年西方亂局背後 一場"白色"危機(上)

Call it the crisis of whiteness.

權且稱之爲“白”的危機。

White anxiety has fueled this year’s political tumult in the West: Britain’s surprising vote to exit the European Union, Donald J. Trump’s unexpected capture of the Republican presidential nomination in the United States, the rise of right-wing nationalism in Norway, Hungary, Austria and Greece.

白人焦慮推動了今年的西方政治動盪：英國令人震驚地投票決定退出歐盟，美國的唐納德•J•特朗普(Donald J. Trump)出人意料地獲得了共和黨的總統提名，挪威、匈牙利、奧地利和希臘的右翼民族主義崛起。

Whiteness, in this context, is more than just skin color. You could define it as membership in the “ethno-national majority,” but that’s a mouthful. What it really means is the privilege of not being defined as “other.”

在此背景下，白不僅僅是指膚色。你可以將其定義爲“人種-民族多數”的成員，但這樣有點拗口。它的真正含義是不會被定義爲“他者”的特權。

Whiteness means being part of the group whose appearance, traditions, religion and even food are the default norm. It’s being a person who, by unspoken rules, was long entitled as part of “us” instead of “them.”

白意味着屬於一個外表、傳統、宗教乃至食物都符合默認常規的羣體。按照不言而喻的規則，白人意味着是一個長期被稱作是“我們”，而不是“他們”中的一份子的人。

But national and racial identity were often conflated for the white majority. That identity felt to many white people like one of the most important pillars holding up their world — and now it seems under threat.

但多數白人常把民族和種族身份混爲一談。對很多白人來說，這種身份感覺像是支撐他們的世界最重要的支柱之一，而現在，它似乎受到了威脅。

There are, of course, complicated contours to 2016’s unusual politics. In Britain, immigrants from South Asia voted heavily to leave the European Union, citing hopes that curtailing European migration might open space for more people from Asia. In the United States, frustration with and alienation from status quo politics have helped drive Mr. Trump’s rise.

當然，2016年不同尋常的政治局勢有着複雜的輪廓。在英國，來自南亞的移民投票大力支持退出歐盟，表示希望限制歐洲移民，以便爲更多來自亞洲的移民開放空間。在美國，對政治現狀的不滿與脫離助長了特朗普的崛起勢頭。

There has also always been a certain fluidity to this concept of whiteness. Irish and Italian immigrants to the United States, and Jews in Britain, were once seen as separate from the white national majority, and are now generally considered part of it, benefiting from racial privilege. At the same time, Jews’ white skin did not protect them from being cast as outsiders by some of Mr. Trump’s supporters who have circulated anti-Semitic memes on social media.

關於“白”的定義總是存在一定程度的不穩定性。美國的愛爾蘭與意大利移民，英國的猶太人，都曾一度被排除在白人多數羣體之外，如今卻因爲他們的種族特徵，同樣被視爲白人主流的一部分。與此同時，儘管猶太人也是白皮膚，特朗普的某些支持者們還是會把他們視爲外來者，這些人經常在社交網絡上散佈反猶太的網絡米姆。

Still, experts see a crisis of white identity underlying much of the West’s current turmoil.

然而專家卻在西方當前的亂象之下看到一種白人身份危機。

“It’s fundamentally about ‘who are we?’” said Eric Kaufmann, a professor of politics at Birkbeck College, University of London. “What does it mean to be part of this nation? Is it not ‘our’ nation anymore, ‘our’ meaning the ethnic majority?

“這是關於‘我們是誰’的基本問題，”倫敦大學伯克貝克學院的政治學教授埃裏克•考夫曼(Eric Kaufmann)說，“作爲這個國家的一員意味着什麼？它是否已經不再是‘我們’的國家？——‘我們’是指佔多數的民族。

“These kinds of questions are really front and center, even though they’re not necessarily verbalized.”

“像這樣的問題是極爲緊要的，儘管不一定通過言語表達了出來。”

The questions can seem like a sudden reversal after decades of rising multiculturalism, through the civil rights movement in the United States and the European Union’s opening up of borders.

自從美國的民權運動以及歐洲敞開國界以來，多元文化主義已經興盛數十載，這些問題似乎是一種突然的逆轉。

In fact, academic research suggests that other economic and social transformations unfolding at the same time have led many people to anchor themselves more fully in their whiteness — even as whiteness itself has lost currency.

事實上，學術研究表明，同時期的另一種經濟與社會轉型令許多人更加徹底地用“白”來作爲自己的支柱——儘管“白”這個字眼本身已經不常用了。

“When I look at the data, I keep coming back to this issue that it’s really about identity politics,” said Elisabeth Ivarsflaten, a professor at Norway’s University of Bergen who studies Europe’s far-right parties. “This is the most powerful predictor of support for the populists.”

“研究數據時，我不斷回到這個問題上來，它其實是個身份政治問題，”挪威卑爾根大學(University of Bergen)研究歐洲極右翼黨派的教授伊麗莎白•伊法斯夫拉騰(Elisabeth Ivarsflaten)說。“這是民粹主義者獲得支持的最有力的徵兆。”

GAINS AND LOSSES IN A CHANGING WORLD

變化世界中的得與失

Identity, as academics define it, falls into two broad categories: “achieved” identity derived from personal effort, and “ascribed” identity based on innate characteristics.

學者們指出，身份認同可以分爲兩大類，一種是“獲得性”的身份認同，基於個人努力；另一種是“先賦性”的身份認同，基於自身天生的特徵。

Everyone has both, but people tend to be most attached to their “best” identity — the one that offers the most social status or privileges. Successful professionals, for example, often define their identities primarily through their careers.

所有人身上都存在着這兩種認同，但是人們傾向於更認可他們“最好”的身份——也就是能帶給他們最高社會地位或特權的認同。舉例來說，事業有成的職業人士通常以事業生涯來定義自己的身份。

For generations, working-class whites were doubly blessed: they enjoyed privileged status based on race, as well as the fruits of broad economic growth.

在幾代人之中，工薪階層的白人受到雙重賜福：他們既擁有種族所帶來的特權地位，也受惠於經濟的繁榮發展。

White people’s officially privileged status waned over the latter half of the 20th century with the demise of discriminatory practices in, say, university admissions. But rising wages, an expanding social safety net and new educational opportunities helped offset that. Most white adults were wealthier and more successful than their parents, and confident that their children would do better still.

到了20世紀下半葉，隨着歧視逐漸減少（比如在大學入學方面），白人的正式特權地位也在漸漸喪失。但是工資的增長、社會安全網的擴大以及新的受教育機會有助於彌補他們的損失。大多數成年白人都比父母更富裕、更成功，他們相信子女們會過得更好。

That feeling of success may have provided a sort of identity in itself.

這種成功的感覺本身也可以帶來一種身份認同。

But as Western manufacturing and industry have declined, taking many working-class towns with them, parents and grandparents have found that the opportunities they once had are unavailable to the next generation.

但是隨着西方製造業和工業的衰落，不少工薪階層市鎮也隨之衰敗，父母和祖父母們發現，下一代已經不能擁有他們曾經擁有的機會了。

That creates an identity vacuum to be filled.

這造成了一種有待填補的身份認同真空。

Arlie Russell Hochschild, the author of “Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right,” describes a feeling of lost opportunity as the “deep story” of the rural Louisiana communities she spent four years studying.

《自己土地上的陌生人： 美國右翼的憤怒與哀悼》(Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right)一書的作者阿莉•羅素•霍克希爾德(Arlie Russell Hochschild)對路易斯安那州的農村社區進行了四年的研究，她認爲那裏“深藏着”一種失去機會的感覺。

Her subjects felt like they were waiting in a long line to reach the top of a hill where the American dream was waiting for them. But the line’s uphill progress had slowed, even stopped. And immigrants, black people and other “outsiders” seemed to be cutting the line.

她筆下的人物們覺得自己爲了登上“美國夢”的山巔，經歷了漫長的排隊等候，但是上山的隊伍放慢了速度，甚至停頓下來了。而那些移民、黑人和其他“外來者”似乎還在插隊。

For many Western whites, opportunities for achieved identity — the top of the hill — seem unattainable. So their ascribed identity — their whiteness — feels more important than ever.

對於很多西方白人來說，取得“獲得性身份認同”（登上山巔）的機會似乎已經變得遙不可及。所以“先賦性身份認同”——也就是他們的“白”——變得比以往更加重要起來。