《柏林童年》:自传的碎片化书写与救赎主题

Berlin Childhood:Fragmentary Writing of Autobiography and the Theme of Salvation

《柏林童年》是德国哲学家、思想家瓦尔特·本雅明的后期作品。它以20世纪初儿时记忆中各个零散的事物为题,碎片化地呈现了在柏林的童年生活,是一部形式特殊的自传。作者反对以概念为引导的思想框架,质疑人们惯常思维中记忆的连续性、人生的连续性和历史的连续性。通过自传的碎片化书写,均质的物理时间被打破,记忆脱离了时间结构的钳制焕发出本真的色彩;线性的身份叙事被拆解,人摆脱了"能指之暴政"拥抱丰富的生命可能性;同一化的进步历史被解构,现代社会祛除了总体性的幻觉迎来变革的曙光。从记忆之救赎到人的救赎,再到社会的救赎,本雅明由内而外地使碎片的乌托邦潜能现实化,践行着一个知识分子对自我、对他者和对社会的责任。

Berlin Childhood is a late work of Walter Benjamin,a German philosopher and thinker.It is a special autobiography with the titles of the discrete objects in the early twentieth century’s childhood memories,presenting the life in Berlin in fragments.Benjamin is opposed to the intellectual framework guided by concepts and questions the continuity of memory,life and history in people’s habitual thinking.Through the fragmentary writing of autobiography,the homogeneous physical time is broken,freeing the memory from the control of the time structure and to the authentic true color;the linear identity narrative is disassembled,liberating people from the"tyranny of the signifier"to embrace the rich life possibilities;the progressive history of homogenization is deconstructed,demystifying the illusory totality of modern society and the social change begins.From the salvation of memory to the that of human beings,and finally to that of society,Benjamin realized the Utopian potential of fragments from the inside out and fulfilled the responsibilities to himself,to the other and to society.