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E‧B‧懷特
(E.B. WHITE)
自由
Freedom
一個作者如今懷著特別的心情寫書，因為他知道他將第一個被砍掉腦袋。
E‧B‧懷特(1899-1985)生於紐約蒙特弗農，畢業於康奈爾大學。多年來他為《紐約人》雜誌擔任專職撰稿人。懷特是一位頗有造詣的散文家、幽默作家、詩人和諷刺作家。對於幾代美國兒童來說，他之所以出名是因為寫第一流的兒童讀物
《小斯圖亞特》(1945)
和 《夏洛特的網》(1952)。一代又一代學生和作者熟悉他，因為他是
《風格的要素》這本書的合著者
(兼修訂者)。該書是關於作文和慣用法的很有價值的小冊子，最初由在康奈爾大學教過懷特英語的小威廉‧斯特朗克教授撰寫。散文
《自由》於1940年7月首先由《哈潑斯》雜誌發表。當時美國尚未加入反對納粹的戰爭，世界正處於納粹──蘇聯條約的時期，無論左派或右派都忽略了極權主義對民主的威脅。這篇散文收入懷特的文集《一個人的肉食》(1942)。
在我進城的途中常常注意到人們改了服裝式樣趕時髦。可是我上次進紐約市，卻發現人們似乎也重新裁製了自己的思想──在腰部把他們的信念改小，縮短了袖子即他們的決心，用從歷史的最近一頁抄襲來的式樣漂亮的新理性整套服飾裝扮自己。我覺得似乎人們跟巴黎已跟得太久了。
坦率地說，我簡直要翻胃。當我看到有人按照正在國外取得成功的新暴政調整自己的思想，總是感到噁心。由於其自身的根本局限性，在我看來法西斯主義似不容任何折衷妥協或合理性，而且我痛恨其他人的傲慢姿態，這些人在我的對自由的樸素信仰中發現了不成熟的跡象。如果說認為一個人應該自由地生活是幼稚的想法，那麼我倒樂意抑制自己的發育，讓全世界所有別的人成長。
我將介紹一下我在紐約聽到的一些奇談怪論。一個人對我說，他認為納粹的理想或許比我們的憲法制度的理想更完美，「因為你注意到了嗎，在新聞短片裏，那些年輕的德國兵有著一張張多麼英俊機靈的臉啊！」他補充道：「我們美國的年輕人則整天看電影──他們是一群廢物。」這便是他對現實的總結，對新的歐洲的解釋。這番話令我震驚。倘若它代表我們智力的顛峰，那麼專制主義的穩步進軍便不會在我國海岸遭受多少挫折。
另一個人告訴我，我們關於大眾政府的民主概念已衰敗不值一提──「因為英國確已腐爛，那裏的工業城鎮槽透了」。這便是他認為民主已不可救藥的唯一理由；他顯得洋洋自得，彷彿他對衰敗的剖析比別人更內行，對實情的觀察比別人更透徹。
另有一位先生對我說，認真看待任何一類政府的人都是受騙上當的傻瓜。他說，「正因為克列孟梭在凡爾賽的所作所為」，你可以確信除了腐爛沒有什麼別的東西。他說那場戰爭並無特別之處，只不過是又一次戰爭罷了。在傾訴完這番堂而皇之的推理後，他平靜下來。
還有一個人看到我熱血沸騰的樣子，遂指責我拋棄了超脫的立場，批評我純屬懷疑論的觀點。他宣佈，他是不會被所有這些胡言亂語所迷惑的，他將寧願選擇天真的旁觀者的角色。他說這才是任何一個有理智的人應盡的責任。(我注意到，事後他又打來電話對自己的上述評論作補充說明，彷彿在他乘出租汽車回家的路上喪失了幾分天真。)
這些只是似在周圍流行的街談巷議──這類談話充滿失敗主義、幻滅感，有時充滿裝模作樣的天真──的幾個例子。如今人們不僅以極高的速度自相殘殺，而且用天大的謊言互相欺騙。我所聽到的這類議論累積起來其擾亂人心的效果是可怕的。它們比俯衝轟炸機和佈雷區更具破壞力，因為它們不僅攻擊一個人的前沿陣地，而且攻擊他的防禦工事。在我看來它們來自兩種人：一種人從未與自由真正交鋒以便理解自由；另一種人則是叛徒。我本來以為會看到義憤，結果看到的卻是麻痺或一種模稜兩可的默認，像一個孩子吞下一粒苦味的藥丸時的反應。我通過某一個人瞭解到反猶情緒正在不斷增長，此公不是懷著羞恥之心飽含眼淚注視殘忍的反猶現象，而是冷眼旁觀，彷彿用精心磨製的透鏡觀察這種現象。
在當今時代一個人至少可以做到表明態度，闡明立場。一個半世紀前，人們以歡欣和忠誠縱情慶祝自由在美洲大陸誕生，如今我以同樣的歡欣、忠誠和激情信仰自由。我正快快撰寫我的宣言，彷彿匆匆刮臉要去趕一班火車。國外發生的事件給人們一種時間緊迫的感覺。其實我並不認為時間太緊。倘若已給讀者造成這種印象，我向讀者表示歉意。我只是想在變得遲鈍之前告訴人們，我熱愛自由，這種感情十分美好，由來已久；而且我懷疑那些只因法西斯主義和獨裁者正打贏戰爭便開始適應於它們的人。這種適應性散發出臭氣。我捏緊自己的鼻子。
從開始記事的時候起，我便已有了一種在大自然中自由自在地生活的意識。我不是說自己喜歡不受約束的行動，但是我的生活似乎具有無拘無束的性質。我攜帶著關於一個神聖密約的秘密文件旅行。我一貫憑直覺意識到一個人與他自己訂立的極端重要的條約，使自己完全屬於自己，使自己與萬事萬物趨同，凡事依靠自己，利用他與一個行星之間的偶然關係碰碰運氣，就像上了癮一般執著於自己的愛好。我的最初和最熱烈的戀情發生在自己與我們所稱的自由之間，它是魅力無限的美女，危險、美麗、崇高，她給予我們所有的人生機與活力。
它始
於縈繞於心頭的關於神秘的精神生活的暗示(我相信每個孩童都領受到這種暗示；關於人類心中的上帝的暗示；關於大自然通過「我」表現她自身的暗示。這種難以捉摸的感覺是動人的，令人難忘的。它始
於人生的早期：比如說夏日的夜晚一個男孩坐在門前的臺階上，頭腦中沒有什
麼特別的念頭，突然他彷彿是第一次以新的知覺聽見了的叫聲，於是心中充滿了與自然界的夥伴昆蟲、青草和黑夜打成一片的全新感覺，意識到對這一普遍的令人困惑的問題──「『我』是什麼?」──的回答。再比方說有個小女孩剛剛埋葬了她所寵愛的小鳥回到屋裏，靠窗而站，胳臂肘撐在窗臺上。她嗅到陌生的死亡的氣息，突然意識到自己也是整個故事中的一個角色。又比如說孩子長大了一些第一次遇到一位了不起的老師，這位教師以偶然一句話或一種情緒喚醒了學生的覺悟，而這個青年由此開始以獨立的人格活在世上，意識到自身的力量。我認為，在許多人身上，這種知覺一定是以與上帝的認同感不斷發展的，它是一種精神的衝動，由應變性和對人生是不同於純粹動物生命的神聖存在的認識引起。這便是與自由的初戀。
然而一個人的自由狀態包括兩個方面：作為在一顆行星上居住的動物他所經歷的本能自由；作為人類社會的一員享有特權的一員他所擁有的自由。人們對於後者比起前者更普遍地理解，更廣泛地讚美，更嚴峻地挑戰，更熱烈地討論。它是自由實際和明顯的一面。當今幾乎只有美國才提供自由權、特權和自由的工具。在這片國土上，仍歡迎公民寫劇本，寫書，畫畫，集會討論問題，對某事表示贊同或持異議，在公共廣場搭起臨時演說台，在學校選擇無須經過審查的科目，開庭審理案件，譜寫樂曲，與鄰居談論政治而不必擔心是否有秘密警察在竊聽，交換商品也交流思想，在政府需要被人嘲笑的時候嘲笑它一番，在報紙上讀到有關真實事件的真實新聞，而不是由國家收買的代理人所杜撰的假新聞。這是事實，應該引起每個人深思。
從行星的意義上說，自由是感覺到你屬於地球。從社會的意義上說，自由即是在一種民主的結構中感覺到無拘無束。雖然阿道夫‧希特勒是個不受束縛發育成熟的人，但在他身上我們無以發現兩種感覺。閱讀了他的書之後我推測、他對地球的感想不是希望共用而是
極欲佔據統治地位。他對人類的感想不是和平共處，而是他們能夠被一個具有超凡才智的人擺佈，變成一種模式──人們的生存並不意味著個性的充分發展，而是意味著讓他們的個性服從共同的種族命運。當你在希特勒的著述中發現他對全人類是何等蔑視時，他對日爾曼民族命運的專注便黯然失色了。他寫道：「我學會了……看透人民極其原始的意見和論點。」對希特勒來說，一個普通人是任人操縱利用的原始人。他不斷把人民稱為綿羊、笨蛋、無恥的白癡──而正是向這些人他要求絕對忠誠。對這些人他許諾最大的獎賞。
在美國這裏，生活的自由原則有倖存的機會。因為我們的社會是建立在對個人的信心而非對個人的輕蔑之上。我相信該原則必須也必將存在下去。理解自由是任何決心追求自由的人應該做到的；而熱愛自由則是許許多多美國人生來就有的脾性。與自由同居一室，同處一個半球，對我來說仍是激動人心的經驗。
《我的奮鬥》一書的作者在其一生中最早發現的真理是：不是書面語而是演說詞在群情熱烈的時刻激發大眾投入高尚或可恥的行動。與演說詞不同，書面語被人們私下研究，根據每個人自己的理性標準而不是根據旁人的想法加以冷靜的評判。希特勒寫道：「我知道，一個人通過演說能爭取到的人比書面文字多得多……」以後他又傲慢地補充道：「讓我們告訴所有的文人和政客，特別是今日的文人和政客：世上最大的變革從來不是由鵝毛筆引起的!筆桿子向來是被保留起來以用作從理論上激發這些變革。」
幸運的是，我可不是一心要改變世界──有人正為我改變世界，而且速度驚人。然而我知道，人類的自由精神實質上是歷久不衰的；它不斷生髮，從未被血與火撲滅過。我寫下以上這番話僅僅是為了(借用希特勒的說法)從理論上激發這種精神。我自己便是個握鵝毛筆的文人，我可沒有誤解「爭取民眾」的意思；但現在我為筆感到無比自豪，因為歷史讓筆證明，它是給人們接種的注射器，它使自由的細菌永遠在人體內迴圈，這樣任何國度任何時候都會有傷寒瑪麗式的帶菌者，他們只需通過接觸或範例便能傳染別人。每個專制暴君都害怕這類人──暴君們焚書坑儒，暴露出內心的恐懼。一個作者如今懷著特別喜悅的心情寫書，因為他知道他將第一個被砍掉腦袋──甚至在政客們掉腦袋之前。對我來說，這更是一大樂事，因為倘若塵世的命運拒絕給予我自由，我就等於一具殭屍，與其帶著腦袋還不如沒有腦袋進入法西斯主義。在那種情況下腦袋不再有任何用處，少了那累贅豈不輕鬆得多！
附註：
I have often noticed on my trips up to the city
that people have recut their clothes to follow the fashion. On my last trip,
however, it seemed to me that people had remodeled their ideas too－taken
in their convictions a little at the waist, shortened the sleeves of their
resolve, and fitted themselves out in a new intellectual ensemble copied from a
smart design out of the very latest page of history. It seemed to me they had
strung along with Paris a little too long.
I confess to a disturbed stomach. I feel sick when I find anyone adjusting his
mind to the new tyranny which is succeeding abroad. Because of its fundamental
strictures, fascism does not seem to me to admit of any compromise or any
rationalization, and I resent the patronizing air of persons who find in my
plain belief in freedom a sign of immaturity. If it is boyish to believe that a
human being should live free, then I'll gladly arrest my development and let the
rest of the world grow up.
I shall report some of the strange remarks I heard in New York. One man told me
that he thought perhaps the Nazi ideal was a sounder ideal than our
constitutional system "because have you ever noticed what fine alert young faces
the young German soldiers have in the newsreel? " He added: "Our American
youngsters spend all their time at the movies－ they're a mess." That was his
summation of the case, his interpretation of the new Europe. Such a remark
leaves me pale and shaken. If it represents the peak of our intelligence, then
the steady march of despotism will not receive any considerable setback at our
shores.
Another man informed me that our democratic notion of popular government was
decadent and not worth bothering about－ "because England is really rotten and
the industrial towns there are a disgrace." That was the only reason he gave for
the hopelessness of democracy; and he seemed mightily pleased with himself, as
though he were more familiar than most with the anatomy of decadence, and had
detected subtler aspects of the situation than were discernible to the rest of
us.
Another man assured me that anyone who took any kind of government seriously was
a gullible fool. You could be sure, he said, that there is nothing but
corruption "because of the way Clemenceau acted at Versailles." He said itdidn't
make any difference really about this war. It was just another war. Having
relieved himself of this majestic bit of reasoning, he subsided.
Another individual, discovering signs of zeal creeping into my blood, berated me
for having lost my detachment, my pure skeptical point of view. He announced
that he wasn't going to be swept away by all this nonsense, but would prefer to
remain in the role of innocent by stander, which he said was the duty of any
intelligent person. (I noticed, that he phoned later to qualify his remark, as
though he had lost some of his innocence in the cab on the way home. )
Those are just a few samples of the sort of talk that seemed to be going round－
talk which was full of defeatism and disillusion and sometimes of a too studied
innocence. Men are not merely annihilating themselves at a great rate these
days, but they are telling one another enormous lies, grandiose fibs. Such
remarks as I heard are fearfully disturbing in their cumulative effect. They are
more destructive than dive bombers and mine fields, for they challenge not
merely one's immediate position but one's main defenses. They seemed to me to
issue either from persons who could never have really come to grips with freedom
so as to understand her, or from renegades. Where I expected to find
indignation, I found paralysis, or a sort of dim acquiescence, as in a child who
is duly swallowing a distasteful pill. I was advised of the growing anti-Jewish
sentiment by a man who seemed to be watching the phenomenon of intolerance not
through tears of shame but with a clear intellectual gaze, as through a
well-ground lens.
The least a man can do at such a time is to declare himself and tell where he
stands. I believe in freedom with the same burning delight, the same faith, the
same intense abandon which attended its birth on this continent more than a
century and a half ago. I am writing my declaration rapidly, much as though I
were shaving to catch a train. Events abroad give a man a feeling of being
pressed for time. Actually I do not believe I am pressed for time, and I
apologize to the reader for a false impression that may be created. I just want
to tell, before I get slowed down, that I am in love with freedom and that it is
an affair of long standing and that it is a fine state to be in, and that I am
deeply suspicious of people who are beginning to adjust to fascism and dictators
merely because they are succeeding in war. From such adaptable natures a smell
rises. I pinch my nose.
For as long as I can remember I have had a sense of living somewhat freely in a
natural world. I don't mean I enjoyed freedom of action, but my existence seemed
to have the quality of freeness. I traveled with secret papers pertaining to a
divine conspiracy. Intuitively I've always been aware of the vitally important
pact which a man has with himself, to be all things to himself, and to be
identified with all things, to stand self-reliant, taking advantage of his
haphazard connection with a planet, riding his luck, and following his bent with
the tenacity of a hound. My first and greatest love affair was with this thing
we call freedom, this lady of infinite allure, this dangerous and beautiful and
sublime being who restores and supplies us all.
It began with the haunting intimation (which I presume every child receives) of
his mystical inner life; of God in man; of nature publishing herself through the
"I." This elusive sensation is moving and memorable. It comes early in life: a
boy, we'll say, sitting on the front stepson a summer night, thinking of nothing
in particular, suddenly hearing as with a new perception and as though for the
first time the pulsing sound of crickets, overwhelmed with the novel sense of
identification with the natural company of insects and grass and night,
conscious of a faint answering cry to the universal perplexing question: "What
is I'?" Or a little girl, returning from the grave of a pet bird leaning with
her elbows on the window sill, inhaling the unfamiliar draught of death,
suddenly seeing herself as part of the complete story. Or to an older youth,
encountering for the first time a great teacher who by some chance word or mood
awakens something and the youth beginning to breathe as an individual and
conscious of strength in his vitals. I think the sensation must develop in many
men as a feeling of identity with God－ an eruption of the spirit caused by
allergies and the sense of divine existence as distinct from mere animal
existence. This is the beginning of the affair with freedom.
But a man's free condition is of two parts: the instinctive freeness he
experiences as an animal dweller on a planet, and the practical liberties he
enjoys as a privileged member of human society. The latter is, of the two, more
generally understood, more widely admired, more violently challenged and
discussed. It is the practical and apparent side of freedom. The United States,
almost alone today, offers the liberties and the privileges and the tools of
freedom. In this land the citizens are still invited to write plays and books,
to paint their pictures, to meet for discussion, to dissent as well as to agree,
to mount soapboxes in the public square, to enjoy education in all subjects
without censorship, to hold court and judge one another, to compose music, to
talk politics with their neighbors without wondering whether the secret police
are listening, to exchange ideas as well as goods, to kid the government when it
needs kidding, and to read real news of real events instead of phony news
manufactured by a paid agent of the state. This is a fact and should give every
person pause.
To be free, in a planetary sense, is to feel that you belong to earth. To be
free, in a social sense, is to feel at home in a democratic framework. In Adolph
Hitler, although he is a freely flowering individual, we do not detect either
type of sensibility. From reading his book I gather that his feeling for earth
is not a sense of communion but a driving urge to prevail. His feeling for men
is not that they co-exist, but that they are capable of being arranged and
standardized by a superior intellect－ that their existence suggests not a
fulfillment of their personalities but a submersion of their personalities in
the common racial destiny. His very great absorption in the destiny of the
German people somehow loses some of its effect when you discover, from his
writings, in what vast contempt he holds all people. "I learned," he wrote, ". .
. to gain an insight into the unbelievably primitive opinions and arguments of
the people." To him the ordinary man is a primitive, capable only of being used
and led. He speaks continually of people as sheep, halfwits, and impudent fools－
the same people from whom he asks the utmost in loyalty, and to whom he promises
the ultimate in prizes.
Here in America, where our society is based on belief in the individual, not
contempt for him, the free principle of life has a chance of surviving. I
believe that it must and will survive. To understand freedom is an
accomplishment which all men may acquire who set their minds in that direction;
and to love freedom is a tendency which many Americans are born with. To live in
the same room with freedom, or in the same hemisphere, is still a profoundly
shaking experience for me.
One of the earliest truths (and to him most valuable) that the author of Mein
Kampf discovered was that it is not the written word, but the spoken word,
which in heated moments moves great masses of people to noble or ignoble action.
The written word, unlike the spoken word, is something which every person
examines privately and judges calmly by his own intellectual standards, not by
what the man standing next to him thinks. "I know," wrote Hitler, "that one is
able to win people far more by the spoken than by the written word...." Later he
adds contemptuously: "For let it be said to all knights of the pen and to all
the political dandies, especially of today: the greatest changes in this world
have never been brought about by a goose quill! No, the pen has always been
reserved to motivate these changes theoretically."
Luckily I am not out to change the world－ that's being done for me, and at a
great clip. But I know that the free spirit of man is persistent in nature; it
recurs, and has never successfully been wiped out, by fire or flood. I set down
the above remarks merely (in the words of Mr. Hitler) to motivate that spirit,
theoretically. Being myself a knight of the goose quill, I am under no misapprehension
about "winning people"; but I am inordinately proud these days of the quill, for
it has shown itself, historically, to be the hypodermic which inoculates men and
keeps the germ of freedom always in circulation, so that there are individuals
in every time in every land who are the carriers, the Typhoid Marys, capable of
infecting others by mere contact and example. These persons are feared by every
tyrant－ who shows his fear by burning the books and destroying the individuals.
A writer goes about his task today with the extra satisfaction which comes from
knowing that he will be the first to have his head lopped off－ even before the
political dandies. In my own case this is a double satisfaction, for if freedom
were denied me by force of earthly circumstance, I am the same as dead and would
infinitely prefer to go into fascism without my head than with it, having no use
for it any more and not wishing to be saddled with so heavy an encumberance.
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