主题：【整理】西方历史与学术的由来——关于西方历史的真假问题 -- 疯狂的蚂蚁

输入法出问题了？

不可否认，人类历史是一个不断前进的过程。因此历史有对错，有善恶，有真假。

但一切对错，善恶和真假都要放在当时的历史环境中来，历史的每一个转折都是当时的大量试错的结果，每一个结果实际上都是当时的最可能结果或次最可能结果，而最可能结果就是对大多数人最有利的结果。

以奴隶社会为例，表面上看奴役人民是十恶不赦的罪恶， 但相比把俘虏杀死是巨大进步，相比把人放回去，最后连年战争，死人更多相比， 奴隶社会真是人类的巨大进步。所以奴役他人以今天的标准是恶， 但以当时的标准来说，是大善，凡是顺应历史的潮流的英雄人物，都有自己的历史功绩。

汉朝的举孝廉选拔人才机制，在连年战争，民不聊生的年代，贫民连饭都吃不饱，哪儿能培养有一定文化素养和管理才能的人呢？ 不以血缘关系为依归选拔人才， 就是历史的巨大进步。用后世的科举制度来苛责它就是无理，这样的制度在当时就是大善。

等到三国时代，门阀大族形成，把举孝廉变成了结党营私的工具，而那时候因为纸张发明，知识大规模扩散，受到教育而有卓越才能的平民很多，重视出身的社会风气阻碍了社会的发展，曹孟德高举“唯才是举”的旗帜， 是社会的巨大进步，但是他略微超越了自己的时代，以致手下叛变此起彼伏，表面上是忠于汉室，其实还是对曹孟德人才政策的不满。

以元灭南宋为例，表面上看也是历史的倒退。把目光回溯10000年以前，几乎所有的种族都是游牧民族，随着气候变冷，他们逐渐跑到了中原地带，人口的变多，不得不开始了种植， 变成了农业种族，可惜天下膏腴之地并没有多少，失败的种族不得不继续在北方游荡，而农业种族因为能养活更多的人口而繁荣起来。黄帝炎帝蚩尤的大战，反映了当时的南方北方和更北方的游牧民族之间的长期战争。天下膏腴之地，唯有强者据之。但随着技术的扩散，等到辽国这种半农业半游牧的民族掌握了冶金技术，冷兵器时代汉族的优势就不见了，宋举国而攻辽，铩羽而归是有深刻历史原因的。等到丢掉燕云十六州和西夏的地盘，养马的地方没有了，部队的移动性大举丧失，宋的军事失败已经不可逆转。表面上看元代宋是历史的落后，但从另一方面讲，强弱之势已经逆转，元的胜利是必然，凭什么当年的失败种族就不能逆袭呢？

至于元统治中国， 未能尽善管理，所以只能有国89年就仓皇北逃，这也是历史的必然。 明代元之后，汉族在铁与火中重生，又重新获得了部队的移动性。但是只要不能发明完善火器，用冷兵器和游牧民族交锋，胜不能大胜， 败则大伤元气，长期相持是必败无疑的。游牧民族就好象汉族的GRE一样， 成绩不好了就要挨打。

天行健，君子以自强不息。历史不相信眼泪，只相信强者， 只有强者才代表人类前进的方向。

所以， 读历史有第四个阶段，心中有人民，胸中分是非，眼中有大势，手中有权术。做到吸取历史人物的优点，超越他们的局限性， 等于自己活了上下5000年！

Sorry friends, have difficulty input Chinese efficiently, will try to post Chinese posts later.

For the issue about history learning, I am very much in the camp of supporting OP's pride of our own history and historian tradition -- which is almost unmatched among civilizations in terms of continuity and originality, as well as generations of Chinese scholars' dilligence and persistance.

However, having said that, there is absolutely no need to belittle the great traditions, hard works and achievements of Western historians. In some way, the labelling of "East" vs. "West" is misleading. All are organic parts of human civilization, and the nations of Eurasia supercontinent are to be considered relatives and friends, connected since tens of thousands of years ago before written history, and later on by Silk Road at land and at sea.

It is very nice and comforting to see young people like OP to be free from the self-doubts and self-hatred of the 1980s Chinese intelectuals. To be proud of yourself, to be proud of your people, and to be confident to your future, this is essential.

And at the same time I feel the urge to point it out to the fine young men and women like OP, that to learn and to know the world, to learn from history, East and West, need to follow the right path:

Du Wan Juan Shu (read thousands of books), Xing Wan Li Lu (travel thousands of miles). To read, is to know and to learn, humble as a young student, respect the hard works of generations of scholars, and absorb the fruits of their scholarship. To travel, is to see the historical places and people and where events were happening with your own eyes -- sometimes it is truly amazing that after so many thousands of years, we may still see things as if it were happening just yesterday.

Post a link that I borrowed from friend which might assist friends who loves history readings.

http://liptontea.bokee.com/4778571.html

Like your nick name, as Sir Acton is one of my favorate scholars in college years.

From the Western historical tradtions we have much to learn, especially in field works of archiology and the efforts and achievements of pushing traditional history scholarship and research toward the direction of "science", by focusing greatly on details and applying scientific thinking, as well as extensive applicaition of modern database and information tech.

No doubt, history research and learning as of today, maybe in the foreseeable future, will still have political implications. We have debated back in college days. We will like to embrace that, not shy away from it. There's nothing wrong that serious learning on history may assist us in knowing the world of today, and may help us in our daily efforts to build our country and serve our people. Just make sure we do it right, alwasy stay TRUE to ourselves, and to history.

谢谢回复，反复读过。觉得咱们看法似乎相近，但不敢肯定。我就再阐述一下自己的看法吧

历史上是否发生某件事情，这是一种历史的“真”。但是这件事情对于当时尤其是后来的意义，这个问题已经很大程度上脱离了当时的真，恐怕更多由后人的定义。那么，后人能否赋予该事以意义或者价值，这就看后人的成就了。

比如，五四运动到底有啥意义，中共将它上升到现代史的划时代地位，并且与世界革命联系起来，这一叙事的成立虽然也乏人怀疑，但1949年的胜利及其今年中共的执政地位就足以保证，这一叙事基本上难以撼动。少数几个文人的哼哼叽叽，没有多大的作用。

又如，欧洲近代，伏尔泰时期尚视中国为偶象，至斯密开始，否定论调渐渐上升。无他，地理大发现与工业革命相继而起，叙事开始一变。至马克斯·韦伯，所谓资本主义精神的讲法，直把儒教视为反现代而后快。70年代以来，东亚经济崛起，认为儒家不利于资本主义说法，但已经较少有人接受了。

对于中国古代史来说，最大的问题是如何看待所谓的秦汉至明清的“封建社会”。由于中共的历史观源自马克思主义，而马克思主义的一些具体版本仍然存在着欧洲中心主义的倾向。所谓的五种生产方式理论，其实是欧洲中心主义的产物。之前中国相对弱势，对于自己的历史（尤其是封建后期）也自然也是讲落后，否定意味居多。现在国势上来，一些观念也开始改变。比如现在明史方面，肯定的评价日渐其多。而原有的理论范也式，也受到挑战。80年代以来，五种生产方式理论所受到的挑战也多了起来。去年《史学月刊》发表了一篇《论秦汉至明清中国社会为小生产社会——兼论封建社会论的内在逻辑矛盾》，文章言中国为正常的小生产社会，并且承王国斌等人将传统中国与欧洲资本主义前夕相提并论的说法，其实也可以视为树立正统的一种努力。近来的学界情绪，我以为与80年代有别的是，80年代来还有一种“全盘西化”，于历史观上颇有全盘否定的味道。而近来则于自己的历史有更多的肯定与表扬。不难想象，随着中国国力的上升，这个趋势只会加强，不会减弱。

回到西方历史与学术的缘由一题。我觉得对于中国的史学来讲，史料之学当然不可以废除，必须加以重视。但史观之重要，可能要比史料重要得多。事实上，许多史料能否出现，以及如何解释，在很大程度上都是由史观来决定的。

First to say something about myself -- have been in college learning history a couple of years, but that was late 80s and early 90s. Left the field and even left the country for so many years. Seems to me that you are still in the field and being acadamicly active. Well, Liberal Arts majors are still hard places to earn a living, especially back in China. Appreciated and highly respect your staying there.

I do agree with you that a guilding mind and a steady belief and love of the learning is very critical. History is still not a science and very much dependent upon the person -- the quality of the scholar himself more or less decides how far his study can go.

But what prompted me to respond to the Original Post, is that I saw the rush and lack of serious attitude toward learning among young people of today. The few posted shared originally showed a dangerious tendency to disregard serious learning and jump into convinent conclusions.

However hard for us to see, to tell and to explain the historical events to ourselves and to others, the very basic requirement is to get as much details right as possible. And whenever inconvinent new materials are encountered against our own previous thoughts, we will have to adjust our own thinking. And this is why all the hard works and related techniques in studies of archieves, field works are so very important, and the previous generations of English, German, French scholars are to be respected for their achievements. Of course, we have our own tradition of Chinese scholars who were doing exactly the same thing for thousands of years.

As time goes by, and the many hard works of many generations of historians later, we are getting better and better seeing things in history, as complex and multi-layered events. Like you mentioned, these major events such as 五四运动 are to be reviewed, the evaluation of things like 封建社会 in ancient China will continue to be debated.

We are who we are because we humans have memories and history as our collective and extened memories. And I do like the saying "all history are modern history", as our lives and our ancestors' lives are continous flowing like a river, it's all related and whatever happened affects our thinking of today.

And this all the more reason we treat history with care, with respect toward truthfulness. As we do not want ourselves to be misled.

抱歉朋友们，中文输入有点儿困难，以后会发些中文的帖子。

就历史学习的问题来说，我非常支持楼主对自己历史和历史传统的自豪感，其连续性、原创性、历代中国学者的勤奋和坚持，举世无双，

尽管如此，也绝不应该贬低西方史学家们的伟大的传统、努力的工作和成就。某种程度上，“东方”和“西方”这样的标签有误导性。大家都是人类文明的有机组成，欧亚超级大陆上的民族们应该视为亲戚朋友，从有文字的历史之前数万年就已经连接在一起，后来又随着陆上和海上丝绸之路（保持着联系）。

看到像楼主这样的年轻人能够摆脱八十年代中国知识分子们的自我怀疑和自我仇恨的影响是非常欣慰的。自豪于本身、本民族，对未来充满信心，这非常重要。

同时，我觉得非常有必要指出，像楼主这样的年轻人们，在认知世界、学习东西方历史的时候，应该有正确的方法。

读万卷书，行万里路。读书，是学习和了解，像年轻学生一样谦卑，尊重历代学者们的辛勤劳动，吸收他们的文明成果。旅行，是用自己的眼睛看看历史古迹和人物，看看事件发生的地方——有时，我们会觉得几千年前的事情宛若昨日，真令人震惊，

下面的链接是从朋友那儿借来的，可能能帮到那些热爱历史阅读的朋友们。

链接

周末可以用手机输入中文。非常感谢兄台费心

这句，感慨万千。经济基础决定上层建筑，人类还有很长的苦难路要走。

因为我最近在跟一位老先生争论儒家是否封建腐朽的问题，而他坚称基于古希腊罗马的民主自由的思想种子，无论如何西方都要比中国先进，因为相较之下儒家一类的就是不符合现代生产力的封建腐朽思想。

于是，我就把枪口对准了文艺复兴。

因为我这些天有些累，我还是简单摘一些我的争论的句子上来吧……现在实在是没心情写，而过几天我搞不好会忘了这个帖子。请原谅我

本来我另一个争论的文章有很多内容的，比上面这个写得更详细而具体，可是……宕机的时候扑街了……大家理解就好。

所以我觉得，如果我们去研究一下文艺复兴前的威尼斯发生了什么，说不定能指出威尼斯诞生一些资本主义启蒙思想其实跟希腊罗马没啥关系，仅仅是因为威尼斯诸城在十字军东征后实质性脱离了东罗马的统治，又变成了一个商人治理的城市联盟，这样一来，以前上千年都没有什么大发展的商业和手工业突然迅猛发展，从而产生了资本主义思想萌芽的条件。而这些跟希腊罗马很可能没什么关系。况且，欧洲在文艺复兴前后大量吸收和继承阿拉伯的科技和文化，是实质上的传承关系。也就是说，欧洲现代文明跟阿拉伯文明是强联系，而跟希腊罗马是弱联系。

如果我们从科技的继承和发展上着手的话，说不定可以改写现代欧洲历史。