TED演講 | 「不畏將來,勇往直前」
演說者:Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks
演說題目:「不畏將來,勇往直前」
怎樣解救我們的極端主義?強烈的相信亦或不信?美國大選應該投誰一票?怎樣選擇自己的人生伴侶?怎樣擺脫對未來「我」的境況的擔憂?答案可能令你驚奇,答案其實就在於「我」本身。「不念過去,不畏將來」真的可行?本期講者Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks將跟你娓娓道來。
中英對照演講稿
"These are the times," saidThomas Paine, "that try men"s souls." And they"re trying ours now.
"這些時刻," 托馬斯·潘恩說,「考驗著人們的靈魂。」 而現在,我們正被考驗著。
This is a fateful moment in the history ofthe West. We"ve seen divisive elections and divided societies. We"ve seen agrowth of extremism in politics and religion, all of it fueled by anxiety,uncertainty and fear, of a world that"s changing almost faster than we canbear, and the sure knowledge that it"s going to change faster still. I have afriend in Washington.
這是西方歷史中一個決定性的時刻。我們見到了充滿分歧的競選結果,見到了階級極度分化的社會。我們看到了在政治和宗教方面,極端主義的增長。所有的這些,都由焦慮,不確定性和恐懼導致,因為現在的世界正在快速改變,快到我們難以承受,而且改變的速度只會越來越快。我在華盛頓有個朋友。
I asked him, what was it like being in America during therecent presidential election? He said to me, "Well, it was like the mansitting on the deck of the Titanic with a glass of whiskey in his hand and he"ssaying, "I know I asked for ice --but this is ridiculous.""
我問他,在最近這場總統選舉進行時,生活在美國是什麼樣的體驗?他告訴我:「唔,這就好像在泰坦尼克號甲板上的 那個男人,手中拿著一杯威士忌酒,說著:"我知道我說過酒要加冰——但現在的情況太荒唐了。"」
So is there something we can do, each ofus, to be able to face the future without fear? I think there is. And one wayinto it is to see that perhaps the most simple way into a culture and into anage is to ask: What do people worship? People have worshipped so many differentthings -- the sun, the stars, the storm. Some people worship many gods, someone, some none.
所以有沒有什麼我們每個人都 力所能及的事情,來使得我們能夠 毫無恐懼的直面未來呢?我覺得有。一種方法是,深入了解一種文化,一個時代的最簡單的方法 是詢問:人們崇拜什麼。人們崇拜過許多不同的事物—— 太陽,星星,風暴。有些人崇拜許多神,有些人信仰一個神,有些人是無神論者。
In the 19th and 20th centuries, people worshipped the nation,the Aryan race, the communist state. What do we worship? I think futureanthropologists will take a look at the books we read on self-help,self-realization, self-esteem. They"ll look at the way we talk about moralityas being true to oneself, the way we talk about politics as a matter ofindividual rights, and they"ll look at this wonderful new religious ritual wehave created. You know the one? Called the "selfie." And I thinkthey"ll conclude that what we worship in our time is the self, the me, the I.
在19到20世紀,人們崇拜國家,崇拜雅利安人種,崇拜共產主義。我們崇拜什麼呢?我認為,未來的人類學家會研究我們閱讀的書籍,關於自我幫助,自我實現,自尊心。他們會看我們如何談論道德—— 真實的直面自己; 看我們如何談論政治——這關乎個人權益; 然後,他們會看向我們創造的這個 新的宗教儀式。你知道那是什麼嗎?它的名字叫做「自拍」。而我想他們會得出這樣的結論:在我們這個時代,我們崇拜自我,崇拜自己,崇拜「我」。
And this is great. It"s liberating. It"sempowering. It"s wonderful. But don"t forget that biologically, we"re socialanimals. We"ve spent most of our evolutionary history in small groups. We needthose face-to-face interactions where we learn the choreography of altruism andwhere we create those spiritual goods like friendship and trust and loyalty andlove that redeem our solitude.
這很棒。這讓人感到自由,這賦予人力量,這簡直太棒了。但不要忘記,生理上來講,我們是群居動物。我們絕大部分的進化歷史 都是在小群體中度過的。我們需要這些面對面的互動,來學習如何無私奉獻,並且創造出諸如友情,信任,忠誠和愛這樣的精神食糧,以此救贖我們的孤獨。
When we have too much of the "I" andtoo little of the "we," we can find ourselves vulnerable, fearful andalone. It was no accident that Sherry Turkle of MIT called the book she wroteon the impact of social media "Alone Together."
當我們太過注重「我」,卻沒有多少「我們」,我們會發現,我們自己變得十分脆弱,恐懼,和孤獨。麻省理工學院的雪莉·特克 將她所寫的 關於社交媒體影響的書籍 命名為「在一起孤獨」,這絕非偶然。
So I think the simplest way of safeguardingthe future "you" is to strengthen the future "us" in threedimensions: the us of relationship, the us of identity and the us ofresponsibility.
所以,我想,守護「你」未來的 最簡單的方法是,從三個維度 來加強「我們」的未來:我們的關係,我們的身份,和我們的責任。
So let me first take the us ofrelationship. And here, forgive me if I get personal. Once upon a time, a verylong time ago, I was a 20-year-old undergraduate studying philosophy. I wasinto Nietzsche and Schopenhauer and Sartre and Camus. I was full of ontologicaluncertainty and existential angst. It was terrific.
我先來講講我們的關係。在這一部分,如果我開始 講起自己的私事,請原諒。曾幾何時,很久很久以前,我是一個20歲的大學生,學習哲學。我沉迷於 尼采,叔本華,薩特,加繆。我充滿了本體論的不確定性 和存在的焦慮。這太了不起了。
I was self-obsessed and thoroughlyunpleasant to know, until one day I saw across the courtyard a girl who waseverything that I wasn"t. She radiated sunshine. She emanated joy. I found outher name was Elaine. We met. We talked. We married. And 47 years, threechildren and eight grandchildren later, I can safely say it was the bestdecision I ever took in my life, because it"s the people not like us that makeus grow. And that is why I think we have to do just that.
我沉迷於自我,而且感到非常不悅,直到有一天我看見,在庭院的那一端,有一個女孩,她的性格和我完全相反。她是個小太陽發著光。她散發著快樂。我發現她的名字叫伊萊恩。我們見了面。我們聊天。我們結婚了。而四十七年後,三個子女和八個孫輩後,我能夠自信的說,這是我做過的最正確的決定,因為只有不像我們的人才能讓我們成長。而這也是為什麼我認為,我們必須那麼做。
The trouble with Google filters, Facebookfriends and reading the news by narrowcasting rather than broadcasting meansthat we"re surrounded almost entirely by people like us whose views, whoseopinions, whose prejudices, even, are just like ours. And Cass Sunstein ofHarvard has shown that if we surround ourselves with people with the same viewsas us, we get more extreme.
谷歌搜索過濾,Facebook朋友系統,以及瀏覽小範圍的新聞而不是廣播 意味著,我們被和我們相似的人完全包圍著,他們的視角,他們的觀點,甚至他們的偏見,都和我們的一樣。而哈佛大學的卡斯·蘇斯特展示了如果我們周圍 都是和我們持有一樣觀點的人,我們會變得更極端。
I think we need to renew those face-to-faceencounters with the people not like us. I think we need to do that in order torealize that we can disagree strongly and yet still stay friends. It"s in thoseface-to-face encounters that we discover that the people not like us are justpeople, like us. And actually, every time we hold out the hand of friendship tosomebody not like us, whose class or creed or color are different from ours, weheal one of the fractures of our wounded world. That is the us of relationship.
我想,我們應該重新嘗試 接觸與自己不同的人。我們需要這樣做,以此來 意識到,我們可以意見分歧,但仍然能成為朋友。在這些面對面的交流中,我們能夠發現,不像我們的人,像我們一樣,是人。而事實上,每一次我們伸出手,和一個不像自己的人建立友誼,他們的顏色和我們完全不同,我們治癒了 我們這個傷痕纍纍的世界上 的一個部件。這就是關係中的我們。
Second is the us of identity. Let me giveyou a thought experiment. Have you been to Washington? Have you seen thememorials? Absolutely fascinating. There"s the Lincoln Memorial: GettysburgAddress on one side, Second Inaugural on the other. You go to the JeffersonMemorial, screeds of text. Martin Luther King Memorial, more than a dozenquotes from his speeches. I didn"t realize, in America you read memorials. Nowgo to the equivalent in London in Parliament Square and you will see that themonument to David Lloyd George contains three words: David Lloyd George.
第二件事是我們的身份。讓我給你們一個思維實驗。你去過華盛頓嗎?你看見過紀念碑嗎?絕對令人震撼。有林肯紀念碑:一邊寫著葛底斯堡演說,另一邊寫著第二次就職演說。你去到傑弗森紀念碑,一段文字。馬丁路德金紀念碑,十幾條他的演講中的選段。我並沒有意識到,在美國,你讀紀念碑。現在,到倫敦的國會廣場,你會看見,大衛·勞埃德·喬治的紀念碑,寫著三個單詞:大衛·勞埃德·喬治。
Nelson Mandela gets two. Churchill getsjust one: Churchill.
尼爾森·曼德拉有兩個單詞。丘吉爾只有一個:丘吉爾。
Why the difference? I"ll tell you why thedifference. Because America was from the outset a nation of wave after wave ofimmigrants, so it had to create an identity which it did by telling a storywhich you learned at school, you read on memorials and you heard repeated inpresidential inaugural addresses.
為什麼會有這種區別?我會告訴你為什麼。因為美國是一個移民構成的國家,所以它需要創造一個身份,而它通過講故事來達到這一點,你在學校學的,你在紀念碑上看到的,以及你在總統演說中一直聽到的。
Britain until recently wasn"t a nation ofimmigrants, so it could take identity for granted. The trouble is now that twothings have happened which shouldn"t have happened together. The first thing isin the West we"ve stopped telling this story of who we are and why, even inAmerica. And at the same time, immigration is higher than it"s ever beenbefore. So when you tell a story and your identity is strong, you can welcomethe stranger, but when you stop telling the story, your identity gets weak andyou feel threatened by the stranger. And that"s bad.
英國,直到最近,並沒有很多移民,所以他理所當然的就有身份。問題是,現在,兩件不該一起發生的事同時發生了。第一件,在西方,我們不再講我們是誰的故事,甚至在美國。同時,移民越來越多。所以當你有很強的身份認識的時候,你可以歡迎外來者,但當你不再講故事,你的身份變弱了,而你感到受到了威脅。這很不好。
I tell you, Jews have been scattered anddispersed and exiled for 2,000 years. We never lost our identity. Why? Becauseat least once a year, on the festival of Passover, we told our story and wetaught it to our children and we ate the unleavened bread of affliction andtasted the bitter herbs of slavery. So we never lost our identity.
我告訴你,猶太人被流放,散落到世界各地2000多年。我們從來沒有喪失自己的身份。為什麼?因為至少每年一次,在Passover節,我們講我們的故事,將它傳給我們的孩子。我們吃折磨的麵包,吃苦的草藥。所以我們從沒有失去自己的身份。
I thinkcollectively we"ve got to get back to telling our story, who we are, where wecame from, what ideals by which we live. And if that happens, we will becomestrong enough to welcome the stranger and say, "Come and share our lives,share our stories, share our aspirations and dreams." That is the us of identity.
我想,我們需要講過去的故事,我們是誰,從哪裡來,相信什麼理論。如果這發生了,我們會變得更強,能夠歡迎陌生人,說,「來,分享我們的生活,」 「分享我們的故事,」 「分享我們的志向和夢想。」 這是我們的身份。
And finally, the us of responsibility. Doyou know something? My favorite phrase in all of politics, very Americanphrase, is: "We the people." Why "we the people?" Becauseit says that we all share collective responsibility for our collective future.And that"s how things really are and should be.
最終,我們的責任。你知道嗎?我在政治中最喜歡的一詞,很美國的詞,是 「 我們人。」 為什麼?因為我們為了共同的未來 有著共同的責任。這就是事情的真相,他們應有的樣子。
Have you noticed how magical thinking hastaken over our politics? So we say, all you"ve got to do is elect this strongleader and he or she will solve all our problems for us. Believe me, that is magicalthinking. And then we get the extremes: the far right, the far left, theextreme religious and the extreme anti-religious, the far right dreaming of agolden age that never was, the far left dreaming of a utopia that never will beand the religious and anti-religious equally convinced that all it takes is Godor the absence of God to save us from ourselves.
你有沒有意識到,我們對政治家 寄予了很多幻想 我們覺得我們所需要做的 就是選出一位強大的領導人 他會解決我們所有的問題。相信我,那是幻想,我們也從而變得極端一會兒極右,一會兒極左,極度宗教,極度反宗教。極右夢想著從沒有的金色年代,極左夢想著不可能到來的烏托邦。宗教極端相信,而信教的和不信教的人都相信 神才能讓我們得救。
That, too, is magicalthinking, because the only people who will save us from ourselves is we thepeople, all of us together. And when we do that, and when we move from thepolitics of me to the politics of all of us together, we rediscover thosebeautiful, counterintuitive truths: that a nation is strong when it cares forthe weak, that it becomes rich when it cares for the poor, it becomes invulnerablewhen it cares about the vulnerable. That is what makes great nations.
那也是神奇的思路。因為,只有我們自己才能拯救自己,我們所有人一起。當我們這樣做的時候,當我們從個人政治 轉變成我們的政治,我們重新發現了這些美麗的真相:一個強大的國家 它會關心弱者 它在關心窮苦的時候才會富有。當它關心弱勢的時候,才會變得堅強。這才是成功的國家的秘訣。
So here is my simple suggestion. It mightjust change your life, and it might just help to begin to change the world. Doa search and replace operation on the text of your mind, and wherever youencounter the word "self," substitute the word "other." Soinstead of self-help, other-help; instead of self-esteem, other-esteem.
所以我有個簡單的建議。它或許就能改變你的生活。或許能改變這個世界。在你的腦海中,搜索、替換,而當你發現「我」一詞的時候,把它換成「他人」。所以把幫助自己變成幫助他人,自我實現變為他人實現。
And if you do that, you will begin to feel the power of what for me is one of the mostmoving sentences in all of religious literature. "Though I walk throughthe valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are withme." We can face any future without fear so long as we know we will notface it alone.
這樣做,你就能 感到那個力量,對我來說最感動的一句,在宗教文獻中。「儘管我走過死亡陰影的河谷,」 我不會畏懼邪惡,因為你在我身邊。」 我們能夠不懼任何未來,只要我們知道,我們不會孤身一人。
So for the sake of the future"you," together let us strengthen the future "us."
所以為了「你」的未來,讓我們一起 加強「我們」的未來。
期待與你相遇,不見不散▼
你說你喜歡雨,但是你在下雨的時候打開了傘
你說你喜歡風,但是你在颳風的時候關上了窗
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