I'm a journalist, so I like to look for the untold stories, the lives that quietly play out under the scream of headlines. I've also been going about the business of putting down roots, choosing a partner, making babies. So for the last few years, I've been trying to understand what constitutes the 21st-century good life, both because I'm fascinated by the moral and philosophical implications, but also because I'm in desperate need of answers myself.
我是一名記者, 所以我喜歡發掘故事, 和那些聳動標題下的人生百態。 我同時也想定下來, 找個好伴、生下孩子。 所以過去幾年, 我一直試著去了解 21 世紀的美好生活如何組成。 我想知道背後的道德和哲學意涵, 也迫切想為自己的人生找答案。
We live in tenuous times. In fact, for the first time in American history, the majority of parents do not think that their kids will be better off than they were. This is true of rich and poor, men and women. Now, some of you might hear this and feel sad. After all, America is deeply invested in this idea of economic transcendence, that every generation kind of leapfrogs the one before it, earning more, buying more, being more. We've exported this dream all over the world, so kids in Brazil and China and even Kenya inherit our insatiable expectation for more. But when I read this historic poll for the first time, it didn't actually make me feel sad. It felt like a provocation. "Better off" -- based on whose standards?
我們身處在不安的時代。 事實上,美國史上第一次, 多數家長不認為下一代會更好。 無論貧富、男女皆然。 你們有些人可能聽過會覺得沮喪。 畢竟美國人深信 經濟向上流動的概念: 每一個世代都會青出於藍, 賺更多、花更多、各方面更加富足。 我們把這種夢想出口全球, 巴西、中國甚至肯亞的孩子 懷抱著這種憧憬和渴求長大。 但當我第一次看到這份民調, 我其實沒有很沮喪。 反而是一種啟發: 「更好」的標準是什麼?
Is "better off" finding a secure job that you can count on for the rest of your life? Those are nearly extinct. People move jobs, on average, every 4.7 years, and it's estimated that by 2020, nearly half of Americans will be freelancers. OK, so is better off just a number? Is it about earning as much as you possibly can? By that singular measurement, we are failing. Median per capita income has been flat since about 2000, adjusted for inflation. All right, so is better off getting a big house with a white picket fence? Less of us are doing that. Nearly five million people lost their homes in the Great Recession, and even more of us sobered up about the lengths we were willing to go -- or be tricked into going, in many predatory cases -- to hold that deed. Home-ownership rates are at their lowest since 1995.
「更好」是找到一份鐵飯碗, 然後下半輩子衣食無虞嗎? 早就不是這麼回事了。 美國人平均每 4.7 年換一份工作, 而且預計到了 2020 年, 將近半數的美國人會從事自由業。 所以「更好」從數字看得出來嗎? 是賺越多錢越好嗎? 若單看收入多寡,我們沒有比較好。 人均所得中位數扣除通膨因素, 從 2000 年就沒有成長。 「更好」是要我們住在 有白色藩籬圍著的大房子? 誰還住那種房子。 將近五百萬人 在金融海嘯後無家可歸, 更多人從買房的迷思中清醒, 或者是從鼓吹買房的陷阱中清醒。 擁房率降至 1995 年以來最低。
All right, so we're not finding steady employment, we're not earning as much money, and we're not living in big fancy houses. Toll the funeral bells for everything that made America great. But, are those the best measurements of a country's greatness, of a life well lived? What I think makes America great is its spirit of reinvention. In the wake of the Great Recession, more and more Americans are redefining what "better off" really means. Turns out, it has more to do with community and creativity than dollars and cents.
所以就業率不穩定, 我們賺不到什麼錢, 也沒有住在漂亮的大房子裡。 這簡直就是美國夢的終結。 可是, 這些是衡量國家強盛, 或是生活品質的最好指標嗎? 我認為再創造的精神 才是美國強盛的原因。 金融海嘯之後, 越來越多美國人 在重新定義「更好」的意義。 結果發現社群和創意, 遠比幾塊錢、幾分錢重要。
Now, let me be very clear: the 14.8 percent of Americans living in poverty need money, plain and simple. And all of us need policies that protect us from exploitation by employers and financial institutions. Nothing that follows is meant to suggest that the gap between rich and poor is anything but profoundly immoral. But, too often we let the conversation stop there. We talk about poverty as if it were a monolithic experience; about the poor as if they were solely victims. Part of what I've learned in my research and reporting is that the art of living well is often practiced most masterfully by the most vulnerable.
我把話說清楚: 14.8% 的美國人貧困缺錢, 這不用多解釋。 然後我們都需要政策保障 不受雇主或金融機構剝削。 這也不經意點出了貧富差距 在道德上的不合情理。 可是, 我們的討論常常到此為止。 我們把貧窮說成一種單一經驗; 只把窮人當成受害者。 我從研究和報導的過程中學到, 那些最弱勢的人 往往更能駕馭 美好生活的藝術。
Now, if necessity is the mother of invention, I've come to believe that recession can be the father of consciousness. It confronts us with profound questions, questions we might be too lazy or distracted to ask in times of relative comfort. How should we work? How should we live? All of us, whether we realize it or not, seek answers to these questions, with our ancestors kind of whispering in our ears.
若說需求是發明之母, 那麼我相信, 衰退就是覺醒之父。 它將最關鍵的問題擺在我們眼前, 那些安逸時我們懶得回答的問題。 我們該如何工作? 我們該如何生活? 我們所有人,無論察覺與否, 都在尋找這些問題的答案, 就像先人在耳邊不斷耳語。
My great-grandfather was a drunk in Detroit, who sometimes managed to hold down a factory job. He had, as unbelievable as it might sound, 21 children, with one woman, my great-grandmother, who died at 47 years old of ovarian cancer. Now, I'm pregnant with my second child, and I cannot even fathom what she must have gone through. And if you're trying to do the math -- there were six sets of twins. So my grandfather, their son, became a traveling salesman, and he lived boom and bust. So my dad grew up answering the door for debt collectors and pretending his parents weren't home. He actually took his braces off himself with pliers in the garage, when his father admitted he didn't have money to go back to the orthodontist. So my dad, unsurprisingly, became a bankruptcy lawyer. Couldn't write this in a novel, right? He was obsessed with providing a secure foundation for my brother and I.
我曾祖父是住在底特律的酒鬼, 他三不五時會去工廠打個工。 聽起來很不可置信, 他有 21 個小孩, 都是跟同一個女人生的,我曾祖母, 她 47 歲時卵巢癌過世。 我現在在懷第二胎, 還是完全無法了解她經歷的過程。 如果你仔細算,其中有六對雙胞胎。 所以我爺爺,他們其中一個兒子, 變成四海為家的業務員, 過著揮金如土的生活。 所以我爸小時候一開門 外面就是討債的, 他都要假裝爸媽不在家。 他還從車庫找鉗子自己拆牙套, 因為我爺爺說他沒錢 給我爸看牙醫。 所以我爸,毫不意外, 當上處裡破產的律師。 這應該不能寫進小說吧? 他很在意要打下穩固的基礎 給我哥和我。
So I ask these questions by way of a few generations of struggle. My parents made sure that I grew up on a kind of steady ground that allows one to question and risk and leap. And ironically, and probably sometimes to their frustration, it is their steadfast commitment to security that allows me to question its value, or at least its value as we've historically defined it in the 21st century.
我的疑問來自數個世代的掙扎。 我父母確保我健全長大, 能夠去質疑、冒險、大膽嘗試。 諷刺的是,我的這些反思 來自他們提供的穩定生活, 讓我有餘裕去思索生活的價值, 至少是 21 世紀被定義的傳統價值。
So let's dig into this first question: How should we work? We should work like our mothers. That's right -- we've spent decades trying to fit women into a work world built for company men. And many have done backbends to fit in, but others have carved a more unconventional path, creating a patchwork of meaning and money with enough flexibility to do what they need to do for those that they love. My mom called it "just making it work." Today I hear life coaches call it "a portfolio career." Whatever you call it, more and more men are craving these whole, if not harried, lives. They're waking up to their desire and duty to be present fathers and sons.
讓我們來看第一個問題: 我們該如何工作? 去學學自己的媽媽。 沒錯,我們花了數十年, 想把女性塞進男性創造的職場。 很多女人為了適應犧牲良多, 但更多人不得不鋌而走險, 為了幾分錢絞盡腦汁, 吃足苦頭放下身段, 只為了最愛的家人。 我媽說那叫「但是又何奈」。 成長顧問說這叫「多元化發展」。 不管你怎麼說, 越來越多男性選擇這種生活方式。 他們聽見需求的呼喚, 同時想當好父親和好兒子。
Now, artist Ann Hamilton has said, "Labor is a way of knowing." Labor is a way of knowing. In other words, what we work on is what we understand about the world. If this is true, and I think it is, then women who have disproportionately cared for the little ones and the sick ones and the aging ones, have disproportionately benefited from the most profound kind of knowing there is: knowing the human condition. By prioritizing care, men are, in a sense, staking their claim to the full range of human existence.
藝術家安漢米爾頓曾說: 「勞動讓你有所察覺。」 換句話說,你的職業 就是你所了解的世界。 如果這是真的,至少我是這麼相信, 曾經過度對小朋友、 病患和年長者付出的女性, 如今反而大大受益於 這個最根本的一項認知: 體認到人類現在的處境。 在這個轉捩點上, 男人等於某種程度賭上了 全人類的存續。
Now, this means the nine-to-five no longer works for anyone. Punch clocks are becoming obsolete, as are career ladders. Whole industries are being born and dying every day. It's all nonlinear from here. So we need to stop asking kids, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" and start asking them, "How do you want to be when you grow up?" Their work will constantly change. The common denominator is them. So the more they understand their gifts and create crews of ideal collaborators, the better off they will be.
習以為常的朝九晚五不再適合。 照表操課、職業階層都不重要了。 每天都有產業興起或衰落。 一切都說不準了。 所以不要再問小孩: 「你以後長大要做什麼?」 而要開始問: 「你以後長大要怎麼做?」 以後的職業選擇千變萬化。 唯一不變的是他們本身。 他們越了解自己的才華, 去找到相輔相成的對象, 才會過得越好。
The challenge ahead is to reinvent the social safety net to fit this increasingly fragmented economy. We need portable health benefits. We need policies that reflect that everyone deserves to be vulnerable or care for vulnerable others, without becoming destitute. We need to seriously consider a universal basic income. We need to reinvent labor organizing. The promise of a work world that is structured to actually fit our 21st century values, not some archaic idea about bringing home the bacon, is long overdue -- just ask your mother.
眼前的挑戰是重建社會安全網, 去配合日益脆弱的經濟體。 我們需要更靈活的健保。 我們需要能涵蓋自身風險, 以及保障保戶無虞的保單設計。 我們要認真考慮全面的基本工資。 我們要重新設計勞工組織。 創造出一個符合 21 世紀價值的勞動環境, 只想養家餬口的觀念早就落伍了, 不信去問你媽。
Now, how about the second question: How should we live? We should live like our immigrant ancestors. When they came to America, they often shared apartments, survival tactics, child care -- always knew how to fill one more belly, no matter how small the food available. But they were told that success meant leaving the village behind and pursuing that iconic symbol of the American Dream, the white picket fence. And even today, we see a white picket fence and we think success, self-possession. But when you strip away the sentimentality, what it really does is divides us. Many Americans are rejecting the white picket fence and the kind of highly privatized life that happened within it, and reclaiming village life, reclaiming interdependence instead.
至於第二個問題: 我們該怎麼生活? 我們應該過得像飄洋過海的先人。 當初他們來到美洲大陸, 共享住所、生存技巧、照護幼兒, 盡力餵飽每一張嘴, 無論資源有多匱乏。 但後來成功卻變成自掃門前雪, 不斷追尋美國夢的經典象徵: 白色藩籬的大房子。 時至今日,院子的白色藩籬 還是給人成功、穩健的形象。 但當你把這些表象拋開, 發現藩籬只是人際交流的阻礙。 許多美國人抗拒白色藩籬, 和那種高度封閉的私人生活, 想要重新繫起人群, 進而增進相互的依賴。
Fifty million of us, for example, live in intergenerational households. This number exploded with the Great Recession, but it turns out people actually like living this way. Two-thirds of those who are living with multiple generations under one roof say it's improved their relationships. Some people are choosing to share homes not with family, but with other people who understand the health and economic benefits of daily community. CoAbode, an online platform for single moms looking to share homes with other single moms, has 50,000 users. And people over 65 are especially prone to be looking for these alternative living arrangements. They understand that their quality of life depends on a mix of solitude and solidarity. Which is true of all of us when you think about it, young and old alike. For too long, we've pretended that happiness is a king in his castle. But all the research proves otherwise. It shows that the healthiest, happiest and even safest -- in terms of both climate change disaster, in terms of crime, all of that -- are Americans who live lives intertwined with their neighbors.
舉例來說,有五千萬人 是住在多代同堂的家裡。 金融海嘯時的人數更多, 但大家其實很喜歡這種生活模式。 三分之二多代同堂的人說 家人之間的感情更好了。 有些人跟家人以外的人一起住, 互相提供健康和經濟的援助。 「CoAbode」是一個線上平台, 讓單親媽媽們互相找伴租屋, 已經累積五萬名用戶。 65 歲以上的人特別傾向 去找這樣的另類住宿方案。 他們了解自己的生活品質 仰賴一定程度的獨處和合作。 但仔細想想我們也是一樣, 無論老少。 長久以來,我們假裝 幸福就是窩在自己的城堡。 但研究顯示事實並非如此。 最健康、最幸福也最安全的情況, 假如說天災或是有突發狀況, 和鄰居做好守望相助很重要。
Now, I've experienced this firsthand. For the last few years, I've been living in a cohousing community. It's 1.5 acres of persimmon trees, this prolific blackberry bush that snakes around a community garden, all smack-dab, by the way, in the middle of urban Oakland. The nine units are all built to be different, different sizes, different shapes, but they're meant to be as green as possible. So big, shiny black solar cells on our roof mean our electricity bill rarely exceeds more than five bucks in a month. The 25 of us who live there are all different ages and political persuasions and professions, and we live in homes that have everything a typical home would have. But additionally, we share an industrial-sized kitchen and eating area, where we have common meals twice a week.
我自己也有切身體驗。 過去幾年我都住在一個共居社區。 有 1.5 英畝的柿子樹林, 黑莓樹在社區花園蜿蜒, 我們就坐落在奧克蘭城區。 九棟建築設計迥異, 不同坪數,不同外形, 但都盡可能綠化。 所以我們屋頂上有裝太陽能板, 所以我們每個月電費基本上 不會超過五塊美金。 我們總共 25 位住戶 年齡、政治傾向、職業都不同, 但我們住的地方五臟俱全。 而且, 我們共用一個工業級廚房和用餐區, 每周有兩次共餐。
Now, people, when I tell them I live like this, often have one of two extreme reactions. Either they say, "Why doesn't everyone live like this?" Or they say, "That sounds totally horrifying. I would never want to do that." So let me reassure you: there is a sacred respect for privacy among us, but also a commitment to what we call "radical hospitality" -- not the kind advertised by the Four Seasons, but the kind that says that every single person is worthy of kindness, full stop, end of sentence.
通常我跟人家介紹時, 基本上有兩種極端反應: 要嘛就說:「大家都應該這樣住啊!」 不然就是:「聽起來有點可怕。 我應該死都不會住進去。」 但我跟你保證, 我們絕對尊重互相的隱私, 也致力於所謂「極致的待客之道」, 沒有五星級酒店廣告這麼誇張, 但確保每一個人都被善意款待, 就這麼簡單。
The biggest surprise for me of living in a community like this? You share all the domestic labor -- the repairing, the cooking, the weeding -- but you also share the emotional labor. Rather than depending only on the idealized family unit to get all of your emotional needs met, you have two dozen other people that you can go to to talk about a hard day at work or troubleshoot how to handle an abusive teacher. Teenagers in our community will often go to an adult that is not their parent to ask for advice. It's what bell hooks called "revolutionary parenting," this humble acknowledgment that kids are healthier when they have a wider range of adults to emulate and count on. Turns out, adults are healthier, too. It's a lot of pressure, trying to be that perfect family behind that white picket fence.
住在這種社區最大的驚喜? 大家一起分擔家事, 修繕、烹飪、園藝, 有時也分擔心理的壓力。 與其依賴少數幾個家庭成員, 去負擔你所有的情緒, 這邊你有二十幾個人可以找, 聊聊今天工作多勞累, 或是請教怎麼處理學校的壞老師。 社區的青少年通常會去尋求 父母外成年人的建議。 這是作家 bell hooks 說的「新式教養」, 我們相信這些孩子有更多榜樣 去依賴和模仿會更健康。 而且成年人也會更健康。 其實要變成白色藩籬裡 人人稱羨的完美家庭壓力很大。
The "new better off," as I've come to call it, is less about investing in the perfect family and more about investing in the imperfect village, whether that's relatives living under one roof, a cohousing community like mine, or just a bunch of neighbors who pledge to really know and look out for one another. It's good common sense, right? And yet, money has often made us dumb about reaching out. The most reliable wealth is found in relationship.
我今天要講的「新的更好」, 不是要你努力變成完美家庭, 而是要擁抱不完美的社群, 無論是遠近親戚同堂, 或是像我那樣的共居社區, 甚至只是幾個鄰居開始提議 互相關懷、互相照料。 這是好的常識吧? 但經濟常常是 我們裹足不前的原因。 最可靠的財富 其實就是人際連結。
The new better off is not an individual prospect at all. In fact, if you're a failure or you think you're a failure, I've got some good news for you: you might be a success by standards you have not yet honored. Maybe you're a mediocre earner but a masterful father. Maybe you can't afford your dream home, but you throw legendary neighborhood parties. If you're a textbook success, the implications of what I'm saying could be more grim for you. You might be a failure by standards you hold dear but that the world doesn't reward. Only you can know.
「新的更好」重點不在個人。 如果你一事無成,或是你這樣覺得, 我這邊有個好消息: 用某個你不知道的標準看 你可能是勝利組。 你可能不太會賺錢卻是超級好爸爸。 你可能買不起夢寐以求的房子, 但你辦的社區派對史上最猛。 如果你要的是課本上的成功, 我講的對你就太殘酷了。 你可能很失敗, 如果用你深信 卻一直得不到回報的某個標準看。 但只有你知道。
I know that I am not a tribute to my great-grandmother, who lived such a short and brutish life, if I earn enough money to afford every creature comfort. You can't buy your way out of suffering or into meaning. There is no home big enough to erase the pain that she must have endured. I am a tribute to her if I live a life as connected and courageous as possible. In the midst of such widespread uncertainty, we may, in fact, be insecure. But we can let that insecurity make us brittle or supple. We can turn inward, lose faith in the power of institutions to change -- even lose faith in ourselves. Or we can turn outward, cultivate faith in our ability to reach out, to connect, to create.
我知道我對不起曾祖母, 她的一生短暫又令人不捨, 如果我只是要賺錢養家糊口。 但苦難和人生的意義 是錢解決不了的。 再大的房子都蓋不掉她承受的苦。 我對得起我的曾祖母, 如果我敞開心胸不斷努力。 在這樣一片不確定之中, 我們也許感到很不安。 但我們可以選擇要硬抗或順服。 我們大可封閉自我、 對大環境的改變失去信心, 甚至對自己失去信心。 或著我們敞開心胸, 培養自己探索、連結和創造的能力。
Turns out, the biggest danger is not failing to achieve the American Dream. The biggest danger is achieving a dream that you don't actually believe in. So don't do that. Do the harder, more interesting thing, which is to compose a life where what you do every single day, the people you give your best love and ingenuity and energy to, aligns as closely as possible with what you believe. That, not something as mundane as making money, is a tribute to your ancestors. That is the beautiful struggle.
你會發現最大的危機, 不是我們無法達成美國夢。 最大的危機是你達成了一個夢想, 但你壓根不相信的。 所以千萬不要這樣。 去做有挑戰、有趣的事, 用心過每一天的生活, 用最真的愛、創意和精力待人, 不斷追上你心中相信的價值。 這樣,不是賺大錢, 才是回報先人的方式, 這種全力以赴的精神。
Thank you.
謝謝。
(Applause)
(掌聲)