怀旧如何让美国再次伟大

By+Mike+Mariani

Make America great again. Clearly the message resonated. In 2016 the Public Religion Research Institute， a nonpartisan2 group， published its annual American Values Survey. It revealed 51% of the population felt the American way of life had changed for the worse since the 1950s. Further， 70% said American society has gotten worse since that romanticized decade.

Of course America today has its problems， but many indices3 of standards of living show the general population is better off now than it was 60 years ago. We live on average 10 years longer， the education rate is higher， as is homeownership. When it comes to crime， The Atlantic reported last year， “By virtually any metric4， Americans now live in one of the least violent times in the nations history.”

So why do so many people see the past as better than today？ For many of them， it may well have been. Middleand working-class Americans seduced by appeals to earlier eras may have had higher-paying jobs with better benefits， greater financial security， and a more defined place in the community. Perhaps they were happier. For some， cultural changes since the Saturday night sock-hop may have only strengthened their beliefs that American values have frayed.5 But an innate psychological trait may also explain why people tend to view the past as better than today： nostalgia.

Most everybody knows the term nostalgia， if not its origin. It was coined by Swiss physician Johannes Hofer in 1688： a portmanteau6 of nostos and algos， Greek words for homecoming and pain or distress， respectively. And most have an understanding that nostalgia means finding pleasure in remembering or reliving a past experience—hearing a favorite old song， for instance， or remembering a stirring love affair.

Recent science， though， makes good on the etymology of the term.7 It reveals nostalgia is not just a wistful glow associated with pleasurable events and experiences.8 It is an innate response to pain or distress， and， in some sense， a coming home. Whats more， cognitive scientists say， a defining trait of nostalgia is its capacity to distort the past.

In the process of looking back， people tend to filter out negative or painful experiences. Memories themselves are often not what they seem. They are not hardwired in our brains， a factual representation of our autobiographical pasts.9 Rather， memory is fluid， and were constantly reframing our personal histories to fit into a greater life arc. In many cases， the past looks as halcyon as it does because rosy hindsight molds it to appear that way to help us maintain mental health.10 Our past is constantly shifting to accommodate our present.

When Clay Routledge， the author of Nostalgia： a Psychological Resource， began researching nostalgia， he was interested in how this universally shared feeling might help us better deal with the future. “I started out with this very specific hypothesis of nostalgia as a coping resource，” he says.“We can reflect back in time on experiences that we find personally meaningful. Might we use such past-oriented experiences as a way to cope with future-oriented anxieties？”

Pursuing this hunch， Routledge and a team of researchers began looking at the potential benefits of “nostalgizing，” as they termed it： How it might help us maintain equilibrium11 in times of crisis， recall loving relationships， and generally lean on the bright spots in our pasts. Their studies contextualized nostalgias utility， showing that its frequently triggered by low moods， loneliness， and even a sense of meaninglessness. These triggers suggested that nostalgia might be a kind of defense mechanism， a way to maintain resiliency during periods of anxiety， despair， and existential distress.12 “What seems to be the case is that nostalgia can be an adaptive tool to deal with a lot of psychological threats，” he says.

Nostalgia， it turns out， helps cultivate what psychologists call “self-continuity.”The concept refers to our ability to maintain our identity and sense of self through the vicissitudes13 of our life spans， from the death of a loved one to a career change to devastating illness.“Self-continuity means the sense that I have this stable， continuous sense of self，” Routledge says. Self-continuity gives coherence to our lives， the impression that there is a permanent， unchanging self underneath the random events and crises that transform our circumstances over the years.

Past research has found self-discontinuity—this sense of estrangement from past selves—to be a maladaptive trait，14 something that causes psychological distress. But a strong sense of self-continuity can help combat those episodes of disjuncture15 in our lives. So how does nostalgia enhance ones self-continuity？

Routledge and his co-authors rated participants on two scales. The first， the Social Readjustment Rating Scale， looks at major life events that may disrupt self-continuity and elicit16 self-discontinuity. The second was the Southampton Nostalgia Scale， a rating system for nostalgia-proneness17. They found a positive correlation18 between experiences that induce self-discontinuity and an individuals nostalgia proneness.

These findings indicate that nostalgia is a natural response to self-discontinuity， a psychological tool that mitigates19 damage to our sense of self. Routledge explains that the various phenomena associated with autobiographical memory—chiefly psychological biases called fading affect and rosy retrospection—are ideally suited to induce nostalgia.20 “The way these memories work， works perfectly for nostalgia，” he says. In other words， the memories inducing nostalgia have been burnished and idealized over time， shorn of their negative aspects.21 But these recollections serve an important adaptive purpose. When people are experiencing situations that challenge that sense of self and make them feel uncertain about life， they naturally recruit nostalgia as a way to restore that self-continuity.

Nostalgia was used to counteract episodes of selfdiscontinuity， and it also strengthens our sense of an overarching22 self over a lifetime. Routledge gives the example of long-term relationships. “When you say ‘I love you， the assumption underlying that very statement is that theres something unchanging about the essence of who we are，” he says. “If you didnt have those unchanging aspects， it would be extremely difficult to have serious long-lasting human relationships.”

But self-continuity still doesnt fully explain how nostalgia casts its spell23. What enables us to focus only on certain events and episodes， or cut through ambivalence and zero in on the happier aspects of our relationships？24 As it turns out， our memories are partial. Biased. They are not objective representations of our pasts. Instead， they often magnify our positive experiences， while gradually diminishing negative ones. This is referred to as the fading affect bias.

To delve25 further into memory， Routledge is working on a study in which Britons who were children during World War II put together narratives of their experiences. While most of the narratives include many painful and even traumatic26 episodes—children being estranged from their parents or hiding underground during the Nazi bombing of Britain—their accounts of the war also invoke dimensions that may have taken decades to fully reveal themselves. Despite all the fear and upheaval， survivors recall spending time with extended family，27 reaching an intimacy with their cousins， aunts， and uncles that wouldnt have been possible outside of those extraordinary circumstances. “Theyve been able to re-construe28， or learn some sort of life lesson from that experience， which at the time must have been terrifying.”Routledge says.

“There is a real concern about the potential dark side of nostalgia，” Routledge says. “What I think people are doing is imagining the positive. Theyre plucking29 features that they think are better， like ‘Oh， maybe life was simpler， or people could get better jobs. I dont know what theyre holding onto but it doesnt necessarily mean that it was true， first of all. And theyre probably not thinking about who it negatively affected.”

Still， the point remains that nostalgia， an innate， adaptive trait， is a necessary guide through the thickets30 of memory and experience. In the end， says Routledge， “Our brains are just trying to make sense of life.”

让美国再次伟大。显然这一信息引起了共鸣。2016年大众宗教研究所（一个无党派组织）发布了其年度《美国价值观调查》。这份调查显示51%的民众认为美国生活方式自20世纪50年代以来每况愈下，而且70%的民众表示美国社会自那个被人们赋予浪漫情怀的十年以来变得更糟了。

当然，今时今日美国是存在问题的，但是多项反映生活水平的指标都表明大众如今的生活要比60年前好。我们平均多活10年，受教育比率更高，而且自有住房率也更高。而谈到犯罪问题，《大西洋月刊》去年报道称，“无论以什么标准来衡量，美国人如今身处本国历史上暴力问题最不严重的时代。”

那么为何有如此多的人认为过去比现在要好？对于其中不少人而言，实际情况确实如此。那些被诉诸早年时光的说辞所打动的美国中产阶级与工薪阶级也许当年工作收入更高、福利更好、财产状况更加稳定，而且在群体中有更明确的位置。也许他们过去更幸福。对于一些人来说，自周六之夜跳sock-hop舞以来的文化变迁或许只是让他们更加坚信美国价值观在每况愈下。但一种天生的心理特质也许可以解释为何人们倾向于认为过去比现在要好：怀旧心理。

几乎所有人都知道nostalgia（怀旧）这个词，即使不知其来源的话。这个词由瑞士医生约翰内斯·霍弗于1688年创造：一个由nostos与algos构成的混成词。在希腊语中nostos意思是回家，而algos的意思是痛苦或者悲傷。按照大部分人的理解，怀旧指的是在回忆或者重历过去中寻找愉悦——听一首心爱的老歌，比方说，或者回忆一段刻骨铭心的爱情往事。

近来，怀旧一词被证实在词源学上有其科学依据。它揭示了怀旧并不只是对令人愉悦的事件与经历恋恋不舍的强烈情感，而且是一种应对痛苦或悲伤的天生的反应，或者，从某种程度来说，是一种“回家”。此外，认知科学家表示，怀旧的典型特点之一就是扭曲过去的能力。

在回顾过往的过程中，人们倾向于过滤掉负面或者痛苦的经历。记忆本身常常并不是它们看起来的那样。它们并非天生存在于我们的大脑中，并不是对我们个人过往经历的事实呈现。相反，记忆是流动的，我们不断重构自己的历史来将其融入更大的生命弧线。在很多情况下，过去看上去那样美好幸福是因为大脑在事后会将其涂抹得如玫瑰般美好，从而帮助我们维持心理健康。我们的过去在不断调整中适应着我们的现在。

当《怀旧：一种心理资源》的作者克莱·罗特里奇开始研究怀旧心理的时候，他所感兴趣的是这种普遍存在的感受究竟如何帮助我们更好地应对未来。“我将怀旧心理作为一种应对资源，沿着这一特定的假设出发，”他说道，“我们可以回顾过去那些对我们个人而言有特别意义的经历。我们是不是利用这种过去的经历来应对未来的焦虑？”

沿着这个直觉走，罗特里奇和他的研究团队开始观察“沉湎于怀旧”（他们如此命名）的潜在好处：究竟怀旧如何帮助我们在危机之时维系平衡，回想起爱心满满的关系，并且总体而言就是让过往人生中的闪光点给予我们支撑。他们的研究将怀旧的用处放在了具体的情境中，并表明怀旧常常是由人们感到情绪低落、孤独甚至人生失去意义所引发的。这些诱因让人不免推测：怀旧或许是某种防御机制，一种在人们感到焦虑、绝望甚至怀疑自身存在意义之时维持复原能力的方式。“怀旧可以作为一种适应性工具来应对诸多心理方面的威胁，似乎就是这样，”他说道。

事实证明，怀旧心理帮助人们培育出心理学家所说的“自我连续性”。这一概念指的就是我们在历经沧桑之时——无论是挚爱离世还是事业变动亦或是重病降临——维持自我身份和自我意识的能力。“自我连续性意味着我有这种稳定、持续的自我意识，”罗特里奇说道。自我连续性让我们的生命连贯一致，让我们产生这样一种印象：在世事无常、旦夕祸福之下有着一个永久不变的自我。

过去的研究发现自我中断性——同过去那个自我的疏离感——是一种适应不良的特质，会产生心理上的忧虑。但强烈的自我连续感可以帮助我们战胜那些生命中断裂的篇章。那么究竟怀旧心理如何增强一个人的自我连续性呢？

罗特里奇和他的合著者在两个评级上对参与者进行了评定。第一个是社会适应性的评级，它针对的是可能会打断自我连续性并且带来自我中断的人生大事。第二个是南安普顿怀旧心理评级，这是一个为怀旧心理倾向度进行评定的系统。他们发现引起自我中断的经历与个体的怀旧心理倾向度之间存在正相关的关系。

这些研究结果表明怀旧心理是对自我中断的一种自然反应，一种减轻对自我意识进行破坏的心理工具。罗特里奇解释说，与个人过往经历的记忆息息相关的诸多现象——主要是被称为“情感消退”和“玫瑰色回顾”的心理偏误——极其适合引发怀旧心理。“这些记忆的运作模式与怀旧心理简直是绝配，”他说道。换句话说，引发怀旧心理的那些记忆随着时间推移被加工和美化，其中负面的部分则被剔除。但这些记忆有着非常重要的令人保持适应性的作用。当人们正在经历会对自我意识构成挑战并让自己对人生感到不确定的事情时，他们会自然而然地利用怀旧心理来恢复自我连续性。

怀旧心理被用来抵消那些自我中断的人生篇章，而且怀旧也在一生中增强了我们高于一切的自我意识。罗特里奇用长期关系来举例。“当你说‘我爱你，这句话的基本假设就是我们的本质中有永恒不变的成分，”他说道，“一旦失去了那些永恒不變的部分，那么你将很难拥有认真、长久的人际关系。”

但自我连续性仍然不能完全解释怀旧心理如何产生魔法般的效果。究竟是什么让我们将目光仅仅锁定在人生中特定的事件与经历上，或者让我们不再纠结，瞄准我们的关系中幸福快乐的方面？原因就是，我们的记忆是不客观的，是带有偏见的。它们并没有客观地反映我们的过去。相反，它们常常强化我们的正面经历，同时逐渐弱化负面经历。这被称作情感消退偏误。

为了进一步探究记忆，罗特里奇正在开展一项研究：由童年在二战中度过的英国人叙述各自的经历。尽管大部分的叙述包括许多痛苦甚至惨痛的经历——孩子被迫与父母分离或者在纳粹轰炸英国期间躲藏在地下掩体中——他们对于战争的叙述也唤起那些可能花了数十年才完全展现出来的部分。尽管在战争中担惊受怕、颠沛流离，幸存者仍然回忆起与大家庭相处的时光，因为要不是在战争的特殊情况下他们几乎不可能与远亲有那样亲密的关系。“他们能够重新理解那段经历或者从中学到某种人生经验，而那段经历在当时肯定是十分恐怖的。”罗特里奇称。

“怀旧心理潜在的负面影响确实不免让人感到担忧，”罗特里奇说道，“我认为人们现在所做的就是在假想好的方面。他们挑出他们认为更好的那些特质，比如说‘噢，也许生活曾经更简单，或者人们过去可以找到更好的工作。我不知道他们在舍不得些什么，但首先这并不一定意味着他们记忆中的过去是真实的，或许他们并没有考虑谁过去曾受到过负面影响。”

然而，怀旧作为一种天生、适应性的特质，为人们穿过错综复杂的记忆与经历提供了必要的指导，这一点是成立的。最后，罗特里奇表示，“我们的大脑只是在试图弄清楚生活的意义。”

1. Make America great again： 此句起初是里根1980年的总统竞选口号，后被特朗普选为其2016年总统竞选口号。

2. nonpartisan： 无党派的。

3. indices： index的复数形式，（改变或变化的）标志，指标。

4. metric： 度量标准。

5. sock-hop： 20世纪50年代美国流行的一种非正式舞蹈，因跳舞时通常脱下鞋子只穿袜子跳而得名；fray： 磨损。

6. portmanteau： 合并词，混成词。

7. make good on： 兑现，履行承诺；etymology： 词源，词源学。

8. wistful： 思念的，依依不舍的；glow：（某种）强烈的情感。

9. hardwired： 在心理学中，指（人类行为）天生的；autobiographical：自传式的。

10. halcyon：（旧日时光）安宁幸福的；rosy：美好的，乐观的；hindsight： 事后的认识。

11. equilibrium： 平衡。

12. resiliency：（又作resilience）恢复力，复原力；existential： 关于人类存在的。

13. vicissitudes： [复] 兴衰变迁，世事变化。

14. estrangement： 疏远，疏离，后文estrange为动词；maladaptive： 适应不良的。

15. disjuncture： 分离，分裂。

16. elicit： 引出，引起。

17. proneness： 倾向。

18. positive correlation： 正相关，指两个变量同时变大或变小，其中引起变化的量叫自变量，另一个叫因变量。

19. mitigate： 减轻，缓和。

20. fading affect： 指的是与负面情绪相关的信息比与正面情绪相关的信息更容易被忘记；rosy retrospection： 指的是美化过去的记忆。

21. burnish： 擦亮，磨光；be shorn of： 被 剥夺，被除去，shorn为shear（剪，剥夺）的过去分词。

22. overarching： 支配一切的，首要的。

23. cast a spell： 向……施魔法。

24. ambivalence： 矛盾情绪，矛盾心理；zero in on： 瞄准，全神贯注于某人（或某事）。

25. delve： 探究，钻研。

26. traumatic： 造成创伤的。

27. upheaval： 动乱，剧变；extended family：指相对于核心家庭而言，包括祖父母、外祖父母、叔叔阿姨等亲属的大家庭。

28. construe： 理解，领会。

29. pluck： 拔（毛）。

30. thicket： 小树丛，乱糟糟的一团。

阅读感评

∷秋叶 评

这个标题似乎颇有点深意：How Nostalgia Made America Great Again（怀旧如何让美国再次伟大）。“让美国再次伟大”是特朗普在竞选时提出的核心理念，据称成为了其最终当选的关键因素。既然是“再次”，那肯定有“首次”或“前几次”。不出所料，特朗普喊出该口号后，即有好事者追问，“那么美国上次伟大在何时？”特朗普的回答倒是非常直截了当：“20世纪初与‘二战后。”的确，20世纪初是美国作为后起西方列强之一显著崛起的时期，而“二战”后美国更是到达了其力量与发展的巅峰，此时对于大多数美国人来说，“美国梦”（American Dream）简直就是可望又可即的眼前现实。初看有些奇怪的是，这个标题里“让美国再次伟大”的主体是一种心理状态——“怀旧”（nostalgia），而且动词用的是过去时。似乎这“怀旧”是推动美国再次伟大的强动力、主推器（powerful motivator），同时，似乎“让美国再次伟大”并非一个较长期且渐进的过程，而是话音刚落便一挥而就的事。当然，一位年过七旬的老人，在美国相对衰落之际，在竞选中打起怀旧牌，发誓要带领美国重回历史上曾有过的金色年华，这确实既政治有效又合乎自身逻辑，虽然这个标题乍一看还是让人有点惊讶。

经验告诉我们，不管是未来蓝图还是过往荣光，其魅力往往与人们对现状的失望成正比，尤其是后者，不是常听人说，“人在痛苦时是最容易回首往事的”吗？据原文称，2016年调查发现，51%的美国人觉得自上世纪50年代以来美国的生活每况愈下，多达70%的美国人认为美国社會在走下坡路。看来，特朗普及其竞选团队将民众心理上的这个“柔软点”抓得极其精准，并充分意识到了人们幻想回到过去好时光的强烈情感需求。

原文作者用了大量的篇幅谈论怀旧的心理运行机制（innate psychological trait），其实就是一句话：怀旧乃过滤器，过滤掉的是负面、痛苦的经历，留下的是美好的记忆，哪怕事实并非如此美好。笔者最近在英国散文家兰姆（Charles Lamb）的《伊利亚随笔》里读到一段，恰好可以给这种机制做注脚：

“I wish the good old times would come again，” she said， “when we were not quite so rich. I do not mean that I want to be poor； but there was a middle state”—so she was pleased to ramble on—“in which I am sure we were a great deal happier. A purchase is but a purchase now that you have money enough and to spare. Formerly it used to be a triumph. When we coveted a cheap luxury， we were used to have a debate two or three days before， and to weigh the for and against， and think what we might spare it out of， and what saving we could hit upon that should be an equivalent. A thing was worth buying then， when we felt the money that we paid for it.”

一个即便买个心仪已久的便宜货都要反复掂量，甚至为此争论两三天的时代，却被认定为“要（比现在）幸福得多”。缺乏类似经历的人一定会觉得此人实属“身在福中不知福”，但这其实就是怀旧心理在作祟！多年以后，留在这位女士记忆中的，已不再是当时她可能极想摆脱的窘迫、操心、费口舌乃至生活的艰辛，而是终于成功买下这件“奢侈品”的喜悦，以及精算如何能省吃俭用地补上这个缺口的成就感。这大概就是原文中所谓的“情感消退和玫瑰色回顾的心理偏误”（psychological biases called fading affect and rosy retrospection）所引发的怀旧吧。

怀旧的机制让笔者想到了一句当代史学界常说的话——“所有的历史都是当代史”（原文中这句话大致可以借用：Our past is constantly shifting to accommodate our present），也就是说所有的历史研究都应该从当代的视角去回看往昔，这与怀旧的主观性过滤异曲同工，而其潜在的危险也必将彼此共享，误读与误释便在所难免，史家所撰历史与普通人的口述史都靠不住。钱钟书先生也曾说过，有些人搞创作，往往想象力枯竭，而写起自传来，其想象力却异常地丰富。这大致也是一种特殊的怀旧心理在作祟，即总爱把好事往自己身上囤积，一味往自己脸上贴金，而一生中犯过的错却一笔勾销。此种心态做法，恰恰正是原文作者所谓的“怀旧潜在的负面影响”（potential dark side of nostalgia）。