浪漫想象的悖论——约翰·科利尔与美国印第安人新政

Paradox of Romantic Imaginations——John Collier and American Indian New Deal

美国强制同化印第安人政策的失败,制造了新的"印第安人问题"。与以往不同,在印第安人已经成为美国公民的背景下,新问题主要集中于他们的极端贫困化和全面边缘化。虽然常常被时人讥为"倒拨时钟",但以《印第安人重组法》为标志的印第安人新政仍采取了复兴并重建部落的主要对策。这样做固然由于时势的逼迫,更因为新政主导者约翰·科利尔试图以其基于对印第安人部落社群浪漫化的哲学,纠正美国自由主义社会使人原子化与异化的弊病。由于对部落的浪漫想象,新政得以指向美国过去印第安人政策不承认异质种族社会文化权利的症结,并提出文化多元主义予以治疗;但也正由于浪漫想象带来的僵化思维、工具化处理方式,使新政不能适应复杂、分化的现实,也未能从根本上走出同化主义,这就决定了新政效果的有限性。

The failure of American policy of forced assimilation of Indians has created new ＂Indian problem＂. When Indians have become US citizens, new problems have mainly been their extreme impoverishment and overall marginalization. Although often ridiculed as ＂dialing back the clock＂, the Indian New Deal with the ＂Indian Reorganization Act＂ as a symbol still took revival and reconstruction of tribes as major countermeasures. This is certainly due to the situation of the time and the attempt of the New Deal leader John Collier to correct the malpractice of atomization and alienation of people in American liberalist society based on his romanticized philosophy of Indian tribal community. Because of the tribal romantic imagination, New Deal policy was able to point tO the crux of that the past American Indians policy did not recognize the cultural rights of heterogeneous ethnic society and proposed cultural pluralism as treatment; but precisely because of rigid thinking and instrumental approach brought by romantic imagination, the New Deal could not meet the complex, differentiated reality and failed to get out of assimilations fundamentally, which determines the limitedness of the effects of the New Deal.