In retrospect, Claudine Gay’s fate was sealed by a single word. (She resigned the presidency of Harvard on Tuesday, just six months into her tenure.) It wasn’t “plagiarism” or “genocide” — the fearsome fighting words most publicly associated with her case — but rather a careful, neutral piece of language that struck some listeners as outrageous for precisely that reason: an attempt at anti-inflammatory rhetoric that had the opposite effect. The word was “context.”
如今回头看，克劳丁·盖伊的命运是由一个词决定的。（她在周二辞去了哈佛校长一职，任职仅六个月。）不是“抄袭”或“种族灭绝”——这两个狰狞可怕的词最常出现在有关她的公开讨论中——而是一个谨慎、中性的用语，它让听者愤怒不已，恰恰是因为它的谨慎和中性：她的本意是避免使用煽动性的措辞，结果起到了相反的效果。这个词就是：语境。
Testifying at a congressional hearing in early December with two other university presidents — only one of whom, Sally Kornbluth of M.I.T., still has her job — she was asked by Representative Elise Stefanik (Republican of New York; Harvard ’06) whether “calling for the genocide of Jews” violated “Harvard’s rules of bullying and harassment.” Dr. Gay replied that it might, “depending on the context,” a formulation she reiterated when Ms. Stefanik rephrased the question. Dr. Gay later apologized for those remarks, but they had already entered the media bloodstream, making her and her fellow witnesses an overnight meme representing the insensitivity and cluelessness of elite academic leadership.
在12月初她与另外两位大学校长——三人中只有麻省理工的萨丽·科恩布拉特目前还在任上——一同参加的国会听证会上，爱丽丝·斯蒂芬尼克众议员（纽约州共和党人；哈佛06届）问她，“呼吁灭绝犹太人”是否违反了“哈佛有关霸凌和骚扰的规章”。盖伊回答说可能违反，但“这要看语境”，斯蒂芬尼克重新组织了提问的措辞后，她仍然是这样回答。盖伊后来就这一言论道歉，但这段对话已经进入传媒血液循环中，让她和其他出席作证的人一夜之间成了米姆，代表了精英学院领导层的麻木与无知。
Now that Dr. Gay is out (following M. Elizabeth Magill of the University of Pennsylvania, who resigned shortly after the hearing), there is more than enough context to go around. Her career, until last July a steady, brisk climb through faculty and administrative ranks to the pinnacle of American higher education, has become a punditic bonanza and a culture-war Rorschach test.
现在盖伊已经出局（宾夕法尼亚大学的M·伊丽莎白·马吉尔在听证会后没多久就辞职了），有足够多可供我们热议的语境。直到去年7月以前，她的职业生涯一直平步青云，从教工到行政，最终登上美国高等教育的巅峰，如今却成了坊间的一个谈资，这场文化战争的一项罗夏墨渍测验。
Those who believe that the modern university is tyrannized by left-wing ideology and undermined by diversity initiatives have been quick to elevate Dr. Gay into a symbol of systemic dysfunction. For her defenders, she looks more like a scapegoat, arguably the most prominent casualty in a long conservative crusade against the intellectual establishment. Ms. Stefanik and Christopher Rufo, the right-wing activist who pushed the allegations of scholarly misconduct that finally precipitated Dr. Gay’s exit, might not disagree with that assessment. “I will always deliver results,” Ms. Stefanik said in a statement on Tuesday, promising to continue her efforts to “expose the rot” in America’s leading universities.
一些人认为当今大学已经被左翼意识形态的暴政统治，受到多元化行动的残害，对这些人来说，盖伊很快就成了体制失能的象征。而为她辩护的人则认为她更像是成了替罪羊，在保守派对知识建制阶层发起的一场漫长的讨伐中，可谓是被斩落马下的最显赫人物。无论是斯蒂芬尼克，还是推动了学术不端指控的传播，最终促成盖伊去职的右翼活动人士克里斯托弗·鲁佛，可能都会同意这一论断。“我做事一定要拿出成果，”斯蒂芬尼克在周二的一份声明中说，她承诺会继续“揭露”美国顶尖大学的“腐朽”。
The Israel-Hamas conflict and American election-year politics are not the only salient context here. Academia seems to be in the grip of a multidimensional crisis that goes beyond ideology, and also beyond Harvard. Higher learning is plagued by opaque admissions policies; runaway tuition costs; administrative bloat; grade inflation; helicopter parents; cancel culture. The list goes on. An assiduous scholar might connect these phenomena with recent events in Harvard Yard. An enterprising writer could weave the whole thing into a bristling campus novel, something worthy of Paul Beatty or Mary McCarthy.
围绕此事值得注意的语境，不只是以色列与哈马斯的冲突以及美国的大选年政治。学术界似乎陷入了一场多维度的危机，远远超出了意识形态的范畴，也不仅限于哈佛这一间学校。高等教育深受不透明的录取政策的困扰；天价学费；行政机构臃肿；学分通胀；直升机父母；取消文化。还有很多很多。有心的学者可能会把这些现象与哈佛园近来的一些事件联系起来。锐意进取的作家可以把整件事写进一部令人怒发冲冠的校园小说里，堪与保罗·比蒂或玛丽·麦卡锡媲美。
Instead, for now, we will have to make do with Dr. Gay’s letter of resignation — emailed to students, faculty, alumni and others with the subject line “Personal News” — and the message from the Harvard Corporation (the university’s secretive governing body) about her departure.
不过，目前我们暂时只能将就着看看盖伊的辞职信——这封信以电子邮件的形式发给了学生、教工、校友以及其他许多人，其标题是“个人发布”——以及哈佛校董委员会（行事隐秘的哈佛理事机构）就她的去职发布的通讯。
What is most striking about these texts — each amounting to little more than 600 words, all of them carefully measured, few of them memorable — is their rigorous avoidance of context. No mention is made of Congress, or Gaza, or anything that might actually explain what happened. “We live in difficult and troubling times,” the corporation’s letter asserts, “and formidable challenges lie ahead.” The nature of the trouble is mainly left unspoken, in keeping with an overall commitment to abstraction, as if bland, nonspecific language could wash away the difficulty. It’s only when the letters note what the corporation calls the “repugnant and in some cases racist vitriol” Dr. Gay faced as Harvard’s first Black president that they register some of the rawness and rage of contemporary reality.
两篇文章都只有600词出头，其中大部分是经过反复揣摩却过目即忘的语言，它们最引人注目的地方，恰恰是如何煞费苦心地避免提及语境。文中没有提到国会或加沙，或任何其它有助于解释发生了什么事的东西。“我们处在一个艰难而纷扰的时代，”校董委员会的信中说，“前方还有难以逾越的挑战在等着我们。”文章很大程度上没有谈论困难的性质，这与整体上的抽象承诺是保持一致的，仿佛平淡、宽泛的语言可以将困境化解。只有当委员会提到，作为哈佛首位黑人校长的盖伊要面对“令人反感的、有时甚至是种族主义的刻薄言论”时，才有了些直抒胸臆的味道，传达出当下现实的愤怒。
Otherwise, the sole concrete reference — virtually the only proper noun — in either letter is Harvard. Dr. Gay opens hers with an affirmation of her “deep love for Harvard,” while the corporation expresses Harvard’s inexhaustible regard for itself. Perhaps that’s to be expected of an institution reeling from a public-relations catastrophe; its dutiful defense of its fallen president — as “a leader, a teacher, a scholar, a mentor and an inspiration to many” — is also in keeping with the demands of the moment and the genre.
除此之外，两封信中唯一的具体指涉——基本上也是唯一出现的专有名词——是哈佛。盖伊的信一上来重申了她“对哈佛的热爱”，而委员会表达了哈佛对自身的无限骄傲。对于一个陷入公关灾难的机构来说，这样做可能不奇怪；学校对落难校长的尽心维护——称她是“一位领袖，一位学者，一位导师，给许多人带去鼓舞”——也符合当下情境和这种文体的要求。
What’s curious, though, is that Harvard, which compels its undergraduates to master expository writing in their freshman year, cannot find the language to defend itself. The corporation does not apologize or explain. Instead, it throws up its hands in prayer: “May our community, with its long history of rising through change and through storm, find new ways to meet those challenges together, and to affirm Harvard’s commitment to generating knowledge, pursuing truth and contributing through scholarship and education to a better world.”
令人困惑的是，要求本科新生必须掌握说明文写作的哈佛，不知道该如何组织语言来为自己辩解。委员会所做的不是道歉或解释，而是举起手来祈祷：“我们的社区向来能在变革与风雨中站起来，愿它能够团结一心，找到应对挑战的新方法，坚定哈佛对知识生产、真理探究的承诺，用学识与教育为世界的进步做贡献。”
The clouds of mystification gather early. Can a nearly 400-year-old entity that began as a seminary for young Protestant men and grew into a global educational brand with a $50 billion endowment be said in any meaningful sense to constitute a community? The sentence then succumbs to a storm of clattering prose and conceptual incoherence. It’s hard to know just what or how many things Harvard is committed to, or what new ways of affirming that commitment might be found.
迷雾从一开始就聚拢了起来。一个有近400年历史的实体，从面向年轻男性新教徒的神学院起家，发展成为坐拥500亿美元捐款的全球教育品牌，还能堂而皇之地自称是一个社区吗？然后这个句子就被一堆叽里呱啦的辞藻和支离破碎的概念吞没了。很难看明白哈佛到底有多少坚持，到底坚持些什么，还有什么新方法来坚定那些承诺。
Dr. Gay’s letter expresses personal anguish rather than institutional embarrassment, which makes it a more cogent document. It’s hard not to be moved by her loyalty to Harvard, partly because rather than invoking an imaginary trans-historical community, she places her faith concretely in “the people of Harvard.” But how those people might realize “the possibility and the promise of a better future” — what the corporation, falling into management-speak, calls the “mission” — is something of a puzzle.
盖伊的信表达的则是个人的痛苦，而不是机构的尴尬，这使它成为一份更有说服力的文件。我们很难不被她对哈佛的忠诚所感动，部分原因是她没有诉诸于一个空想出来的跨历史社区，而是把自己的信念具体地寄托在“哈佛人”身上。但是，这些人如何实现“更美好未来的可能性和承诺”——也就是校董委员会的管理人士行话所谓的“使命”——就无从得知了。
“These last weeks,” Dr. Gay writes, “have helped make clear the work we need to do to build that future — to combat bias and hate in all its forms, to create a learning environment in which we respect each other’s dignity and treat one another with compassion, and to affirm our enduring commitment to open inquiry and free expression in the pursuit of truth.” This sentence echoes the Harvard Corporation’s gusty roster of commitments, improving the syntax and the prose rhythm. Those infinitives stack up nicely. It sounds like a lot of work, but how can anyone be against any of it?
“过去的几周，”盖伊写道，“有助于明确我们需要做的工作，以建立这样的未来——与各种形式的偏见和仇恨做斗争，创造一个我们尊重彼此尊严、以同情心对待彼此的学习环境，并确认我们在追求真理的过程中进行开放式探究和自由表达的持久承诺。”这句话呼应了哈佛的大量承诺，改善了句法和散文节奏。这些不定式很好地叠加在一起。听起来工作量很大，但怎么会有人反对呢？
The real question, though, is how one institution can be for all of it. Is this work the university is really equipped to do? Combating bias may involve constraining open inquiry; free expression is not always respectful or compassionate. The pursuit of truth may outrun everything else. This cascade of noble imperatives can be read descriptively, as a diagnosis of the causes of campus turmoil. What is presented as a list of unimpeachable virtues and laudable goals is in practice a web of contradictions.
然而，真正的问题是，一个机构如何能够承担所有的责任。这所大学真的有能力进行这项工作吗？打击偏见可能涉及限制公开调查；自由表达并不总是意味着尊重或同情。对真理的追求可能凌驾于其它一切之上。这一连串高尚的要求可以被描述为对校园混乱原因的诊断。那些看似无懈可击的美德和值得称赞的目标，实际上是一张充满矛盾的网。
It’s not a web that Dr. Gay spun. The sentence, after all, is hardly original; it’s a list of commonplaces, the kind of high-minded assertion of consensus that a university president is expected to deliver, and perhaps even to believe. Can anyone else believe in it? That depends on the context.
这不是由盖伊编织的网。毕竟，这句话并无新意；这是一连串的老生常谈，是一所大学校长应该传达、甚至可能相信的那种高尚的共识主张。这主张还会有人相信吗？那就要看语境了。
A.O.Scott是时报书评作者。他于2000年加入时报，在2023年年初以前是时报影评人。他也是《Better Living Through Criticism》一书的作者。
翻译：晋其角、杜然
