TED演讲：为什么我们没有了同情心？

Daniel Goleman，哈佛大学心理学博士，现为美国科学促进协会（AAAS）研究员，曾四度荣获美国心理协会（APA）最高荣誉奖项，20世纪80年代即获得心理学终生成就奖，并曾两次获得普利策奖提名。今天为我们解析为什么我们更多的时候不那么有同情心。

演说者：Daniel Goleman

演说题目：为什么我们失去了同情心？

TED视频TED演讲稿

You know, I'm struck by how one of theimplicit themes of TED is compassion, these very moving demonstrations we'vejust seen: HIV in Africa, President Clinton last night. And I'd like to do alittle collateral thinking, if you will, about compassion and bring it from theglobal level to the personal. I'm a psychologist, but rest assured, I will notbring it to the scrotal.

TED的隐性主题之一是同情心，这让我很受触动。我们已经倾听了这些感人的演说：例如昨晚关于非洲艾滋病、克林顿总统等的演讲。而我也想谈一些与同情心相关的想法我会从全球的层面谈到个人的层面。我是一个心理学家，但请尽管放心，我不会谈到阴囊的。

There was a very important study done awhile ago at Princeton Theological Seminary that speaks to why it is that whenall of us have so many opportunities to help, we do sometimes, and we don'tother times. A group of divinity students at the Princeton Theological Seminarywere told that they were going to give a practice sermon and they were eachgiven a sermon topic. 

不久前有一项非常重要的研究在普林斯顿神学院展开，解释了为什么在我们有如此多的机会可以去助人的情况下我们却时而帮忙，有时不会来自普林斯顿神学院的学生被告知他们将进行一次布道实习并且分配给每人一个布道的主题。

Half of those students were given, as a topic, theparable of the Good Samaritan: the man who stopped the stranger in -- to helpthe stranger in need by the side of the road. Half were given random Bibletopics. Then one by one, they were told they had to go to another building andgive their sermon. As they went from the first building to the second, each ofthem passed a man who was bent over and moaning, clearly in need. The questionis: Did they stop to help?

一半的学生得到的主题是关于仁慈心善的人的故事：关于一个在路边帮助需要帮助的陌生人的故事，另外的一半学生得到的是随机的圣经故事，他们轮流被告知他们将去另外一栋楼去布道，在他们去那栋楼的途中，他们每个人都经过了一个弯着腰呻吟着的人，显然此人需要帮助。问题是：他们停下来帮忙了么？

The more interesting question is: Did itmatter they were contemplating the parable of the Good Samaritan? Answer: No,not at all. What turned out to determine whether someone would stop and help astranger in need was how much of a hurry they thought they were in -- were theyfeeling they were late, or were they absorbed in what they were going to talkabout. And this is, I think, the predicament of our lives: that we don't takeevery opportunity to help because our focus is in the wrong direction.

更有意思的问题是：若他们的主题是关于那个仁慈心善的人的故事对他们的行为有影响吗？结果：一点都没有影响。决定了是否会停下来去帮助有需要的陌生人完全取决于他们自认为的忙碌程度他们感到自己要迟到了，或者是他们全神贯注于他们所要谈的内容这，我想，就是我们人生的窘境：我们并不总是去帮助他人，因为我们的关注点存在偏差。

There's a new field in brain science,social neuroscience. This studies the circuitry in two people's brains thatactivates while they interact. And the new thinking about compassion fromsocial neuroscience is that our default wiring is to help. That is to say, ifwe attend to the other person, we automatically empathize, we automaticallyfeel with them. There are these newly identified neurons, mirror neurons, thatact like a neuro Wi-Fi, activating in our brain exactly the areas activated intheirs. We feel "with" automatically. And if that person is in need,if that person is suffering, we're automatically prepared to help. At leastthat's the argument.

脑科学有一新领域：社会神经科学研究的是人的脑神经元回路在互动过程中激活及关于来自社会神经科学的同情心的新想法是我们这也就是说，如果我们我们不由自主地感动身受，会去同情对方。新发现的神经元，即镜像神经元就好像神经无线保真技术一样，在大脑中激活与对方大脑里相同的区域。我们不由自主地与对方“心心相映”了。若是那个人需要帮助，若是他正承受痛苦，我们不由自主地要去帮他。至少这是论点。

But then the question is: Why don't we? AndI think this speaks to a spectrum that goes from complete self-absorption, tonoticing, to empathy and to compassion. And the simple fact is, if we arefocused on ourselves, if we're preoccupied, as we so often are throughout theday, we don't really fully notice the other. And this difference between theself and the other focus can be very subtle.

可问题是：为什么我们会不去帮忙呢?我认为这有一个范围从完全的专心致志到注意对方，再到感同身受，最后同情简单的事实是如果我们关注我们自己如果我们像通常一样一整天都更多的关注自身的话我们实际上并没有完全注意到他人这种对自己和对他人的关注度的差距可能是非常细微。

I was doing my taxes the other day, and Igot to the point where I was listing all of the donations I gave, and I had anepiphany, it was -- I came to my check to the Seva Foundation and I noticedthat I thought, boy, my friend Larry Brilliant would really be happy that Igave money to Seva. 

有一天我在纳税，当我要列出我的捐赠物时我在写支票给Seva基金会时，我留意到我的想法——我的朋友LarryBrilliant一定会因我把钱捐给Seva而感到高兴的。

Then I realized that what I was getting from giving was anarcissistic hit -- that I felt good about myself. Then I started to thinkabout the people in the Himalayas whose cataracts would be helped, and Irealized that I went from this kind of narcissistic self-focus to altruisticjoy, to feeling good for the people that were being helped. I think that's amotivator.

于是我意识到我因给予而获得的是自我陶醉——我对自己感到满意于是我开始想到在喜马拉雅山脉的人们他们的白内障将得到医治，我意识到我从这种自我陶醉变成了无私的快乐，因别人受助而快乐。我想这就是一种动力。

But this distinction between focusing on ourselvesand focusing on others is one that I encourage us all to pay attention to. Youcan see it at a gross level in the world of dating. I was at a sushi restauranta while back and I overheard two women talking about the brother of one woman,who was in the singles scene. And this woman says, "My brother is havingtrouble getting dates, so he's trying speed dating." I don't know if youknow speed dating? 

但关注自己与关注他人的区别是我鼓励咱们大家都去留意的。你可以在约会者中粗略了解此情况。前阵子我去了一家寿司店无意间听到了两位女士在讨论其中一位的兄弟，这位女士说“我弟弟在寻找伴侣方面有困难，所以他现在尝试闪电配对."不知你们对闪电配对是否了解？

Women sit at tables and men go from table to table, andthere's a clock and a bell, and at five minutes, bingo, the conversation endsand the woman can decide whether to give her card or her email address to theman for follow up. And this woman says, "My brother's never gotten a card,and I know exactly why. The moment he sits down, he starts talking non-stopabout himself; he never asks about the woman."

女士们坐在桌边，男士们依次与她们沟通，有个时钟和铃铛，每隔五分钟，时间到，交流便结束，女士就决定是否将其名片或电邮地址给这位男士以便今后联络。这位女士说，“我弟弟从来就没得到过名片。我知道原因何在。每当他坐下，他就开始不停地谈自己的情况，从不问对方的情况。”

And I was doing some research in the SundayStyles section of The New York Times, looking at the back stories of marriages-- because they're very interesting -- and I came to the marriage of AliceCharney Epstein. And she said that when she was in the dating scene, she had asimple test she put people to. The test was: from the moment they got together,how long it would take the guy to ask her a question with the word"you" in it. And apparently Epstein aced the test, therefore thearticle.

我在《纽约时报》的“周日格调”板块做了一些调查关注一些婚姻背后的故事因为他们很有意思。在调查AliceCharneyEpstein的婚姻时，她说当她在约会时，她会给对方一个考验。这个考验也就是：当他们在一起的时候，要过多久这个男士才会问她一个带有“你”字的问题。显然，Epstein先生通过了考验，所以才有了这篇报道。

Now this is a -- it's a little test Iencourage you to try out at a party. Here at TED there are great opportunities.The Harvard Business Review recently had an article called "The HumanMoment," about how to make real contact with a person at work. And theysaid, well, the fundamental thing you have to do is turn off your BlackBerry,close your laptop, end your daydream and pay full attention to the person.There is a newly coined word in the English language for the moment when theperson we're with whips out their BlackBerry or answers that cell phone, andall of a sudden we don't exist. The word is "pizzled": it's acombination of puzzled and pissed off.

这是一个，一个很小的测试我鼓励你们也去在派对上尝试一下。在TED这就就有很多很好的机会。最近《哈佛商业评论》上有篇文章题为《人情时刻》，讲述的是如何在工作时与别人真正地接触。他们称你要做的最基本的事情是关掉黑莓（手机），关闭笔记本，结束白日梦然后专心地与对方交流。英语中有个新造的词汇该词使用的情景是：与我们交谈的人突然掏出黑莓或接听来电，然后顷刻间就当我们不存在了。这个词语就是“pizzled”。这个词语是由“puzzled（困惑的）”和“pissedoff（愤怒）”组合而成的。

I think it's quite apt. It's our empathy,it's our tuning in which separates us from Machiavellians or sociopaths. I havea brother-in-law who's an expert on horror and terror -- he wrote the AnnotatedDracula, the Essential Frankenstein -- he was trained as a Chaucer scholar, buthe was born in Transylvania and I think it affected him a little bit. At anyrate, at one point my brother-in-law, Leonard, decided to write a book about aserial killer. This is a man who terrorized the very vicinity we're in manyyears ago. He was known as the Santa Cruz strangler. And before he was arrested,he had murdered his grandparents, his mother and five co-eds at UC Santa Cruz.

我想这是挺恰当的。正是我们的同理心把我们和反社会者区别开来。我姐（妹）夫是研究恐惧的专家，他拥有theAnnotatedDracula，theEssentialFrenkenstein等著作他被训练成为乔叟研究学者但他出生地是特兰西瓦尼亚我想这对他有点影响。不论如何，在某一点上，我的姐（妹）夫，李奥纳多下定决心写一本关于一个连续作案的杀人恶魔的书。书中的这个人多年前给我们的生活带来了恐慌。他就是圣克鲁斯扼杀者。在他被捕之前，他谋杀了他的祖父母，他的母亲及在圣他克鲁兹分校的五位女生。

So my brother-in-law goes to interview thiskiller and he realizes when he meets him that this guy is absolutelyterrifying. For one thing, he's almost seven feet tall. But that's not the mostterrifying thing about him. The scariest thing is that his IQ is 160: acertified genius. But there is zero correlation between IQ and emotionalempathy, feeling with the other person. They're controlled by different partsof the brain.

所以，我的姐（妹）夫去采访了这位杀人犯。当他见到他时，他意识到这个家伙的确令人恐怖。一方面，他有将近七英尺高。但这还不是最让人觉得恐怖的。最可怕的是他的智商达到了160，一个绝对的天才。但是智商和情绪的同理心之间毫无关系，同理心是指感同身受的明白他人的感受。它们是由大脑的不同部分控制的。

So at one point, my brother-in-law gets upthe courage to ask the one question he really wants to know the answer to, andthat is: how could you have done it? Didn't you feel any pity for your victims?These were very intimate murders -- he strangled his victims. And the stranglersays very matter-of-factly, "Oh no. If I'd felt the distress, I could nothave done it. I had to turn that part of me off. I had to turn that part of meoff."

所以，一方面，我姐（妹）夫鼓起勇气问了一个他真想知道答案的问题。即：你怎么能这么做？难道你就对受害者没有一点点的同情吗？这些都是非常亲密的谋杀，他扼死了他们。这个扼杀者很平淡地回答道：“呃，不的。若我觉得痛苦，我就不会这么做了。我得不去考虑这点。我得不去考虑这点。”

And I think that that is very troubling,and in a sense, I've been reflecting on turning that part of us off. When wefocus on ourselves in any activity, we do turn that part of ourselves off ifthere's another person. Think about going shopping and think about thepossibilities of a compassionate consumerism. Right now, as Bill McDonough haspointed out, the objects that we buy and use have hidden consequences. We'reall unwitting victims of a collective blind spot. 

我觉得这很令人烦扰。从某种意义上说，我们在活动中关注我们自己的话，当有其他人时，我们就不会关注自身想象一下购物时的情景，想象一下同情消费的可能性。现在，正如比尔.麦克唐纳所指出的，我们所购买及使用的物品都有潜在的后果。我们都是共同盲点的不知情的受害者。

We don't notice and don'tnotice that we don't notice the toxic molecules emitted by a carpet or by thefabric on the seats. Or we don't know if that fabric is a technological ormanufacturing nutrient; it can be reused or does it just end up at landfill? Inother words, we're oblivious to the ecological and public health and social andeconomic justice consequences of the things we buy and use. In a sense, theroom itself is the elephant in the room, but we don't see it. And we've becomevictims of a system that points us elsewhere. Consider this.

我们没有注意到，且没注意到我们没注意到地毯或椅子织物所放射出来的有毒分子。或者我们不知道这一织物是技术上的或制造业的营养物。它可以被再生使用还是被丢到垃圾堆里呢？换句话说，我们疏忽了我们购买和使用的产品所带来的生态，公共健康及社会经济公正所带来的结果在某种意义上，房间本身就是“房中之象”（众所周知，但被某房忽略不提的问题），但我们却没看到。于是我们便成了受害者把我们引向它处的体系的受害者。试想一下——

There's a wonderful book called Stuff: TheHidden Life of Everyday Objects. And it talks about the back story of somethinglike a t-shirt. And it talks about where the cotton was grown and thefertilizers that were used and the consequences for soil of that fertilizer.And it mentions, for instance, that cotton is very resistant to textile dye;about 60 percent washes off into waste water. 

有本好书，题为《材料：日常用品之隐秘人生》该书谈的是诸如T恤衫的幕后故事。该书谈还到棉花的生产地，使用的化肥及其对土壤带来的后果。该书还提到，比如说，棉花是非常不易织物染色的，大约百分之60会被随着废水被洗掉。

And it's well known byepidemiologists that kids who live near textile works tend to have high ratesof leukemia. There's a company, Bennett and Company, that supplies Polo.com,Victoria's Secret -- they, because of their CEO, who's aware of this, in Chinaformed a joint venture with their dye works to make sure that the wastewaterwould be properly taken care of before it returned to the groundwater. Rightnow, we don't have the option to choose the virtuous t-shirt over thenon-virtuous one. So what would it take to do that?

流行病学家都深知住在纺织工厂附近的儿童患白血病的几率很高。有这么一家公司，BennettandCompany，该公司支持着Polo.com网站。维多利亚的秘密——他们，因为他们的首席执行官知道这一点，而在中国建了一家合资企业，他们的染织工厂能确保废水在流向地下水之前能被适当的处理。现在，我们没有选择这种道德T恤的能力而不去选择其它无德产品机会。那怎样才能做到这一点呢？

Well, I've been thinking. For one thing,there's a new electronic tagging technology that allows any store to know theentire history of any item on the shelves in that store. You can track it backto the factory. Once you can track it back to the factory, you can look at themanufacturing processes that were used to make it, and if it's virtuous, youcan label it that way. 

嗯，我一直在思考这一点。有一项新的电子标签技术可以让任何商铺了解到该商铺货架上任一商品的完整历史。可以追踪其生产工厂。一旦你能追踪到其工厂，你就能了解其生产过程，并知道它是否符合道德标准，可以用此方式进行标签。

Or if it's not so virtuous, you can go into -- today, gointo any store, put your scanner on a palm onto a barcode, which will take youto a website. They have it for people with allergies to peanuts. That websitecould tell you things about that object. In other words, at point of purchase,we might be able to make a compassionate choice.

若其不符合道德标准，你可去任一家商铺，将你手上的扫描仪放在条形码上该条形码将引领你进入一家网站。有人对花生过敏。这网站可以告诉你关于该物品的情况。也就是说，在购买时，我们也就能够做出一个有同情心的选择。

There's a saying in the world of informationscience: ultimately everybody will know everything. And the question is: willit make a difference? Some time ago when I was working for The New York Times,it was in the '80s, I did an article on what was then a new problem in New York-- it was homeless people on the streets. 

在信息科学界有一种说法：最终每一个人都会了解一切。然而问题是：这有什么不同么？有段时间我在《纽约时报》工作，那是80年代的事情了，我写了一篇文章谈到纽约的新问题——大街上无家可归的人们。

And I spent a couple of weeks goingaround with a social work agency that ministered to the homeless. And Irealized seeing the homeless through their eyes that almost all of them werepsychiatric patients that had nowhere to go. They had a diagnosis. It made me-- what it did was to shake me out of the urban trance where, when we see, whenwe're passing someone who's homeless in the periphery of our vision, it stayson the periphery. We don't notice and therefore we don't act.

我花了数周的时间与一家为无家人员服务的社会工作机构一起工作。我意识到这些无家可归的人大多数都是精神病人他们无处可去。他们有诊断的结论。这使我从城市人的恍惚中惊醒，当我们经过一个无家可归的，一个处在我们视野边缘的人，我们没有注意到，我们也就没有采取任何行动。

One day soon after that -- it was a Friday-- at the end of the day, I went down -- I was going down to the subway. It wasrush hour and thousands of people were streaming down the stairs. And all of asudden as I was going down the stairs I noticed that there was a man slumped tothe side, shirtless, not moving, and people were just stepping over him --hundreds and hundreds of people. 

在那不久后的一天，这是一个周五，工作完后，我正要走下地铁站。正值下班高峰期上万人的人流涌下台阶。突然，正当我走下梯子时我注意到有一个人倒在一边没穿上衣，一动不动，人们从他身上跨过成百上千的人们从他身上跨过。

And because my urban trance had been somehowweakened, I found myself stopping to find out what was wrong. The moment Istopped, half a dozen other people immediately ringed the same guy. And wefound out that he was Hispanic, he didn't speak any English, he had no money,he'd been wandering the streets for days, starving, and he'd fainted fromhunger. Immediately someone went to get orange juice, someone brought a hotdog,someone brought a subway cop. This guy was back on his feet immediately. Butall it took was that simple act of noticing, and so I'm optimistic.Thank you very much.

因为我的这种“城市人的恍惚”已经减弱，我停下来了解出了什么问题。我刚停步，六七个路人也注意到了他。我们发现他是西班牙人，他不说英语，他身无分文，已经在街上游荡了数天，饥肠辘辘，最终饿晕了。有人立刻去买了橘子汁，有人拿来了热狗，有人带来了地铁警察。不一会儿，这个人就能站起来了。所需要做的仅仅只是去注意罢了。所以我还是乐观的。谢谢大家

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