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文化研究 – 開欄文
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1. 我了解文化的過程
我在高一 – 高二時，讀了家父的《中國文化之前途》後(出版年代不詳)，第一次從知識角度接觸到文化的概念。我當時寫了一篇讀後感，發表在《建中青年》。過了60年，現在已經不記得那篇文章的內容。當然，我後來也拜讀了家父的《古代中國文化與中國知識份子》(第5版)。
初中時從歷史課本學到國家積弱一百多年，內憂外患不斷；在國民黨「反共抗俄」教育下，「外有強敵」的陰影揮之不去。很自然的培養出追求富國強兵的意識。初、高中時，在經濟學和社會學的入門書之外，也看了《孫子兵法》和《戰爭藝術》。
大一時修了「社會學」這門課；教授是一位愛爾蘭神父，他非常詼諧。課堂中笑聲四起，更加深了我對社會學的興趣。開始工作後讀了一些介紹世界各地區文化的書(請見「參考資料」)。下班後在加州庫比蒂諾市的迪安薩社區大學修了一門「文化人類學」(Haviland 1983)。上了這門課以後，我從李基教授的《人類的成長》開始，進一步閱讀考古學、考古人類學、人類演化史、人類出非洲史、人類遷徙史、基因人類學、和population等領域的科普書籍和報導。
1980年以後，由於試圖了解「結構主義」，進而接觸到「後結構主義」和「後現代主義」。我花了相當多時間閱讀「後現代」理論諸大師的著作，寫過相關的一篇書評。也開始從「文化研究」領域的角度進一步了解「文化」。
對哲學的興趣，讓我有機會了解語言學(1959，書林)和符號學(1986)的理論。我從初中時就對「行為」和指導行為的「原則」很好奇；對倫理學的探索先後把我帶進社會學、心理學、和認知科學等相關領域的涉獵。我也就能夠從認知科學和心理學(1992)的角度來了解「文化」。理學院的訓練和在高科技產業界工作經驗，則使我養成從現實角度了解事情和事理的傾向。
以上是我試圖了解「文化」這個概念的簡單歷程，也是我相信自己能夠就「文化」相關議題略表淺見的依據。
我本來想把我對「文化」這個概念的了解，寫成一篇系統性的論文；斷斷續續地寫了近三年，終究因為老邁而無法成章。只在這篇拙作中簡要的做了說明(該文第3節)。
此外，我在網上曾多次討論「文化」議題(討論1、討論2、討論3 – 此欄有多篇討論「文化」的文章)；各位可以根據它們和上引拙作，評鑑一下我對文化的了解是否成立和說得通。
請參考本欄的姐妹欄：《古代文化/文明小檔案》。
2. 本部落格「文化研究」目錄
待增補。
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《女性乳房吸引力的根源》讀後
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我大概在初二前後讀的《幼學故事瓊林 》；全書中我現在只記得下面這一句話：
「新剝雞頭肉，明皇愛貴妃之乳」(身體•18)。
此書著於明朝，但作者的依據想來應該是唐代筆記或軼事之類。由此可見，中國的「乳房崇拜」至少有一千多年歷史。
這個例子雖然不能支持「乳房吸引力」完全是生物性質，與文化或社會建構毫無關係；但是，這個記述足以顯示：中、西文化在「女性審美觀」這一點並沒有本質上的差異。
我很少接觸中國古典文學，也沒有讀過整本的《金瓶梅》和《紅樓夢》；不過我相信，中國文學史上「黃色小說」或「性愛小說」這類作品，數量上也許沒有西方文學裏多，但應該不在寥寥無幾之列。《素女經 》據說成於漢代或更早，可見中國文化在這一方面也說得上源遠流長。至於是否博大精深，就非我有資格說三道四的了。
該文原載《當代心理學》網誌(本欄上一篇)，我覺得置於此欄比較合適。也就不揣簡陋，多說幾句來呼應本欄意旨。
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女性乳房吸引力的根源--Noam Shpancer
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請參考本欄下一篇《讀後 》。
What Is It About Breasts? Science Explores the Big Question
Is the sexualization of breasts a cultural artifact or a biological adaptation?
Noam Shpancer Ph.D., Reviewed by Lybi Ma, 07/02/25
Key points
* A debate exists about the role female breasts play in sexual arousal.
* Some claim that the sexualized breasts are an artifact of male dominated culture.
* Others argue that breasts are attractive because they signal sexual maturity and fecundity.
What is it about female breasts? The intrigue resides in the fact that female breasts provoke interest and carry meaning far beyond their biological utility as effective baby feeding devices. In our culture, the sexual connotations of female breasts may have eclipsed acceptance of their function. Breastfeeding in public, to wit, is still widely shunned, in large part because an exposed breast is seen first and foremost as sexual provocation.
While contemporary popular culture often busies itself with debating whether exposed breasts are empowering or degrading to women, social scientists have been more interested in the question of whether the sexualization of female breasts is a mere cultural artifact, a byproduct of the dominant male gaze and the repressive patriarchal system, or a biological adaptation by which breasts—because they signal fertility and lactational capacity—have become sexually arousing to heterosexual males. The question is whether breasts are attractive when and because they are covered, as the cultural constructionists claim, or covered because they are inherently attractive, as evolutionary science hypothesizes.
A recent (2025) study by Polish researcher Michal Stefanczyk and colleagues took a novel approach to exploring this question. They studied 80 men from among the Dani people, a horticulturalist ethnic group residing in the Central Highlands of Papua. This indigenous, isolated, non-Western population has in recent decades undergone social norm changes regarding women’s attire. Specifically, previous norms of toplessness have been supplanted by the more recent norm of breast-covering.
Participants were divided into two distinct groups by age. Younger ones (mean age=24) have grown up in a culture where covered breasts have become the norm. Members of the older group (mean age=50) grew up when breasts were exposed. Participants were interviewed one at a time and were asked questions about
whether touching their partners’ breasts was a part of their sexual repertoire, whether their levels of arousal at the sight of exposed breasts, and
whether their partners’ breasts were an attractive feature for them.
Comparing the Results for Both Groups
The researchers found that older men (who grew up during the topless era) did not differ in their views, preferences, or behavior compared with younger men raised in times when women covered their breasts publicly. Both groups reported frequently touching their partners' breasts during sex and high sexual arousal at the sight of naked female breasts. Interestingly, both also placed relatively low importance on their partners’ breasts in evaluating overall attraction. Female breasts, it appears, are inherently at play in the mating game, although they may not be central players.
These findings suggest that male sexual arousal at the sight of elicited female breasts might be an "innate mechanism rather than a cultural by-product of specific, sex-differentiating social norms.” The results contradict the idea that breast covering results from cultural sexualization of the female body and the high importance assigned by a culture to the female breast, common Western culture conventions, and that regularly seeing naked female breasts will remove the attendant curiosity and sexual charge. By showing that female breasts need not be usually concealed to provoke sexual connotations, this study, conducted with a non-Western sample, provides evidence for the claim that breast attractiveness is coded into our biology and is thus quite independent from social dress and sexuality norms.
The authors conclude that "this study offers preliminary support for the hypothesis that male sexual interest in female breasts is an evolutionarily based tendency and neither an effect of the Westernization of clothing habits (and thus, covering female breasts in public) nor the ‘sexualization of what is hidden.’”
At the same time, the fact that a certain tendency is coded genetically does not necessarily make it immune to social influences. Culture's influence on human behavior runs wide and deep. Attraction to female breasts may be universal, yet whether and how breasts are shown in public is guided by societal norms and dictates, and varies greatly across cultures and throughout history. Such variations, it now appears, represent attempts at managing the attraction, but, as is the case with the sexual impulse in general, can neither engender nor eliminate it.
About the Author
Noam Shpancer, Ph.D., is a professor of psychology at Otterbein University and a practicing clinical psychologist in Columbus, Ohio.
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我沒研究過「破音字」；但是我知道英文中也有「雙關語」；而造成(英文)「雙關語」效果的方式之一是利用「諧音」。
由於「雙關語」要靠各種語言在其發音、結溝、文法、性質、和意義等層面的獨特性來達成，自然就具有「文化」上的特殊性。西方語系中基於「諧音」的「雙關語」，幾乎不可能翻譯成中文；但英、法語言各自這類「雙關語」之間，互相翻譯的機率可能高達30-40%。
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胡兄研究過破音字嗎?
中國古代小說家運用破音字寫出
拐彎罵皇帝的小說
避免殺頭的厄運
這在西洋文學是不可能做到的!
(請參考:西遊記罵誰?一文)
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我認為你標題中「反映」兩字用得相當簡潔扼要。
我不是很清楚「表徵」的意思，原本以為它類似「表達」、「顯示」、「象徵」這類詞彙。上網搜尋後，找到以下的說明：
「釋義
事實的表現足以證明某種意義。
例：國民平均所得的高低是國家開發進步程度的表徵。」
由於「釋義」中有「證明」一詞，倒讓我產生了些迷惑；我的問題是：
你認為：
「語言」和「文化」之間，有「證明」這種關係嗎？(1)
歡迎你多花點時間，進一步談談：
1) 你所了解的，「語言」和「文化」兩者間的種種關係。
2) 語言能夠「反映」文化的「原因」或「特性」。
附註：
1. 此處不排除《教育部國語辭典簡編本》的編者們用詞不當。借用該《簡編本》的文字，我會這樣來「釋義」：
「事實的『呈現』足以『顯示』某個『概念』的狀態』，或該『概念』蘊含的意義」。
請參考《維基百科》對該詞的說明。
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語言、行為和感覺-Antonella Gismundi
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我會試著寫一篇文章，比較深入的討論作者吉絲芒迪女士所提到現象和概念。
Speaking a different language can change how you act and feel
Antonella Gismundi, Edited by Matt Huston, 10/31/24
Edited by Matt Huston
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For many multilinguals, switching between tongues can lead to shifts in personality, revealing the malleability of the self. (1)
As I take my seat on the plane to Bologna, the realisation washes over me: I will soon be home. It’s in the quick whisper that I overhear, the joke shared in an accent that I’ve missed, or the laughter of a child in a familiar intonation. These sounds in my native language, Italian, ease me back into an old reality. (2)
I’ve been living in Taiwan for more than a decade. When I first arrived, fresh out of university with a one-way ticket, my plan was to study Chinese for six months and return to Italy. Instead, I stayed, completed my Chinese course, earned a master’s degree, and gradually built a life in Taipei, where I now hold a corporate job. (3)
Every year, though, I return to Italy to visit my family, and with each trip I feel as if I’m leaving behind parts of my trilingual identity that I have no use for during my stay in the Italian countryside. There’s the straightforward and outgoing persona I adopt when speaking English, a second language that has gradually overtaken my thoughts and dreams. And there is my Chinese-language side: corporate, polite and detached. (4)
When I’m in Taiwan, Chinese is the language of work and everyday interactions with acquaintances and strangers. Even after more than a decade of practice, it feels limiting when I try to connect with others on a deeper level. For me, speaking in Chinese feels like being stuck in a less articulate version of myself. I fail to capture nuances that come naturally in Italian or English, and I painfully notice my inability to express the full range of my emotions, opinions and knowledge. (5)
The sense of loss, of there being a ‘missing piece’ when one speaks in a different language, can be unnerving. For some, what is lost could be a desirable side of their personality, like being able to exchange small talk or banter confidently. Navigating social interactions might get especially daunting for those who are learning languages in which social roles and hierarchies are embedded in various language forms and structures. In Japanese, for example, verb morphology shifts according to the relative status of the person you are speaking to. When speaking to your boss, you would use polite forms, and when discussing your boss with an external client, you would need to use humbling forms to refer to your superior. These layers of linguistic complexity may leave even advanced learners feeling hyperaware of every word they utter. (6)
Yet, where some experience hesitation, others might see an opportunity for boldness. It’s possible to embrace the diluted emotionality that comes with speaking a second language. This detachment can allow one to break free from the social inhibitions of a first language. I have felt this myself in English. In this language, driven by a ‘why not’ attitude, I found myself stepping onto a stage for the first time and trying out different kinds of performance, eventually landing a theatre gig during my student years. The thought of attempting the same in Italian makes me crumble with anxiety. But in English? The stakes felt lower, and I embraced a side of myself that might never have emerged otherwise. (7)
This sort of detachment might explain why some multilinguals code-switch to a non-native language when using emotionally charged or taboo words. If you speak more than one language, ask yourself: in which language do you find it easier to say ‘I love you’? And in which one do you swear more liberally? For me, cursing in a foreign language feels strangely playful, as if it gives me permission to access a different version of myself, perhaps one less bound by social accountability. (8)
Feeling like another version of yourself seems to be fairly common among those who switch from a native to a non-native language. In one survey of more than 1,000 multilinguals, 65 per cent reported feeling ‘like a different person’ when they used different languages. Prompted for further thoughts, these respondents cited not only different levels of naturalness across their languages, but also differences in the attitudes or perspectives they adopted, their emotionality or expressivity, and other qualities. A person’s level of proficiency and cultural immersion seem to be significant factors: a fluent speaker who is living abroad and constantly exposed to local cultural norms is far more likely to experience this ‘feeling like a different person’ phenomenon. (9)
Research across several languages, countries and cultures has also found evidence of specific personality differences depending on which language someone is using. A landmark study published in 2006 involved Spanish-English bilinguals in the United States and Mexico who took personality tests in both languages. Participants tended to score higher in extraversion, agreeableness and conscientiousness when responding in English – patterns that echoed personality data previously observed in monolingual people from the respective countries. In a more recent example, researchers asked Swedish-English bilinguals to fill out a personality questionnaire for an imaginary job interview, using either Swedish or English, at either a Swedish or American company. In one of these experiments, participants who filled out the questionnaire in English had higher extraversion scores. In a somewhat different experiment that included open-ended interview questions, participants using Swedish rated themselves as more agreeable and conscientious. (10)
While these studies relied on people rating aspects of their own personalities, some research has explored differences in how people are perceived by others depending on the language they use. In one study, Hong Kong Cantonese-English bilinguals spoke with two different interviewers – who varied in terms of their ethnicity and the language they used – and these conversations were observed by external raters. During their conversations with ethnically Chinese interviewers, the bilinguals were rated as more extraverted, assertive and open when using English rather than Cantonese. (11)
This makes me wonder: am I also perceived differently depending on which language I’m speaking? What does my language reveal – or conceal – about who I am? While it is difficult to clearly discern these variations within myself, I have observed them in others. For example, I once misjudged a friend as curt and distant, having interacted with them only in English. It was only when I saw them conversing in their native Chinese that I realised how warm and engaging they truly were. It was as if I were meeting a completely different person. (12)
For many multilinguals who feel like or seem like a different person depending on which language they are using, language and cultural cues might be priming different self-perceptions, triggering shifts in personality trait expression in ways that align with the corresponding linguistic and social environment. For someone who is working in a Taiwanese cultural context and trying to fit in with the way others speak and act, ideals such as loyalty and hard work might become especially salient and something to emphasise in one’s self; whereas, in the US, it might be qualities like assertiveness and initiative. Even as a multilingual person’s core self remains a constant, their present context might change the lens through which they perceive their own identity – including which aspects become amplified or toned down in their mind – as well as how they interact with others. (13)
In social psychology, tweaking your behaviour based on contextual cues in order to suit community norms has been described as ‘cultural frame switching’. Interacting in a particular language can serve as one of these cues. The cultural frame-switching model also suggests that people with a higher degree of cultural awareness are more susceptible to cultural priming. (14)
How is this cultural awareness developed? Speakers with a higher degree of immersion – those who live abroad or have strong community ties – are more likely to develop ‘pragmatic competence’ in their target language. This kind of competence goes beyond the accurate use of vocabulary and grammar: it involves understanding and using language in socially appropriate ways. It means knowing not just what to say, but also when and how to say it, and being able to predict how it will be received. This is essential for social functioning in the society where a language is spoken, and it is hard to acquire in a classroom context, without authentic interactions with other speakers. Motivation and adaptability are also crucial in this process of internalising new language conventions. (15)
Not everyone is willing to adapt, or to adapt in full. Some language learners deliberately resist adopting certain native-speaker norms – a phenomenon known as ‘pragmatic resistance’. A non-native speaker might understand what native speakers are expected to do and say in certain social situations (such as when accepting an invitation, apologising, or responding to criticism), but still decline to follow these norms. This resistance is not solely about discomfort with a particular norm; it can also be about preserving a sense of authenticity and personal integrity. To give an example: in Taiwan, in some contexts, women are expected to speak in a higher-pitched tone and to punctuate their statements with sentence-final particles (such as 喔 ō, 啦 la, and 耶 yé) that add a coquettish flair to their speech. Doing this never felt natural to me, and, as a result, I have often been told I ‘sound like a man’ in Chinese. (16)
Pragmatic competence and pragmatic resistance are continuously balanced and renegotiated, as multilinguals ‘try on’ different social identities throughout their learning journey. Each social interaction, observation and experience adds to this dynamic, as individuals work out how to move between worlds fluidly – and to dial up or down different aspects of themselves – while remaining sufficiently true to themselves. (17)
Embracing the idea of wearing different ‘masks’ can transform a potential source of uneasiness into something amusing, even empowering. When I was writing my dissertation in Chinese, having to use a language in which I lacked complete fluency freed me from the perfectionism that had always haunted my academic work. What initially felt like a gap in my abilities, a ‘missing piece’, became an opportunity for self-realisation. (18)
The experience of shifting personalities and expressions, while not universal – and certainly not identical for everyone – offers a fascinating glimpse into the human capacity for adaptation. By observing and reflecting on these shifts, multilinguals can turn what might seem like a challenge into an avenue for growth. As they switch between languages, they can approach their interactions with introspection and awareness, each transition potentially unlocking new insights into who they are and who they could be. (19)
Antonella Gismundi is a data analyst with a background in linguistics and psychology. She lives in Taipei, Taiwan.
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12萬年前的喪葬文化 -- David Nield
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Neanderthals Buried Their Dead, But In Strangely Different Ways
David Nield, 11/04/24
Early Homo sapiens and their Neanderthal cousins started burying their dead around the same time and roughly the same place, some 120,000 years ago. This suggests the two species may have had, at least in part, a shared culture at the time.
A new study of these ancient burial sites across the Levant region in western Asia reveals other similarities and differences in how these two closely-related groups of human buried their dead.
Finding a number of the sites date earlier than other Neanderthal burials in Europe and Homo sapiens burials in Africa, the study suggests this is where the practice of burying the dead first began.
And according to the researchers, from Tel Aviv University and the University of Haifa in Israel, the 17 Neanderthal sites and 15 Homo sapiens sites show that as well as some cultural overlap, there may have been competition too.
Three of the Homo sapiens burials that were analyzed, with a double burial (A), a burial with a boar mandible (B) in green, and a burial with a deer antler (C) in red. (Been et al., L'Anthropologie, 2024) (請至原網頁觀看照片/圖片)
"We hypothesize that the growing frequency of burials by these two populations in western Asia is linked to the intensified competition for resources and space resulting from the arrival of these populations," write the researchers in their published paper.
The difference between intentionally buried bodies and bones that have been blanketed by the elements where they drop isn't always clear. The researchers looked for distinct skeleton positions, grave goods or markers, and evidence of digging to come to their conclusions.
They found that both Neanderthals and H. sapiens would bury people of any age, though infant deaths were more common with the Neanderthals. Both groups also included a variety of goods with the graves, including small stones, animal bones, or horns.
However, Neanderthals tended to bury their dead deeper in caves, whereas H. sapiens were buried in cave entrances or rock shelters. What's more, H. sapiens skeletons were usually in something like a fetal position, whereas Neanderthal skeletons were discovered in any one of a variety of arrangements.
The differences don't stop there either. Neanderthal burials made greater use of rocks – perhaps as rudimentary gravestones – while H. sapiens burials featured more decorative items, including ochre and shells, that the Neanderthals didn't include.
"While Neanderthals and Homo sapiens share many aspects of their material culture to the level that they cannot be distinguished, when it comes to burials the picture is more complicated," write the researchers.
While there would've been some population pressure during the Middle Paleolithic, with both groups of hominins arriving in the Levant at similar times, the researchers think that only partly explains the sudden introduction of burials.
It's also worth noting that after the Neanderthals went extinct around 50,000 years ago, human burials seemed to stop in this part of the world for tens of thousands of years – another intriguing data point worth investigating further.
"The next burial outbreak in the Levant appeared at the end of the Paleolithic era, accompanying the early sedentary society and the last hunter-gatherers – the Natufians," write the researchers.
The research has been published in L'Anthropologie.
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用餐文化：TGI Fridays 的起與落 -- Emily Heil
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這是「文化」影響和決定「經濟活動」的案例(該欄2024/11/02 12:22)。此外，作者生動的文筆也很值得欣賞。
For nearly 60 years, TGI Fridays sold fun. The party may soon be over.
Emily Heil, 11/02/24
For nearly 60 years, TGI Fridays sold fun. The party may soon be over.
At TGI Fridays, the proposition has always been clear: When you arrive at any of the chain’s locations, you are there not just for the loaded potato skins or bourbon-sauced steaks or candy-colored cocktails, but for something more elemental: fun. For more than a half century, the brand has offered customers refuge in a place that exists perpetually in that moment after the final school buzzer sounds or the laptop is snapped shut or the shift is clocked.
The decor sets the kick-up-your-heels tone: Every Fridays location features walls loaded with a pastiche of kitschy objects, from trophy fish to salvaged street signs, evoking the aesthetic of mid- to late-20th century suburban family rec rooms. In those basement lairs, novelty lamps and neon beer signs and maybe an arcade game in the corner signified that this was nothing like that uptight living room upstairs. Here, they said, we let our hair down.
That’s the TGI Friday’s ethos - or what’s left of it. Over the last week, the chain has closed at least 50 outposts. (The company did not respond to emails asking for details, but its website’s store locator lists 163 locations, down from 213 listed last week.) It closed dozens more earlier this year. A possible bankruptcy looms. Last month, Bloomberg reported that the chain is preparing for a Chapter 11 filing, and experts say it might be looking to shutter unprofitable locations and emerge with a smaller footprint.
So what happened? Well, diners apparently stopped wanting dinner to be fun. Or at least their idea of fun changed.
Younger customers just aren’t looking for the same kind of experience that casual-dining chains offer, notes Alex Susskind, director of Cornell’s Institute for Food and Beverage Management. “They’re the touch-tech generation, where they’re pressing some buttons on Grubhub and it’s showing up at their door,” he said. “Going to a restaurant and having a server serve them or a bartender mix a drink in front of them is just not something that’s attractive.”
Jonathan Maze, editor in chief of the trade publication Restaurant Business, agrees. “They’re not going out and eating and drinking with their friends as much as they used to - if they’re drinking at all,” he said. “They’re probably more likely eating delivery food.”
Of course, TGI Friday’s isn’t alone in this decidedly un-fun malaise. Fellow chains Red Lobster and Buca Di Beppo have declared bankruptcy, and Denny’s is reportedly planning a wave of closures. Changing customer tastes are only part of the perfect storm of problems that have plagued them, experts say.
Cash-strapped customers are increasingly turning to fast-casual options such as Chipotle for quick meals. And those with the means to splurge on a night out aren’t drawn to traditional casual dining chains, he notes. (Chili’s is one brand that has bucked the decline by offering a combination of budget-friendly deals and smart marketing.) “The people that have the resources in an environment like this are going out and having a good time,” Maze said. “But a lot of them are not going to necessarily go to TGI Fridays to do that.”
The entire Fridays vibe goes against prevailing dining trends. At many chains, character is out and sleekness reigns. Take Pizza Hut, which over the years has shed its Tiffany-style lamps, red-checked tablecloths and well-known rooflines for clean lines and glinting metal chairs. Buca Di Beppo represented the peak of kooky chain-restaurant decor, and before its bankruptcy, executives had toned down the wackiest bits.
At Fridays, boozy drinks remain a signature, despite modern tastes tacking toward lighter drinks. The 1988 movie “Cocktail,” in which Tom Cruise plays a struggling business school student who finds success in the razzle-dazzle world of “flair” cocktailing, filmed scenes in a TGI Fridays; a bartender from the chain helped Cruise train his bottle-flipping skills. Company lore has it that the high-octane Long Island iced tea was invented there.
Even now, the full-page menu boasts concoctions including a Henny Hurricane, a Dragon Fruit Margarita and a Fridays Original Lit Long Island Tea. While many restaurants are leaning into nonalcoholic offerings, Fridays lists only one booze-free cocktail, the 4-Citrus Mock-arita.
At a recent visit to a Fridays in suburban Maryland, the party atmosphere still seemed to thrive in the bar, where the Caps game was drawing hoots and cheers and people who were either regulars (or just really friendly) greeted one another with fist bumps. But the dining room where we were seated felt too cavernous to be festive, and the R&B soundtrack seemed to bounce around the empty tables.
My husband and I settled into a booth and ordered the loaded potato skins, a dish the chain has previously claimed credit for inventing. (Like with many foods, its origins aren’t clear, and others, including Washington’s Prime Rib steak house, have also insisted on their own parentage of the spuds.) Even without the benefit of nostalgia - I don’t recall ever going to a TGI Fridays growing up - I’m an instant fan. What’s not to like about puffy potatoes in crispy shells covered in gooey cheddar and bacon? They’re a welcome accompaniment to my slightly sweet margarita, which I’ve ordered instead of the Long Island iced tea. I knew I should try the restaurant’s classic libation, but I was intimidated by the too-heady swirl of vodka, rum, gin, triple sec and Coke; it was a school night, and I had notes to take.
In the end, I didn’t have much to scribble; the rest of the meal was forgettable. Which is fine! And not the point really. In fact, I’d probably even reorder the sirloin steak with garlic-butter sauce the next time I found myself hangry at a strip mall, if the place is still around. The prices (sample: $24.19 for that steak and two sides, $11.59 for the potato skins) were reasonable, particularly in this era of eye-popping restaurant bills.
The relatively empty dining room, though, kept things from feeling festive - and it might be an indication of another of the chain’s problems. Large properties, the kind that used to seat 200 or 300 guests, mean big rent checks or high property taxes if the restaurant or its franchisees own the buildings. “They have a business model that was based on people being in their restaurants and spending money on food and alcohol, and now, basically half of that business is probably gone,” Susskind said. “That’s a conservative estimate.”
Good times, though, are in the Fridays DNA. The first location of what would later become the massive chain opened in New York City’s Upper East Side in 1965, as a pioneering kind of establishment called a “singles bar,” with original owner Alan Stillman claiming that he founded the place to meet the stewardesses and models who lived in his neighborhood. At the time, there were few places where men and women could gather: Such hot spots as P.J. Clarke’s were for crowds of post-work guys in suits. TGI Fridays, along with a handful of other new mingle-markets, represented a bona fide cultural moment.
As Stillman began opening outposts around the country, the chain eventually expanded its idea of a good time, shifting its marketing in the late 1980s to appeal more to family dining. It eventually grew to more than 850 locations, including overseas, with outposts opening from Paris to Beijing to Moscow. The number of U.S. locations stood at 269 by the end of last year, according to data by Technomic. The chain has changed ownership hands several times, and is currently owned by the private equity firm TriArtisan Capital Advisors.
Over the years, the perception of TGI Fridays might be best tracked in its fictional, pop-culture avatars. By the late 1990s, the cool, neon-lit version portrayed in “Cocktail” had given way to the iteration that appeared in the 1999 movie “Office Space,” a send-up of soul-crushing workplaces. In it, Jennifer Aniston plays a waitress at “Chotchkie’s,” a chain where servers sport green-striped uniforms (similar to Fridays’ red ones) and are forced to show their enthusiasm for the job by sporting excessive “flair” pins on their suspenders. And the raunchy, wildly dated 2005 Ryan Reynolds movie “Waiting” centered on a gang of servers at “ShenaniganZ,” a brass-rail-and-fern-lined copy of Fridays. By then, the forced-fun vibe no longer seemed actually fun for anyone, including the sneering staff.
Still, in the real-life locations still left open, including the one in Maryland that I visited, the party is still rolling, as long as the lights are on, for whoever still wants to hang. There, as at most locations, a red neon sign over the door still beams the fading chain’s hopeful, and increasingly unappealing, plea: “In Here, It’s Always Friday.”
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《現代性的左傾盲動化》小評
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「現代性」通常是哲學或社會學這兩個領域的議題(該欄主文--9之6)；但馬霍尼教授的意旨近於「文化批評」(本欄上一篇貼文)，和梅克格拉教的調調異曲同工(本欄第2篇貼文)；所以放在此欄。
這是另一位保守派學者的「大作」。他的功力看來在梅克格拉教授之上；但跟後者一樣(本欄2024/05/13貼文)，馬霍尼教授或者有認知障礙，或者言不及義，或者言不由衷 (該文附註5)。總之，兩位不過是彌爾所說的sincere bigot (該文2.1-2)小節)；或者拿到博士學位的Archie Bunker。
中文標題所用「左傾盲動」一詞，賣弄和揶揄兼而有之。暫時寫到這裏，以後有空再多說幾句。
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