最近偶然聽到一個電台訪談節目，受訪嘉賓是香港一位“新官上任”的司長。當被問及“核心價值”的內容時，司長大人如是說：“我的核心價值與一般香港人一樣，是誠信、自由、依法辦事。可能還有其他，不過我一時記不起。”
真是語出驚人！最近一段時間，香港各級官員都在反覆強調要“捍衛核心價值”。至於“核心價值”為何物，司長大人上任還不到一星期，卻已經“一時記不起”了。我懷疑，如果話題深入下去，何謂“誠信、自由、依法辦事”，恐怕司長大人也說不清楚。
對於這些耳熟能詳、卻又語義不清、模稜兩可的字句，人們給了它一個冠冕堂皇的名稱－－政治語言。就連“政治”一詞，本身也顯得“語義不清、模稜兩可”。
一種觀點認為，政治語言的腐敗，“娛樂文化”是罪魁禍首。筆者最近讀了一本書，名為《娛樂至死》，那是一本聲討“電視文化”的作品。作者尼爾．玻茲曼的觀點簡述如下：
- 一段相同的內容，通過不同的媒介表達出來，其效果也將完全不同。例如，當你寫作學述論文時，你所引用的內容必須是書面材料，而不能是口耳相傳、道聽途說的內容。同樣地，當你完成答辯後，你希望得到的是一紙學位證書，而不僅僅是導師口頭上的一句“你通過了！”（此為書中例子）
- 作為一種新媒介，電視推崇的是純粹的娛樂，只適合於娛樂信息的傳播。一切企圖嚴肅的電視節目，諸如電視新聞、政治、宗教、教育節目，紛紛顯得支離破碎、缺乏邏輯、無聊瑣碎，淪為娛樂的工具。它們為觀眾提供源源不斷的視覺刺激，卻沒有留下半點思考的空間。
- 由於電視的影響力與普及性，“電視文化”已經反過來腐蝕了這些嚴肅的話題。政治、宗教、教育，似乎都拋棄了嚴謹的邏輯話語，而只能以娛樂的面貌示人。
出現在電視上的政治節目無疑糟糕透頂。幾個月前的香港特首辯論會，我們都還記憶猶新。在那場節目中，我們看到的不是候選人對於政治立場的據理力爭、針鋒相對，而是對於個人形象的互相攻擊，以及千篇一律、泛泛而談的政綱陳述。
我要特別強調“千篇一律、泛泛而談”兩詞。因為，儘管“電視文化”的影響確實不可估量，儘管玻茲曼教授旁徵博引、汗牛充棟，儘管特首辯論會的確是場滑稽戲，“娛樂至死”的觀點卻顯然不符合我國國情－－我們並不覺得《新聞聯播》跟Angry Birds一樣有趣！從答記者問的“領導幹部”、到正在開會的“人民代表”、到各級政府的指示批文、到《人民日報》的匿名記者、到《新聞聯播》的主持人、到廣播電台的播音員、以至班上團支書發的電郵，他們的內容、格式、遣辭、語氣，莫不千篇一律、泛泛而談。正因如此，政治話題才顯得空洞無聊，讓普羅大眾敬而遠之。
那麼，空洞無聊是政治的本來面貌嗎？抑或是有“一小撮別有用心的人”存心為之？
首先，為免本文也淪為云云無聊政治文章之一，我不妨加入一些娛樂元素。因為，儘管上書的百般指責，為了引起讀者的興趣，我認為娛樂元素是非常必要的。以下是內地知名惡搞導演胡戈的《鳥籠山剿匪記》，影片雖以美軍入侵伊拉克為背景，不過喬不士的幾番公開演說，以及鳥籠山新開發言人的全部台詞，顯然都在諷刺我國的政治語言。影片長達47分鐘，諸位讀者請量力而為......
接下來進入正題－－摘抄部分。以下內容摘自喬治．奧威爾的散文《政治與英語》，它相當詳細地分析了語言貶質與政治的關係，解釋了“千篇一律、泛泛而談”的現象是怎樣來的。以下英文原文為網上資源，中文則摘自董樂山譯的奧威爾散文集。內容雖是反映七十年前的英語，不過套在當代天朝的政治語言上，也顯得恰如其份。
～～～～～～～～～～～～～～～～～～～～～～
...it is clear that the decline of a language must ultimately have
political and economic causes: it is not due simply to the bad influence
of this or that individual writer. But an effect can become a cause,
reinforcing the original cause and producing the same effect in an
intensified form, and so on indefinitely. A man may take to drink
because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more
completely because he drinks. It is rather the same thing that is
happening to the English language. It becomes ugly and inaccurate
because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language
makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts. The point is that the
process is reversible. Modern English, especially written English, is
full of bad habits which spread by imitation and which can be avoided if
one is willing to take the necessary trouble. If one gets rid of these
habits one can think more clearly, and to think clearly is a necessary
first step toward political regeneration: so that the fight against bad
English is not frivolous and is not the exclusive concern of
professional writers...
……事情很清楚，某一種語言的退化最終來說必然有政治和經濟上的原因，不會僅僅是這個或那個作家的不良影響。但是，效果也可能變成原因，從而加強了原來的原因，並以加重的方式產生同樣的效果，如此反覆循環不已。有人借酒澆愁，可能因為覺得自己一事無成，但又由於嗜酒而更加一敗塗地。英語所發生的情況可以說就是如此。它因為我們的思想愚蠢而變得面目可憎和含糊不清，而它的隨便馬虎又使我們更加容易有愚蠢的思想。重要的是這一結果已無可逆轉（註：原文為reversible，董先生可能搞錯了）。現代英語，特別是書面英語，惡習充斥，這都是模仿所造成的流弊，只要我們願意作出必要的努力，是能夠避免的。如果我們清除了這些惡習，我們就能比較清楚地進行思考，而清楚地思考乃是政治革革必要的第一步。因此，反對蹩腳英語的鬥爭並不是等閑小事，也不是職業作家專門的事。……
......
...modern writing at its worst does not consist in picking out words for
the sake of their meaning and inventing images in order to make the
meaning clearer. It consists in gumming together long strips of words
which have already been set in order by someone else, and making the
results presentable by sheer humbug. The attraction of this way of
writing is that it is easy. It is easier — even quicker, once you have
the habit — to say In my opinion it is not an unjustifiable assumption that than to say I think.
If you use ready-made phrases, you not only don't have to hunt about
for the words; you also don't have to bother with the rhythms of your
sentences since these phrases are generally so arranged as to be more or
less euphonious. When you are composing in a hurry — when you are
dictating to a stenographer, for instance, or making a public speech —
it is natural to fall into a pretentious, Latinized style. Tags like a consideration which we should do well to bear in mind or a conclusion to which all of us would readily assent
will save many a sentence from coming down with a bump. By using stale
metaphors, similes, and idioms, you save much mental effort, at the cost
of leaving your meaning vague, not only for your reader but for
yourself. This is the significance of mixed metaphors. The sole aim of a
metaphor is to call up a visual image. When these images clash — as in The Fascist octopus has sung its swan song, the jackboot is thrown into the melting pot
— it can be taken as certain that the writer is not seeing a mental
image of the objects he is naming; in other words he is not really
thinking. ...A
scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writes, will ask himself at
least four questions, thus: What am I trying to say? What words will
express it? What image or idiom will make it clearer? Is this image
fresh enough to have an effect? And he will probably ask himself two
more: Could I put it more shortly? Have I said anything that is
avoidably ugly? But you are not obliged to go to all this trouble. You
can shirk it by simply throwing your mind open and letting the
ready-made phrases come crowding in. The will construct your sentences
for you — even think your thoughts for you, to a certain extent — and at
need they will perform the important service of partially concealing
your meaning even from yourself. It is at this point that the special
connection between politics and the debasement of language becomes
clear.
……現代寫作的最糟糕之處在於沒有為了確切含義而選用詞匯，為了使含義更加清楚而創造形象，卻是把別人已經排列成序的長串詞匯捏在一起，用純粹騙人的手法使得結果顯得像樣一些。這種寫作方法的誘人之處在於它的容易。你若說In my opinion it is a not unjustifiable assumption that就比說I think容易得多，而且要是你已成習慣，也要快得多。要是你使用現成的短語，你不僅不必尋字覓詞，你也不必考慮你筆下句子的節奏韻律，因為這種短語的組合一般是能做到讀起來多少是悅耳動聽的。特別是在你匆忙構思的時候──如向速記員口授，或者發表公開演講──就自然而然地會採用那種矯揉造作的拉丁化文風。諸如a consideration which we should do well to bear in mind或a conclusion to which all of us would readily assent這類的套話可以免得許多句子撲通一聲猛然落地。你若使用陳腐不堪的隱喻、明喻、成語，就可省卻不少腦筋，不過代價是使得含意模糊不清，不僅對讀者是如此，對你自己也是如此。這就是混用隱喻的結果。使用隱喻的惟一目的是在讀者心目中引起視覺形象。但是如果這些形象互相沖突──如The Fascist octopus has sung its swan song, the jackboot is thrown
into the melting pot──那就可以肯定作者的心目中並沒有他所指的東西的形象；換句話說，他根本沒有在思想。……一個一絲不苟的作家，每寫一句話就要問自己至少四個問題：我要說的是甚麼？用甚麼話來表達？用甚麼形象成語使它更加明白？這個形象是否新鮮，足以產生效果？他還可能再問兩個：是否能寫得更短一些？有沒有可以避免的笨話蠢話？不過你也不必非這麼認真不可。你完全可以回避這麼做，你只需在思想上門戶洞開，讓現成的短語蜂擁而入。它們會給你遣詞造句──甚至在一定程度上代你進行思考──而且如有需要的話可以為你作這樣重要的服務，那就是把你要說的意思甚至對你自己也半遮半蓋。至此，政治與語言貶質的特殊關係就已大白矣。
In our time it is broadly true that political writing is bad writing.
Where it is not true, it will generally be found that the writer is some
kind of rebel, expressing his private opinions and not a ‘party line’.
Orthodoxy, of whatever colour, seems to demand a lifeless, imitative
style. The political dialects to be found in pamphlets, leading
articles, manifestos, White papers and the speeches of undersecretaries
do, of course, vary from party to party, but they are all alike in that
one almost never finds in them a fresh, vivid, homemade turn of speech.
When one watches some tired hack on the platform mechanically repeating
the familiar phrases — bestial, atrocities, iron heel, bloodstained tyranny, free peoples of the world, stand shoulder to shoulder
— one often has a curious feeling that one is not watching a live human
being but some kind of dummy: a feeling which suddenly becomes stronger
at moments when the light catches the speaker's spectacles and turns
them into blank discs which seem to have no eyes behind them. And this
is not altogether fanciful. A speaker who uses that kind of phraseology
has gone some distance toward turning himself into a machine. The
appropriate noises are coming out of his larynx, but his brain is not
involved, as it would be if he were choosing his words for himself. If
the speech he is making is one that he is accustomed to make over and
over again, he may be almost unconscious of what he is saying, as one is
when one utters the responses in church. And this reduced state of
consciousness, if not indispensable, is at any rate favourable to
political conformity.
在我們這個時代中，說政治文章的寫作是拙劣的寫作，一般是正確的。若有不適用的地方，多半是因為那位作者是某種意義上的叛逆，發表的是他個人意見，而不是“黨的調子”。不論甚麼色彩，凡是正統，似乎都要求你採用一種沒有生氣的、鸚鵡學舌的文風。當然，小冊子、社論、宣言、政府白皮書、各部次官的講話中可以找到的政治套話，在黨與黨之間或有差別，但是它們在一點上都是一樣的，那就是你從裡面幾乎永遠找不出一句新鮮的、生動的、自創的話。你看着一個神態疲憊的政客在講台上機械地重覆着聽熟了的話──甚麼bestial atrocities, iron heel, bloodstained tyranny, free peoples of
the world, stand shoulder to shoulder──你常常會有一種奇怪的感覺，你看到的不是一個活人，而是一個假人。這種感覺有時會突然變得強烈起來，那時是燈光反射在演講者的眼鏡片上，使眼鏡片成了空白的圖片，後面似乎沒有眼睛的存在。這並不是純屬幻覺。使用這種詞匯的演講者已在某種程度上把自己變成了一台機器。他的喉部固然仍舊發出應有的聲音，可是他的腦子卻沒有在動。而要是他自己選詞造句的話，他就會動動腦子。如果他發表的講話是他一遍又一遍講慣了的話，他很可能根本不知道自己在說些甚麼，就像我們在教堂裡對應唱聖歌時口中念念有詞一樣。而這樣意識降低的狀態，對於政治上的馴服一致，如果不是不可或缺的話，無論如何也是有利的。
‘While freely conceding that the Soviet regime exhibits certain features which the humanitarian may be inclined to deplore, we must, I think, agree that a certain curtailment of the right to political opposition is an unavoidable concomitant of transitional periods, and that the rigors which the Russian people have been called upon to undergo have been amply justified in the sphere of concrete achievement.’
在我們這個時代，政治性講話和寫作多半是為不可辯解的事情進行辯解。像維持英國在印度的統治、俄國的清洗和流放、在日本投擲原子彈這樣的事情，確實是可以辯解的，不過只能用大多數人所不能接受的蠻橫的論據，而這又不合那些政黨所標榜的宗旨。因此政治語言就不免主要由委婉含蓄的隱語、偷換概念的詭辯和純粹掩飾的含糊其詞所組成。赤手空拳沒有設防的村庄遭到空中轟炸、村民給驅趕到荒野、牲畜被機槍掃射、茅屋被燃燒彈焚毁：這叫做pacification。千百萬的農民被剝奪農田，身無長物，跋涉於途：這叫做transfer of population或rectification of frontiers。未經審判而遭長期監禁，或者後腦崩上一槍，或者被遣送到北極圈伐木營中去患壞血病而死：這叫做elimination of unreliable elements。如果你要指出某些事物而又不願在讀者心目中引起它們的圖像，這種用詞是必要的。例如，不妨考慮一下某位舒服的英國教授怎麼為俄國極權主義辯解。他不能直截了當地說：“我相信殺掉你的對手，只要你這麼做能得到好結果。”因此，他很可能這麼說：
雖然我直率地承認，蘇維埃政權表現了一些人道主義者可能會感到遺憾的東西，我認為，我們必須同意，對政治反對派的權利加以一定限制，是過渡時期所不可避免的，要求俄國人民所承受的苦難，從具體成就方面來看，已充分證明是必要的。
The inflated style itself is a kind of euphemism. A mass of Latin words
falls upon the facts like soft snow, blurring the outline and covering
up all the details. The great enemy of clear language is insincerity.
When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one
turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a
cuttlefish spurting out ink. In our age there is no such thing as
‘keeping out of politics’. All issues are political issues, and politics
itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred, and schizophrenia.
When the general atmosphere is bad, language must suffer. I should
expect to find — this is a guess which I have not sufficient knowledge
to verify — that the German, Russian and Italian languages have all
deteriorated in the last ten or fifteen years, as a result of
dictatorship.
這種虛誇的文風本身就是一種委婉的隱語。一大堆拉丁字根的詞匯像雪花一樣落在事實上，模糊了界線輪廓，掩蓋了一切細節。不誠實乃是語言明白的大敵。在一個人的真正意圖和公開宣稱的意圖之間有距離時，他就會出於本能求助於大話和空話，就像墨魚放墨汁。在我們這個時代中，“不問政治”這種事情是沒有的。所有的問題都是政治問題，而政治本身又集謊話、遁辭、蠢事、仇恨、精神分裂症之大成。總氣候一壞，語言就受害。我料想──這完全是一種猜測，我沒有瞭解足夠的情況可以證實──德語、俄語、意大利語等在過去十年或十五年中，由於獨裁專政，可能都已貶質。
But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought. A
bad usage can spread by tradition and imitation even among people who
should and do know better. The debased language that I have been
discussing is in some ways very convenient. Phrases like a not
unjustifiable assumption, leaves much to be desired, would serve no good
purpose, a consideration which we should do well to bear in mind,
are a continuous temptation, a packet of aspirins always at one's elbow.
Look back through this essay, and for certain you will find that I have
again and again committed the very faults I am protesting against...
但是，如果說思想可以腐蝕語言的話，語言亦可腐蝕思想。一種不良用法可以由於傳說和模仿而傳播，甚至在應該而且的確具有識別力的人中間。我在上面談到的貶質的語言在許多方面使用起來都是十分方便的。像a not unjustifiable assumption, leaves much to be desired, would
serve no good purpose, a consideration which we should do well to bear in mind這樣的短語，是一種不斷的誘惑，手邊必備的一盒阿司匹林。回過頭來看這篇文章，我敢說你一定會發現，我自己也一而再、再而三地犯了我所反對的毛病。
……
I have not here been considering the literary use of language, but
merely language as an instrument for expressing and not for concealing
or preventing thought. Stuart Chase and others have come near to
claiming that all abstract words are meaningless, and have used this as a
pretext for advocating a kind of political quietism. Since you don't
know what Fascism is, how can you struggle against Fascism? One need not
swallow such absurdities as this, but one ought to recognise that the
present political chaos is connected with the decay of language, and
that one can probably bring about some improvement by starting at the
verbal end. If you simplify your English, you are freed from the worst
follies of orthodoxy. You cannot speak any of the necessary dialects,
and when you make a stupid remark its stupidity will be obvious, even to
yourself. Political language — and with variations this is true of all
political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists — is designed to
make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an
appearance of solidity to pure wind. One cannot change this all in a
moment, but one can at least change one's own habits, and from time to
time one can even, if one jeers loudly enough, send some worn-out and
useless phrase — some jackboot, Achilles’ heel, hotbed, melting pot, acid test, veritable inferno, or other lump of verbal refuse — into the dustbin where it belongs.
迄今為止，我沒有談及語言在文學上的應用，只是作為表達思想而不是掩蓋思想和妨礙思想的手段。斯圖爾斯．蔡斯等人的看法迹近乎認為一切抽象的詞都是沒有意義的，他們以此來作為借口，提倡政治上的無為主義。你不知道甚麼是法西斯主義，你怎麼同法西斯主義作鬥爭？我們不需要盲目信從這種謬說，但是我們應該承認，目前的政治混亂同語言的貶質有關。從語言方面着手，也許能夠對此有所改進。如果你簡化了你的英語，你就從最糟的正統蠢話中解放了出來。你無法再說一句必要的套話，而且如果你說了一句蠢話，它有多麼愚蠢，甚至對你自己也顯而易見。政治語言──從保守黨人到無政府主義者，這話都是適用的，只是程度不同──的用意是要使得謊話聽起來是真實的，謀殺是高尚的，使得空穴來風也有實在的外表。對此，我們無法一下子就把它改掉，但是我們至少可以改掉自己的習慣，而且只要我們大聲噓之，我們還是不時能夠把一些老掉牙的無用的詞語──例如jackboot, Achilles’ heel, hotbed, melting pot, acid test, veritable
inferno以及其他大堆語言垃圾──送到它們該去的垃圾箱中去。
(完)
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