文：林炎平

女士们、先生们、教授们和同学们：

感谢大家前来参加这个颇有意义的会议。你们有些人甚至不远万里从非洲和澳洲赶来。欢迎来到麦吉尔大学！

这个会议是关于全球正义，涉及的问题应该有移民、殖民和重圆【1】。

它们是极大的话题，但也是一些悖论。那些支持移民的人通常反对殖民，难道它们不是一回事吗？那些渴望重圆的人也往往是不想做出让步的，没有让步何以重圆？

在今天的语境中，对这些问题的探讨变得更加紧迫。这是一个现代社会中不寻常的时代，整个世界都看起来不太正常。从大西洋两岸的恐怖袭击，到世界各地的政治运动，它们都是被长久忽视的社会疾病的症状。

我长久思索如下的四个问题，也许你们可以给出一些答案：

政治正确这一理念从来没有像现在这样被批评和怀疑。在学术界，我们无法忽视这样的挑战。政治不正确应该被容忍甚至被鼓励。

我相信殖民和移民是这个世界的永恒话题，特别是在今天的语境下。而由于马斯克的企图，这个问题会更加成为话题，因为他正在计划殖民火星。我当然鼓励他如此做，但是也为他担忧。因为在他成功500年后，火星人会把火星上的所有问题都归罪于他的殖民主义。

民主正在所向披靡，而政治混乱也在到处蔓延。如果缺少公众理性，民主不太可能给他们带来好处。民主的局限源于一个简单的事实：真理不是由投票选出来的。麦哲伦从1519年到1522年进行了环球航海，直接证明了地球是圆的。但是如果在那时进行全民公决的话，那么结果是地球还是平的——从民主上来讲是平的。福山博士的《政治秩序和政治衰败》难以解释为什么同样的政治制度在过去曾经运作平稳而现在却不再如此。正是公众理性的丧失使然。

我认为重圆是迄今为止人类社会的最伟大的理念。我多年来一直试图理解为什么Reconciliation这样一个单词无法翻译为一个单一对应的汉语词，后来我终于意识到，在汉语里没有这样一个词与之对应，而其理由正是我困惑并在思索的。我相信有许多语言和民族难以找到一个单一的词和其对应，因为这个理念并不存在于每个文化和每个民族。正因如此，这个理念应该被移植到所有文化中。这是人类文明的终极目的。

当谈到重圆，我希望推荐各位从这个角度欣赏贝多芬的“第九交响乐”，其四个乐章正是从个人挣扎，到集体冲突，到深刻反思，最后到全人类的重圆。

我相信你们在这里研讨将使得这个相对暗淡的时代变得光明一些，并给予我们的社会以某些指南。

附英文原稿：

The Speech on the Conference of

New Directions in Global Justice

Inaugural Conference of the Research Group on Global Justice

September 8 and 9, 2016 (Thurs-Fri)

McGill University

by Yan P. Lin

Ladies, gentlemen, professors and students,

Thank you for being here for this meaningful conference. Some of you came as far as Africa and Australia. Welcome to McGill!

This conference is about global justice, in terms of immigration, colonization and reconciliation.

They are great topics. They are also paradoxes. The one who supports immigration is usually against colonization. Are they the same thing? The one who wants reconciliation usually does not want to make concession on his part. Without concession, where is reconciliation?

It is even more urgent to discuss and understand these issues in the current circumstance. It is indeed an unusual period of modern time. What we have seen, is a world gone mad. The terrorist attacks on both sides of Atlantic Ocean and the political movements in all over the world are the symptoms of long ignored social diseases.

I have been reflecting the following 4 issues and hope you can provide some answers to them.

I believe colonization and immigration are forever the topics, especially in today’s world. Even more if we know what Elon Musk is trying to do. He is planning to colonize Mars. I certainly encourage him but also am worried about him, because 500 years after his success, he could be criticized for his colonialism by all Martians for all the problems that they face then.

Democracy is prevailing but political chaos are spreading. Without public reasoning, democracy might not do much good for us. The limit of democracy is rooted in one simple fact, which is that truth is usually not found out by voting. After Magellan sailed around world from 1519 to 1522, the world was proven scientifically round. But if we had held a referendum then, the earth would have still been flat - democratically flat. Dr. Fukuyama’s Political Order and Political Decay has difficulties to interpret why the same political structure that worked relatively smoothly before, suddenly does not work as well. It is the decay of public reasoning that is the cause.

I believe reconciliation is by far the greatest concept in human society. I spent many years to try to understand why this word could not be translated into a single Chinese word. I finally have to admit that there is no equivalent word in Chinese to express this concept, for some reasons I am still struggling to root. I believe there are many other languages that cannot translate this word easily. This is a concept that does not necessarily exist in all cultures and all nations. Yet it is a value that should be colonized into all cultures. It is an ultimate destination of human civilization.

Talking about reconciliation, I would recommend everyone to enjoy Beethoven’s 9th Symphony from this perspective. Its 4 movements demonstrate Personal struggle, Collective conflict, Deep reflection and Reconciliation of whole mankind.

I believe what you discuss here can shed some lights on the relatively dark period of our time and provide certain guidance to our societies.

注【1】重圆是我采用的英文单词reconciliation的汉译。Reconciliation难以翻译为准确对应的汉语词。