【英语生活】不要听任谎言盛行

Vaclav Havel, dissident, poet and playwright, was the first post-communist president of the Czech Republic. In a famous essay, The Power of the Powerless, written under Soviet occupation of his country, he described a greengrocer who displayed in his window a sign saying “Workers of the World Unite!”No one took the content of the declaration seriously – least of all the authorities who provided the sign, who would have been appalled at the prospect that the workers of the world might indeed unite. Czechoslovakia was not an especially brutal tyranny and the greengrocer would probably not have suffered sanctions for failing to give the placard a position of prominence. So what was the purpose of the display? Mr Havel argued that it represented a declaration of conformity. By placing the sign, the greengrocer said: “I do not want trouble.” He was responding to the human desire to avoid confrontation. That signal of compliance was what his rulers sought.

Like George Orwell, Mr Havel described “living within the lie”. Both saw how the dishonesty inherent in such acquiescence ultimately corrupted all aspects of life, personal as well as political. Themselves masters of language, both men understood that the abuse of language was central to that corruption. In 1984, and even more effectively in his essay on political language, Orwell explained how political rhetoric was constructed by sticking together reiterated phrases that had ceased to be connected to their literal meaning.

In western liberal democracies, no one exhibits slogans calling on the workers to unite. But you see similar displays in reception areas of businesses and even in government offices. They urge us to pursue excellence, to delight our customers, to be wholehearted in our embrace of change. Employees place these exhortations on desks and walls with the same resignation as the Czech greengrocer. The modern analogue of the address to the party congress is the business speech, in which tired clichés relentlessly follow each other, to similarly sycophantic applause.

For Orwell, writing in the 1940s, the language of politics was the most debased. But the new political leaders of the west were men such as Harry Truman and Clement Attlee, who spoke plainly because they knew no other vocabulary. In the postwar era, business took over from politics as the theatre of empty rhetoric. More recently, however, government has reimported that style from the private sector. Official documents, once relatively factual statements of situations and policies, are increasingly full of self-congratulation and bogus statistics. They resemble the annual reports of corporations.

Lucy Kellaway, the FT columnist, routinely mocks such nonsense. But, as Orwell and Mr Havel realised, these vapid expressions are not harmless. The objective of the patronising drivel emitted by politicians and business people is to drive out argument. Engaged debate is replaced by what Jack Welch, the former General Electric chief executive, memorably characterised as “superficial congeniality”. Apparent consensus is achieved by euphemism, by avoiding issues of substance and by using slogans instead of analysis.

Mr Welch saw that the opposite of superficial congeniality was “facing reality”. But the effect, and intention, of the tacit compliance involved in superficial congeniality is to entrench a reality of power: to legitimise authority based only on the occupation of positions of authority.

Living within the lie, because it does not face reality, is the process by which great organisations fall into catastrophic errors – and through which they often fail to recognise these errors even after their consequences have become apparent. The self-deception of living within the lie is how banks fell victim to the credit crunch and the US came to be embroiled in Iraq. The greengrocer, and millions like him, perpetuated a great evil by acquiescing in a minor deceit. Dishonesty of speech quickly leads to dishonesty in behaviour because the language we use governs all we do.

持不同政见者、诗人和剧作家瓦茨拉夫·哈维尔(Vaclav Havel)是后共产主义时期捷克共和国的首位总统。在一篇写于捷克被苏联占领时期、题为《无权者的力量》(The Power of the Powerless)的著名文章里，哈维尔描写了一位蔬菜水果商：这个人在橱窗户里摆出一块牌子，上面写着：“全世界无产者联合起来！”没有人把这条宣言的内容当回事——提供这条标语的政府尤其如此，如果全世界物产者真的能联合起来，那些政府早就心惊胆战了。捷克斯洛伐克不是一个特别残暴的专制国家，即使那位蔬菜水果商没有把标语牌摆到醒目位置，可能也不会受什么惩处。那么他摆出标语牌的目的何在？哈维尔认为，这说明那个人表示顺从。他摆出那块牌子是在表明：“我不想惹麻烦。”他印证了人类避免冲突的意愿。这种表示顺从的标志，正是他的统治者希望见到的。



像乔治•奥威尔(George Orwell)一样，哈维尔也对“在谎言中生活”加以描述。这两人都注意到，蕴含在这种顺从中所固有的不诚实，最终如何破坏了生活的方方面面，无论是个人生活还是政治生活。两个人都是语言大师，都认识到滥用语言是出现腐败的核心原因。在《1984》这本书中，奥威尔解释了政治辞令是如何通过把一些反复使用、已失去字面原意的措辞粘在一起而构建起来的。他在自己有关政治语言的文章中做出了更为有力的解释。



在西方自由民主国家里，没有人会展示呼吁无产者联合起来的口号。但在企业的接待区，甚至是政府的办公室，你会看到与此类似的展示。它们激励我们追求卓越、取悦客户、全心全意拥抱改变。带着与那位捷克蔬菜水果商相同的顺从，雇员们把这类训词放在写字台和墙上。在当代，与党代会讲话类似的是商务演讲，令人厌倦的陈词滥调一个接一个不停地上演，掌声中也带着类似的谄媚。





奥威尔在上世纪40年代写道，政治语言最为低下。不过，西方当时的政治领导人都是哈里•杜鲁门(Harry Truman)和克莱门特•艾德礼(Clement Attlee)这样的人，他们语言平实，因为他们不精通其它词汇。战后，商界接替政界成为空洞言辞上演的舞台。但最近，政府又从私营部门重新引入了这种语言风格。官方文件曾经是较为实事求是的局势与政策说明，目前却越来越多地充斥着沾沾自喜和虚假统计数据。它们就像公司的年报。





英国《金融时报》专栏作家露西•凯拉韦(Lucy Kellaway)常常嘲笑这些胡言乱语。但正如奥威尔和哈维尔认识到的那样，这类索然无味的辞令并非无害。政界和商界人士居高临下发表的蠢话，目的在于排除争论。前通用电气(GE)首席执行官杰克•韦尔奇(Jack Welch)所描述的“表面和气”取代了激烈的争论。言谈婉转、回避实质问题、使用口号而非分析，表面上的一致就是如此达成的。



韦尔奇认为，与表面和气相对的是“面对现实”。但蕴含在表面和气之中的那种心照不宣的顺从，其效果和意图是为了巩固一个权力现实：让纯粹建立在占据权力位置基础上的权力机关合法化。



在谎言中生活，由于不面对现实，那些伟大的组织正是由此陷入了灾难性的错误——在此过程中，它们往往未能认识到这些错误，即使是在错误后果已显而易见之后。“在谎言中生活”所蕴含的自我欺骗，正是银行业成为信贷危机牺牲品和美国身陷伊拉克泥潭的原因。那位蔬菜水果商，以及数百万像他一样的人，因默许小小的欺骗而让大恶得以长存。言语的不诚实会迅速导致行为的不诚实，因为我们所说的话支配着我们的全部行为。



译者/汪洋