“塔西佗陷阱”的前世今生

Review of the Earliest Occurrence and Present Development of"Tacitus Trap"

近年来,一个“政治学定律”:“塔西佗陷阱”在各类期刊和各级领导人讲话中被频繁提及,甚至引起了最高领导的关注和引用。通过查阅文献,笔者发现“塔西佗陷阱”并不是由塔西佗本人总结,而是由南京大学新闻传播学院的潘知常教授在著作和公开演讲中首次明确提出的。难能可贵的是,潘知常教授的贡献不仅在于最早(2007年)从浩如烟海的古代西方论著中原创性地提炼出“塔西佗陷阱”这个术语,更在于为中国乃至世界提出了破解这个千年陷阱的解决之道,即“只有跟人民群众的根本利益站在一起,只有顺应时代潮流,才会有公信力,这才是关键。”应该说,这是潘知常教授对中国政治话语体系建构的贡献,更是中国学界对人文社会科学话语体系的一大贡献,体现了中国学者的学术自觉和文化自信。

In recent years,"Tacitus Trap"has been frequently mentioned as a"political law"in various journals and speeches of leaders at all levels,and even attracted the attention and reference of the highest leaders.By consulting the literature,the author found that the term was not summed up by Tacitus himself,but was first explicitly put forward by Professor Pan Zhichang of School of Journalism and Communication of Nanjing University in his works and public speeches.What is commendable is that Professor Pan Zhichang's contribution lies not only in the original extraction of the term"Tacitus Trap"from the voluminous ancient western works at the earliest time(2007),but also in putting forward a solution for China and even the world to break this Millennium trap through the way of"standing with the fundamental interests of the people and conforming to the trend of the times to achieve credibility".It should be said that this is Professor Pan Zhichang's contribution to the construction of Chinese political discourse system,and it is also a great contribution of Chinese academic circles to the discourse system of humanities and social sciences,which reflects the academic consciousness and cultural confidence of Chinese scholars.