TED | 怎样才能“不畏将来”
| TED主题
怎样才能“不畏将来”
| 讲师
Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks
| 类型
社会 TED 语言 政治
| 简介
怎样解救我们的极端主义？强烈的相信亦或不信？美国大选应该投谁一票？怎样选择自己的人生伴侣？怎样摆脱对未来“我”的境况的担忧？答案可能令你惊奇，答案其实就在于“我”本身。“不念过去，不畏将来”真的可行？本期讲者Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks将跟你娓娓道来。
| 中英文演讲稿
中文讲稿
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00:01
"这些时刻，"托马斯·潘恩说，“考验着人们的灵魂。”而现在，我们正被考验着。
00:09
这是西方历史中一个决定性的时刻。我们见到了充满分歧的竞选结果，见到了阶级极度分化的社会。我们看到了在政治和宗教方面，极端主义的增长。所有的这些，都由焦虑，不确定性和恐惧导致，因为现在的世界正在快速改变，快到我们难以承受，而且改变的速度只会越来越快。我在华盛顿有个朋友。我问他，在最近这场总统选举进行时，生活在美国是什么样的体验？他告诉我：“唔，这就好像在泰坦尼克号甲板上的那个男人，手中拿着一杯威士忌酒，说着：'我知道我说过酒要加冰。
01:07
但现在的情况太荒唐了。'”
01:11
所以有没有什么我们每个人都力所能及的事情，来使得我们能够毫无恐惧的直面未来呢？我觉得有。一种方法是，深入了解一种文化，一个时代的最简单的方法是询问：人们崇拜什么。人们崇拜过许多不同的事物——太阳，星星，风暴。有些人崇拜许多神，有些人信仰一个神，有些人是无神论者。在19到20世纪，人们崇拜国家，崇拜雅利安人种，崇拜共产主义。我们崇拜什么呢？我认为，未来的人类学家会研究我们阅读的书籍，关于自我帮助，自我实现，自尊心。他们会看我们如何谈论道德——真实的直面自己；看我们如何谈论政治——这关乎个人权益；然后，他们会看向我们创造的这个新的宗教仪式。你知道那是什么吗？它的名字叫做“自拍”。而我想他们会得出这样的结论：在我们这个时代，我们崇拜自我，崇拜自己，崇拜“我”。
02:31
这很棒。这让人感到自由，这赋予人力量，这简直太棒了。但不要忘记，生理上来讲，我们是群居动物。我们绝大部分的进化历史都是在小群体中度过的。我们需要这些面对面的互动，来学习如何无私奉献，并且创造出诸如友情，信任，忠诚和爱这样的精神食粮，以此救赎我们的孤独。当我们太过注重“我”，却没有多少“我们”，我们会发现，我们自己变得十分脆弱，恐惧，和孤独。麻省理工学院的雪莉·特克将她所写的关于社交媒体影响的书籍命名为“在一起孤独”，这绝非偶然。
03:26
所以，我想，守护“你”未来的最简单的方法是，从三个维度来加强“我们”的未来：我们的关系，我们的身份，和我们的责任。
03:41
我先来讲讲我们的关系。在这一部分，如果我开始讲起自己的私事，请原谅。曾几何时，很久很久以前，我是一个20岁的大学生，学习哲学。我沉迷于尼采，叔本华，萨特，加缪。我充满了本体论的不确定性和存在的焦虑。这太了不起了。
04:10
我沉迷于自我，而且感到非常不悦，直到有一天我看见，在庭院的那一端，有一个女孩，她的性格和我完全相反。她是个小太阳发着光。她散发着快乐。我发现她的名字叫伊莱恩。我们见了面。我们聊天。我们结婚了。而四十七年后，三个子女和八个孙辈后，我能够自信的说，这是我做过的最正确的决定，因为只有不像我们的人才能让我们成长。而这也是为什么我认为，我们必须那么做。
04:54
谷歌搜索过滤，Facebook朋友系统，以及浏览小范围的新闻而不是广播意味着，我们被和我们相似的人完全包围着，他们的视角，他们的观点，甚至他们的偏见，都和我们的一样。而哈佛大学的卡斯·苏斯特展示了如果我们周围都是和我们持有一样观点的人，我们会变得更极端。我想，我们应该重新尝试接触与自己不同的人。我们需要这样做，以此来意识到，我们可以意见分歧，但仍然能成为朋友。在这些面对面的交流中，我们能够发现，不像我们的人，像我们一样，是人。而事实上，每一次我们伸出手，和一个不像自己的人建立友谊，他们的颜色和我们完全不同，我们治愈了我们这个伤痕累累的世界上的一个部件。这就是关系中的我们。
06:10
第二件事是我们的身份。让我给你们一个思维实验。你去过华盛顿吗？你看见过纪念碑吗？绝对令人震撼。有林肯纪念碑：一边写着葛底斯堡演说，另一边写着第二次就职演说。你去到杰弗森纪念碑，一段文字。马丁路德金纪念碑，十几条他的演讲中的选段。我并没有意识到，在美国，你读纪念碑。现在，到伦敦的国会广场，你会看见，大卫·劳埃德·乔治的纪念碑，写着三个单词：大卫·劳埃德·乔治。
06:53
尼尔森·曼德拉有两个单词。丘吉尔只有一个：丘吉尔。
07:00
为什么会有这种区别？我会告诉你为什么。因为美国是一个移民构成的国家，所以它需要创造一个身份，而它通过讲故事来达到这一点，你在学校学的，你在纪念碑上看到的，以及你在总统演说中一直听到的。英国，直到最近，并没有很多移民，所以他理所当然的就有身份。问题是，现在，两件不该一起发生的事同时发生了。第一件，在西方，我们不再讲我们是谁的故事，甚至在美国。同时，移民越来越多。所以当你有很强的身份认识的时候，你可以欢迎外来者，但当你不再讲故事，你的身份变弱了，而你感到受到了威胁。这很不好。
07:58
我告诉你，犹太人被流放，散落到世界各地2000多年。我们从来没有丧失自己的身份。为什么？因为至少每年一次，在Passover节，我们讲我们的故事，将它传给我们的孩子。我们吃折磨的面包，吃苦的草药。所以我们从没有失去自己的身份。我想，我们需要讲过去的故事，我们是谁，从哪里来，相信什么理论。如果这发生了，我们会变得更强，能够欢迎陌生人，说，“来，分享我们的生活，”“分享我们的故事，”“分享我们的志向和梦想。”这是我们的身份。
08:48
最终，我们的责任。你知道吗？我在政治中最喜欢的一词，很美国的词，是“我们人。”为什么？因为我们为了共同的未来有着共同的责任。这就是事情的真相，他们应有的样子。
09:15
你有没有意识到，我们对政治家寄予了很多幻想我们觉得我们所需要做的就是选出一位强大的领导人他会解决我们所有的问题。相信我，那是幻想，我们也从而变得极端一会儿极右，一会儿极左，极度宗教，极度反宗教。极右梦想着从没有的金色年代，极左梦想着不可能到来的乌托邦。宗教极端相信，而信教的和不信教的人都相信神才能让我们得救。那也是神奇的思路。因为，只有我们自己才能拯救自己，我们所有人一起。当我们这样做的时候，当我们从个人政治转变成我们的政治，我们重新发现了这些美丽的真相：一个强大的国家它会关心弱者它在关心穷苦的时候才会富有。当它关心弱势的时候，才会变得坚强。这才是成功的国家的秘诀。
11:03
所以我有个简单的建议。它或许就能改变你的生活。或许能改变这个世界。在你的脑海中，搜索、替换，而当你发现“我”一词的时候，把它换成“他人”。所以把帮助自己变成帮助他人，自我实现变为他人实现，这样做，你就能感到那个力量，对我来说最感动的一句，在宗教文献中。“尽管我走过死亡阴影的河谷，”我不会畏惧邪恶，因为你在我身边。”我们能够不惧任何未来，只要我们知道，我们不会孤身一人。
12:08
所以为了“你”的未来，让我们一起加强“我们”的未来。
12:17
谢谢。
The End
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00:01
"These are the times," said Thomas Paine, "that try men's souls." And they're trying ours now.
00:09
This is a fateful moment in the history of the West. We've seen divisive elections and divided societies. We've seen a growth 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 can bear, and the sure knowledge that it's going to change faster still. I have a friend in Washington. I asked him, what was it like being in America during the recent presidential election? He said to me, "Well,it was like the man sitting on the deck of the Titanic with a glass of whiskey in his hand and he's saying, 'I know I asked for ice.
01:07
but this is ridiculous.'"
01:11
So is there something we can do, each of us, to be able to face the future without fear? I think there is. And one way into it is to see that perhaps the most simple way into a culture and into an age is to ask: What do people worship? People have worshipped so many different things -- the sun, the stars, the storm. Some people worship many gods, some one, some none. In the 19th and 20th centuries, people worshipped the nation, the Aryan race, the communist state. What do we worship? I think future anthropologists 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 morality as being true to oneself, the way we talk about politics as a matter of individual rights, and they'll look at this wonderful new religious ritual we have created. You know the one? Called the "selfie." And I think they'll conclude that what we worship in our time is the self, the me, the I.
02:31
And this is great. It's liberating. It's empowering. It's wonderful. But don't forget that biologically, we're social animals.We've spent most of our evolutionary history in small groups. We need those face-to-face interactions where we learn the choreography of altruism and where we create those spiritual goods like friendship and trust and loyalty and love that redeem our solitude. When we have too much of the "I" and too little of the "we," we can find ourselves vulnerable,fearful and alone. It was no accident that Sherry Turkle of MIT called the book she wrote on the impact of social media"Alone Together."
03:26
So I think the simplest way of safeguarding the future "you" is to strengthen the future "us" in three dimensions: the us of relationship, the us of identity and the us of responsibility.
03:41
So let me first take the us of relationship. And here, forgive me if I get personal. Once upon a time, a very long time ago,I was a 20-year-old undergraduate studying philosophy. I was into Nietzsche and Schopenhauer and Sartre and Camus.I was full of ontological uncertainty and existential angst. It was terrific.
04:10
I was self-obsessed and thoroughly unpleasant to know, until one day I saw across the courtyard a girl who was everything that I wasn't. She radiated sunshine. She emanated joy. I found out her name was Elaine. We met. We talked.We married. And 47 years, three children and eight grandchildren later, I can safely say it was the best decision I ever took in my life, because it's the people not like us that make us grow. And that is why I think we have to do just that.
04:54
The trouble with Google filters, Facebook friends and reading the news by narrowcasting rather than broadcastingmeans that we're surrounded almost entirely by people like us whose views, whose opinions, whose prejudices, even,are just like ours. And Cass Sunstein of Harvard has shown that if we surround ourselves with people with the same views as us, we get more extreme. I think we need to renew those face-to-face encounters with the people not like us. I think we need to do that in order to realize that we can disagree strongly and yet still stay friends. It's in those face-to-face encounters that we discover that the people not like us are just people, like us. And actually, every time we hold out the hand of friendship to somebody not like us, whose class or creed or color are different from ours, we heal one of the fractures of our wounded world. That is the us of relationship.
06:10
Second is the us of identity. Let me give you a thought experiment. Have you been to Washington? Have you seen the memorials? Absolutely fascinating. There's the Lincoln Memorial: Gettysburg Address on one side, Second Inaugural on the other. You go to the Jefferson Memorial, screeds of text. Martin Luther King Memorial, more than a dozen quotes from his speeches. I didn't realize, in America you read memorials. Now go to the equivalent in London in Parliament Square and you will see that the monument to David Lloyd George contains three words: David Lloyd George.
06:53
Nelson Mandela gets two. Churchill gets just one: Churchill.
07:00
Why the difference? I'll tell you why the difference. Because America was from the outset a nation of wave after wave of immigrants, so it had to create an identity which it did by telling a story which you learned at school, you read on memorials and you heard repeated in presidential inaugural addresses. Britain until recently wasn't a nation of immigrants, so it could take identity for granted. The trouble is now that two things have happened which shouldn't have happened together. The first thing is in the West we've stopped telling this story of who we are and why, even in America.And at the same time, immigration is higher than it's ever been before. So when you tell a story and your identity is strong, you can welcome the stranger, but when you stop telling the story, your identity gets weak and you feel threatened by the stranger. And that's bad.
07:58
I tell you, Jews have been scattered and dispersed and exiled for 2,000 years. We never lost our identity. Why? Because at least once a year, on the festival of Passover, we told our story and we taught it to our children and we ate the unleavened bread of affliction and tasted the bitter herbs of slavery. So we never lost our identity. I think collectivelywe've got to get back to telling our story, who we are, where we came from, what ideals by which we live. And if that happens, we will become strong 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.
08:48
And finally, the us of responsibility. Do you know something? My favorite phrase in all of politics, very American phrase,is: "We the people." Why "we the people?" Because it says that we all share collective responsibility for our collective future. And that's how things really are and should be.
09:15
Have you noticed how magical thinking has taken over our politics? So we say, all you've got to do is elect this strong leader and he or she will solve all our problems for us. Believe me, that is magical thinking. And then we get the extremes: the far right, the far left, the extreme religious and the extreme anti-religious, the far right dreaming of a golden age that never was, the far left dreaming of a utopia that never will be and the religious and anti-religious equally convinced that all it takes is God or the absence of God to save us from ourselves. That, too, is magical thinking,because the only people who will save us from ourselves is we the people, all of us together. And when we do that, and when we move from the politics of me to the politics of all of us together, we rediscover those beautiful, counterintuitive truths: that a nation is strong when it cares for the weak, that it becomes rich when it cares for the poor, it becomes invulnerable when it cares about the vulnerable. That is what makes great nations.
11:03
So here is my simple suggestion. It might just change your life, and it might just help to begin to change the world. Do a search and replace operation on the text of your mind, and wherever you encounter the word "self," substitute the word "other." So instead of self-help, other-help; instead of self-esteem, other-esteem. And if you do that, you will begin to feel the power of what for me is one of the most moving sentences in all of religious literature. "Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me." We can face any future without fear so long as we know we will not face it alone.
12:08
So for the sake of the future "you," together let us strengthen the future "us."
12:17
Thank you.
The End