| 摘要: | 許多學者相信，美國在殖民地時期便形成獨有的政治價值；包括自由、平等、 民主、法治與個人主義，這些價值觀深植在心中，構成美國人的反權力觀。
本論文研究的焦點放在十九世紀，有三個時期代表著美國社會權力的失衡，也意謂對美國信念的威脅。十九世紀的初期精英統治的思想盛行，大政府與國家銀行代表著權力集中在少數精英之手。其次，奴隸制度自開國以來便是美國社會的棘手問題，南方為了捍衛奴隸制度，借用昔日封建制度與反聯邦的思想，視黑人為次等族群。到了十九世紀末，美國已成為當時最先進的國家，受到社會達爾文主義的影響，美國社會貧富差距加大，經濟分配不公，造成一般大眾的剝奪感。而在步入二十世紀之時，由於社會富裕以及國力強大，美國信念受到馬克思社會主義與帝國主義的考驗，是為另一次的考驗。
為了打破不同階段的權力壟斷，美國信念形成不同的思想理路：在十九世紀的初期，Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson及其他民主思想的信奉者，他們擁護自由主義，主張小政府、農業社會，鼓吹個人的價值，扭轉大政府與精英思維，重返美國信念。在對抗奴隸制度的聖戰中，北方的思想家也召喚美國信念，以民主、平等與個人權利做為學理上的彈药。而在第三次信念狂潮的年代中，美國價值針對經濟的失衡與政府缺乏效能的議題，主張政府應採取更有效的行動並規範經濟活動，人們應放棄孤立的個人主義，學習合作與同情，使社會更加安全。但在十九、二十世紀交接的時候，美國信念已有所修正，雖然成功地逐退了社會主義，但在外交上仍然步上帝國主義之路。
本論文證明在美國人的思維深處有一套價值觀，當政治機構背離這些理念，信念便會號召人們挺身來消滅這理念與現實的差距。
Many scholars believe there is a set of values, which American people have implanted in their minds early before the founding of the US. These values are liberty, equality, democracy, individualism and the rule of law under a constitution, which constitute an anti-power ethic. They give American people moral momentum to dissolve any types of aggrandizement of power.
This dissertation focuses on 19th-century America, in which three critical periods present a power imbalance. In each period, the power that was perceived as a threat to the American Creed assumed a different form. In the beginning of the 19th century, the elite-ruled class, the national bank, and the big federal government monopolized much power and placed the common people in a disadvantaged position. Secondly, slavery had long been a thorny problem in America. Thinkers in the south developed their unique ideas to defend slavery. Running counter to the liberalism, those ideas, invoking feudalism and anti-federalism, considered blacks an inferior race. At the end of the 19th century, the US had already become the most developed industrial country. Encouraged by social Darwinism, American industrial society featured a significant disparity between poor and rich. Big corporations and business tycoons grabbed the power and put the poor in a miserable predicament. However, during the turning of the 19th to 20th century, the US was already a world power, and the American Creed was facing another two challenges. Marxian socialism powerfully criticized capital society and won the support from labors. Also, the US was too strong a country to refuse the temptation of imperialism. She extended her influence and established several bastions of the Creed overseas.
To break up the organized power in the different periods described above, the intellectual strains of the American Creed in different periods embodied different political thinking. In the beginning of 19th century, Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson and other democracy thinkers championed liberalism, embraced a small government, an agrarian society, and the values of individuals, which finally brought the big government and elite thinking back accordant with the American Creed. To stage the thinking crusade against slavery, the thinkers of the north America summoned the ideas of the American Creed: democracy, equality, and individual rights as their intellectual ammunition. In the third ear of creedal passion, the American Creed aimed at the economic injustice and ineffective government to take more active actions to regulate economics, and they believe that people should renounce isolated individualism and be more cooperative and sympathetic to make the society more secure. However, Marxian socialism and imperialism triggered some changes of the Creed. The US began to modify the original notion of individualism: laissez-faire, competition, and survival of the fittest, and focused more on the ideal of equality of opportunity. Americans did not only build a city upon a hill in their own land but also tried to extend the so called promising land to overseas, and this is the idea that led American to the road of imperialism.
This dissertation approves that, deep in American thinking, there is a set of powerful values. When the political institutions go astray from them, people will stand out and shorten the gap between the ideas and institutions. |
