There's a question I've been puzzling over and writing about for pretty much all of my adult life. Why do some large-scale crises jolt us awake and inspire us to change and evolve while others might jolt us a bit, but then it's back to sleep? Now, the kind of shocks I'm talking about are big -- a cataclysmic market crash, rising fascism, an industrial accident that poisons on a massive scale. Now, events like this can act like a collective alarm bell. Suddenly, we see a threat, we get organized. We discover strength and resolve that was previously unimaginable. It's as if we're no longer walking, but leaping. Except, our collective alarm seems to be busted. Faced with a crisis, we often fall apart, regress and that becomes a window for antidemocratic forces to push societies backwards, to become more unequal and more unstable.
有個問題我一直在傷腦筋, 也一直在寫相關書籍, 我成年後的人生幾乎都投入在此。 為什麼有一些大規模的危機 會打醒我們 並鼓舞我們去改變和成長, 但其他的則只稍微 讓我們震驚了一下, 然後一切就回復平靜了? 我在談的震驚事件,是大型的── 災難性的市場崩壞、 法西斯主義重新興起、 造成大規模毒害的工業意外。 像這樣的事件, 可能會有集體警鈴的功用。 突然間,我們遇到威脅, 我們就會組織起來。 我們會發現先前 無法想像的力量和決心。 彷彿我們不再用走的,而是用跳的。 不過,我們的集體警鈴似乎壞掉了。 面對危機時,我們通常 會四分五裂、會向後退, 那會為反民主勢力打開一扇窗, 讓它們把社會向後推, 變得更不平等、更不穩定。
Ten years ago, I wrote about this backwards process and I called it the "Shock Doctrine." So what determines which road we navigate through crisis? Whether we grow up fast and find those strengths or whether we get knocked back. And I'd say this is a pressing question these days. Because things are pretty shocking out there. Record-breaking storms, drowning cities, record-breaking fires threatening to devour them, thousands of migrants disappearing beneath the waves. And openly supremacist movements rising, in many of our countries there are torches in the streets. And now there's no shortage of people who are sounding the alarm. But as a society, I don't think we can honestly say that we're responding with anything like the urgency that these overlapping crises demand from us. And yet, we know from history that it is possible for crisis to catalyze a kind of evolutionary leap.
十年前,我寫了關於 這種倒退過程的書, 我把書名取為《震撼主義》。 我們會走哪條路來通過危機, 是由什麼決定的? 不論我們是否快速成長 並找到那些力量, 或不論我們是否被打回來。 我會說這是近期一個很迫切的問題。 因為,外頭的狀況是挺震撼的。 破記錄的暴風、被淹沒的城市、 破記錄的大火威脅要將城市吞噬, 數以千計的移民者消失在大浪下。 公開的種族優越運動興起, 許多國家都在發生, 甚至在街頭出現火炬。 一直都有人在響起警鈴。 但我們這個社會, 我認為我們無法老實說 我們的反應是帶著迫切性的, 但這些部分重疊的危機 卻很需要我們的迫切反應。 然而,我們從歷史得知, 危機有可能催化一種進化的躍進。
And one of the most striking examples of this progressive power of crisis is the Great Crash of 1929. There was the shock of the sudden market collapse followed by all of the aftershocks, the millions who lost everything thrown onto breadlines. And this was taken by many as a message that the system itself was broken. And many people listened and they leapt into action. In the United States and elsewhere, governments began to weave a safety net so that the next time there was a crash there would be programs like social security to catch people. There were huge job-creating public investments in housing, electrification and transit. And there was a wave of aggressive regulation to reign in the banks.
若要說明危機的革新力量, 最突出的例子之一 就是 1929 年的華爾街股災。 市場突然崩盤帶來震撼, 接著便是所有的餘震, 數百萬人失去一切, 被丟到等待救濟食物的隊伍中。 許多人把這件事當作是個訊息: 體制本身就已經損壞。 說多人聽進去了, 且他們跳出來採取行動。 在美國和其他地方, 政府開始編織一張安全網, 這麼一來,下次再發生崩盤, 會有像社會保障之類的計畫 來接住摔落的人。 有大量能創造就業機會的公共投資, 投入住房供給、電氣化,以及運輸。 還有一波積極強硬的規制, 在銀行中都可見到。
Now, these reforms were far from perfect. In the US, African American workers, immigrants and women were largely excluded. But the Depression period, along with the transformation of allied nations and economies during the World War II effort, show us that it is possible for complex societies to rapidly transform themselves in the face of a collective threat. Now, when we tell this story of the 1929 Crash, that's usually the formula that it follows -- that there was a shock and it induced a wake-up call and that produced a leap to a safer place.
這些改革離完美還很遙遠。 在美國,非裔美國工人、 移民者以及女性 幾乎都被排除在外。 但蕭條時期, 加上在二次大戰時努力造成的 結盟國家與經濟體的轉變, 讓我們看見,複雜的社會是有可能 在面臨集體威脅時 快速地轉變它們自己。 當我們在訴說 1929 年 股災的故事時, 通常都會循著一條公式── 先有一個震撼事件發生, 它會導致一個警訊, 那就會產生一次躍進, 進到一個更安全的地方。
Now, if that's really what it took, then why isn't it working anymore? Why do today's non-stop shocks -- why don't they spur us into action? Why don't they produce leaps? Especially when it comes to climate change.
如果真的只要這樣就可以了, 為什麼它不再有用了? 為什麼現今不停歇地出現震撼事件── 為什麼它們不會鞭策我們採取行動? 為什麼它們不會產生躍進? 特別是氣候變遷這個議題。
So I want to talk to you today about what I think is a much more complete recipe for deep transformation catalyzed by shocking events. And I'm going to focus on two key ingredients that usually get left out of the history books.
所以,今天我想和各位談的, 是我認為更完整的訣竅, 由震撼事件來催化 深刻轉變的訣竅。 我會把焦點放在兩個主要的要素上, 這兩個要素通常 都會被史書給遺漏掉。
One has to do with imagination, the other with organization. Because it's in the interplay between the two where revolutionary power lies. So let's start with imagination. The victories of the New Deal didn't happen just because suddenly everybody understood the brutalities of laissez-faire. This was a time, let's remember, of tremendous ideological ferment, when many different ideas about how to organize societies did battle with one another in the public square. A time when humanity dared to dream big about different kinds of futures, many of them organized along radically egalitarian lines. Now, not all of these ideas were good but this was an era of explosive imagining. This meant that the movements demanding change knew what they were against -- crushing poverty, widening inequality -- but just as important, they knew what they were for. They had their "no" and they had their "yes," too. They also had very different models of political organization than we do today.
第一個要素和想像有關, 另一個則和組織有關。 因為革命性的力量就位在 這兩者的相互影響中。 讓我們從想像開始。 羅斯福新政之所以能成功, 並不是因為突然間 所有人都了解了放任政策的殘酷。 回想一下,那是個 意識形態騷動很嚴重的時期, 許多關於如何組織社會的不同構想 都在公開廣場上彼此對打。 那個時期,針對不同的未來, 人類敢於大膽做夢, 其中有許多本質上是以 平等主義的方式組織而成的。 這些構想並非全都是好的, 但這個時代的確是 想像力爆發的時代。 這意味著,訴求改變的那些運動 知道它們在對抗的是什麼── 壓倒性的貧窮、越來越廣的不公平── 但同樣重要的是, 它們也知道目的是為了什麼。 它們有它們的「不行」, 也有它們的「可以」。 至於它們的政治組織模型 也和我們現今的非常不同。
For decades, social and labor movements had been building up their membership bases, linking their causes together and increasing their strength. Which meant that by the time the Crash happened, there was already a movement that was large and broad enough to, for instance, stage strikes that didn't just shut down factories, but shut down entire cities. The big policy wins of the New Deal were actually offered as compromises. Because the alternative seemed to be revolution.
數十年來,社會和勞工運動 一直在擴大它們的成員數, 將它們的理想連結在一起增加力量。 這就表示,到了股災發生的時候, 已經有一個夠大、夠廣的運動, 可以比如,籌劃罷工, 且規模大到不只是讓工廠停擺, 還能讓整個城市都停擺。 羅斯福新政在政策上的大勝利, 其實是提供出來的妥協。 因為替代方案似乎就是革命了。
So, let's adjust that equation from earlier. A shocking event plus utopian imagination plus movement muscle, that's how we get a real leap.
讓我們調整先前提出的公式。 震撼事件+烏托邦想像+ 運動力量, 這樣我們就能得到真正的躍進。
So how does our present moment measure up? We are living, once again, at a time of extraordinary political engagements. Politics is a mass obsession. Progressive movements are growing and resisting with tremendous courage. And yet, we know from history that "no" is not enough. Now, there are some "yeses" out there that are emerging. And they're actually getting a lot bolder quickly. Where climate activists used to talk about changing light bulbs, now we're pushing for 100 percent of our energy to come from the sun, wind and waves, and to do it fast. Movements catalyzed by police violence against black bodies are calling for an end to militarized police, mass incarceration and even for reparations for slavery. Students are not just opposing tuition increases, but from Chile to Canada to the UK, they are calling for free tuition and debt cancellation. And yet, this still doesn't add up to the kind of holistic and universalist vision of a different world than our predecessors had. So why is that?
我們目前的狀況符合這個標準嗎? 我們所處的時代也是個 政治參與度很驚人的時代。 大眾對政治著迷。 革新運動在成長, 帶著極大的勇氣在抵抗。 然而,我們從歷史知道, 「不行」是不夠的。 確實在外頭有一些「可以」正在浮現。 它們其實以很快的速度 在變得更無畏。 以前氣候激進分子談的是換電燈泡, 現在我們奮力追求的是 要讓我們的能源 100% 來自太陽能、風力和海水, 且要盡快實現。 警察對黑人的暴力行為 所催化的時刻 在號召要終止警察的 軍事化、大規模監禁, 甚至呼籲對奴隸制進行賠償。 學生不只是反對學費上漲, 從智利到加拿大,再到英國, 他們還訴求免學費和免除還款。 然而,這仍然不符合 我們先人有的那種遠景, 希望有個不同世界的整體普救遠景。 為什麼會這樣?
Well, very often we think about political change in defined compartments these days. Environment in one box, inequality in another, racial and gender justice in a couple of other boxes, education over here, health over there. And within each compartment, there are thousands upon thousands of different groups and NGOs, each competing with one another for credit, name recognition and of course, resources. In other words, we act a lot like corporate brands. Now, this is often referred to as the problem of silos. Now, silos are understandable. They carve up our complex world into manageable chunks. They help us feel less overwhelmed. But in the process, they also train our brains to tune out when somebody else's issue comes up and when somebody else's issue needs our help and support. And they also keep us from seeing glaring connections between our issues.
現在,通常當我們思考政治改變時, 是用定義好的區隔分類來思考的。 一類是環境,另一類是不公平, 種族與性別正義則是屬於其他幾類, 教育在這裡,健康在那裡。 在每一個分類當中, 有成千上萬個不同的 團體和非政府組織, 彼此競爭,爭功勞、知名度, 當然也爭資源。 換言之,我們的行為 和企業品牌很像。 通常,這被稱為是穀倉問題。 (註:過度分工成獨立小團體) 穀倉是可以理解的。 穀倉把我們的複雜世界 劃分成區塊,比較能處理得來。 穀倉讓我們不會覺得那麼無法招架。 但在過程中,穀倉同時 也訓練我們的大腦, 在聽到其他人的問題時、 聽到他們的問題需要我們的 協助和支援時,要充耳不聞。 穀倉也讓我們無法看見 我們的問題之間有著明顯的連結。
So for instance, the people fighting poverty and inequality rarely talk about climate change. Even though we see time and again that it's the poorest of people who are the most vulnerable to extreme weather. The climate change people rarely talk about war and occupation. Even though we know that the thirst for fossil fuels has been a major driver of conflict. The environmental movement has gotten better at pointing out that the nations that are getting hit hardest by climate change are populated overwhelmingly by black and brown people. But when black lives are treated as disposable in prisons, in schools and on the streets, these connections are too rarely made.
比如,對抗貧窮和不公平的人, 他們很少會談氣候變遷。 即使我們一而再、再而三地看到, 在極端氣候威脅下, 最容易受傷的人是最貧窮的人。 氣候變遷的人很少會談戰爭和職業。 即使我們知道對於化石燃料的渴望 一直都是主要的戰爭衝突起因。 環境運動也開始會點出 受到氣候變遷影響最大的國家 是擁有大量黑色和棕色人種的國家。 但當黑人的生命在監獄、學校 和街頭可被捨棄, 這些幾乎不被連結起來。
The walls between our silos also means that our solutions, when they emerge, are also disconnected from each other. So progressives now have this long list of demands that I was mentioning earlier, those "yeses." But what we're still missing is that coherent picture of the world we're fighting for. What it looks like, what it feels like, and most of all, what its core values are. And that really matters. Because when large-scale crises hit us and we are confronted with the need to leap somewhere safer, there isn't any agreement on what that place is. And leaping without a destination looks a lot like jumping up and down.
穀倉之間有牆壁隔開, 也就表示當解決方案出現時, 也彼此互不連結。 所以,進步分子現在有張很長的 需求清單,我剛剛已經提過, 就是那些「可以」。 但對於我們在努力爭取的世界, 我們仍然缺少一致相連的整體全景。 它看起來、感覺起來是什麼樣子? 更重要的,它的核心價值是什麼? 那真的很要緊。 因為當我們遇到大規模危機, 需要跳躍到更安全的地方時, 對於那個地方是哪裡, 卻無法取得一致意見。 而沒有目的就跳躍, 看起來很像就只是上下跳而已。
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
Fortunately, there are all kinds of conversations and experiments going on to try to overcome these divisions that are holding us back. And I want to finish by talking about one of them.
幸運的是,目前還是有各種 正在進行中的對話和實驗, 在試圖克服這些 讓我們無法向前行的分隔。 我想談其中一種, 當作這場演說的結尾。
A couple of years ago, a group of us in Canada decided that we were hitting the limits of what we could accomplish in our various silos. So we locked ourselves in a room for two days, and we tried to figure out what bound us together. In that room were people who rarely get face to face. There were indigenous elders with hipsters working on transit. There was the head of Greenpeace with a union leader representing oil workers and loggers. There were faith leaders and feminist icons and many more. And we gave ourselves a pretty ambitious assignment: agreeing on a short statement describing the world after we win. The world after we've already made the transition to a clean economy and a much fairer society. In other words, instead of trying to scare people about what will happen if we don't act, we decided to try to inspire them with what could happen if we did act.
幾年前,在加拿大,我們有一群人 認定我們在各式各樣的穀倉中, 成就都已經達到了能達到的極限。 所以我們把自己 鎖在一間房間中兩天, 我們試圖想出有什麼辦法 可以讓我們團結在一起。 在那間房間中的人, 是很少面對面的人。 有原住民長老和消息靈通的人 一起努力解決運輸問題。 有綠色和平的領導人 和石油工人與伐木工人的工會代表。 有宗教領袖及女性主義 代表人物,及許多其他的。 我們給自己訂了一個 很有野心的任務: 取得一致的意見,用一段簡短陳述 來描述我們獲勝之後的世界。 在我們已經轉換到乾淨經濟 並讓社會更公平之後的世界。 也就是說, 不再用「若我們不採取行動會怎樣」 來恐嚇人們了, 我們決定要試著用 「若我們採取行動會怎樣」來鼓舞他們。
Sensible people are always telling us that change needs to come in small increments. That politics is the art of the possible and that we can't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Well, we rejected all of that. We wrote a manifesto, and we called it "The Leap." I have to tell you that agreeing on our common "yes" across such diversity of experiences and against a backdrop of a lot of painful history was not easy work. But it was also pretty thrilling. Because as soon as we gave ourselves permission to dream, those threads connecting much of our work became self-evident.
理性的人總是會告訴我們, 改變要能成功,必須要一點一點改。 政治是可能性的藝術, 我們不能讓「完美」成為「好」的敵人。 我們摒棄那一切。 我們寫了一份宣言, 我們叫它「躍進」。 我得告訴各位,要對於我們 共同的「可以」取得共識, 在大家的經驗都很不一樣的情況下, 且都有許多痛苦往事的背景之下, 真的很不容易。 但它也非常令人興奮。 因為一旦我們允許我們自己去夢想, 將我們的努力結合起來的 連結線就會不證自明。
We realized, for instance, that the bottomless quest for profits that is forcing so many people to work more than 50 hours a week, without security, and that is fueling this epidemic of despair is the same quest for bottomless profits and endless growth that is at the heart of our ecological crisis and is destabilizing our planet. It also became clear what we need to do. We need to create a culture of care-taking. In which no one and nowhere is thrown away. In which the inherent value of all people and every ecosystem is foundational. So we came up with this people's platform, and don't worry, I'm not going to read the whole thing to you out loud -- if you're interested, you can read it at theleap.org. But I will give you a taste of what we came up with.
比如,我們知道 對於利益的無窮盡追求 迫使許多人必須要 每週工作超過五十小時, 沒有保障, 助長絕望的傳播。 而我們的生態危機的核心, 正是這種對於利益 與成長的無窮盡追求, 它是地球動盪的元兇。 我們需要做什麼?答案變得很清楚。 我們需要創造一種照顧的文化。 在這種文化中,沒有任何人、 任何地方會被拋棄。 這種文化中的基礎,是所有人 及每個生態系統的固有價值。 所以我們提出了 這個屬於人民的平台, 別擔心,我不會把全部內容 都大聲讀給各位聽── 如果你有興趣,可以到 theleap.org 去看全文。 但我會讓各位淺嚐一下, 了解我們提出的是什麼。
So we call for that 100 percent renewable economy in a hurry, but we went further. Calls for new kinds of trade deals, a robust debate on a guaranteed annual income, full rights for immigrant workers, getting corporate money out of politics, free universal day care, electoral reform and more. What we discovered is that a great many of us are looking for permission to act less like brands and more like movements. Because movements don't care about credit. They want good ideas to spread far and wide. What I love about The Leap is that it rejects the idea that there is this hierarchy of crisis, and it doesn't ask anyone to prioritize one struggle over another or wait their turn. And though it was birthed in Canada, we've discovered that it travels well. Since we launched, The Leap has been picked up around the world with similar platforms, being written from Nunavut to Australia, to Norway to the UK and the US, where it's gaining a lot of traction in cities like Los Angeles, where it's being localized. And also in rural communities that are traditionally very conservative, but where politics is failing the vast majority of people.
我們訴求 100% 的可再生經濟, 且要盡快達成, 我們還再進了一步。 我們也訴求要有新的貿易協定、 針對年收入保障做健全的辯論、 移民工人要有所有的權利、 不要再讓企業的錢進入政治、 提供免費日間托兒給所有人、 選舉改革,以及其他的。 我們發現很多人希望能得到允許, 以更像運動而不是品牌的方式 來採取行動。 因為運動不在意功勞歸誰。 運動要的是把好想法 傳播出去,越廣越好。 我很喜歡「躍進」的一點, 就是它不認為危機要有等級制度, 它不會要求任何人 優先處理某項難題, 或等著輪到他們。 雖然它是在加拿大誕生, 但我們發現它也推廣世界。 我們推出「躍進」之後, 世界各地都注意到了它, 推出類似的平台, 從努納福特地區到澳洲, 到挪威,到英國以及美國, 在像洛杉磯這類城市中 產生很大的牽引力, 因為它在那裡已被地區化。 此外,它也進到一些傳統上 相當保守的鄉村社區, 因為在那些地方, 政治讓大多數的人失望。
Here's what I've learned from studying shocks and disasters for two decades. Crises test us. We either fall apart or we grow up fast. Finding new reserves of strength and capacity that we never knew we had. The shocking events that fill us with dread today can transform us, and they can transform the world for the better. But first we need to picture the world that we're fighting for. And we have to dream it up together. Right now, every alarm in our house is going off simultaneously. It's time to listen. It's time to leap.
在我研究震撼事件和災難的 二十年裏,從中學到的是, 危機在考驗我們。 我們要不四分五裂,要不快速成長。 發現我們從來不知道自己 擁有那麼多力量和能力, 現今,讓我們充滿恐懼的震撼事件 能夠轉變我們, 也能把世界轉變得更好。 但首先,我們得要先想像出 我們努力想打造的世界。 我們得一起把它構想出來。 現在,我們房子裡的 各種警報同時一起響起。 該是傾聽的時候了。 該是躍進的時候了。
Thank you.
謝謝。
(Applause)
(掌聲)