布鲁斯·帕斯科（Bruce Pascoe）在他的位于维多利亚州东吉普斯兰（East Gippsland）的庄园里。他的最新著作名为《欧洲思维：殖民主义、资本主义与基督教，以及我们该如何走出困境》（The European Mind: Colonialism, Capitalism, Christianity, and How to Recover）。
Bruce Pascoe on his property in east Gippsland, Victoria. His latest book is titled: The European Mind: Colonialism, Capitalism, Christianity and How to Recover.
照片来源：Isabella Moore / The Guardian布鲁斯·帕斯科的新书可能会引发另一场文化论战。他希望这次人们能够展现出“基本的礼貌与求知欲”。
Pascoe’s new book may spark another culture war. He hopes for ‘decency and intellectual curiosity’ this time Paul Daley The Dark Emu author rails against Christianity, capitalism and colonialism – and Shakespeare and Charles Dickens cop a serve too.
保罗·戴利（Paul Daley）是《黑暗鸸鹋》（Dark Emu）一书的作者，他在书中严厉批判了基督教、资本主义以及殖民主义；莎士比亚和查尔斯·狄更斯（Charles Dickens）也未能幸免于他的批评。在本书出版前夕，帕斯科已经做好了应对争议的准备。这些争议的激烈程度，或许会与他2014年出版的那本《黑暗鸸鹋》一书所引发的争议不相上下。
He’s ready for blowback n the eve of publication of his new book, Bruce Pascoe is steeling himself for potential controversy that could rival the bitter storm that battered and bruised him for years over the 2014 book that rewrote Australian history: Dark Emu Where Dark Emu contentiously sought to reframe pre-invasion Australian First Nations people from hunter-gatherers into more complex farmer-cultivators, Pascoe’s new book, The European Mind: Colonialism, Capitalism, Christianity and How to Recover, sheets home the blame for the most heinous excesses of racism and dispossession on to a troika of western shibboleths: Christianity, capitalism and colonialism.
在《黑暗鸸鹋》一书中，帕斯科试图将澳大利亚原住民从“狩猎采集者”的形象重新定义为“从事农业活动的复杂社会群体”；而在他的新书《欧洲思维》中，他将种族主义与剥夺原住民权益的最恶劣行为归咎于三个西方意识形态：基督教、资本主义和殖民主义。
On a hot early spring morning in Sydney, Pascoe – a southern Victorian farmer and celebrated literary author of Yuin, Bunurong and Tasmanian ancestry – sits on a stage at the New South Wales State Library to promote his new book.
在一个悉尼初春的炎热早晨，这位拥有维多利亚州南部血统的农民兼著名作家（其祖先来自尤因族（Yuin）、布努龙族（Bunurong）和塔斯马尼亚族）在新南威尔士州图书馆的舞台上宣传自己的新书。帕斯科指出，虽然举办活动的这个阅览室“非常漂亮”，但具有20世纪初俱乐部风格的装饰，具有明显的殖民主义痕迹——这实在是一种讽刺。
While “beautiful”, he says the original Mitchell reading room where the event is being hosted is ironically “one of the most colonial” in Sydney, with its early 1900s club atmosphere. In conversation with Bigambul and Wakka Wakka writer and academic Melanie Saward he says, with good humour: “I’ll have the noise and these attacks going on [again]. But you know I’m loved by my family, and I’m loved by my Country … Once again there’ll be a storm, you know. I’ll be accused by some of eating kittens. And eating them slowly, which is worse.”
在与 Bigambul 以及作家兼学者 Melanie Saward 的交谈中，他以幽默的态度说道：“那些噪音和攻击又会再次出现……但你知道的，我深受家人和国家的爱戴。虽然又会有人指责我‘吃小猫’，甚至说‘还是一点一点吃掉小猫的’，这简直太荒谬了……”他笑了，但他的语气中明显流露出一种无奈与谨慎。上次的情况确实非常糟糕：有人再次质疑他的原住民身份的真实性，他的学术研究和方法论也遭到了严厉的批评。
He laughs. But a reticence clearly underscores the nonchalance.
这位 79 岁的老人身材健壮，留着标志性的银色长发和胡须。他承认：“有时候，我真的感到很艰难。”活动结束后，我们在阳光下聊天，谈论他的新书以及澳大利亚规则足球（他是里士满队的忠实支持者，前一晚还观看了弗里曼特尔队与斯旺斯队的预决赛）。他显得有些忐忑，似乎已经预料到自己会再次面临攻击。
For it did get pretty nasty last time, including with renewed allegations questioning the veracity of his Aboriginal identity and a major academic takedown of his research and methodology. With his farm-labour wiriness, trademark wild mane of silver hair and long beard, the fit-looking 79-year-old says there have “been times, I admit, when I struggle”. When we sit in the sunshine after the event to talk about the new book and Australian rules football (he is a diehard Richmond supporter who watched the Fremantle v Swans preliminary final the night before), he sounds tentatively prepared for another pile-on. Is he ready?
他真的准备好了吗？“我希望自己准备好了。我一直在为此做准备。不过，伤害一个老人其实很难……因为你很清楚自己还能活多久（指的是还能有多少活跃的岁月）。你无法贿赂一个老人，因为他什么都不想要；你也无法威胁他，因为他反正也快去世了……所以，你根本无法伤害他。我试图安慰自己，同时也努力让自己保持冷静。我认为，仇恨只会带来负面后果。”
“I hope I am. I have been readying myself for it. I think I am about as ready as I can be for it. But look, it’s very difficult to hurt an old man, because you’ve become very aware of how many years you’ve got left – active years I mean. And you can’t bribe an old man because he doesn’t want anything. And you can’t intimidate an old man because he’s going to die anyway soon, so you can’t hurt him. I’m trying to placate myself I think, but I’m also trying to ready myself. I find hatred to be unproductive. “Realistically you can’t go and write [critically] about capitalism, Christianity and colonialism in a single book and expect not to get a significant reaction … because it deliberately evokes comment and disagreement. These things are very important to people, so I have to be ready for those arguments. But I just hope that, you know, there’s a bit of decency about it and a bit of intellectual curiosity.”
“实际上，你不可能在同一本书中同时批判资本主义、基督教和殖民主义，却期望不会引发激烈的争议……因为这些话题本身就很容易引发人们的评论和反对意见。这些议题对人们来说非常重要，所以我必须准备好应对各种争论。但我还是希望，至少人们能够保持一定的礼貌，并展现出一定的求知欲。”帕斯科（Pascoe）的观点是从原住民的视角出发提出的：他认为，西方宗教将其他宗教信仰视为低等的；欧洲人根深蒂固的道德与种族优越感；以及资本主义对自然资源的贪婪欲望，都是导致原住民土地被剥夺的重要原因；同时，欧洲人对探索和商业扩张的渴望也同样起到了推波助澜的作用。
Pascoe’s argument (drawn from a First Nations perspective) is that western religion’s view of “other” spiritual beliefs as inferior, Europe’s innate sense of moral and racial superiority, and capitalism’s insatiable appetite for natural resources drove global First Nations dispossession as equally as a yearning for exploration and mercantile expansion. First Nations writers, artists and activists the world over have long railed against the insidious effect of capitalism, colonialism and the church on Indigenous people’s generational outcomes.
世界各地的原住民作家、艺术家和活动家长期以来一直在谴责资本主义、殖民主义以及教会对于原住民后代所产生的负面影响。尽管帕斯科在学术界和媒体中的批评者（尤其是澳大利亚新闻集团旗下的媒体）无疑会仔细审视这本书的每一句话，但《欧洲的思维方式》（The European Mind）绝不只是一篇充满激烈论调的檄文。与《黑暗鸸鹋》（Dark Emu）一样，这本书也广泛引用了各种西方、欧洲的殖民时期及后来的历史资料。书中附有4页的参考书目和14页的注释。
And while Pascoe’s most vociferous critics in the academy and media (chief among whom he cites Australian News Corp outlets) will doubtless comb through every line, the European Mind is anything but a polemic rant. As with Dark Emu, he quotes exhaustively from various western and European colonial and later historical sources. The book includes a four-page bibliography and 14 pages of endnotes. But it’s hard to deny the marketability of controversy: the literary frisson attached to the elegantly written contentions of such an enigmatic and celebrated writer as Pascoe.
不过，争议本身往往也具有商业价值：像帕斯科这样一位神秘而备受赞誉的作家所提出的观点，自然会引发读者的兴趣和讨论。截至目前，《欧洲的思维方式》已售出40.6万册（其中儿童版售出了11万册），成为澳大利亚历史类图书中最畅销的书籍之一。虽然文学界的争论往往充满激烈对抗，但有时也能带来巨大的商业回报。
With 406,000 copies sold (and 110,000 of the children’s edition), Dark Emu remains one of this country’s highest-selling books in the broad category of Australian history. While a literary storm can be punishing and at times very cruel, the dividends can also be significant. And so some of the past’s most prominent possessors of European mindsets are hauled to Pascoe’s historical guillotine.
于是，过去那些最具代表性的欧洲思维持有者们被拉上了帕斯科的历史断头台。其中包括罗伯特·巴登-帕维尔（著名的英国陆军军官、童军运动创始人），他对于敌人“选择投降而不是在战场上满足他渴望的英勇厮杀”感到“沮丧”；沃尔斯利勋爵（19世纪末帝国扩张先锋中最杰出的英国陆军将军之一），陶醉于“进攻敌人所带来的狂喜”；温斯顿·丘吉尔——作者在一次图书馆活动中称其为“一个可怕的混蛋”，正津津味hetically（注：此处原文无ly，应为津津有味地）回味着他的战场经历。甚至连“桂冠诗人”沃尔特·惠特曼和查尔斯·狄更斯也未能幸免。
Among them are Baden Powell (celebrated British army officer and founder of the Boy Scouts), “dismayed when his foe surrenders” rather than give him the desired valiant scrap on the battlefield; Lord Wolseley (one of the foremost British army generals at the vanguard of late 19th century imperial expansion), revelling in “rapture-giving delight which attack upon an enemy affords”; Winston Churchill (“a horrible bastard”, the author contends, at his library event) relishing his battlefield experiences. Even Walt Whitman, The Bard and Charles Dickens cop a serve. Pascoe writes in the European Mind: “The American poet, Walt Whitman, was a fervent supporter of the white establishment; Charles Dickens rooted for the Empire in India; and Shakespeare, while sublimely sardonic, seemed resigned to the fact that the world would be a treacherous place dominated by big men.”
帕斯科在《欧洲思维》中写道：“美国诗人沃尔特·惠特曼是白人建制派的狂热支持者；查尔斯·狄更斯支持英国在印度的帝国统治；而莎士比亚虽然极其讽刺，却似乎默认了世界将是一个由大人物主导的充满背叛的地方。”他认为，欧洲的殖民扩张从许多体制和文化源泉中汲取了道义分量和坚定信念，其中最重要的莫过于天主教会以及教皇亚历山大六世于1493年发布的名为《发现教义》的教宗诏书。
He contends that European colonial expansion drew its moral weight and certainty from many institutional and cultural sources, but not least through the Catholic church and Pope Alexander V1’s 1493 papal bull, The Doctrine of Discovery. It deemed that exploring Christians could rightfully claim territory where Indigenes did not know the name Jesus Christ.
该诏书判定，进行探索的基督徒可以合法地声称拥有土著居民不知道耶稣基督之名的领土。“我们需要对话——以找到共同点，”帕斯科说。
‘We need to talk – to find common ground,’ Pascoe says. There is a personal warmth about Pascoe which drives his yearning to “yarn” about his writing – to discuss his ideas and contentions with those who will take exception.
帕斯科身上有一种个人的热情，这促使他渴望畅谈自己的著作——与那些持反对意见的人讨论他的观点和论点。他似乎感到惊讶的是，上次他那些声音最大的批评者中，有那么多人不愿以文明的方式与他交流。
He seems surprised that so many of his most vociferous critics wouldn’t engage him on civil grounds last time. In this latter part of his life he wants a discussion – national, universal and personal – that might lead to better human understanding among different faiths and traditional knowledge holders.
在他生命的后半段，他希望展开一场国家层面、普遍层面以及个人层面的讨论，这或许能促进不同信仰与传统知识守护者之间更好地实现人类理解。
“I do feel an obligation to be hopeful because I’ve got grandchildren. But I also have to interrogate myself about this, because I don’t want to be talking bullshit just because it sounds good. I have to ask myself, ‘Do you really believe this?’ And I do. I think there is enough goodness in the world. The vast majority of us want decency, we want love, we want care. We want to look after each other and the world. And we’ve been diverted by a very small, powerful group – people who hate everything,” he says.
“我的确感到有义务保持希望，因为我有孙辈。但我也必须对此进行自我审视，因为我不想只因听起来动听就满口胡言。我必须问自己：‘你真的相信这一点吗？’我是真的相信。我认为世界上有足够多的善良。我们绝大多数人都向往体面，向往爱，向往关怀。我们想要照顾彼此和这个世界。而我们却被一小撮极其强大的人——那些对一切都充满恨意的人——给带偏了，”他说。
“We need to talk – to find common ground.”
“我们需要对话——去寻找共同点。”正如他在书中所写的那样，他充满激情且深情地谈到了他虔诚的基督教母亲，以及年轻时他与母亲讨论自己对教会彻底失望的经历。他说，尽管两人立场截然相反，但他们充满敬意的对话却激发了彼此对生活许多方面更深的相互理解。
He speaks, as he writes in the book, passionately and lovingly about his deeply Christian mother and his discussions with her about his terminal disenchantment with the church when he was young. While coming from diametrically opposite positions, their respectful conversations, he says, inspired far greater mutual understanding about many aspects of life. He offers this relationship as a template, perhaps, for broader discussions about belonging, spiritual belief, faith and personal identity.
或许，他将这种关系作为一种范本，用于关于归属感、精神信仰、宗教和个人身份的更广泛讨论。
“I was sceptical [of Christian religion] from a very early age … but I understand people’s spiritual needs because I have that as well.”
“我从很小的时候就对（基督教）持怀疑态度……但我理解人们的精神需求，因为我也有这种需求。”他相信，大多数有宗教信仰的人——无论信仰什么——都在追求同一件事：和平与团结。
He believes most people of religion – regardless of faith – are pursuing the same thing: peace and togetherness. “I don’t believe that most Christians want to see Pete Hegseth praying for violence [for “overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy”, as the United States Secretary for War put it] and I still can’t believe how [Christian] clerics let that go unchallenged.”
“我不相信大多数基督徒希望看到皮特·海格塞斯祈求暴力（正如美国战争部长所言，祈求‘对那些不值得怜悯的人采取压倒性的暴力行动’），而且我至今无法相信（基督教）神职人员竟然对此听之任之。”这场关于“信仰”的讨论把我们带回了他深爱的澳式足球（AFL）——回到了前一晚决赛的“快乐”与“美丽”。
This discussion of “belief” leads us back to his beloved AFL – to the “joy” and “beauty” of the previous night’s final. Some will always regard the game as an exemplar of Indigenous cultural fusion with the Australian colonial Some historians, meanwhile, will always hotly contest this.
有些人永远会把这项运动视为土著文化与澳大利亚殖民（文化）融合的典范。与此同时，一些历史学家永远会对此提出激烈争论。帕斯科说：“这项运动的精神是原住民的。”讨论吧。请保持文明。欧洲人的思维：《殖民主义、资本主义、基督教与如何复兴》（Colonialism Capitalism, Christianity and How to Recover）将于9月28日由Magabala出版社出版。
“The game’s spirit Aboriginal,” Pascoe says. Discuss. With civility. The European Mind: Colonialism Capitalism, Christianity and How to Recover is out 28 September through Magabala books