*讲座主题*

透视疯狂

Seeing Through Madness

*讲座时间*

2026年10月22日（周四）14:00-17:00

*讲座地点*

南京大学人文社会科学高级研究院鼓楼校区逸夫馆9楼报告厅

*讲座嘉宾*

W. J. T. 米切尔（W. J. T. Mitchell）

*讲座摘要*

“疯狂在个人是稀罕事；但在群体、政党、民族与时代中，却是常态。”尼采写于一百多年前的这句话，在今天听来前所未有地像常识。抑郁与焦虑已成流行病，民粹领袖与大谎言席卷公共生活，社交媒体把极端妄想日常化为“新常态”——我们是否真的已经“看穿”了疯狂，抵达了它的另一侧？还是疯狂仍在城门之内呼啸？米切尔要追问的是一个更根本的问题：发疯的究竟是谁？说一个人疯了，我们知道是他的心智出了问题；可一个政党、一个民族、一个时代“疯了”，疯的又是什么？群体并没有大脑——如果说集体也拥有“心灵”，它的器官究竟在哪里？为什么最理性的秩序反而可能是最深的疯狂？而“独立思考”的训诫，会不会本身就是最大的幻觉——因为没有群体就没有思考，没有思考也没有群体？

本场讲座既是一份时代诊断，也是一次私人意义上的纪念。米切尔将重估“群体思维”这一被轻视的概念，并提出一个或许谦逊、却绝不轻易的承诺：我们不必绕行疯狂——我们必须穿过它。这场“谈话治疗”，从本场讲座开始。

“Madness in individuals is something rare; but in groups, parties, nations, and epochs, it is the rule.” Written more than a century ago, Nietzsche's remark has never sounded more like common sense than it does today. Depression and anxiety have become epidemic; demagogues and Big Lies have swept through public life; social media has normalized extreme delusion into a “new normal.” Have we indeed “seen through” madness to the other side—or is the madness still howling inside the gates? Mitchell, however, pursues a more fundamental question: who or what exactly is it that goes crazy? When an individual goes mad, we know that it is one mind that has fallen ill; but when a party, a nation, an epoch "goes mad," what is it that has gone mad? Groups have no brain—if collectivities can be said to have a “mind,” where is its organ? Why can the most rational order turn out to be the deepest madness? And might the injunction to “think for ourselves” itself be the greatest illusion—for there is no thinking without groups, and no groups without thinking?

This lecture is at once a diagnosis of our time and an act of personal commemoration. Mitchell will reevaluate the dismissed concept of “groupthink,” and offer a promise that is modest, yet by no means easy: we cannot take a detour around madness—we must pass through it. This "talking cure" begins with this lecture.

*学术主持*

于京东副教授

南京大学政府管理学院

南京大学人文社会科学高级研究院第19期驻院学者