“If Beijing dares to protest, there will be ever harsher Western media campaigns: China is told it must not impede on Westerners’ “freedom” to slowly destabilize the country from within: Censor them, and they will tattletale. Incarcerate them, and they will become martyrs. Ignore them at your own peril.”
From: ‘The rising cult of China experts’, Asia Times, Oct 23, 2014
裴德思（Thorsten Pattberg，北京大學哲學博士）是德國作家、文化評論員，著有《東風與西風》（The East-West Dichotomy）一書。
如果一個壟斷語言和媒體的超級強國以揭露真相為工具，培養一批滋事者，貶低、扭曲、中傷其他國家和他國人民，那將如何？
國教育部部長袁貴仁最近指出，應加強管控那些宣揚所謂“西方價值觀”的教科書，其言論隨即受到西方的“中國問題專家”嘲諷。
禁止學校傳授創世論等假科學理論或危險教派的教義，並不完全屬於審查。喔不，等一下──在美國，這顯然是屬於審查。“西方價值觀”是憑空捏造的教條，過時又危險。譬如說民主。
民主由古希臘人所創，其好處被大大高估。首先，民主在古希臘並非行之有效。當地首批哲學家都是法西斯主義者，即使在2500年後的今天，這個“西方文明的搖籃”的國力仍然不逮。古羅馬君主和一個復仇心重、專制獨裁的上帝，才是歐洲致勝之道。
就連美國、德國、法國和英國也從來都沒有真正的民主。美國由財閥當政，白宮猶如皇權時代的宮廷，憲法則如聖經。德法英三國則是枯燥乏味的階級社會。
德國以“民主形式”令納粹黨贏得大選，成為執政黨，觸發了反猶大屠殺。法國和英國先是大舉對外殖民，後來失去所有殖民地。美國是恐怖主義國家（200年內在海外展開過180多次軍事行動），是非觀非黑即白、言行不誠實，並持雙重標準。
[。。。] 南华早报
裴德思（Thorsten Pattberg，北京大學哲學博士）是德國作家、文化評論員，著有《東風與西風》（The East-West Dichotomy）一書。
（翻譯/Alison Yeung；編審/Nelson Cheng）
Harvard Club of Japan, Feb 26, 2015
TOKYO – Dr. David Malone yesterday gave an insightful and brilliant talk about the United Nation Security Council –its inner workings in times of crisis, and its need for reform.
High above the rainy embassy district of central Tokyo, on the 51st floor of the grand Roppongi Hills Mori Tower where the prestigious ‘Roppongi Hills Club’ is located (regular membership fees start at 1.2m Yen/10,000 USD), the ‘Harvard Club of Japan’ rents its venues and invites outstanding speakers (such as Ezra Vogel) for a small, yet surprisingly diverse audience (some of us went to Harvard for a year, less than a year, or even not at all).
I won’t bore you with too many details, only that I was genuinely surprised to hear that the five permanent members of the Security Council, in Dr. Malone’s view, actually do manage to work quite well together in the vast majority of cases (and that actual ‘vetoing’ resolutions is rare), and that the most difficult task for the United Nations aren’t international wars, but civil wars.
Now, I don’t even pretend to know advanced academic research on the topic of conflict resolution, but it makes a lot of commonsense to assume that rebel forces (for example, pro-Russian forces in the Ukraine), once in full gear, are unlikely to stop after first blood is spilled, for the simple reason that doing so would result in great personal consequences: “Communities that rise up against a central government are in great danger because they usually get severely punished.”
Moreover, while it is always easy to identify the “bad” government (otherwise, why the rebellion), it is much harder to locate the resistance because it usually consists of many groups with an ever-changing leadership. Applying diplomatic wisdom to the current civil war in the Ukraine, Dr. Malone illustrated, it seems clear that “Ukraine is not yet ready for resolution or settlement.” The rebel forces just have too much to lose, and can still see themselves win.
Anyway, leaving the Ukraine aside, the main purpose of the United Nations in this decade, says Dr. Malone, is
The methods how to enforce its resolutions are age-old, repetitive, and somewhat effective: sanctions, naval barricades, and coercion.
Dr. Malone went on to describe important UN resolutions (from Rwanda to Kosovo, Iran, Kuwait, the Cold War, Iraq, and Ukraine), and notable challenges to the United Nations, including resistance against UN involvement by national governments and -courts, ethical dilemmas, the rise of NGO (Non-government organization) voices (“because they know a lot of things that countries don’t know”), and, finally, persistent calls for change in the Security Council. Despite initiatives by a group of strong candidates (India, Brazil, Japan, Germany, and South Africa), the permanent Five (USA, Russia, China, Britain, and France) regularly promised “support” but ultimately did nothing: “So draw your own conclusions.”
There is “a certain rudeness and arrogance” exhibited by the Big Five, describes Dr. Malone; yet “there are also no illusions that the new candidates, once voted “in”, would be any less rude and arrogant.” The five permanent members “simply know the proceedings, reinterpret the rules to their advantage, and get along rather well when it comes to guarding their advantage.”
Dr. Malone ended his speech with ideas about the possible future of the Security Council and the new realities in this 21st Century and the rise of Asia (and decline of Europe). In particular, he recommends a proposal put forward by a certain, ever more influential thinker: Kishore Mahbubani –academic, diplomat, and author of “Can Asians think?”. Dr. Mahbubani’s vision allows for only one seat for Western Europe, instead of the two seats currently held by France and Britain. You know… the sort of UN resolution that would immediately trigger vetoes by France and Britain: “They [the Big Five] have in common a desire to protect absolutely their privileges.”
Thank you very much to the organizers and its Club’s secretary, Yukari Fujita.
Altogether a wonderfully memorable, exciting night at the Harvard Club of Japan.
Dr. David M. Malone joined the United Nations University on 1 March 2013 as its sixth Rector. In that role, he holds the rank of Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations.
Language Imperialism & The End of Translation (12/2014)
Thorsten Pattberg is a scholar and well-known activist who has tirelessly campaigned to include Chinese (and other Eastern) terminologies in world history. He has advocated the case of “Shengren”, a Confucian/Taoist archetype of wisdom, that is, similar to the “Buddha” in Buddhism, a very unique, non-Western concept that ideally should never be translated, but adopted into European languages. The same tolerance should be extended toward other cultural key terms such as “junzi”, “wenming”, “daxue”, and many more. His research has been privileged by the Vice Premier of the People’s Republic of China, Madame Liu Yandong, and the Ministry of Education, which resulted into a nationwide project: ‘Key Concepts in Chinese Thought and Culture’. In this collection of essays, Dr. Pattberg reflects on the end of translation, the competition for terminologies, and the future of global language.
From the back cover:
Imperialism, according to the Merriam Webster Dictionary, is “the extension or imposition of power, authority, or influence” over another nation. Consequently, linguistic imperialism is the extension or imposition of one’s own language over another’s. Martin Luther’s Bible translation is a good example, Georg Hegel’s German Die Philosophie der Weltgeschichte (1830) is another; the former made the Bible German, the latter made world history German. Language imperialism is more surgical than that: It is the translation of foreign key terminologies into familiar vocabulary of one’s own language tradition in order to claim deutungshoheit, to diminish another culture’s originality, or to pretend to have full comprehension of a foreign topic by simply switching into one’s own lingua. So even if a nation is not strong enough to impose its own language over another’s, like Germany could never conquer the Chinese people, it could always try to steal important cultural property by giving it German names.
About the author:
Dr. Thorsten Pattberg (裴德思 Pei Desi) is a German writer, linguist, and cultural critic. He has over 100 publications –including monographs, journal papers, and articles in mass media.
裴德思发表了《怎样翻译中华文明核心词》一文后，我国的刘延东副总理非常重视，提到“请组织一些语言学家研究如何推广中华思想术语问题”
北京日报的采访：
1 、如您文章中所说，您对同事在翻译中华文明的核心词时几乎完全抛弃中文愿意而采用外国表达的做法，经常感到大惑不解，你指的同事是哪里的同事，是在中国的吗？
裴德思：是的！是我在中国工作时候的同事，不过这里我更泛指许多世界的汉学家们在国际性的场合上一般也是用英文里的术语来表述中国文化中的一些概念。
2、采用国外表达，据您研究，是有什么特别的渊源吗？
裴德思回答：之所以会采用国外的表达的方式，我认为一个概念的发明者或者命名者往往具有很大的优势与主导权，正是基于这样的理由，截至目前为止，西方世界才采取以他们的思维为中心而出发的表述方式。
3、采用国外表达翻译中华文明核心词，会造成哪些问题？或者会造成某些尴尬吗，这方面您能给我们讲一些非常具体的例子来进行说明好吗？比如最简单的一个例子是，我们知道“胸有成竹”被翻译成“胸中有根竹子”。
裴德思回答：关于这个问题，事实上，在我的研究里面已经一再提到，最具代表性的，就是我关于“圣人”这个概念的表述问题。其实，在我的研究里，并不是要探讨这样的翻译方式会造成什么问题或产生什么尴尬，而是要指出，这是某种意识形态的高涨所造成的结果。因此，我才主张要限制或终止翻译。
比方说，我认为，中国人无论在国内或国外，并不需要把自己的姓和名反过来写。另外，我认为任何一个文化的核心词，都是中华文明的产权，所以一定要保护它。到目前为止，虽然有一些中国的概念，像yin-yang（阴阳）和kungfu( 功夫 )这样的词汇被西方语言吸收并被他们的人民所接受。可是这样的例子毕竟少数。我个人认为，任何一个中国名牌想Baidu百度，Weibo微博，茅台等等都不用翻译。传统食品类似baozi包子，jiaozi饺子，kaoya烤鸭等等一样不需要翻译。例如日本的ramen拉面，shusi寿司，wasabi芥末等，都已经是原原本本被世界认同的日文术语。而在中文的思想概念中，例如ru儒，fo佛，dao道，ren仁，wu-wei无为，taiji太极，wushu武术等等，我认为均不需要翻译。虽然很多人认为这不太可行，但我们需要以共同语言进行沟通，我同意英语是最重要的国际语言，但却不是未来的世界语言。未来的世界语言将不得不采取数万个亚洲等地的词语和概念。
中华思想文化术语
4、您是在什么时候萌发了想要写一篇文章，以改变现状？写这篇文章的缘由是什么？
裴德思回答：因为我在大学时代开始学习了汉语以及中国文化，当我深入理解汉语之后，发现许多词汇的概念与我在德语或者英语里所理解的有些出入和不同，特别是我发现了“圣人”这个概念的定义是十分不同的。当我发现这个问题时，十分震惊，同时，通过我的研究，我发现印度社会里的佛陀（释迦）的概念已完全被世界接受与认可，而圣人却不是如此。因此萌发我想要更加深入研究的念头，而且，我认为中国文化博大精深，应该以最贴近汉语意思的表述方式让世界理解，这样才能让中国文化在世界发扬光大。
5、您的文章发表后，据说被刘延东看到了，并引发了中华传统思想术语的启动，对这样的结果您是怎么看，事先没有想到会引起这么大的轰动，对吗？
裴德思回答：是的！我非常惊讶与非常荣幸得知自己的研究结果受到了贵国刘延东副总理的关注，同时也更加感到责任重大。事实上，我做发表这篇文章的时候，就是希望能借此促进中国文化在世界能被更加认可与理解，也希望能引起更多的中国人能够认同与支持。因此我十分高兴有这样的结果。
6、在您看来，对中华文明核心词进行准确、统一的翻译，并进行发布，这样的好处在哪些方面？
裴德思回答：我认为，时机已经到来！！中国应当把“文化财产权利”看的与领土与海洋权利一样重要。看现实21世纪的中国有伟大的经济实力，但却没有软实力。中国花多少钱也不能要求全世界来学习中国的语言，因为学习外语太困难也太复杂。但是，中国可以做得事情时，向全世界普及一些重要的中国概念词汇。
7、为这些核心词进行翻译并定制一个标准，存在推广的问题，我也担心国际上是否认可，这方面，您认为有什么经验可以借鉴？
裴德思回答：是的，确实推广起来并不是一件容易的事情，我认为资本主义已经告诉我们争夺资源和市场的份额。所以我们还必须争取我们的核心词汇。为了沟通，我们需要一个共同的语言，不可否认现在英语是国际语言，但它不是全球语言。未来的全球语言势必将接纳与吸收成千上万的亚洲等地的概念，我想这是一个渐进的过程，只要坚持做下去，中国文明再次在世界扬眉吐气的一天定会到来。
2014年12月21日 [北京日报]
Pattberg at Fudan University, 2003, Russian Major (top row, fifth from r.)
It’s been 12 years since I first arrived in China. My memories of Shanghai’s Fudan University campus life, the friendship and joy, the exhaustion and overwork, and an endless supply of malatang and chaomian, are still vivid. Here’s my (heavily edited) peace of mind, at CHINA DAILY.
With the propaganda war between East and West now seemingly spinning out of control, a senior editor at The Economist, Edward Lucas, lost his cool and talked openly about his personal motives, his paper’s agenda, and on journalists who happen to belong to the other camp. Trash them, ban them, ostracize them: “We should be able to humiliate those channels, and those people, and the people who put them on, and the producers who put them on, and push them out into the media fringes, so they’re no longer treated as journalists in real programs, but as cranks and propagandists.” –Edward Lucas, real journalist
自从2013年6月当时在北京大学做研究的德国学者裴德思发表了《怎样翻译中华文明核心词》一文后，我国的刘延东副总理非常重视，提到“请组织一些语言学家研究如何推广中华思想术语问题”。
裴德思，德国人，北京大学高等人文研究院研究人员，在大学时代就开始学习汉语以及中国文化，“中华思想文化术语传播工程”得以启动，和他穷究其里研究中华传统文化分不开。2013年他的相关研究文章《怎么翻译中华文明的核心词》引起中国有关方面的关注，并成为该工程得以启动的一个诱因。
在接受本报记者专访时，裴德思回忆起写这篇文章的前前后后。“当我深入理解汉语之后，发现许多词汇的概念与我在德语或英语里所理解的有些出入和不同，比如‘圣人’这个概念的定义就十分不同。”他因此萌发更加深入研究的念头，他发现，像Yin-Yang（阴阳）和Kungfu(功夫)这样的词汇，已经被西方语言吸收并被他们的人民所接受。但这样的例子毕竟是少数，“我个人认为，任何一个中国名牌，像Baidu（百度），Weibo（微博）等都不用翻译。传统食品，类似Baozi（包子）、Jiaozi（饺子）、Kaoya（烤鸭）等也不需要翻译。”裴德思说，中国文化博大精深，应该以最贴近汉语意思的表述方式让世界理解，这样才能让中国文化在世界发扬光大。“现在时机到了，中国应当把‘文化财产权利’看得与领土、海洋权利一样重要，向全世界普及一些重要的中国文化词汇。” [北京日报]
Western nations for centuries have used translation as a tool for cultural genocide. Historically there has always been rampant censorship in Western media and academia concerning Chinese terms and concepts. As a result, today’s Western ‘China Studies’ is 99% fabrication, modeled around Western biblical and philosophical categories. Breaking this monopoly of the language imperialists is very very difficult. But all is not lost. Already we witness a future generation of scholars in East and West in the making that will fight this great linguistic imbalances and struggle for the emancipation of Asian words. [WATCH FULL VIDEO HERE] or [READ ARTICLE AT ASIA TIMES]
LITTLE IS known about China in Europe and America. Although the Chinese were enviable thinkers for over three millennia, almost nothing of their originality has reached us intact. The reason for this is simple. The Western world guarded against foreign knowledge with an old language trick: Translation. This has to stop.
No archaeologist would dare to falsify or displace a fossil finding, or obscure its existence, just because it threatens his prerogative. But in the humanities this is the rule. –T Pattberg
Entire branches of humanity are disowned of their intellectual genius this way, yet historians still don’t want to talk about it. –T Pattberg
Even today China, India, Iran (former Persia) and Japan, are expected to award “PhD degrees” – doctors of philosophy – even if what their people studied had nothing to do with it. –T Pattberg
Translation is a shameful secret. When it becomes a nation state’s strategy, it turns into ruthless theft of cultural property. –T Pattberg
