【英文原声版47】Caroline Winterer: Common Sense

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Fight for freedom or go back to status quo?

为自由而战，还是维持现状？

Zachary Davis: By early 1776, colonial America was at a tipping point. Tensions between the colonists and their British ruler, King George III, were escalating. The colonists were increasingly dissatisfied with British rule, but there was no consensus on what to do. The future was uncertain. The colonists weren’t even entirely sure what they wanted. But they knew they wanted change.

扎卡里·戴维斯：1776年初，北美殖民地正面临着重大转折。殖民地人民与英国国王乔治三世之间的关系愈发紧张。他们越来越不满于英国的统治，但在行动上，他们尚未达成统一意见。未来风雨飘摇。他们甚至还不完全确定自己想要什么，但他们清楚一点，那就是想要改变现状。

Zachary Davis: English-born American political activist Thomas Paine saw a clear solution. He published his ideas in his 1776 pamphlet, Common Sense. In the text, he proposed something radically empowering, something revolutionary, something that would take years to fully realize.

扎卡里·戴维斯：出生于英国的美国政治活动家托马斯·潘恩找到了一个明确的解决方案。1776年，他出版了一本名叫《常识》的小册子，提出了自己的想法。在书中，他提出了一些极其鼓舞人心、极富革命性的观念，这些观念多年之后才完全实现。

Caroline Winterer: But it is the first chink in the armor of the kinds of aristocratic and monarchical justifications for government that necessarily combines, as the idea of democracy does, not just a political system, but a fundamental sense of our basic human nature and our basic capacities and our basic obligations towards one another. So, I'm Caroline Winterer, and I'm a professor of history at Stanford, and I teach early American history, especially the history of ideas.

卡罗琳·温特勒：这本小册子首次驳斥了封建贵族和君主种种用于维护统治的说辞。书中不仅提出了某种政治制度，还将这种制度与人类最基本的天性、能力以及最基础的与他人之间的义务联系了起来。这点和民主思想有点类似。我是卡罗琳·温特勒，是斯坦福大学的历史教授。我教授美国早期历史，特别是美国早期思想史。

Zachary Davis: Prior to 1776, the ruling class in Europe and its colonies was the nobility. Nobles were people born into powerful families who governed the masses, with the king or queen atop them all. These noble families passed down their wealth and power from generation to generation with little input from the people they ruled over. This was understood by all as completely normal and God-given.

扎卡里·戴维斯：1776年之前，统治着欧洲及其殖民地的是贵族阶级。贵族出身显赫，位于君主之下、千万臣民之上。贵族将财富与权力世袭，而普通臣民分不得半杯羹。那时，所有人都觉得这是神授予的权力，再自然不过了。

Zachary Davis: But Thomas Paine saw things differently. To him, monarchical rule was stifling. He believed the thing all humans have in common from birth is our five senses. And through consulting these senses, we have the ability to create a rational government for the people, by the people, independent of a single ruler.

扎克里·戴维斯：不过托马斯·潘恩却不这么认为。他觉得君主制在压迫民众。他认为所有人生来都有五种感官，我们可以调用这些感官来创立一个不受制于任何一个统治者的、民治、民享的理性政府。

Caroline Winterer: This is an invitation to the common person to participate in an activity that since the beginning of human societies had been the province of an elite. And it's saying, “No, every person can participate!” And that's where that extraordinary title comes into play.

卡罗琳·温特勒：这本书呼吁让普通人也参与到政治之中，而政治这项活动自人类社会诞生起、到1776年以前往往只有上层精英才能参与。但《常识》一书认为，普罗大众也可以参与政治。这就彰显了“常识”这个了不起的标题的作用。

Zachary Davis: Welcome to Writ Large, a podcast about how books change the world. I’m Zachary Davis. In each episode, I talk with one of the world’s leading scholars about one book that changed the course of history. For this episode, I sat down with Professor Caroline Winterer to discuss Thomas Paine’s Common Sense. So, how did Thomas Paine become Thomas Paine?

扎卡里·戴维斯：欢迎收听：100本改变你和世界的书，在这里我们为大家讲述改变世界的书籍。我是扎卡里·戴维斯。每一集，我都会和一位世界顶尖学者探讨一本影响历史进程的书。在本集，我和卡罗琳·温特勒教授一起讨论托马斯·潘恩的《常识》。您可以讲讲托马斯·潘恩的生平吗？

Caroline Winterer: We don't have tons of biographical detail on him. But we do know that he was born in England in 1737. But unlike many of the American founding fathers, he's not born to the social elite. He's, in fact, born low in the working classes. His father is a corset maker and he himself, ultimately, becomes a corset maker also. And he holds various other jobs. He's a customs house inspector. But by no stretch of the imagination is he, you know, striding around in a powdered wig and velvet knee breeches. He doesn't have the elite classical education of the founders.

卡罗琳·温特勒：关于他的生平，我们知道的细节不多。不过我们知道他1737年出生在英国。但和许多美国国父不太一样的是，他们家没有什么地位。他出生于普通的工人家庭。他的父亲是胸衣匠，他也子承父业，后来做过其他几份工作，当过海关检察员。他从来都不是那种戴着假发、穿着天鹅绒马裤、意气风发的小伙子，也没像其他美国国父那样受过精英教育。

Caroline Winterer: And so he kind of grinds his way through the lower stratum of the English working classes. And it's only in 1774, when he meets Ben Franklin in London, that they sort of hatch this idea that he will come to the land of opportunity, which is America. But that experience of really being pressed to the very bottom of society, I think is profoundly influential for Paine, because he sees the hypocrisy of elites posturing about the natural order being this way or that way. And he sees it for all of the genuine misery that it produces in people's lives—the hunger, the illness. And he has no patience for it.

卡罗琳·温特勒：他一直艰难度日，挣扎在英国社会底层。1774年，他在伦敦认识了本杰明·富兰克林，于是萌生出想要去美国碰运气的想法。不过这段在社会底层挣扎的生活经历极大地影响了潘恩。精英们口口声声说自然秩序应当是这样或那样的，而潘恩却看出了他们的虚伪，因为这些秩序给普罗大众带来了种种苦难，让他们食不果腹、病病殃殃。潘恩看不下去了。

Zachary Davis: In October of 1774, Paine left England and sailed to what was then the American colonies. He arrived in late November in Philadelphia, a city ripe with opportunity.

扎克里·戴维斯：1774年10月，潘恩离开英国，随船来到北美殖民地。他于11月底抵达费城，这座城市满是机遇。

Caroline Winterer: When we think of 18th century Philadelphia, we think of the city of the Enlightenment for North America. It's the largest city. It's got a whole 40,000 people, which is huge, you know, by 18th century North American standards. And it has a vibrant printing culture. It's got all these institutions of civic participation that Ben Franklin himself had helped to found, like The Library Company of Philadelphia and other such organisms. And he does immediately go to work for one of the major magazines of the era. So, he tries his hand at writing for an American public.

卡罗琳·温特勒：提到18世纪的费城，我们就会说它是北美启蒙运动的发源地。当时它是北美最大的城市，有四万人口。这按当时北美的标准看已经是特大城市了。费城当时印刷文化盛行，还建立起了很多公共机构，如费城图书馆公司等——富兰克林本人也参与了这些筹建了这些机构。到了费城不久，潘恩便去了一家大杂志社做编辑。他开始为美国民众提笔疾呼。

Zachary Davis: Paine got a job as the editor of the Pennsylvania Magazine and began his career as a man of ideas.

扎克里·戴维斯：潘恩在《宾夕法尼亚杂志》做编辑，开始著书立说。

Caroline Winterer: And so he gets all these opportunities to sort of try his hand at writing. And he's done a little bit of writing in England, but this shows him able to write across a broad range of different topics from women's rights to, you know, what happened last Thursday at the town hall meeting, et cetera. So, he you know, he's moving along on writing, but then he leaves that journal.

卡罗琳·温特勒：他得以开始写作。在英国，他也写过一点东西，不过在杂志社的经历让他发现自己可以涉足很多话题，比如妇女权利，或是上周四市民大会上发生的事等等。他知道自己在写作上又进了一步。后来，他离开了这家杂志社。

Zachary Davis: After a few months, Paine left the Pennsylvania Magazine and focused his attention on the colonies’ relationship with their ruler, Great Britain. The colonists were becoming increasingly angry with the British rule. They were unhappy with British trade policies and opposed the new system of taxes.

扎卡里·戴维斯：几个月后，潘恩离开了《宾夕法尼亚杂志》。他关注起了北美殖民地与英王乔治三世的关系。殖民地人民对英国的统治越来越不满。他们反对英国的贸易制度和新的税收制度。

Caroline Winterer: And then furthermore, by that time in late 1775, there is fighting going on, right? We have had Lexington and Concord. The British are penned in the city of Massachusetts by George Washington's army. So, they are fighting, but what they do not know is what they are fighting for. There is no common sense for what it is that they want from the British.

卡罗琳·温特勒：到了1775年，英美两方发生了武装冲突——列克星敦和康科德战役打响了。英国军队被乔治·华盛顿的军队围困在马萨诸塞的城镇里。尽管北美民兵在作战，但他们并不清楚自己在为什么而战、要从英国人手里抢回什么。他们当时对这些问题毫无概念，也没有共识。

Caroline Winterer: Do they want a redress of colonial grievances and that they would then go back to status quo antebellum, right? The way things were before 1763 when, you know, it was a great relationship, everybody getting along, everybody knew their place… Or do they want, you know, some kind of radical independence? And this is the kind of weird leftist ravings of people like Samuel Adams, right?

卡罗琳·温特勒：他们是要向英王索要公平待遇，重新老老实实地做英国殖民地吗？就像1763年之前一样，两边关系也还融洽，大家都和睦相处，也清楚自己的位置。还是说，应该揭竿而起，像萨缪尔·亚当斯这些左派“疯子”说的那样，为独立而战？

Caroline Winterer: But there's no consensus across the colonies about what exactly they are doing. They are at loose ends. And this is the historical moment that Paine just boldly strides through, right? He's like, “I got this.” And in January of 1776 is produced—anonymously—this pamphlet that we know as Common Sense. And the reason that that pamphlet is so incendiary and extraordinary is because it answers that question—what are we doing and what is all of this for.

卡罗琳·温特勒：北美各个殖民地在行动上没有达成共识，踟蹰不前。历史性的一刻来了——潘恩告诉他们要大胆摆脱英王的统治。1776年1月，小册子《常识》匿名出版了。这本书之所以如此不同寻常且鼓动人心，是因为它回答了一个问题，那就是北美人民在做什么、又是为了什么。

Two techniques in the book

书中的两个技巧

Zachary Davis: In Common Sense, Paine makes a strong argument for colonial independence. And he does it with the everyday reader in mind. He wanted his ideas and arguments to be easily understood.

扎卡里·戴维斯：在《常识》一书中，潘恩提出了强有力的论点来佐证北美殖民地独立的合理性。他想象自己在和普通读者对话，因为他希望自己的思想和论点能易于理解。

Caroline Winterer: Common Sense comes in as a breath of fresh air. He speaks to common people in the language of common people, so people read it and they recognize echoes of a known world, but then he opens up a whole new universe of possibility for them.

卡罗琳·温特勒：整本书娓娓道来，如春风般沁人心脾。潘恩用通俗的语言和普通读者对话，所以人们愿意读，读起来也觉得亲切。但同时，他也为他们设想了新的可能，打开了一个全新的世界。

Caroline Winterer: So, you know, that's why, even almost 250 years later, this pamphlet seems so fresh because it is truly visionary, because he does something that I would say, just as a historian of ideas, is one of the hardest things to do, which is to change people's minds. And Thomas Paine does that. He changes their minds across a spectrum of three or four major truths in a way that's really extraordinary.

卡罗琳·温特勒：这就是为什么差不多250年过去了，这本小册子仍然不失魅力，因为它实在太有远见。在我这个研究思想史的看来，托马斯·潘恩做的事情可太难了。改变人们的思想可不简单，但他竟然做到了。他用一种非同寻常的方式串起了三四条真相，改变了人们的观念。

Zachary Davis: How does Paine use words and motifs in this text to both meet people where they are and then help move them in a different way? I mean, what are some of the techniques that he uses there?

扎克里·戴维斯：潘恩在这本小册子中采用了怎样的语言、传递了什么思想，让人们感到亲切的同时，又能受其潜移默化的影响？他在书中运用了哪些技巧？

Caroline Winterer: Yeah. I would single out two here.One is he uses ridicule and absurdity to their best effect. What he does is to take a truth that people think is established and then to show how lame and ridiculous it is, and he says that a number of times, “This is ridiculous!”

卡罗琳·温特勒：我来举两个例子吧。一是他会嘲笑某个观点的荒谬之处，来起到论述的效果。他会列出某个人们习以为常的观点，点明它多么蹩脚、多么荒唐。他经常说：“这可太荒唐了！”

Caroline Winterer: Okay, so one of the things that's ridiculous to him is the British monarchy. Now, you're not supposed to say that because that's like making a threat on the life of the U.S. president. That's treasonous. So, what he says is, “How ridiculous is it that we take the person and give them a lot of power and then we shut them off from the means of information,” which is exactly true.

卡罗琳·温特勒：在他看来，让英国国王统治北美非常荒唐。可是按照当时的观点，你不该这么说，因为在当时说这句话就跟你现在说要取美国总统的项上人头一样大逆不道。于是潘恩说：“想想看这多荒唐：我们对这个人俯首称臣，给了他很多权力，然后又切断这个人获取信息的一切渠道。”潘恩说得一点也没错。

Caroline Winterer: How is it that you can wield so much power that you are the king of England, but then you are kind of cloistered from what the reality of the world is? George III never leaves London? Never. He's just, like, there. And in fact, there's no reigning British monarch that visits North America until after the civil war, which is extraordinary. So, he says that that is ridiculous. And so then, of course, you put the pamphlet down, you say, “Well, you know what, you're right. I never thought about it that way. It is not only wrong, it is ridiculous.”

卡罗琳·温特勒：为什么你能有这么大的权力，能当上英国国王，却又和真实的世界相隔绝？乔治三世从没离开过伦敦，对吧？而在战争打响前，从来没有哪位英国国王在位期间访问北美，这可太奇怪了。所以潘恩说让英国国王统治北美非常荒唐。读到这里，你便会放下小册子，感慨：“是啊，你说的没错，我之前还没这么想过。确实不应该让英国国王统治我们，太荒唐了。”

Caroline Winterer: The second thing that he does is he uses the power of metaphor to their best effect. And so he likes, for example, to use the metaphor of parent and child. And this is how the colonial relationship was described in the 18th century, that Britain was the mother, the colonies were the baby, and in fact, there were a lot of broadsides that showed Britannia nursing her baby colony, which is like...we think of that, like, “How weird…” But that's how they talked about the relationship. And he's, he turns that on its head, and he says,” What kind of parent would eat their own children? This is child abuse.”

卡罗琳·温特勒：他运用的另一个技巧是，用比喻来起到论述效果。比如他很喜欢用母亲和孩子来比喻18世纪的英国和其殖民地。英国是母亲，而殖民地是襁褓中的孩子。种种迹象表明这位守护着殖民地的“母亲”有几分怪异，但人们还是默认了这层“亲子”关系。但潘恩反驳道：“什么样的母亲会把自己的孩子生吞活剥？这是要害死孩子啊。”

Zachary Davis: Paine also points out to his American readers the empowering size of their American continent compared to the relatively small island of Great Britain that governs them. He turns their gaze west, beyond the colonies, all the way to what is today California.

扎克里·戴维斯：潘恩还告诉北美读者，北美大陆幅员辽阔，而统治他们的英国却只是弹丸之地。他叫他们不要仅仅盯着东海岸的殖民地，要放眼向西看，一直看到如今的加州。

Caroline Winterer: He gives Americans a vision beyond the 50 miles of coastline that they have inhabited for the last 150 years, and he says, “Yours is a continent.” And then he, but then he goes into ridicule mode and he says, “How silly is it that an island should be a continent?” Now, you think, you read that, and you're like, “Yeah, right. That's ridiculous!” Now, of course, it's not ridiculous, right? Why shouldn't an island govern a continent? It's no more ridiculous than anything else. But he makes it for the first time seem ridiculous.

卡罗琳·温特勒：他让他们尽情展望，不要仅仅盯着沿海岸线50英里左右的这片地方，这只是他们过去150年的栖息地，他们拥有的是一整片大陆。然后他又嘲笑起了英国，说：“一个小岛竟然还妄想统治一整片大陆？”读到这里，你会感慨：“确实啊，太荒唐了！”不过就事论事，其实这也算不上荒唐。小岛怎么就不能统治一片陆地呢？比这荒唐的事也不少。不过潘恩的写作技巧让这件事显得很荒唐。

Caroline Winterer: So, he has at his command, in his arsenal of pamphleteering tools, these two finely honed tools that ingratiate him to many, many people who might normally not want to listen to somebody who is from the bottom of society. But he's such a delight to read because he does that thing that all, you know, all public speakers and all writers really have to learn how to do, which is to persuade the audience to join your side of things, that you go into the world not as you versus me, but as an us. And once you have done that, your task is much easier.

卡罗琳·温特勒：因此，他掏出了写小册子的锦囊，游刃有余地运用了这两个巧妙的技巧，让人们愿意听这个穷小子的话。毕竟正常情况下，谁想听一个社会底层人士说话呢？这本小册子读起来很舒服，论述技巧值得所有演说家和作家学习。为了说服读者，他没有站在读者对面侃侃而谈，而是把自己看作他们的一员。一旦你做到了这一点，读者就更容易被说服。

Zachary Davis: What was the age of pamphlets? What were pamphlets? And how did this supernal pamphlet get distributed and read and heard?

扎克里·戴维斯：《常识》出版于一个怎样的年代？它讲了什么？又是如何被传播开来的呢？

Caroline Winterer: Well, the 18th century is really the age of the first public opinion. The idea of “a public,” in the way that we think of today, is born in the 18th century, that it is a group of people outside of the government who do not have access to the levers of power necessarily, but they do have access to the printing press. And so they are able to respond to their overlords through the mechanism of, you know, coffee, they meet in coffee shops. And there's, this is also the great age of the broadside which are basically, like, posters that you can put on the side of public buildings. But it's public speech meant to be read by many, many people, the disembodied public of the 18th century.

卡罗琳·温特勒：18世纪起，公众舆论才真正起到了作用。从我们现在的视角看，18世纪的公众不在政府任职、无法左右权力，但他们可以接触到印刷读物。他们还可以在咖啡馆集会，议论统治者的政策。有人还会在建筑物墙上贴海报，宣传自己的观点。这些公开的言论会被芸芸众生所了解。

Caroline Winterer: So, the pamphlet emerges in this new ecosystem of possibility, of rising literacy rates, not just for men, but for women and of a kind of a format that is, I would say the equivalent today is Twitter, which is having the same kinds of effects on our political fabric which is that it's causing us to reexamine our fundamental truths, this short, easily harnessed format that can change public opinion overnight, which Paine’s pamphlet does. So, it's published in January of 1776 anonymously, and it sells out overnight, 150,000 copies.

卡罗琳·温特勒：小册子就出现在这样一种新环境中：当时男性和女性的识字率都在上升，还出现了这么多公开的言论，这种载体其实有点像如今的社交媒体。它们对人们的政治观点有着类似的影响，让人们重新审视原有的基本认知。这种简短的、易于撰写的内容会迅速改变公众的观念。潘恩的《常识》便是如此。1776年1月，《常识》匿名出版，一夜之间就卖出了15万本。

Zachary Davis: The text remains popular—it is the most widely reprinted document from the time period. One of the main reasons it’s popular is that Paine touched on the universal, natural rights of all people. In the introduction, Paine famously wrote that the cause of America is the cause of all mankind.

扎克里·戴维斯：它一直很受欢迎，是同时期重印得最多的书。它之所以这么受欢迎，一个主要原因是，潘恩探讨的是所有人普遍的、生来就有的权利。在序言中，潘恩说了这样一句名言：“美国的事业就是全人类的事业。”

Caroline Winterer: So, I think that's another reason why this has transcended time and place in a way that so many of the other pamphlets of that time period have not done.

卡罗琳·温特勒：我觉得这也从另一个角度解释了，为什么这本小册子经久不衰，受到世界各地人们的喜爱，而同时期的其他小册子没能做到这一点。

Fresh arguments coming from fresh eyes and mind

新视角、新理念、新观点

Zachary Davis: Could you walk us now about what the pamphlet itself is arguing? What is he trying to convince people of?

扎克里·戴维斯：您可以给我们讲讲这本小册子的内容吗？它想要让读者意识到什么呢？

Caroline Winterer: Yeah, so he's convincing them basically of two big things. One is the need for independence, which they also call separation. So, he boldly makes that claim by saying, “You know, look, if you're going to just stay within the British Empire, all these bad things are going to happen to you instead of all the good things that you've been imagining.” He sketches this kind of dystopian future, and he says things like, you know, “You think that republics are more warlike, but in fact, it's monarchies that, you know, enroll us in all of these various wars. By staying with Britain, you are then automatically against France and Spain. It's, you know, terminal enemies, etc.”

卡罗琳·温特勒：潘恩主要论述了两大点。第一点是为什么北美要独立——当然也有人称之为分裂。他大胆地提出了这个论点，说：“看吧，如果你继续留在大英帝国，你会碰上所有这些麻烦事，但独立的好处你一点也享受不到。”他为未来描绘了一番荒唐的景象，告诉读者：“你觉得建立共和国意味着要打仗，但事实上，屈从于英国国王的统治之下，才会让你卷入无数场战争。和英国站在一边，就意味着法国、西班牙都成了我们的敌人，而且是劲敌。”

Caroline Winterer: So, he says “It's more valuable to you to go for independence than to stay within the British Empire.” And he sort of sketches out a way that they can do that, and he does a lot of pep talking. Thomas Paine is the first person to come in and essentially deliver the first anticolonial or postcolonial document to say “You can Brexit from the empire. You can secede from the union.” He supplies us with some of that initial vocabulary that's going to get used during subsequent Brexiting, secessionist, postcolonial movements.

卡罗琳·温特勒：所以他得出结论，争取独立比留在大英帝国更好。潘恩还描绘了一些可行的办法，说了很多振奋人心的话。他是第一个白纸黑字地写着要反对殖民统治的人，他说：“你可以从大英帝国独立出去，不再受它管辖。”他首创了一些词汇，这些词在之后脱离英联邦等民族解放运动中仍然被提及。

Zachary Davis: This was a radical idea at the time. Empires ruled the world; breaking free from one to form your own country was unheard of.

扎克里·戴维斯：在当时，这个想法非常激进。各大帝国统治着世界，而从帝国独立出去、建立自己的国家，这个想法可是闻所未闻。

Caroline Winterer: So, that is extraordinary, to say that the path of the future is not to stay within a very large and important empire, that says it's a liberty-loving empire. You know, that's the rhetoric of British imperialism. It's to say, “No, you need to get independence from it, and then go ahead and make your own empire.” So, it's also an imperial document in its own way, but the empire will face in a different direction. It will face westward across the United States and its North American continent.

卡罗琳·温特勒：所以说这很了不起。潘恩说，留在大英帝国就没有未来，哪怕英国假惺惺地说自己“热爱自由”。他鼓励北美人民独立起来，建立自己的国家。所以从某方面看，这本小册子也预示了一个国家的诞生，不过这个国家将走向截然不同的道路。它将向西拓张，占领北美大陆的大片土地，成为日后的美利坚合众国。

Zachary Davis: Paine’s background made it easier  to propose such a radical vision for America. He grew up on the other side of the Atlantic ocean, and didn’t experience the struggles and conflicts of the American colonists until he was an adult. He had the advantage experiencing the colonies with fresh eyes.

扎克里·戴维斯：潘恩的人生经历让他更容易为北美人民提出这样一个激进的主张。他在大西洋的另一端长大，成年后才目睹北美殖民地人民的反抗与斗争，所以他能以新的视角看待殖民地的遭遇。

Caroline Winterer: It's a little like, you know, if you have a dysfunctional family, right? Everybody gets used to it. It's like the frog in the slowly boiling pot of water. Right? You're just like, “Yeah, my family always talks like this, blah, blah, blah.” And it takes inviting someone over for a Thanksgiving feast for them to kind of pull you aside and say, “You know, your uncle really is totally crazy. You should not stand for this. This is so dysfunctional that you need to remove yourself. You need to get the frog out of the pot of water.” And I think that's what happens with Paine is that he comes in to this society, and it is because he is so new that he sees it with fresh eyes in a way that the warm frogs that are already there cannot see.

卡罗琳·温特勒：这有点像在家里。假如你家庭环境不太好，你就会像温水煮青蛙一样慢慢对这种环境习以为常，会觉得自己家人就是这么说话的，没什么大不了。直到有一天，你邀请别人来你家参加感恩节宴会，他们会把你拽到一边，说：“你叔叔简直是个疯子，不要再为他们说话了，你要像青蛙一样跳出锅，赶紧离开。”我觉得这就像潘恩对北美人民说的话。他初来乍到，带着新视角目睹发生在北美的一切，而北美人民已经对现状熟视无睹了。

Caroline Winterer: So, but that, you know, that kind of brings us to the second part of the pamphlet that I think is less well recognized than it should be, which is that it is an anti-monarchical screed in an age that not only was deeply monarchical, but had been for 2,000 years and would continue to be so until the present day. So, he comes in, and he not only heaps ridicule on the British monarchy, but he shows that it is fundamentally part of a larger injustice, which is that it is, it derives the sources of its authority from a genealogical relationship to the past.

卡罗琳·温特勒：接下来便是《常识》的第二部分，这部分不太为人所知。君主制当时已经存在了两千多年，那个时候已经根深蒂固，而且至今仍未消亡。在那个时代，潘恩竟然撰文抨击君主制，不仅对英国的君主制极尽嘲讽，更指出了它与一种更严重的不公息息相关，那就是统治权取决于血缘关系。

Zachary Davis: The second part of Common Sense criticizes the historical nature of monarchies. Paine highlights the fact that under monarchical rule, authority is based entirely on genealogy. If you’re the son of a ruler, you become the next ruler. This power is based on a person’s family legacy, not at all on their qualifications. This approach to power kept families, countries, and empires locked in the past.

扎克里·戴维斯：《常识》的第二部分批判了君主制的内核。潘恩说，在君主制下，统治权完全取决于血缘关系。如果你是统治者的儿子，你就会成为继承人。这种权力完全源自祖上的荫庇，而不取决于能力。这种权力继承方式让整个家族、王国乃至帝国和过去一直扯上关系。

Caroline Winterer: And he says, “No, that is fundamentally unjust. Life is for the living. It is not about the past.” So, this is a classic Enlightenment document in that it takes a pair of scissors, and it cuts off that family tree. And it says the only thing that matters is now. Life is for the living, and all of the traditions—monarchy, Christianity, etc.—that rely on these genealogical connections to authority are fundamentally unjust, and they prevent us from looking to the future, so we need to, you know, block all those, cut off all of those connections and instead ground our authority elsewhere.

卡罗琳·温特勒：潘恩说，这从根本上就不公正，生活属于生者，和过去无关。《常识》是一部经典的启蒙之作，因为它排除了依靠血缘关系继承统治权的合理性，认定值得关注的只有当下的人和事。生活属于生者，而君主制等根据血缘关系确定统治权的制度与文化在本质上都是不公正的，让我们没法展望未来，所以我们要打破血缘与统治权的关系，以别的方式确立统治权。

Caroline Winterer: So, here's where he comes in, and I think is the first major propagator of what we know as “state of nature” theorizing. So, these are philosophers like John Locke in the 17th century, Thomas Hobbes, and then Rousseau, who say, “Well, if we don't ground our authority in the king, where can we ground it?” And so they invent this fiction called “the state of nature”, which is an origin point for human societies that is not historical, like it never happened, and it is also not religious. It is the Garden of Eden stripped of the fall narrative. So, that's so liberating because, you know, you can do whatever you want with the garden, with the state of nature.

卡罗琳·温特勒：这就是他推崇的理念。潘恩算是第一个在政治活动中大规模宣扬“自然状态”理念的人。17、18世纪的哲学家，如约翰·洛克、托马斯·霍布斯和卢梭曾思考，如果统治权不来源于国王，那会源于谁。于是他们提出了“自然状态”这一虚构概念。自然状态指人类社会最初的状态，它不存在于历史记载和宗教故事中。从描述上看，自然状态这个说法就像是伊甸园的故事，只不过去除了人类堕落的那段情节。这种说法让人耳目一新，因为我们可以对自然状态下的人们做出各种设想。

Caroline Winterer: But it's familiar enough because it's kind of Garden of Eden, you know? People go, “Yeah, I can think of the Garden of Eden. I know it's that—but I'll just take out the serpent and the man and the woman, and instead populate it with a bunch of people, and they can build societies up from there.”

卡罗琳·温特勒：同时，人们又对这个概念很熟悉，因为他们会联想到伊甸园，只不过需要把蛇、亚当和夏娃挪走，让一堆人住进去，在里面建立社会。

Zachary Davis: Well, and instead of the fundamental consequence or motivation being sin, it's a desire for cooperation with equal members of a group.

扎克里·戴维斯：而且他们不会带来恶劣影响，不会犯下罪过，只会渴望彼此平等合作。

Caroline Winterer: That is exactly right. The state of nature as a concept that emerges in the 17th and 18th century underlies all modern political revolutions, because it, for the first time, gives you an operating political vocabulary for human activities that is not having them wallow in sin and from a fall, right? That, like, everything is worse now than it was before.

卡罗琳·温特勒：没错。自然状态这个概念出现于17、18世纪，为近现代所有政治革命提供了理论基础。它首次为人类活动提供了一个可供运用的政治词汇，而且还不涉及“原罪”、“堕落”这套说辞。和自然状态一比，如今的所有一切都比那时要糟糕。

Caroline Winterer: And instead it opens up this other tool, which is the idea of progress that we as human beings, you know, the deity smiles upon us and our projects. And the state of nature, you know, you can do what you want from there. You can decide to leave it and form contracts of society, contracts of government, or you can just stay in the state of nature as they thought the American Indians had done, just living in the state of nature. But it's so liberating as a political language.

卡罗琳·温特勒：相反，这一理论让我们可以讨论“进步”这一概念，而神也会对人类的进步表示赞赏。而理论家也可以决定他们将如何运用自然状态这一假说。他们可以决定结束自然状态，签订社会契约和政府契约；也可以停留在自然状态，就像他们认为美国印第安人做的那样。“自然状态”这个政治词语可以被如此灵活地运用。

Caroline Winterer: We would not have had the American Revolution or the French Revolution or the Latin American independence movements or any of the modern movements that we know today without this conceit, this fiction of the state of nature, because it is a fundamental reassessment of human nature, which is another term from the 18th century, “human nature,” that we're fundamentally good and that we deserve to live in happiness.

卡罗琳·温特勒：如果没有“自然状态”这个虚构的概念，就不会爆发美国独立战争、法国大革命和拉美独立运动，因为它重新定义了人性，认为人性本善，理应幸福地生活着。“人性”这个词也是18世纪提出的。

Zachary Davis: In Paine’s time and before, government authority was seen as a divine creation. Kings, queens, and emperors justified their positions by claiming that God had granted them power. The shift from divine rule to the state of nature gave more weight to human agency. Paine, and other Enlightenment thinkers, viewed government as created by the people, for the people.

扎克里·戴维斯：在潘恩那个时代，人们相信君权神授。君主声称神赋予了他们统治权，想以此来巩固自己的统治地位。而“自然状态”理论冲击了君权神授的说法，更强调人的主观能动性。潘恩等启蒙思想家认为，政府为民众所有、为民众服务。

Caroline Winterer: So, what we are going to do now is we're going to be concerned with the course of human events, and we are going to lay out the case for why we need to return to a state of nature, which is what the American Revolution is in July 4th, 1776. It is a return to a Lockean state of nature as they await the formation of future governments. And so Paine is totally in there, right? This is a pamphlet that lays out this really lovely picture of the state of nature as something that we can all happily live in once we've emancipated ourselves from this ruffian in England.

卡罗琳·温特勒：现在我们来看看人类历史，举例子看看为什么我们需要回到自然状态。就拿1776年7月4日北美宣布独立来说吧。这么做是要建立一个新政府，回到洛克所说的自然状态。而潘恩完全就是在这个语境中讨论问题。《常识》勾勒出了一副美好图景：只要北美人民从这位英国恶棍手下独立出去，他们就能幸福地生活在自然状态中。

How does the book change the world?

这本书如何改变了世界？

Zachary Davis: Okay, so let's talk about now what happens once it's published. I mean, how did it start to change the future of the colonies?

扎卡里·戴维斯：我们来谈谈《常识》出版之后的影响吧。它如何改变了北美的历史？

Caroline Winterer: Well, first of all, it very much irritated the king and the British who started publishing these counter-pamphlets. The main effect appears to have been that it allowed for a massive swaying of public opinion so that when the Second Continental Congress and the drive toward independence were sort of finally being put on the table, the ultimate break with Britain, that they could be relatively sure of a broad base of public support behind them, that this was very exciting to people.

卡罗琳·温特勒：首先，它惹恼了英国国王。英国人开始出版一些和它针锋相对的小册子。它最大的影响在于极大地左右了公众舆论，这就确保了第二次大陆会议召开、独立在所难免时，华盛顿等人基本能够确定，自己背后有着民众的广泛支持。民众很乐于迎来一个独立的美国。

Caroline Winterer: If Paine's pamphlet had not been published, either independence would not have happened, that there would have been reconciliation, and Britain tried several times over the course of the war to bring olive branches to the colonies. But if there hadn't been Paine's Common Sense, there either would not have been a revolution or the colonies might have been willing to accept one of these olive branches, and we would have been Canada.

卡罗琳·温特勒：如果《常识》没有出版，北美殖民地很可能不会独立，双方可能会和解，毕竟独立战争期间英方多次抛出了橄榄枝。要是没有潘恩的《常识》，要么独立战争不会打响，要么殖民地会接过某根橄榄枝，美国就会成为第二个加拿大。

Caroline Winterer: But, you know, Paine essentially raises the stakes so that they are not just about commercial prosperity, but they're about ultimate existential realities. I think that the cause of the revolution would not have been pushed forward with such a degree of alacrity, I guess. So, we might have had the Declaration of Independence, but later or not at all.

卡罗琳·温特勒：潘恩将北美独立推向了一个更高的境界，让它不仅关乎北美经贸发展，更关乎人民生活的终极理想。如果没有《常识》，起义可能没法推进得那么迅速。那样的话，我们可能会签署《独立宣言》，也许时间会晚点，但也有可能就不会签署了。

Zachary Davis: Part of the reason Paine’s text was so influential was that it wasn’t just about the American Revolution. It spoke out against monarchy across the board.

扎卡里·戴维斯：潘恩的书之所以影响深远，部分原因是它不仅仅宣扬了美国独立，还反对了所有君主制。

Caroline Winterer: The Declaration of Independence is, has twenty-eight grievances against one king. Paine's Common Sense has a full frontal assault on all monarchy at all time. And so it's a much richer document intellectually in that sense, and so it transcends its time. And so you can use it, for example, in another revolution.

卡罗琳·温特勒：《独立宣言》列出了英王的二十八条暴行，而潘恩的《常识》全面抨击了有史以来的所有君主制。从这个意义上讲，《常识》的内涵更为丰富，具有跨时代的意义。所以在其他革命中，人们也可以引用其中的内容。

Zachary Davis: Thirteen years after Common Sense was first published, France began a revolution of their own. Similar to the American revolutionaries, the people of France wanted independence from their monarchical ruler, Louis XVI. Paine’s ideas about the natural rights of man and the state of nature fueled the French revolutionaries. During this time, he wrote other texts arguing for human rights such as The Rights of Man and The Age of Reason.

扎克里·戴维斯：《常识》首次出版的十三年后，法国也掀起了革命。法国人民也像美国人民一样，希望推翻国王路易十六的统治。潘恩的自然权利和自然状态思想推动了法国革命的爆发。在法国大革命期间，他还写了其他论述人权的著作，如《人权论》和《理性时代》。

Zachary Davis: What is the longue durée influence of Common Sense and Paine’s other writings after the French Revolution going forward?

扎克里·戴维斯：自法国大革命以来，《常识》和潘恩的其他著作有哪些长期影响？

Caroline Winterer: His greatest influence has really been in the United States. So I would say the only document that he wrote that has had an enduring value for people outside of academia, outside of stuff we teach to our students in college classes is Thomas Paine's Common Sense, which, you know, as you know, you can just sit down and read for a little bit with pleasure. And it's a reminder that education is great, but you don't need a fancy education to say things that seem really true to a lot of people if you speak clearly and eloquently about wrongs that must be righted.

卡罗琳·温特勒：在美国你可以看到他的影响力。他的《常识》在学术界和大学课堂之外都有着深远的意义。你可以捧起这本小册子，愉快地坐下来读上几页。它也提醒我们，教育很伟大，但你不需要拿着亮眼的文凭来，说一堆对很多人而言无比正确的内容，你只要清晰流畅地指出需要纠正的地方即可。

Zachary Davis: Imagine you’re at a cocktail party, imagine that someone comes up to you and says, “Professor Winterer, how did Thomas Paine's Common Sense change the world?” How do you respond to her in one or two sentences?

扎克里·戴维斯：假设您在一个鸡尾酒会上，有人走过来问您，托马斯·潘恩的《常识》如何改变了世界，您会如何用一两句话回答呢？

Caroline Winterer: Thomas Paine changed the world because he changed hundreds of thousands of people's minds overnight about a couple of truths that they thought were fundamental to their lived reality, and they discovered by reading Thomas Paine that they were wrong.

卡罗琳·温特勒：他的作品一夜之间改变了无数人的观念，让他们不再相信过去信以为真的所谓“真理”。而这恰恰是《常识》一书带给他们的改变。

Zachary Davis: It took an outsider’s perspective to articulate and catalyze the fate of the American colonies. Without Paine, without Common Sense, there may not have been a United States as we know it today. His views on human rights and equality laid the groundwork for American independence and democratic revolutions worldwide.

扎克里·戴维斯：《常识》一书从一个外来者的视角探讨了北美殖民地的未来，改写了美国的命运。若不是潘恩，若不是他这本书，可能就不会有今天的美国。他的人权和平等理念为美国独立战争乃至全世界的民主革命奠定了理论基础。

Zachary Davis: Writ Large is a production of Ximalaya. Writ Large is produced by Jack Pombriant and me, Zachary Davis, and is edited by Galen Beebe. We get help from Liza French, Ariel Liu, Wendy Wu, and Monica Zhang. Our theme song is by Ian Coss. Don’t miss an episode. Subscribe today in the Ximalaya app. Thanks for listening. See you next time.

扎卡里·戴维斯：本节目由喜马拉雅独家制作播出。感谢您的收听，我们下期再见！