Only a fool would make firm assertions about the future. How many pundits writing at the dawn of 1913 predicted the oncoming first world war, let alone two such wars that almost finished off European civilisation? What one can do is examine the implications of trends already in evidence.
只有傻子才会对未来言之凿凿。有多少权威在1913年初撰文时预言一战即将爆发?更别提预言两场几乎毁灭欧洲文明的全球战争了。人们所能做的只是从初露端倪的迹象中判断趋势指引。
It may be worth starting with the German writer Oswald Spengler who published in 1918-1923 an alarmist book, The Decline of the West . He was not so much wrong as premature. And like many “declinists he failed to see that a decline in relative position was compatible with high and even rising western living standards.
或许我们有必要从德国作家奥斯瓦尔德·斯彭格勒(Oswald Spengler)说起。斯彭格勒在1918年到1923年期间发表了一部杞人忧天的著作《西方的没落》(Decline of the West)。与其说斯彭格勒是错误的,还不如说他不成熟。与许多“衰落主义者一样,斯彭格勒未能看到的是,西方相对地位下降的同时,其生活水平仍可以很高,甚至不断上升。
Indeed, what has to be explained is not the west’s looming relative decline but its temporary pre-eminence. Of a world population approaching 7bn, the US and western Europe together account for a mere 770m. Their gross domestic product per head – a very approximate guide to living standards – is three times the world average. Such discrepancies can hardly be expected to last in an increasingly globalised planet. In 1500, just after Christopher Columbus’s voyages of discovery, China and India were both estimated to have had a total GDP considerably higher than western Europe’s and GDP per head only slightly lower. Earlier still, in about 1000, living standards were fairly uniform – and low – throughout the world but the estimates show China slightly in the lead.
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