再一次，又一起幼儿园恶性袭击发生在中国。这次，陕西省某幼儿园六名不满7岁的儿童和一位老师丧命于菜刀之下。

    中国的父母极度重视子女的教育和成长，因而频频发生的校园惨案给中国社会带来的震惊与影响已难以言表 。 

   认为凶手患有精神疾病也许会让人感觉好一点-从医学上定义，或许他们确实精神不正常-但从几起恶性事件的相似性来看，无论多么令人费解，其背后恐怕有着更深层次原因。

   此时，全社会都在密切关注事态演变，想要弄清楚这个社会到底出了什么问题，以至于随时都可能有人积怨满腹地杀害弱小的孩童。

   我有两点观察体会。首先，尽管中国政府长期以来试图控制社会不稳定因素，但一系列恶性袭击案件将这种努力的种种缺陷显露无疑。

   正如著名社会学家于建嵘上月发表于中央党校学报《学习时报》的文章所言，中国社会是在由官员、政府监督、警察、情报人员和军队共同打造并维持的“刚性稳定”之上运行。

   然而，于教授指出，这种“刚性稳定，缺乏韧性、延展性和缓冲地带，维系的社会成本巨大”。

   针对此类学校袭击事件，维护现有的“刚性稳定”需要更多装配更齐全的保卫人员投入（我女儿的幼儿园最近来了一位骑自行车巡视的警察与幼儿园保安为伴闲聊）和更为严密的监督。

   中央社会治安综合治理委员会主任周永康强调，必须“立即行动起来，加强学校、幼儿园安全保卫工作，为孩子们学习成长创造平安和谐的社会环境。”

   问题是这些措施迟迟不见效，以后也不见得会有什么成效，不论在中国还是其他国家。要保卫数量庞大的学校和幼儿园不是政治局领导一人发号施令就能办到的。

   因此，好比一场民众层面的不对称战争，恶性事件一旦突然爆发，高度僵化的国家权力的种种限制便显露无疑。这一点众人皆知，同时也使得执政党惊恐不已──你知道我指的是什么。

    其次，这有助于我们发现深层原因。在同一篇文章中，于教授将此类事件（用干涩的社会学术语）描述为“社会泄愤事件”-对现行的体制结构发泄不满怨恨情绪。

   这类群体性事件并不是针对政权的政治性活动，也并非想另立新政府或是受利益集团指使。这只是以杀害幼儿来表达无助情绪的一种方式。

   因此，于教授和其他学者呼吁中国的决策者拓宽“公民参与”渠道，让公民参与成为由“某些官员腐败、不作为、乱作为”而导致的不断上升的社会压力的缓冲器和减压阀，以维护人民应有的权利和利益。

   但实际上，仅通过现有的网络舆论来发泄社会情绪远远不够。即使网络舆论能够发挥作用，也应将其纳入制度化的政治参与体制中，使其能够成为民众与政府进行有效沟通的方式。

   众多利益彼此纷争之时，执政党的利益往往高于人民。从警察、法院、银行、政府官员到报社和网站-包括宪法本身-都围绕党的利益服务。

   或许中国无意采纳西方式的民主，也许西方民主的确并不适合中国国情。但中国须尽快找到一种确保民众有效参与政府社会治理的机制。

   如果这一进程不能尽快启动，中国则有可能像于教授所说的，“不但会诱发较大社会动荡的危险，还有可能彻底破坏现有的社会政治秩序。”

英文原文：

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/peterfoster/100039432/slaughter-of-chinese-innocents-continues/

Slaughter of Chinese innocents continues

By Peter Foster

Another day, and yet another kindergarten stabbing in China. This time six under-7s and a teacher have been hacked to death in a pre-school in the northern province of Shaanxi.

In a country that dotes on children as madly as China, it’s hard to express how shocking these attacks are, and how disturbingly they reflect on modern Chinese society.

It might be comforting to think that all these attackers are insane – perhaps by definition they are – but given the copy-cat nature of the attacks there must be some ratiocination, however warped, behind them.

At times like these, all societies tend to look inwards, to ask themselves what sort of world they live in where every second man with a grudge decides to cut the throats of defenseless children.

I have two observations. The first is that these attacks, in the most gruesome manner possible, highlight the shortcomings of the Chinese state’s instinct to try and control the uncontrollable.

Chinese society, as the influential sociologist Yu Jianrong wrote last month in Study Times, a Communist Party weekly, is founded on a “rigid stability” enforced daily by the vast apparatus of officials, government censors, police, informers and the military.

But it is a stability that, as Prof. Yu observed, is lacking in “any real toughness, ductility, or buffer zones and requiring a high cost of maintenance.”

In the case of these school attacks, maintaining “rigid stability” takes the form of better arming security guards (my daughter’s own kindy now has a policeman on a bike for the security guard to gossip to) and redoubling surveillance.

In the words of Politburo security chief Zhou Yongkang: “We must take fast action to strengthen security for schools and kindergartens to create a harmonious environment for children to study and grow up.”

The trouble is that these measures don’t work. They can’t. Not in China or anywhere else. There are just too many schools, with too many doors for them all to be protected and even the word of a Politburo boss can’t change that fact.

So every time one of these attacks – a moment of asymmetric warfare, citizen-style – takes place it is a visible mockery of the finite limits of the state’s rigid powers. The weakness is there for all to see, and it scares the Party rigid, if you’ll excuse the pun.

Which brings us to the underlying causes. In the same article, Prof Yu, describes these kinds of events (in the dry language of academic sociology) as “venting incidents” – a volcanic explosion of rage against the system.

They are not political, they are not a grab for power or backed by focused demands for change. They are simply a statement of utter impotence by men who are reduced to slitting the throats of three-year-olds to make their point.

This is why Prof Yu and others like him are advising China’s rulers to increase what he calls “citizen participation” to create a buffer for these rising social pressures caused by the failure of “corrupt, inefficient and incompetent officials” to safeguard the rights and interests of t