博洛尼亚——这里是世界上最古老的大学, 欧洲文艺复兴的摇篮之一，让人想起了500年前文艺复兴初期曾经居住在这附近的一位伟大的意大利人、现代史上首位政治学者——尼可罗•马基雅维利。在马基雅维利写给友人弗兰西斯科•维托里的信中，这名佛罗伦萨共和国国务秘书讲述了自己在距此不远的乡村里的流放生活。在漫长而平静的日子里，每当夜深人静的时候，马基雅维利总会换上宫廷的华服，进入自己的书房。在那里，他废寝忘食地阅读先哲遗篇，与古贤心照神交。只有在那样的漫漫长夜里，他才感觉不到饥饿干渴，也不再惧怕死亡。在那里，他写下了流传百世的代表作《论李维》。在此书中马基雅维利将政治制度分成三个大类：君主制度、贵族制度和民主制度；而每种制度又有相对应的堕落形态。君主制度可能堕落为暴君统治；贵族制度可能堕落为寡头统治；民主制度可能堕落为放荡无度的混乱。

马基雅维利代表着文艺复兴的精神内核——求知求真的精神。正是这样开明的观点促成了人类所有活动领域的各种伟大发现，创造了现代世界。然而，与其它大规模文化哲学运动一样，文艺复兴的理念已经逐渐变得抽象、教条——成为处理人类事务无论何时何地都必须遵照的公理。封闭僵化的心态取代了求知求真的精神。在政治治理领域，人们开始迷信作为三种制度之一的民主制度是绝对正确的；而选举在任何时候都是解决所有社会、政治和经济问题的灵丹妙药。

但历史经验告诉我们，事实并非如此。是的，民主制度非常成功地推进了西方的工业化，并在最近几个世纪中使西方站在了世界之巅。不过，当民主制度被移植到非西方国家时，收效良莠不齐，甚至许多地方被搞得一塌糊涂。事实上，如果我们仔细研究当代的西方世界，我们可以发现，欧洲和美国的民主制度正在朝着马基雅维利曾经预警过的堕落形态发展。非常有趣的是，今日欧洲最有能力的政治家（指意大利总理马里奥•蒙蒂）恰好也是欧洲唯一一名非选举产生的领导人。

问题是，直到最近几十年以前，我们一直找不到选举民主的反例。近代史上有许多民主治理失败的例子，却难以找到其它治理体系取得明显成功的例子。

直到世人将目光投向中国。人们无法继续忽略这一文明古国的复兴和其优势所产生的重要意义。十数亿人民从四分五裂的废墟和赤贫的苦厄中站了起来，撑起了世界第二大经济体。中国在没有进行一次选举的情况下，创造了这样的奇迹。可以说，今日的中国是一个实验性社会：创业精神推动着中国经济的增长；各级政府都在广泛开展着政治实践；艺术创造力使中国成为世界上最具活力的当代艺术基地。中国目前仍有许多问题，其中不乏严峻的挑战，但或许我们正在经历的，是另一场文艺复兴的开头。

中国复兴之际，摆在全世界政治和知识界精英们面前的是两条路。一条是否认中国：这是一条简单易行的道路，因为在许多人封闭僵化的思想里，只需先验判断就可以否定掉所有与民主、人权等普世真理相悖的事物。对这部分人来说，根本无需研究中国就能得出结论：中国不可能是特例，所以必将无可避免地走向失败。许多年来，他们一直预测中国会垮掉。当预言落空时，他们便将中国崩溃的时间点再推迟一二十年，然后坐等预言再次落空。

另一条路，是将中国的复兴看做一种契机，去重拾那曾经孕育现代世界的求知求真精神。或许现在是以开明心态去研究中国现象的时候了；或许根本不存在唯一一套有效、公正地组织人类社会的原则。你们可以看到，在西方的政治、知识话语体系中，人们似乎对可检验的命题不再感兴趣。人们不再像文艺复兴早期那样，将观点先作为假说提出来，而是直接奉为信条。以中国为例，接受多元化的世界或许会带给西方一个绝好的机会，为陈腐的知识界树立新风。

让我们缅怀另一位意大利先哲，那就是那不勒斯的哲学家詹巴蒂斯塔•维柯。在文艺复兴的早期，维柯对永恒的普世真理提出了质疑。他首先提出了关于文化的独特性的观点，并鼓励世人接受文化的多样性。诚然，与维柯的思想相反的笛卡尔、卢梭和康德在启蒙运动中占了上风，但正如当代政治理论家以赛亚•伯林所说，维柯的思想，不但从实践上，更从原理上直接挑战了所谓的绝对真理和基于其上的完美社会。当西方领导着世界朝着所谓不可阻挡的普世理想前进时，这些文艺复兴早期的思想被抹杀了。

或许当代东方的这场新文艺复兴能够重新唤醒沉睡的西方。（英文原文见第2页。）

Bologna -- In the world's oldest university, a cradle of the European Renaissance, one is reminded of a great Italian who lived at the onset of that Renaissance half a millennium ago - the first political scientist Niccolò Machiavelli. In one of his letters to his friend Francesco Vettori, the Florentine Secretary talked about his days in exile in a village not far from Bologna.

After each long and uneventful day, when all were asleep, Niccolò would put on his royal garment and enter his study. There, for many hours, he would read the ancients, converse with them. And in those long hours of the night he felt no hunger, no thirst, and he no longer feared death. It was there that he wrote his seminal work, Discourses on Livy. In it, Niccolò classified all political systems into three types: monarchy, aristocracy and democracy. He wrote that each had its degraded form. Monarchy could degrade into tyranny, aristocracy into oligarchy, and democracy into licentiousness.

Niccolò represented the fundamental spirit of the Renaissance, the spirit of inquisitiveness. It was that open-minded outlook that drove great discoveries in all spheres of human activities and created the modern world. But over time, as most sweeping cultural and philosophical movements do, the ideas of the Renaissance became abstract and absolute doctrines - a set of universal axioms that must be applied to organize human affairs across all times and places. Inquisitiveness gave way to moral and intellectual certitude. In the realm of political governance, it means that democracy alone, among all other possible systems of governance, is infallible. Election is the magical solution to all social, political and economic ills anywhere, at any time.

But we know from empirical evidence that it is not so. Yes, democratic institutions have been highly successful in delivering the industrialization of the West; it allowed it to dominate the world in recent centuries. Yet, when it is implemented in non-Western cultures, the record is spotty at best, and miserable in many instances. Indeed, if we examine the contemporary West, one might argue that democracy in both Europe and America is edging dangerously towards what Niccolò forewarned as its degraded form. It is interesting to note that arguably the most competent statesman in Europe today is also its only unelected leader (Mario Monti).

The problem, however, is that up until recent decades, there really has not been a counter example to electoral democracy. There have been many failures of democratic governance but not any notable success stories of other systems of governance either.

That brings us to China. The significance of the re-emergence and ascendancy of the Middle Kingdom can no longer be ignored. More than one billion people of a dismembered state have risen from abject poverty to make up the second- largest economy in the world. And it has happened without a single election.

Indeed, today's China, like Renaissance Europe, is an experimental society. Entrepreneurship drives its economy; political experiments are conducted at all levels of government; artistic creativity has made the contemporary Chinese art scene one of the most vibrant in the world. Many problems exist, some are severe, nevertheless we may very well be witnessing the formative stage of another renaissance.

As the Chinese renaissance unfolds, the world's political and intellectual elites have two options. One is to deny it. This is the easy route because, in the closed minds of many, any ideas that are counter to the accepted universal truths of democracy and human rights are rejected a priori. To them, there is no need to examine the Chinese case as for certain it cannot exist and it must be on its way to inevitable failure. For many years, they have predicted China's collapse. Such a collapse has not happened, so they simply postpone the projected date by another decade or two and sit and wait.

The other is to see it as an opportunity to reignite the inquisitive outlook that gave birth to the modern world. Perhaps it is high time that we study the Chinese phenomenon with an open mind. Perhaps there isn't a singular set of fundamental organizing principles of human society that is effective and righteous. In the current political and intellectual discourses of the West, people no longer seem interested in testable propositions. Ideas are no longer posed as hypotheses, as they were at the beginning of the Renaissance, but as articles of faith. And, perhaps, with China's example, a healthy acceptance of plurality offers a chance for the West to rejuvenate its ossified intellectual ethos.

This brings to mind another great Italian, the Neapolitan philosopher Giambattista Vico. In the early days of the Renaissance, Vico questioned the doctrine of timeless universal truths. He originated the notion of the uniqueness of cultures and advocated the acceptance of their plurality.

As the contemporary political scientist Isaiah Berlin noted, Vico's ideas directly challenged the notion of absolute truths and a perfect society founded on them, not merely in practice but in principle. Of course, the opposing ideas of Descartes, Rousseau and Kant came to dominate the Enlightenment. As the West led the world in what has been propagated as inexorable progress towards the universal ideal, those early voices of the Renaissance were silenced.

Perhaps the contemporary renaissance in the East could serve to reawaken the West.

（本文英文版发表于《南华早报》： http://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1099245/renaissance-east、赫芬顿邮报： http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-x-li/china-renaissance_b_2254288.html，bet365苹果版中文全文首发。）