誰是文化精英

Picture a coffee shop in a big city almost anywhere on earth. It is filled with stylish, firm-bodied people aged under 50 drinking $5 coffees. Fresh from yoga class, they are reading New Yorker magazine articles about inequality before returning to their tiny $1.5m apartments. This is the cultural elite — or what Elizabeth Currid-Halkett, professor of public policy at the University of Southern California, calls the “aspirational class”. Her book The Sum of Small Things anatomises it using fascinating American consumption data. Currid-Halkett herself is a class member (as are some of my best friends), and yet she helps explain why the cultural elite is so despised as to have generated a global political movement against it. Though Trump is the unmentioned elephant in the room in her book, you think of him on almost every page as the antithesis of this class — indeed, in the minds of his supporters, as the antidote to it.

請想象地球上幾乎任何一座大城市的一間咖啡店，裏面滿是穿着入時、身形健美、年齡不到50歲的人在喝着5美元一杯的咖啡。他們剛上完瑜伽課，這會兒讀着《紐約客》(New Yorker)上關於不平等的文章，一會兒會回到他們150萬美元的小公寓裏。這就是文化精英，或者用南加州大學(University of Southern California)公共政策教授伊麗莎白?霍爾德—哈爾凱特(Elizabeth Currid-Halkett)的話來說，“有抱負的階層”。她的新作《瑣事的總和》(The Sum of Small Things)利用引人入勝的美國消費數據對該階層進行了剖析。雖然霍爾德—哈爾凱特本人即該階層成員（我的一些至交好友也是），但她幫助解釋了爲什麼文化精英如此遭人鄙視，以致催生了一個全球政治運動來反對它。雖然在她這本書裏，特朗普是未提到的房間裏那頭大象，但幾乎每一頁都會讓你想到他，他就是該階層的對立面——的確，在其支持者腦海裏，他是對抗文化精英階層的良方。

Trump likes to tag the cultural elite as “the elite” but not all class members are rich. Adjunct professors, NGO workers and unemployed screenwriters belong alongside Mark Zuckerberg. Rather, what defines the cultural elite is education. Most of its members went to brand-name universities, and consider themselves deserving rather than entitled. They believe in facts and experts. Most grew up comfortably off in the post-1970s boom. Their education is their insurance policy and, so almost whatever their income, they suffer less economic anxiety than older or lesser educated people. Their political utopia is high-tax, egalitarian, feminist and green. They aim to be “better humans” rather than simply rich, writes Currid-Halkett. Though often too busy to be happy, they feel good about themselves. The inequality they see everywhere is never their fault.

特朗普喜歡給文化精英貼上“精英份子”的標籤，但這一階層並非都是富人。除了馬克?扎克伯格(Mark Zuckerberg)，還有兼職教授、非政府組織(NGO)工作人員、失業的編劇。相反，界定文化精英的是教育背景。該階層多數成員上的是名牌大學，且認爲自己對所得當之無愧，而不是憑特權。他們相信事實和專家。大多數人在20世紀70年代後的繁榮時代衣食無憂地長大。他們的教育背景就是他們的保單，而且基本上無論收入多少，他們承受的經濟壓力要小於老一代或教育程度較低的人羣。他們的政治烏托邦是高稅收、平等主義、女權主義和環保主義。霍爾德—哈爾凱特寫道，比起單純當一個富人，他們的目標是成爲“更好的人”。雖然經常忙到沒有時間快樂，但他們對自己感覺良好。他們處處看到的不平等絕不是他們的錯。

When it comes to consumption, the cultural elite’s core belief is a scorn for stuff. Branded goods no longer convey status now that any old oaf can buy them. The top 10 per cent of American earners (which includes most of the cultural elite) spends a shrinking slice of its income on cars, TVs and household items, things that the middle class still values. With the sharing economy taking off, hipsters barely own anything at all. Forget shared bikes — Americans can now rent designer dresses.

消費方面，文化精英的核心信念是鄙視炫耀性商品。名牌商品不再傳遞身份信息，因爲任何一個老傻瓜都買得起它們。美國收入最高10%的人羣（這包括了大多數文化精英）在汽車、電視機和家用產品等中產階層仍然看重的東西上支出不斷減少。隨着分享經濟興起，潮人們幾乎“一無所有”。共享單車算什麼，美國人現在連設計師服飾都能租。

What stuff the cultural elite does buy is used to adorn their bodies. Living in dense cities where everyone is on display, they need expensive clothes. New Yorkers in particular also have watch fetishes. In 2010 they “spent about 27 times more on watches as a share of total expenditures than everyone else — no city even compares”, writes Currid-Halkett in a typically delicious titbit.

文化精英確實喜歡買的是能裝飾他們身體的物品。生活在人人都在展示自己的繁華都市，他們需要昂貴的服飾。紐約人尤其迷戀手錶。霍爾德—哈爾凱特筆下一個有代表性的趣聞是，2010年紐約人“購買手錶在總支出中的佔比是其他人的27倍，沒有城市比得上。”

The cultural elite spends relatively little on beauty products, but splurges on exercise, because it thinks that bodies (like food) should look natural. The thin, toned body expresses this class’s worldview: even leisure must be productive. Instead of trawling shopping malls, class members narrate their family hikes on Facebook.

文化精英在美容產品上支出相對較少，但在鍛鍊上毫不手軟，因爲他們認爲人體（就像食物一樣）應該看起來很自然。修長、健美的身體詮釋了這個階層的世界觀：即使休閒也要富有成效。該階層成員不逛購物商場，而是在Facebook上介紹自己的家庭遠足見聞。

These people maximise what Currid-Halkett calls “inconspicuous consumption”: things you cannot see. They buy nannies to save time, elite magazines to feed their brains and status, and education to propel their children upwards. “The top 1-5 per cent [of American earners] spend on average 5 per cent of their total expenditures on education, while the middle class barely spends 1 per cent,” writes Currid-Halkett. Her intellectual ancestor Thorstein Veblen, in his 1899 study The Theory of the Leisure Class, portrayed Wasps frittering away money, but today’s cultural elite is engaged in a ruthless project to reproduce its social position. Barring some huge economic shift, today’s breastfed elite toddlers will be the elite of 2050. The meritocracy is becoming hereditary.

這些人將霍爾德-哈爾凱特所說的“隱性消費”（那些你們看不到的東西）發揮到極致。他們僱用保姆節省時間，購買精英雜誌填充大腦和地位，投資教育以便爲子女提供較高的平臺。霍爾德-哈爾凱特寫道：“（美國收入）最高的1%至5%人羣在教育上的支出平均爲總支出的5%，而中產階級勉強達到1%。”她的理論前輩索爾斯坦?維布倫(Thorstein Veblen)曾經在他1899年的著作《有閒階級論》(The Theory of the Leisure Class)中，描寫了盎格魯薩克遜裔美國白人(WASP)揮金如土的行爲，但如今的文化精英們則在堅定地傳承其社會地位。除非發生翻天覆地的經濟變遷，否則如今還在吃奶學步的精英二代們將成爲2050年的精英。精英階層正呈現出世襲色彩。

This is where the cultural elite’s self-image diverges from the view held by its critics. Trump voters see a class that talks equality while living privilege and exuding contempt. Here are Greenpeace members who are always on planes, proclaiming their goodness instead of improving the world. Maybe if everyone shopped at Whole Foods (the upscale grocery chain nicknamed “Whole Paycheck”) the world would improve, suggests Currid-Halkett. But there’s a counterargument: if everyone shopped at Whole Foods, it would lose its status, and the cultural elite would have to shop elsewhere.

這就是文化精英的自我形象有別於其批評者觀點的地方。特朗普的選民們看到的是這樣一個階層：他們過着特權的生活，卻在討論平等，而且散發出輕蔑。比如綠色和平(Greenpeace)的成員老是在飛來飛去，他們向外界誇耀自己的善舉，而並沒有致力於讓世界變得更美好。霍爾德-哈爾凱特提出，或許，如果所有人都在全食（Whole Foods，高端食品超市，綽號爲“整張工資單”）購物的話，世界確實會變得更美好。 但這裏有一個反論：如果所有人都在全食購物，那麼它也就喪失了地位象徵，文化精英們將不得不轉到別處購物。

These people live in places and ways that hardly anyone else can afford. The only poor people they know are their nannies. Their New Yorker subscriptions might cost just $90, but are usually premised on expensive educations.

這些人居住的地段和生活的方式是幾乎其他任何人都無法負擔得起的。他們認識的窮人只有他們的保姆。《紐約客》(New Yorker)的全年訂費可能只需要90美元，但通常前提是昂貴的教育。

Though Currid-Halkett is too polite to do more than hint at this, class members regard outsiders with either scorn or pity. Overproductive themselves, they look down on iPad parents, the obese and the uninformed. Many even mock their own parents as kitsch provincials. There’s an element of this in the relationship between Ivanka Trump (raised in Manhattan) and her father (from Queens). In fact, long before Trump became president, he was the exemplar of everything the cultural elite abhors. His hair and orange skin scream artificiality. He loves buying stuff. He is fat and ignorant. He thinks exercise depletes the body. He gets his information from cable TV.

霍爾德-哈爾凱特禮貌地暗示，這個階層的人對外部人士要麼嘲諷，要麼可憐。注重成效的他們看不起讓iPad陪伴孩子的父母、肥胖者和學識淺薄者。很多人甚至嘲笑自己的父母是鄉巴佬。伊萬卡?特朗普（Ivanka Trump，在曼哈頓長大）和她父親（在紐約皇后區長大）之間的關係帶有一點這種元素。實際上，早在特朗普當選總統之前，他就成爲文化精英厭惡的一切的化身。他的頭髮和橘色皮膚都暴露了人爲色彩。他喜歡購物。他肥胖且無知。他認爲鍛鍊會消耗身體。他通過有線電視獲取信息。

No wonder the key rite of cultural-elite conversation has become Trump-dissing (see previous paragraph). And so the cultural wars that got him elected rage on.

難怪文化精英們的主要話題已變成嘲諷特朗普。就這樣，把他推上總統寶座的這場文化戰爭正在延續。