I have a question for you: Are you religious? Please raise your hand right now if you think of yourself as a religious person. Let's see, I'd say about three or four percent. I had no idea there were so many believers at a TED Conference. (Laughter) Okay, here's another question: Do you think of yourself as spiritual in any way, shape or form? Raise your hand. Okay, that's the majority.
我有一个问题问下在坐的各位 你们有宗教信仰吗? 请你们举下手 如果你认为自己有宗教信仰 让我看下。大概有百分之三或四的人 我没料到在TED大会上居然有这么多信教者 观众大笑 这里还有一个问题 你们认为自己有精神个体么? 任何种类,任何形式的。请举手 好的,这次是绝大多数
My Talk today is about the main reason, or one of the main reasons, why most people consider themselves to be spiritual in some way, shape or form. My Talk today is about self-transcendence. It's just a basic fact about being human that sometimes the self seems to just melt away. And when that happens, the feeling is ecstatic and we reach for metaphors of up and down to explain these feelings. We talk about being uplifted or elevated.
我今天演讲的主题就是关于这个问题 的主要原因,或者说是主要原因之一 就是为什么大多数人认为 自己在某些形式上是超越物质的精神个体 因此,我今天演讲的主题就是关于自我超越 这是一个人类最基本的事实 就是有的时候自我意识似乎消失 当这种感觉发生的时候 这种感觉就是忘我的欣喜的境界 我们还可以用“上升和下降”作比喻 来解释这些感觉 我们所说的是一种上升的感觉 或者说是被提升
Now it's really hard to think about anything abstract like this without a good concrete metaphor. So here's the metaphor I'm offering today. Think about the mind as being like a house with many rooms, most of which we're very familiar with. But sometimes it's as though a doorway appears from out of nowhere and it opens onto a staircase. We climb the staircase and experience a state of altered consciousness.
现在如果去思考这些抽象的东西对你们来说可能很难 尤其没有一个很好的具体的比喻 那么今天就让我给大家作个比喻 把思维想像成一栋有很多房间的房子 大多数房间我们都很熟悉 但是有时候突然有一个门出现 不知从哪儿冒出来的 打开门在你面前的是一排楼梯 我们走上楼梯 并且经历一种意识被改变的过程
In 1902, the great American psychologist William James wrote about the many varieties of religious experience. He collected all kinds of case studies. He quoted the words of all kinds of people who'd had a variety of these experiences. One of the most exciting to me is this young man, Stephen Bradley, had an encounter, he thought, with Jesus in 1820. And here's what Bradley said about it.
1902年 伟大的美国心理学家威廉·詹姆斯 写了很多各种不同的宗教信仰里的实践体验 他搜集了各种案例 并引用了不同人的言语 那些有不同信仰经历的人的言语 其中最令我兴奋的是 有一个名叫史蒂芬·柏圣文的年轻男子 他说他在1820年邂逅了耶稣 以下是柏圣文所说的话
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(Video) Stephen Bradley: I thought I saw the savior in human shape for about one second in the room, with arms extended, appearing to say to me, "Come." The next day I rejoiced with trembling. My happiness was so great that I said I wanted to die. This world had no place in my affections. Previous to this time, I was very selfish and self-righteous. But now I desired the welfare of all mankind and could, with a feeling heart, forgive my worst enemies.
(视频)史蒂芬·柏圣文说:我想我看到了救世主, 以人的形式展现出来 大概在我房间呆了有一秒左右 张开双臂 似乎对我说:"来吧" 第二天我欢呼雀跃 我感到无比幸福以至于我说我愿意去死 这个世界没有我感情可寄托的地方 在这段时间之前 我非常自私并且自以为是 但是我现在渴望整个人类的幸福安康 而且希望怀着一颗赤忱的心 去原谅我最讨厌的敌人
JH: So note how Bradley's petty, moralistic self just dies on the way up the staircase. And on this higher level he becomes loving and forgiving. The world's many religions have found so many ways to help people climb the staircase. Some shut down the self using meditation. Others use psychedelic drugs. This is from a 16th century Aztec scroll showing a man about to eat a psilocybin mushroom and at the same moment get yanked up the staircase by a god. Others use dancing, spinning and circling to promote self-transcendence. But you don't need a religion to get you through the staircase. Lots of people find self-transcendence in nature. Others overcome their self at raves.
乔纳森·海特:所以我们不难发现 柏圣文自己的道德观念 是如何在爬上这个楼梯的过程中而消失的 在这个较高的精神层次中 他变得怀有仁爱和宽恕之心 世界上的很多宗教信仰都找到了很多种 帮助人们爬上楼梯的方法 有些人用沉思冥想来忘掉自己 有些人用迷幻药 这个是来自于16世纪的阿兹台克滚动 这里正描述了一个男子在吃裸盖草菇(一种能引起幻觉的蘑菇) 与此同时, 他被上帝猛拉着上楼 其他人用跳舞,旋转的方式 来提升自我超越的能力 但是你并不一定要依靠某个宗教信仰来帮你爬上楼梯 很多人在大自然中找到了自我超越的方法 其他人在欢快热舞中找寻自我超越
But here's the weirdest place of all: war. So many books about war say the same thing, that nothing brings people together like war. And that bringing them together opens up the possibility of extraordinary self-transcendent experiences. I'm going to play for you an excerpt from this book by Glenn Gray. Gray was a soldier in the American army in World War II. And after the war he interviewed a lot of other soldiers and wrote about the experience of men in battle. Here's a key passage where he basically describes the staircase.
但是有一个最为奇怪的地方就是 在战争中 很多有关战争的书籍都提到过同样一件事情 那就是没有任何东西可以像战争一样 把人们紧密联系在一起。 而这把人们聚集到一起的力量也开启了一种 一种非比寻常的自我超越的经历的可能性 我给你们放一段视频 来自格伦·格雷的一本书 格雷是在二战中服役于美国军队的一名士兵 在战争后,他采访了很多其他士兵 并且写了一本书关于士兵们的所见所闻 视频中有一段重要的段落 就是描述这样的楼梯
(Video) Glenn Gray: Many veterans will admit that the experience of communal effort in battle has been the high point of their lives. "I" passes insensibly into a "we," "my" becomes "our" and individual faith loses its central importance. I believe that it is nothing less than the assurance of immortality that makes self-sacrifice at these moments so relatively easy. I may fall, but I do not die, for that which is real in me goes forward and lives on in the comrades for whom I gave up my life.
(视频)格伦·格雷:很多退伍军人会承认 这种在战役中共同奋斗的经历 已经成为他们生活中的重要一部分 “我”不知不觉地变成了“我们” ”我的"变成了"我们的" 并且个人信仰 也失去了它的核心重要性 我相信这完全不亚于 对永生的信心 而这种信心使自我牺牲在这些场合下 变得相对容易 我可以倒下,但不能被毁灭 因为我要继续向前 并且活在战友们的心中 为了他们我牺牲了自己
JH: So what all of these cases have in common is that the self seems to thin out, or melt away, and it feels good, it feels really good, in a way totally unlike anything we feel in our normal lives. It feels somehow uplifting. This idea that we move up was central in the writing of the great French sociologist Emile Durkheim. Durkheim even called us Homo duplex, or two-level man. The lower level he called the level of the profane. Now profane is the opposite of sacred. It just means ordinary or common. And in our ordinary lives we exist as individuals. We want to satisfy our individual desires. We pursue our individual goals. But sometimes something happens that triggers a phase change. Individuals unite into a team, a movement or a nation, which is far more than the sum of its parts.
乔纳森·海特:所有这些例子的共同特点就是 "自我"这个概念似乎淡化了或者消失了 而这种感觉很好, 真得很好 完全不同于我们在普通生活中所经历的感觉 你感觉被提升了 这种精神上的升华也是 伟大法国社会学家爱米尔·涂尔干的核心内容 涂尔干又称之为人的双重性 或是人的双层性 他把比较低的一个层次称为世俗层 世俗是神圣的反义词 它意味着普通或者平凡 在我们的平常生活中我们以个体存在 我们想满足我们的各种个人欲望 我们追寻我们的个人目标 但是有时候有些事情发生了 从而引发了升级 个体团结起来 成为一个团队,一个运动团体或者一个国家 这种组织的力量远远超过这些个体的总和
Durkheim called this level the level of the sacred because he believed that the function of religion was to unite people into a group, into a moral community. Durkheim believed that anything that unites us takes on an air of sacredness. And once people circle around some sacred object or value, they'll then work as a team and fight to defend it. Durkheim wrote about a set of intense collective emotions that accomplish this miracle of E pluribus unum, of making a group out of individuals. Think of the collective joy in Britain on the day World War II ended. Think of the collective anger in Tahrir Square, which brought down a dictator. And think of the collective grief in the United States that we all felt, that brought us all together, after 9/11.
涂尔干称这种层面是神圣的层面 因为他相信宗教的功能 就是团结人们成为一个团体 成为一个精神上高度统一的团体 涂尔干认为任何使我们团结在一起的东西 都以一种神圣的色彩呈现出来 一旦人们围在 神圣的有形物品或是无形的价值观念周围 他们便会团结起来一同抵抗外界的势力。 涂尔干曾提到过 一种强烈的集体情感 可以凝聚成神奇的“合众为一"的力量 也就是变成一个强大的集体而非个人 大家可以回想一下在英国历史上的一次集体快乐感 就是在二次世界大战结束后的那天 再回想下在开罗塔利尔广场上的人们集体的愤怒 从而打倒了独裁者 再回想下一种集体的悲痛 在美国 我们都感觉到的,把我们大家凝聚在一起的 911恐怖袭击
So let me summarize where we are. I'm saying that the capacity for self-transcendence is just a basic part of being human. I'm offering the metaphor of a staircase in the mind. I'm saying we are Homo duplex and this staircase takes us up from the profane level to the level of the sacred. When we climb that staircase, self-interest fades away, we become just much less self-interested, and we feel as though we are better, nobler and somehow uplifted.
所以让我来总结下我们已经讨论的 我说到我们这种自我超越的能力 只是我们人类最基本的一部分 我给大家作了一个比喻 就好比是我们头脑中的楼梯 我又说了我们都是双重人 而且这个楼梯把我们从世俗的层面提升到 神圣的层面 当我们在爬上这座楼梯的时候 自我利益的意识慢慢淡化 我们变得不那么自私 而且我们觉得我们似乎变得更好,更高尚 而且不知怎么被提升了
So here's the million-dollar question for social scientists like me: Is the staircase a feature of our evolutionary design? Is it a product of natural selection, like our hands? Or is it a bug, a mistake in the system -- this religious stuff is just something that happens when the wires cross in the brain -- Jill has a stroke and she has this religious experience, it's just a mistake?
有一个非常重要的问题 尤其对于像我这样的社会学家 上述所说的楼梯 是我们进化过程中的一个设计吗? 它是不是像我们的手一样 是自然选择的产物? 又或者,这是整个体系中的一个小故障 这种宗教信仰就好比 是在大脑血管堵塞时突然发生的 吉尔中风时也有过宗教信仰的经历 这仅仅是一个错误吗?
Well many scientists who study religion take this view. The New Atheists, for example, argue that religion is a set of memes, sort of parasitic memes, that get inside our minds and make us do all kinds of crazy religious stuff, self-destructive stuff, like suicide bombing. And after all, how could it ever be good for us to lose ourselves? How could it ever be adaptive for any organism to overcome self-interest? Well let me show you.
很多研究宗教学的科学家持有这样的观点 比如新无神论者 认为宗教是一系列模因 一种寄生模因 存在于我们的大脑里面 而且迫使我们做各种各样疯狂的宗教事情 各种自毁的事情比如自杀爆炸事件 但是最终 “失去自我”又怎么会 对我们有好处呢? 任何有机体 是怎么学会适应 克服自私的? 让我来告诉你们
In "The Descent of Man," Charles Darwin wrote a great deal about the evolution of morality -- where did it come from, why do we have it. Darwin noted that many of our virtues are of very little use to ourselves, but they're of great use to our groups. He wrote about the scenario in which two tribes of early humans would have come in contact and competition. He said, "If the one tribe included a great number of courageous, sympathetic and faithful members who are always ready to aid and defend each other, this tribe would succeed better and conquer the other." He went on to say that "Selfish and contentious people will not cohere, and without coherence nothing can be effected." In other words, Charles Darwin believed in group selection.
在《人类的起源》一书中 查尔斯·达尔文写了很多 关于道德演化的内容 比如道德从何而来,为什么我们会有 达尔文认为我们很多美德 几乎不用在我们自己身上 但是它们用在我们的团体组织中 他描述了一个情景 里面有两个早期人类部落 他们互相联系和竞争 他说:“如果一个部落拥有 足够多的勇气,同情心 以及具有强烈信念的部落成员 他们总是时刻准备着互相帮助互相保卫。 那么这个部落成功的几率就比较大 并最终打败另一方” 他接着阐述了:“自私和好辩的人们 不能和谐相处 那么如果缺乏这种凝聚性 就没什么能影响他们” 换句话说 查尔斯·达尔文相信 这种群体选择理论
Now this idea has been very controversial for the last 40 years, but it's about to make a major comeback this year, especially after E.O. Wilson's book comes out in April, making a very strong case that we, and several other species, are products of group selection. But really the way to think about this is as multilevel selection.
然而这个观点40多年来一直备受争议 但是这个观念在今年又将“重出江湖” 尤其在生物学家威尔逊的书4月出版发行后 将会是一个强有力的证据 我们以及其他物种 都是群体选择理论的产物 但是正确地思考这个问题的角度 是它是一种多层次的选择
So look at it this way: You've got competition going on within groups and across groups. So here's a group of guys on a college crew team. Within this team there's competition. There are guys competing with each other. The slowest rowers, the weakest rowers, are going to get cut from the team. And only a few of these guys are going to go on in the sport. Maybe one of them will make it to the Olympics. So within the team, their interests are actually pitted against each other. And sometimes it would be advantageous for one of these guys to try to sabotage the other guys. Maybe he'll badmouth his chief rival to the coach. But while that competition is going on within the boat, this competition is going on across boats. And once you put these guys in a boat competing with another boat, now they've got no choice but to cooperate because they're all in the same boat. They can only win if they all pull together as a team. I mean, these things sound trite, but they are deep evolutionary truths.
所以让我们这样来看: 你们要在群体内部以及群体之间相互竞争 这是一组大学划艇队 在这组团队中 存在竞争 这些人将互相竞争 最慢的或是最弱的划手都将被淘汰出局 这些人中只有几个人会入选体育比赛团队 可能他们中只有一个人能进军奥运会 所以在这个团队中 利益事实上是相互冲突的,从而构成竞争 但是有时这也有利 因为这些人中的某个人 会尝试努力破坏其他人 比如可能他会说竞争对手的坏话 向教练打小报告 但是当竞争 在自己组内存在的同时 也存在于与其他船队比赛时 一旦把这些人放在一条船上与别的船队竞争 那么他们就别无选择只有合作了 因为他们的利益拴在同一条船上 只有合作他们才能赢 因为他们组成一个团队 这些东西听起来有点陈词滥调 但是他们却是演化论的核心真理
The main argument against group selection has always been that, well sure, it would be nice to have a group of cooperators, but as soon as you have a group of cooperators, they're just going to get taken over by free-riders, individuals that are going to exploit the hard work of the others. Let me illustrate this for you. Suppose we've got a group of little organisms -- they can be bacteria, they can be hamsters; it doesn't matter what -- and let's suppose that this little group here, they evolved to be cooperative. Well that's great. They graze, they defend each other, they work together, they generate wealth. And as you'll see in this simulation, as they interact they gain points, as it were, they grow, and when they've doubled in size, you'll see them split, and that's how they reproduce and the population grows.
反对群体选择的主要论据 一直以来 诚然,鼓励群体合作那是再好不过了 但是一旦有了这么一群合作者 就会被一群“爱搭顺风车的人”所利用 这些人喜欢利用别人努力劳动的成果 让我来给你们举一个例子 假如我们有这样一组小小的有机体 可能是细菌,可能是仓鼠的,这都无关紧要 假设这群组织将演化成互相合作的模式 那很好。它们会互相磨合,保卫对方 它们一起工作,一起创造财富 你们可以在模拟中看到 在互相交流中它们都达到目的,迅速成长 当它们长大2倍大的时候,你看见它们分裂 这就是它们如何繁殖,数量是如何增加的
But suppose then that one of them mutates. There's a mutation in the gene and one of them mutates to follow a selfish strategy. It takes advantage of the others. And so when a green interacts with a blue, you'll see the green gets larger and the blue gets smaller. So here's how things play out. We start with just one green, and as it interacts it gains wealth or points or food. And in short order, the cooperators are done for. The free-riders have taken over. If a group cannot solve the free-rider problem then it cannot reap the benefits of cooperation and group selection cannot get started.
但是假如它们其中一个产生突变 一种基因突变 而其中的这一个往自私的方向突变 它总是占别人便宜 所以当你看到绿色与蓝色交流时 你会发现绿色变的越来越大,蓝色越来越小 这就是事情是如何发展而结束的 我们只是从一个小小的绿色开始 当它在与其蓝色互动中 它得到了财富,食物以及其他想要的东西 但是很快,这些合作者就不中用了 而被那些“爱搭便车者”所取代 如果一个群体不能解决这样“搭便车”的问题 那就不能从合作中得到好处 那么群体选择也将不能够进行下去
But there are solutions to the free-rider problem. It's not that hard a problem. In fact, nature has solved it many, many times. And nature's favorite solution is to put everyone in the same boat. For example, why is it that the mitochondria in every cell has its own DNA, totally separate from the DNA in the nucleus? It's because they used to be separate free-living bacteria and they came together and became a superorganism. Somehow or other -- maybe one swallowed another; we'll never know exactly why -- but once they got a membrane around them, they were all in the same membrane, now all the wealth-created division of labor, all the greatness created by cooperation, stays locked inside the membrane and we've got a superorganism.
但是有很多方法可以解决“搭便车”的现象 这不是一个很困难的问题 事实上,自然界已经解决它好多次 自然界最喜欢用的方法 就是把所有人放在同一条船上 比如, 为什么每个细胞内的线粒体 都有它自己的DNA 与核中的DNA完全分开 那是因为它们曾经就一直 是独立的自生细菌 然后它们聚集在一起 变成了超个体 可能一个吞了另一个,我们永不知道为什么 但是一旦它们周围有了一层薄膜 它们就都在同一个薄膜里 现在,所有的劳动财富分配 所有由合作带来的伟大性 都被密封在薄膜里面 于是我们有了这样一个超个体
And now let's rerun the simulation putting one of these superorganisms into a population of free-riders, of defectors, of cheaters and look what happens. A superorganism can basically take what it wants. It's so big and powerful and efficient that it can take resources from the greens, from the defectors, the cheaters. And pretty soon the whole population is actually composed of these new superorganisms. What I've shown you here is sometimes called a major transition in evolutionary history. Darwin's laws don't change, but now there's a new kind of player on the field and things begin to look very different.
现在让我们回到这个模型中来 把这些超个体中的一个 放到一个“爱搭便车”的这样一群背叛者群体中 让我们来看一下会发生什么 一个超个体可以索取它们所想的 这是一个如此有强大和高效的个体 它可以利用一切资源 从这些绿色中,欺骗者当中获取所要的 很快,整个群体数量 事实上由这些新的超个体而组成 我在这里展示给你们的 在演化历史上有时被称为 一次重大的转变 达尔文的定律没有改变 但是现在有一些新的东西在这个领域产生 并且这些东西看起来非同寻常
Now this transition was not a one-time freak of nature that just happened with some bacteria. It happened again about 120 or a 140 million years ago when some solitary wasps began creating little simple, primitive nests, or hives. Once several wasps were all together in the same hive, they had no choice but to cooperate, because pretty soon they were locked into competition with other hives. And the most cohesive hives won, just as Darwin said.
这种自然界的转变不是一次性的,反自然的 或者只发生在一些细菌身上的 这个大概在 1.2亿或者1.4亿年前就已出现了 当一些孤独的黄蜂 创造他们小小,简单而粗糙的 巢或者说蜂房时就发生了 一旦好多个黄蜂在同一个蜂房聚集起来时 它们别无他法只能合作 因为它们很快就要陷入 与别的蜂房竞争的状况下 最后最具凝聚力的蜂房获胜 正如达尔文所说的
These early wasps gave rise to the bees and the ants that have covered the world and changed the biosphere. And it happened again, even more spectacularly, in the last half-million years when our own ancestors became cultural creatures, they came together around a hearth or a campfire, they divided labor, they began painting their bodies, they spoke their own dialects, and eventually they worshiped their own gods. Once they were all in the same tribe, they could keep the benefits of cooperation locked inside. And they unlocked the most powerful force ever known on this planet, which is human cooperation -- a force for construction and destruction.
这些早期的黄蜂 最后演变成了蜜蜂和蚂蚁 散落在世界各地 并且改变了生物圈 而这种状况再次发生 甚至更加壮观 是在最近的50万年间 当我们的祖先 变成了具有文化特征的生物 他们聚集在火炉边或者篝火边 他们分工劳作 他们彩绘自己的身体,说自己的方言 到最后敬拜自己的神 一旦他们在同一个部落 他们就全面合作 打开一股前所未有的 最强大的力量 这就是人类的合作 一种可以建设世界 同时可以毁坏世界的强大力量
Of course, human groups are nowhere near as cohesive as beehives. Human groups may look like hives for brief moments, but they tend to then break apart. We're not locked into cooperation the way bees and ants are. In fact, often, as we've seen happen in a lot of the Arab Spring revolts, often those divisions are along religious lines. Nonetheless, when people do come together and put themselves all into the same movement, they can move mountains.
当然,人类群体的凝聚力 远不如蜂房 人类群体像蜂房那样团结的时间很短 很快他们就开始瓦解 我们不受困于蜜蜂蚂蚁那样的合作方式 事实上,经常, 我们在阿拉伯起义中发现 这种分裂往往与宗教有关 然而,当人们团结在一起 并把他们都放到同一个活动中 他们的力量大到可以移动一座山
Look at the people in these photos I've been showing you. Do you think they're there pursuing their self-interest? Or are they pursuing communal interest, which requires them to lose themselves and become simply a part of a whole?
请看一下这些照片 你觉得他们在那里 是追寻自己的利益吗? 还是在追寻共同的利益 并逐渐使他们失去自我利益 变成整体中的一部分?
Okay, so that was my Talk delivered in the standard TED way. And now I'm going to give the whole Talk over again in three minutes in a more full-spectrum sort of way.
好了,这就是我今天的演讲 以TED最标准的方式告诉大家 现在我将再概括一下我今天演讲的内容 在最后3分钟内 以更完整的角度展现出来
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(Video) Jonathan Haidt: We humans have many varieties of religious experience, as William James explained. One of the most common is climbing the secret staircase and losing ourselves. The staircase takes us from the experience of life as profane or ordinary upwards to the experience of life as sacred, or deeply interconnected. We are Homo duplex, as Durkheim explained. And we are Homo duplex because we evolved by multilevel selection, as Darwin explained. I can't be certain if the staircase is an adaptation rather than a bug, but if it is an adaptation, then the implications are profound. If it is an adaptation, then we evolved to be religious.
(视频)乔纳森·海特:我们人类有各种各样 的宗教体验 正如哲学家威廉·詹姆斯所解释的 最常见的就好比我们在攀登精神的秘密楼梯 在攀登过程中我们失去了自我 这个楼梯把我们 从一个世俗的或是普通的底层 带到了一个神圣的高度 或是更深层次相连的高度 我们都有双重性 正如涂尔干所说的 我们具有双重性 是因为我们由多层次的选择中进化过来的 正如达尔文所解释的 楼梯是一种同化适应的过程 而不是个错误,我并不确定 但是如果是一种同化 那么其含义也是深远的 如果这是一个同化适应的过程 那么我们就是进化成具有宗教信仰的人
I don't mean that we evolved to join gigantic organized religions. Those things came along too recently. I mean that we evolved to see sacredness all around us and to join with others into teams and circle around sacred objects, people and ideas. This is why politics is so tribal. Politics is partly profane, it's partly about self-interest, but politics is also about sacredness. It's about joining with others to pursue moral ideas. It's about the eternal struggle between good and evil, and we all believe we're on the good team.
我并不是说我们进化 是为了加入一个庞大的的宗教组织 这些事情是最近才产生的 我的意思是我们进化 是为了看到圣神的东西围绕在我们身边 然后加入他们变成一个团队 然后围在某个神圣的物品旁 或者圣神的人又或是一些观点想法 这也是为什么政治是如此具有集团意识 政治在某中程度上是世俗,是多少与自我利益有关 但是政治也具有神圣性 它是与其他人一起 追求精神上的统一观点 也是关于在善与邪恶之间永久的斗争 而且我们都相信我们处在善的一队
And most importantly, if the staircase is real, it explains the persistent undercurrent of dissatisfaction in modern life. Because human beings are, to some extent, hivish creatures like bees. We're bees. We busted out of the hive during the Enlightenment. We broke down the old institutions and brought liberty to the oppressed. We unleashed Earth-changing creativity and generated vast wealth and comfort.
最重要的是, 如果这个楼梯是真实的 它意味着对现实生活的 对现代社会的不满 因为人类,在某种程度上说 是类蜂的,也就是像蜜蜂一样的生物 对的,我们是蜜蜂。我们在启蒙运动中从蜂房中被解脱出来 我们打破了旧系统 自由取代了原来的压迫 我们释放出了那些改变地球的想象力 并创造了大量财富和安康的生活
Nowadays we fly around like individual bees exulting in our freedom. But sometimes we wonder: Is this all there is? What should I do with my life? What's missing? What's missing is that we are Homo duplex, but modern, secular society was built to satisfy our lower, profane selves. It's really comfortable down here on the lower level. Come, have a seat in my home entertainment center.
如今,我们像一只只独立的个体蜜蜂一样 自由飞翔 但是,有时候我们迷茫: 这些就是所有我们想要的嘛? 我应该怎样度过我的一生? 我们缺失了些什么? 作为双重性的我们少了些什么? 但是现代的,世俗的社会 满足了我们较低的世俗的层次 处在这样较低的层次中会感觉非常安逸舒适 就像我们常说的:来我家的娱乐中心玩玩。
One great challenge of modern life is to find the staircase amid all the clutter and then to do something good and noble once you climb to the top. I see this desire in my students at the University of Virginia. They all want to find a cause or calling that they can throw themselves into. They're all searching for their staircase. And that gives me hope because people are not purely selfish.
我们现代生活中的一个重要挑战 就是在纷繁世俗中找到通往更高层次的楼梯 然后做一些善事一些高尚的事情 一旦当你爬到了顶端后 我在弗吉尼亚大学讲学时看到我学生们眼中的这种渴望 他们都想找寻一个诱因或是一个召唤 可以带他们找到这个楼梯 他们都在找寻他们自己的楼梯 这些都给予了我希望 因为人们不完全都是自私的
Most people long to overcome pettiness and become part of something larger. And this explains the extraordinary resonance of this simple metaphor conjured up nearly 400 years ago. "No man is an island entire of itself. Every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main."
大多数人渴望克服自己心胸狭窄的气量 成为一个更大组织中的一部分 而下面这句话用了一个简单的比喻 来解释了我们这种特别的共鸣 大约在400年前就已被召唤出来了 “人不是岛 本身并不完备 每个人都是大洲的一部分 是大陆的一块”(John Donne的《沉思录》)
JH: Thank you.
谢谢
(Applause)
掌声响起