村落视野中的人口“数字游戏”及其省思

在特定的村落场景中,探讨了人口“数字游戏”的现状、运作规则及其生成机理。村官在数据建构时玩弄的“数字游戏”可分两类一种是出于政治目的,人为地虚报或瞒报数字;另一种是因袭传统的统计标准,随意报送与人口现实不符的数据。前者是基层政治操纵的结果,后者则折射了当下科学统计标准的阙如。在政治体制缺陷与科学统计缺失的双重夹击下,村级的官方统计不求准确,有的甚至是扭曲的。乡村统计实践追根溯源仍在很大程度上为政治所裹挟。这一切彰显了有法不依的尴尬和学术滞后现实的悲哀。强化问责惩处机制自不必说,改变用数字来衡量政绩的体制也势在必行。而以天下为己任的知识者也应反躬自省在解决与现实剥离的含混统计以及在面向现实生活上的使命。

The Population "Numbers Game" from A Village Perspective and Its Reflections

In a specific village setting, this essay explores the operation and manipulation of the population"numbers game"as well as its underlying mechanisms. The statistical records at the village level suffer from severe underreporting and overreporting in response to different political purposes or misreporting according to conventional criteria. The former is a product of the political maneuver, while the latter an outcome of the absence of scientific reporting. As a result, the demographic and economic statistics at the grassroots level are inaccurate and even distorted. The statistical practice is essentially embedded in the local bureaucratic structure. All these reveal the awkwardness of legal compliance and the sadness of scholarly lag of the reality. In my view, it is apparently imperative to strengthen the mechanism of punishment and to change the system of measuring the political performances primarily by figures. The intellectual should also self-reflect on their own missions of confronting ambiguous data and facing the reality on the ground.