安德里亚·隆·楚："我想要一位批评家"

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欢迎收听《批评家与她的公众》。我是主持人玛尔瓦·埃姆雷。在这个现场访谈系列中，我将邀请当今最优秀、最杰出的批评家们，对他们从未见过的对象进行即兴批评。这是一窥卓越头脑工作状态的窗口，看他们如何展开思考、承担风险、做出时而正确时而错误的即兴判断。我的一位朋友将安德莉亚·朗楚的批评方式描述为‘臻于化境的严谨否定’。

Welcome to The Critic and Her Publics. I'm your host, Marva Emre. In this live interview series, I ask the best and most prominent critics working today to perform criticism on the spot on an object they've never seen before. It's a glimpse into brilliant minds at work, performing their thinking, taking risks, and making spontaneous judgments, which are sometimes right and sometimes wrong. A friend of mine described Andrea Longchu's approach to criticism as perfecting a rigorous negativity.

我们都知道，长时间激烈地憎恶某件事物能带来多么深刻的快感。但正如任何优秀的情感分析师或理论家所指出的，爱与恨的核心总是紧密相连。我在安德莉亚的作品中总能感受到的，正是她对思考行为本身持久的热爱。她是2022年普利策批评奖得主，《纽约杂志》书评人。她的著作《雌性》是对瓦莱丽·萨利纳斯一部失传剧作的延伸注解，2019年由Verso出版社出版，并入围Lambda文学奖跨性别非虚构类终选名单。

We all know how deeply fun it can be to hate on something for long and intense periods of time. But as any good analyst or theorist of emotion might point out, there always exists a hard kernel of love and hate. It's an abiding love for the sheer act of thinking that I always sense in Andrea's work. She is this year's recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism and the Book Critic at New York Magazine. Her book Females, an extended annotation of a lost play by Valerie Salinas, was published by Verso in 2019 and was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award in transgender nonfiction.

她的文章见于《纽约时报》《纽约客》《艺术论坛》《书评》《波士顿评论》《高等教育纪事报》《四专栏》《犹太潮流》以及《N+1》杂志——后两本刊物收录了她备受赞誉的《中国脑》与《论喜爱女性》两篇随笔。相信在座许多人都读过她对玛吉·尼尔森、奥泰萨·莫什费格以及最近扎迪·史密斯著作的爆款书评，还有关于《歌剧魅影》的随笔，以及我个人最爱的儿童文学《绒布兔》评论。非常荣幸能邀请她作为我们的开播嘉宾。谢谢。

Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, Art Forum, Book Forum, Boston Review, The Chronicle of Higher Education, four columns, Jewish Currents, and N plus one, where you can find her two celebrated essays, China Brain and On Liking Women. I'm sure many of you have read her blockbuster reviews of books by Maggie Nelson, Ottessa Moschveig, and most recently Zadie Smith, as well as her essays on the Phantom of the Opera and my favorite on the children's book, The Velveteen Rabbit. I'm very happy to have her as our inaugural guest. Thank you.

谢谢邀请。

Thank you for having me.

是的，能邀请到你实在非常非常幸运。我想我们可以这样开始：请你设想自己是今晚在场18至21岁学生中的一员，或者回忆自己18到21岁的时光，然后向我们简单讲述你是如何坐上这个‘热座’，成为2022年普利策批评奖得主的。

Yeah. We are very, very lucky to have you. So I thought we could start with me asking you to imagine that you are one of the 18 to 21 year old students in this room tonight, or to imagine yourself as an 18 to 21 year old, and to tell us a little bit about how you ended up here in my hot seat as the Pulitzer Prize winner in criticism for 2022.

嗯，让我想想。大学时我其实不是英语专业的。我喜欢写作，但没把它当作正经写作。我本科几乎全程主修戏剧研究。所以我那时候大概不是在排戏就是在读剧本。

Well, let's see. I, in college, actually was not I was not an English major. I liked writing, but I didn't think about it as writing writing. I was a theater studies major for almost all of my undergraduate career. So, what I probably was doing was rehearsing or reading plays.

后来情况是，我读剧本时总感到沮丧，于是开始读关于戏剧的论述。当时读的与其说是剧评不如说是理论，再后来干脆读起了纯理论，法国哲学那些。就这样我意识到，比起实际参与戏剧创作，我更喜欢思考相关事物。于是转攻文学，接着进入研究生院，迎来一系列全新的失望。

And what happened is that I was reading plays and I was frustrated with them and so I was reading about plays. I was reading not so much criticism as theory. And then I was reading theory theory, French philosophy, all that stuff. And that sort of I realized I liked thinking about things more than I liked actually the doing of the theater. And so, I ended up switching into literature and that led to graduate school and a whole other series of disappointments.

你自称是‘学术戒断者’。

You describe yourself as a recovering academic.

没错，我确实在戒断学术瘾。知道吗，我最早的真实批评体验——不是文学批评，而是‘这东西我要批评’的那种——来自校报。不过我并没为校报撰稿，而是以撰写超长评论闻名。

I am I am a recovering academic. You know, I was thinking my first experience of like actual criticism, not literary criticism, actually like here's the thing, I will criticize it. The student paper. I did not write for the student paper. I instead developed a reputation for very long comments.

在学生报纸网站上，我们曾有个传统——在意见版块保留一位象征性的保守派作者。于是我特意总在他专栏发布日早起，撰写并发布反驳文章。这逐渐成了固定节目，人们会像谈论连载专栏那样和我讨论它。但有一次，学校排了部话剧，报纸刊登了热情洋溢的剧评，而我却非常讨厌那部剧。

On the student newspaper website, there was a that we had a token conservative in the opinion pages of of our student paper. And so I made a point kind of of always waking up early the day his column would run and writing basically and posting it in. And it became a thing where people would talk to me about it like it was a running thing, like it was a little series I was doing. But there was a there was a production. It was like a student production of a show and there was a really positive review of it in the paper and I had hated the show.

那是部糟糕的《拉格泰姆》制作，况且原作本身就不怎么样。可能也不能全怪他们。于是我在评论区写了篇尖刻的差评。现在回想起来，这种刻薄实在有失公允。后来我...

It was a bad production of Ragtime and which is a bad show to begin with. So it probably wasn't their fault. So I I wrote my own very negative review and left it in the comments section. In in retrospect, an undeserved act of cruelty. And so, you know, similarly, went

去了

to

研究生院，准备投身于文学与哲学界限模糊的领域，或者可能做些性别研究相关的工作。我写过一篇学术文章，发表在研究生主办的期刊上。在那本期刊的编辑会议上，我遇到了匿名审稿人，对方说以为这是劳伦·伯兰特的文章。当时这让我受宠若惊，至今仍是。

grad school and was going to be a, you know, in this sort of nebulous world of is it literature, is it philosophy, or was gonna maybe do do some sort of gender studies thing. And I had written this piece, this academic piece that had been published in like a grad student run journal. At the editorial meeting of that journal. I met the person who'd read it in blind review who told me that they thought that it must have been Lauren Berlant. This for me at the time was extremely flattering, still is flattering.

我告诉劳伦后，劳伦说我们的文风截然不同——不是主题差异，而是写作风格。劳伦说他们行文舒缓，而我下笔迅捷。后来我认识了一位《N+1》编辑的朋友，听说他们在征稿。于是我写了篇文章，虽然之前读过《N+1》，但并非刻意为之。

I told Lauren and Lauren was like, our writing is totally different. Not different in themes, that our style is different. That Lauren is slow and I'm fast is what they said to me. But I met someone who was friends with an editor at N plus one, said we're maybe looking for a piece. So I wrote this thing and I had read N plus one before, but it wasn't like a conscious decision.

只是当时确实思绪万千。

I just really had a bunch of thoughts.

后来这篇文章变成了

And this was the piece that became

《不再喜欢女人》。没错。我用大约一周写完，现在才知道那是我首次轻躁狂发作。之所以是'轻'躁狂，因为它能促进工作，若是躁狂则会适得其反。

This was Unliking Women. Yeah. And I wrote it in like a week and what I now know is my first hypomanic episode. And it's hypo because it lets you work. If it's mania, it interferes.

轻躁狂反而有帮助。这件事彻底改变了我的轨迹，有段时间我试图兼顾学者与作家身份。后来意识到这很愚蠢，因为我可以专职写作，不必勉强做学术。因为我总觉得课堂讨论的内容流于表面——我们会围绕某些理论长篇大论，互相交换那些研究生课堂特有的评论：引入个人兴趣、刻意使问题复杂化、旁征博引...但在每堂课的某个时刻，我总会忍不住想：这太蠢了。

If it's hypo, it helps. And and that kind of just it kind of blew everything up and for a period of time I was like, be an academic and a writer. And then I realized that that was a bad idea because I could just be a writer and I didn't want to do the academic stuff. Because it often seemed to me that the stuff we were talking about in class was not the real stuff. Like that we would be having this whole discussion about whatever, some piece of theory or whatever that we were all reading and we kind of go around trading that that kind of comment that you make in graduate student class about, where you're bringing in your own interests and you're you're trying to complicate things and you're citing and you're and at some point, in any given class, in any given meeting of any class, I would kinda be like, I think this is stupid.

我觉得我们读的东西很肤浅，或者根本糟糕透顶。为什么没人指出它的缺陷？而现在，我把这种质疑变成了职业。

I think this thing we read is dumb. Like, or it's bad. Like, why aren't we talking about the fact that it's bad? And so now I do that for a living.

好的。明白了。那么有几件事。第一，对你来说什么是真正重要的东西？这个范畴对我来说有点模糊。

Right. Okay. So a couple of things. One, what is the real stuff for you? That is that is a slightly nebulous category for me.

所以我在想，能否像我们在学术界常说的那样，请你更精确地界定一下'真正重要的东西'是什么。

So I wonder if you could put, as we might say in academia, if you could put a finer point on what the real stuff is.

嗯，我们可能在会议小组讨论时遇到这种情况，你会问我这个问题，而我可能会给出一个敷衍的回答。

Well, we could be on a panel at a conference and you could ask me that and I would come up with a bullshit answer.

是啊。给我

Yeah. Give me

然后真实的回答会是我们去酒吧喝一杯时才会说的，对吧？我们会聊到其中有些其实就是基本的唯物主义，对吧？还有些就像，我在那篇论文里这么写是因为我得完成论文，毕竟当时在飞机上，明白吗？就是说写作行为不可能脱离生活条件而存在。

And the real then we would go get a drink at the bar and then we would have the real answer, right? Where we would talk about Some of it is actually just like basic materialism, right? And some of it is like, well, I said this in that paper because I needed to finish the paper because I was like on the plane, okay? Right? Like to say that like the act of writing doesn't take place outside of conditions of living.

但另一部分我认为是要忠实于喜欢或不喜欢某件事的真实感受。我通常抽象地推崇知识，喜欢人们拥有知识的理念，有时我自己也拥有，但如今作为评论家的美妙之处在于我某种程度上是个职业的业余爱好者。我说这话，你知道，带着几分玩笑。对吧？

But another part of it I think is just actually trying to have some fidelity to the experience of liking or not liking something. I am a fan of knowledge, usually in the abstract. I like the idea that people have it and sometimes I have it myself, but one of the great things about being a critic now is that I am sort of a professional dilettante. And I say this, you know, somewhat tongue in cheek. Right?

所以我现在在《纽约杂志》的职位只需要每年写几篇文章。他们给我充足的时间做研究。这在当下是非常罕见的安排。明白吗？大多数评论工作者都需要定期产出内容。但我有时间先读完作者的所有作品，或是他们访谈中提到的二手文献，书中涉及的内容等等。

So I I now have the position at New York Magazine where I only have to write a couple pieces a year. They give me lots of time to do research on them. This is a very unusual arrangement at this point. Right? Know, most of the people working as critics are having to turn things out on more regular basis or But, you know, so I have the time to try and read everything that the writer has written before or to read secondary text, things that they mention and interviews or that come up in the book, whatever.

我知道这确实能丰富我的工作。但如果仅止于此，我不会说这就是真正的批评。其中必须包含我认为这是好或坏的评价部分。因为当我说某件艺术品好时，隐含的意思是你们其他人也该这么想。倒不是独裁式的，而是说明为什么值得关注。

And I think that enriches I mean, I know it enriches the work. But if I was just doing that, I would not say that that's criticism properly. There still has to be a part of it where I say this is is good or this is bad. Because when I say of a piece of art, this is good, what I mean is implicitly, and the rest of you should think so too. In other words, not necessarily in a dictatorial way, but it's why anyone should care.

理论上我们写作是为了说服，对吧？你不一定相信我，我要写点什么，提供证据，让它有文采，希望最后你或许会认同我。但我不完全认为这就是批评的本质，不是因为我不想这么做——如果和你交谈，我确实想说服你。对我来说这更像是调情。

I do think that in theory we write to persuade, right? You don't necessarily believe me, I'm gonna write something, I'm gonna give you evidence, and I'm going to make it stylish, and then hopefully maybe you will agree with me by the end of it. I kind of don't think that that is exactly what criticism is about and it's not because I don't feel a desire to do that. I really do want to convince you if I'm talking to you. But the analogy for me is flirting.

很多人以为调情是为了让对方喜欢你。这是错的。没想到今天会得到这个建议吧。

So a lot of people think that when you flirt, you are trying to get the person to like you. This is wrong. You didn't know that this was the advice you were going to get today.

仔细听好。

Listen carefully.

你们你们这这是一个常见的常见误解，认为当你与某人调情时，你是试图让他们喜欢你。你并不是在做这件事。这不会发生。如果他们不喜欢你，他们就是不喜欢你。这不会改变。

You you it's it is a common common misconception that when you flirt with someone, you're trying to get them to like you. You're not doing that. It's not gonna happen. If they don't like you, they do not like you. It's not going to change.

这不是电影。对吧？这意味着唯一值得调情的对象，唯一值得调情的观众是那些已经喜欢你的人。我知道这是什么。你会不同意吗？

It's not a movie. Right? What this means is that the only audience worth flirting towards, worth worth flirting with is the audience of people who already like you. What this is I know. Will you disagree?

完全不同意。你不同意我的观点。

Completely disagree. You disagree with me.

我在调情和说服这两点上不同意你的看法。

I disagree with you on flirtation and on persuasion.

好吧，不同意不，这正是我说的。我想我知道你会不同意这一点，因为你最终会不同意我将要做的类比。但所以唯一值得调情的人是已经对我有好感的人。这很棒。那么我在试图做什么呢？

Well, disagree with No, that's what I'm saying. I think I knew you would disagree with this because you're gonna disagree with the analogy that I will make at the end of it. But So the only person worth flirting with is the person who's already attracted to me. This is great. So then what am I trying to do?

问题在于成为吸引的对象很难。成为渴望别人的人很难。实际上，在特定情境中创造一个能够承受对他人欲望体验的自我是一种成就。明白吗？所以当我调情时，我要做的不是试图说服你喜欢我，而是试图给你许可，让你向我展示你已经有的吸引力。

The problem is that being the subject of attraction is hard. It's hard to be the person who is desiring someone else. Actually, it is an achievement to actually create a self in a given situation that can bear the experience of desire for another person. Okay? So when I flirt, what I'm going to do with you is I'm not trying to convince you to like me, I'm trying to give you permission to display towards me the attraction that you already have.

你会感激这一点，因为这很难。对吧？所以这个类比，它不仅仅是一个类比。当我写作时，我是为那些已经同意我观点的人写作。问题在于成为评判的对象很难，常常让我们陷入恐慌、焦虑和愤怒。

And you will appreciate this because it is hard. Okay? So the analogy, which isn't exactly just an analogy. When I am writing, I am writing for the person who already agrees with me. The problem is that being the subject of a judgment is hard and frequently throws us into panic and anxiety and lashing out.

拥有一个观点真的很难，这就是为什么我们会说，好吧，这只是我。对吧？哦，我想这只是你知道的，就像我不喜欢它可能是因为你知道一些个人的原因对吧？有时候你是这个意思，但通常不是。你只是不想吵架。

It's really hard to have an that's why we say, well, it's just me. Right? Oh, I guess it was just you know the way that I like I guess I just didn't like it because of you know for something personal that it Right? Sometimes you mean this but usually you don't. You just don't wanna have a fight.

对吧？成为审美判断的对象很难。成为品味判断的对象很难。所以当我给你写信时，我要做的是假设你会同意，并花时间创造一个空间，一种丰富想象的空间，让你能够承担起表达你已有观点所需的主观性。

Right? It's hard to be the subject of an aesthetic judgment. It's hard to be the subject of a judgment of taste. So what I'm gonna do when I write to you is assume that you will agree and instead spend my time creating a space, a kind of richly imagined space in which you can assume the subjectivity necessary to bear the opinion that you already have.

不过，这条皱纹又怎么说呢？也许这只是我的心理作用。但人很少会被那些被自己吸引的人所吸引。那你为何还要为那个人费心？为何要费力为那个人营造那种空间？

Well, but what about what about this wrinkle? And maybe this is just my maybe it's just my psychological makeup, let's say. But one is very rarely attracted to the person who is attracted to you. So why would you want to work for that person? Why would you want to do the work of creating that space for that person?

与固执的他者展开调情，难道不是最终更具挑战性、因而更有成就感吗？某种程度上，这不正是所有浪漫喜剧的核心吗？对吧？进入与固执对象调情的空间，然后通过这种说服行为，让你们双方在批评的过程中以某种方式重塑彼此？

Isn't it ultimately more challenging and thus more rewarding to enter into a situation of flirtation with the obstinate other? Isn't this what all romantic comedies are, to a certain extent, about? Right? Entering into that space of flirtation with the obstinate other and then engaging in this act of persuasion by which the two of you are in some way remade through an act of criticism?

我想我们可能实际上在表达相同的观点，但必须明确的是，浪漫喜剧的前提就是我们早知道主角终会在一起。

I think we are actually potentially saying the same thing, but the thing that must be known about a romantic comedy is that we know they're gonna get together.

没错。

Yep.

对吧？是的。我们知道他们从相遇那一刻就互相吸引。这是这类作品的预设前提。对吧？

Right? Yep. We know that they're already attracted to each other from the moment they meet each other. That is the premise of the genre. Right?

所以这完全关乎他们。《当哈利遇到莎莉》讲的不就是两个人花了——多久来着？十年左右？——试图琢磨如何告诉对方自己的心意。对吧？同时也是告诉自己。

So it is completely about them. When Harry Met Sally is about people who spend like what? Is it ten years or something Trying to figure out how to tell each other that they like each other. Right? And to tell themselves.

因此我认为，某种程度上这种固执有时源于对方的某种固化，阻碍了他们认清自己早已喜欢的事物。当然这完全是个判断问题，对吧？因为我希望不是在说那种'来吧宝贝，你知道你喜欢'的论调。显然存在糟糕的版本。

So I think there is a part of it which is sometimes that kind of obstinacy has to do with a calcification in the other that prevents them from recognizing the thing that they already like. Now, this is completely a matter of judgment, right? Because I'm not I'm hopefully not talking about being like, come on baby, you know you like it. Right? There is obviously a bad there's obviously a bad version of it.

对吧？

Right?

但我觉得你比我相信人们更清楚自己的欲望。这就是为何我认为说服他人从根本上可行——因为我认为多数人其实并不清楚自己的判断。大多数人处于那种矛盾、难以言喻、模糊不清的欲望状态。或许我会在'权威'之外补充些接近操纵、说服或魅力的特质——你能真正说服别人：你比他们更了解其欲望。

But I think you believe that people have clearer senses of their own desires than I do. See, this is why I think it is fundamentally possible to persuade other people because I think most people don't actually know what their judgments are. And I think most people exist in that state of ambivalence, ineffable, inchoate, unknown desires. And perhaps the word that I would add to authority is something manipulation adjacent or persuasion adjacent, charisma adjacent, that you can actually persuade people that you know their desires better than they do.

我同意人们并不知晓。我同意人们不知道自己想要什么、思考什么。这很正常。但这正是我的前提假设。对我来说，目标是——我希望你阅读文章时，感觉像是你正在当下产生文中的想法，那就是你。

I agree that people don't know. I agree that people don't know what they want, don't know what they think. This is that's normal. But I think that's but I guess that's my assumption. For me, the the goal is to I want you to read the piece and feel like you are having the thought of the piece in the moment and that it is you.

事实上，你是否在经验上同意这一点并不重要。关键在于，在你阅读这段话的这段时间里，你会同意，因为你在产生这个想法。我将它传递给你，而你在阅读时，就会产生这个念头。

And it doesn't actually matter whether empirically you agree with it or not. It's that for the period of time that you are reading this, you do because you are having the thought. I'm giving it to you, and you, in reading it, will have the thought.

你知道，这很有趣，因为《不喜欢女人》是你少数几篇写关于喜欢某事的文章之一。我在想，那种‘严谨的否定性’描述，对你而言意味着什么？更广泛地说，为什么建立一个批评、不喜欢的词汇体系，比建立喜欢或赞美的词汇更容易或更令人愉悦？这是否与我们如何让他人认同我们的不喜欢，而非认同我们的喜欢有关？

You know, it's interesting because on liking women is one of the few pieces in which you have written about liking something. And, I wonder if that description, rigorous negativity, how does that sit with you and why, maybe more broadly, is it easier or more pleasurable to find a vocabulary of taking down, of disliking than it is of liking or praising? Does that have something to do with, you know, how we get people to assent to our dislikes versus how we get people to assent to our likes?

是的。我是说，有几个方面。其一，‘不喜欢女人’实际上是关于喜欢女人，同时不喜欢某些特定的女人。如果你读过这个案例的话。

Yeah. I mean, you know, there's a couple things. One, unliking women is about liking women and disliking a number of specific women. Right. If you have read the case.

对，对吧？这已经告诉你一些关于喜欢和不喜欢的事情。虽然并非总是如此，但一般来说，喜欢本质上是模糊而泛泛的，对吧？

Yeah. Right? Yeah. Already tells you something about liking and disliking, right? There is This is not always the case, but generally speaking, liking is vague and generic by nature, right?

‘我爱你’，我们都这么说。正因为我们都这么说，某种程度上削弱了它的具体性，对吧？

I love you, we all say it. The fact that we all say it sort of negates that any sort of specificity of it, right?

我们不会对每个人都这么说。我们不会——

We don't say it to everybody. We don't say

对每个人都这么说，确实如此。但当我说‘我爱某物’时，很难——至少对我来说是这样，我想很多人也是如此——很难明确说出我喜欢它的哪些方面。而不喜欢某物时，我却能非常清楚地指出不喜欢什么。这就是部分原因。

it to everybody, that's true. But when I love something, it's hard. Certainly me, and I think this is true of a lot of other people, it's hard for me to identify the things that I like about something. When I dislike something, it's very clear to me what I dislike. So that is part of it.

但《不喜欢女人》那篇文章也关乎一种特定政治乐观主义的持续幻灭。它以这样的句子结尾：‘失望的另一个名字是爱’。作为一个评论家，我曾写过一篇关于安德鲁·洛伊德·韦伯的文章，在推特上看到——虽然推特不能真正衡量什么——

But it's also about Unliking Women is also that that essay is about the continual disappointment of a particular kind of political optimism. Right? And it ends on this note of I think the last line of unliking women is the other name for disappointment is love. Right? And this is something that as a critic, you know, I I wrote a piece about Andrew Lloyd Webber and, you know, saw on Twitter, which is not a real measure of anything.

我只是喜欢去看看人们的反应，有些人说：‘她肯定不可能喜欢音乐剧’。我就想， excuse me？ 前几天我和弗兰克·里奇共进午餐，他多年来是《纽约时报》的戏剧评论家，被称为‘百老汇屠夫’，以写负面评论闻名。我们像两个刽子手一样讨论这件事：你总是带着乐观进场。比如我和朋友去看《回到未来》音乐剧时——

I just like to go and kinda see because I get to see what, you know, some people responding and saw some people saying like, well, she just can't possibly like musical theater then. And I'm like, excuse me? I I got lunch the other day with Frank Rich who for many years was the theater critic at the Times, who was known as the butcher of Broadway, who, you know, had a reputation for writing these negative reviews, we were talking to each other about this, one executioner to another. That you you always go in with optimism. Like, I saw with my friend, Back to the Future of the Musical.

当然，我对它的期待不高，但在剧院里我依然会兴奋。我几乎能看完任何剧的第一幕——这其实也是问题所在。有些巡演干脆砍掉第二幕，反而完全没问题。所以这种失望并非源于愤世嫉俗。

And of course, I didn't have high expectations about what it would be, but I'm still excited when I'm in the theater. I will watch almost anything for one act, which is really part of the problem. Some of these travel shows just they lop off the second act, and it's totally fine. So it's like, it's the disappointment of that. So it's not coming from a place of bitterness, I think.

对吧？苦涩是一种预先不抱任何期待以免失望的尝试。如果你想培养自己的戏剧评论家，这就是约翰·西蒙的套路。但我要说，我写的第一篇真正负面的评论是关于乔伊·索洛韦的，他是《透明家庭》的创作者，写了这本非常愚蠢的回忆录。我基本上在推特上把整本书都吐槽了一遍，然后想，我应该把这些写下来。现在回想起来，问题不在于它太个人化——因为我不确定自己会认同这种框架——而是我在写那篇评论时毫无乐观情绪，这让它显得截然不同。

Right? Bitterness is an attempt to not want anything in advance so as to never be disappointed. That's the John Simon approach if you wanna have your theater critics. But I will say the first really negative piece of criticism that I wrote was about Joey Soloway who is the creator of Transparent and had written this very stupid memoir and I had tweeted the whole memoir basically and was like, I should write this down. And now when I think about it, it's not that it was too personal because I'm not sure that I would sort of buy into that framework, but it was I didn't have any optimism going into that and that made it very different.

我认为批评中存在残忍与恶毒。恶毒就像饿了一周的斗犬，流着口水狂吠撕咬。而残忍则是牵着狗绳的人。明白吗？所以我觉得那篇评论属于恶毒。

I think there's In criticism, there is cruelty and there is viciousness. Viciousness is the attack dog that hasn't eaten in a week and is drooling and barking and snarling. And cruelty is the person holding the leash. Right? So that piece I think was vicious.

但这种恶毒恰恰证明它并非源于权威——因为它直接扑向对象实施暴力。残忍则会说：'我们该怎么处理这个？'你知道，这是一种克制，一种'我本可以伤害你，但我不愿'或'我不会太过分'的保留姿态。回顾我写过的那些抨击文章时，我希望自己逐渐转向了这种立场。

But the viciousness kind of it's proving that it is not coming from a place of authority because it leaps into the exacting of violence onto the object. Cruelty says, well, what are we gonna do about this? You know, it's a there's a restraint and a withholding of I could be hurting you, but I won't or I won't as much or And that that position I have I I hope kind of moved towards as I look at these takedowns that I have written.

你关于权威的论述让我想起稍早时提到的观点：批评的目的是判断，而这种判断从不被框定为完全个人化的表达。我们不说'这在我看来很美'，而说'这很美'。我实用批评课上的学生会认出这是非常康德式的原则。在这种情况下，权威来自主体。

You know, what you say about authority makes me think about what you said a little bit earlier about how the purpose of criticism is judgment and how that judgment is never framed as something totally singular or personal. We do not say, it is beautiful to me. We say, it is beautiful. And those of you who are in my practical criticism class will recognize this as a very kind of Kantian precept. And in that case, the authority comes from the subject.

它源于主体感知或接触客体时的愉悦感。但批评的部分使命始终是让这种主观的愉悦或不悦能被他人感知，通过你的文字将客体呈现给他们，从而获得认同。那么在这个判断场景中，你如何看待评论家的权威？

It comes from the subject's feeling of pleasure sensing or encountering the object. But part of criticism is always to make that subjective feeling of pleasure or displeasure somehow available to others, to get them to assent to it by presenting the object to them through you, through your words. So how do you think about the authority of the critic in that scene of judgment?

好吧，我们该讨论多少康德？

Well, okay. How much Kant should we do?

别太多，因为我们要过渡到...好吧，给你五分钟。

No. Not too much because we have to transition to something Okay. Okay. I give you five minutes.

好，很快说完。康德说有三种喜好：一，喜欢令人愉悦之物——比如我吃零食时。

Okay. Very quickly. Very quickly. Kant says there are three kinds of liking. One, liking the agreeable.

二，喜欢美的事物——当某物很美时。三，喜欢善的事物——比如我喜欢跑车因为它速度快，或喜欢善良因为我认为其本质为善。

That's like when I have a snack. Two, liking the beautiful. That's when something is beautiful. Three, liking the good. That's when I like the car because it goes fast or when I like kindness because I think it's good in itself.

明白吗？三种喜好。其中两种涉及利害——我希望零食存在，希望跑车存在。而美不涉及任何利害关系。

Okay? Three kinds of liking. Two of them have interest involved. So I want my snack to exist, I want my car to exist. Beauty has no interest involved.

我不在乎这东西是否存在。所以康恩说，我喜欢它，但我没有——它与任何感官事物无关，也与任何确定性概念无关。所以我不能说世界上存在美，并列举它的特质。我只是有点喜欢它，对吧？我这么说是因为，我并不认为权威性纯粹源于我喜欢它这一事实，因为我们知道自己会因为其他原因喜欢很多东西，对吧？

I don't care whether the thing exists. So Conn says, I like it but I don't have It's not related to any sort of sensuous thing and it's not related to any kind of determinant concept. So I can't say there's beauty in the world and here are its qualities. I just kinda like it, right? The reason I say this is that I don't actually think that the authority is coming purely from the fact of my liking it because we know that we like lots of things for other reasons, right?

关键不在于我喜欢它，而在于在我喜欢它的体验中，我强烈感觉到其他所有人都应该如此。因此，真正表征美的体验的并非愉悦本身，而是突然意识到他人对你感受负有责任，以及你作为感受者所承担的责任。康德称之为'主观普遍性'。对吧？一方面，这只是我的感受。

It's not the fact that I like it, it's the fact that in my experience of liking it, I feel very strongly that everyone else should too. So the thing that actually characterizes the experience of the beautiful is not the pleasure per se, it's the sudden sense of the existence of other people's duty towards your own feeling and your duty as the person having the feeling. So Kant calls this subjective universality. Right? On the one hand, it's just me.

另一方面，它适用于所有人。昨天我在读A.O.斯科特的《通过批评实现更好生活》，他是《纽约时报》前任影评人。

On the other hand, it applies to everyone else. I was reading yesterday A. O. Scott's book, Better Living Through Criticism. He is a now former film critic at the New York Times.

也是现任教职人员。

Also current faculty member.

他当时在引用柯顿的观点。他做了个小小的柯顿式论述，说道：虽然我们不确定主观普遍性是否存在，不确定美是否真实存在，但或许我们可以努力趋近它，也许这就是批评的意义所在。不过他对康德的解读是错误的。其错误在于假设美是一种客观存在。对康德而言——各位注意，我们讨论还不到五分钟——

And he was quoting Cotton. He was doing a little Cotton thing and he was saying that, well, subjective universality, we don't know if it exists, if beauty really exists like that, But maybe we can try and work towards it and maybe that's what criticism is doing. He was he's wrong about Kant though. And the way that he's wrong is in assuming that the beauty is a thing. For Kant, we're still under five minutes here, folks.

对康德来说，问题不在于世间万物。而在于我能合理断言什么为真？我能确切知道什么？康德并没有说任何事物必然美丽，也没有断言美存在。

For Kant, it's not about things in the world. It's about what can I rightly say is true? What can I rightly know? And what Kant says is, he doesn't say that anything is necessarily beautiful. He doesn't say that beauty exists.

他只是说，我有时会产生某种特殊感受，这种感受让我相信他人存在，相信他们也有可能做出判断，且他们的判断理应与我一致。所以这是美作为体验的社交性。我认为这正是权威问题的根源——权威从何而来，又为何引发争议。因为我们知道，要证明一个关于美的判断极其困难，但问题是我们无法克制。权威性，我认为在于你要为这个本质上无根据的判断负责，而现在我们其他人至少不得不重视它。

All he says is that I sometimes get a particular feeling and that feeling makes me believe that other people exist and that it is possible for them to judge also and that somehow their judgments should be in line with mine. So it's the sociability of beauty as an experience. That I think is where the trouble with authority, where authority comes from and where the trouble with it comes from. Because we know it's extremely difficult to justify a judgment about the beautiful and the problem is we can't help it. The authority, I think, is a matter of becoming responsible for the fact that you have made essentially a groundless judgment that now the rest of us have to at least care about.

是的。有人会说这不只是主观的愉悦或不快感受，而是我不得不谈论它。当我遭遇某个对象时，我必须告诉你，却又不知该如何确切表达。

Yeah. Some people would say that it's not just the subjective feeling of pleasure or displeasure, but it's my compulsion to speak about it. I have an encounter with an object and I have to tell you about it, but I don't know exactly what to say.

这需要公共性。对吧？没有公众就没有美。是的。在我看来这具有革命性，因为你知道，康德留下的思想遗产，那整个传统有时会陷入这样的境地：要么'我要沉思美'，要么'我只是欣赏画布上的色彩游戏'或'音乐中的音调'等等。

It's a public. Right? There is no beauty without a public. Yeah. That to me is very revolutionary in a way that, you know, the the the kind of legacy of Condor, that whole tradition can sometimes end up in this place of like, well, I'm gonna contemplate the beautiful or I'm just gonna like see the play of of colors and the on the canvas or tone and the music or whatever.

这种体验非常孤立，往往非常精英化。对吧？像桑塔格这样的人就乐见大多数人不懂现代艺术。这是某种传统。但如果你只是关注它的呈现方式，就会发现这关乎我们如何被推向彼此。

And it is this very isolated and often very elite. Right? Someone like Sontag is happy that most people don't get modern art. That is a certain kind of tradition. But if you're kind of just attending to the way that it's laid out, it's about our being kind of thrust onto each other.

他之所以这么说，是因为这与康德的道德观存在某种类比，对吧？当我和妹妹一起看电影时，如果我说了些不太好的话——甚至不算批评，只是开始列举影片的一些特质——她有时就会感到被冒犯。而她是正确的。我想说‘拜托，我只是在讨论电影’，但她没错。我其实是在暗示‘你应该这样看待这部电影’。

And there's a reason that he says that it is kind of there's an analogy with morality for Kant, right? When I go to a movie with my sister and I say something kind of bad about it, and not even bad, if I just start to enumerate some of its qualities, she will get offended sometimes. And she's right. I wanna say, oh, come on, I'm just talking about the movie, but she's right. I'm saying this is how you should feel about this movie.

她对此感到愤懑。而我们，你知道的，就这样被交付到彼此手中。

And she resents it. And we are we are, you know, delivered into each other's hands.

我们现在稍作休息，稍后回来继续《批评家与她的公众》下半场。我在想，是否能把我们交付到彼此手中，或是把某样东西交付到彼此手中。请大家摸摸椅子下方——应该有个用胶带固定的信封。

We're going to take a quick break now and be back in a moment with the second half of The Critic and Her Publix. Well, I wonder if we could if I could deliver us into each other's hands or deliver something into each other's hands. If you could all reach under your, chairs. There should be an envelope taped to the bottom.

像谋杀悬疑剧似的。所以，

It's like a murder mystery. So,

我常觉得文学研究生课程有两种教学方式：一种是讨论批评应该如何进行，另一种则是实际开展批评。我准备了段文字，想请你那闪耀着权威光芒的大脑分析信封里的内容物。有意思吧？

I I do often feel like there are two ways of conducting a class, particularly in graduate school, in literature, let's say. One way is to talk about how criticism ought to be performed, and another way is to actually perform criticism. So I have a little reading for you. And I was wondering if you could put that great, glistening, authoritative brain of yours to work on this particular object that is in the envelope. Interesting.

好的。要我念出来吗？

Okay. Shall I read it?

我想那会很好。谢谢。

I think that would Thank be you.

我要个女同性恋当总统。我要个艾滋病患者当总统，要个男同性恋当副总统。我要没有医保的人，我要在有毒废物渗透土壤导致不得不患白血病的地方长大的人。我要16岁堕过胎的总统，不要两害相权取其轻的总统，我要失去最后一位爱人至艾滋病的总统——他们每次躺下休息时仍能看到爱人的眼睛，曾怀抱垂死爱人知晓死亡将至的总统。我要没有空调的总统。

I want a dyke for president. I want a person with AIDS for president, and I want a fag for vice president. And I want someone with no health insurance, and I want someone who grew up in a place where the earth is so saturated with toxic waste that they didn't have a choice about getting leukemia. I want a president that had an abortion at 16, and I want a president who isn't the lesser of two evils, and I want a president who lost their last lover to AIDS, who still sees in their eyes every time they lay down to rest, who held their lover in their arms and knew they were dying. I want a president with no air conditioning.

要在诊所、车管所、福利机构排过队的总统，经历过失业、裁员、性骚扰、恐同袭击和驱逐出境的总统。我要在监狱过夜的人，草坪被烧过十字架的人，遭受强奸又幸存的人。我要懂得爱也受过伤的人，尊重性行为的人，犯过错又吸取教训的人。我要黑人女性当总统。我要牙齿不整齐又态度强硬的人。

A president who has stood online at the clinic, at the DMV, at the welfare office, and has been unemployed and laid off and sexually harassed and gay bashed and deported. I want someone who has spent the night in the tombs and had a cross burned on their lawn and survived rape. I want someone who has been in love and been hurt, who respects sex, who has made mistakes and learned from them. I want a black woman for president. I want someone with bad teeth and an attitude.

吃过恶心医院餐的人。变装过、吸过毒、接受过心理治疗的人。我要实施过公民不服从运动的人。我想知道为什么这不可能。我想知道我们从何时开始被灌输：总统永远是小丑，永远是嫖客而非性工作者，永远是老板而非工人，永远是骗子，永远是小偷却永不落网。

Someone who has eaten that nasty hospital food. Someone who cross dresses and has done drugs and been in therapy. I want someone who has committed civil disobedience. And I want to know why this isn't possible. I want to know why we started learning somewhere down the down the line that a president is always a clown, always a john and never a hooker, always a boss and never a worker, always a liar, always a thief and never caught.

谢谢。

Thank you.

其他研究。

The other studies.

假设这是作业的一部分。我们可以设想它可能属于不同类型的作业，但假设它是关于宣言历史的，这是你写过的内容。你的大脑会如何开始处理它？

So let us say you were given this as part of an assignment. We could imagine different assignments that it could belong to, but let's say it is on the history of the manifesto, which you have written about. How does your mind start to go to work on it?

这很有趣，因为我当然认得它。

It's interesting because of course I recognize it.

是的。你想确认它的来源吗？

Yes. Do you want to identify it?

问题是，我其实只有模糊的印象，但我不...我记不清嗯...它出自哪里。我记不清的原因是，我感觉第一次看到它可能是在Facebook上。嗯。现在它成了一个...对。

Well, that's the thing is I don't actually I have a vague sense of it, but I don't I can't remember Mhmm. Where it comes from. And the reason I can't remember is that I feel like it is I feel like the first time I saw it was probably on Facebook. Mhmm. And now it's a Right.

所以这是个被梗化的东西。嗯。它就像那种，每当特朗普做了坏事时会出现的内容。对我来说它已经是消化过的信息，但它仍然符合经典实用批评的标准——不知道作者是谁，因为一，我不知道作者是谁；二，我也不应该知道作者是谁。我想它是刻意要显得匿名。

So it's a memed thing. Mhmm. And it's a kind of like, anytime Trump did something bad kind of a thing. Like it's so it's it's pre digested for me, but it also It still qualifies for the kind of classic practical criticism not knowing who the author is because I, one, don't know who the author is and two, I'm not supposed to know who the author is. It is meant to sound, I think, anonymous.

嗯。

Mhmm.

某种意义上说，对吧，它确实涉及匿名性。嗯。对吧？

I mean, in in a sense, right, it is about anonymity a little bit. Mhmm. Right?

能详细说说吗？这个文本在哪些方面涉及匿名性？或许更广泛地说，宣言这种形式在哪些方面与匿名性相关？

Can you say more about that? In what way is this about anonymity? And maybe in what way is the manifesto form about anonymity more generally?

嗯，你知道，首先我想要一个人，我想要一个人，我想要一个人。对吧？这种对总统的渴望本身就具有不确定性。我的意思是，我们读到时会想，首先我并不确定这个人真的想让所有这些人都当总统，而且你也不可能让多个人同时当总统。总统职位的核心特征之一就是独一无二。

Well, you know, I want someone, I want someone, I want someone, first of all. Right? The the there's a indefiniteness of the desire for a president. I mean, we read it and we think, first of all, I don't actually know that this person wants all of these people for president and you can't you also can't have multiple people for president. It's one of the key parts of being president is that there is only one of them.

我我我开玩笑地说，但也很认真。对吧？因为这某种程度上关乎总统只能有一个的事实。对吧？我引用下自己说过的话——

I I I say this jokingly, but also very seriously. Right? Because it is partly about the fact that there can only be one president. Right? I once just to quote myself.

我曾经写过一篇关于柯蒂斯·西滕菲尔德那本糟糕小说《罗德姆》的评论，那本书大致想象了如果希拉里·克林顿从未...

I once wrote this review of this horrible novel called Rodham by Curtis Sittenfeld that sort of imagined what Hillary Clinton's life would have been like if she never

嫁给比尔？

Married Bill?

准确说是嫁给他后又离婚。这本书让我厌恶的部分在于，总统职位被塑造成了某种大学学历女性群体的阶级抱负象征。嗯哼。就是我们所谓的'女强人'。所以渴望希拉里当总统，与其说是关乎国家治理，不如说是种'既然我该升职，那么希拉里就该当总统'的心态。

Well, she if she'd married him and then divorced him. Right. And part of what I hated about that book was that the presidency sort of stands for a kind of class aspiration among a certain kind of college educated woman Mhmm. Which we call a girl boss. And so the desire for Hillary to be president was actually less about who would be running the country and more of a like, because I should get a promotion and therefore Hillary should be president.

嗯哼。我在这篇文章里说过——我记得里面还写着'可以引用我这句话'——'美国出现首位女总统的那天（可以引用我这句话），也将是全美其他所有女性落选的日子'。嗯哼。对吧？

Mhmm. And one of the things I said in this piece was, and I think it had the phrase and you can quote me on this in it. The day the first woman becomes president, and you can quote me on this, will also be the day that every other woman in America doesn't. Mhmm. Right?

就像，一位女总统意味着恰好只有一位女性成为总统，而其他女性都不是。所以这里部分问题显然在于这个要求本身的不可能性。对吧？我们可以说这本身就是宣言的特性。

Like, a woman president will be exactly one woman being president and no other women being president. And so part of part of it here is obviously the impossibility of the demand. Right? Which is we could say is part of a manifesto in general.

但你提到对总统职位的阶级抱负时，还揭示了另一个矛盾：'我想要一位总统'的愿望与被列举的这些具体人选类型之间存在着张力，即便人选是多元的。

But something else that you're bringing out when you mention the classed aspiration for the presidency is that there is a tension here between the desire, I want a president, and the specific types of people that are being listed here, even in their multiplicity.

没错。当然。这些人选某种程度上都不适合担任公职。他们说'我想知道，也想知道为什么这不可能'。

Right. Of course. They are all sort of unfit for office in various ways. They say it. I want to know and I want to know why this isn't possible.

这是第一次我们在'我想要'后面接不同的谓语，对吧？突然变成了'我想知道为什么这不可能'。但这实际上不是经验层面是否可能的问题，就像女性当总统是否可能也不是经验层面的问题。这是个非常愚蠢的问题。

It's the first time we have a different predicate on I want, right? We have I want suddenly to know why this isn't possible. And it's not actually a question of whether it's empirically possible, right? Just like it's not a question of whether it's empirically possible for a woman to become president. This is a largely stupid question.

那么这种可能性或不可能性是在哪个层面运作的呢？

So in what realm is that possibility or that impossibility operating there?

我想知道为什么这是不可能的。

I want to know why this isn't possible.

或者换个说法，乐观和失望在这里分别体现在哪里？

Or to put it differently, where is the optimism and where is the disappointment falling here?

嗯，部分原因是这样。首先存在一个经验层面的不可能性。没人会给堤坝投票，没人会给做过堕胎手术的人投票，没人会支持这种事。

Well, part of it, right. So that you have first, you have the layer of empirical impossibility. No one's gonna vote for a dike. No one's gonna vote for somebody who's had an abortion. No one's gonna vote for it.

对吧？这是那种实际经验层面的问题。但还有另一个层面——当我寻找一个合适人选时。当那个因艾滋病失去至爱、每次躺下休息都能在眼中看到逝者、曾怀抱垂死爱人的人成为总统时，他们就不再是那个因艾滋病痛失所爱的某某某了。他们成为了总统。

Right? There's that kind of practical empirical layer. But there is another layer which is that when I'm looking for a good one. When the person who has lost their last lever to AIDS, who still sees it in their eyes every time they lay down to rest, who held their lever in their arms and knew they were dying, when that person becomes president, they stop being the person who lost their love lost their lover to AIDS, blah blah blah. They become president.

问题在于，总统这个位置唯一能成为总统的人就是总统本人。嗯。对吧？嗯。

The problem is that the president the only person who can ever be president is the president. Mhmm. Right? Mhmm.

你知道，让我们稍微转向一个不同的问题——你提到你认出这个是因为它在Facebook上被二次传播过。嗯。那大概是在2016年左右，虽然我要提前说明，这篇文章写于2022年。所以它已经被重新用于另一套更主流的政治...

You know, to take us to to swerve to a slightly different kind of question, you mentioned that you recognize this because it has been remediated Mhmm. For you by its appearance on Facebook. And that was probably in 2016 or thereabouts, even though I will give it away. This was written in '22. And so, has become sort of repurposed for a different set of, let us say, more mainstream political

对。

Right.

倡议或抗议活动中。话虽如此，尽管它是通过二次传播来到你面前，你喜欢它吗？你对它有什么反应？

Initiatives or protests. That being said, even though it comes to you remediated, do you like it? What is your response to it?

你是要我试着忽略它被二次传播这个事实？

You're asking me to try and set aside the fact that it's been remediated?

是啊。或者说我问你——嗯，我突然意识到这是你开口说的第一句话，而这句话本身就带着某种预设的判断。比如我在Facebook上看到这个时，就觉得它...

Yeah. Or I'm asking you well, it it just struck me that that was the first thing that you said, and saying that comes with its own kind of judgment baked into it. That I saw this on Facebook as something that

对。没错。

Right. Right.

这类内容被发布时多少有些不够坦诚，或许没有完全承认其来源，又或者被挪用于这样那样的政治目的。

Of kind of that was being posted somewhat disingenuously or maybe without full acknowledgment of what its origins were or it was being co opted for this, that, or whatever kind of political purpose.

对。对。我提到这个其实是为了给自己争取更多思考时间。我对此其实很矛盾。嗯。

Right. Right. I mentioned that to give myself more time to think. I am ambivalent about it. Mhmm.

当我拆开信封看到它时，第一反应是'哦'。我想，好吧，我大概能理解为什么会被邀请评论这个。嗯。实际上我有一瞬间不知道该说什么。因为它实在太...因为它看起来太具有多重决定性了。

When I opened the envelope and saw it, I was like, oh. I thought, okay, I can understand why I've been asked to comment on it, I think. And I I actually I had a moment of wondering what I could say about it. Mhmm. Because it is so because it seems so overdetermined.

嗯。嗯。

Mhmm. Mhmm.

我喜欢它吗？我想我确实喜欢，但我...

Do I like it? I think I do like it, but I

详细说说那个'喜欢'，或者那种喜欢的苗头。

See more about that liking or that inkling that inkling of liking.

好吧，我确实对宣言体有偏爱。嗯。就像我们之前说的，部分原因是我对措辞强烈且不负责任的句子没有抵抗力。也就是说，从风格层面我是喜欢的，对吧？但如果考虑政治内容，以及风格与政治内容的关联方式...这里有点...宣言体总有这个风险。我觉得这里有点流于肤浅。嗯。

Well, have I have a weakness for the manifesto Mhmm. As as we we have said, and that's partly because I have a weakness for strongly worded and irresponsible sentences. Which is to say, on the level of style, I like it, right? If I think about the political content and the way that the style kind of relates to the political content, I There is something a little This is also a risk with a manifesto. Think there's something a little facile Mhmm.

关于这点。就像是在刻意表现某种天真，但结尾又将其消解了。嗯。对吧？我想知道为什么这并非不可能。

About it. It's like there's a a kind of naiveness that is being performed in a way and that is cut into by the end. Mhmm. Right? I wanna know why this isn't impossible.

当它既承认要求的不可实现性又试图稍加自我保护时，这一时刻并未改变仍存在那种我不喜欢的总统形象。这部分对我来说就像——我不在乎总统是女同性恋、做过堕胎手术或因艾滋病失去爱人这类事。我在乎的是政策带来的实质影响。

Is the moment when it's both acknowledging acknowledging the impossibility of the demand and also protecting itself from it a little bit, but it doesn't change the fact that there is still this, like, presidential imagery that is that still I don't like. That part I that it's like I've like, I don't care about the president being a dyke Mhmm. Or Mhmm. Having an abortion or having lost a lover to AIDS or anything. Like, I care about the material effects of the policy.

明白吗？我在乎总统的实际作为。所以在后希拉里时代，很容易演变成'要是由被压迫经历升华的人当总统就好了'这种论调。而这种想法让我觉得极其讨厌。

Right? Like, I care about what the president actually does. And so it's easy to see how something like this in a sort of post Hillary morning era turns into, if only we had someone who was ennobled by their oppression as president. Right? And that I find that is obnoxious to me.

或许我可以提供另一个值得关注的视角，它源自最后三句话。我想知道——我们为何突然开始学习这些？那些已非身份问题，而是认知问题。

Well, let me give you something else maybe to care about and it it comes from those last three sentences. And I want to know I want to know why we started learning. All of a sudden, those are not questions of identity. Those are questions of of knowledge.

嗯。

Mhmm.

这是认识论问题。我们如何获知这些？如何将其接受为真理？你更关注认知问题吗？还是认为宣言实际上要求我们更关注认知问题——明知其提供的可能性根本无法实现？

They're questions of epistemology. How did we learn this? How did we come to accept this as truth? Do you care more about questions of knowledge? Or do you think the manifesto is actually asking us to care perhaps more about questions of knowledge knowing the impossibility of the possibilities that it is giving us?

我认为这是合理的解读。你本就不该真正认同——这些都是欲望表达而非事实陈述，本就不需要你认同，也不指望你完全接受。它会在身后留下某些东西，比如求知的欲望。

I think that that is a fair reading of it. You're not meant to actually speaking of assenting, you're not actually meant to assent to the I mean, these are these are desires, so they're not statements of fact. You don't have to assent to them in that sense, but you're not expected to necessarily go along with it. It leaves something in its wake. And that could be a desire to know more.

这其实也关乎批评，对吧？虽非完全美学意义上的批评，但也不无关联。我们来之前就讨论过批评者如何获得权威，而政治层面的批评与权威历来存在关联。部分原因在于事实本身——这份宣言的发表就具有特定意涵。

I mean, right, so this is about criticism too, right? I mean, not exactly in the aesthetic sense, but but in a way that's not totally unrelated. You and I, before we got here, were talking about sort of how We talk about the critic having authority, but criticism and authority in a political sense have a long kind of history of being correlated to each other. And partly there's the fact of it, right? There's the fact that this was published that has like certain implications, right?

意味着你可以无所畏惧地谈论某些事。但更核心的是总统职位——我想弄明白为何总统本质上不能成为批评者？为何我们对这个职位的隐性要求存在认知盲区？因为这些要求其实并不隐蔽。

That you can say certain things without fear of a certain kind of reprisal from the state. But also, it's about the presidency, right? Like, I wanna understand why the president can't be a critic essentially, right? I wanna understand why the president, not just we have knowledge that's occluded about the way that we select, like about the hidden kind of requirements of the job. Because in a sense, they're not hidden.

在美国长大的孩子从小就在公民课上学到某些观念。是的，我们有时会不假思索地相信这些说法。但更关键的是，总统职位本身无法成为真正意义上的思想场域。

Right? We are taught certain things in civics classes and as elementary school children, if we grew up in The United States. And, yes, sometimes we continue to believe those things uncritically, we say. But it's also that the president itself can't be a space of in a sense, a space of of like real thought. Right?

这可能不是总统的过错。这是权威体系的问题——假设这些人真的如愿以偿，他们中某人或全体当上总统之后呢？

And this may not be the president's fault. Right? It is a problem of authority because it's like, okay, say this person gets what they want. Right? One of these people becomes president or they all become president.

这就像是在戏剧化地提出一个问题：好吧，那我们还能做什么呢？对吧？比如，我们还能建立哪种不依赖于赋予某人权威来解决我们之间无法忍受的分歧的组织形式？

Like, is a it's it's also dramatizing kind of the question of like, well, okay, what else would we do then? Right? Like, what other organization could we have that didn't involve having to vest someone with authority to sort out our differences for us when they become too difficult to bear anymore.

嗯。

Mhmm.

所以我认为这种方式确实让它自己陷入了某种困境。但我不觉得这一定是件坏事

So so I think it does kind of it it does kinda tie itself into a knot that way. And I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing

关于这点。不，我也这么认为。我觉得这正是它有趣的地方。不过我会记住你说的'总统不能当批评家'这句话，等我开始自己的竞选活动时。

about that. No. I don't think so either. I think that's precisely what makes it interesting. Although I will think about your lines that the president can't be a critic when I launch launch my own campaign for office.

不，开个玩笑。非常感谢安德莉亚的邀请。谢谢大家收听《批评家与她的公众》，我是安德莉亚·隆·丘。

No. Just kidding. Thank you so much, Andrea, for your invitation. Thank you. You've been listening to The Critic and Her Publics with Andrea Long Chew.

我是玛芙·埃默里，在此感谢夏皮罗中心的全体员工、卫斯理大学校长办公室、《纽约书评》、文学中心网站、克诺夫出版社和Verso出版社允许我们使用本期的惊喜物品——佐伊·莱昂纳德的作品《我想要个女总统》，选自《烧掉它：革命的女权主义宣言》。感谢我们的编辑米歇尔·摩西，以及作曲家丹妮·伦科尼为节目配乐。两周后请继续收听我与索菲·平克汉姆的对话。

I'm Marve Emery, and I'd like to thank the staff at the Shapiro Center and the president's office at Wesleyan University, The New York Review of Books, LitHub, Knoff, and Verso for providing us with permission to use this episode's surprise object, Zoe Leonard's I Want a Dike for President from Burn It Down, Feminist Manifestos for the Revolution. Thank you to our editor, Michelle Moses, and our composer, Dani Lencioni, for her score. Join us in two weeks for my conversation with Sophie Pinkham.