自然状态与人类学——恩格斯对社会形成的理解

Natural State and Anthropology On Engels’ Understanding of the Formation of Society

对《家庭、私有制和国家的起源》中家庭序列史的证伪式考察遮蔽了恩格斯的社会起源理论。事实上,恩格斯接受了古典人类学家用以说明社会形成的家庭—社会理论模型,且始终把社会如何构成的问题同激进的资本主义批判结合在一起。在古典人类学家对前社会状态构建方式的争论中,恩格斯最认同摩尔根的观点,因为一个没有规则的杂交状态能够最为有力地表明资本主义社会及其产物的非永恒性;而以性关系为基础的第一个社会组织形式——血婚制家族——又将证实非资本主义的、“异质性”的社会的存在。因此,对恩格斯而言,杂交状态这个被人类学与古典学重新加工过的“自然状态”将依然被作为批判的武器来使用。恩格斯以原始群中劳动的集体性来论证人的社会性及社会形成的必然性,并把群生活、两性共有关系与从猿到人的转变三者指认为历史唯物主义的史前史阶段。恩格斯在据此反驳原始社会史学中的个人主义的同时也指明,即便是隐私性的两性关系,也同样是经济—社会系统中的一部分。

The falsified study of the family history in The Origin of the Family,Private Ownership,and the State obscures Engels’theory on the origin of society.In fact,Engels accepted the“family-society”theoretical model used by classical anthropologists to illustrate the formation of society,and always linked the issue on the constitution of society with radical capitalist critique.Engels agrees most with Morgan in the debate among classical anthropologists about the construction of pre-social states.As a state of promiscuous intercourse without rules can best demonstrate the non-permanence of capitalist society,the first form of social organization based on sexual relations—the consanguine family—could prove the existence of a“heterogeneous”non-capitalism society.Therefore,the promiscuous intercourse,a“natural state”that has been reprocessed by anthropology and the classics has been constantly used by Engels as a weapon of criticism.Moreover,Engels uses the collective nature of labor in the primitive group to demonstrate the sociality of humans and the inevitability of social formation,and combines group life,sexual community and the transformation from apes to human beings into the prehistory stage of historical materialism.While refuting individualism in the primitive society historiography,he indicates that even the private gender relationship is a part of the economic-social system.