耶鲁大学校长2022年开学日演讲：没有真理，民主将步履蹒跚！（附视频&演讲稿）
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美东时间8月22日上午，耶鲁大学举行了2022-2023年度耶鲁本科学院的开学典礼。耶鲁大学校长苏必德（Peter Salovey）和耶鲁本科学院新任院长Pericles Lewis向2026届新生表示欢迎！
开学典礼上，苏必德校长发表了题为“在耶鲁踏上追寻真理之路”的演讲，他呼吁学生“以对不同观点的包容，以尊重和积极的心态，以耐心的倾听和深刻的思考，以满怀同理心和理解的表达，为耶鲁的校园再倾注一些对真理的追寻。”
耶鲁大学校长2022年开学日演讲
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Good morning. It truly is a thrill to welcome all of you, our entering students, and your family members to campus for our Yale College Opening Assembly. Today is the official start of your undergraduate education at Yale, and on behalf of all my colleagues here on stage with me, we are delighted this day has arrived!
As you know, Yale’s motto is Light and Truth—Lux et Veritas in Latin, Urim v’Thummim in Hebrew—and you will see it etched ubiquitously on crests around campus. Today, I want to speak with you about the part of our motto we share with many other universities around the world through their mission, ethos, or culture: Veritas, or Truth.
For several years now, even as the world struggled to contain a public health crisis, we have witnessed the virulent spread of deceptive information, even outright lies. We have seen an assault on expertise, an assault on scientific and other scholarly findings—indeed, an assault on truth. Hardly a day passes without a report on someone who has “discovered,” in the comfort of his or her own home, that the scientific experts are wrong about COVID. Hardly a day goes by when someone on the internet does not spin some new, fact-free conspiracy theory. Historical events we all know to be true are denied by individuals with nefarious motives.
Here are five brief examples:
Earlier this year, some in our country, including those in positions of leadership, depicted a violent mob’s attempt to disrupt the most basic functioning of our democracy by denying an election outcome as “legitimate political discourse.”[1]
As destructive wildfires, severe drought in some places, and historic flooding in others portend a catastrophic climate emergency, we see those faithful to unfounded skepticism disregard overwhelming scientific consensus. In some counties in the United States, half of the residents still do not believe global climate change is real.[2]
In recent months, Vladimir Putin has propagated misinformation about rooting out Nazis as the motivation for his unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.[3]
Social media platforms have been mobilized to incite or stoke ethnic violence by propagating falsehoods in countries like Myanmar and Ethiopia.
And finally, a recent defamation trial focused on a notorious conspiracy theorist who claims that the murder of twenty school children and six adults in Sandy Hook, Connecticut—about a half-hour’s drive from here—was staged by the U.S. government.
Of course, spreading misinformation is not new. History teems with the haunting consequences of lies.
Philosopher Hannah Arendt—on whom Yale bestowed an honorary degree in 1971—writes of some of humanity’s darkest chapters and the malignant regimes that authored them: “the ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist.” It is rather, Arendt continues, “people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (i.e., the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (i.e., the standards of thought) no longer exist.”[4]
Yes, malevolence can feast on the environment devoid of Veritas. And at stake, therefore, in the abiding search for truth is humanity itself.
For our part, colleges and universities must combat the spread of misinformation, propaganda, and conjured conspiracy theories first by supporting faculty; they generate scientific data and scholarly insight. Faculty must be free to disseminate knowledge and teach you to think critically about ideas and their sources.
But to do so effectively, our institutions of higher education—faculty and students—must be open to engaging with diverse ideas, whether conventional or unconventional, of the left or of the right. It is Yale’s obligation to address the credibility crisis, for we have long stood for the pursuit of truth and devoted ourselves to it.
Colleges and universities like Yale are home to artists, scholars, scientists, and practitioners who spend their entire lives searching for truth. Yet, the growing polarization in society around ideas, whether embraced or eschewed by a particular faction, impedes this search, and threatens to erode public confidence in expertise, minimizing the impact of universities precisely when unvarnished truth is so desperately needed.
Faculty and students—indeed the university itself—will be viewed as reliable sources of information if we do not appear closed off to unpopular or otherwise nonmainstream ideas from thoughtful individuals responsibly articulated. Most Americans still have a positive view of universities and consider a college education important for future success. But confidence that higher education has a salubrious impact on society is eroded by a belief that we will not engage with ideas that challenge us.
Let me discuss a familiar example: that there has been a steady decline in the percentage of college students who believe the freedom to express unpopular points of view is secure. Actually, it is a myth that students do not want their campuses to be home to a broad range of perspectives. Recent opinion polling by the Knight Foundation confirms that most students believe it is more important to be exposed to all types of speech than to protect people by prohibiting offensive or biased speech.[5] What some refer to as “cancel culture” is not the dominant ideology of students.
Here at Yale, which is home to the country’s oldest collegiate debate society, students across the political spectrum can engage in spirited, yet civil discussions. Yale College students have selected Hillary Clinton as a Class Day speaker and honored both George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush as Yale Undergraduate Lifetime Achievement Award recipients. And the university has hosted interactions between individuals with ideological differences, such as a recent conversation between Emily Bazelon and Ross Douthat, and another one among four former Secretaries of State, Democrats and Republicans.
But let’s be frank. It can be difficult to articulate unpopular views on college campuses. That Knight Foundation survey I cited a moment ago suggests that only about half of all students feel “comfortable offering dissenting opinions.”
So, we need to build on an existing desire among students to engage each day—in classrooms, dining halls, and meeting spaces—with different viewpoints and to appreciate the importance of expressing their disagreement with one another. Indeed, in a university setting, we must be able to distinguish—emphatically—legitimate dissent from outright deceit. We must make room for beliefs we find objectionable as faithfully as we reject falsehoods we know to be lies.
And we must, therefore, nurture a bias toward openness, even—and especially—when this ethos exposes us to points of view that test our most strongly held assumptions. Such a climate affords the search for truth—and the credibility necessary to trust it.
Of course, as we search for truth, we must also be mindful of the power and influence of institutions like Yale. We must recognize, with humility, that what looks like a truth might not be one. I think, for instance, of our own history: our resistance to co-education for so long or our leadership at one time in eugenics. With power comes great responsibility. These disturbing realities are why some are reluctant even to use the word “truth” in describing our mission.
Nonetheless, at Yale, I have often observed our faculty actively encouraging students to interrogate data and other ideas presented to them, and I have seen students change their minds when confronted with contrary evidence. Every one of you will have that experience as part of your Yale education. I suspect you will have it often.
You can enroll in courses that bring together pairs of professors representing different disciplines, who model how looking at a problem from divergent perspectives can lead to new insights: a course on film taught by a film historian and a physicist, a course on the nature of choice taught by a philosopher and an economist, a course on transgender health taught by faculty members from American Studies and the nursing school. Similarly, in a recent semester, three experts from across the political spectrum co-taught a course on the crisis of liberalism, covering the Obama and Trump presidencies.
We will continue to create opportunities like these for you to have open conversations about contentious, complex issues—opportunities rooted in the reality that no ideological bloc can claim ownership of truth; that facts pledge no fealty to any of our preferred conclusions. And, therefore, that evidence must guide the beliefs we hold rather than conform to them.
In considering this imperative, I am reminded of the book, The Death of Truth, by Michiko Kakutani—a winner of the Pulitzer Prize, an alumna of Yale College (Class of 1976), and a champion of the sense of truth we seek to promote.
Kakutani’s stirring appeal for reason and objectivity concludes with an especially, if not unnervingly relevant warning for our era issued by James Madison: “a popular Government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy; or perhaps both.” Indeed, “without commonly agreed-upon facts,” Kakutani posits, “not Republican facts and [not] Democratic facts; not the alternative facts of today’s silo-world—there can be no rational debate over policies, no substantive means of evaluating candidates for political office, and no way to hold elected officials accountable to the people. Without truth, democracy is hobbled. The founders recognized this, and those seeking democracy’s survival must recognize it today.”[6]
I think, too, of James Hatch—an extraordinary Yale undergraduate who spent over two decades with the Naval Special Warfare Command before returning to complete his college education. As he wrote, the climate at Yale “is one where most students understand that there HAS to be a place where people can assault ideas openly and discuss them vigorously and respectfully in order to improve the state of humanity.”[7]
Yale is committed to the responsibility of promoting the public’s trust in academic research, expertise, and the value of higher education by ensuring that Mr. Hatch’s experience is typical of every student, every day, and in every classroom.
Philosophy 181 reflects this responsibility. In her course “Philosophy and the Science of Human Nature,” Yale’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences Dean Tamar Gendler ties contemporary cognitive science, which has helped us to gain an understanding of how our minds operate, to the work of ancient philosophers. Students in her class consider anew Plato’s allegory of the cave, in which people mistake shadows on a wall for reality. Dean Gendler walks her students through this allegory to challenge them to consider this question: How do you discover truth given that the human mind is imperfect?
Of course, our limitations pose no impediment to the search for truth. For they are, in fact, what can power the curiosity necessary to sustain it. By embracing our humility, we can broaden our understanding.[8]
So, at Yale, we will not merely reaffirm what you already think as you arrive. We will, instead, provoke you to uncover all you do not know before you leave. We will fine-tune your ability to sift fact from falsehood, for the core of a liberal education is comprised of reason, logic, and critical thinking.
Soon, you will be the beneficiary of such an education. Yet, it behooves you also to be an active participant in it as students—and then, in due course, as alumni.
And so, today, as you begin your college career, I call on all of us to promote a truth-seeking climate at Yale—in every seminar, in every residential college, and in every late-night conversation—by being willing to entertain ideas with which we do not agree, by being willing to extend grace and assume positive intent, by listening carefully, by thinking deeply, and by speaking with empathy and understanding.
Let us, together, elevate the virtues of tolerance and engagement, and reject the culture of public shaming, doxing, and ostracism.
And, in time-tested tradition, let us strengthen the open discourse that has, for centuries, been a hallmark of our intellectual community at Yale—and that has produced the scholarship and scientific breakthroughs that have improved the world well beyond it.
By doing so, you can develop expertise—and also help to rescue its standing. You can, in an increasingly dark world, bring Veritas to Lux—Truth to Light. And, perhaps equally as vital in a fragmented world, bring Lux to Veritas—Light to Truth.
Welcome to Yale.
早上好。很高兴能在耶鲁本科学院开学典礼上见到各位新生和你们的家人。今天是你们正式开启耶鲁本科生涯的第一天，我谨代表台上的同事们，对这一天的到来感到由衷地喜悦。
如各位所知，耶鲁大学的校训是“光明与真理”，拉丁语是Lux et Veritas，希伯来语是Urim v’Thummim。在耶鲁的校园里，这条校训随处可见。今天，我想和大家聊聊我们的校训中很重要的一部分，一个在世界各地大学的使命、精神与文化中广泛存在的追求，那就是真理。
近几年来，尽管全世界都在竭力应对公共卫生危机，我们仍目睹了假消息，甚至是谬论的肆虐。在这一过程中，专业知识遭受质疑，科学发现和学术研究面临考验——事实上，这些挑战都是一种对真理的侵犯。几乎每天都有这样的事情发生：报道称有人在家“发现”科学家们得出的新冠肺炎病毒有关结论有误；网友又编织出了全新的、毫无根据的阴谋论；我们公认的历史事实也被别有用心之人矢口否认。
这里列举5个简短的例子：
年初，美国一些人（包括处于领导地位的人）把一场企图颠覆我们民主基础和反对选举制度的暴徒行为称作“合法的政治诉求”。
当毁灭性的山火、局部严重干旱和历史罕见的洪水等昭示着灾难性的气候挑战时，一些人却笃信毫无根据的怀疑论，无视广泛建立起的科学共识。在美国的一些县城里，一半的居民还不相信全球气候变化正真实地发生着。
最近几个月，人们关于俄乌战争的情绪被误导和激化。
社交媒体平台上，有些人通过宣传虚假内容煽动种族主义情绪，比如在缅甸和埃塞俄比亚所发生的事。
最近的一桩诽谤罪判案中，一位臭名昭著的阴谋论者称发生在距离耶鲁校园约半小时车程的康涅狄格州桑迪胡克谋杀案（20名小学生和6名成年人在此次事故中丧生）系美国政府所为。
当然，传播假消息已经不是什么新鲜事了。历史充斥着谎言招致的恶果。
20世纪哲学家Hannah Arendt，曾于1971年获得耶鲁名誉学位。她在叙述人性黑暗和残酷政权时写道，真正的极权主体不是某一党派的坚定支持者，而是那些对事实与杜撰，正确与错误不加区分的人。
没错，恶毒可以在缺少真理的环境中猖獗。因此，在对真理的持续探索中，人性本身也岌岌可危。
就耶鲁而言，高校必须首先通过支持教师来打击虚假信息、阻止煽动和臆造阴谋论的传播，因为他们所做的正是收集科学数据并提出学术见解。教员们必须能够自由地传授知识，并教学生批判性地思考各种观点及其来源。
但要有效地做到这一点，高等教育体系中的老师和学生都必须对多元的思想保持开放，无论是传统还是非传统的，左派还是右派。耶鲁大学长期以来代表并致力于对真理的坚守，因此我们有责任应对公信力危机。
对于穷极一生追寻真理的艺术家、学者、科学家与一线实践者们，像耶鲁这样的大学是他们的家园。然而，社会上观点的极化，无论是否被某一特定派别所接受，都无疑阻碍了追寻真理的进程，也将会蚕食公众对专业知识的信心，并在人们亟需纯粹的真相时消解着大学的影响力。
当有思想的人负责任地阐述了不受欢迎的或非主流的观点，而我们对此保持开放，那么全体师生乃至整个大学将被视作可靠信息的来源。大多数美国人仍然对大学持有积极看法，认为大学教育对一个人的未来发挥着重要的作用。但是，对于高等教育将为社会带来有益影响的信心却被一种质疑所侵蚀，那就是我们不愿接受挑战的声音。
或者说有些人相信，学生中认为可以安全地发表不受欢迎的观点的比例在下降。实际情况绝非如此，学生们不愿校园成为多元观点的汇聚之地是一个谣言。根据美国奈特基金会（Knight Foudation）最近的一项调查，大多数学生认为接触各类言论比通过禁止冒犯性或偏见性的言论来保护大家更为重要。一些人所说的“取消文化”并不是学生群体的主流思想。
耶鲁拥有美国历史最悠久的大学辩论文化，持有任何政治立场的学生都可以加入到激烈而文明的讨论中。在耶鲁，你会看到美国民主党籍政治家、耶鲁法学院’73届校友希拉里·克林顿作为耶鲁本科生毕业日的受邀嘉宾演讲，也会看到共和党派、美国前总统布什父子荣获耶鲁本科生终身成就奖。同时，耶鲁大学为持有不同意识形态的人提供互动机会，比如此前一场对话中齐聚了来自两党的四任美国前国务卿。
但是坦白来讲，在校园里发表不受欢迎的见解的确有些困难。我刚提到的奈特基金会调查也显示，只有大约一半的学生“能够自如地表达不同意见”。
因此，我们需要提升学生每天在教室、餐厅和会议室内与不同观点探讨的持续渴望，并认识到向他人表达不同见解的重要性。事实上，在大学这个环境中，我们必须能够将正当的异议与彻头彻尾的谎言区分开来，必须坚定地为令人不悦的真知灼见留有空间，正如我们驳斥谬论时一样坚定。
因此，我们必须培养一种开放的态度，尤其是当我们最根深蒂固的思想受到挑战之时。这样的氛围承载着对真理的探寻，以及相信真理所需要建立起的公信力。
当然，在我们追寻真理的过程中，我们必须铭记耶鲁等学术机构的权力和影响力。我们必须谦虚地认识到，谬论也可能伪装成真理，比如，历史上我们曾错误地认为男女不应该同校，以及引领了“优生运动”的风潮。当权力同时意味着责任时，这些困扰成为了一些人拒绝使用“真理”一词来描述耶鲁使命的原因。
尽管如此，在耶鲁，我经常看到教师们鼓励学生对数据和观点提出质疑，也看到学生们面对相悖的证据时改变自己的观点。你们每个人都将在耶鲁经历这些，并且经常经历，这是耶鲁教育的一部分。
在耶鲁可选的课程中，经常可见两位代表不同学科的教授共同教授一门课。在他们的课上你将体会到，从不同的视角审视同一个问题将促生全新观点。比如，电影史教授与物理学家共同教授的电影课程，哲学家与经济学家共同讲解自然选择，美国研究和护理学院学者共同教授跨性别健康课程。类似地，最近一个学期，三位持不同政见的专家共同开设了一门关于自由主义危机的课程，横跨了奥巴马与特朗普的总统任期。
我们将继续为你们创造可以自由争论复杂问题的对话机会。这些时刻让我们意识到，现实中没有任何意识集团真正拥有真理；事实不会归顺于我们任何偏向的结论。因此，实证必须引导我们持有的观念，而非顺从于它。
讲到这里，我想到了一本名为《真理之死》的书，它的作者是耶鲁本科学院1976届校友、普利策奖获得者角谷美智子，一位我们所追寻真理的捍卫者。
角谷美智子在书中对理性与客观的呼吁，以詹姆斯·麦迪逊（美国第四任总统、美国宪法之父）的一句话结束，这也是对我们这个时代提出的警告：“一个公众的政府，若没有供民众获取的信息或获取信息的方式，将会奏响一场闹剧或悲剧，或两者兼具的惨剧的前奏。”当然，角谷美智子在书中认为，“如果没有公认的事实，这种事实不是指民主党或共和党眼中的事实，也不是指经过改编了的单一来源的信息，人们无法对政策展开理智的辩论，无法实际评估政治职位候选人，无法让他们对人民负责。没有真理，民主将步履蹒跚。美国开国元勋们认识到了这一点，那些寻求民主生存空间的人也必须认识到这一点。”
我还想到了James Hatch，一位曾在美国海军特种作战司令部服役二十年后重返校园的耶鲁本科生。他这样描述耶鲁的校园氛围：“这里的大多数学生都同意，为改善人类的状况，必须存在这样一个——观点可以被公开挑战，讨论可以激烈而有序进行的地方。”
耶鲁大学致力于承担提高学术研究、专业知识和高等教育机构公信力的责任，确保Hatch先生的体会是每名耶鲁学子在任何时刻和任何角落都能感同身受的。
耶鲁大学的一门名为《哲学与人性科学》的哲学课正反映了耶鲁在这方面的努力。在课程中，耶鲁文理学院院长Tamar Gendler将当代认知科学与古代哲学家的作品联系起来，帮助我们更好地理解在研读这些作品时，我们的大脑产生了怎样的活动。在她的课上，同学们重新解读柏拉图的洞穴寓言，洞穴里的人们将墙上的影子误认为现实。Gendler院长进一步引导学生对这一观点提出挑战：既然人类的头脑并不十全十美，真理又如何能够被发现呢？
当然，我们的局限并不能阻挡我们对真理的探寻。因为它们是维系我们保持好奇的动力。心怀谦逊，我们便可以扩展自己的认知。
所以，在耶鲁，我们不会重申你在来时已有的想法。相反，我们会在四年时光里激发你发现自己未知的事物。我们会帮助你打磨过滤假象的能力，因为通识教育的核心是由理性、逻辑与批判性思维组成的。
不久，你将从这种教育中受益。当然，你们也应该积极参与其中，无论现在作为一名学生，还是之后成长为一位校友。
今天，在你们即将开启自己的本科生涯之时，我呼吁所有人，在每一次研讨会上、每一所寄宿学院里与每一场深夜谈话之中，以对不同观点的包容，以尊重和积极的心态，以耐心的倾听和深刻的思考，以满怀同理心和理解的表达，为耶鲁的校园再倾注一些对真理的追寻。
让我们一同提升自己的包容度和参与度，反对公开羞辱、挖苦和排斥的文化。
让我们恪守历经岁月考验的优良传统，在耶鲁秉持公开讨论的学术氛围。在这样的社区中，我们才能产生推动世界的学术成就和科学突破，并不断超越。
正是这样，你们才能拓展专业知识，挽救知识的地位；你们才能够在日渐黑暗的世界里，让“真理”与“光明”同在；你们或许能够改变这个割裂世界的命运，让真理光芒四射。
欢迎来到耶鲁。
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