This talk contains mature language Viewer discretion is advised Let's get this out of the way. I'm here because I wrote a book about civility, and because that book came out right around the 2016 American presidential election, I started getting lots of invitations to come and talk about civility and why we need more of it in American politics. So great. The only problem was that I had written that book about civility because I was convinced that civility is ... bullshit.
[本演說內容含有成人用語, 觀者請自行斟著。] 我們就直說吧。 我來這裡,因為我寫了一本 關於舉止要有禮貌的書, 因為那本書推出的時間 剛好是 2016 年 美國總統大選前後, 我開始接到許多演說邀請, 去談有禮貌的舉止, 也去談為什麼美國政壇 需要更多禮貌。 好棒。 唯一的問題是,我之所以 會寫那本關於舉止禮貌的書, 是因為我深信,舉止有禮是…… 狗屁。
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
Now, that may sound like a highly uncivil thing to say, and lucky for you, and for my publisher, I did eventually come to change my mind. In the course of writing that book and studying the long history of civility and religious tolerance in the 17th century, I came to discover that there is a virtue of civility, and far from being bullshit, it's actually absolutely essential, especially for tolerant societies, so societies like this one, that promise not only to protect diversity but also the heated and sometimes even hateful disagreements that that diversity inspires.
這樣說可能聽起來還蠻粗魯的, 你們很幸運, 我的出版商也很幸運, 因為我最後還是改變心意了。 在寫那本書的過程中, 以及在研究十七世紀 禮貌和宗教包容間的漫長歷史時, 我漸漸發現舉止有禮是有優點的, 而且完全不是狗屁, 它其實非常重要, 特別是對於包容的社會, 像我們這樣的社會, 不僅承諾要保護多樣性, 還要保護激昂甚至帶著仇恨的歧見, 這些歧見因多樣性而來。
You see, the thing about disagreement is that there is a reason that "disagreeable" is a synonym for "unpleasant." As the English philosopher Thomas Hobbes pointed out all the way back in 1642, that's because the mere act of disagreement is offensive.
歧見有一項特點, 那就是,「不合意」 和「不愉快」是同義詞是有理由的。 英國哲學家湯瑪斯·霍布斯指出, 回溯到 1642 年, 「不同意」這件行為本身就是冒犯。
And Hobbes is still right. It works like this: so, if you and I disagree, and I'm right, because I always am, how am I to make sense of the fact that you are so very, very wrong? It couldn't possibly be that you've just come to a different conclusion in good faith? No, you must be up to something, you must be stupid, bigoted, interested. Maybe you're insane. And the same goes the other way. Right? So the mere fact of your disagreeing with me is implicitly an insult not only to my views, but to my intelligence, too. And things only get worse when the disagreements at stake are the ones that we somehow consider to be fundamental, whether to our worldviews or to our identities. You know the kinds of disagreement I mean. One doesn't discuss religion or politics or increasingly, the politics of popular culture, at the dinner table, because these are the disagreements, these are the things that people really, seriously disagree about, and they define themselves against their opponents in the controversy.
霍布斯仍然是對的, 它的運作方式如下: 所以,如果你和我有歧見, 而我是對的,因為我永遠是對的, 我要如何理解你錯得 非常非常離譜的這個事實? 難道不可能你是出於善意 而得出不同的結論嗎? 不可能,你一定是在盤算什麼, 你一定很笨、很頑固、有利害關係。 也許你瘋了。 對方也會有同樣的想法。對吧? 所以,光是你和我有歧見的這個事實, 不只意味著你在侮辱我的觀點, 也是在侮辱我的智慧。 情況只會更糟,如果這些歧見 剛好是我們都認為是 很根本的議題上, 不論是和我們的世界觀 或身分認同有關。 你們知道我指的是哪些歧見。 我們不會在共進晚餐時 討論宗教、政治, 也越來越多人不願意談 流行文化的政治, 因為這些都會有爭論, 這些都是大家真的 會產生嚴重歧見的議題, 而他們在爭議中一定會以 自己的看法來反駁他們的對手。
But of course those fundamental disagreements are precisely the ones that tolerant societies like the United States propose to tolerate, which perhaps explains why, historically, at least, tolerant societies haven't been the happy-clappy communities of difference that you sometimes hear about. No, they tend to be places where people have to hold their noses and rub along together despite their mutual contempt. That's what I learned from studying religious tolerance in early modern England and America. And I also learned that the virtue that makes that un-murderous coexistence, if you will, possible, is the virtue of civility, because civility makes our disagreements tolerable so that we can share a life together even if we don't share a faith -- religious, political or otherwise.
但,當然,那些根本上的歧見 正是包容的社會——如美國—— 提議要包容的歧見, 這可能就說明了為什麼, 至少在歷史上, 包容的社會一直都不是 你有時候會聽說的 那種快樂和諧的差異團體。 不,這些往往是 人們必須試圖忽略的地方, 儘管他們互相輕視彼此, 仍然勉強相處。 這是我在研究早期現代英國 與美國的宗教包容時所學到的。 我還學到,有一種美德 可以讓「非謀殺式」的共存 ——你可以這麼說——成為可能。 那就是客氣有禮的美德。 因為客氣有禮讓我們的歧見 變成可寬容的, 所以我們可以共同生存, 即便我們沒有共同的信念—— 宗教、政治,或其他。
Still, I couldn't help but notice that when most people talk about civility today -- and boy, do they talk about civility a lot -- they seem to have something else in mind. So if civility is the virtue that makes it possible to tolerate disagreement so that we can actually engage with our opponents, talking about civility seems to be mainly a strategy of disengagement. It's a little bit like threatening to take your ball and go home when the game isn't going your way. Because the funny thing about incivility is that it's always the sin of our opponents. It's funny. When it comes to our own bad behavior, well, we seem to develop sudden-onset amnesia, or we can always justify it as an appropriate response to the latest outrage from our opponents. So, "How can I be civil to someone who is set out to destroy everything I stand for? And by the way, they started it." It's all terrifically convenient.
我仍然忍不住會注意到 現今,大部分的人在談禮貌時—— 他們可真是常常在談禮貌—— 他們腦中似乎有其他的想法。 所以,如果客氣有禮這種美德 能讓包容歧見成為可能, 使我們能真正和我們的對手接觸, 那麼,「談論」客氣有禮 似乎主要是一種脫離的策略。 它有一點像是 在比賽時不如你預期時, 你就威脅要把球拿走,回家不玩了。 因為,粗魯失禮有一個有趣的特點, 就是它永遠都是我們對手的罪過。 這很好笑。 當說到我們自己的不良行為, 我們的健忘症似乎就會突然發作, 或我們總是找到正當理由, 說這是對於我們對手 最近一次惡行的妥當回應。 所以,「如果一個人打算 要摧毀我所支持的一切, 我怎麼可能對他有禮貌? 順便一提,是他起頭的。」 這實在太方便了。
Also convenient is the fact that most of today's big civility talkers tend to be quite vague and fuzzy when it comes to what they think civility actually entails. We're told that civility is simply a synonym for respect, for good manners, for politeness, but at the same time, it's clear that to accuse someone of incivility is much, much worse than calling them impolite, because to be uncivil is to be potentially intolerable in a way that merely being rude isn't. So to call someone uncivil, to accuse them of incivility, is a way of communicating that they are somehow beyond the pale, that they're not worth engaging with at all.
還有一種也很方便的辯解, 那就是現今多數會說禮貌大話的人, 在談到他們認為有禮貌 到底需要怎麼做時, 幾乎都說得相當模糊不清。 我們聽到的是, 客氣有禮就是尊重、 有教養、禮貌的同義詞, 但同時,很顯然, 指控一個人很粗魯, 比罵他沒禮貌要更糟許多, 因為,粗魯失禮就表示 有可能會無法忍受, 而且不是魯莾的那種無法忍受。 所以,若說一個人不文明, 指控他很失禮粗魯, 在傳達的訊息就是, 他們在某種層面上是社會所不容的, 完全不值得和他們接觸。
So here's the thing: civility isn't bullshit, it's precious because it's the virtue that makes fundamental disagreement not only possible but even sometimes occasionally productive. It's precious, but it's also really, really difficult.
所以,重點就是: 客氣有禮並不是狗屁, 它很珍貴,因為這種美德 不但能夠讓根本的歧見可以存在, 偶爾還能讓歧見變得很有生產力。 它很珍貴,但要做到也非常非常困難。
Civility talk, on the other hand, well, that's really easy, really easy, and it also is almost always complete bullshit, which makes things slightly awkward for me as I continue to talk to you about civility.
另一方面,「談論」有禮, 那就非常容易, 非常容易, 而且幾乎完全都是狗屁, 這就讓我有點尷尬, 因為我還在繼續和你們「談」禮貌。
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
Anyway, we tend to forget it, but politicians and intellectuals have been warning us for decades now that the United States is facing a crisis of civility, and they've tended to blame that crisis on technological developments, on things like cable TV, talk radio, social media. But any historian will tell you that there never was a golden age of disagreement, let alone good feelings, not in American politics. In my book, though, I argue that the first modern crisis of civility actually began about 500 years ago, when a certain professor of theology named Martin Luther took advantage of a recent advancement in communications technology, the printing press, to call the Pope the Antichrist, and thus inadvertently launch the Protestant Reformation.
總之,我們常忘記一件事, 政客和知識分子數十年來 一直警告我們, 那就是:美國正在面臨禮貌的危機。 而他們把這危機怪罪於科技發展, 怪罪於有線電視、談話性廣播節目、 社交媒體等等。 但,任何歷史學家都會告訴你, 歧見從來就沒有過黃金時代, 更不用說好感了, 在美國政治圈絕對沒有。 不過,在我的書中, 我主張禮貌的第一次現代危機 其實始於大約五百年前。 那時,有位神學教授馬丁·路德 利用當代發展的溝通技術, 也就是印刷媒體, 來宣稱教皇是反對基督者, 因此,不經意地造成了宗教改革。
So think of the press, if you will, as the Twitter of the 16th century, and Martin Luther as the original troll. And I'm not exaggerating here. He once declared himself unable to pray without at the same time cursing his "anti-Christian," i.e. Catholic, opponents. And of course, those Catholic opponents clutched their pearls and called for civility then, too, but all the while, they gave as good as they got with traditional slurs like "heretic," and, worst of all, "Protestant," which began in the 16th century as an insult. The thing about civility talk, then as now, was that you could call out your opponent for going low, and then take advantage of the moral high ground to go as low or lower, because calling for civility sets up the speaker as a model of decorum while implicitly, subtly stigmatizing anyone with the temerity to disagree as uncivil. And so civility talk in the 17th century becomes a really effective way for members of the religious establishment to silence, suppress, exclude dissenters outside of the established church, especially when they spoke out against the status quo. So Anglican ministers could lecture atheists on the offensiveness of their discourse. Everyone could complain about the Quakers for refusing to doff and don their hats or their "uncouth" practice of shaking hands. But those accusations of incivility pretty soon became pretexts for persecution.
所以,你們可以把新聞報刊 想像成十六世紀的推特, 而馬丁路德就是網路酸民的始祖。 我並沒有誇張。 他曾經聲稱他自己無法禱告, 因為他同時也咒罵 他的「反基督徒」對手, 即:天主教徒。 當然,那些天主教對手 馬上進入防禦狀態, 也大聲疾呼著禮貌, 但最終,他們丟出來的, 和他們得到的沒什麼兩樣, 都是傳統的詆毀,如「異教徒」, 還有最糟糕的,「新教徒」。 這個詞從十六世紀開始, 就成了侮辱。 至於關於禮貌的談話, 當時和現在一樣, 就是你可以大聲喊說 你的對手用低級手段, 接著以充滿道德的高姿態, 來採取低級或更低級的手段, 因為先打出禮貌牌, 就能讓說話的人 成為端莊的模範,而在不知不覺中 把任何有種不同意的人 誣蔑成無禮的人。 所以,在十七世紀,「談論」禮貌 就成了一種很有效的方式, 讓教會團體的成員 可以堵住教會外反對者的嘴巴, 打壓、排擠他們, 在他們出聲反對現狀時更是有效。 這樣,英國國教的牧師 就可以教訓無神論者, 說他們的言論有多麼冒犯人; 大家都可以抱怨貴格會教徒 拒絕舉帽致意、再戴上他們的帽子, 或是他們「沒教養」的握手做法。 但說他們無禮的那些指控, 很快就變成了迫害的藉口。
So far, so familiar, right? We see that strategy again and again. It's used to silence civil rights protesters in the 20th century. And I think it explains why partisans on both sides of the aisle keep reaching for this, frankly, antiquated, early modern language of civility precisely when they want to communicate that certain people and certain views are beyond the pale, but they want to save themselves the trouble of actually making an argument.
目前,聽起來都很熟悉,對吧? 我們一而再、再而三地 看到這種策略。 在二十世紀,它被用來 讓民權抗議者閉嘴。 我想這也解釋了為什麼 兩黨雙方的死硬派支持者 都不斷想要採用這種 坦白說已經過時的 近代早期對禮貌的措詞, 而且都是在他們想要傳達 某些人及某些觀點 是社會所不容, 卻不想提出自己的論點的時候, 因為這樣就能省去自己的麻煩。
So no wonder skeptics like me tend to roll our eyes when the calls for conversational virtue begin, because instead of healing our social and political divisions, it seems like so much civility talk is actually making the problem worse. It's saving us the trouble of actually speaking to each other, allowing us to speak past each other or at each other while signaling our superior virtue and letting the audience know which side we're on.
也難怪當有人開始 呼籲要談美德的時候, 像我這樣的懷疑論者會翻白眼, 因為我們的社會、政治分裂 並沒有因此被解決, 談這麼多禮貌, 似乎還讓問題變得更糟糕。 這讓我們省下了與對方交談的麻煩, 而是讓我們超越對方來說話, 或即使對著對方說話, 也示意出我們高人一等的美德, 並讓觀眾知道我們是站在哪一邊的。
And given this, I think one might be forgiven, as I did, for assuming that because so much civility talk is bullshit, well then, the virtue of civility must be bullshit, too. But here, again, I think a little historical perspective goes a long way. Because remember, the same early modern crisis of civility that launched the Reformation also gave birth to tolerant societies, places like Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, and indeed, eventually the United States, places that at least aspired to protect disagreement as well as diversity, and what made that possible was the virtue of civility. What made disagreement tolerable, what it made it possible for us to share a life, even when we didn't share a faith, was a virtue, but one, I think, that is perhaps less aspirational and a lot more confrontational than the one that people who talk about civility a lot today tend to have in mind.
在這樣的前提下, 我想大家能原諒我, 我假設既然有這麼多 關於禮貌的言談都是狗屁, 那麼禮貌這種美德一定也是狗屁。 但同樣的,我想, 小小的歷史觀點也能成就大事。 因為,別忘了,正是禮貌 這種早期現代危機 造成了宗教改革, 也因此誕生了包容的社會, 以及賓州、羅德島州這些殖民地, 最終產生了美國。 這些地方至少都受到鼓舞, 而去保護歧見 以及多樣性, 因為禮貌這項美德, 才讓這一切能實現。 歧見之所以能夠被包容, 我們之所以能在 沒有共同信念的情況下 仍然共同生活在一起, 究其因就是一種美德, 但,我認為這種美德可能 比較不是志同道合的, 比較是對抗性的, 不像現今總是在 「談論」禮貌的那些人 心中所想的那種美德。
So I like to call that virtue "mere civility." You may know it as the virtue that allows us to get through our relations with an ex-spouse, or a bad neighbor, not to mention a member of the other party. Because to be merely civil is to meet a low bar grudgingly, and that, again, makes sense, because civility is a virtue that's meant to help us disagree, and as Hobbes told us all those centuries ago, disagreeable means unpleasant for a reason.
所以,我想把那種美德 稱為「僅僅客氣」。 你們可能知道這種美德, 讓我們能度過 和前配偶的感情關係, 或和惡鄰居的關係, 更不用說和另一黨成員的關係了。 因為,僅僅表現出客氣, 其實是勉強超過低標而已, 同樣的,那也合理, 因為客氣有禮是一種本當用來 協助我們表示歧見的美德, 正如數百年前霍布斯所言, 不同意的形容詞「不合意」 表示「不愉快」是有理由的。
But if it isn't bullshit, what exactly is civility or mere civility? What does it require? Well, to start, it is not and cannot be the same thing as being respectful or polite, because we need civility precisely when we're dealing with those people that we find it the most difficult, or maybe even impossible, to respect. Similarly, being civil can't be the same as being nice, because being nice means not telling people what you really think about them or their wrong, wrong views. No, being civil means speaking your mind, but to your opponent's face, not behind her back. Being merely civil means not pulling our punches, but at the same time, it means maybe not landing all those punches all at once, because the point of mere civility is to allow us to disagree, to disagree fundamentally, but to do so without denying or destroying the possibility of a common life tomorrow with the people that we think are standing in our way today. And in that sense, I think civility is actually closely related to another virtue, the virtue of courage. So mere civility is having the courage to make yourself disagreeable, and to stay that way, but to do so while staying in the room and staying present to your opponents. And it also means that, sometimes, calling bullshit on people's civility talk is really the only civil thing to do. At least that's what I think.
但,若不是狗屁, 那麼客氣有禮 或僅僅客氣到底是什麼? 它需要什麼? 首先,它不會也不可能會 等同於尊重或是有禮貌, 因為我們需要客氣的時刻, 就是當我們要去處理 那些我們實在很難, 或甚至不可能去尊重的人時。 同樣的,表現客氣 也不等同於對人好, 因為對人好意味著不要告訴別人 你對他們的真正看法, 也不能說他們錯了, 或是他們的看法很不對。 不,舉止客氣有禮意味著 要說出你的心思, 但要當著你的對手的面說出來, 而不是在他們的背後說。 僅僅客氣的意思是不要有所保留, 但同時,也意味著 不要一次就傾全力進攻, 因為僅僅客氣的重點, 是要讓我們能夠從根本上表示歧見, 但這麼做時,不能否認或摧毀 今天我們認為是阻礙的那些人 在明天共同生活的可能性。 就那個層面來說,我認為客氣其實 和另一種美德密切相關, 即勇氣的美德。 僅僅客氣就是要有勇氣 讓你自己不去迎合別人, 且保持那樣子, 但這麼做時,還要能 和你的對手共處一室, 而且要真正處在當下。 那也意味著,有時, 說別人在談客氣是狗屁, 是唯一有禮貌的做法。 至少我是這麼認為的。
But look, if I've learned anything from studying the long history of religious tolerance in the 17th century, it's this: if you're talking about civility as a way to avoid an argument, to isolate yourself in the more agreeable company of the like-minded who already agree with you, if you find yourself never actually speaking to anyone who really, truly, fundamentally disagrees with you, well, you're doing civility wrong.
但,如果我在研究十七世紀 宗教包容的漫長歷史時 有學到什麼的話,那就是: 如果你談論舉止有禮的目的 是要避免爭論, 在本來就和你有共識的 人群當中孤立自己, 如果你發現你從來不會和 任何從根本上 就和你有歧見的人說話, 嗯,那你表現禮貌的方式就錯了。
Thank you.
謝謝。
(Applause)
(掌聲)