You know, I'm struck by how one of the implicit themes of TED is compassion, these very moving demonstrations we've just seen: HIV in Africa, President Clinton last night. And I'd like to do a little collateral thinking, if you will, about compassion and bring it from the global level to the personal. I'm a psychologist, but rest assured, I will not bring it to the scrotal.
Znate, iznenadilo me da je jedna od implicitnih tema TED-a - sućut. Upravo smo vidjeli vrlo dirljiva predstavljanja: HIV u Africi, predsjednik Clinton sinoć. Ako se slažete, volio bih da pokušamo lateralno razmišljati o sućuti, i s globalne je razine dovedemo na osobnu. Ja sam psiholog, ali ne brinite, nećemo o falusima.
(Laughter)
(Smijeh)
There was a very important study done a while ago at Princeton Theological Seminary that speaks to why it is that when all of us have so many opportunities to help, we do sometimes, and we don't other times. A group of divinity students at the Princeton Theological Seminary were told that they were going to give a practice sermon and they were each given a sermon topic. Half of those students were given, as a topic, the parable of the Good Samaritan: the man who stopped the stranger in -- to help the stranger in need by the side of the road. Half were given random Bible topics. Then one by one, they were told they had to go to another building and give their sermon. As they went from the first building to the second, each of them passed a man who was bent over and moaning, clearly in need. The question is: Did they stop to help?
Nedavno je provedeno vrlo važno istraživanje na Princetonskom bogoslovnom fakultetu, koje nam govori o tome zašto, iako svi imamo toliko prilika da nekome pomognemo, katkad to činimo, a katkad ne. Skupini studenata na Princetonskom teološkom fakultetu rečeno je da će za vježbu održati propovijed i svakome je bila zadana tema propovijedi. ¸Polovici studenata zadana je tema prispodobe o milosrdnom Samaritancu: o čovjeku koji je zastao kako bi neznancu u -- kako bi pomogao neznancu u potrebi, kraj ceste. Polovici su slučajnim odabirom zadane biblijske teme. Zatim im je, jednom po jednom, rečeno da idu u drugu zgradu i održe svoje propovijedi. Dok su iz prve zgrade prelazili u drugu, svaki je od njih prošao pokraj čovjeka, pognutog i stenjućeg, nesumnjivo u potrebi. Pitanje je: Jesu li zastali da bi mu pomogli?
The more interesting question is: Did it matter 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 a stranger in need was how much of a hurry they thought they were in -- were they feeling they were late, or were they absorbed in what they were going to talk about. And this is, I think, the predicament of our lives: that we don't take every opportunity to help because our focus is in the wrong direction.
Još je zanimljivije pitanje: Je li bilo bitno to što su razmatrali prispodobu o milosrdnom Samaritancu? Odgovor: Ne, uopće ne. Ono što se ispostavilo važnim u tome hoće li netko zastati i pomoći neznancu u potrebi bilo je to u kojoj su mjeri oni smatrali da su u žurbi -- Jesu li imali osjećaj da kasne, ili su bili obuzeti razmišljanjem o onome o čemu će govoriti? I to je, po mom mišljenju, manje lijepo obilježje naših života: ne koristimo svaku prigodu da bismo pomogli, jer nam je fokus u pogrešnom smjeru.
There's a new field in brain science, social neuroscience. This studies the circuitry in two people's brains that activates while they interact. And the new thinking about compassion from social neuroscience is that our default wiring is to help. That is to say, if we attend to the other person, we automatically empathize, we automatically feel with them. There are these newly identified neurons, mirror neurons, that act like a neuro Wi-Fi, activating in our brain exactly the areas activated in theirs. We feel "with" automatically. And if that person is in need, if that person is suffering, we're automatically prepared to help. At least that's the argument.
U znanosti o mozgu nalazimo novo polje - socijalnu neuroznanost. Ona proučava sklopove u mozgovima dvoje ljudi, koji se aktiviraju tijekom njihove interakcije. Nova razmišljanja o sućuti, što potječu iz socijalne neuroznanosti, kažu da smo u osnovi podešeni da pomažemo drugima. Drugim riječima, obratimo li se drugoj osobi, istog trenutka postajemo empatični, suosjećamo s njima. Postoje ti novootkriveni neuroni, zrcalni neuroni, koji djeluju kao neurološki Wi-Fi, aktivirajući u našemu mozgu upravo ona područja koja su aktivirana u njihovom. Istog trenutka suosjećamo. A ako je toj osobi potrebna pomoć, ako ona pati, mi smo joj istog trenutka spremni pomoći. Tako se, barem, tvrdi.
But then the question is: Why don't we? And I think this speaks to a spectrum that goes from complete self-absorption, to noticing, to empathy and to compassion. And the simple fact is, if we are focused on ourselves, if we're preoccupied, as we so often are throughout the day, we don't really fully notice the other. And this difference between the self and the other focus can be very subtle.
No, ostaje pitanje: Zašto se ne ponašamo tako? Mislim da ovo govori o spektru koji ide od potpune zaokupljenosti sobom, do zamjećivanja, do empatije i do sućuti. Jednostavna je činjenica da, fokusiramo li se na sebe, ako smo prezauzeti kao što često jesmo tijekom dana, drugoga, zapravo, baš i ne primjećujemo. Ova razlika između usmjerenosti na sebe i na drugoga može biti vrlo istančana.
I was doing my taxes the other day, and I got to the point where I was listing all of the donations I gave, and I had an epiphany, it was -- I came to my check to the Seva Foundation and I noticed that I thought, boy, my friend Larry Brilliant would really be happy that I gave money to Seva. Then I realized that what I was getting from giving was a narcissistic hit -- that I felt good about myself. Then I started to think about the people in the Himalayas whose cataracts would be helped, and I realized that I went from this kind of narcissistic self-focus to altruistic joy, to feeling good for the people that were being helped. I think that's a motivator.
Neki sam se dan bavio svojim poreznim davanjima i u nekom sam trenutku pregledavao sve donacije koje sam dao, i razotkrilo mi se -- naišao sam na potvrdu uplate Zakladi Seva i primijetio da sam pomislio: Čovječe, moj prijatelj Larry Brilliant bit će doista sretan da sam dao nešto novca Sevi. Potom sam uvidio da je ono što ja davanjem dobivam narcistički šut -- sviđam se samom sebi. Zatim sam počeo razmišljati o ljudima na Himalaji kojima će se pomoći u vezi s očnim mrenama, i shvatio sam da sam od svojevrsne narcistične usmjerenosti na sebe došao do nesebične radosti, do toga da se dobro osjećam zbog ljudi koji dobivaju što im je potrebno. Mislim da to jest motivirajuće.
But this distinction between focusing on ourselves and focusing on others is one that I encourage us all to pay attention to. You can see it at a gross level in the world of dating. I was at a sushi restaurant a 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 having trouble getting dates, so he's trying speed dating." I don't know if you know speed dating? Women sit at tables and men go from table to table, and there's a clock and a bell, and at five minutes, bingo, the conversation ends and the woman can decide whether to give her card or her email address to the man 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-stop about himself; he never asks about the woman."
No, to razlikovanje između usmjeravanja na same sebe, odnosno na druge, ono je na što nas sve pozivam da obratimo pažnju. U većim razmjerima to možete vidjeti u kontekstu ljubavnih spojeva. Nedavno sam bio u sushi-restoranu i načuo sam razgovor dviju žena o bratu jedne od njih, samac je bio. I jedna od njih kaže: "Moj si brat ne može naći djevojku, pa se sad okušava u brzinskim spojevim." Ne znam znate li što je brzinski spoj? Žene sjede za stolovima, a muškarci idu od stola do stola; imate sat i zvono, i svakih pet minuta - bingo! - razgovor završava i žena može odlučiti hoće li muškarcu dati svoj telefonski broj ili e-adresu, kako bi se kasnije mogli čuti. I žena kaže: "Moj brat nikad nije nabavio nikakav kontakt, i ja točno znam zašto. Čim sjedne, on počne non-stop govoriti o sebi! Nikad ga ništa o ženi ne zanima."
And I was doing some research in the Sunday Styles 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 Alice Charney Epstein. And she said that when she was in the dating scene, she had a simple 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 the article.
Istraživao sam nešto podlistak u The New York Timesu - Sunday Styles - proučavajući one zakulisne bračne priče -- jer jako su zanimljive -- Naišao sam na brak Alice Charney Epstein. Rekla je da je, dok je još aktivno izlazila, koristila jedan jednostavan test. Radilo se o sljedećem: od trenutka susreta, koliko je vremena muškarcu potrebno da joj postavi pitanje koje u sebi sadrži riječ "ti". Čini se da je Epstein prošao test s "odličnim", jer otud i članak.
(Laughter)
(Smijeh)
Now this is a -- it's a little test I encourage you to try out at a party. Here at TED there are great opportunities. The Harvard Business Review recently had an article called "The Human Moment," about how to make real contact with a person at work. And they said, 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 the person we're with whips out their BlackBerry or answers that cell phone, and all of a sudden we don't exist. The word is "pizzled": it's a combination of puzzled and pissed off.
E sad, ovo je mali test kojeg biste trebali iskušati na nekoj zabavi. Ovdje, na TED-u, ima sjajnih prilika. U Harvard Business Reviewu nedavno je objavljen članak pod nazivom "Trenutak ljudskosti"; o tome kako uspostaviti stvaran kontakt s osobom na poslu. I rekli su, dakle, da je osnovno što trebate učiniti - isključiti svoj BlackBerry, zatvoriti svoj laptop, okončati svoje dnevno sanjarenje, i punu pozornost posvetiti osobi. Postoji nova kovanica u engleskom jeziku, a opisuje trenutak kad osoba s kojom smo u društvu izvuče svoj BlackBerry ili se javi na mobitel, a mi iznenada više ne postojimo. Riječ je - "zbukan". Spoj "zbunjenog" i "nadrkanog".
(Laughter)
(Smijeh)
I think it's quite apt. It's our empathy, it's our tuning in which separates us from Machiavellians or sociopaths. I have a brother-in-law who's an expert on horror and terror -- he wrote the Annotated Dracula, the Essential Frankenstein -- he was trained as a Chaucer scholar, but he was born in Transylvania and I think it affected him a little bit. At any rate, at one point my brother-in-law, Leonard, decided to write a book about a serial killer. This is a man who terrorized the very vicinity we're in many years 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.
Mislim da je vrlo prikladna. Naša empatičnost, naše usklađivanje s drugim, ono je što nas razlikuje od makijavelista ili sociopata. Moj šogor je stručnjak za stravu i užas. Napisao je Tumačenje Drakule, Suštinu Frankensteina; obrazovan je kao tumač Chaucera, ali rođen je u Transilvaniji i vjerujem da je to pomalo i utjecalo na njega. Kako bilo, u jednom je trenutku moj šogor, Leonard, odlučio napisati knjigu o serijskom ubojici. Čovjek je to koji je, prije mnogo godina, terorizirao naš životni prostor. Bio je poznat kao "Davitelj iz Santa Cruza". Prije no što je uhićen, ubio je svoju baku i djeda, svoju majku i petero kolega s Kalifornijskog sveučilišta u Santa Cruzu.
So my brother-in-law goes to interview this killer and he realizes when he meets him that this guy is absolutely terrifying. For one thing, he's almost seven feet tall. But that's not the most terrifying thing about him. The scariest thing is that his IQ is 160: a certified genius. But there is zero correlation between IQ and emotional empathy, feeling with the other person. They're controlled by different parts of the brain.
Stoga moj šogor odluči intervjuirati tog ubojicu i, u trenutku susreta s njime, shvati da je taj tip apsolutno zastrašujući. Jedan je razlog taj što je visok gotovo 2.10 m. No, to nije i najstrašnije u vezi s njime. Najstrašnije je to što mu je kvocijent inteligencije 160; tip je potvrđeni genij. Međutim, nulta je korelacija između inteligencije i emocionalne empatije, suosjećanja s drugom osobom. Različiti dijelovi mozga ih nadziru.
So at one point, my brother-in-law gets up the courage to ask the one question he really wants to know the answer to, and that 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 strangler says very matter-of-factly, "Oh no. If I'd felt the distress, I could not have done it. I had to turn that part of me off. I had to turn that part of me off."
U jednom trenutku, moj je šogor smognuo hrabrosti postaviti mu pitanje na koje je istinski želio znati odgovor, a to je: "Kako ste to mogli učiniti? Niste li osjećali nimalo sažaljenja za svoje žrtve?" Bila su to vrlo prisna ubojstva - davio je svoje žrtve. A davitelj na to doslovno i činjenično odgovori: "O, ne. Da sam osjećao stres, ne bih to mogao učiniti. Taj sam dio sebe morao isključiti. Taj sam dio sebe morao isključiti."
And I think that that is very troubling, and in a sense, I've been reflecting on turning that part of us off. When we focus on ourselves in any activity, we do turn that part of ourselves off if there's another person. Think about going shopping and think about the possibilities of a compassionate consumerism. Right now, as Bill McDonough has pointed out, the objects that we buy and use have hidden consequences. We're all unwitting victims of a collective blind spot. We don't notice and don't notice that we don't notice the toxic molecules emitted by a carpet or by the fabric on the seats. Or we don't know if that fabric is a technological or manufacturing nutrient; it can be reused or does it just end up at landfill? In other words, we're oblivious to the ecological and public health and social and economic justice consequences of the things we buy and use. In a sense, the room itself is the elephant in the room, but we don't see it. And we've become victims of a system that points us elsewhere. Consider this.
Smatram da je to vrlo zabrinjavajuće, i ja sam, na izvjestan način, razmišljao o tom isključivanju dijela sebe. Kad se usredotočimo na sebe u kakvoj god aktivnosti, mi isključujemo taj dio sebe ako je u blizini druga osoba. Razmislite o kupnji, i razmislite o mogućnostima sućutnog konzumerizma. Upravo sad, kao što je istaknuo Bill McDonough, predmeti koje kupujemo i rabimo sadrže skrivene posljedice. Svi smo mi nehotične žrtve kolektivne slijepe pjege. Ne primjećujemo i ne primjećujemo da ne primjećujemo otrovne molekule što ih odašilje tepih ili tkanina na sjedalima. Ne znamo je li ta tkanina tehnološki ili proizvodni nutrijent. Može li se ponovno koristiti ili jednostavno završava na odlagalištu? Drugim riječima, nesvjesni smo ekoloških i javnozdravstvenih posljedica, te posljedica po društvenu i ekonomsku pravičnost, a što ih uzrokuju predmeti koje kupujemo i rabimo. Na neki način, i soba sama je slon u sobi, ali mi to ne vidimo. I postajemo žrtve sustava koji nam pokazuje u drugom smjeru. Razmislite o sljedećem.
There's a wonderful book called Stuff: The Hidden Life of Everyday Objects. And it talks about the back story of something like a t-shirt. And it talks about where the cotton was grown and the fertilizers 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 wastewater. And it's well known by epidemiologists that kids who live near textile works tend to have high rates of 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 China formed a joint venture with their dye works to make sure that the wastewater would be properly taken care of before it returned to the groundwater. Right now, we don't have the option to choose the virtuous t-shirt over the non-virtuous one. So what would it take to do that?
Ima jedna čudesna knjiga zvana Stvari: Skrovit život svakodnevnih predmeta. Prikazuje pozadinu nečega poput majice kratkih rukava. Prikazuje gdje je sve pamuk uzgajan, i gnojiva koja su korištena, i njihov utjecaj na tlo. Spominje se, primjerice, da je pamuk vrlo otporan na bojila; oko 60% ispire se i dolazi u otpadne vode. A epidemiolozi znaju da su djeca koja žive blizu tekstilnih pogona sklonija obolijevanju od leukemije. Postoji tvrtka - Bennett and Company - koja opskrbljuje Polo.com, Victoria's Secret. -- oni su, zbog svojeg direktora koji je svjestan ovoga, u Kini krenuli u zajednički pothvat sa svojim pogonima za proizvodnju bojila kako bi osigurali da će otpadne vode biti primjereno zbrinjavane prije no što se vrate u podzemne vode. U ovom trenutku, nemamo mogućnosti odabrati majicu izvrsnih svojstava umjesto one bez njih. Što bi onda bilo potrebno za to?
Well, I've been thinking. For one thing, there's a new electronic tagging technology that allows any store to know the entire history of any item on the shelves in that store. You can track it back to the factory. Once you can track it back to the factory, you can look at the manufacturing processes that were used to make it, and if it's virtuous, you can label it that way. Or if it's not so virtuous, you can go into -- today, go into any store, put your scanner on a palm onto a barcode, which will take you to a website. They have it for people with allergies to peanuts. That website could tell you things about that object. In other words, at point of purchase, we might be able to make a compassionate choice.
Razmišljao sam malo. S jedne strane, postoji nova elektronska tehnologija za obilježavanje, koja svakoj trgovini dopušta uvid u čitavu povijest svakog predmeta na njenim policama. Možete ih popratiti unatrag sve do tvornice. Jednom kad u tome uspijete, možete sagledati i proizvodne procese korištene u njihovoj izradi, i, ako su izvrsni, možete ih tako i obilježiti. Odnosno, ako nisu toliko izvrsni, možete ući u -- danas -- ući u koju god trgovinu, staviti čitač na dlan i onda na bar-kod, što će vas odvesti na internetsku stranicu. Imaju to za ljude alergične na kikiriki. Na internetskoj biste stranici mogli naći podatke o tim predmetima. Drugim riječima, u trenutku kupnje, mogli bismo biti sposobni i za sućutan izbor.
There's a saying in the world of information science: ultimately everybody will know everything. And the question is: will it 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. And I spent a couple of weeks going around with a social work agency that ministered to the homeless. And I realized seeing the homeless through their eyes that almost all of them were psychiatric 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, when we're passing someone who's homeless in the periphery of our vision, it stays on the periphery. We don't notice and therefore we don't act.
Postoji izreka u svijetu informacijskih znanosti: U konačnici, svatko će znati sve. A pitanje je: Hoće li nam to donijeti išta vrijedno? Prije nekog vremena, dok sam radio za The New York Times - bilo je to u 80-ima - napisao sam članak o onome što je tad bio novi problem u New Yorku. Bili su to beskućnici na ulicama. Proveo sam par tjedana hodajući okolo sa socijalnim radnicima koji su obilazili beskućnike. Vidjevši beskućnike iz njihove perspektive, shvatio sam da su oni gotovo svi psihijatrijski pacijenti koji nisu imali kamo otići. Imali su dijagnozu. To me prodrmalo iz mog urbanog transa u kojemu, kad ugledamo nešto, kad prolazimo pokraj nekoga tko živi na ulici, na periferiji našeg vida, on i ostaje na periferiji. Ne primjećujemo i stoga i ne djelujemo.
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 was rush hour and thousands of people were streaming down the stairs. And all of a sudden as I was going down the stairs I noticed that there was a man slumped to the side, shirtless, not moving, and people were just stepping over him -- hundreds and hundreds of people. And because my urban trance had been somehow weakened, I found myself stopping to find out what was wrong. The moment I stopped, half a dozen other people immediately ringed the same guy. And we found 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 from hunger. Immediately someone went to get orange juice, someone brought a hotdog, someone brought a subway cop. This guy was back on his feet immediately. But all it took was that simple act of noticing, and so I'm optimistic.
Jednog dana nedugo nakon toga - bio je petak - krajem dana, spuštao sam se u podzemnu; u doba najveće prometne gužve. Tisuće su se ljudi kretale prema stubama. Iznenada, dok sam silazio stubama, zamijetio sam čovjeka koji se stropoštao na stranu, bez košulje, nije se micao, i ljudi su ga samo preskakali -- stotine i stotine ljudi. Zbog toga što je moj urbani trans bio donekle oslabljen, zastao sam ne bih li otkrio što nije u redu. Čim sam ja zastao, 5-6 drugih ljudi ubrzo je okružilo tog čovjeka. Otkrili smo da je bio hispanskog podrijetla, uopće nije govorio engleski, bio je bez novaca, danima je lutao ulicama, gladovao, i od gladi se onesvijestio. Ubrzo je netko otišao po sok od naranče, netko je donio hrenovku u pecivu, netko doveo policajca. Čovjek je začas ponovno bio na nogama. Ali, sve što je bilo potrebno bio je taj jednostavan čin zamjećivanja. I stoga sam optimističan.
Thank you very much.
Hvala vam najljepša.
(Applause)
(Pljesak)