符号秩序、教育体验与创造性——保罗·威利斯对中国文化现代性的寻访

Symbolic Order,Educational Experience and Creativity:Paul Willis's Search for Chinese Cultural Modernity

基于在中国三个年头的沉浸式田野观察,熟稔于英国现代化历程的保罗·威利斯在其新著、系列文章和专访中向我们展现了一种西方视野下的中国教育与现代性图景。威利斯认为,中国版本的文化现代性内隐着传统与现代的张力,体现为以城市崇拜、消费主义及对手机和互联网的迷恋为轴的符号秩序。教育体验贯穿了传统中国和现代中国,是描摹中国版本现代性样貌的关键线索。借助中国精英大学学生的读书笔记,威利斯在专著中重点呈现了中国情境下通过攀爬教育阶梯、进入精英大学的“循规生”的教育体验。作为一部西方人寻访中国文化现代性的作品,威利斯试图以经历着快速而复杂变革的中国为田野,为文化生产理论开疆拓土。他的民族志想象力和对文化现代性的跨时空观察为我们反省自身的现代性际遇提供了一条线索,也为研究中国现代化进程中不同群体的教育经验和创造性拓开了一条“自下而上”的小径。

Based on three years of immersive field observations in China,Paul Willis,who is familiar with the modernization process of the United Kingdom,shows us a picture of Chinese education and modernity from a Western perspective in his new book,series of articles and interviews.Willis believes that the tension between tradition and modernity is implicit in the Chinese version of modernity,which is manifested in a symbolic order centered on city worship,consumerism,and the obsession with mobile phones and the Internet.The education system runs through traditional China and modern China,and is a key clue to describe the modernity of the Chinese version.With the help of the reading notes of students in elite universities of China,Willis focuses on the educational experience of students who climbed the educational ladder and entered elite universities in the Chinese context.As a work of Westerners searching for the modernity of Chinese culture,Willis tries to take China,which is undergoing rapid and complex changes,as a field to expand the boundaries of cultural production theory.His ethnographic imagination and"observation across time and space"of cultural modernity provide a clue for us to reflect on our own modern encounters,and also expand a"bottom-up"approach to the study of the educational experience and creativity of different groups in the process of Chinese modernization.