有緣社會中的民主─「結構行動」與「覺知行動」的雙重描述

Democracy in You-yuan Society─the Double-Description of "Structural Action" and "Awareness of Action".

劉定綱(Ting-Kang Liu)

指導教授 ： 林端

國立臺灣大學/社會科學院/社會學研究所/博士(2012年)

https://doi.org/10.6342/NTU.2012.03287

摘要

本文所嘗試的是，兩種異質脈絡的雙重描述─民主與佛學。乍看之下幾乎沒有相干與對話的兩者，如何雙重描述？什麼是雙重描述？它與社會學所熟悉的「社會學的關係主義」有何不同？本文的寫作策略是，創造一個中介性的概念，即「有緣社會」，作為另一種社會想像。這個「社會想像」可與既有民主的象徵意涵進行對話。「有緣社會」說明的是我們如何以「說故事」的方式相互交織。我們不只思考「說故事」的內容，也關注「說故事」的方式，以及「進出故事之間」的可能性。關注於「說故事」方式的「有緣社會」，讓我們可以重新觀察「現代性的社會想像」。這也涉及如何思考「自我」、「溝通」、「行動」、「集體能動性」等概念。

我們提出的主張是，第一，「自我」是由許多連續現象所構成的蘊集。「自我間的關係」不是界線清楚的原子與原子間的關係，而是以「說故事」的方式相互聯繫。因此，關鍵的概念與其說是「關係」，不如說是「遞迴」。我們無法離開心智，單獨地對於「客觀」真實進行觀察。因為有心智的居中，對事物的觀察就涉及了編碼。編碼牽涉到「故事」。我們帶著自己的故事而來。在故事中，甚至一個簡單的開門動作，都可能具有深刻的意涵。帶著故事的我們，懷抱著過去的記憶，以及對於未來的想望。「遞迴」出現在，當故事中的一個環節因為新訊息及其帶來的新「連結模式」而發生改變，「故事」會從起始處即開始「截然不同」。本文希望能進一步思考「進出故事之間」的行動方式。

第二，「直接溝通」並不可能。溝通涉及後設地接收差異訊息的「臨界閾」。這個「臨界閾」標示了意識與無意識的界線。它不是意識或無意識本身，而是意識與無意識的「後設訊息」或「後設維度」。我們借用佛學的語言，稱呼此後設維度為「覺知」。「覺知」開始於「觀察你如何觀察」，以及專注於如何從「實體式」的思考轉換成「關連性」的思考。這個「關連性的思考」，佛學稱為「緣起」。「有緣社會」將日常口語中的「有緣」以及來自於佛學之「緣」的觀察，轉換為可以觀察「從媒介到形式」之具體運作型態的觀察工具。這讓我們可以進一步考察「有緣社會中的民主」之具體樣態，而對話於「民主，作為劇場」的種種想像方式。

第三，行動是故事的投射。沒有故事，我們無法得知什麼算是行動。這包括行動的單位、行動間的聯繫方式、行動與時間的關係、行動的開始與終結（也可以延伸到行動究竟有沒有開始與終結的問題）。「進出故事之間」的可能性，讓我們得以注意到「行動」在故事之外的影響方式。我們比較了兩種行動語意，分別是「行動/結構」與「業/解脫」。這兩種行動語意也是兩種「故事的故事」。它們涉及了如何面對「故事」的後設維度。相對於「行動/結構」，「業/解脫」說的故事是關於「如何從故事中醒來」的故事。「業/解脫」的二元符碼投射出來的行動類型是「覺知行動」。我們嘗試思考的是，「覺知行動」作為一種描述方式，如何與慣常討論民主時的行動類型，即「結構行動」（面向結構的行動）構成「雙重描述」。「雙重描述」藉由兩方所提供的訊息之差異，構成了另一個不同邏輯類型的訊息。此新類型的訊息，使觀察者的觀察多了額外的維度。

第四，從「行動/結構」的二元符碼與行動語意出發，我們得以理解對於民主至關重要的「集體能動性」想像。「結構行動」的概念說明，社會結構來自人類行動的積累。因此，透過人類集體行動對結構進行改變具有絕對的正當性。然而，當「集體能動性」遇見「想像共同體」之解構時，我們如何以「雙重描述」取代解構的「單一描述」？本文的嘗試是提出「劇場」的意象，既投入在故事之中「演出」，又可以進出故事，不執著於故事。民主，作為劇場。這意味著在民主中所呈現出來的「實在」即是「被觀察的實在」，而非如其所是的實在。一如劇場。我們穿梭於「民主，作為劇場」與佛學所說之「人生是劇場」兩者之間。在「民主劇場」中，我們的觀察與我們的行動，對於我們眼中的實在，起著構成性作用。這個意義上，我們省視「觀察的觀察」之政治意涵，以及佛學中的「定」與「慧」、「止」與「觀」之社會行動意義。

關鍵字

民主 ； 佛學 ； 雙重描述 ； 緣起 ； 有緣社會 ； 現代性的社會想像 ； 結構行動 ； 覺知行動

並列摘要

Abstract

The attempt of this thesis is to complete a double-description of two heterogeneous contexts—Democracy and Buddhism. How to double-describe the two seemly irrelevant concepts? How is it different from the”sociological relationism”? The strategy of writing this thesis is to create an intermediate concept, you-yuan society, as another social imaginary, which communicates with the existing symbolic meanings of democracy. You-yuan society explains the approach we apply to weave a story: we not only consider the content of the story, but also the format the story being told and the possibility of going in and out from the story. You-yuan society that focuses on the storytelling format enables us to re-observe the modern social imaginaries. This also involves how we consider self, communication, action, collective motility etc..

First of all, self is an aggregation of many contiguous phenomenons. The relationship between two selves is not just a simple relationship between atom and atom. Instead, it is linked by the storytelling format. Therefore, the key here is recursion, rather than relation. We can never observe the “objective” reality “mindlessly” (without using our mind); therefore, our observations involve coding. Stories are the base of coding. We bring our own stories, in which even a simple action like opening a door can have deep meanings. With our own stories, we carry the memories of the past, as well as the expectations of the future. Recursion happens when a new piece of information changed the original linkage in our stories, from where the stories from page one became completely different. In this thesis, we are trying to further consider the action approaches of going in and out stories.

Secondly, “direct communication” is impossible. Communication involves the sensory threshold that receives different meta-information. This sensory threshold marks the boundary between consciousness and unconsciousness. It is not consciousness or unconsciousness itself, but the meta-dimension or meta-information of consciousness and unconsciousness. Based on the Buddhistic language, we call this meta-dimension awareness. Awareness starts with “observing how ourselves observe”, and focuses on how to switch from thinking of substantialism to thinking of relevance. This thinking of relevance is called dependent origination in Buddhistic terms. You-yuan society converts the daily-used term “you-yuan” and the observation of the Buddhistic “yuan(dependent origination)” to a tool to observe the transformation from intermediate to format. This enables us to further examine the format of “democracy in you-yuan society”, and to communicate the many imaginaries of “democracy as the theatre”.

Thirdly, action is the projection of stories. Without stories, we can not know what an action is. This includes the unit of the action, the way the actions link, the relationship between action and time, and the start and termination of actions (it can also extend to the question of whether these are start and end of actions). The possibility of going in and out stories makes us aware of the impacts of the actions outside of the stories. We understand better the two semantics of action, “action/structure” and “karma/nivana”, which are also two types of “stories of stories”. They involve in how we face the meta-dimension of stories. In contrast to “action/structure”, “karma/nivana” is telling stories about “how to wake up from a story”. The actions the parity of “karma/nivana” projects are “ awareness of action”. What we are trying to understand is, how “awareness of action” as a way of description construct double-description with the commonly discussed types of actions in the context of democracy (that is, structural actions). Through the differences between informations provided by the two sides, double-description constructs another message in a different logic. This new type of message offers an extra dimension of observation.

Fourthly, based on the parity of “action/structure” and the semantics of action, we can understand the imaginary of “collective motility” which is crucial to democracy. The concept of “structural actions” illustrates that social structure is based on the accumulation of human actions. Therefore, changing the structure via collective human actions has its absolute legitimacy. Nonetheless, when “collective motility” encounters the deconstruction of “imagined communities”, how do we replace the “single description” with “double-description”? This thesis is an attempt to bring out the image of “theatre” – acting in the stories while being able to getting in and out of the stories. Democracy as a stage means that the “reality” in democracy is “the observed reality”, instead of the reality as it is. Just like the metaphor of theatre, we shuttle between “democracy as a theatre” and Buddhistic “life is a theatre”. In the theatre of democracy, we observe our own actions that construct the reality we believe. In this sense, we examine the political meanings of “second order observation”, the concepts of “ding” and “hui” in Buddhism, and the social meanings of actions of “zhi” and “guan”.

並列關鍵字

Democracy ； Buddhism ； Double-Description ； Dependent Origination ； You-yuan society ； Modern Social Imaginaries ； Structural Action ； Awareness of Action

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