隐蔽的连续

这个只针对书的第五章～
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在这章“现代世界观”中，塔纳斯所描绘的一个现代的西方人脱离中世纪教会的束缚和教条，开始发觉到人类理性和科学力量时的那种启蒙之感。他写道：

    And so between the fifteen and seventeenth centuries, the West saw the emergence of a newly self-conscious and autonomous human being- curious about the world, confident in his own judgments, skeptical of orthodoxies, rebellious against authority, responsible for his own beliefs and actions, enamored of the classical past but even more committed to a greater future, proud of his humanity, conscious of his distinctness from nature, aware of his artistic powers as individual creator, assured of his intellectual capacity to comprehend and control nature, and altogether less dependent on an omnipotent God.

作者把这一章节分成几个部分讨论：现代世界观的基础、古代和现代、世俗主义的胜利。花了一个晚上才把这50页左右的书读完。其中我觉得最有趣的是在这个章节的几乎最后一部分讲Hidden Continuities（隐蔽的延续）。传统上我会认为伴随着16世纪以降的科学革命以及其后的启蒙运动，宗教对于西方现代性的影响已经在一拨又一拨的辩论和科学论证面前推举到个人价值和道德的角度了，也就是说宗教的普世霸权已经结束。但是塔纳斯的分析——虽然他是一个心理学家——这一章里至少有大部分在谈论基督教精神（Christianity）和社会其他各个层面的交锋、互动，让我大开眼界。根据作者的观点，基督教的衰落并非是一种线性的过程，不是像“兴盛-》衰落，这么黑白分明的。事实上如同我们所知，即便如科学革命中的巨人：牛顿、笛卡尔、哥白尼等等，他们身上体现出的有很大一部分是对于神秘主义、宗教信念的坚持。而这只是个人层面上的缩影。在整个社会的层面上，伴随生产技术和经济的发达，与最前面一段那个”光辉的人的形象“所并驾齐驱的，是这样的图景：

    The West’s belief in itself as the most historically significant and favored culture echoed the Judaeo-Christian theme of the Chosen People. The global expansion of Western culture as the best and most appropriate for all mankind represented a secular continuation of the Roman Catholic Church’s self-concept as the one universal Church for all humanity. Modern civilization now replaced Christianity as the cultural norm and ideal with which all other societies were to be compared, and to which they were to be converted. Just as Christianity had, in the process of overcoming and succeeding the Roman Empire, become Roman itself in the centralized, hierarchical, and politically motivated Roman Catholic Church, so too did the modern secular West, in the process of overcoming and succeeding Christianity and the Catholic Church, incorporate and unconsciously continue many of the latter’s characteristic approaches to the world.

从这个意义上说，虽然理性让臣服教会的西方人解脱了出来并且发出了耀眼的光芒（人类历史上的第一次）。但是宗教精神、教会并没有就此消失（虽然不可避免地衰落了），它们仍然从深层影响着西方人的观念和思想，这为后世的全球殖民以及文明间的冲突埋下了伏笔。

原文：http://makzhou.warehouse333.com/2008/08/29/1498/