主题：最近看到的笑话之八 -- 钛豌豆

英国一位伟大政治家曾经说过这样的话：“敌人的这个决定是不符合理性的，我当时就确信他们会在一代人的时间里被这种疯狂所毁灭，最后也确实如此。但是，政府和人民并不总是作出理性的决定。有时他们会做出疯狂的决定。或者一小群人掌握了国家，他们强迫所有其他人顺从自己参与蠢行。”

有牛津大学贝利学院的学生吗？没有？说这话的是温斯顿·邱吉尔，他当时在思考，为什么日本明明已经陷入了一场无法获胜的侵华战争，还会在1941年与英国和美国开战，从而“自取灭亡”。鲍里斯·约翰逊的偶像在他的二战回忆录中写道：“我需要反复记录，自己当时对于日本走向癫狂的难以置信。毕竟无论我们多么努力地试图把自己置于别人的位置上思考，也无法体会人类思维和想象中的理性已经无能为力的过程。”

我是在最近实在不想关注英国脱欧问题，想转移一下自己注意力时，偶然发现了丹·卡林(Dan Carlin)在关于1937-1945年亚太战争的历史播客中提到的这件趣事。但是，作为宪法危机，英国脱欧总是让你想忘也忘不掉。我并不是说英国与1941年的日本情况相似。我不太相信，雅各布·里斯-莫格（英国硬脱欧派议员）会策划将比利时舰队消灭在港口中，也不相信随后会爆发世界大战，最后以谢菲尔德和布里斯托尔遭受核打击而告终。

我只是说，历史上有许多例子，一个国家做出了不合理和毁灭性的决定，并因此遭受到惩罚。在2019年，我们可以看到，随着国家情绪变化，已经有28%的英国选民相信经济自杀是有意义的；从宝马(BMW)到松下(Panasonic)等公司在不确定性之中将投资转移出英国；鲍里斯·约翰逊则以“去他妈的商业”回应这种担忧；到一名迷恋于英国主权问题的议员，要求波兰的右翼政府帮助他推翻英国议会的主权决定；到现在，再没有任何人还嘴硬说脱欧是有益的，其目的已经变成了“塑造国民性格”。但在不久的将来，这些争论会逐渐消失，所有的细节都会被遗忘，人们会说：“脱欧是不符合理性的。”英国退欧的强烈愿望一直都是不理性的冲动，这是一个重要的教训。

另一个教训是，相信你的国家是独一无二的神国所以不可战胜（我知道1941年在日本这种想法相当普遍），并不能帮你抵御灾难。相反，这种信仰更有可能引导你走向灾难。这一点脱欧派似乎不知道——尽管他们自称是历史爱好者。

........可笑的英国例外论仍然是英国脱欧精英们的默认思考模式，但这通常是出于对过去实际帮助过英国人民的特质的可悲误解。

本周早些时候，主张硬脱欧的经济学家罗杰·特勒告诉布鲁日集团，英国永远无法与欧盟和解的原因在于，我们是上世纪欧洲仅有的四个没有经历过外国军队占领或独裁统治的欧洲国家之一。他巧妙地忘记了爱尔兰和马耳他确实在占领——英国的占领——下度过了他们的大部分历史。他机智地将地理禀赋重新定义为美德而不是运气的一部分。这也是统治阶级的老把戏，将美德与好运混为一谈。

Hardline Brexiters Are Misreading history

The decision of his enemy “could not be reconciled with reason,” once mused a great statesman. “I felt sure she would be ruined for a generation by such a plunge, and this proved true. But governments and peoples do not always take rational decisions. Sometimes they take mad decisions. Or one set of people get control, who compel all others to obey and aid them in folly.”

Any takers, Balliol College, Oxford? No? It’s Winston Churchill, considering why Japan, already mired in an unwinnable campaign in China, would “court destruction” by going to war with Britain and the US in 1941. “I have not hesitated to record repeatedly my disbelief that Japan would go mad,” Boris Johnson’s idol wrote in his history of the second world war. “However sincerely we try to put ourselves in someone else’s position, we cannot allow for processes of the human mind and imagination to which reason offers no key.”

I came across this fun insight while trying to take my mind off Brexit, by doing a spot of ironing to Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History podcast about the Asia-Pacific war of 1937-1945. But Brexit has a habit of worming its way back into your brain: the Baby Shark song of constitutional crises. I’m not saying that the pickle Britain is in is comparable to the situation in Japan in 1941. I can’t quite see Jacob Rees-Mogg masterminding a scheme to catch the Belgian fleet at port, and the ensuing chain of events leading to a multiple-front war, ending with the nuclear annihilation of Sheffield and Bristol.

’m merely saying that history provides many examples of countries taking irrational, destructive courses and getting punished for them. It is just about possible for us in 2019 to follow the symphony of emotion that has led to 28% of British voters believing an act of economic self-sabotage will prove some sort of point; to firms from BMW to Panasonic shifting investment out of the UK amid the uncertainty; to Boris Johnson responding to such concerns with “fuck business”; to an MP whose whole argument was about British sovereignty asking an authoritarian rightwing government in Poland to help him overturn sovereign decisions of the British parliament; to no one even pretending Brexit will be beneficial any more, merely character-building. But in the not too distant future, these themes will fade, the ins and outs will be forgotten and people will say: “The decision could not be reconciled with reason.” The urge to Brexit never could; that’s an important lesson.

Another is that a conviction that you will prevail because your country is uniquely amazing (quite strong in Japan in 1941, I understand) is no protection against catastrophe. Indeed, it is much more likely to lead you towards it. This is a point that seems lost on leavers – history fans though they profess to be. Many have invoked our great imperial past as something we were destined to return to post-Brexit.

...... a nasty strain of exceptionalism remains the default mode of the Brexit elite, usually abetted by a woeful misunderstanding of the qualities that have actually helped the British people in the past.

Earlier this week, the pro-crashing-out economist Roger Bootle told the Bruges Group that the reason Britain could never make its peace with the EU was that we are one of only four European countries not to have endured occupation or dictatorship this last century. How conveniently he forgets that Ireland and Malta have indeed spent much of their history under occupation – British occupation. And how cleverly he reframes geography as a matter of virtue rather than luck. An old trick of the ruling classes, to confuse virtue and luck.