美国建国者关于“世界”的认知和想象

The American Founders’ Perception and Imagination of “the World”

在最先兴起于大西洋世界的现代全球化运动中,欧洲诸强国之所以能在航海、贸易、传教、征服和殖民活动中不断取得进展,与其所掌握的关于外部世界的知识具有正向的相关性。美国在独立后很快就加入这一潮流,而作为共和制国家的领导者,美国的建国者对世界的认识与同期的欧洲人有着显著的差别。他们基于所掌握的地理知识,采用“例外论”的思维方式,从价值和道德的维度对世界各地区、各国家加以等级性评判,将全球划分为“自由”和“奴役”两个截然对立的世界,并自命为世界上仅存的“自由的避难所”,希望以中立和贸易的方式与“不自由”的“非共和世界”交往,以求取财富和知识,把美国建设成一个自由而繁荣的国家,进而引领其他国家的人民摆脱奴役,走向富强。揆诸历史的实际可知,他们所构想的这一世界不免带有强烈的乌托邦色彩。

In the modern globalization movement that first emerged in the Atlantic world,the European powers' continuous progress in navigation,trade,missionary work,conquest,and colonization was positively correlated with the knowledge about the outside world they had obtained.The United States quickly became part of this trend after independence;but as a republic,the American founders cherished a significantly different view of the world compared with that of the Europeans in the same period.Based on their geographical knowledge,they adopted an “exceptionalist” way of thinking,grading the various regions and countries of the world from the angle of value and morality.They classified the planet as two starkly contrasting worlds,i.e.“the world of freemen” and “the world of slaves.” Meanwhile they deemed their country as the only “asylum of liberty” in the world,hoping to engage with the unfree and non-republican world through neutrality and trade,in order to pursue wealth and knowledge,building the United States into a free and strong nation that would lead other countries' people to get rid of slavery and to become prosperous.However,the historical realities would prove that the world they envisioned was no other than Utopia.