《威廉·退尔》与德国文化民族主义的兴衰

Wilhelm Tell and the Rise and Fall of the German Cultural Nationalism

《威廉·退尔》中的群众形象彻底颠覆了西方思想史对群众的主流叙述:他们不再是群氓和乌合之众,而是自由且富有美德的人民和有着集体意志并统一行动的民族。产生这种转变最重要的原因,是德国文化民族主义的兴起。它从独特而充满活力的民族文化中寻找资源,对抗法国启蒙教条和文化霸权的结果,就是使得作为民族文化创造、传播与承载者的"人民共同体"成为赞美、崇拜和效忠的对象。与之俱来的对民族、国家的畸形崇拜与民粹主义基因,又体现出文化民族主义的脆弱与潜伏着的危险。

Mainly due to the rise of cultural nationalism in German,the images of massesin Schiller'Wilhelm Tell bear such features as people with freedom and virtue,community of culture and politics,nation with common will and action,instead of the mobs as in the mainstream narration of the history of Western thought.This community of people became the object of praise,worship and allegiance,as the creator,disseminator and bearer of the national culture which was employed by the German cultural nationalists to fight against the French Enlightenment dogma and its cultural hegemony.Though the basic idea of Schiller'play was still cultural nationalism,the transformation from it to the political nationalism,and the gene of the abnormal worship to the nation and state,populism,reflect the vulnerability and lurking dangers of the cultural nationalism.