Selections from Beyond Good and Evil

Friedrich Nietzsche

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“How could anything originate out of its opposite? Truth from error, for instance? Or the will to truth from the will to deception? Or selfless action from self-interest? Or the pure, sun-bright gaze of wisdom from a covetous leer? Such origins are impossible, and people who dream about such things are fools – at best. Things of the highest value must have another, separate origin of their own, – they cannot be derived from this ephemeral, seductive, deceptive, lowly world, from this mad chaos of confusion and desire. Look instead to the lap of being, the everlasting, the hidden God, the ‘thing-in-itself ’ – this is where their ground must be, and nowhere else!”1 – This way of judging typifies the prejudices by which metaphysicians of all ages can be recognized: this type of valuation lies behind all their logical procedures. From these “beliefs” they try to acquire their “knowledge,” to acquire something that will end up being solemnly christened as “the truth.” The fundamental belief of metaphysicians is the belief in oppositions of values. It has not occurred to even the most cautious of them to start doubting right here at the threshold, where it is actually needed the most – even though they had vowed to themselves “de omnibus dubitandum” [everything is to be doubted]. But we can doubt, first, whether opposites even exist and, second, whether the popular valuations and value oppositions that have earned the metaphysicians’ seal of approval might not only be foreground appraisals. Perhaps they are merely provisional perspectives, perhaps they are not even viewed head-on; perhaps they are even viewed from below, like a frog-perspective, to borrow an expression that painters will recognize. Whatever value might be attributed to truth, truthfulness, and selflessness, it could be possible that appearance, the will to deception, and craven self-interest should be accorded a higher and more fundamental value for all life. It could even be possible that whatever gives value to those good and honorable things has an incriminating link, bond, or tie to the very things that look like their evil opposites; perhaps they are even essentially the same. Perhaps! – But who is willing to take charge of such a dangerous Perhaps! For this we must await the arrival of a new breed of philosophers, ones whose taste and inclination are somehow the reverse of those we have seen so far – philosophers of the dangerous Perhaps in every sense. – And in all seriousness: I see these new philosophers approaching.

“事物怎能來自其對立面？例如，真理滋生于非真理？或者，追求真理的意志植根于追求幻覺的意志？或者，無私行為源于利己心理？或者，智者朗朗乾坤般的觀照來自貪婪？這種事是不可能發(fā)生的。誰若這樣夢想，誰就是個傻瓜，還可能更糟糕！凡是具有無上價值的事物，定然另有自身的源頭——它們決不能生于這轉瞬即逝、充滿誘惑、虛幻卑微的世界，決不能生于這妄想與貪婪的大雜燴！它們乃是生于存在的懷抱，生于永恒，生于隱匿的神明，生于“自在之物”?——必定是生于此處，絕無其他可能！”。——這種判斷方式是一種典型的先入之見，每個時代的形而上學家們?都在此一再露出馬腳。這種評價方式是他們所有邏輯推理過程的背景。他們從自己的這種“信念”出發(fā)苦苦追求“知識”，苦苦追求那最終被冠以“真理”之名而隆重推出的東西。形而上學家的基本信念就是對價值對立的信念。盡管在開始時懷疑尤為必要，但是連他們中的謹慎者也沒想到要這樣做，雖說他們還自詡為“懷疑一切”?。也就是說，人們完全可以懷疑：首先，是否真有這種對立存在；其次，那些世俗的價值評判和價值對立，即形而上學家們蓋上印章?lián)o誤的東西，是否只是膚淺的判斷，只是瞬間的景象？也許還是一隅之見，是自下而上的坐井觀天，借用畫家的常見術語來表達，是“青蛙的視角”。?即使不妨將許多價值歸于真實、真誠和無私，但也許還是會有這樣的情況：對一切生命來說都要來得更高尚和更基本的另一種價值，可以劃到表象、欺騙欲望、自私和貪婪的名下去。甚至還可能是這樣：那些好的、受人尊敬的事物的價值，恰恰在于這些事物與壞的、表面上與之格格不入的事物之間的令人尷尬的關聯(lián)、糾纏、鉤連，也許甚至在于兩者本質上的一致。也許！——不過，誰又愿意去關注這些危險的“也許”呢！為此必須等待一種新型哲人的出現(xiàn)，他們會擁有某些與迄今為止的哲人不同的、甚至是相反的品位和偏好，無論如何理解，他們會關注那些危險的“也許”。——而說實在的，我已經看到他們走來了。

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Are they new friends of “truth,” these upcoming philosophers? Probably, since all philosophers so far have loved their truths. But they certainly will not be dogmatists. It would offend their pride, as well as their taste, if their truth were a truth for everyone (which has been the secret wish and hidden meaning of all dogmatic aspirations so far). “My judgment is my judgment: other people don’t have an obvious right to it too” – perhaps this is what such a philosopher of the future will say. We must do away with the bad taste of wanting to be in agreement with the majority. “Good” is no longer good when it comes from your neighbor’s mouth. And how could there ever be a “common good”! The term is self-contradictory: whatever can be common will never have much value. In the end, it has to be as it is and has always been: great things are left for the great, abysses for the profound, delicacy and trembling for the subtle, and, all in all, everything rare for those who are rare themselves. –

這種新露面的哲人是“真理”的新朋友么？極有可能：因為迄今為止的哲人無不熱愛他們的真理。不過，他們肯定不會是教條主義者。對他們而言，倘若他們的真理仍然是一種人人適用的真理，那必定是與他們的驕傲和品味相悖的；而這卻是迄今為止所有教條主義者為之奮斗的隱秘愿望和言外之意?！拔业呐袛嗑褪俏业呐袛啵?/span>別人無權輕易置喙”——某位未來的哲人或許會如是說。“人必得擺脫其人云亦云的惡劣品味。一旦旁邊的人也說好，那么‘好’也就不再好了。怎樣會有一種‘放諸四海而皆好’的東西呢！這話是自相矛盾的：什么東西若是放諸四海，便沒什么價值了。最后，事情必定一如既往，過去如此，現(xiàn)在如此，將來也必定如此：宏大之物為偉人而設，鴻溝為深沉之人而設，柔情和戰(zhàn)栗則是為文弱之人而設，那么，全面概括地說來便是：一切稀罕之物，皆為稀有之人而設?！?/span>——

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After all this, do I really need to add that they will be free, very free spirits, these philosophers of the future – and that they certainly will not just be free spirits, but rather something more, higher, greater, and fundamentally different, something that does not want to be misunderstood or mistaken for anything else? But, in saying this, I feel – towards them almost as much as towards ourselves (who are their heralds and precursors, we free spirits!) – an obligation to sweep away a stupid old prejudice and misunderstanding about all of us that has hung like a fog around the concept of the “free spirit” for far too long, leaving it completely opaque. In all the countries of Europe, and in America as well, there is now something that abuses this name: a very narrow, restricted, chained up type of spirit whose inclinations are pretty much the opposite of our own intentions and instincts (not to mention the fact that this restricted type will be a fully shut window and bolted door with respect to these approaching new philosophers). In a word (but a bad one): they belong to the levelers, these misnamed “free spirits” – as eloquent and prolifically scribbling slaves of the democratic taste and its “modern ideas.” They are all people without solitude, without their own solitude, clumsy, solid folks whose courage and honest decency cannot be denied – ?it’s just that they are un-free and ridiculously superficial, particularly given their basic ?tendency to think that all human misery and wrongdoing is caused by traditional social structures: which lands truth happily on its head! What they want to strive for with all their might is the universal, green pasture happiness of the herd, with security, safety, contentment, and an easier life for all. Their two most well-sung songs and doctrines are called: “equal rights” and “sympathy for all that suffers” – and they view suffering itself as something that needs to be abolished. ?We, who are quite the reverse, have kept an eye and a conscience open to the question of where and how the plant “man” has grown the strongest, and we think that this has always happened under conditions that are quite the reverse. We think that the danger of the human condition has first had to grow to terrible heights, its power to invent and dissimulate (its “spirit” –) has had to develop under prolonged pressure and compulsion into something refined and daring, its life-will has had to be intensified to an unconditional power will. We think that harshness, violence, slavery, danger in the streets and in the heart, concealment, Stoicism, the art of experiment, and devilry of every sort; that everything evil, terrible, tyrannical, predatory, and snakelike in humanity serves just as well as its opposite to enhance the species “humanity.” But to say this much is to not say enough, and, in any event, this is the point we have reached with our speaking and our silence, at the other end of all modern ideology and herd desires: perhaps as their antipodes? Is it any wonder that we “free spirits” are not exactly the most communicative spirits? That we do not want to fully reveal what a spirit might free himself from and what he will then perhaps be driven towards? And as to the dangerous formula “beyond good and evil,” it serves to protect us, at least from being mistaken for something else. We are something different from “l(fā)ibres-penseurs,” “l(fā)iberi pensatori,”“Freidenker” [free-thinker] and whatever else all these sturdy advocates of “modern ideas” like to call themselves. At home in many countries of the spirit, at least as guests; repeatedly slipping away from the musty, comfortable corners where preference and prejudice, youth, origin, accidents of people and books, and even the fatigue of traveling seem to have driven us; full of malice at the lures of dependency that lie hidden in honors, or money, or duties, or enthusiasms of the senses; grateful even for difficulties and inconstant health, because they have always freed us from some rule and its “prejudice,” grateful to the god, devil, sheep, and maggot in us, curious to a fault, researchers to the point of cruelty, ?with unmindful fingers for the incomprehensible, with teeth and stomachs for the indigestible, ?ready for any trade that requires a quick wit and sharp senses, ready for any risk, thanks to an excess of “free will,” with front and back souls whose ultimate aim is clear to nobody, with fore- and backgrounds that no foot can fully traverse, hidden under the cloak of light, conquerors, even if we look like heirs and prodigals, collectors and gatherers from morning until evening, miserly with our riches and our cabinets filled to the brim, economical with what we learn and forget, inventive in schemata, sometimes proud of tables of categories, sometimes pedants, sometimes night owls at work, even in bright daylight; yes, even scarecrows when the need arises – and today the need has arisen: inasmuch as we are born, sworn, jealous friends of solitude, our own deepest, most midnightly, noon-likely solitude. This is the type of people we are, we free spirits! and perhaps you are something of this yourselves, you who are approaching? you new philosophers? –

說了以上這一切之后，難道還需要我特意指出：這些未來的哲人們，他們也會是自由精神，十分自由的精神，——同樣肯定的是，他們也不會僅僅是自由精神，而是比這要來得更多、更高、更大，根本就是另一種東西，是不會被弄錯和混淆的。不過，我說這些時，覺得自己無論針對他們本身,還是針對我們自己——我們是他們的前導和先驅，我們這些自由精神——幾乎同樣負有一種義務，即從我們這兒吹散那些古老而愚蠢的先見和誤解，它們像迷霧一樣久久地籠罩著“自由精神”的概念。在歐洲的所有國家，甚至在美國，都在濫用這個名字，那是一種很狹隘、受拘束、被拴在鎖鏈上的精神，它所想要的差不多就和我們意圖和本能中的內容恰恰相反，——更不要說，它對于那些正在興起的新型哲人而言根本就是關死的窗、閂死的門了。丑話少說，他們屬于平均主義者，這些被叫錯了的、名不副實的“自由精神”——他們巧舌如簧,妙筆生花,卻是民主品位及其“現(xiàn)代觀念”的奴隸；統(tǒng)統(tǒng)都是沒有孤獨的人，沒有自己的孤獨，呆頭呆腦的乖孩兒，倒并不欠缺勇氣和令人起敬的好習慣，但他們不自由，十分淺薄可笑，尤其是還特別愛好在迄今的舊社會形式中尋找一切人類苦難和失敗的大致原因；殊不知這樣一來，真理就被幸運地倒了個兒！他們全力追求的，是綠草茵茵的牧場上的普遍幸福，那里每個人都能生活得穩(wěn)定、安全、舒適、輕松；都被他們哼唱爛了的兩套曲子或者學說是“權利平等”和“同情一切受苦者”，——苦難被他們當作了必須棄之如弊履的東西。我們這些唱反調的，睜著眼睛,留著良知，是為了問，迄今為止“人”這株植物?是在哪里、又是怎樣最有力地生長起來的，我們猜想，這些每次都在相反條件下發(fā)生，而且他處境的危險性必定先會劇增，他的創(chuàng)造能力和作偽能力（他的“精神”——）必定在長期壓迫下變得精致和大膽，他的生命意志必定升級為無條件的權力意志：——我們猜想，一切種類的嚴酷、暴力、奴役，暗巷里和內心中的危險、隱秘、斯多噶主義、誘惑藝術、魔鬼行徑，一切惡的、可怖的、暴政式的、如毒蛇猛獸一般的東西，人身上的所有這一切，作為“人類”這一物種的對立面，對其成長來說是十分有益的：——我們講了這么多，但仍然意猶未盡，而且在這點上，我們無論暢所欲言還是沉默不語，都處于一切現(xiàn)代意識形態(tài)和群體需求的另一端：大概是它們的對拓者?吧？我們這些“自由精神”不是最愛講話的，不是老想著要透露某個精神能從何處得以解放，又有可能被驅趕到何處，這又有什么奇怪的？至于“善惡的彼岸”這一危險提法的含義，我們至少得避免混淆：我們不同于那些個“自由思想家”、“自由精神”、“自由思想者”?——鬼知道那些個“現(xiàn)代理念”的死黨還愛給自己起什么名字——，我們和他們可不一樣。在許多精神國度中是主人，至少也是上賓；不斷地從陰暗舒適的角落里溜走，試圖將我們禁錮在此的是偏愛和偏見，是青春和出身，是與人與書的偶遇，甚至是流浪的疲憊；滿懷惡意地抵制附庸的誘餌，它們會隱藏在榮譽、金錢、仕途或官能享受里邊；甚至感謝艱難困苦，感謝變化多端的病痛，因為它們能讓我們從某種法則及其“先見”中掙脫出來，感謝我們心中的上帝與魔鬼、綿羊與蠕蟲，好奇直至成為惡習，探究直至變得殘酷，毫不猶豫地伸手抓取難以把握的事物，以利齒和胃對付簡直消化不了的東西，隨時準備去做一切需要敏銳與敏捷的手工，隨時準備好因為“自由意志”過剩去冒險，會同前前后后那些其最終意圖最難看透的靈魂，登上前前后后那些無人可以踏遍的臺面，還有那些隱匿在光明大氅之下的人，那些占領者，雖然繼承人和敗家子在我們看來沒什么兩樣，那些人從早到晚就忙著歸類收藏，守著我們金玉滿堂的財富卻是一毛不拔，在學習和遺忘方面堪稱勤儉持家，在條條框框?里頗有創(chuàng)造發(fā)明，有時為些個范疇表?感到自豪，有時頭巾氣很重，有時又變成白天出來活動的貓頭鷹；萬不得已有必要時甚至是嚇唬鳥兒的稻草人——今天確實有必要：因為我們與孤獨，與自己那最深沉的、夜半和正午的孤獨感，是生來就深信不疑、且好妒忌的好朋友：——這樣的人就是我們，我們這些自由精神！也許你們也是，你們這些未來的人？你們這些新型的哲人？——

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Hedonism, pessimism, utilitarianism, eudamonianism: these are all ways of thinking that measure the value of things according to pleasure and pain, which is to say according to incidental states and trivialities. They are all foreground ways of thinking and naivetés, and nobody who is conscious of both formative powers and an artist’s conscience will fail to regard them with scorn as well as pity. Pity for you! That is certainly not pity as you understand it: it is not pity for social “distress,” for “society” with its sick and injured, for people depraved and destroyed from the beginning as they lie around us on the ground; even less is it pity for the grumbling, dejected, rebellious slave strata who strive for dominance – they call it “freedom.” Our pity is a higher, more far-sighted pity: – we see how humanity is becoming smaller, how you are making it smaller! – and there are moments when we look on your pity with indescribable alarm, when we fight this pity –, when we find your seriousness more dangerous than any sort of thoughtlessness. You want, if possible (and no “if possible” is crazier) to abolish suffering. And us? – it looks as though we would prefer it to be heightened and made even worse than it has ever been! Well-being as you understand it – that is no goal; it looks to us like an end ! – a condition that immediately renders people ridiculous and despicable – that makes their decline into something desirable! ?The discipline of suffering, of great suffering – don’t you know that this discipline has been the sole cause of every enhancement in humanity so far? The tension that breeds strength into the unhappy soul, its shudder at the sight of great destruction, its inventiveness and courage in enduring, surviving, interpreting, and exploiting unhappiness, and whatever depth, secrecy, whatever masks, spirit, cunning, greatness it has been given: – weren’t these the gifts of suffering, of the disciple of great suffering? In human beings, creature and creator are combined: in humans there is material, fragments, abundance, clay, dirt, nonsense, chaos; but in humans there is also creator, maker, hammer-hardness, spectator-divinity and seventh day: – do you understand this contrast? ?And that your pity is aimed at the “creature in humans,” at what needs to be molded, broken, forged, torn, burnt, seared and purified, – at what necessarily needs to suffer and should suffer? And our pity – don’t you realize who our inverted pity is aimed at when it fights against your pity as the worst of all pampering and weaknesses? – Pity against pity, then! – But to say it again: there are problems that are higher than any problems of pleasure, pain, or pity; and any philosophy that stops with these is a piece of naiveté. –

無論是享樂主義?、悲觀主義?、功利主義?還是幸福論?，所有這些思維方式都是根據(jù)苦與樂，即伴隨狀態(tài)和次要因素來衡量事物的價值的。這些思維方式膚淺而天真，在每個意識到塑造的力量以及藝術家良知的人那里會遭到半諷半憐的鄙視。同情你們！這當然不是你們所指的同情：這不是對“世間疾苦”，對“社會”及其中的體弱多病和命運多舛者的同情，對匍匐于我們周圍遭的本性好惡、意志渙散者的憐憫；這更不是對那些怨氣沖天、飽受壓迫、群情激憤、渴望獲得統(tǒng)治權即所謂“自由”的奴隸階層的同情。我們懷抱的是一種更為高瞻遠矚的同情：——我們看到人是怎么妄自菲薄的，還有你們是如何貶低人的！——有時候，我們憂心忡忡地注視著你們的同情，抗拒這種同情，——覺得你們在此表現(xiàn)出的嚴肅比任何輕浮舉動都更危險。你們也許想——沒有比這“也許”更絕的了——消除痛苦；那我們呢？——好像我們想讓這痛苦變得比以往任何時候都更沉重、更強烈一樣！幸福安康，你們理解的幸福安康——這不是什么目標，在我們看來這就是完結！這種狀態(tài)里，人立刻會變得可笑而可憎，導致了希望人滅亡的想法！痛苦的磨練，巨大苦難的磨練——你們不知道么，是這種磨練造就了人類迄今為止的一切升華？心靈陷入不幸時的張力，造就了它的堅強；目睹大毀滅時，心靈在顫栗；在承擔、忍受、解釋、利用不幸的過程中，心靈表現(xiàn)出機智和勇敢；此外還有不幸贈予心靈的那種深刻、神秘、偽裝、精神、詭計和偉大：——這些不正是痛苦贈予的，經過巨大痛苦的磨練而獲得的禮物么？在人身上，既能看到材料、碎片、冗余、粘土、糞便、瞎折騰、一團糟；又能看到創(chuàng)造者、雕塑家、鐵錘般的硬朗、觀望者的神性以及第七日?——你們理解這種對立嗎？你們的同情指向“人作為造物的一面”？指向那必定要被捏造、折裂、捶打、撕扯、焚燒、烘烤、提煉的一面——也就是必須且應當受苦的一面? 而我們的同情——你們難道不明白，我們截然相反的同情是指向誰的么，如果它抵制你們的同情，即抵制所有溺愛和軟弱中最蹩腳的那一種？——不妨說這是同情與同情分庭抗禮！——不過必須重申，還有比各種有關快樂、苦難和同情的問題更高級的問題，而任何只針對前一類問題的哲學都是幼稚無知的哲學。——

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Every enhancement so far in the type “man” has been the work of an aristocratic society – and that is how it will be, again and again, since this sort of society believes in a long ladder of rank order and value distinctions between men, and in some sense needs slavery. Without the pathos of distance as it grows out of the ingrained differences between stations, out of the way the ruling caste maintains an overview and keeps looking down on subservient types and tools, and out of this caste’s equally continuous exercise in obeying and commanding, in keeping away and below– without this pathos, that other, more mysterious pathos could not have grown at all, that demand for new expansions of distance within the soul itself, the development of states that are increasingly high, rare, distant, tautly drawn and comprehensive, and in short, the enhancement of the type “man,” the constant “self-overcoming of man” (to use a moral formula in a supra-moral sense). Of course, you cannot entertain any humanitarian illusions about how an aristocratic society originates (and any elevation of the type “man” will presuppose an aristocratic society –): the truth is harsh. Let us not be deceived about how every higher culture on earth has begun! Men whose nature was still natural, barbarians in every terrible sense of the word, predatory people who still possessed an unbroken strength of will and lust for power threw themselves on weaker, more civilized, more peaceful races of tradesmen perhaps, or cattle breeders; or on old and mellow cultures in which the very last life-force was flaring up in brilliant fireworks of spirit and corruption. The noble caste always started out as the barbarian caste. Their supremacy was in psychic, not physical strength, – they were more complete people (which at any level amounts to saying “more complete beasts” –).

迄今為止，“人”這一種類的每次提升，都是貴族社會的杰作——這種情況將一直延續(xù)下去：這個社會相信人與人之間存在巨大的等級差異和價值差異，并認為奴隸制在某種意義上是必要的。階層差異根深蒂固，統(tǒng)治階層不斷地遠觀和俯視其臣民和工具，同樣不斷地練習服從與命令、壓制與回避，一種保持距離的激情由此而生；若是沒有這種保持距離的激情?，那么另外一種更為神秘的激情就可能無從談起，也就是不會渴望靈魂本身范圍內的距離不斷擴大，不會形成越來越高級、稀有、遙遠、遼闊而博大的狀態(tài)，簡言之，“人”這一種類就不會獲得提升，“人的自我克服”??——這句道德套話在此用在超道德意義上——就難以為繼。當然：對于一個貴族社會（即“人”這一種類得以提升的前提）產生的歷史，人們不可躭于仁慈博愛的幻想：現(xiàn)實是嚴酷的。讓我們直言不諱地說出，迄今為止世界上任何一種高等文化都是如何開始的吧！自然本性尚存的人，無論說是多么可怕都不為過的野蠻人，擁有堅不可摧的意志力和權力欲的掠食者，他們撲向較為軟弱的、較為文明的、較為溫和的，也許以經商或畜牧為生的種族，或者撲向江河日下的古老文化——在那里，精神與腐朽的焰火燃燒著最后的生命力。高貴的階層在開始時總是野蠻的階層：他們的優(yōu)勢首先并不在于體格，而是在于心靈，——他們是更完整的人（這在每個階段上也有“更完整的野獸”的含義——）。

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From “Note on the Plan of Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil”

Leo Strauss

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As we have observed, for Nietzsche nature has become a problem and yet he cannot do without nature. Nature, we may say, has become a problem owing to the fact that man is conquering nature and there is no assignable limit to that conquest. As a consequence, people have come to think of abolishing suffering a inequality. Yet suffering and inequality are the prerequisites of human greatness (aph. 230 and 257). Hitherto suffering and inequality have been taken for granted, as “givens,” as imposed on man. Henceforth, they must be willed. That is to say, the gruesome rule of non-sense and chance, nature, the fact that almost all men are fragments, cripples, and gruesome accidents, the whole present and past is itself a fragment unless it is willing as a bridge to the future (cf. Zarathustra, ‘Of Redemption’). While paving the way for the complementary man, one must at the same time say unbounded Yes to the fragments and cripples. Nature, the eternity of nature, owes its being to a postulate, to an act of the will to power on the part of the highest nature.

就像我們看到的那樣，對尼采來說，自然成了個問題，但他卻不能拋棄自然。人類正在征服自然并且這一征服沒有可以確定的疆界，由于這一事實，我們可以說自然已經成為一個問題，作為結果，人們開始考慮著去消除苦難和不平等。然而，苦難和不平等是人性之偉大的前提條件（格言239、257）。迄今為止，苦難和不平等一直被認為是理所當然的、是“給予的”、是加之于人的。因此，它們必須是被意愿的。這就是說，荒誕和偶然的丑惡統(tǒng)治、自然、幾乎所有的人都是碎片、碎屑和丑陋的偶然性這一事實，整個的過去和現(xiàn)在本身都是一個碎片、一個謎、一種丑陋的偶然性——除非它們是作為通向未來的橋梁而被意愿的（參見Z，“論救贖”）。人們一方面必須為彌補性的人鋪平道路，另一方面也必須無條件地肯定碎片和碎屑。自然，自然的永恒乃歸因于一個假定，歸因于最高自然的權力意志行為。

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From I See Satan Fall Like Lightening

Rene Girard

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The gradual loosening of various centers of cultural isolation began in the Middle Ages and has now led into what we call “globalization,” which in my view is only secondarily an economic phenomenon. The true engine of progress is the slow decomposition of the closed worlds rooted in victim mechanisms. This is the force that destroyed archaic societies and henceforth dismantles the ones replacing them, the nations we call “modern.”

諸多孤立文化中心的逐漸解體始于中世紀，并且如今已經造成了我們所謂的“國際化”，在我看來，“國家化”作為一種經濟現(xiàn)象只是第二位的。進步的真正引擎是根植于犧牲機制的封閉世界的緩慢分解。正是這種力量摧毀了古代社會，因而也瓦解了那些取代了古代社會的社會，亦即我們所謂的“現(xiàn)代”。

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From “Preface,” Liberalism Ancient and Modern

Leo Strauss

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Classical political philosophy opposes to the universal and homogeneous state a substantive principle. It asserts that the society natural to man is the city, that is, a closed society that can well be taken in in one view or that corresponds to man’s natural power of perception. Less literally and more importantly, it asserts that every political society that ever has been or ever will be rests on a particular fundamental opinion which cannot be replaced by knowledge and hence is of necessity a particular or particularist society.

古典政治哲學反對將普遍同質化國家作為一個實質原則。它斷言對于人而言自然的社會是城邦，也就是說，一個能夠在某種視角中很好地被接受的封閉社會，或者說，一個對應于人的自然認識能力的封閉社會。它斷言任何曾經存在或將要存在的政治社會都建基于一種特定的根本意見，這種意見不能被知識取代，因此，它必然是一個特定的或特殊的社會

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