“禁书”政治:清末北洋时期的 《推背图》与社会治理

The Politics of“Banned Books”:Tuibeitu and Social Governance Between 1900—1927

查禁谶纬图书是近代中国官方进行社会治理的重要举措。宣统时期,旧本《推背图》成为多地民众认定清廷即将覆亡的“图谶”文本,清廷因此明令查禁该书。不过,由于新知识人的编创与出版商的营销,新编本《推背图》不仅推助革命宣传,而且参与塑造北洋时期社会各阶层的心态。新旧《推背图》的传播对于社会进步有正反两方面影响,而北洋政府视该书为“迷信”“妖言”,试图一禁了之,其查禁之策实则无助于实现社会“善治”,反而销蚀了当政者治国的“民意”基础。由此可见,清廷与北洋政府一直延续治教合一的传统治理方略,始终俯视民间社会,对于信息传播多元化的新社会环境缺乏有效的调适与应对。

Prohibition of prophecy books was an important measure of social governance in modern China. During the Xuantong period, the Qing government banned the old version of Tuibeitu, which can be translated into "the Back-Messaging Graph", because people in many places took the book as a "prophetic" text to confirm the imminent demise of the Qing court. However, due to the creation of new intellectuals and the marketing of publishers, the new edition of Tuibeitu not only helped the revolutionary propaganda, but also participated in shaping the mentality of all social classes in the Beiyang period. The spread of the old and new versions of Tuibeitu had both benefits and drawbacks for social progress, but the circulation of the prophecy book was prohibited by the Beiyang Government because it regarded this book as "superstition" and "evil talk". The ban on Tuibeitu couldn't help realize the "proper governance" of the society, but erode the basis of "public opinion" for the authorities to govern the country. Thus it can be seen that the Qing Government and the Beiyang Government had been discriminating against the civil society and continuing the traditional way of governing the country through the combination of politics and education. In fact, they lacked effective adjustment and response to the new social environment of diversified information dissemination.