撒切尔是对的

“世上有个体的男人和女人、有家庭。人们应当自立并照顾家庭和邻里。但从来就没有什么抽象的、可以帮我们解决一切难题的‘社会’”。——FT专栏作家塞缪尔·布里坦说，这是体现铁娘子哲学的最棒的演说。经验主义思想家都赞同她，而黑格尔的国家主义哲学则针锋相对。

测试中可能遇到的词汇和知识：

Samuel Brittan 本文作者，FT专栏作家塞缪尔·布里坦。其兄里昂·布里坦(Leon Brittan)曾是撒切尔政府的内政大臣和贸易与工业大臣。

obsequies ['ɒbsɪkwɪz] n.葬礼

verbiage['vɜːbɪɪdʒ] n.冗词；废话

Keith Joseph 基思·约瑟夫，撒切尔夫人的高参和好友，“撒切尔主义”的重要人物，最重要的作用之一就是说服铁娘子采用米尔顿·弗里德曼的货币主义。他曾在麦克米兰、希斯、和撒切尔三位首相的内阁中担任多个部长职务。

methodological individualism 方法论的个人主义，认为“集体是个体的总和”，反对以社会阶级、性别、以及族群作为研究实体。经济学中的“理性经济人假设”就是来自方法论的个人主义。

empiricist [em'pirisist] n./adj.经验主义者。经验主义重视观察和研究实验，其代表人物有弗兰西斯·培根，大卫·休谟和约翰·洛克等。它与“理性主义”重视抽象的思考和推理针锋相对。英美法和大陆法的不同特点可见两者的区别。

G.W.F. Hegel 德国哲学家黑格尔。文中引用了他的一句名言：“人具有的全部精神现实性，都是通过国家才具有的”。其强调国家至上、民族至上，贬斥个人自由和权利的国家主义哲学对法西斯主义影响巨大。

reductionist [ri'dʌkʃənist] n./adj.还原论、化约论的，Reductionism是一种哲学思想，认为复杂的系统和事物可以简化为各部分之组合的方法来理解。与整体论相对。

copse [kɒps] n.杂树林；小灌木丛

Thatcher was right – there is no ‘society’ (871 words)

By Samuel Brittan

Now that both the obsequies and the ritual condemnations of Margaret Thatcher are over, the time has begun for a more analytical look at her legacy. I am not a bad person to start this off as I was neither a passionate anti-Thatcherite nor regarded by her inner circle as “really one of us”.

A point that has been missed in all the verbiage of recent days is how much her thinking owed to Keith Joseph, the Conservative who helped to put the idea of a genuine free market back on the political agenda.

In saying this I am far from trying to detract from her legacy. On the contrary, she often said: “One day people will realise what they owe to Keith Joseph.” Anyone can confirm this by looking at her Joseph Memorial Lecture of 1996 given to the Centre for Policy Studies. The first part of the lecture, on the connection between a free economy and a free society, and the last part, on the perils of the euro currency project, are still fresh and relevant.

I should like to start with a comment she made that has defined her – it was even raised at her funeral. Some see it as one of the worst things that she said; I regard it as one of the best.

“I think we have been through a period when too many people have been given to understand that when they have a problem it is government’s job to cope with it. ‘I have a problem, I’ll get a grant. I’m homeless, the government must house me.’ They are casting their problems on society. And, you know, there is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women and there are families. And no governments can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first. It is our duty to look after ourselves and then, also, to look after our neighbours. People have got their entitlements too much in mind, without the obligations. There is no such thing as an entitlement, unless someone has first met an obligation.”

Thatcher meant, I believe, that people should first try to solve their own problems and those of their families and friends, and only as a last resort rely on government. The government is simply a mechanism with which people can help each other and force would-be free riders to make a contribution. I interpreted her remarks as an expression of methodological individualism (although I pity any speech writer who sought to persuade her to say those words).

I have tried to explain all this in my book Capitalism With a Human Face. Very briefly it means that the workings of complex wholes must be capable of being expressed in terms of individual components – chemical elements in terms of atoms, atoms in terms of subatomic particles and nations in terms of their citizens. Methodological individualism has been espoused by a long line of empiricist thinkers, some of very different politics to Thatcher.

The classical liberal philosopher Karl Popper, for instance, looked at the abstract concept of war. “What is concrete is the many who are killed, or the men and women in uniform.” The 18th-century Scottish philosopher David Hume remarked that a nation was a collection of individuals. This doctrine has also been denied by many supposedly eminent philosophers, such as the overrated G.W.F. Hegel, who said: “All the worth which the human being possesses in all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the state.”

Thatcher was well aware that the support she has been accused of withholding from declining industries in the north of the UK would have come not from a mysterious entity known as the state. It would have come from fellow citizens. She may have been right or wrong. But it was not a matter of her personal generosity. Nit-picking political philosophers have said that if she wanted to be a true methodological individualist she would not have added “and there are families” in her famous statement. It was like saying: “There are no forests, only trees and copses.” She was not so stupid as to fail to see this. But she was not teaching a political philosophy class. She was pointing out that aid for the poor, or distressed regions, had to come from somewhere – namely the inhabitants of the country concerned.

It was a pity that she was incapable of applying this reductionist thinking to foreign affairs. There are no beings such as Germany, Britain or Argentina – only complex entities composed of individuals. It is reasonable for a British citizen to value a British life more than an Argentine life, but it is unreasonable to put a zero value on the latter. It must be admitted that even if people habitually thought in these terms they might still support death as a necessary evil to avoid territorial losses and the like. But if this translation were always made it might sometimes lead to less nationalist policies. Even Thatcher must have been intuitively aware of this when she wept for 40 minutes at the loss of life when a battleship went down near the Falklands.

请根据你所读到的文章内容，完成以下自测题目：

1.What part of Thatcher's speech is "still fresh and relevant"?

A. That one day people will realise what they owe to Keith Joseph.

B. That the euro currency project was dangerous.

C. A strong connection between a free economy and a free society.

D. That there is no such thing as society.

答案(1)

2.Thatcher would deny that...

A. families are very important.

B. the government should not help homeless people.

C. low-rent housing provided by the government is a good project.

D. the people should earn his own living and help his families and friends.

答案(2)

3.The writer agrees to which of the following saying?

A. “There are no forests, only trees and copses.”

B. “What is concrete is the many who are killed, or the men and women in uniform”

C. “I have a problem, I’ll get a grant. I’m homeless, the government must house me.”

D. “All the worth which the human being possesses in all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the state.”

答案(3)

4.Why does the writer mention "she wept for 40 minutes at the loss of life when a battleship went down near the Falklands"?

A. To provide a vivid historical anecdote.

B. To show Iron Lady's humane face.

C. To express her belief that casualties are a necessary evil to avoid territorial losses.

D. To illustrate That she was neither strongly nationalistic nor extremely individualist.

答案(4)

* * *

(1) 答案：B.That the euro currency project was dangerous.

解释：第三段中说，在关于基思·约瑟夫的纪念讲话上，她讲的第一部分是关于C，第二部分是关于B。值得一提的是，导致铁娘子被迫辞职的主要原因，就是其党内同僚对欧盟一体化和英国加入欧元区的热情，与她的欧洲怀疑主义发生冲突。

(2) 答案：B.the government should not help homeless people.

解释：ACD是正确的。撒切尔不是反对所有的社会福利，而是认为人们应当自立和帮助家人与朋友，当走投无路时才依赖政府(as a last resort)。 在撒切尔著名的一段话中，她批评了一种心态：‘I have a problem, I’ll get a grant. I’m homeless, the government must house me.’ 事实上，她在执政时将廉租房低价出售给穷人，此举与国企民营化一样，甩掉了政府亏损的包袱，筹集了大量的资金，并提升了经济效益。

(3) 答案：B.“What is concrete is the many who are killed, or the men and women in uniform”

解释：A的意思是说，撒切尔夫人不会蠢到说这种颇为极端个人主义的话，因为她是一个非常注重家庭价值的人。 B是哲学家卡尔·波普尔的名言，这与之前引用的撒切尔夫人的讲话观点一致，作者本人显然赞同之。 C是撒切尔批判的一种福利社会下早就的“懒汉心态”。D作者认为黑格尔是被overrated，显然更不赞同这句国家主义色彩浓厚的话。

(4) 答案：D.To illustrate That she was neither strongly nationalistic nor extremely individualist.

解释：最后一段结合全文可知：撒切尔夫人既认同战争的伤亡是避免领土丢失等等的“必要之恶”，也从个人主义的角度怜悯他们，而不是高举民族主义大旗忽略个体。 最后一段看似复杂，每句话的主语，每个观点的持有者看似都不一样，但其实思路还是很清晰的。推演到极端的观点都不是撒切尔持有的。

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