crooked Timber (crookedtimber.org), which is largely written by political philosophers and social scientists, there was a fascinating discussion of the gifted (but in my judgment disturbingly perverse) fantasy novelist China Miéville. Not only did several of the Crooked Timber bloggers write brief essays about Miéville, but also Miéville himself responded with a generous and thoughtful essay of his own. The debate was far more interesting, and more genuinely reflective, than any discussion about literature I can remember participating in or even witnessingin a formal academic setting. That fantasy writing still, despite all the canon-bashing of the last twenty years, has a faintly disreputable air among many English professors added to the freshness of the debateas did the fact that none of the bloggers was an English professor. The whole conversation was a small victory for reading, a reminder that the importance of some books is seen from the excitement they create among thoughtful people, in this case people whose jobs require them to write about something else but who were moved or intrigued or excited or troubled by something China Miéville wrote and who therefore had to respond to it. (The experiment was recently repeated with an equally interesting symposium on Susanna Clarke’s remarkable novel Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell.)
But this sort of thing happens all too rarely in the blogosphere, at least in part because of what Laurence Lessig calls the “architecture” of the online world, and more specifically of blogs. Several years ago Lessig wrote one of the definitive books about the Internet, Code: and Other Laws of Cyberspace. In it he tried to call a halt to all the fruitless debates about the “nature” of the internet. Is it its nature to be democratic or tyrannical, managerial or anarchic, or what? Lessig’s answer was that the internet doesn’t have a nature, that what it turns out to be will depend on the way it’s built, the code in which it is writtenits digital architecture.
Whatever one thinks about the structure of the internet as a whole, it is becoming increasingly clear that the particular architecture of the blogosphere is the chief impediment to its becoming a place where new ideas can be deployed, tested, and developed. Take, for instance, the problem of comments.
The industry-standard blog architecture calls for something like this: a main area on the page where the blogger’s own posts are presented, with the newest post at the top of the page; then, at the left or right or both, various supplements: links to other sites, personal information about the blogger, and so on. At the bottom of each post will be the hyperlinked word “comments,” usually followed by a parenthesis indicating the number of responses to the post: click on the word and you get to see all those comments. That’s where the real conversation is supposed to take place. And sometimes it does; but often it doesn’tor rather, the conversation just gets started and then peters out before it can really become productive. And this happens not because of inertia, but largely because the anatomy of a blog makes a serious conversation all but impossible.
Imagine this scenario: one Thursday morning you read an interesting post on a political blog about the torture of suspected terrorists by U.S. soldiers. You agree with the main thrust of the post, but think the writer has overlooked an important point, so you post a comment that says so. You then wait to see what response your idea elicits. The next few comments are by people who think that anyone who criticizes the government on this point longs for the return of Saddam Hussein to power and rejoices in the destruction of the World Trade Center, and by other people who think the height of incisive political commentary is the coinage “Bushitler.” You expect this sort of thing, you have learned to scan right past it in search of genuine reflection. Eventually someonemaybe the author of the original post, maybe someone elseresponds to your claim, negatively let’s say. You quickly defend your position, explaining it in more detail because more detail reveals that your view is not subject to the criticism that has been offered; but now you have to go to work, or pick up the kids from school; you’ll check back later to see what further response you have elicited.
But life is busy. You can’t check back until Saturday morning, and y that time the comment thread has died out. Maybe you did get a second response, maybe you didn’t, but in any case you note that the last comment in the thread was posted on Friday afternoon. On many blogs the comments to a given post are “closed” after a few daysno one is allowed to make further commentsusually because that helps to prevent the accumulation of comment spam, but also because so many threads degenerate into name-calling that the blog administrator has to shoo the belligerents along to another venue. And in any case both the blogger and the commenters have moved along to other posts, other ideas, other conversations.
Or consider this: what if you come across some new information, a week or a month later, that sheds significant light on the debate? You could, of course, send an email to the original blogger asking him or her to take a look at this new evidence; but whether the debate gets renewed will depend on whether the blogger decides to start a new comment thread; the old one will be dead and gone, such that, even in the unlikely event that comments are still open on it, the chances of anyone looking back into that Paleolithic era are slim indeed.
Architecture is of course not everything here; human nature is at work too. I think first of the extraordinary anger that seems to be more present in the blogosphere than in everyday life. Debate after debateon almost every site I visit, including the ones devoted to Christianityeither escalates from rational discourse into sneering and name-calling or just bypasses reason altogether and starts with the abuse.
Partly this derives from the anonymity of blog comments: people rarely identify themselves by their real names, and the email addresses that they sometimes provide rarely give clues about their identity: a person who is safe from substantive reprisals is probably more easily tempted to express rage. Alsoand this is a problem especially on the political blogscommenters can find themselves confronted with very different beliefs than the ones they encounter in everyday life, where they often are able to select their own society. A right-winger wandering into a comment thread on Dailykos.com is likely to get a serious douse of vitriol for his or her trouble; ditto a liberal who plunges into the icy waters of No Left Turns. And the anonymous habitués of a given site are unlikely to show much courtesy to the uninvited guest. (This is one reason why sites like the two just mentioned get more rhetorically, and substantively, extreme over time: everyone is pulling in one direction, and scarcely anyone shows up to exert counter-pressure.)
And then there are the “trolls”: people who comment specifically in order to get a rise out of other commenterspeople who have never transcended the discovery that being extremely annoying is one of the most reliable ways of getting attention. Most of us, by third grade or so, come to understand that hostile attention is probably worse than no attention at all, but trolls never learn to make such subtle discriminations. Thus no law of the blogosphere is more importantthough also more widely ignoredthan “Don’t feed the trolls.”
All in all, a blog is no place for the misanthropically inclined. Charlie Brown used to say, “I love mankind; it’s people I can’t stand,” and I have discovered that in the blogosphere, peoplein Mr. Brown’s subtle sense of the wordare pretty much inescapable. Many’s the time I have found myself hunched over my keyboard, my hands frozen above it, trying to decide which of two replies to make: the one assuming that my interlocutor is morally compromised, or the one assuming that he is invincibly ignorant. In such circumstances it’s always best just to get up and walk away, not darkening counsel by words without knowledge, or without charity anyway.
Chalk ths up, if you will, to deficiencies in my Christian character. But even for those more saintly than myself and there are a fewthe blogosphere inevitably accelerates the pace of debate to the timetable of daily journalism. In terms of how they treat substantive ideas, blogs are not very different from newspapers: they present an idea and then move on, as quickly as possible, to the next idea. Perhaps there can be, later on, some brief acknowledgment that that idea wasn’t treated fully and adequatelybut, as the newsreel in Citizen Kane reminds us, Time is On The March, and bloggers are under enormous pressure to march along with it.
The very notion of a blog (originally a “web log”) is that of a diary, a periodic account of what’s happening in someone’s life or someone’s mind, which is why one of the most delightful sites to emerge from this new technology is the one that posts, in classic blog formateven with comments, though they are called “annotations”the diary of that great observer of 17th-century social life, Samuel Pepys (www.pepysdiary.com, and yes, it has an rss feed). No one seems to be willing to chew over even a very substantive blog post for very long: instead, we want new ones. Otherwise our rss readers won’t have anything to tell us, will they?
It’s telling that the terrific conversations about (and including) China Miéville and Susanna Clarke on Crooked Timber arose not from the usual post-plus-comments format but from something very different, more centrally controlled and highly structured. As Henry Farrell wrote on the site before the first symposium, “A few months ago, the Miéville Fraktion within CT decided that it might be fun to put together a mini-seminar around Iron Council [Miéville’s 2004 novel], and to ask China to respond. He very decently said yes; you see the result before you.” So this exemplary intellectual exchange arose from something like the time-honored magazine practice of commissioning writers to produce a colloquium on a given subject. The Timberites even gathered the posts together and put them in a pdf, to make it all look even more like a Special Issue of some literary quarterly.
Blogs remain great for news: political, technological, artistic, whatever. And they provide a very rich environment in which news (or rather “news”) can be tested and evaluated and revised, as we have seen repeatedly, from cnn’s firing of Eason Jordan to the discrediting of Dan Rather’s story on President Bush’s National Guard service. But as vehicles for the development of ideas they are woefully deficient and will necessarily remain so unless they develop an architecture that is less bound by the demands of urgencyor unless more smart people refuse the dominant architecture. Even on a site with the brainpower of Crooked Timber, what happens more often than notindeed, what happens so often that I’ve taken the site from my rss reader and only check it once or twice a monthis the conversion of really good scholars into really lousy journalists. With few exceptions, posts at the “academic” or “intellectual” blogs I used to frequent have become the brief and cursory announcement of opinions, not the free explorations of new and dynamic thinking. One notable exception is the philosopher John Holbo, who edits and often writes for The Valve (www.thevalve.org), a website sponsored by the Association of Literary Scholars and Criticsand people often complain that his posts are too long.
As I think about these architectural deficiencies, and the deficiencies of my own character, I find myself meditating on a passage from a book by C. S. Lewis. In his great work of literary history, Poetry and Prose in the Sixteenth Century, Lewis devotes a passage to what he descries, with a certain savageness, as “that whole tragic farce which we call the history of the Reformation.” For Lewis, the issues that divided Catholics and Protestants, that led to bloodshed all over Europe and to a seemingly permanent division of Christians from one another, “could have been fruitfully debated only between mature and saintly disputants in close privacy and at boundless leisure.” Instead, thanks to the prevalence of that recent invention the printing press, and to the intolerance of many of the combatants, deep and subtle questions found their way into the popular press and were immediately transformed into caricatures and cheap slogans. After that there was no hope of peaceful reconciliation.
On a smaller scale, the same problems afflict the intellectual and moral environments of the blogs. There is no privacy: all conversations are utterly public. The arrogant, the ignorant, and the bullheaded constantly threaten to drown out the saintly, and for that matter the merely knowledgeable, or at least overwhelm them with sheer numbers. And the architecture of the blog (and its associated technologies like rss), with its constant emphasis on novelty, militates against leisurely conversations. It is no insult to the recent, but already cherished, institution of the blogosphere to say that blogs cannot do everything well. Right now, and for the foreseeable future, the blogosphere is the friend of information but the enemy of thought.
Alan Jacobs is professor of English at Wheaton College. He is the author most recently of The Narnian: The Life and Imagination of C. S. Lewis (HarperSanFrancisco).
Harry Potter and the violent illness
Ros Taylor
Wednesday June 28, 2006
The Guardian
JK Rowling hinted this week that the seventh and final Harry Potter novel might see the death of her protagonist. Several draft plots have come to light, taking up the story after Dumbledore’s death and Harry’s decision to break up with his new girlfriend Ginny in order to devote his life to defeating the evil Voldemort.
1 Harry embarks on a gap year teaching quidditch at Durmstrang, the German school of magic. The trip starts badly after his attempt to divert a Ryanair flight away from a cloud of Death Eaters is misunderstood by the Muggle authorities. Extraordinarily rendered to a detention camp run by Draco Malfoy and an army of house-elves, Harry spends months being tortured with Blast-Ended Skrewts. He manages to liberate the elves, but as they quarrel about whether freedom is worth the effort, Malfoy tips off the Muggles and Harry vanishes on board a dragon somewhere over the Atlantic.
2 After Harry and Ginny end their trial separation, a Hippogriff carries them to the honeymoon suite at the Three Broomsticks, now a gastropub. Neither suspects that the landlord is Voldemort, nor that he has laced Ginny’s butterbeer. By the time an oak-aged merlot alerts Harry, Ginny has been kidnapped and transformed into a bad-tempered barmaid. In the ensuing standoff, the pub loses its pretensions, but something nasty emerges from Harry’s rocket and he perishes along with a pan-fried chizpurfle.
3 With Hogwarts deprived of Dumbledore and descending into anarchy, the Ministry of Magic threatens to replace it with a City Academy unless new headmistress Minerva McGonagall improves the NEWT results. Harry tries to study, but becomes aware of a plot to steal the selection hat and allow a small number of Muggles to enter Hogwarts each year. In the ensuing struggle to maintain the school’s exclusivity, Harry is pushed off a crumbling battlement by Malfoy, who uses the incident to prove that Hogwarts is unfit for purpose.
4 Muggle treasurer Gordon Brown threatens to release a number of Hebridean Black dragons unless the wizarding community pays tax on all magical objects. Meanwhile, Brown’s arch-enemy – an oversized reptile with an ability to camouflage himself at will – persuades Harry to install a wind turbine on Hagrid’s hut. But much to Harry’s horror, the friendly reptile turns out to be Wormtail in disguise. Just as it seems that Lord Voldemort’s return is inevitable, Harry wins back Gordon’s trust with a hastily collected stealth tax and flies south to confront the reptile, which is eventually overwhelmed. The beast flees north and is confined to a glacier, but leaves behind the mysterious bill of rights, which Harry cannot help but open – and pays a terrible price for his weakness.
5 Harry reaches the quarter-finals of the Triwizard Tournament and is overcome by a strange sickness that leaves him unable to cast a spell. After Ginny confesses that she finds him repellent and plans to spend more time with the mysterious WaG, Harry learns the illness is irreversible from his only friend, a Shuffling Petricrouch. Summoning his inner magic and the help of a wild Roowain, Harry wins the trophy and the undying respect of his peers, but still ends up crawling into the forest to die after Ginny permanently withdraws her affections and expresses a desire to release a hit single.
被雪藏的另一位遇罗克式的烈士——王申酋
丁东
我在《南方周末》登了《遇罗克是谁》之后，接到了来自天南地北的许多电话，遇罗克在那么多人的心中活着，这是历史的安慰。由此还和遇罗克的弟弟遇罗文取得了联系，为即将付印的《遇罗克遗作与回忆》一书，充实了重要的内容，更是意想不到的收获。这本书问世后，有人问我下一步做什么？我说，下一步想推出《王申酉文集》。接 着又遇到了相似的问题：王申酉是谁？
问我遇罗克是谁的，是年轻的朋友。问我王申酉是谁的，却是成年的朋友，而且是知识界的朋友。的确，在12亿中国人当中，知道王申酉这个名字的人，太少太少了。
我第一次意识到王申酉的重要性是三、四年前。当时我和谢泳合写了一篇关于文革时期的民间思想的论文，钟沛璋先生读后说，文章不错，可惜忽略了王申酉。
从此，我就开始留意王申酉。直到去年冬天，我请邵燕祥先生为《孙越生文集》作序，又提起王申酉的事。他说，可以找金凤。并且当下拿出一本杂志，上有一篇访问金凤的文章。其中提到，有关王申酉的书出不来，成为金凤的一块心病。
终于，我找到了早已离休的资深记者金凤；终于，我读到了王申酉的遗作。王申酉的思想，在今天看来，都是正常的思想。他的不幸，就在于比常人早想了一、二十年：
——他批评“在我们国家里，还存在着‘革命’功臣与广大平民的不平等”是1963年；
——他批评思想独裁是1964年；
——他批评“三面红旗一出，三年困苦降临到六亿人头上”是1965年；
——他批评“在六万万人民中空前地培植起同封建时代类似的个人迷信、个人崇拜”是1966年；
——他指出“毛在十年前划了30万右派分子，他们绝大多数是无权无势的耿直志士”是1967年；
——在他1976年11月18日到23日写的“供词”里，全面地反思了建国以来一系列极左思想的恶果，提出了尊重价值规律，打破闭关锁国，实行对外开放等系统的改革主张。
他的观点，不过是写在日记中，写在给女友的书信里。他没有结社，也没有把他的主张付诸政治活动，仅仅因为思想，因为他的头脑里产生了与当时统治者不一致的思想，于是被判处死刑，立即执行！
让我们记住王申酉被枪杀的日子吧：1977年4月27日。这个日子和遇罗克被枪杀的日子——1970年3月5日一样，都是中国历史上最黑暗的日子，都铭刻着国家的耻辱。苏格拉底被杀死在2400年前；布鲁诺被烧死是在400年前；而中国杀死自己的思想家是二十世纪70年代。遇罗克只活了27岁！王申酉只活了31岁！有人慨叹当时中国没出几个思想家。中国人不是天生没有思想能力，而是最杰出的思想者，竟然被推上了断头台！
王申酉在80年代初平反时，首都的一些新闻机构组织金凤等一流记者，花了很大的气力去采访，准备像宣传张志新一样大张旗鼓地宣传王申酉的事迹。然而，报导写成之后，有关领导人却提出：“藏之名山，传之后世。”藏是藏起来了，一藏就是将近20年，文稿在金凤手里已经藏得发黄发脆。传之后世，就不好说了。连同代人都不知道王申酉是谁，后世人怎么会想起寻找他的踪影呢？
王申酉，让中国人知道你的名字！
独立中文笔会秘书处
应国际笔会下属意大利笔会邀请，独立中文笔会派出两名代表参加了今年6月16至18日在意大利米兰召开的一次国际会议。这次会议是国际笔会下属意大利笔会和联合国教科文组织联合举办的 “作家与人权”系列研讨会的第二轮会议，主题是“表达的自由：政治权力和恐怖主义”。独立中文笔会会员周勍作为受迫害作家代表之一在会上作了主题发言。独立笔会“翻译和语言权利委员会”召集人阿海作为会议代表和翻译参加会议。
“表达的自由：政治权力和恐怖主义”研讨会会场设在米兰市中心的一个酒店。该酒店由一个十四世纪建造的古修道院改建而成，古意盎然的框形建筑当中，围出一个清凉碧绿的庭院，景色十分宜人。参加会议的有国际笔会主席伊利·格鲁沙（Jirí Grusa）、国际笔会狱中作家委员会主席卡琳·克拉克（Karin Clark）女士、多名国际笔会理事以及来自三十个国际笔会所属笔会中心的代表共计60多人。
会议在意大利笔会会长、国际著名人权作家卢西欧·拉米（Lucio Lami）主持下开幕。格鲁沙主席作了开幕演说。拉米会长和格鲁沙主席的开幕发言，为本次研讨会阐明了响亮的主题：人权和表达自由必须优先于经济利益。这正是西方世界，尤其是西方政治家和主流媒体正在尽力遗忘的一种道义。
本次会议安排了六名受迫害作家和新闻记者作主题发言，向与会代表坦陈其受迫害的经历和他们对表达自由的渴望。独立笔会会员周勍是第二个作主题发言的受迫害作家，在短短20分钟的主题发言中，他谈到了六四之后他在中国监狱中所遭受到的非人待遇，以及出狱后17年当中不断受到的监视、骚扰和迫害。周勍还生动地介绍了他接到意大利笔会邀请函之后，在短短一个星期内受到四次传讯的经历。最后，周勍特别指出，在今年所谓的意中文化交流年，意大利政府和媒体正在不断地向中国当权者献媚。而意大利笔会能够通过独立中文笔会邀请中国的独立作家参加本次研讨会，本身就是一件值得称道的事情。
周勍的发言在与会代表当中引起了极大反响。听众中很多人眼中都噙满了泪水。周勍发言结束之后，格鲁沙主席带着泪痕上前紧紧地握住周勍的手，对他的遭遇表示同情。会后格鲁沙主席又专门找到周勍，告知说他自己以前在祖国捷克也有过类似经历，只不过时间没有那么长而已。
会议休息期间，愿意采访周勍的媒体记者、希望和周勍交流的与会代表排起了长队。本次研讨会中意大利笔会把新闻发布事务全部委托给一个独立媒体中介公司操作。该公司本来准备自己编发新闻稿。周勍作了成功发言之后，该公司重新评价研讨会的新闻价值，立即召集意大利国家电视一台的记者和摄像师对周勍进行采访，并于当晚在国家电视一台黄金时间播出了新闻。从这个意义上讲，周勍的成功发言也为本次研讨会扩大了新闻影响。
此外，意大利第七电视台、米兰地方电台和意大利北部的数家报社都对周勍进行了采访。各笔会中心代表也纷纷向周勍致意，对他争取自由表达的勇气表示赞赏。毫无疑问，周勍的发言是六个受迫害作家中最成功的，为独立中文笔会在国际笔会舞台上的活跃表现进一步增添了光彩。
六位受迫害作家发言之后，会议邀请了米兰大学的两名人权研究专家，就政治权力和恐怖主义这个主题，作了学术性发言。会议最后部分是国际笔会狱中作家委员会的一次小型工作会议，由国际笔会狱中作家委员会几名官员介绍了狱委对被迫害作家的营救与帮助工作的进展情况和具体项目等。（阿海撰稿新闻秘书万之发布）
每次看法国电视台直播议员们在法国国民议会里就国家的大事小情彬彬有礼地争论时，心里便有一种难以克制的乡愁、一种悲伤，对宪政生活的怀念、对文明政治的无限期许。一个游子，告别了热爱的亲人，远走他乡，有了一种把异乡当作故乡的错觉，是因为他在那里找到了他认为自己或自己的国家同样可以拥有的一些美好的东西，比如自由、民主等具有普世性的价值。这种普世性，无远弗界，是乡愁可以发生的前提。
前两天，法国电视三台播了段新闻录像：台湾一双男女立委为了军购的事在立法院打起了盒饭大战，一时蔬菜与肉块齐飞，汤水共长衣一色。台湾立委拳打脚踢骂LP已是全球出了名的，所以我并不惊讶；同时，毕竟宪政是宪政最好的训练，我只当这是台湾民主自由路上的一个小插曲，甚至连丑闻都谈不上。只是那些终于抖落在地上的饭菜，让我想起了发生在民国初期的另一段历史。比起今天台湾岛远播海外的这些政治八卦，当说有趣、也有聊得多。
1913年的10月10日，巴拿马运河开通的那天，袁世凯就任中华民国总舵主。为当上这个比鸟大得多得多的官，趁早一统江湖，袁世凯胁迫国会在没有制宪的情况下先进行总统选举。10月6日一大早，各路议员纷纷来到选举大厅，准备投上他们的神圣一票。根据此前拼凑的《总统选举法》：候选人必须获得四分之三的绝对多数票才能当选。第一轮投票，袁世凯得471票，差了99票，于是又进行第二轮投票，结果袁世凯得497票，离当选仍差63票。时已过午，议员们要求回家吃饭，然而由数千便衣军警与地痞组成的“公民团”早已将国会围得水泄不通。“公民团”守住了前后门，齐声高喊口号：“今天不选出我们中意的大总统，就休想出院去！”就这样，议员第三轮就袁世凯和黎元洪二人决选时，使袁世凯以507票当选。这时已接近晚上10点，央视的新闻联播与紧随其后帝王剧都演完了。议员们一个个饥肠辘辘（比不了现在的台湾，立法院里还可以互相抛掷盒饭），终于夺路而逃。翻翻萧杀的中国历史书，这算是最浪漫的一幕政治了。说它浪漫，有两个原因，其一是军警们虽然带了枪，但是没有发生流血冲突，甚至免了流汗冲突；其二是只要认真交完作业，袁某人并不亏待，议员们可以自由活动，直接回家吃饭或半路去麦当劳不会有人干涉，不必担心像宋教仁一样被杀，也少了立委间汤汤水水的冲突。
袁世凯当选后，津、沪等地报纸对选举过程表示不满，国务院即通电各省：“此次选举并无军警干涉情事，倘敢捏造蜚言，严惩不贷。”事实上，根据民国初年的《临时约法》，只能产生临时总统和临时政府，然后由临时总统根据临时参议院所制订的国会选举法与组织法，在10个月内完成正式国会的选举与召集，再由国会制订宪法，藉此产生正式总统和政府。然而袁世凯心里一个猴急，嘴里一个借口，便扬着皮鞭吃了顿总统自助餐，夺了《临时约法》的贞操。堂堂议员，谈何颜面？不过集体做了一回国家级的皮条客。之后没多久，袁世凯觉着当总统仍不过是个鸟官，当得不过瘾，便想当皇上。在中国当皇上的好处是有目共睹的，他不仅可以当首席执政官，还可以当首席性交官。三宫六院，七十二嫔妃，威风凛凛。试想，当你穿行于荷兰阿姆斯特丹这个世界最大的红灯区，警察们为你前恭后倨，因为你明月万里，是世间至高无上的君王；橱窗女郎向你沉腰撩舌、风情千种，因为你是这座城里惟一吊着阳货，风流倜傥的男人，你这天下惟一而第一的绝代嫖客，是何等荣华富贵！因为你是中国的君王，你的欧洲同行只能自叹命贱，他们也曾沉湎于寻欢作乐，不过大部分时间和心思都浪费在求爱和向大臣借钱上，所以一辈子玩不了几打女人。至于唐璜和卡萨诺瓦，云雨一生风流无数，因其寄身寻常巷陌，终不过是两个醉春楼行走，怎比得了中国皇上的随意与高贵？
为了当好皇帝，袁世凯不断鼓吹中国国情特殊论。1914年1月，袁下令停止议员职务，解散了国会。1915年10月下旬至11月中旬，又召开所谓国民代表大会，一致投票赞成帝制。就这样袁把碍手碍脚的宪政设计踢到了一边。
宪政要义，无非限制政权、保障民权；坚持以小人之心度君子（国家）之腹，处处小心，时时提防；反对有权有势者把宪法当作阿姆斯特丹橱窗玻璃后的床单，本王爷到此一游，签名留念……事实上，实施宪政并不需要什么高深的理论，说白了就是几个人打一桌麻将，守个规矩。如果有人偷牌，还举着菜刀不许其他人提个意见，那还玩个屁啊！这样的麻将，精于算计的中国人断然是不会打的。然而，同样一桌不公平的政治麻将，在中国已堂而皇之地玩了一百年。胡适说历史是位姑娘，人们想怎么打扮就怎么打扮，有时漂亮有时也丑。相较之下，被认为有普世价值的宪政，永远沉鱼落雁、闭花羞花，让政治的寻芳客们抬望眼，性欲勃勃。法国六八学潮时流行一句口号，“越革命，越想做爱”(Plus je fais la révolution plus j’ai envie de faire l’amour)。现在反战的经典口号也是“要做爱不要战争”（Faites l’amour, pas la guerre）。回首近百年宪政之路，同样有个要求做爱的时髦，“越宪政，越想和宪政上床”（台湾人搞宪政今年也玩得新奇，竟然剖腹产下个一米六七的大总统）。
逆来顺受是人伦，弱肉强食是天理。林语堂先生曾经深剖吾国吾民，“忍辱含垢，唾面自干已变成君子之德”。二十岁多热心国事，三十岁渐渐不谈政治，从此八面玲珑，“国事管他娘”。 林语堂感慨新闻记者的避世：没有自己看法的记者就是成功的记者；二十五岁到三十岁的这几年便是一个有公众精神的人“学乖”的过程。几年前，我曾在国内某家报社开专栏写评论，上级接到上上级的口谕：“评论可以继续写，但不能有观点”。且不探讨没有观点的评论如何写得出，上上级能持如此谦逊之主张也是乖得可以。
其实中国人明哲保身莫谈国事决非天性，东汉末年，曾有太学生三万人议政，但是因为没有法律的保障，清议之权威抵不过宦官的势力，终于有党锢之祸。如林语堂所写，“清议之士，大遭屠杀，或流或刑，或夷其家族，杀了一次又一次。于是清议之风断，而清谈之风成，聪明的人或故为放逸浮夸，或沉湎酒色”。中国人之所以消极避世，是因为在一个人权得不到保障的社会，吃一次亏就够呛了，而“消极避世是个人自由的最好宪法保证”。在笔者看来，任何摧折贤良、人才凋零的时代，这种实现“活命价值”的自我“宪法保证”都不愧为“一个百姓的宪政”。在中国，与之相对应的1909年清廷以降的宪法政治，亦不过是你方唱罢我登场式的“一位领袖的宪政”（所谓多数专政，无非两千年来少数专政之流变）。由于缺乏心胸与眼光，目光所及，远不过屁股。其所谓的“军政、训政、宪政”与其说是层次递进，弗如说是语义重复。袁世凯终于复辟帝制，虽然附庸宪政的风雅，注册了个“洪宪”的ID，不过是个“隔壁王二不曾偷”。一个领袖的宪政与一个百姓的宪政，苟且相安，于是就形成了一个国家上有政策下有对策，几近分崩离析的局面。
消极避世、隐忍苟安是中国人的祖传宪法，在文明宪政没有实行之前，“一个人的宪政”必然大行其道。上至议员下至百姓，怕在投票时被饿着的或怕像李尚平那样半路被射杀的，都会热衷于实践“一个人的宪政”，无原则的隐忍退让是其首要特征。这种隐忍到自杀式的个体户宪政方式就像醉鬼刘伶，有一天没一天，平素里举着二锅头出门，再叫上个在关天茶舍顶帖的，带把铁锹跟着，“死便埋我”。一个人的宪政，大而言之人亡政息，小而言之死了就埋。论及文化特征，就是一代代既不事忏悔过失，也不知继承文明。凡事头痛医头，脚痛医脚；居庙堂之高，望不到将来；处江湖之远，疲于奔命，苦不堪言。诸如今日因为拆迁上访而自–焚、因为讨不着工钱而集体吃安眠药的底层民众，更是将中国的隐忍文化发挥到了极致。对于他们来说，性命与反抗已经无关紧要，憎恨同样变成了毫无意义的繁文缛节。难言之苦，一死了之。我们这个号称需要两百年（1840-2040）才能完成转型的国家无处不充满悲情。这个两百年的预期让我们心甘情愿地宽容了孟轲在偷鸡寓言中所隐喻的政治尴尬与荒诞现实。对于上述的自杀事件，我的一位法国朋友百思不得其解，“你们中国人常讲小不忍则乱大谋，难道这个大谋就是去死吗？”
我们时常责怪一个人或一个群体的懦弱，然而懦弱又有什么过错呢？无论是在极权还是暴民政治时期，与其说它是人们的处世抉择，弗如说是一项权利。它为生活于乱世之中的人们提供安身立命之所。当一个国家的大宪法失灵时，老百姓心里的小宪法就会立即生效，它们不会构成中国宪政共同体，却可以解释中国人为何一盘散沙，一塌糊涂，一地鸡毛。当国家宪法失之空洞、没有足够的力量加以护卫，当人们不能藉着宪法上的白纸黑字保卫自己，便只好各顾各，充当犬儒或猪仙，热衷于自己“一个人的宪政”。对于大多数中国人来说，只有等到自己的这部小宪法几乎运转不了时才会拿着扁担寻找其他的出路，马铃薯从此铺天盖地，结队成精。十分不幸的是，他们寻找到的出路常常与现代意义上的宪政毫无关系。国家悲剧就像无穷无尽的俄罗斯套娃，揭开一个，里面还藏着一个。然而，最大的悲剧并不在于这些奇形怪状、已经存在的套娃，而在于有一种营养让它们无时无刻不在生长。一个悲剧套着另一个悲剧，此恨绵绵，竟无语凝噎。
近日有地方衙门建筑规模的信息又多起来,比如这个评论《建豪华区政府能让老百姓受益？ 》中提到的例子，不过这类评论实在温柔得无关痛痒。三年前，我曾在论坛中置顶征集各地政府的豪华建筑，后来不少论坛也这样做过，结果证明政府真是越来越有钱，建筑之气派豪华，越来越惊人。一句话，你说你的我盖我的，雪球在滚动中越滚越大，越大就越是无法阻挡，没治了。贴篇旧文吧
中国的巴特农神庙
2003年1月2日
1979年，在对手被高昂的举办费吓破了胆，一一退出后，美国洛杉矶不战而胜，获得23届奥运会的主办权。
然而没过几天，洛杉矶市政府却宣布了一道政府令，给了美国国家奥委会当头一棒：洛杉矶市政府绝对不允许动用纳税人一分钱举办奥运会。
这事让今天的中国人理解是不是仍然很困难？
举办奥运会似乎是“当然”的好事；但赔了大钱、让一城或一国的老百姓不得不勒紧裤腰带的奥运会仍然可以是“当然的好事”么？
你想给洛杉矶市政府扣一顶“没有爱国心”、“没有大局观”的帽子吗？这似乎很容易，但是这没有用。
洛杉矶的官由谁当，那是要看洛杉矶市民的脸色的。洛杉矶的政府令是肯定能得到市民支持的，因为他们都清楚赔了血本的蒙特利尔奥运会、莫斯科奥运会的严重后果，他们当然有权利害怕和质疑。
不过，美国奥委会既然把奥运会申办下来，还得硬着头皮办下去，这该怎么办？
天才的商人尤伯罗斯由此应运而生，首创了民间承办奥运会的先河，不但没赔，还赚了一大笔。
什么叫利国利民？我们能否从中学到一些有用的东西？
马克思的哲学不是也要讲“动机与效果的统一”么？
20年后，中国在这方面好歹也有了一点点所谓的进步。1990年，北京为举办亚运会最初预算《人民日报》报道是14个亿，我到现在也不清楚后来怎么会出了七个亿的大缺口（《人民日报》也有报道），这样的预算是哪个昏蛋、王八蛋做出来的？
怎么办？好办！
号召全国人民乃至海外侨胞捐款，那场面搞得煞是有声势。一句话，整个气氛就是“爱国捐”。
今年北京市政府表示，2008年奥运会将不会向社会募捐。好啊，中国又有了一点点进步。
现在我在这里要讲“政绩工程”，洛杉矶的故事还用得上。
比如王怀忠（后调任安徽省副省长，当地百姓私下称之为“王坏种”），他一人决断花了好几个亿，在阜阳造“国际机场”的，没有任何人阻拦得住，他也不用向任何阜阳的纳税人论证这一工程的可行性。想看看他在阜阳的权力有多么绝对么？下面一件小事可以资证，当时的市公安局长向他献媚说：“你要我干啥，我就干啥！”
这样的人，当县官必然祸害一县，当省长必然祸害一省，当国家元首就必然祸及一国，财政收入再多也经不起他们的折腾。
“政绩工程”这两年虽然被批得很多，但都是泛泛之论，其严重性远不是那些批评所能形容。比如下面要说的另一种特别威严的建筑。
这几年，去过几次海南。一次途径海口市中级人民法院，那建筑的风格和气势都吓了我一跳，它比我印象中的巴特农神庙还要威严几分。
我曾觉得当时的印象可能是眼花的错觉，后来有事再去海口，又专程去景仰一番，印象依然是可怕的庞大。那钱花得海了去了，真是不敢想象。
我向海口的朋友说起自己的感受，他说我老土，并对我说，刚落成的省人大新建筑更大，更庄严哩。于是又去专程绕道去那里看了看，果然！
欣赏了这两座建筑，便留下了一个心病：中国各地的政府机关建筑占地规模，投资多少有个标准和上限？如果应该有，这个标准应该由谁来定？是不是也应该举行举行听证？
这些建筑算不算“政绩工程”，按官方也有的说法“形象工程”就是“腐败工程”，这些威严得政府权力机构是否也应该算在其中。
近日，国务院发展研究中心不动产税（也称物业税、房产税）改革研究课题组发布《中国不动产税研究第二期》报告，业内人士分析，它标志着不动产税开征已成定局。
尽管课题组宣称不动产税的设计要“大体符合二八原则，也就是80%的税收来自20%的纳税主体”，但在“六类不动产征收对象”上，虽然“农业用地和农民自用房”侥幸“暂免征收”，人们却赫然发现：“城镇居民住宅全部纳入征税范围”。
课题组还研究出了不动产税税率的征收标准：3‰~8‰，这一税率意味着，一般的城镇居民，每月均需为他们的住房缴纳数百元人民币（此处按月税率计算），就算中国进入了“唐宋以来的最大盛世”，此负担对绝大多数城镇居民而言，即使不是雪上添霜，但肯定不上锦上添花。
善良的人们不禁要问：在今年第一季度税收已占去年全年税收一半的情况下，在全国人民被通货膨胀带来的高物价逼得缩手缩脚的时候，在以美国为主的西方国家掀起新一轮减税狂潮的国际大气候下，中国为何要执意开征物业税？上任伊始，以“亲民”形象赢得“胡温新政”的“本届政府”，难道到头来依然只知道用“征税”诠释胡总书记提出的“情为民所系、利为民所谋、权为民所用”？如此“执政为民”是否真的能构建出一个社会主义和谐社会？
忽然想起德国新教神父马丁那篇刻在美国波士顿犹太人被屠杀纪念碑上的著名诗篇，猛然发现，原来我们自己也处于同样的境地：
起初他们开征特产税，我没有意见，因为我不是农民；接着他们开征工商税，我没有意见，因为我不是个体户；此后他们开征增值税，我没有意见，因为我不是老板；最后，他们直冲着我的住房征税，我却再也发现不了一个有意见的人。
倘“不幸生为中国人”，这段话可作为我们共同的墓志铬！
