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Tragic art, as it developed in the theaters of ancient Greece, in the fifth century B.C., was essentially an art form devoted to tracing how people fail, and also according them a level of sympathy, which ordinary life would not necessarily accord them. A few years ago, I was thinking about this, and I went to "The Sunday Sport," a tabloid newspaper I don't recommend you start reading if you're not familiar with it already.

悲劇的藝術(shù)來自古希臘。西元前五世紀(jì)，這是一個(gè)專屬于描繪人類失敗過程的藝術(shù)，同時(shí)也加入某種程度的同情。在現(xiàn)代生活并不常給于同情時(shí)，幾年前我思考著這件事，我去見“周日運(yùn)動期刊”，如果你還不認(rèn)識這個(gè)小報(bào)，我建議你也別去讀。

阿蘭·德波頓

The number one organ of ridicule, nowadays, is the newspaper. If you open the newspaper any day of the week, it's full of people who've messed up their lives. They've slept with the wrong person, taken the wrong substance, passed the wrong piece of legislation -- whatever it is, and then are fit for ridicule. In other words, they have failed. And they are described as "losers." Now, is there any alternative to this? I think the Western tradition shows us one glorious alternative, which is tragedy.

今日世界上最會嘲笑人的便是報(bào)紙。每天我們打開報(bào)紙，都能看到那些把生活搞砸的人，他們與錯(cuò)誤對象共枕，使用錯(cuò)誤藥物，通過錯(cuò)誤法案種種，讓人在茶余飯后拿來挖苦的新聞，這些人失敗了，我們稱他們?yōu)椤笆≌摺保€有其它做法嗎？西方傳統(tǒng)給了我們一個(gè)光榮的選擇，就是“悲劇”。

阿蘭·德波頓

In other words, hold your horses when you're coming to judge people. You don't necessarily know what someone's truevalue is. That is an unknown part of them, and we shouldn't behave as though it is known. There is another source of solace and comfort for all this. When we think about failing in life, when we think about failure, one of the reasons why we fear failing is not just a loss of income, a loss of status. What we fear is the judgment and ridicule of others. And it exists.

換句話說，最好在你開口評論他人之前懸崖勒馬，你很有可能不知道他人的真正價(jià)值，這是不可測的。于是，我們不該為人下定論，還有另一種慰藉，當(dāng)我們想象人生中的失敗，我們恐懼的原因并不只是失去收入，失去地位，我們害怕的是他人的評論和嘲笑，它的確存在。

阿蘭·德波頓

I'm drawn to a lovely quote by St. Augustine in "The City of God," where he says, "It's a sin to judge any man by his post." In modern English that would mean it's a sinto come to any view of who you should talk to, dependent on their business card. It's not the post that should count. According to St. Augustine, only God can really put everybody in their place; he's going to do that on the Day of Judgment, with angels and trumpets, and the skies will open. Insane idea, if you're a secularist person, like me. But something very valuable in that idea, nevertheless.

我很喜歡圣奧古斯丁在“上帝之城”里的一句話，他說“以社會地位評價(jià)人是一種罪”。用現(xiàn)在的口吻說，看一個(gè)人的名片來決定你是否要和他交談是罪。對圣奧古斯丁來說，人的價(jià)值不在他的社會地位，只有神可以決定一個(gè)人的價(jià)值，他將在天使圍繞、小號奏鳴，天空破開的世界末日給于最后審判，如果你是像我一樣的世俗論者，這想法太瘋狂了，但這想法有它的價(jià)值。

阿蘭·德波頓

The idea that we will make a society where literally everybody is graded, the good at the top, bad at the bottom, exactly done as it should be, is impossible. There are simply too many random factors: accidents, accidents of birth, accidents of things dropping on people's heads, illnesses, etc. We will never get to grade them, never get to grade people as they should.

這種我們能創(chuàng)造一個(gè)每個(gè)人的能力都忠實(shí)地被分級，好的就到頂端，壞的就到底部，而且保證過程毫無差錯(cuò)，這是不可能的。這世上有太多偶然的契機(jī)，不同的機(jī)運(yùn)，出身，疾病，從天而降的意外等等，我們卻無法將這些因素分級，無法完全忠實(shí)的將人分級。

阿蘭·德波頓

Is there any relief from some of thesepressures that I've been outlining? I think there is. I just want to turn to afew of them. Let's take meritocracy. This idea that everybody deserves to getwhere they get to, I think it's a crazy idea, completely crazy. I will support any politician of Left and Right, with any halfway-decent meritocratic idea; I am a meritocrat in that sense. But I think it's insane to believe that we will ever make a society that is genuinely meritocratic; it's an impossible dream.

有什么方法可以解決剛才提到的這些焦慮呢？是有的。我想提出幾項(xiàng)，先說“功績主義”，也就是相信每個(gè)人的地位忠實(shí)呈現(xiàn)他的能力，我認(rèn)為這種想法太瘋狂了，我可以支持所有相信這個(gè)想法的，無論是左傾還是右傾的政治家，我同樣相信功績主義，但我認(rèn)為一個(gè)完全徹底以能力取決地位的社會，是個(gè)不可能的夢想。

阿蘭·德波頓

That's exhilarating if you're doing well, and very crushing if you're not. It leads, in the worst cases -- in the analysis of a sociologist like Emil Durkheim -- it leads to increased rates of suicide. There are more suicides in developed, individualistic countries than in any other part of the world. And some of the reason for that is that people take what happens to them extremely personally -- they own their success, but they also own their failure.

如果你做的很好，這是件令人愉快的事。相反的情況，就很令人沮喪。社會學(xué)家Emil，Durkheim分析發(fā)現(xiàn)，這提高了自殺率，追求個(gè)人主義的發(fā)達(dá)國家的自殺率，高過于世界上其它地方，原因是人們把發(fā)生在自己身上的事情，全當(dāng)作自己的責(zé)任，人們擁有成功，也擁有失敗。

阿蘭·德波頓

Nowadays, particularly in the United States, if you meet someone at the bottom of society, they may unkindly be described as a "loser." There's a real difference between an unfortunate and a loser, and that shows 400 years of evolution in society and our belief in who is responsible for our lives. It's no longer the gods, it's us. We're in the driving seat.

不幸的人，尤其在美國，如果人們遇見一些社會底層的人，他們被刻薄地形容成“失敗者”，“不走運(yùn)”和“失敗者”中間有很大的差別，這表現(xiàn)了四百年的社會演變，我們對誰該為人生負(fù)責(zé)看法的改變，神不再掌握我們的命運(yùn)，我們掌握自己的人生。

阿蘭·德波頓

You know, in the Middle Ages, in England, when you met a very poor person, that person would be described as an "unfortunate" -- literally, somebody who had not been blessed by fortune, an unfortunate.

你知道，在中世紀(jì)的英國，但你遇見一個(gè)非常窮苦的人，你會認(rèn)為他“不走運(yùn)”，直接地說，那些不被幸運(yùn)之神眷顧的人。

阿蘭·德波頓

The problem is, if you really believe in a society where those who merit to get to the top, get to the top, you'll also, by implication, and in a far more nasty way, believe in a society where those who deserve to get to the bottom also get to the bottom and stay there. I nother words, your position in life comes to seem not accidental, but merited and deserved. And that makes failure seem much more crushing.

問題是，如果你打從心里相信，那些在社會頂層的人都是精英，同時(shí)你也暗示著，以一種殘忍的方法，相信那些在社會底層的人，天生就該在社會底層，換句話說，你在社會的地位不是偶然，而都是你配得的，這種想法讓失敗變得更殘忍。

阿蘭·德波頓

Everybody, all politicians on Left and Right, agree that meritocracy is a great thing, and we should all be trying to make our societies really, really meritocratic. In other words -- what is a meritocratic society? A meritocratic society is one in which, if you've got talent and energy and skill, you will get to the top, nothing should hold you back. It's a beautiful idea.

現(xiàn)在，無論是左傾還是右傾的政治人物，都同意“功績主義”是個(gè)好事。我們應(yīng)該盡力讓我們的社會崇尚“功績主義”，換句話說，一個(gè)崇尚“功績主義”的社會是什么樣的呢？一個(gè)崇尚功績主義的社會相信，如果你有才能、精力和技術(shù)，你就會飛黃騰達(dá)，沒有什么能阻止你，這是個(gè)美好的想法。

阿蘭·德波頓

There's a real correlation between a society that tells people that they can do anything, and the existence of low self-esteem. So that's another way in which something quite positive can have a nasty kickback. There is another reason why we might be feeling more anxious --about our careers, about our status in the world today, than ever before. And it's, again, linked to something nice. And that nice thing is called meritocracy.

這兩者中間有著絕對的關(guān)聯(lián)，一個(gè)告訴人們他們無所不能的社會，和缺乏自信有著絕對的關(guān)聯(lián)。另一件好事也會帶來壞影響的例子，還有一些其它原因造成我們對事業(yè)，對我們在世上的地位感到前所未有的焦慮，再一次地，它也和好的概念有關(guān)，這個(gè)好概念叫做“功績主義”。

阿蘭·德波頓

The consequences of this problem make themselves felt in bookshops. When you go to a large bookshop and look at the self-help sections, as I sometimes do -- if you analyze self-help book sproduced in the world today, there are basically two kinds. The first kind tells you, "You can do it! You can make it! Anything's possible!" The other kind tells you how to cope with what we politely call "low self-esteem," or impolitely call, "feeling very bad about yourself."

我們可以從書店中感受到這些問題所造成的后果，當(dāng)你像我一樣到大型書店里的，自我?guī)椭鷷悺Ｈ绻惴治霈F(xiàn)在出版的這些自我?guī)椭悤鼈兓旧戏殖蓛煞N，第一種告訴你“你做得到！你能成功！沒有不可能！”另外一種則教導(dǎo)你如何處理，我們婉轉(zhuǎn)地稱呼為“缺乏自信”，或是直接了當(dāng)?shù)胤Q為“自我感覺極差”。

阿蘭·德波頓

It's probably as unlikely that you would nowadays become as rich and famous as Bill Gates, as it was unlikely in the17th century that you would accede to the ranks of the French aristocracy. But the point is, it doesn't feel that way. It's made to feel, by magazines and other media outlets, that if you've got energy, a few bright ideas about technology, a garage -- you, too, could start a major thing.

今日你變得像比爾-蓋茨一樣，有錢又出名的機(jī)會，大概就跟你在十七世紀(jì)，成為法國貴族一樣困難。但重點(diǎn)是，感覺卻差別很大。今日的雜志和其它媒體讓我們感覺，只要你有沖勁、對科技有一些新穎的想法，再加上一個(gè)車庫，你就可以踏上比爾的道路。

阿蘭·德波頓

The problem of modern society is it turns the whole world into a school. Everybody's wearing jeans, everybody's the same. And yet, they're not. So there's a spirit of equality combined with deep inequality, which can make for a very stressful situation.

今日社會的問題是，它把全世界變成了一個(gè)學(xué)校，每個(gè)人都穿著牛仔褲，每個(gè)人都一樣。但并非如此，當(dāng)生而平等的概念遇上現(xiàn)實(shí)中懸殊的不平等，巨大的壓力就出現(xiàn)了。

阿蘭·德波頓

She's simply too strange. We can't relate to her, she speaks in a funny way, she comes from an odd place. So we can't relate to her, and when you can't relate to somebody, you don't envy them. The closer two people are -- in age, in background, in the process of identification -- the more there's a danger of envy, which is incidentally why none of you should ever go to a school reunion, because there is no stronger reference point than people one was at school with.

她太怪了，我們無法想象自己與她扯上關(guān)系，她的語調(diào)令人發(fā)噱，來自一個(gè)奇怪的地方，我們與她毫無關(guān)聯(lián)。當(dāng)你認(rèn)為你與這個(gè)人毫無關(guān)聯(lián)時(shí)，你便不會嫉妒。越是兩個(gè)年齡、背景相近的人，越容易陷入嫉妒的苦海，所以千萬避免去參加同學(xué)會。因?yàn)闆]有比同學(xué)，更強(qiáng)烈的參照點(diǎn)了。

阿蘭·德波頓

Let me explain. I think it would be very unusual for anyone here, or anyone watching, to be envious of the Queen of England. Even though she is much richer than any of you are, and she's got a very large house, the reason why we don't envy her is because she's too weird.

這么說吧，我想在場的各位，或是觀看這個(gè)影片的眾位，很少有人會嫉妒英國女皇。雖然她比我們都更加富有，住在一個(gè)巨大的房子里，我們不會嫉妒她的原因是她太怪異了。

阿蘭·德波頓

Envy, it's a real taboo to mention envy, but if there's one dominant emotion in modern society, that is envy. And it's linked to the spirit of equality.

嫉妒在今日是一種禁忌話題，但這個(gè)社會上最普遍的感受，便是嫉妒。嫉妒來自生而平等的精神。

阿蘭·德波頓

We're told, from many sources, that any onecan achieve anything. We've done away with the caste system, we are now in a system where anyone can rise to any position they please. And it's a beautiful idea. Along with that is a kind of spirit of equality; we're all basically equal. There are no strictly defined hierarchies. There is one really big problem with this, and that problem is envy.

這個(gè)世界用許多方法告訴我們，我們無所不能，我們不再受限于階級，而是只要靠著努力就能攀上我們想到的高度。這是個(gè)美麗的理想，出于一種生而平等的精神，我們基本上是平等的，沒有任何明顯的階級存在。這造成了一個(gè)嚴(yán)重的問題，這個(gè)問題是嫉妒。

阿蘭·德波頓

There are other reasons --There are other reasons why it's perhaps harder now to feel calm than ever before. One of these, and it's paradoxical, because it's linked to something that's rather nice, is the hope we all have for our careers. Never before have expectations been so high about what human beings can achieve with their life span.

還有一些其他的理由，使得我們更難獲得平靜。這有些矛盾，因?yàn)閾碛凶约旱氖聵I(yè)，是一件不錯(cuò)的事，但同時(shí)，人們也從未對自己的短暫一生有過這么高的期待。