本文讨论的内容涉及人类学和哲学两方面。作者使用美拉尼西亚的民族志材料从理论和现实的角度，探讨现在发展中国家所面临的一个问题：人们是否必须要在过去/传统与现代/发展之间做出选择，以及这些选择意味着什么。这个问题之所以会产生，在于这种只能二选一的说法有一个预设前提，认为“发展”是新建立的非西方国家未来唯一的出路，并且认为进入未来就意味着必然与所谓的“传统”断裂，因为照这种观念来看，“传统”必须留在过去。作者从存在主义人类学的视角对这一观念进行了反思，认为除了采用“将外来事物带入”，这种纳入自身系统中的方式外，还可藉由“让自己走出去”的方式，透过不断的想像、自我探索的技巧来创造新的可能性，以理解他们自己所在的世界，并在世界中找到自己的位置。“,”This discussion involves anthropology and philosophy. It explores a problem faced by de-veloping countries theoretically and practically from the ethnographical data of Melanesi-ans,that is,whether people should make a choice between past/tradition and present/de-velopment and what the choice means. It might be assumed that the newly founded non-western countries should choose development as the only approach and that this means a breakaway from the so-called“tradition”,which might well be left in the past. This pa-per argues that we should reflect from the perspectives of existentialist anthropology,as-suming that we should both“bring external things into our society”and“take our things to other societies”. As such,imagination and self-exploration can lead to innovation and a better understanding of our world and our position in the world.