19世纪的英国:鸦片观念变迁、大众传播与帝国话语建构

Britain in the 19th Century:The Change of Opium Concept,Mass Communication and the Construction of Imperial Discourse

四千年前,鸦片已在欧洲、中东和北非传布;中世纪,鸦片伴随阿拉伯商人成为行销全球的商品。然而,有关鸦片的最深刻记忆还是始于1840年的"鸦片战争",它是东方"大清帝国"与西方"大英帝国"的首次交手。自此,近代中国日益国步艰危,而英国得以缓解其"日不落帝国"的危机。英国向中国武力倾销鸦片的同时,国内也受到鸦片泛滥的影响。新崛起的英国知识阶层不断借助报刊更新鸦片知识、推动国家立法,并将道德和情感嵌入文化评判,建构了一套对内自我谅解,对外充满霸权的帝国话语。这套话语通过否定他者维护了其国家的权力与利益。

Four thousand years ago,opium was spread in Europe,the Middle East and North Africa. In the Middle Ages,opium became a global commodity through Arabic merchants. However,the most profound memory of opium began in the Opium War,which was the first encounter between the Eastern Qing Dynasty of China and the Western British Empire. Since then,modern China was constantly struggling and Britain could slow down its imperial crisis. While the British Empire dumped opium to China by force,its domestic people were also hurt by the opium. The new intellectual class used newspapers and periodicals to update opium knowledge,promoted national legislation,and integrated morality and emotion into cultural judgments. An imperial discourse was thus constructed,based on its self-forgiveness internally and cultural subversion externally. This mode maintained its own power and economic interests by excluding the other.