TED演讲：怎样才能“不畏将来”

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。

https://v.qq.com/txp/iframe/player.html?width=500&height=375&auto=0&vid=d05403tpt9z

"These are the times," saidThomas Paine, "that try men's souls." And they're trying ours now.

"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。

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. 

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。

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——但现在的情况太荒唐了。'”

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。

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”。

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. 

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。

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."

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。

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。

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。

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。

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。

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。

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。

Nelson Mandela gets two. Churchill getsjust one: Churchill.

尼尔森·曼德拉有两个单词。丘吉尔只有一个：丘吉尔。

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. 

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。

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。

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。

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。

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。

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。

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。

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。

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.

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。

So for the sake of the future"you," together let us strengthen the future "us." 

所以为了“你”的未来，让我们一起 加强“我们”的未来。

Thank you.(Applause)

谢谢。（掌声）

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