学术创新、制度创新与中国传统文化

Academic Innovation,Institutional Innovation and Chinese Traditional Culture

美国自上世纪80年代后期爆发了大规模经济危机,本世纪初网络科技泡沫引起的金融危机、现今的次贷引发的金融危机又铺天盖地而来,节奏越来越快,规模愈演愈大,这显然是结构性的问题,加尔布雷思认为这是"丧失良心的经济学"在作祟。因此,当今学者面临学术创新和制度创新的双重任务,学术创新要与制度创新关联起来。学术不是在象牙塔中,而是与国计民生息息相关,而且学术创新一定要转化为制度。当下流行的一些强势价值,如科学、自由、民主和平等,这些都是以西方价值为标准的。然而,中国传统文化中有一套价值体系,并不是能够用科学、自由、民主和宪政所涵盖或者理解。中华民族起码有四个价值资源要比科学、自由、民主和平等更为重要:第一是安全,第二个是公益,第三个是信赖,第四个是学习。中国传统知识分子就是秉执这种价值"在红尘中转变红尘",他们对朝政有着极强的参与意识,与西方知识分子对政治绝不信任有很大的不同。

In the wake of financial crisis brought by internet economy foam in the beginning of this century,another crisis engulfed the US economy at the present time,which is even more devastating than the large-scale crisis in 1980's.This structural problem with American economy,breaking out at increasingly higher frequency,is also called by John Kenneth Galbraith as 'The Heartless Economy'.As academic studies are now inseparable from economic development and social welfare,scholars should no more be hermits in Ivory Tower,but take on the dual role of academic innovators and institutional innovators.Academic innovation is to be closely connected with and transformed into institutional one.All of our dominant values today,such as,'science','liberty','democracy' and 'equality',are Western values introduced from abroad.Nevertheless,whether there is still a set of values in Chinese culture that contain far richer implications than those Western values,is a topic worthy of specific discussion.There are at least four value principles,i.e.'security','public welfare','trust' and 'learning',which are deemed even more important in Chinese culture than so called 'science','liberty','democracy' and 'equality'.These values are self-sufficient in logic and form a well-functioning system as a whole.The ambition of traditional Chinese intellectuals is to 'transform this worldly life by living through it'.Chinese intellectuals are longing to involve themselves in politics,while their Western counterparts harbor profound distrust of it.In other words,Western intellectuals tend to adopt the strategy of 'destructive construction',while Chinese intellectuals 'participative construction'.