cynicism

时间:2023.11.11

犬儒主义的来龙去脉

犬儒主义(Cynicism)是个外来词,中文里本来没有现成的对应词汇,通常将它理解为讥诮嘲讽,愤世嫉俗,玩世不恭。这些理解大致不差,不过,我们若想对犬儒一词有更完整的把握,有必要略略追溯一下它的起源和演变。

我们知道,犬儒主义是古希腊的一个哲学流派,其代表人物是西诺普的狄奥根尼。这派哲学主张清心寡欲,鄙弃俗世的荣华富贵,力倡回归自然(这使人想起老庄哲学,想起某些魏晋名士)。据说狄奥根尼本人住在一个桶里(又有一说是住在瓮里),以讨饭为生。有人讥笑他活得象条狗,他却不恼。―犬儒‖之称由此得名。关于狄奥根尼,有段故事很著名,一天,亚历山大御驾亲临,前来探望正躺在地上晒太阳的狄奥根尼,问他想要什么恩赐;狄奥根尼回答说:―只要你别挡住我的太阳。‖

和玩世不恭恰恰相反,早期的犬儒是极其严肃的,狄奥根尼是一个激烈的社会批评家。他立志要揭穿世间的一切伪善,热烈地追求真正的德行,追求从物欲之下解放出来的心灵自由。狄奥根尼确实愤世嫉俗,他曾经提着一个灯笼在城里游走,说:―我在找一个真正诚实的人。‖

随着犬儒哲学的流行,其内涵开始发生了微妙的变化。后来的犬儒派们发表宏论,竭力鼓吹清贫生活的无比美好,甚至把人们正常的感情也讥为愚蠢。一位名叫德勒斯的犬儒派就说:―我的儿子或妻子死了,那难道就有任何理由应该不顾仍然还在活着的我自己,并且不再照顾我的财产了么?‖(这使人想起庄子死了老婆鼓盆而歌的故事)超脱到了这一步,未免就有些矫情,就和冷酷分不清界限了。还是这位德勒斯,某富翁送给他一笔钱,他收下了,对富翁说:―你慷慨大度地施舍给我,而我痛痛快快地取之于你,既不卑躬曲膝,也不唠叨不满。‖这里暗含的逻辑是,金钱本是无所谓的东西,我若拒绝你的馈赠,倒显得我把金钱看得太重,太当回事了。我若收下金钱又表示感谢,那也是把金钱看重了,当回事了。因此,正确的做法就是,只要你肯给,我就若无其事地收下它。不要白不要,要了也白要。这种态度看上去很洒脱,但好象又有些无耻。这到底是怎么一回事呢?问题在于,金钱本来是重要的东西,不是不重要的东西。只不过在生活中还应该有别的东西比金钱更重要。所以,在坚持更高价值的前提下看轻金钱是高尚的;没有更高的追求却又摆出轻视金钱的姿态就不是高尚而只能是做作了,因此,倘若是无功受禄,正常人总会感觉不安。这就是为什么德勒斯以不把金钱当回事为理由而若无其事地收下别人的馈赠,会给人以不知廉耻之感。早期的犬儒派是依据一种道德原则去蔑视世俗的观念,后期的犬儒派依然在蔑视世俗的观念但却失去了依据的道德原则。这就引出了一个始料不及的后果:既然无所谓高尚,也就无所谓下贱。既然没有什么东西是了不得的,因而也就没有什么东西是要不得的。不难想象,基于这种无可无不可的立场,一个人可以很方便地一方面对世俗观念做出满不在乎的姿态,另一方面又毫无顾忌地去获取他想要获取的任何世俗的东西。于是,对世俗的全盘否定就变成了对世俗的照单全收,而且还往往是对世俗中最坏的部分的不知羞耻的照单全收(别充假正经)。于是,愤世嫉俗就变成了玩世不恭。

狄奥根尼坚持真善,揭穿伪善,这种批评精神被后来者扭曲得面目全非。一位人称嘲讽者吕西安的犬儒派以揭穿伪善的名义,压根否认世间存在有真善。在吕西安笔下,那些天真地追求德性的人都不过是大傻瓜而已。按照这派人的看法,世间之人只有两种,要么伪君子,要么真小人。犬儒一词后来的含义就是把人们一切行为的动机都归结为纯粹的自私自利。不错,犬儒派既嘲讽有权有势者,也嘲讽无权无势者,但前者并不在乎你的嘲讽,―笑骂由人笑骂,好官我自为之。‖后者却必须赢得人们的同情支持。所以,犬儒派客观上是有利于强势者不利于弱势者。这样,犬儒派就从现存秩序的激进批评家变成了既得利益者的某种共犯合谋。

犬儒一词的演变证明,从愤世嫉俗到玩世不恭,其间只有一步之差。一般来说,愤世嫉俗总是理想主义的,而且是十分激烈的理想主义。玩世不恭则是彻底的非理想主义,彻底的无理想主义。偏偏是那些看上去最激烈的理想主义反倒很容易转变为彻底的无理想主义,其间原因何在?因为,许多愤世嫉俗的理想主义者在看待世界时缺少程度意识或曰分寸感,对他人缺少设身处地的同情的理解,不承认各种价值之间的紧张与冲突,这样,他们很容易把世界看成一片漆黑,由此便使自己陷入悲观失望,再进而怀疑和否认美好价值的存在,最终则是放弃理想放弃追求。―世界既是一场大荒谬、大玩笑,我亦唯有以荒谬和玩笑对待之。‖

一个理想主义者总是在现实中屡屡碰壁之后才变成犬儒的,但正如哈里斯所言:―犬儒不只是在过去饱尝辛酸,犬儒是对未来过早地失去希望。‖

说来颇具讽刺意味,早期的犬儒是坚持内在的美德和价值,鄙视外在的世俗的功利。可是到后来,犬儒一词正好变成了它的反面:只认外在的世俗的功利,否认内在的德性与价值。王尔德说:―犬儒主义者对各种事物的价钱一清二楚,但是对它们的价值一无所知。‖

1. The world‘s greatest Cynic, Diogenes, was born in 412 B.C.E in Sinope, a city on the

Black Sea. As a young man he moved with his father to Athens. There he began to learn the teachings of a group known as the Cynics. The name Cynic was derived from the Greek word ky-ni-kos which roughly translated as doglike and describes the antisocial behaviour of adherents of the belief. The cynics believed that fulfilment in life was to be obtained by the total abstinence from all worldly pleasures. To them, virtue was the only good. They became suspicious and contemptuous of others.

The young Diogenes became a student of one of the founders of Cynicism, a man named Antisthenes. He became totally obsessed with the frugal lifestyle of the Cynics, taking the disowning of materialism to new heights. He did, in fact, become a dour ascetic.

Diogenes became convinced that Cynicism and the total abstinence of the things of the world was the path to ultimate enlightenment. On one occasion he is said to have walked the streets of Athens in the middle of the day with a lighted lamp in search of a virtuous person. This type of eccentric behaviour was often used to draw attention to the Cynics and attract new recruits to the ranks of believers.

On one memorable occasion Diogenes was approached by the great Alexander the Great. Alexander, apparently in an attempt to undermine the cynic belief, asked Diogenes what he wanted most in the world. Diogenes‘ answer? He wanted Alexander to step aside so that he was no longer blocking the Sun.

Diogenes and his fellow Cynics as a result of their casting away all creature comforts, lived as beggars. They looked upon working for a living with utter disdain. They also rejected any civic duties or responsibilities. And, of course, they became bitterly sarcastic towards others.

Diogenes, himself, was the master at showing disrespect and throwing sarcasm at others. As a result, he came to be referred to simply as ?the dog.‘

Diogenes died about 320 B.C.E, having lived for nine angry decades. His eccentricity and extreme antisocial behaviour proved to be the downfall of Cynicsm. The belief fell into disrepute soon after his passing. Within in time it had disappeared all together. All that is left of it in our modern world is the word ?cynic‘ which is used unfavourably to describe a person who is disposed to find fault with others, an unwitting imitator of the father of cynicism, Diogenes.

2.Alexander

Alexander (Alexandros). 1. Alexander of Pherae (in Thessaly), nephew and successor of Jason, tyrant of Pherae 369–358 BC. He was opposed by most of the cities of

Thessaly and allied himself with Athens to counteract Theban expansion. When the Theban general Pelopidas visited him on one of his expeditions, he detained the general as a hostage until the latter was eventually rescued by a second Theban expedition in 367. As the result of a fresh appeal from Thessaly in 364, Pelopidas marched against him and defeated him at Cynoscephalae, but was himself killed. Later, a larger Theban army defeated Alexander and forced him to become the ally of the Thebans. In 362 he felt free to make piratical raids against Athens and raided the Piraeus. He was assassinated in 358 by his wife's brothers.

2. Alexander the Great, Alexander III of Macedon (356–323 BC), son of Philip II and Olympias of Epirus. He was educated by Aristotle and became king of Macedon in 336 upon the murder of his father. Before his death Philip had been about to lead an army against Persia in punishment for the wrongs inflicted on Greece in the Persian Wars 150 years earlier. Alexander aimed to continue this war, and in 334, after securing his position in Greece (rivals were put to death), he crossed the Hellespont into Asia to join the remnants of his father's advance army. He had a force of about 43, 000 men and a fleet of the Greek allies with about fifty warships.

He routed the Persian king Darius III at Issus (333) and captured his family, treating them with notable chivalry. In the following year he occupied Phoenicia (where the capture of the city of Tyre is regarded as his most brilliant military feat), Palestine, and Egypt, and after crushing the Persians again at Arbela (331), he sacked Persepolis (330), the ritual centre of their empire. (Alexander is said to have been incited to this act of destruction by the Greek courtesan Thais and to have later regretted it.) When Darius was murdered in 330, Alexander regarded himself as the legitimate ruler of the Persian empire, and between 330 and 327 he subdued vast tracts of the outlying areas of the empire—Hyrcania, Areia, Drangiana, Bactria, and Sogdiana.

In 327 he invaded northern India, and in 326 he crossed the Indus and reached the river Hydaspes (Jhelum). Here he fought his last great pitched battle to defeat the local king Porus and his formidable elephants. This was the last battle too for Bucephalas, Alexander's horse since childhood, which was wounded and died soon after the battle. Alexander advanced quite easily through the rest of the Punjab to the river Hyphasis (Sutlej) and contemplated proceeding across India to the Ganges but his army, exhausted by the monsoon as much as by the campaigning, refused to go further. He turned back, and in 323, at Babylon he fell suddenly ill at a drinking party, perhaps through fever, perhaps through poison, and after ten days died, aged 32. His body was finally brought to rest in Alexandria, where three centuries later his coffin was seen by the young emperor Augustus. It was probably destroyed in riots during the late third century AD.

Alexander is the greatest general of antiquity. This position he owes partly to the splendidly organized Macedonian army and its technically improved siege weapons, partly to his own versatile and intelligent strategy, but much more to qualities that were uniquely his: an unprecedented speed of movement, resolution in tackling the

seemingly impossible, personal involvement in the dangers of battle and the rigours of campaigning, and a heroic sense of style in all that he did. To these qualities as well as to his generosity Alexander owed his ascendancy over the army. His most unusual characteristic was his double sympathy with the life styles of the Persians as well as the Greeks (his two wives—Roxana and Barsine—were Persian, and he encouraged his soldiers to follow his example). His desire to see Macedonians and Persians alike ruling his empire was not popular and may have been partly the cause of the various plots against his life.

Alexander clearly felt an intense concern for religion and showed scrupulous respect for local gods wherever he encountered them. In his lifetime he was widely acclaimed as divine, the son of Zeus, and he seems to have believed in his own divinity and to have been encouraged in this belief by his mother. Certainly he strove to emulate those other sons of gods, the Homeric heroes. His most lasting achievement was to extend the Greek language and institutions over the eastern world in such a way that he brought about an absolute break with the past. No region once conquered and settled by Alexander resumed its old ways uninfluenced by the conquest. The Greek city-states too never regained the independence that they lost with Philip. The centre of the (Hellenistic) Greek world shifted to Alexandria, and with that shift arose a new kind of Greek culture.

The principal extant authority for the history of Alexander's campaigns is the Anabasis of Arrian, who used as sources the writings, now lost, of Alexander's officers Ptolemy (later King Ptolemy I Soter of Egypt), Aristobulus of Cassandreia, and the sea-captain Nearchus, all of whom were sympathetic to Alexander. He may also have used Alexander's lost journal (Ephemerides), but some scholars doubt the existence of an authentic journal. There is also a tradition, which may be seen in the fragmentary history of Quintus Curtius, of writers hostile to Alexander, who represented him as a tyrant corrupted by power; most of them are of the Peripatetic (Aristotelian) School, whose hostility was natural enough after Callisthenes' death. Plutarch's Life is compiled from every kind of source, good and bad. The most influential tradition, however, stems from the narrative of Cleitarchus, written in the third century BC and known to us through the writings of Diodorus Siculus; Cleitarchus introduced the fabulous, an element that was further developed in the various Eastern versions of Alexander's life. From Latin versions supposedly translated from Callisthenes the legends passed into French poetry of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, thus giving the twelve-syllabled alexandrine line its name. There are two Old English works of the eleventh century based on the Latin legend, but it is from the French poems that the Alexander legends passed into the Middle English metrical romances such as ?King Alisaunder‘.

3. Alexander of Aphrodisias (flourished c. AD 200), the most important of the early commentators on Aristotle. Of his commentaries (in Greek) a few survive, and his works are widely quoted by later writers.

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