The Culture of Defeat: On National Trauma, Mourning, and Recovery, by Wolfgang Schivelbusch
《戰敗文化：關於國族創傷、哀悼與恢復》——沃夫岡・席維爾布許（Wolfgang Schivelbusch）著
書評作者：Daniel Moran
刊於《Strategic Insights》2004年6月號（第3卷第6期）
《戰略洞見》（Strategic Insights），第三卷，第六期（2004年6月）
書評人：丹尼爾・摩蘭（Daniel Moran）
《戰略洞見》是美國海軍研究院蒙特瑞分校「當代衝突研究中心」出版的每月電子期刊。本文所表述的觀點屬作者個人意見，並不代表海軍研究院、美國國防部或美國政府立場。
書名：《戰敗的文化：國族創傷、哀悼與復原》（The Culture of Defeat: On National Trauma, Mourning, and Recovery）
**作者：**沃爾夫岡・席維爾布許（Wolfgang Schivelbusch）
**譯者：**傑佛遜・蔡斯（Jefferson Chase）
**出版：**Henry Holt and Company, Metropolitan Books, 2003年
**ISBN：**0-8050-4421-3
**頁數：**403頁
**定價：**27.50美元
克勞塞維茨（Clausewitz）曾說：「勝利從來不是最終的。」這是因為戰敗本質上是一種心理狀態。軍隊或國家之所以投降，並非因為被徹底摧毀——事實上，許多國家在投降時擁有的兵力甚至超過開戰之初。若仍選擇放棄，乃是因為人民與領袖已失去信心與凝聚力——也就是「戰鬥意志」。所有戰爭的死亡與毀滅，目的不過在於迫使敵人改變心意。然而，一旦心意改變，終究也可能再次改變。傳統上所謂「接受戰敗」，其實只是暫時的。
沃爾夫岡・席維爾布許的這本獨特著作，正是一場關於「現代社會如何重新協商戰敗意義」的深思。他選取三個案例——美國南方在南北戰爭後、法國在1870–71年普法戰爭後，以及第一次世界大戰後的德國——作為研究對象。他認為這三者正好展現了人類社會由前工業時代「有限內閣戰爭」過渡至二十世紀「全面且殘酷戰爭」的過程。席維爾布許主張，現代性使得「適應戰敗」成為一種文化過程，而不僅僅是政治事件。現代國家動員龐大人力與物力的能力，使戰敗的心理負擔滲透整個社會。集體的反應——被神話包裹、被理性化、經年累月地修飾與再詮釋——往往決定了勝利者最終究竟「贏得了什麼」。
當然，任何企圖評論「民族集體意識」的嘗試都難免遭受批評——若無明確社會科學方法，這樣的綜述可能顯得武斷。這批評不無道理，但多數讀者或許仍會擱置此疑慮。因為本書並非建模之作，而是史識深厚的文化批評，其價值取決於作者洞察之銳，而席維爾布許確實目光敏銳。
克勞塞維茨關於「勝利短暫性」的警語，原意在提醒勝者防止戰略上的自滿——若低估曾被擊敗者的韌性，往往會再度陷入敗局。席維爾布許也關注「命運之輪」的循環，但他並非以此作為再戰的召喚，而是作為一種心理安慰。西方文明的奠基神話中充滿了「驕傲導致墮落」、「英雄式戰敗」與「最終贖回」的意象。正如作者指出，羅馬的傳說奠基者埃涅阿斯（Aeneas）其實是特洛伊的敗亡難民；而希臘的勝利者代表奧德修斯（Odysseus），則被命運放逐、漂泊流離，只為尋回家園。
在文化層面上，「戰後復原」的目的並非為了積蓄力量、重啟戰端。席維爾布許分析的三個例子中，只有德國最終恢復了足以再次與原敵作戰的信心與力量。法國在1870年戰敗後雖重建軍力，到20世紀初仍是一流強國，卻主要將軍力用於海外殖民，而非歐洲大陸。某種意義上，法國將「復仇夢想」轉化為「文化優越姿態」，其具體政治表現便是帝國主義的繁榮。至於美利堅邦聯（南方），則根本無復國之可能，其戰後文化核心遂轉為「失落的事業」（Lost Cause）神話——把奴隸制度與種植園社會改寫為田園式的貴族文明。
因此，「戰敗文化」的主題並非報復，而是「讓戰敗感覺像勝利」。所有戰敗國家共有的心理，是企圖在道德上超越勝者。這並不容易，因為現代戰爭的失敗往往無法僅歸咎於戰略失誤。對於戰勝與戰敗雙方而言，戰場都只是社會達爾文主義的舞台。戰敗之後當然需要替罪羊，但選擇往往由戰後政治而非戰時表現決定。以南方邦聯為例，李將軍（Robert E. Lee）原本被視為蓋茨堡敗戰之責，但戰後因他避開政治爭鬥、保持貴族式沉默，反而被塑造成殉道聖徒；而真正捲入重建政治的朗史崔特（James Longstreet）則成了替罪羊。阿波馬托克斯（Appomattox）之降被重塑為「犧牲」儀式，而非屈服。
然而，現代戰敗的規模之巨大，使得僅以少數替罪者難以平息集體創傷。即使如德國戰後的「背後捅刀傳說」（stab-in-the-back myth）這類全面的陰謀敘事，也難解釋為何百萬大軍仍在異地投降。於是戰敗國必須創造一種論述，能解釋「為何較優者仍敗」，並證明「戰敗並未改變其優越」。席維爾布許最精彩之處在於分析這些修辭策略。最常見的便是認為敗方未得「公平之戰」：勝方僅憑壓倒性的經濟、技術或人口優勢取勝。如此一來，現代勝利被看作工業產品，是以靈魂為代價購得；而戰敗者保有靈魂，因此才是真正的勝利者。
這樣的觀點，或許在前工業或殖民社會更易出現。然而席維爾布許筆下的戰敗國——如1870年的法國與德國——其物質基礎相近。德國在1914年前甚至自認為是歐洲最先進的工業國。即便如此，這些社會仍試圖「從經驗中學習」，但這過程往往包含承認敵方某些制度的優越。因此，戰敗後常見的制度性反應之一是「教育改革」，模仿勝方設立新大學。同時，卻又努力說服自己：敵人的優勢其實源於自身的舊傳統。譬如法國人認為普魯士軍事優勢只是更徹底掌握拿破崙戰爭原則，而法國因安於榮耀而失去鋒芒。戰敗者總認為自己「偏離了本心」，並幻想若能回歸遙遠的榮光時代，就能東山再起。
因此，「戰敗文化」實際上是一種「倒置與重複」的文化，假裝在進行自省與歷史批判。敗者相信自己正在「從歷史學習」，但實際上，真實的歷史過於殘酷，只能經過重塑，讓其符合榮譽感與未來希望；而這種希望又根植於戰前最珍視的價值與圖像——那些或許正是導致戰爭的原因。戰爭中真正的無意義苦難與殘酷，總是最先被遺忘。人們誓言「不再忘記」，但他們遺忘不只是因為痛苦，更因為那會揭穿戰前社會秩序的虛偽與自滿。
這也解釋了為何席維爾布許的書中，對「苦難與哀悼」的記憶著墨甚少。美國版書名副題中加入了 “mourning（哀悼）”，但德文原書並無此字，內容中亦罕見分析。哀悼本應是與「不可挽回的失落」和解的過程。現代戰爭的死亡規模，使哀悼被制度化、公共化——國家公墓、紀念碑、追悼日、甚至募款電視節目——但席維爾布許幾乎不談這些，或許因他認為這些「文化表演」缺乏真誠。將全民苦難視為「共同財產」的想法，其實荒謬而常被忽視。對那些真正失去親人的少數人而言，這種文化性安慰意義有限；而對其他人來說——戰敗畢竟不是死亡——他們繼續前進，自以為學到了教訓，其實遠未如此。
《Strategic Insights》是美國加州蒙特瑞海軍研究院（Naval Postgraduate School）當代衝突中心出版的月刊電子期刊。本文所述觀點僅屬作者個人意見，並不代表海軍研究院、美國國防部或美國政府立場。
書籍資訊
Wolfgang Schivelbusch 著，《The Culture of Defeat: On National Trauma, Mourning, and Recovery》，Jefferson Chase 譯。紐約：Henry Holt and Company, Metropolitan Books，2003年。ISBN 0-8050-4421-3。全書403頁，含註解與索引，定價27.50美元。
戰敗是心理事實
克勞塞維茨指出，勝利從來不是最終的。
因為失敗本質上是一種心理狀態。
國家與軍隊的投降往往不是因為徹底毀滅：
許多國家在投降時軍力甚至超過戰爭初期。
但一旦人民與領導者喪失信心與凝聚力，戰爭意志便消失。
戰爭的死亡與破壞，其實唯一的目的就是動搖敵人心志；而既然思想能改變一次，就可能再度改變。
傳統上，失敗是「接受」的，但往往不會持續太久。
席維爾布許的研究視角
這本書探討近代社會如何重新詮釋戰敗的意義。作者選擇三個案例：
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美國內戰後的南方邦聯
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普法戰爭（1870–71）後的法國
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第一次世界大戰後的德國
他認為這三例展現了從前工業時代「有限戰爭」走向20世紀「全面戰爭」的過渡。現代國家的動員能力，使戰敗的心理衝擊滲透到整個社會，並且在神話化與合理化過程中，逐步轉化為長期的文化回應。這些回應會在很大程度上決定勝利者到底贏得了什麼。
戰敗的文化表現
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南方邦聯：不可能復起，只能透過「失落的事業」（Lost Cause）的敘事，把奴隸制度與莊園社會美化為高貴田園。李將軍從戰敗責任者轉化為殉道聖徒。
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法國：1870後逐漸恢復大國地位，但主要展現在海外殖民擴張，而非對德復仇。民族心態從「復仇」轉為「文化優越姿態」。
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德國：唯一真正回復實力並再戰的國家。但一戰後仍需建構「被背叛」神話，如「背後捅刀說」，以解釋為何強大的德軍在敵境仍然投降。
共同特徵
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失敗不是報復，而是倒置：戰敗國努力讓失敗看似勝利，並強調道德優越感。
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輸家保持靈魂：敗方往往認為勝利只是物質與工業實力的勝利，而真正的精神與靈魂仍屬於自己。
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文化挪用與教育改革：失敗國常在敗後改革教育、模仿勝方制度，同時聲稱對方的優勢其實源自自己的傳統。
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歷史扭曲：戰敗社會認為自己在「學習歷史」，但真正的過去過於痛苦，於是只經過改寫與美化後才能被記憶。
哀悼的缺席
儘管英文版副標題加入「mourning（哀悼）」，作者對此著墨甚少。現代戰爭造成大量死亡，確實催生墓園、紀念碑、追悼日等公共儀式，但席維爾布許視之為文化上的虛假。對失去至親的人而言，這些國家層面的文化安慰意義有限。對大多數人來說，戰敗畢竟不是死亡，他們仍能繼續前行，並且常常學到的比自己以為的少。
📌 總結
《戰敗的文化》不是嚴謹的社會科學分析，而是深具洞察力的文化批評。它揭示了現代社會如何透過神話、合理化與倒置，將失敗轉化為一種「精神勝利」，並為未來留下新的文化與政治基調。
要不要我幫你整理成「條列式重點摘要」，像研究筆記那樣，方便快速掌握書評核心？
好的，以下是 《失敗的文化》書評條列重點摘要：
一、理論背景
二、作者研究範圍
三、戰敗文化的三種表現
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南方邦聯
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「失落的事業」（Lost Cause）敘事。
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把奴隸制度與莊園社會浪漫化為高貴田園。
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李將軍形象被塑造成殉道者與聖徒。
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法國（1870後）
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復仇心轉為「文化優越姿態」。
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軍力恢復有限，主戰場轉向殖民地。
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帝國擴張取代對德復仇。
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德國（一戰後）
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「背後捅刀說」解釋失敗。
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雖在敵境仍投降，需靠「被背叛」神話合理化。
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唯一能再次重整軍力並重返戰場的敗國。
四、戰敗文化的共通模式
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倒置與精神勝利：敗方宣稱自己在道德上高於勝方。
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輸家保有靈魂：認為勝利是工業與物質的勝利，但精神屬於自己。
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文化學習與挪用：戰敗常帶來教育改革與制度模仿，同時聲稱勝方其實學自敗方。
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歷史改寫：戰敗社會假裝「反思歷史」，但實際上扭曲與美化過去，掩蓋真正的殘酷。
五、哀悼的缺席
六、書評評價
📌 一句話總結：
《失敗的文化》揭示了現代社會如何將戰敗轉化為一種「精神勝利法」，並透過神話與文化倒置，掩蓋真實的痛苦與殘酷。
要不要我幫你再畫一個 三國案例的對照表（南方邦聯／法國／德國），讓三者的戰敗文化特徵一目了然？
Strategic Insights, Volume III, Issue 6 (June 2004)
Reviewed by Daniel Moran
Strategic Insights is a monthly electronic journal produced by the Center for Contemporary Conflict at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. The views expressed here are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the views of NPS, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government.
For a PDF version of this article, click, here.
The Culture of Defeat: On National Trauma, Mourning, and Recovery. By Wolfgang Schivelbusch. Translated by Jefferson Chase. New York: Henry Holt and Company, Metropolitan Books, 2003. ISBN 0-8050-4421-3. Notes. Index. Pp 403. $27.50.
Victory, Clausewitz tells us, is never final. This is because defeat is basically a psychological fact. Armies and nations do not give in because they have been utterly destroyed: it is not unusual for the armed forces of a nation at the moment of its surrender to exceed those it possessed at the outset of the war. If it nevertheless abandons its cause it is because its people and their leaders have lost confidence and cohesion: the "will to fight." All the death and destruction of war have no purpose but to cause the enemy to change his mind. Yet a mind once changed can be changed again. Defeat, conventionally, is something that is "accepted"; but not for long.
Wolfgang Schivelbusch's interesting and unusual book is a meditation on the ways in which modern societies renegotiate the meaning of defeat. He examines three cases-the South after the American Civil War, France after the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71, and Germany after World War I-which he judges to have exemplified the transition from the culturally circumscribed cabinet wars of the pre-industrial past to the "unsparing and unlimited warfare of the twentieth century" (35). It is modernity, he proposes, that has made adaptation to defeat into a cultural, as opposed to a merely political, process. The extraordinary capacity of modern states to mobilize ever greater human and material resources for war insures that the psychological burden of defeat will be spread throughout society. Its collective response, enshrouded in myth and encumbered by rationalization, elaborated and revised over years and even decades, will go a long way toward determining what, if anything, the victors may have won by their efforts. Like anyone who proposes to comment upon the communal consciousness of nations, Schivelbusch is open to the objection that he is seeking to summarize what cannot be summarized, at least not without benefit of some explicit social-scientific methodology, which is entirely lacking here. It is a fair point, but one that most readers will probably set to one side. This is not a work of model building, but of historically informed cultural criticism. Its value is entirely dependent on the perspicacity of its author, and for the most part he has a sharp eye.
Clausewitz's observation about the transience of victory was a warning against strategic complacency. One of the surest ways for those on top to find themselves back at the bottom, he knew, was to underestimate the resourcefulness of a once-beaten foe. The tendency of Fortune's wheel to keep on turning looms large in Schivelbusch's discussion too, but less as a perpetually renewed call to arms than as a source of consolation. The most seminal myths of Western civilization are rich in images of pride before the fall, of heroic defeat and ultimate vindication. The legendary founder of Rome, Schivelbusch reminds us, was the Trojan refugee Aeneas; whereas the paladin of the Greek victors, Odysseus, was fated to wander the world in peril, just trying to find his way home.
In cultural terms, the object of post-war recovery is not to husband resources in order to fight another day. Among Schivelbusch's examples, only Germany regains the strength and confidence necessary to resume the fight against its original opponents. The French recovery after 1870 was, in military terms, less complete. By the turn of the twentieth century France was once again a power of the first rank, "willing and able to wage war" (162). Yet the principal arena in which its armed forces were employed was now overseas. One reason the First World War began in the Balkans and not on the Rhine was that the French had long since transformed their (manifestly unrealistic) longing for revanche into "a pose of cultural superiority" (145) whose chief political expression was the flourishing of French imperialism. As for the Confederacy, there was never the slightest possibility that it would rise again. The governing cultural conceit of the post-war South was thus of the "Lost Cause," by which the bleak realities of the slave market and the ante-bellum plantation were re-imagined as venues of Arcadian gentility.
The culture of defeat is thus not about revenge. It is about making defeat feel like victory. What all defeated nations share, Schivelbusch argues, is a determination to affirm their moral superiority over the victor. This is not easy, because the sources of defeat in modern war can rarely be confined to the realm of strategic error. In the examples discussed here, victor and vanquished alike regarded the battlefield as nothing more than a stage upon which a vast drama of Darwinian social confrontation was played out. Scapegoats there must be, of course, though the selection will normally be dictated less by wartime performance than by the exigencies of post-war politics. The obvious choice for the defunct Confederacy, for instance, was Robert E. Lee, whose military reputation during the Civil War was not exceptional compared to other senior Confederate generals, and who was widely held to have been personally responsible for the defeat at Gettysburg. Once the fog of war had cleared, however, the onus settled on Lee's subordinate, James Longstreet, who had the poor judgment to involve himself in the bitterly contested politics of Reconstruction, whereas Lee lapsed into a dignified silence that corresponded more closely to antebellum ideals of chivalric nobility. Appomattox became a scene not of surrender but of "sacrifice," with Lee in the role of martyred saint (66).
Nevertheless, the enormity of modern defeat requires something more than the assignment of blame to a few luckless individuals. Even mythologies of far-reaching and systematic betrayal-exemplified by the "stab-in-the-back" legend that gained currency on the German Right after 1918-will rarely prove sufficient to explain why, for instance, a German army numbering in the millions could have capitulated while still fighting entirely on enemy soil. What is needed in such circumstances is a form of argument that can explain, in general terms, why the better nation gave in, and why it is still better despite having done so. Schivelbusch is at his best in disentangling the rhetorical strategies by which this need is invariably met. Perhaps the most common recourse is simply to the idea that the loser has been denied a fair fight because of the other side's overwhelming economic, technological, or demographic advantages. In the eyes of the defeated, modern victory is an industrial commodity, which is purchased at the price of the victors' souls. The defeated get the keep their souls, and that is where the real victory lies.
Such ideas, one might speculate, may be more directly available to pre-industrial or colonized peoples than they are to the advanced Western nations that Schivelbusch studies-though the Confederacy might well be considered to have been on the margins of the industrialized world at the time of its defeat, in contrast to the much stronger and more economically diversified North. As between France and Germany, however, there was little to choose between them in material terms in 1870; while Germans before 1914 regarded their country, not without reason, as the most sophisticated industrial society in Europe. Even in defeat, such societies seek to learn from experience, a process that necessarily entails recognition that the practices of the enemy must in some respects have been superior. One recurring institutional response to defeat, as Schivelbusch demonstrates, is educational reform, often featuring the foundation of new universities modeled upon those of the winning side. At the same time, however, one sees concerted efforts to interpret the enemy's superior ideas as having in fact been acquired from the loser. Thus the French were quick to conclude that Prussia's military superiority in the 1870 was the result of its having more fully grasped the principles of Napoleonic warfare, while the French, although naturally preeminent in the art of war, had grown soft and complacent from resting on their laurels. Losers readily conclude that they have lately lost their way, only to decide that the attitudes and practices of a more remote and imperfectly remembered past would have stood them in better stead.
The culture of defeat is thus above all a culture of inversion and recapitulation, masquerading as one of self-scrutiny and historical criticism. The defeated believe that they must learn from the past. It is what they want to do. It is what they think they are doing. Yet the real past is too appalling to contemplate, and can only be remembered after it has been twisted into a shape that appeals to their sense of honor, and affords some hope for the future; which hope is in turn rooted in the values and images that were held most dear before the war began (and which may, of course, have contributed to bringing the war about). The meaningless suffering and pointless cruelty that are so much a part of the real history of war are the first things people forget-despite repeated vows never to do so-not just because the facts are so painful, but because they cast such a disillusioning light on the pretensions of the antebellum social order.
This presumably explains why memories of suffering and cruelty have so little place in Schivelbusch's account. His American publisher evidently felt it wise to insert the word "mourning" into the book's subtitle, but it does not appear in the German original, and it scarcely figures in the analysis. Mourning is a means of coming to terms with irretrievable loss. The scale of death in modern war has given rise to a range of practices intended to generalize mourning and make it public official cemeteries and war memorials, national days of remembrance, televised entertainments in which the stars donate their time to charity, and so on-but Schivelbusch pays little attention to such things, no doubt because their cultural inauthenticity is so apparent. The idea that the suffering of war is the common property of the entire nation is so commonplace that its obvious absurdity is routinely overlooked. For those among the defeated (and, indeed, among the victors) who must bear the death of a spouse, a sibling, a parent, or a child-a minority even in the cataclysmic conflicts studied here-one suspects the consolations of cultural renewal will have limited significance. For the rest, well, defeat is not death. They move on, having learned far less than they imagine.
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