The Dangerous Book for Boys by Conn Iggulden and Hal Iggulden HarperCollins, 288 pp., $24.95 I wouldn’t be at all surprised if The Dangerous Book for Boys were banned by zealous school groups, social workers, and other moral busybodies. I first encountered this admirable work when it was published in London last year. I liked its retro look–the lettering and typography of the cover recalls an earlier, more swashbuckling era–and I thought at first it must be a reprint. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that a book containing instructions on how to make catapults, how to hunt and cook a rabbit, how to play poker, how to make a waterbomb, was published today, the high noon of nannydom. The first chapter, “Essential Gear” (“Essential Kit” in the English edition), lists a Swiss Army knife, for God’s sake, not to mention matches and a magnifying glass, “For general interest. Can also be used to start fires.” Probably, the book would have to be checked with the rest of your luggage at the airport: If you can’t bring a bottle of water on the airplane, how do you suppose a book advocating knives and incendiary devices is going to go over? Why, even the title is a provocation. The tort lawyers must be salivating over the word “dangerous,” and I can only assume that the horrible grinding noise you hear is from Title IX fanatics congregating to protest the appearance of a book designed for the exclusive enjoyment of boys. And speaking of “boys,” have you noticed how unprogressive the word sounds in today’s English? It is almost as retrograde as “girls,” a word that I knew was on the way out when an academic couple I know proudly announced that they had just presented the world with a “baby woman.” No, I did not make that up, and even after due allowances are made for the fact that the couple were, after all, academics and therefore peculiarly susceptible to such p.c. deformations, it’s clear that something fundamental is happening in our society. Some speak about the “feminization” of America and Europe. Scholars like Christina Hoff Sommers have reported on the “war against boys.” A public school near where I live gets high marks for “academic excellence,” but I note that they allow only 15 minutes of recess a day for kindergarteners and first graders. Result: By 2 P.M. the boys are ready to explode. That turns out to be a solvable problem, though, because a little Ritalin with the (whole grain) cornflakes does wonders to keep Johnny from acting up. In a recent interview, Conn Iggulden, speaking about his collaboration with his brother in writing The Dangerous Book for Boys, dilated on this campaign against the boy-like side of boyhood. “They need to fall off things occasionally,” Iggulden said, “or . . . they’ll take worse risks on their own. If we do away with challenging playgrounds and cancel school trips for fear of being sued, we don’t end up with safer boys–we end up with them walking on train tracks.” Quite right. The Dangerous Book for Boys is alive with such salubrious challenges. Its epigraph, a 1903 letter from an army surgeon to the young Prince of Wales, advises, “The best motto for a long march is ‘Don’t grumble. Plug on.'” How antique that stiff-upper-lippery sounds to our ears! The book includes instrctions on making “The Greatest Paper Plane in the World.” Did you know that many schools have outlawed paper airplanes? Might strike a child in the eye, don’t you know. And of course, that’s only the beginning of what many schools outlaw. The game of tag is verboten almost everywhere, a fact I learned this winter when our eight-year-old son fell and broke his elbow while playing the game. The final indignity came when, being down, he was tagged by the chap who was “it.” Even that had its compensations, though, since James is looking forward to suspending his allegiance to the principles of the Sermon on the Mount and getting the fellow back when he fully recovers. Besides, although it hurts to break your arm, it is quite nifty to have your arm in a cast, especially if one of your heroes is Lord Nelson, to whom (or so one’s parents assure one) you bear a strong resemblance when sporting a sling. Of course, I am sorry that James broke his arm, but I prefer his school’s (unofficial) motto–“Better a broken bone than a broken spirit”–to the pusillanimous alternative. Into the swamp-like miasma of contemporary life The Dangerous Book for Boys blows like a healing zephyr. Mark Twain once included a note about “the weather in this book,” explaining that there wasn’t any. There is a lot of weather in The Dangerous Book for Boys, and I do not just mean the sections devoted to cloud formations and such questions as Why is the Sky blue? What causes the wind? and Why is it hotter at the Equator? True, this book includes lots of indoor activities. You’ll find out how to make a simple battery out of a bunch of quarters, aluminum foil, vinegar, and salt, for example, as well as how to make secret inks, fireproof cloth, and marbled paper. There’s a section on timers and tripwires–“very simple to make–and deeply satisfying,” the authors explain. Let’s say you want a light bulb to turn on in 20 minutes “to win a bet perhaps, or frighten your little sister with the thought that a mad axe murderer is upstairs.” Look no further: It’s all here. There’s a section of useful quotations from Shakespeare, “Latin Phrases Every Boy Should Know,” and “Books Every Boy Should Read” (this is one of them, though it’s not on the list). There are several engaging sections on words and grammar. There are also two sections devoted to famous battles, from Thermopylae and Cannae up through Waterloo, Gettysburg, and the Somme. If you want a quick timeline of U.S. history, it’s here. So is information about “the golden age of piracy,” spies, codes, and ciphers, as well as coin tricks, dog tricks, and first aid. There’s also–uh-oh: p.c. alert!–a chapter on the history of artillery. Still, this is essentially an outdoor book. Not that it deals chiefly with outdoor subjects, though it has splendid advice about building treehouses, fishing, and growing sunflowers (and I suppose artillery is, usually, a subject best pursued outside). Rather, it understands that boys and the outdoors go together like a hammer and nails. It is sympathetic to dirt and looks kindly upon rocks, bugs, snakes, and woodpiles. It is a book, in other words, that approves of derring-do and the testosterone that fires it. This is clear in the informative chapter devoted to the mysterious subject of Girls who, many feminists will be surprised to discover, are “quite different” from boys. By this, the authors explain: We do not mean the physical differences, more the fact that [girls] remain unimpressed by your mastery of a game involving wizards, or your understanding of Morse Code. Some will be impressed, of course, but as a general rule, girls do not get quite as excited by the use of urine as a secret ink as boys do. In fact, the chapter on girls is full of good advice. Here are two its: 1. “Play a sport of some kind,” they advise. “It doesn’t matter what it is, as long as it replaces the corpse-like pallor of the computer programmer with a ruddy glow.” 2. “If you see a girl in need of help–unable to lift something, for example–do not taunt her. Approach the object and greet her with a cheerful smile, whilst surreptitiously testing the weight of the object. If you find you can lift it, go ahead. If you can’t, try sitting on it and engaging her in conversation.” Ovid couldn’t have put it any better. (His advice about girls is to be found in a book for older boys called Ars Amatoria.) The Dangerous Book for Boys is a book that implicitly endorses Aristotle’s observation that courage is the most important virtue because, without courage, it is impossible to practice the other virtues. “In this age of video games and mobile phones,” the authors write, “there must still be a place for knots, treehouses and stories of incredible courage.” Indeed, physical courage looms large in The Dangerous Book for Boys. One of its best features is a series of “extraordinary stories.” Remember the bracing story of Robert Scott, the intrepid English explorer who suffered untold hardships in his race to be the first to reach the South Pole? In the event, the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen beat him, just barely. Scott and his team arrived there on January 17, 1912, only to find Amundsen’s empty tent and a note announcing their presence on December 14, 1911. Scott made it back to within 11 miles of his last camp before he and the rest of his team froze to death. In his last hours, he managed to write a few letters, including one to his wife which mentioned their only son: I had looked forward to helping you to bring him up, but it is a satisfaction to know that he will be safe with you. . . . Make the boy interested in natural history if you can. It is better than games. They encourage it in some schools. I know you will keep him in the open air. Try to make him believe in a God, it is comforting. . . . and guard him against indolence. Make him a strenuous man. I had to force myself into being strenuous as you know–had always an inclination to be idle. The Igguldens also include the story of Douglas Bader, an RAF pilot who crashed in 1931 when showing off doing rolls too close to the ground. He lost his right leg above the knee, his left below the knee. His flying log for the day reads: “X-country Reading. Crashed slow rolling near ground. Bad show.” Fitted with metal legs, Bader was told he would never walk without sticks. “On the contrary,” he replied, “I will never bloody walk with them.” When World War II broke out, Bader was allowed to reenlist and even to fly, metal legs and all. He had 22-and-a-half air-to-air victories (he and a fellow RAF pilot both shot up one German plane, so they agreed to split the victory). In 1941, Bader collided with a German Me 109 over France. The tail of Bader’s plane was torn off and he began plummeting towards the ground. He got the canopy off and climbed out into the wind to parachute clear. His right leg caught and he found himself nailed to the fuselage by the slipstream. . . . At last, the belt holding the leg to him snapped and the leg went off through his trousers, allowing him to break free of the plane and parachute to safety. Well, relative safety. He was scooped up by the Germans and put in prison. He asked his captors if a message might be sent to England to retrieve his spare right leg. Mirabile dictu, the Germans agreed. The British dropped it off during a normal bombing run. Bader put on the leg and casually walked out of the hospital in an effort to escape. He was promptly rounded up again, but tried to scape early and often. Exasperated, the Germans took away his metal legs, but the outcry from other prisoners was so great they shamefacedly returned them. These are stories, the Igguldens note, “that must be told and retold, or the memories slowly die.” The fact that The Dangerous Book for Boys was a runaway bestseller in England gives one hope. And speaking of England, my chief recommendation is not just that you buy the book, but that you buy it twice. Connoisseurs will want the English as well as the American edition. There are numerous differences. There are little things like prices being expressed in dollars, not pounds, and a chapter on baseball instead of one on cricket. American history has been substituted for the story of the British Empire. I note that instead of a chapter called “Astronomy,” the American edition offers us “Astronomy–the Study of the Heavens,” which I suppose tells us something about how the publisher views its American readership. All of that is minor–though I miss the list of kings and queens of England, especially the mnemonic to keep the fate of Henry VIII’s wives straight: “Divorced, beheaded, died; divorced, beheaded, survived.” But having mentioned Admiral Nelson already, I have to say I was sorry to see that the Wright brothers appear in his place in the American edition. I hasten to add that there are no flies on Wilbur and Orville–theirs is an exhilarating tale, eminently worthy of inclusion in this book–but the story of Horatio Nelson is essential, Master James Kimball requires me to state, absolutely essential. I was also sorry to see that the chapter on catapults was dropped from the American edition. Ditto the chapter on conkers. Not that American boys play much with horse chestnuts attached to a bit of string, but the book’s advice about how to make the hole in the chestnut is worth savoring. You can use a nail or spike, but “better to get your dad to use a drill on them.” Don’t try it yourself, by the way, because “the conkers spin round at high speed or crack when you put them in a vise. Much better to ask an adult to do it, but give them your worst conkers to start with until they have learned the knack.” Why not make do with the English edition, then? Well, for one thing, the American edition includes the Navajo Code Talkers’ Dictionary. The U.S. Marines would have been lost without it in World War II. ‘Nuff said. Roger Kimball, editor of the New Criterion, is most recently the coeditor of Counterpoints: 25 Years of The New Criterion on Culture and the Arts.

More Happiness Please

If we think carefully about our decisions, we’ll wind up living better lives, right? Jean Kazez asks this question in response to three recent books about happiness.

Do reflective people live better lives? To the Greeks, the answer was obvious. If the unexamined life is not worth living, as Socrates said, the examined life goes much better. We need to think deeply before aiming and acting, if we are to have the best chance of succeeding. Think, aim, succeed. It sounds good; but do things really work that way?

Two recent books on the psychology of happiness call into question the notion that success in life depends on thinking and aiming. Stumbling on Happiness, by Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert, suggests that we don’t steer our way toward better lives, but mostly just happen upon them. In The Happiness Hypothesis, University of Virginia psychologist Jonathan Haidt compares a person to a combination of horse and rider. Thinking (the rider) is not entirely in control.

Stumbling and Steering

We have to stumble on happiness, according to Daniel Gilbert, because we are so bad at predicting our future feelings. If you were paralyzed from the neck down, you would be vastly less happy, obviously, right? Studies show otherwise. At first you’d be devastated; but you’d adjust and find new ways of being happy. It’s not at all surprising that people can’t predict the next earthquake or the next fad, but our feelings are in our own heads. Why can’t we predict our own mental weather?

Our self-predictive powers are so poor for a variety of reasons. For one, we imagine the future without much detail, like we see a far away object without much detail. One problem is that we factor in spatial distance, but we ignore temporal distance. So we trust that a Monday morning dentist appointment six months from now will seem sensible, and then discover what a bad idea it was when the time comes. Another problem is that present circumstances color the way we envision the future. If you go shopping on an empty stomach, you’ll buy more food than you’ll be happy with having bought later on. If you’re comparing TV sets in a store, small differences between them will seem significant; later on, you’re going to wonder why you thought those extra features were going to be so much fun.

Most relevant to the paralysis example, Gilbert postulates a ‘mental immune system’ that puts the best possible spin on ambiguous data. Is it good or is it bad you didn’t get into Oxford? Your immune system seeks (within reason) a positive interpretation: bunch of snobs, who needs them anyway? Before you applied, you falsely predicted you’d be miserable if you didn’t get in because you, like most of us, weren’t aware of the immune system.

“Know thyself” was the inscription at the Delphic Oracle in ancient Greece. It sounds like good advice. If we understood our own psychology better, we could make better predictions. But Gilbert says if we want to get better at anticipating our future feelings, our best bet is to study the feelings of other people. Yet we do need to do this with care. Sometimes what people say they feel doesn’t correspond to the way they really feel, as revealed by more systematic tests. People say their children are their greatest source of happiness; but, says Gilbert, when levels of happiness are spot-checked at random times, people don’t rate themselves happiest when they’re with their children.

Personally, I’m going to heed the Delphic Oracle (without ignoring the experience of others). My feelings in many situations aren’t the same as other people’s. Besides, over the years I’ve learned a few things about myself. After many youthful mistakes, I did notice I was buying too many groceries when I shopped on an empty stomach. Now that I’ve read Gilbert’s book, I know much more about the factors that skew our judgments about our future feelings. I think I’ve gained some self-knowledge (and knowledge of others), and I’m going to be a better predictor.

Feelings and More Feelings

The first stage of think-aim-succeed is thinking about what success really means. To Gilbert it’s patently obvious that success means maximizing happy feelings. Perhaps it’s because he finds this so obvious that he mangles Robert Nozick’s well-known ‘experience machine’ argument.

Nozick asks us whether we’d want to plug in to a device that generates an absolutely realistic virtual world in which we would ‘live’ our lives with maximum happiness. You would program into it everything you want – a delightful, agreeable spouse, astonishing victories, tasty non-fattening food, even-tempered children (none of them real, of course). If you wanted, you could consult all the latest happiness research so that your chances of maximum happiness were maximized.

Most of us would say “no thanks” despite all these enticements. What does this preference show? As Gilbert tells it, Nozick thinks this shows that people don’t accept the plugged-in state as a state of genuine happiness. But that’s not Nozick’s interpretation (in The Examined Life). Sure you’d be happy if you plugged in. In fact, that’s stipulated: You’d be as happy as you could possibly be. If you’d turn that down – and Nozick thinks you would – this shows that happiness isn’t all you want.

Many psychologists seem to find this incomprehensible. In The Happiness Hypothesis, Jonathan Haidt assumes, like Gilbert, that our sole objective is to be happier. As mentioned, Haidt starts his book with the metaphor of a human being as horse and rider all in one – the rational, thinking self tries to maintain control, but the horse has its own path to follow. The horse is the brain, the gut, instincts, emotions – everything ‘below’ the level of conscious, deliberate thought. Gilbert says, in effect, that the rider can’t entirely be trusted because of his problems with predicting the future. Haidt’s point is that the horse competes with the rider for control. Nevertheless, Haidt does have advice to offer the rider.

Haidt’s novel strategy is to glean the contours of a happy life from a combination of ancient wisdom and modern science. For example, he takes up the advice of Buddhist and Stoic sages who tell us to focus on the inside, not the outside. Modern psychology confirms that the way we see the world makes a huge difference to our emotions. Seeing the world differently can be accomplished by our own deliberate efforts, but also (Haidt says) by meditation, therapy, and medication. But the inside isn’t everything. Haidt puts forth the hypothesis that happiness comes from the inside and the outside. Well, yes… It doesn’t sound exciting, but one of Haidt’s gifts is his ability to explore the familiar with erudition and imagination.

A life with a lot of happiness-potential will create a solid ground for morality, and moreover, morality will increase happiness-potential. Haidt argues that reciprocity is fundamental on a biological and psychological level. It’s hard-wired into us, to the point that it’s difficult for us to resist sending checks to charities that mail us free calendars. Though an avowed atheist, Haidt pays tribute to awe, elevation, and a sense of oneness, whether they’re found at church, in nature, or in the middle of a crowd. Finally, he explores love and work, as well as meaningfulness, which he identifies with a state of coherence between physical, psychological, and social levels of existence.

Meaning and the Real World

Haidt draws a rich picture of the human experience. He touches on the areas of life most of us find important. Still, he never attaches value to anything but subjective experiences. An example in his final chapter is revealing. To illustrate the sort of coherence he talks about in connection with meaningfulness, he paints a picture of a Hindu Brahmin engaged in a purification rite. On a physical level, the Brahmin feels viscerally repulsed by members of lower castes, feels purified by dipping himself into the Ganges, and relishes eating food that is mingled with divine saliva after its been offered to a god. All the sounds, sights, and smells of the occasion fit into neural patterns etched into his brain by many years of enacting the same rituals. Psychologically the occasion makes sense to him on every level. His experience also coheres with the social world around him, with which he feels a comfortable oneness.

Wonderful& or is it? In point of fact, the Brahmins behavior is a menace to the lower caste members he avoids; and the Ganges is infested with dangerous microbes. And maybe the ritual effort is completely misplaced. What if there arent any gods, or they dont need to eat? It seems scandalous to raise these questions, but the Brahmin himself cares about the answers. He wants his good feelings to be rooted in reality  not just his reality, but reality plain and simple.

When reality is not part of the equation, conformity readily seems like an unalloyed good. But is it really? Haidts notion of meaningfulness celebrates the comfortable Brahmin, who fits in so well; but not Gandhi, who worked against the caste system. It celebrates the soldier marching in step, but not the conscientious objector who is trying to end the war. Or take a person who decides animals are badly treated on factory farms and stops eating meat. There he is at the family picnic, loving the smell of barbecued beef but eating his veggie burger. Hed love to feel a smooth sense of belonging, but hes out of synch, and the butt of his relatives jokes. If his crusade is morally sound and it fills him with a sense of purpose, how could this disconnection makes his life less meaningful?

Happiness Diminished

Haidt draws many interesting connections between ancient wisdom and modern science, but he also drains some of the blood out of the wisdom. The Stoics, for example, did not tell us to focus on the inside as a happiness-increasing strategy. As much as they unofficially stress the tranquility of the good life, the only thing thats needed in a good life, on their view, is virtue, not happiness. And by virtue they mean real virtue  the habits of thought and action that are really best. These are the ones that create a harmony between our selves and the universe. Happiness is incidental. Buddhism also has something to say about the relief of suffering, but the authentic Buddhist outlook is about a relationship to reality. An enlightened person doesnt just want relief from suffering, but an end to the cycle of rebirth  ultimately, nirvana, or vanishing.

In The Pursuit of Happiness (Happiness: A History in the US) Florida State University historian Darrin McMahon explores the bigger, juicier, ancient notion of our ultimate end as eudaimonia, and discusses how this concept shriveled as ancient ideas gave way to medieval and then to modern thinking. I was drawn to this book partly (I cofess) because its so beautiful. The book has a lovely cover, creamy pages, a great font, and lots of pictures. Reading McMahon turned out to be less of a pleasure than I expected. Gilbert is chatty and funny (a bit too much of a clown for my tastes). Haidt is a wonderful companion; his many autobiographical remarks are thoroughly engaging. McMahon, by contrast, is the expert behind the curtain. He doesnt often bring himself to the fore even to wrestle with the ideas he presents.

Yet there is much here thats interesting, despite the dry and encyclopedic approach. The book gets particularly interesting half way through, in the chapters on the Enlightenment (McMahons own speciality) and Romanticism. From the ancient period onward, happiness was always linked to higher things: virtue, reason, self-control, God, heaven. In the 18th century a new way of thinking (dominated by utilitarianism) made sheer pleasure the ultimate good, but the richer conception never disappeared; the Jeffersonian pursuit of happiness has some of the richer overtones.

In the hands of todays psychologists, happiness is reduced to a sensation and then regarded as the only thing that matters. Sure it matters  to me, to everyone  but I dont think weve stopped caring about truth and our wider place in the world. When we ask how we are to live, we are partly asking the big questions  the classic questions of philosophy. We want to know what kind of a world we live in, and whats really right, so our attention and our efforts can be focused in the right direction. Its here especially that it pays to steer and not merely stumble, to be a rider, and not just a horse.

© Jean Kazez 2007

Jean Kazez lives happily in Dallas, Texas, with her delightful husband and two even-tempered children. She teaches philosophy as an adjunct at Southern Methodist University. Her book The Weight of Things: Philosophy and the Good Life is recently published by Blackwell.

Books Discussed (UK title, publisher/US ditto)
• Daniel Gilbert, Stumbling on Happiness, Harper Collins/Knopf
• Jonathan Haidt, The Happiness Hypothesis: Putting Ancient Wisdom to the Test of Modern Science, William Heinemann / The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom, Basic Books
• Darrin McMahon, The Pursuit of Happiness: A History from the Greeks to the Present, Allen Lane / Happiness: A History, Atlantic Monthly Press

Prayer

A Neurological Inquiry

DAVID C. HAAS

A prayer is, according to The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, a solemn request to God or an object of worship; a supplication, thanksgiving, or other verbal or mental act addressed to God. Petitionary prayersmessages seeking help or guidance for particular concernsare common among Christians. They are also a feature of some other religions, such as Islam (Bouquet 1956) and Judaism where prayers expressing devotion and submission to almighty God prevail. But even these are intended communions with God. Although prayers are addressed to a supernatural being, prayer is an empirical behavior and thus accessible to scientific investigation.

Much prayer is silent (mental prayer). Silent praying is silent thinking, which is really conducted largely in unspoken words (Langer 1970) and which occupies a large part of our everyday lives (Bronowski 1978), a fact that attests to the enormous importance of language to human thought. So, silent prayers are simply verbal thoughts addressed to a god. Could therefore such thoughts be known to a supernatural being?

I explore this question in the following sections using modern information on mind and brain.

Although we all silently talk to ourselves a good deal (carry on internal dialogues), not all thoughts are verbal. Some are visual or auditory. We visualize people and places every day and often recall tunes from music we like. Thoughts are commonly mixtures of these and other types, often accompanied by emotions. Thoughts are mental phenomena, states of mind. But what then is mind?

The concept of mind encompasses our conscious mental life, including not only thoughts, but also perceptions, such as seeing and hearing; sensations, such as touch and cold; feelings, such as pain; and emotions (Sherrington 1951; Harth 1983; Harth 1993; Crick 1995). The brain is the organ of mind; it generates all that is mental. A few examples illustrate. A stroke that destroys the left occipital lobe deletes vision in the right visual field. Brain degeneration from Alzheimers disease causes progressive impairment of memory, reasoning, and other mental attributes. Intoxication of the brain produces well-known mental impairments. Electrical stimulation of the exposed human cortex can evoke images and sounds, and even a virtual reliving of past experiences (Penfield and Roberts 1959). Modern brain-imaging techniques, such as functional magnetic-resonance imaging, have connected certain mental states with heightened activity in specific brain regions (Kamitani and Tong 2005; Binder, et al. 2005; Ishai, et al. 2005).

How brain activity generates mental states is as much of an enigma today as it was more than a half-century ago when the great neurophysiologist Charles Sherrington (1951) said in wonder, How can a reaction in the brain condition a reaction in the mind? More recently, the physicist Erich Harth (1983) expressed this enigma when he wrote Mind is like no other property of physical systems. It is not just that we dont know the mechanisms that give rise to it. We have difficulty seeing how any mechanism can give rise to it.

Transmission and Readability of Prayers
The brain, an electrochemical organ, consists of matter and energy, but the mental states that are the epiphenomena of its physiological processes are neither material substances nor forms of energy. Sherrington (1951) expressed this scientific position in saying, Thoughts, feelings, and so on are not amenable to the energy (matter) concept. They le outside it. If thoughtsincluding silent prayersare not a form of energy, then there is no known natural means by which they could be transmitted beyond ourselves or read within us.

Still, many credulously believe that some people (especially so-called psychics) can read minds and that thoughts can be transmitted from one person to another by mental telepathy or extrasensory perception (ESP). Perhaps this belief has been fostered by the seemingly substantive and energetic presence of our thoughts. But numerous experiments during some 150 years of research have not validated ESP and have left a wake of spurious statistical analyses (Lilienfeld 1999; Paulos 1990).

Though thoughts and prayers are neither transmissible nor readable by any natural means, could they be known to a supernatural being? Evidence for or against this can be obtained by determining whether prayers are followed by what was solicited by them. Only proper scientific studies, however, can provide reliable evidence by excluding chance occurrences, and biases from the results. To this end, a number of such studies have measured the effects of intercessory prayer (praying for others) on health-care outcomes in patients with various illnesses. A thorough review of the medical literature in 2000 concluded that the data were inconclusive (Roberts, et al. 2000). Since then, at least five studies have been published, the most recent in April 2006 (Benson, et al. 2006). All found no beneficial effect of intercessory prayer. (See also Bruce Flamm, One Big STEP: Another Major Study Confirms That Distance Prayers Do Not Heal the Sick, Skeptical Inquirer, July/August 2006.)

Transmission and Detection of Brain Activity
In contrast to thoughts, the brain activity underlying them consists of (electrochemical) energy. Could this energy be transmitted from us or be detected within us? If so, would it have the informational content of the thoughts arising from it? This activity, in brief, is the sending and receiving of electrochemical impulses among the brains densely packed microscopic neurons, which number in the tens of billions in the highly enfolded human cortex (Crick 1995). The impulses (nerve action potentials) sent by a neuron can be picked up by a microelectrode within 100 micrometers of it in the cortex. These impulses have amplitudes of several millivolts (Brecht, et al. 2004). Electrodes on the surface of the brain are, however, too distant to detect them, but can record synchronized fluctuations of electrical potentials in masses of cortical neuronal dendrites (branches receiving incoming impulses). These post-synaptic potentials vary in amplitude from about 0.5 to 1.5 millivolts, but when recorded on the scalp their amplitudes are only about 10 to 50 microvolts. The ionic (largely sodium and potassium) movements responsible for these voltage fluctuations can not be recorded outside the scalp, for their detection requires a medium affected by ionic movements. But these electrical potentials, like all moving electric charges, generate magnetic fields, which pass through the skull. They are, however, extremely weak (about 50310-15 Tesla), some nine orders of magnitude less than Earths magnetic field and as much as six orders below ambient magnetic noise (Volegov, et al. 2004). Thus, they can be recorded only by special sensors on the scalp in shielded rooms (Volegov, et al. 2004).

No one would suggest that these electromagnetic energies represent more than a smidgen of the neural activity underlying thoughts, which presumably includes repetitive firing of action potentials in neural circuitry containing millions of cortical and sub-cortical neurons (Harth 1993). Even if this immeasurable activity could be captured, seemingly insurmountable difficulties would prevent its translation into thoughts. To begin with the translation would need to be simultaneous with the flow of thoughts as well as in the language of the thinker, for a full thought is its verbal expression. In view of what is known of brain development and organization (Harth 1993), the neural patterns underlying any thought, even a formulary prayer, would be unique for every individual. Thus, generic translations from neural patterns to verbal thoughts in any language would be impossible. A supernatural being would need to instantly surmount these difficultiesfor multitudes of concurrent supplicantsin order to grasp the informational content of a mental prayer. Moreover, such a being would, logically, need to be with each supplicant while he or she is rotating with Earth at 1,038 miles per hour (if at the equator), orbiting around the Sun at 18.5 miles per second, rotating around the center of the Milky Way at about 150 miles per second, and moving through space with our galaxy at some thousands of miles per second.

Like all mental states, prayers are neither matter nor energy. Thus, they are not transmissible to or readable by another being by any means within the laws of nature.

Whether they can be known to a supernatural being hinges on the effects of the prayers solicitations as judged by proper scientific studies. To date, such studies of intercessory prayer have not shown it to improve health-care outcomes. In contrast to thoughts themselves, the brain activity from which thoughts arise does consist of energyelectrochemical energy within neural circuitry. Reading this teeming energy in millions of circuit neurons and translating it into the thought or prayer arising from it seems theoretically impossible for even a supernatural being.

References
Benson, H., et al. 2006. Study of the therapeutic effects of intercessory prayer (STEP) in cardiac bypass patients: a multicenter randomized trial on uncertainty and certainty of receiving intercessory prayer. American Heart Journal 151: 934-42.

Binder, J.R., et al. 2005. Distinct brain systems for processing concrete and abstract concepts. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience. 17: 90517.

Bouquet, A.C. 1956. Comparative Religion. Baltimore: Penguin Books Inc.

Brecht, M., et al. 2004. Novel approaches to monitor and manipulate single neurons in vivo. Journal of Neuroscience 24: 92237.

Bronowski, Jacob. 1978. The Origins of Knowledge and Imagination. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.

Crick, Francis. 1995. The Astonishing Hypothesis. New York: Touchstone.

Harth, Erich. 1983. Windows on the Mind. New York: Quill.

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Ishai, A., et al. 2005. Face perception is mediated by a distributed cortical network. Brain Research Bulletin 67: 8793.

Kamitani, Y., and F. Tong. 2005. Decoding the visual and subjective contents of the human brain. Natural Neuroscience 8: 67985.

Langer, Susanne K. 1970. Mind: An Essay on Human Feeling. Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins Press.

Lilienfeld, S.O. 1999. New Analyses Raise Doubts About Replicability of ESP Findings. Skeptical Inquirer 23 (6): 9, 12 (November/December). Available online.

Paulos, John A. 1990. Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and its Consequences. New York: Vintage Books.

Penfield, Wilder, and Lamar Roberts. 1959. Speech and Brain Mechaniss. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Roberts, L., et al. 2000. Intercessory prayer for the alleviation of ill health. Cochrane Database Syst Rev (2): CD000368.

Sherrington, Charles S. 1951. Man on His Nature. New York: Cambridge University Press.

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吕秀莲（1944年6月7日─），台湾政治人物，中华民国第十、十一届副总统，同时也是民主进步党的中央常务委员，曾短暂任代主席。她一方面是早期台湾民主运动和台湾妇女运动的重要倡议者之一，另一方面也强烈主张台湾独立，是台湾独立运动的重要领导人物之一。

家庭背景

吕秀莲出生於桃园镇（今桃园县桃园市），其父亲与两位叔叔在桃园大庙后，经营南北货商行“吕胜发”，在当时的桃园市做出了名气。也因此，她童年时期家庭的经济状况尚佳。

吕氏家族的开台祖先吕廷玉，於1740年（清乾隆五年），从福建龙潭楼（客家土楼式建筑），携妻子余慈成，东渡台湾桃园县埔子垦荒，至今子孙已有六、七千人，在桃园当地已成望族。

早年事迹

吕秀莲在台北市第一女子高级中学、国立台湾大学法律系毕业，并於1969年至1971年第一次出国留学，到美国的伊利诺大学就读，拿到比较法学硕士（LLM）的学位。她这段留学的经历，让她开始在政治意识上逐渐启蒙，而走上反对国民党的道路。她在接受访谈时，曾经提到她在1970年夏天的一次欧洲旅行经验：

在欧洲一个朋友那里，无意间认识张维嘉（欧洲台独联盟负责人）；当时我并不清楚他的身分，但谈起来非常愉快。在那之前，我实在没有什　反国民党的意识，只有基本的社会正义感。他跟我讲很多台湾发生的事情，我居然不知道。…… 如果说，什　是我的政治意识得到启发的关键，应该是这一趟欧洲旅行。当时张维嘉跟我讲，作为一个台湾人的任务是什　。当时我才二十六岁，我就一直问自己，如果我回台湾，我能做什　？（引自韦本 1999，106）

从1971年到1974年，吕秀莲一方面在行政院法规委员会任职，历任行政院谘议、专员兼科长，另一方面也开始大力鼓吹新女性主义，并於1974年出版《新女性主义》以及《寻找另一扇窗》这两本书。此外，她还从1976年开始，在台北跟高雄两地办了「保护你专线」，并以出版社的名义开始举办种种的民意调查。由於吕秀莲对妇女运动的投入太过深入，她开始受到国民党特务的註意，由於其所受到的政治乾扰太过剧烈，她决定暂时离开台湾，再次出国读书，而於1977年9月第二次赴美深造，到哈佛大学就读法学的研究所课程。

一年后，吕秀莲拿到她的第二个法学硕士学位，并利用课余的时间在哈佛的燕京图书馆勤於蒐集各种台湾资料，写成《台湾的过去与未来》这一本书（台湾版在1979年出版）。因为知悉台美即将断交，吕秀莲在几经考虑以后，决定放弃在哈佛继续研究深造的机会，回到台湾投身基层选举，参选桃园县的国大代表。

参与党外运动并系狱五年四个月

吕秀莲在1978年年底回国后，虽然其於桃园县的参选在相当程度上掀起了一阵旋风，但是，随着台美断交的宣告，国民党决定终止原本应该要在隔年举行的增额中央民意代表选举.於是，吕秀莲决定更进一步地投入党外运动的行列，担任《美丽岛》杂志社副社长，也担任「党外候选人联谊会」的秘书一职。1979年12月10日，震惊海内外的「美丽岛事件」爆发，吕秀莲在当晚於现场发表了以下这样的演说：

各位亲爱的同胞，有良心的台湾同胞，我是桃园县的吕秀莲（掌声），今天，12月10日，是世界人权日，几百年来，台湾人从来没有机会像今天用这　大的心声喊出咱的勇气、咱的正义感，喊出咱对人权的要求，今天是伟大的一天，希望大家用最热烈的掌声，来輓救大家的生存命运（群众鼓掌）。（引自吕秀莲 1997，169-70）

由於这20分钟的演说，也由於她担任《美丽岛》杂志社的副社长，吕秀莲在事后被中国国民党以「暴力叛乱」的罪名起诉，求处12年有期徒刑，实际入狱服刑5年余.

重新复出政坛

吕秀莲在1985年因为甲状腺癌复发而获得「保外就医」，并在隔年获准离台赴美进一步就医.之后，她利用其比较熟知外交事宜的优势，经常参与国际会议，曾主办世界妇女高峰会议，也在纽约市发起过台湾加入联合国运动。

吕秀莲在1992年当选立法委员，其问政重点一直摆在外交事务。当时与她不同党籍的总统李登辉先生还聘她担任总统府的国策顾问。由於1996年11月桃园县长刘邦友遭人枪杀，民进党徵召吕秀莲回乡参选，她先是在1997年赢得该次的补选，并在九个月后的正式选举获得胜利。在她桃园县长的任内，其施政的主轴为「打造黄金海岸」、「开发桃园矽谷」与「经营人间山水」。1990年，吕秀莲在桃园县长任期内以妇女会的名义，访问祖籍地福建漳州南靖县书洋乡田中村，进行祭祖活动。

吕秀莲在2000年与陈水扁搭档，代表民主进步党参选总统大选，当成功选成为中华民国第一位女性副总统，致力推展「柔性外交」，唤起国际对台湾的註目与关怀。她并担任总统府人权谘询小组的总召集人，致力人权工作。同年底，新新闻周刊报导，指吕秀莲以「嘿嘿嘿」的口气打电话散佈有关於总统的绯闻，尔来吕秀莲对新新闻周刊提出损害名誉权的高额民事诉讼求偿并获得胜诉.但部分媒体解读此事造成媒体界的寒蝉效应，并压制她曾经争取的言论自由。

2001年底，吕秀莲获颁「二○○一年世界和平奖」。

2004年，陈水扁与吕秀莲以些微差距赢得总统选举，然而这项选举结果被敌对阵营所质疑，被某些人称为”两颗子弹的胜利”，参见2004年中华民国总统大选、三一九枪击事件。

吕秀莲在民进党内逐渐被边缘化，被认为并不掌握核心权利，由於经常以惊人语言吸引註意，被党内外称为”吕大嘴”. 陈水扁在第二任期刻意与其保持距离，并经常公开批驳.

2005年12月7日，吕秀莲被选举为民进党代理主席。 在不足一星期后，吕秀莲突然宣佈请辞.45小时后的 2005年12月14日，民进党中常会，会前她还表示不会接受慰留，结果在会中欣然接受民进党中常委的慰留，继续担任民进党的代理主席。

——————————————————————————————————

＜美丽岛事件＞

“美丽岛事件”又称“高雄事件”，是台湾党外势力直接领导的、与国民党当局展开的一场有组织、有准备的政治较量。

1979年9月，由黄信介为发行人、许信良任社长、张俊宏任总编辑的党外政论性刊物《美丽岛》在台北创刊。该刊不仅言论激烈，而且来势凶猛，仅社务委员就达70名，几乎网罗了当时所有的知名党外人士，并在全岛设立十多个办事处，最多时发行量达8万册。党外人士想借办刊物集结力量为创造实质性政党的目的十分明显。而国民党从一开始就对这本来者不善的杂志恨之入骨，必欲除之而后快。在杂志创刊酒会上，就有一群不三不四的人到酒店门口寻衅闹事；创刊后的2个月中，该刊发行人的住宅和杂志社也多次遭到骚扰和威胁，《美丽岛》杂志与国民党当局积怨已久，对立情绪持续升高。

1979年11月30日，《美丽岛》杂志与“台湾人权委员会”联合向台湾当局申请于12月10日在高雄举办纪念“国际人权日”集会游行，遭到拒绝。《美丽岛》杂志决定不理会台湾当局的态度，按原计划照常举行集会游行，并准备了一些木棍，以应付可能进行的镇压。他们还派出宣传车，沿街号召民众准时参加。

12月10日，集会如期举行。台湾当局派出大批军警布署周围街道，并对附近实行交通管制，禁止车辆入内。晚6时，聚集在《美丽岛》杂志高雄办事处的民众已达五、六百人。考虑到集会原定地点扶轮公园已经被警察包围，于是临时决定改到另一开阔地区，但队伍却受到警察的阻拦，无法到达。黄信介、姚嘉文等就地发表演讲，与会3000多名群众情绪激昂，不断高呼“打倒特务统治！”、“反对国民党专政！”等口号。集会组织者再次出面与警方交涉，要求警察撤离，但遭拒绝。于是在集会结束后，以三辆宣传车开道，几千民众持木棍、火把开始游行。四周待命的警察上前强行阻拦，并用催泪弹驱赶游行队伍，民众则以木棍、火把、酒瓶还击，双方发生严重冲突。在折返杂志高雄办事处后，双方再次发生扭打，直到11时宣布集会结束，仍有不少民众不愿散去。军警用催泪弹、电棍等强行驱赶，冲突进一步升级。到11日凌晨2时30分，局势才趋于平静。

这次冲突共造成双方近200人受伤。事后第三天，台湾当局开始大规模收捕事件参与者，黄信介、施明德、张俊宏等共152名党外人士以“涉嫌判乱罪”被抓扣，聚集在《美丽岛》杂志周围的党外运动核心人物几乎被一网打尽。1980年3、4月间，经过军法审判，以“为中共统战”和“台独叛乱”罪名，判处施明德无期徒刑，黄信介有期徒刑14年，姚嘉文、张俊雄等6人有期徒刑12年。另有30多人被刑事法庭判处4至6年的徒刑。

“美丽岛事件”是台湾现代史上的一件大事，双方均有备而来。党外人士希望借此向国民党挑战，显示自己的实力，而国民党也将计就计，“引蛇出洞”。经过这次事件，党外势力的骨干基本郎铛入狱，党外运动元气大伤，被迫转入低潮。而国民党也受到重创，宛如一艘在海上航行的船“被打了一个大洞”。国民党与党外势力之间的矛盾进一步加深。

江鹏坚（1986年－1987年）：民进党建党元老，台大法律系毕业，为美丽岛事件辩护律师；

姚嘉文（1987年－1988年）：台大法律系毕业，美丽岛事件当事人之一，曾被捕入狱；

黄信介（1988年－1991年）：台湾地方行政专科学校毕业，美丽岛事件当事人之一，曾入狱8年；

许信良（1991年－1994年、1996年－1998年）：政治大学政治系毕业，1970年代发动民主示威游行，1977年赴美后被禁止返台，为《美丽岛》杂志社社长；

施明德（1994年－1996年）：陆军炮兵学校毕业，为美丽岛事件的主要参与者，曾被判无期徒刑；

林义雄（1998年－2000年）：台大法律系毕业、律师、美丽岛事件参与者之一；

谢长廷（2000年－2002年）：台大法律系毕业、日本京都大学哲学博士，为美丽岛事件辩护律师；

陈水扁（2002年—2004年）：台大法律系毕业、现任中华民国总统，为美丽岛事件辩护律师；

苏贞昌（2005年—）：台大法律系毕业、为美丽岛事件辩护律师；曾任台北县长，总统府秘书长。

———————————————————————————————————

吕秀莲：台湾——过去与未来

[台北]2003年12月版

重印序：

一本25年前出版的书，在25年后重印，尽管时空与情境大异其趣，但我决定一字不改，原封不动地让它重新问世。因为这本书见证了暴风雨前夕的台湾，而作者本人则在每一次的惊涛骇浪里纵身其中，言所当言，为所当为。

副总统  吕秀莲 

2003。11。11

 

请点这里直接下载

 

2000年布克奖得主玛格丽特·艾特伍德(MargaretAtwood)因小说《可以吃的女人》和《盲刺客》颇负盛名。她在《与死者协商》(上海三联书店2007年4月版)中谈论当代作家为何写作时，一口气列出了近50种理由，却独独回避了“虚荣”这个词，这让我总想说点什么。

虚荣曾经是最难以消除的人性弱点，对于作家来说尤是。勃朗宁夫人在她的诗中将诗人比喻为河边的芦苇，偶然被牧神潘恩拔起，掏空，刻出洞孔，做成一支可以吹奏出美妙音韵的芦笛。命中注定，这根芦苇超越其它芦苇成为艺术神器，但也永远失去了“与其它芦苇一起摇曳”的俗世生活。我想多少年来作家们正是如此自许，也是如此自怜的。可按照某种世俗观念，这无疑是一种要不得的虚荣。

《圣经》里说，上帝创造世界是为了荣耀自己。设若在上帝之前，世界并不存在，上帝的荣耀无人关注，那么哪里来的创造冲动呢？这是一个问题。在莱·柯拉柯夫斯基(LeszekKolakowski)看来，上帝的荣耀无疑也是虚假的，是虚荣。他的结论是：“些微的虚荣就足以在上帝心里引发出创造世界的欲望。”(《关于来洛尼亚王国的十三个童话故事》，三联书店2007年1月版)可见，虚荣虽非值得赞美的动机，但上帝的创造有赖于此。

当我读到“些微的虚荣就足以在上帝心里引发出创造世界的欲望”这句话时，我心里出现的不是耶和华，而是托尔斯泰。毫无疑问，托尔斯泰的内心缠斗最能体现作家与虚荣之间的关系。尽管到处都充斥着关于虚荣的议论，但并不妨碍托尔斯泰耗费大量的篇幅在小说中书写虚荣无比的自传，奇妙的是，也不妨碍《战争与和平》、《安娜·卡列尼娜》成为公认的经典。劳伦斯曾经怒不可遏地谴责老托尔斯泰在《安娜·卡列尼娜》里有关虚荣的说教是“在火焰上撒尿”，但他也写道：“读一读《安娜·卡列尼娜》——已经读过也不要紧，再读一遍。如果你敢不喜欢，那我就要诅咒了。”

我不由得寻思，虚荣究竟算不算作家的人性弱点呢？莫非，虚荣就是作家的本性？列奥·施特劳斯(通信集《回归古典政治哲学》，华夏出版社2006年8月版)曾经谈论到了这个话题。在一封致友人的信中，一方面他表示“虚荣乃人的本质”乃是胡扯，但另一方面他又承认，作为谦逊的对立面，虚荣与谦逊互相纠缠在一起，都同样基于人对宇宙的仰赖，是一种“前教育的东西”，只能“驯化”，不可“克服”。

哲人们的话不大好懂，我的理解是：上帝因虚荣创造了世界。既然上帝也有虚荣心，那么创造的人类也天然地难免。如果托尔斯泰是那个虚荣的上帝在尘世的虚荣翻版，那么每一个作家都应该是。

可惜的是，在我身处的这个时代，作家的这种虚荣已经相当稀少了。绝大多数靠文字吃饭的人并不企望神灵的眷顾，也不指望自己有朝一日成为传达天韵的“芦笛”，那太不科学了。如果非要有一种比喻，他们更愿意成为一只量筒，去衡量读者的冷热、市场的深浅和金钱的得失。与芦笛般的虚荣相对应的，这是量筒式的功利。

这大概就是玛格丽特·艾特伍德回避“虚荣”一词的原因。

没有伟大的虚荣，真正的创造再无可能了。

　　□现代学林点将录·正榜头领之十二

　　冯友兰(1895-1990)，字芝生，室名三松堂；河南唐河人。

　　按传统的学术观念，哲学(义理之学)为学问中心，近人如太虚称“中国民族文化，哲学乃是主脑”，冯友兰云“叙述一时代一民族之历史而不及其哲学，则如‘画龙不点睛’”，又谓“哲学是太上科学”。承此风气，哲学史或思想史的研治，亦居于现代学术主流。近代以来治中国哲学史者，以胡适开疆辟地，始开风气，以冯友兰挟山超海，后来居上。

　　冯氏晚年比较自己与胡适的异同，曾有准确的分疏：“胡适的《中国哲学史大纲》对于资料的真伪，文字的考证，占了很大的篇幅，而对于哲学家们的哲学思想，则讲得不够透，不够细。……我的《中国哲学史》在对于各家的哲学思想的了解和体会这一方面讲得比较多。”盖胡适虽亦哲学专业出身，但他认同“哲学取消论”，尤其不满形而上学，治哲学史实取史学本位；而冯氏则反之，自身认同实在主义的正统哲学，治哲学史取哲学本位。故胡氏偏重文本的历史考辨，即所谓“外在解释”；而冯氏则偏重思想的系统分析，即所谓“内在解释”。冯氏的优胜处，尤在于能借鉴西洋哲学的逻辑分析方法，清晰地梳理中国传统哲学，并融会贯通，化繁为简。

　　五十年代以后，冯氏弃旧趋新，否定自我，“向党和马克思列宁主义缴械投降，在马克思列宁主义的哲学队伍中重新做一个小兵”。六十年代更另起炉灶，著《中国哲学史新编》，书前题词有云：“望道便惊天地宽，南针廿载溯延安。”所谓“望道”之道，就是毛泽东在《在延安文艺座谈会上的讲话》指示的道路。

　　《新编》在六十年代仅完成两卷，八十年代以后，冯氏重作修订，去世前最终完成七卷本《新编》。冯氏在写完末卷《中国现代哲学史》后，自觉已臻“海阔天空我自飞”的境界，并表示“如果有人不以为然，因之不能出版，吾其为王船山矣”。其实《新编》的识见，殊未能超出八十年代的思想气候，当时所谓“非常可怪之论”，如批判太平天国的神权政治、指出毛泽东的极左思想错误，今日视之，固卑之无甚高论。所谓“海阔天空我自飞”，近乎鸡鸭展翅耳。故论《新编》的纯学术价值，远不能与早年的《中国哲学史》相匹，惟可见作者本人的思想变迁而已。

　　藉《中国哲学史》一书，冯氏得以确立学院派地位，乃另著“贞元六书”，提出其复古的哲学体系；此亦如钱穆凭考据学扬名立万，转而有非考据学的《国史大纲》之作。“贞元六书”为哲学，《国史大纲》为史学，各成一家言，而皆成书于抗战期间，皆成为文化保守思潮的代表作。

　　冯氏的哲学体系，以理学始，以理性主义展开，而以心学终，归结于神秘主义。其神秘气味最体现于《新原人》的人生四重境界说：“自然境界”，混沌未开；“功利境界”，为己为利；“道德境界”，为人为公；“天地境界”，万物皆备于我，我与宇宙同一。而人生境界的高低，则取决于个人对宇宙人生“觉解”的高低，正所谓“迷则为凡，悟则为圣”。与此相呼应，冯氏更一再强调哲学的功用不在于增加实际知识，而在于提高精神境界。然而反观冯氏自身的人生实践，从“土改”的粉饰太平，到“批林批孔”的为王前驱，纵不必深责，亦不过随波逐流之辈；从迎合蒋介石，到歌颂毛泽东，乃致媚谄江青，一生更不脱“应帝王”情结。则其人去“道德境界”尚远，犹在“功利境界”中也。冯氏哲学虽极高明，又何补于冯氏本人的精神境界？

　　西南联大时期，冯氏曾路遇金岳霖，金氏开玩笑道：“芝生，到什么境界了？”冯答曰：“到了天地境界了。”遂相顾大笑而去。可惜“天地境界”云云，终不过是虚言逛语耳。

　　冯氏在抗战时始蓄须，与闻一多的胡子齐名，故拟为美髯公朱仝。

　　诗曰：哲学新编墨未浓，韶山溪口几攀龙。人生境界凭君说，君到人生第几重。

ReadingLife ：BooksfortheAges ，SvenBirkerts 著，GraywolfPress 2007年出版。

　　”这本书可以用来勾勒道德感的成长曲线。年轻读者比如我现在的学生和当年二十来岁的我，读到的是HH的欲望和狡诈，还有纳博科夫优美的语言。是的，我们在课堂上的讨论，就集中在这些方面。但是，时光过去几年，我的感受完全不同了……如今这个有毛病、心碎、富于悲剧意味的HH活生生地站在我面前，他看上去与其说应该被谴责，不如说是悲怆的。书的第二部分更明显，HH的爱慢慢显现–你渐渐对这个男人产生感觉，并清楚地体认着作为读者的你自己。”

　　”我需要纳博科夫的感觉–诗意、生活的疲惫、垂死时的黑色幽默和欲望的混合物……这正是我需要的振动和音调。虽然这种感觉从未离开我，我仍感到过一段时间需要重读，就像突然需要一剂药或者一下击打。当我把自己重置于这个’力场’，我确信找到了自己。”

　　总算又遇到一个迷恋《洛丽塔》和纳博科夫的读书家！我随便翻翻，看到作者倾心细读《洛丽塔》，就毫不犹豫地把这本书拿回来。

　　书不到200页，作者说的是被人解读无数次的经典，也是令他刻骨铭心的常读之书。比如福特的《好兵》，他说第一句”这是我听到的有史以来最伤心的故事”，好像简·奥斯汀的”众所周知……”书的开篇是现代文学史上最诱人的开头，它充满动态、抒情，然而又是主人公以轻快的口吻说出的，语调和情节有微妙的矛盾和平衡，这种摇摆持续了几页。

　　他谈到”读了几十年”的福楼拜《包法利夫人》，引出一段舞会上的细节–空气、花香、烛焰、龙虾、瓷器、”他”–这段充满场景变换的描述，给人的感觉犹如观看立体派绘画，引入一个幻觉中的维度。福楼拜总是把情绪编织到情景描述中，让它们扩张，生长到我们背后，在我们看不见的地方绽放，成为我们记忆的一部分，好像那些精心折叠的日本插花，浸到水里。这种微妙的方式使我们在阅读的时候经历一种’持续加剧’的感觉–我们活在这个复杂但被重力或者透视法则约束的世界里，这个世界有它的自治之力。刻意留心杰作的技巧会分散我们的注意力，但这种批评意识会把人推向作品的深处。我相信有一种高超技巧好像烛光照在平面上，我因为赞美它而凑得更近……我们会在这种努力之中扩展自我，克服阻力。

　　《读书生活》是一本评论经典的小书，涉及《麦田守望者》、《洛丽塔》、《到灯塔去》、《好兵》、《恋爱中的女人》、《大使》等等”新经典”，感受鲜活，是一种有密度的”闲读”、”闲说”。它让人想起十余前那本轰动一时的《伟大的书》(David Denby 著)一样是事隔几十年后温习经典，在”不能两次踏入的河流”中惊奇、感慨、认识自我。

　　本书作者、美国评论家伯克茨(Sven Birkerts)大概还不为中国读者所知。他著作不多，半辈子四处教书，教过许多大学的写作班(WritingSeminar)，还当过编辑、书评作者和书商，读书经验贯穿各个职业角度，过眼成百上千的新书–对文学和写作的激情和疲倦，他都经历过了，自然而然地目睹经典与自己奇妙的”共同生长”。读书的根本，说到底是一种自我求证–求证自我的存在，并且时时发现自我的各个侧面生长到时空之中。这大概就是所谓创造式阅读，它让人目击自我的拓展。这两位作者重读之后，有类似的感慨，好像发现了爱情的涵义：”我觉得现在总算接近文学的神秘之处了”。

　　用本书作者在序言中的话来说，阅读同时是”逃离”和”加剧”，读者内心和外界是彼此给予和获得的互动过程，读者的期待正在此极彼极之间。而对于这种运动，伯克茨有这样的”深度描述”–阅读纳博科夫将我的一些天性向前拉扯，这使我感到晦暗、吃力，并且体验到那种令人伤感的智慧。另一些小说则触动自我的另一部分……爱默生说，”我们的情感并不彼此相识”。

　　延伸阅读

　　《伟大的书：西方经典的当代阅读》，(美)邓比著，苇杭译，国际文化出版公司2006年9月版，45.00元。

《天安门：中国的知识分子与革命》，史景迁著，
温洽溢译，台湾时报出版2007年出版。

　　对于中文读者来说，史景迁是一个响当当的名字，他是美国的中国近现代史专家，其著作往往深入浅出，以优美的文笔，独特的角度，巨细无遗地描绘出中国近代全景。除了《王氏之死》，作者还著有《追寻现代中国》、《雍正王朝之大义觉迷》、《改变中国》等书，对于习惯于固定史观的中国读者来说，阅读史景迁的论述是一种不可多得的经验。他的友人、本身也是史学家的余英时认为史景迁像司马迁一样”才兼文史”。

　　这本《天安门》也一样，作者先指出天安门是紫禁城面南的大门，是”皇帝行使天威的主轴线”，但在二十世纪最初二十年间，天安门显然失去了防御和象征皇权的功能，”默默见证开始左右中国人生活的种种新吊诡”。在天安门后，是保守的皇族和军阀，在天安门前，则是政治活跃分子、学生、工人群众，他们以天安门为地标和集会场所。而在今天，天安门变成了宏伟的广场。

　　作者以”天安门”这个象征开始，进行中国现代史的探索；不过，书名很容易让读者混淆，以为这本书将展示出五四运动至”文革”的一系列群众运动场面。其实这本书主要围绕康有为、鲁迅和丁玲三人的一生，透过他们的生平了解一连串不寻常的事件，这些事件往往被认为构成所谓的”中国革命”。而余英时则补充说这本书以上述三人漫长的一生为”经”，以秋瑾、沈从文、瞿秋白、徐志摩、闻一多、老舍六人横插在不同阶段的生命为”纬”。康有为、鲁迅、丁玲三人正代表了三个时代，有男有女。

　　然而，作者并非要写一部”集体传记”(groupbiography)，作者在序言里说得再清楚不过，他希望传达”某种人们作日常抉择时面对的艰难，他们身处的迷惘境况，他们原想置身事外、却又横遭牵连的事件，以及他们偶尔痛下决心、采取大胆行动而引起的外界反应。”如果我们从余英时的”经纬说”上推敲，可以说史景迁在这本书里认为，中国现代知识分子的思想史，既包括非理性的群众运动，亦包括一种”个人影响他人”的过程，如作者所说，这些人物都是”时代的先行者”，同辈或后辈都莫能不受他/她的思想和行动影响，因为这场”戏”不可能让舞台两旁的人安然无恙、不受牵连。

　　书中令我印象最深的是先后提及鲁迅和沈从文二人。两人或直接，或间接，都曾经见过公开砍头的一幕，他们将这两件事情诉诸文字，而且脍炙人口。沈从文是在湘西乡下见到苗乱中被胡乱捉来的农民，被带到天王庙前拈阄决定生死，这种目睹的经历，加上当兵的生活，决定沈从文日后遇到苦难时默默承受的态度；相反，鲁迅是在日本大学里，在外国环境中，在别人”万岁”的欢呼下，间接目睹中国人旁观同胞被日军砍头的情景，这种间接性反而激起鲁迅的愤怒。

　　作者也把康有为描绘得很全面，虽然我起初不明白为何要把康有为和鲁迅、丁玲放在一起，但看下去，当我读到作者怎样将暮年的康有为和鲁迅、瞿秋白、孙中山等人放在一起去论述，我更看出这个忧国忧民的知识分子原来也十分”狭隘”。康有为一直与孙中山有隙，这种态度使他支持镇压工人的北洋军阀吴佩孚，而不关心上街的学生、工人，反而关心当权者有否妥善打理戊戌维新烈士的墓地。晚年的康有为，置产娶妾，支持北洋军阀，很难想像他曾经密谋刺杀慈禧以移除新政的障碍。康有为的一生，也反映出当时不同时代、不同派别的知识分子怎样互相排斥、互生龃龉，好比一排排波浪互相推撞，推迟了他们一直期望的中国富强局面。

　　自古以来即有门户朋党之争，二十世纪中国知识分子更怀着各种主义，希望藉此改变中国，不同政见者互生龃龉、口诛笔伐成为家常事。在这种情况下，没有一个文人不积极投入”政治论争”，即使是新月派的徐志摩和闻一多亦然，徐志摩曾受泰戈尔影响，梦想像印度般建立某种农民合作社，闻一多亦偏近国家主义思想，对国民党与共产党都不信任，新月派如此，可想而知左派作家是怎样激烈投入政治运动了。

　　不过左派知识分子的遭遇始终一波三折，史景迁之所以选取丁玲这个人物，除了因为她是女作家和鲁迅学生，亦因为她的一生非常传奇。在秋瑾的影响下，中国女性亦开始争取自己的独立，丁玲就是一个鲜明的例子。起初是湖南七女之一，她的母亲也是一个自学成才的新女性，而她的同窗杨开慧即为毛泽东第一任妻子，她的朋友中也有第一批”勤工俭学女生”、后来投身共产主义革命并成为烈士的向警予。这一重关系，加上老师鲁迅与左翼文人的关系，使她思想上与共产党接近。然而，花样年华的她其实是个走红的少女作家，笔下尽是小资情调的独立女性角色，亦一直在上海写电影剧本。她接近并加入共产党，可能是因为胡也频的影响。直至她逃出国民党的软禁，奔向共产党控制下的延安，才真真正正走入共产党的政治生活。自此，她参与土改劳动，主导文艺意识形态，到被人整治批斗，最后被平反，人生走入另一个阶段。

　　此外，丁玲与沈从文的友谊亦令人深思，这两位作家都来自湖南，也是胡也频的朋友，只不过沈从文从头到尾都没有加入共产党。解放后，沈从文也没有像丁玲那样活跃于文坛，并成为写实主义路线的旗手，而是被共产党发现他”怀古忆旧的才华”，分派他研究中世纪服饰史。沈从文生于湖南凤凰县，而老舍生于北京旗人家庭，两人不单都有少数民族背景，其性情亦比较接近，恰巧心底厌倦美国对华政策的老舍，最后回到新中国继续写作，可惜在”文革”时终于逃不过厄运；相反，沉默的沈从文，虽然吃尽不少苦头，却熬过了一次又一次的政治斗争，生于忧患，死于安乐。

　　看罢史景迁的著作，我不禁掩卷叹息，叹的是中国这一世纪纷扰不休，为的是国家富强；但即使是文人之间，也互相挞伐攻讦，其非理性的程度，甚至比内战更惨烈。我们也熬过了一次又一次的运动，国家受尽战火、饥荒、水灾的煎熬，可幸的是现在我们的国家真的强大起来了，不过我们的富强之路仍然漫长。
　　

　　延伸阅读

　　《王氏之死：大历史背后的小人物命运》，(美)史景迁著，李璧玉译，上海远东出版社2005年1月版，15.00元。

《疯狂天才——躁狂抑郁症与艺术气质》，(美)凯·雷德菲尔德·贾米森著，
刘建周、诸逢佳、付慧译，上海三联书店2007年4月版，36.00元。

　　“拍动羽翼飞向太阳的依卡洛斯，因为太靠近神而注定陨落。”

　　希腊的代达洛斯为逃离克里特岛，为自己和儿子依卡洛斯打造了两副羽毛翅膀，用蜂蜡粘在身上。依卡洛斯愈飞愈高兴就忘了父亲的忠告，渐渐朝太阳飞去，背上的蜡也被太阳所溶，失去羽翼落入了大海。

　　人类天才史上，有某种精神异常、酗酒、滥用药物乃至走上自杀道路的人比比皆是。丁尼生、海明威、拜伦、凡·高、舒曼、伍尔夫……这一长串名单绝非“意外”。而各种艺术门类自杀者中又以诗人为最，十多年前死去的顾城是离我们最近的一个，不知道究竟是超人的才能埋下了疯狂的隐患，还是疯狂孕育了超人的才能。当他们一点点接近艺术的极致境界时，内心的疯狂也一步步走向巅峰，最终像神话中的依卡洛斯那样陨落……

　　人的内心世界是最具诱惑力的斯芬克司谜语，天才的内心世界又是这个谜语最神秘的部分，传记作家、文学评论家常常喜欢进行旁敲侧击的暗示和并不小心翼翼的揣摩，专业的精神科医生也很乐意在教科书每种病症后面附上一个名人案例。但真正有实力对这一问题进行系统思考的人实在不多。幸好，手头这本《疯狂天才——躁狂抑郁症与艺术气质》填补了这一空白。书名像一本通俗畅销小说，副标题却是一本严肃学术专著的题目。作者贾米森身为精神病学教授，拥有多年的临床和研究经验，论述严谨中肯，毫无哗众取宠之处。她没有直接讨论精神病与天才这样一个宏伟的论题，而是将目光聚焦到躁狂抑郁症和艺术气质这一具体问题上，选择了几位典型的躁狂抑郁症艺术家，包括丁尼生、舒曼、拜伦、伍尔夫等人作为典型案例进行分析。

　　躁狂抑郁症患者发病期间常有敏捷的思维、迅速的反应、旺盛的精力和强烈的情绪，虽然这些并不能让一个凡夫俗子创造出伟大的艺术作品，但艺术家，尤其是诗人，一般被认为或多或少拥有这些特质：

　　“他所醉心者，

　　皆为天空与火焰，这些使其诗行清澈，

　　他依然留存着那绝顶的疯癫，

　　而那本应占据一个诗人的心田。”

　　贾米森这本书，就试图用科学的方法，去诠释天才的疯狂，去理解绝顶的疯癫。

　　当然，理解别人的内心世界是极不容易的，正如伍尔夫自杀前给丈夫留下的字条所言：“我们不了解自己的灵魂，更别提别人的灵魂了。”人类对自身精神领域的探索还处在尝试阶段，理解成为一种说起来脱口而出做起来却遥不可及的目标，而因为有了强烈的被理解欲望，人类注定成为宇宙间最最孤独的旅者：“人类不能手牵手一同走过整条人生道路。每个人心中都有一片未开垦的森林；是连鸟的足迹都没有的雪原。”贾米森作为一个理解者的可贵之处，就在于她意识到了理解能力的限度，对这样一个抓人眼球的话题，时时克制着自己的推论，对每一位艺术家的病症诊断都有充分依据。最为难得的是，她自己也曾经历过躁狂抑郁症的困扰，所以更能体会艺术家身处此境的巨大痛苦。

　　研究精神病的作品中，症状的材料常常来源于患者周围的人的描述，但借助常人的视角研究精神病，本身就有隔靴搔痒之感。本书在方法论上的一大特色，就是其中的主要研究对象都是作家或者具有写作能力的艺术家，作者在论述中大量参照了他们的作品、日记和信件，把他们的精神世界生动地展现在读者眼前。当然，贾米森严密的分析又使本书区别于那些纯粹以感性方式诠释精神困境的作品。后者如世纪初上映的电影《时时刻刻》，它对弗吉尼亚·伍尔夫的塑造可以和《疯狂天才》互为补充：从《疯狂天才》伍尔夫的家族病史表中，读者不难看出为何《时时刻刻》中那个天使般的小侄女安杰莉卡隐约和弗吉尼亚灵犀相通。

　　然而，解开斯芬克司之谜的俄狄浦斯注定要弑父娶母乱人间之大伦。作者指出，医学的发展为疯狂与天才关系的阐释思路提供了无限的可能性，但伦理学领域亦然处在尴尬的未开发状态。书中研究的诗人高得离谱的自杀率，向读者提出了更为严肃的问题：如果疯狂和天赋必然在某些人身上形影相随，一个以普通人为主的时代，是否可能为保存艺术资源而容忍疯狂？如果正像电影《死亡诗社》揭示的那样，诗性的启蒙最终会在某些人身上酿成悲剧，那么这种启蒙是否应该作为教育的一部分？当基因检查成为诊断躁狂抑郁症的有效手段时，我们是否要把那些有“艺术细胞”但也注定有悲剧个性的胎儿碾成血沫冲进下水道？这些问题都超出了作者探讨的范围，但她在结尾指出：“艺术家承受了超出常人的痛苦，值得我们用感激、理解以及认真的思考来回报他们。”的确，疯狂天才需要的，不仅仅是伴随对其才能的认可而来的敬而远之。从这一意义上讲，《疯狂天才》从严谨的经验科学研究方法入手，得出了一个极具人文关怀的结论，实属可贵。

　　延伸阅读

　　《天才还是疯子》，余凤高著，复旦大学出版社2007年4月版，25.00元。

 

美国官员当地时间6月27日透露，赛珍珠的名作《大地》（The Good Earth）的原稿在遗失40年后寻获。

据悉，这份有400页由打字机完成的小说原稿曾由赛珍珠秘书的女儿交给费城的费里曼（Freeman）拍卖公司确定其真伪。这份原稿是由美国联邦调查局发现的。作者于1966年宣称原稿遗失，并认为是被人偷走。

赛珍珠于1973年逝世，在她过世前一直在寻找原稿的下落。她将她在中国的生活经验写成《大地》一书，在多数美国人对中国还不太了解的时候，这本书无疑具有一定影响力。这本书为她赢得1932年的普利策奖。她还凭借此书获得1938年的诺贝尔文学奖。官员称此原稿难以估算其价值。

据报道，原稿是装在一个有中国设计风格的红箱子里的，里面还有当代名人写给赛珍珠的书信，包括美国总统杜鲁门等人。美FBI探员表示，原稿的状态极佳，除了首页泛黄及边缘有些破损。