龔鵬程對話海外學者第七十一期：在后現代情境中，被技術統治的人類社會，只有強化交談、重建溝通倫理，才能獲得文化新生的力量。這不是誰的理論，而是每個人都應實踐的活動。龔鵬程先生遊走世界，并曾主持過“世界漢學研究中心”。我們會陸續推出“龔鵬程對話海外學者”系列文章，請他對話一些學界有意義的靈魂。范圍不局限于漢學，會涉及多種學科。以期深山長谷之水，四面而出。

理查德·湯普森·福特教授（Professor Richard Thompson Ford）

美國斯坦福大學法學教授

龔鵬程教授：您好。人們普遍認為，擴大公民權利并更加堅定地執行這些權利可以讓社會不公正現象消失。 然而，在您的《權利的錯：法律如何破壞爭取平等的斗爭》（Rights Gone Wrong: How Law Corrupts the Struggle for Equality）一書中，您認為盡管有時權利運作得很好，但有時它們可能適得其反，使社會問題變得更加困難。 您能為此做一些闡釋嗎？

理查德·湯普森·福特教授：龔教授，您好。基于權利的社會正義的途徑，具有將控制權置集中在個人手中的優點。如果您覺得自己受到了虐待，法律賦予您尋求糾正的權利。至少在理論上，這些權利將得到執行，不去考慮成本和收益或對他人的影響。因此，以該權利過于昂貴或會造成超過其對個人的利益的社會危害為反對合法權利的有效論據是無效的。

但是這種方法有幾個明顯的缺點。它不能保證社會正義，因為它的目的不是解決系統性問題——而是孤立地解決問題。

例如，美國法律禁止就業中的種族歧視，這有助于當一個符合要求的個人僅僅因為種族而被拒絕工作時。但是，對于缺乏社會經驗或缺乏獲得好工作所必需的“軟技能”的貧窮和孤立的非洲裔美國人來說，這幾乎沒有什么作用。機會不平等的問題比面臨非理性偏見的個人更大。

此外，個體化執法無法解決廣泛的系統不公正問題，因為何時起訴是由個人決定的。因此，法律傾向于那些擁有知識、時間和資源來駕馭法律體系的人——那些已經相對富裕的人。

更糟糕的是，由于法律不考慮社會背景，而只考慮個別情況，因此濫用行為可能已經成熟，有時實際上會使更廣泛的社會問題變得更糟。

例如，禁止性別歧視的法律——明確旨在促進女性平等——被男性用來攻擊酒吧的“女士之夜”促銷活動，甚至是母親節的贈品。而且，更嚴重的是，通過對種族意識的肯定來糾正幾代種族歧視的影響的努力，已被攻擊為對白人的“反向歧視”。

A rights-based approach to social justice has the virtue of placing control in the hands of individuals. If you feel you have been mistreated, the law gives you an entitlement to seek redress. And these entitlements, at least in theory, will be enforced regardless of the costs and benefits or the effects on others. So, it is not a valid argument against a legal right that the right is too expensive or will cause social harm that outweighs its benefit to the individual. But this approach has several severe downsides. It cannot guarantee social justice because it is not designed to address systemic problems—instead it addresses problems in isolation. For example, American law prohibits race discrimination in employment, which helps when a clearly qualified individual is denied a job solely because of race. But it does little to open job opportunities to poor and isolated African-Americans who lack the social connections or “soft skills” necessary to get good jobs. The problem of unequal opportunities is larger than an individual facing irrational prejudice. Also, individualized enforcement can’t address broad system injustices because the decision of when to sue is made by individuals. So enforcement is skewed toward the claims people who have the knowledge, time and resources to navigate the legal system—those who are already relatively well off. Worse yet, because the law does not look at social context, but only at individual cases, it can be ripe of abuses and sometimes actually make the broader social problems worse. For example, laws prohibiting sex discrimination—clearly designed to advance women’s equality—are used by men to attack “Ladies Night” promotions at bars and even Mother’s Day giveaways. And, more seriously, efforts to redress the effects of generations of race discrimination through race conscious affirmative have been successfully attacked as “reverse discrimination” against whites.

龔鵬程教授：在您最新的著作《著裝規范：時尚法則如何創造歷史》（Dress Codes: How the Laws of Fashion Made History）中，您概述了時尚法則和服裝習俗的歷史。 作為一名民權學者，您認為時尚法的哪些方面很有趣，時尚與歧視等民權問題又有怎樣的關聯？

理查德·湯普森·福特教授：著裝規范與服裝本身一樣古老。幾個世紀以來，服裝一直是可穿戴身份的象征。時尚，爭取社會變革的武器；和著裝規范，一種維持政治控制的方式。在由社會等級結構和景觀定義的中世紀社會中，穿著像王子和屠夫的妻子一樣戴著寶石鑲嵌的王冠的商人是公敵。

在都鐸王朝的英格蘭，絲綢、天鵝絨和皮草被保留給貴族，而被稱為“行李箱軟管”（trunk hose）的膨脹褲（ballooning pants）可能被認為是對良好秩序的威脅。

文藝復興時期的佛羅倫薩族長科西莫·德·美第奇 (Cosimo de Medici) 抓住了時尚和著裝規范的力量，他說：“一個人可以用兩碼紅布制成紳士（One can make a gentleman from two yards of red cloth.）。”

著裝規范隨著當時的社會和政治理想而演變，但它們始終反映了權力和地位的斗爭。在 1700 年代，南卡羅來納州的“黑人法案”（Negro Ac）規定黑人穿著“高于他們的條件”（above their condition）是非法的。在 1920 年代，美國各地的工作場所都禁止自由奔放的女工穿著短發和合身的連衣裙，而在 1940 年代，黑人和拉丁裔男性喜歡的寬松的 Zoot 西裝（zoot suits）在東海岸到西海岸的城市引發了騷亂。

即使在當今更加非正式的世界中，著裝規范仍然決定著我們穿什么、什么時候穿——以及服裝對于我們來數意味著什么。人們會因為編辮子、長指甲、大耳環、胡須和紋身或拒絕穿西裝、打領帶、化妝和高跟鞋而失去工作。在一些城市，穿下垂的褲子是一種犯罪行為。

即使沒有書面規則，隱含的著裝規范仍然會影響機會和社會流動性。硅谷的 CEO 們穿著 T 恤和人字拖，為整個行業定下了基調：穿著時尚連衣裙或高跟鞋的女性，在科技界面臨嘲笑，一些風險投資家拒絕投資任何穿著西裝的人經營的公司。

我的書，著裝規范，介紹了從中世紀到現在的時尚規律歷史，走在歷史的紅地毯上，揭開和審視服裝的經典、習俗和習俗——那些我們經常認為理所當然的規則。閱讀了著裝規范后，您將永遠不會再認為時尚是膚淺的——穿衣也將不再一樣。

Dress codes are as old as clothing itself. For centuries, clothing has been a wearable status symbol; fashion, a weapon in struggles for social change; and dress codes, a way to maintain political control. Merchants who dressed like princes and butchers’ wives wearing gem-encrusted crowns were public enemies in medieval societies structured by social hierarchy and defined by spectacle. In Tudor England, silk, velvet and fur were reserved for the nobility and ballooning pants called “trunk hose” could be considered a menace to good order. The Renaissance era Florentine patriarch Cosimo de Medici captured the power of fashion and dress codes when he remarked, “One can make a gentleman from two yards of red cloth.” Dress codes evolved along with the social and political ideals of the day, but they always reflected struggles for power and status. In the 1700s, South Carolina’s “Negro Act” made it illegal for Black people to dress “above their condition.” In the 1920s, the bobbed hair and form-fitting dresses worn by free-spirited flappers were banned in workplaces throughout the United States and in the 1940s the baggy zoot suits favored by Black and Latino men caused riots in cities from coast to coast.

Even in today’s more informal world, dress codes still determine what we wear, when we wear it—and what our clothing means. People lose their jobs for wearing braided hair, long fingernails, large earrings, beards and tattoos or refusing to wear a suit and tie or make-up and high heels. In some cities, wearing sagging pants is a crime. And even when there are no written rules, implicit dress codes still influence opportunities and social mobility. Silicon Valley CEOs wear t-shirts and flip flops, setting the tone for an entire industry: women wearing fashionable dresses or high heels face ridicule in the tech world and some venture capitalists refuse to invest in any company run by someone wearing a suit.

My book,Dress Codes presents a history of the laws of fashion from the middle ages to the present day, a walk down history’s red carpet to uncover and examine the canons, mores and customs of clothing—rules that we often take for granted. After reading Dress Codes, you’ll never think of fashion as superficial again—and getting dressed will never be the same.

龔鵬程教授：您是學術自由聯盟（academic freedom alliance）的成員，這是一個堅持學術自由原則的非營利組織，成立于 2021 年。您能否簡要介紹一下該組織的起源和宗旨？ 您認為在美國大學里言論自由嗎，您認為“取消文化”的恐懼被夸大了？

理查德·湯普森·福特教授：AFA 是由具有不同意識形態信念的人組織起來的，他們的共同信念是學術自由受到許多不同敵人的威脅。有一種“取消文化”（cancel culture）的想法已經成為右翼的稻草人。但是，雖然這個詞被過度使用，但存在一種由惡意騷擾和排斥所強化的意識形態正統觀念的真正問題。

有些職位被簡單地視為具有放射性，結果是人們不再愿意討論某些事情，因為他們會害怕變成騷擾的對象標。

從左到右，我們看到了針對使用“錯誤”過時術語或在涉及種族、性別、性別和性別認同的問題上采取有爭議但站得住腳的立場的人的攻擊。

反對英國作家 J.K.羅琳（J.K. Rowling）就是一個很好的例子：她對跨性別問題的看法是有爭議的，在我看來，這應該受到挑戰；但它們并不是仇恨或卑鄙的，她提出的問題值得大眾討論。但是有一種反應，經常被那些不知道她的表述的人所接受，將她稱為一個恐跨癥的偏執狂。

這種恥辱一直伴隨著她，盡管她做得很好，但其他分享她的觀點但不同意她的地位和財富的人，無疑會因為她是榜樣而不去發表看法。

還有一個更大的右翼人士的審查問題：例如，我的大學斯坦福大學的一名剛畢業的學生因其對巴以沖突的評論，而成為組織良好且極具誤導性的媒體宣傳活動的目標，并且一位美國參議員加入了反對她的十字軍東征。她丟掉了作為記者的工作，因為她作為一名大學生擔任了有爭議的職位。

具有諷刺意味的是，雖然她被攻擊為敵視以色列國，但她是猶太人并且在以色列生活過。

或者考慮一下由福克斯新聞等媒體和機會主義政客積極推動的對“關鍵種族理論”（ “Critical Race Theory.”）的恐慌。從字面上看，沒有一個攻擊批判種族理論的人為他們的主張引用實際證據，許多人甚至承認他們不知道批判種族理論是什么。然而，這場騷擾運動導致了禁止教授“批判種族理論”的行政命令和立法。

同樣，美國各州現在禁止教授性取向（所謂的“不要說同性戀”法）（Don’t Say Gay”laws）。這是反對高等教育或探索威脅自己地位和特權的思想的人們對知識自由的直接攻擊。

所以，我認為這里有一個真正的問題，隨著意識形態兩極分化的加劇，這個問題變得明顯。

在大學校園里，管理人員經常采取更容易的方式，屈服于紀律或譴責發表有爭議言論的教師的要求。無論要求審查的人是學生還是校友，他們都是在錯誤地加強對寬容的看法，還是保守的校友、捐助者和越來越多的反對，不利于他們自己議程的想法的政客，都會發生這種情況。

這違反了學術自由的理想，并且有可能將校園變成只公開表達保守和沒有挑戰性的想法的地方。AFA反對這種狹隘的思想和極權主義的思想，無論它出現在哪里，也究竟是誰在背后支持。

The AFA was organized by people of very different ideological convictions who were joined by a shared belief that academic freedom was under threat from many different enemies. There is the idea of “cancel culture” which has become a sort of scarecrow for the right. But while the term is overused, there is a real issue with a sort of ideological orthodoxy that is enforced by vicious harassment and ostracism. Some positions are simply considered radioactive and the result is that people are no longer willing to discuss some things for fear of being targeted with a harassment campaign. From the left, we’ve seen attacks directed at people who use “wrong” outdated terminology or take controversial but defensible positions on questions dealing with race, sex, gender and gender identity. The campaign against the British author J.K. Rowling is a good example: her views on trans gender issues are controversial and, in my view, deserve to be challenged, but they are not hateful or mean spirited and she raises questions that merit civil discussion. But there’s been a reaction, often taken up by people who are ignorant of her actual statements, to tar her as a transphobic bigot. This stigma follows her to this day and although she is, of course, doing just fine, other people who may share her views but not her status and wealth, are undoubtedly deterred from speaking by her example.

There is an even larger issue of censorship by very powerful people on the right: for example, a recent graduate from my university, Stanford, was targeted for her comments about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by a very well organized and quite misleading media campaign and the crusade against her was joined by a U.S. Senator. She lost her job as a reporter over defensible if controversial position she took as a college student. An irony there was that while she was attacked as hostile to the state of Israel, she is Jewish and had lived in Israel. Or consider the panic, actively promoted by media outlets such as Fox News and by opportunistic politicians, over “Critical Race Theory.” Literally not one of the people attacking Critical Race Theory has cited any actual evidence for their claims and many have even admitted that they don’t know what Critical Race Theory is. Yet this harassment campaign has resulted in executive orders and legislation prohibiting the teaching of “Critical Race Theory”. Likewise, American states now prohibit teaching about sexual orientation (the so called “Don’t Say Gay” laws). This is a direct attack on intellectual liberty by people who oppose higher education or the exploration of ideas that threaten their own status and privilege. So, I believe that there is a real problem here, which is becoming more pronounced as ideological polarization increases. On college campuses, administrators often take the easier path and succumb to demands to discipline or censure faculty who make controversial statements. This happens whether the people demanding censorship are progressive students and alumni in a misguided effort to enforce their view of tolerance or conservative alumni, donors and increasingly, politicians who oppose ideas that are inconvenient for their own agendas. This is a violation of the ideal of academic freedom and it risks turning campuses into places where only anodyne and unchallenging ideas are openly expressed. The AFA opposes this kind of narrow mindedness and totalitarian policing of thought wherever it appears and whoever is behind it.

龔鵬程，1956年生于臺北，臺灣師范大學博士，當代著名學者和思想家。著作已出版一百五十多本。

辦有大學、出版社、雜志社、書院等，并規劃城市建設、主題園區等多處。講學于世界各地。并在北京、上海、杭州、臺北、巴黎、日本、澳門等地舉辦過書法展。現為中國孔子博物館名譽館長、美國龔鵬程基金會主席。