Name: 從歷史中汲取經驗教訓，創造更美好的未來 | Roman Krznaric | TED (Lessons From History for a Better Future | Roman Krznaric | TED)
Uploaded: 2025-03-19T03:57:39.000Z
Duration: 13 min 10 s

Imagine you're standing on the old, wooden Nihonbashi Bridge in the ancient Japanese city of Edo, now known as Tokyo.

想象一下，您正站在日本江戶古城（即現在的東京）古老的木製日本橋上。

It's around 1750 in the era of the Togugawa shoguns.

時間大約是 1750 年，即幕府時代。

People are chatting, laborers are pushing cartloads of rice, seafood traders are rushing across to the fish market.

人們在哈拉，工人們在推著一車車的大米，海鮮商販們正趕往對面的魚市。

Now, Edo wasn't just remarkable for being a huge city of over a million people, far larger than London or Paris at the time.

現在，江戶並不僅僅因為它是一座擁有超過一百萬人口的巨大城市，遠遠超過了當時的倫敦或巴黎。

It also operated what we would today call a circular economy, where almost everything was reused, repaired, repurposed, or recycled.

它還實行了我們今天所說的循環經濟，幾乎所有的東西都被重新使用、修復、再利用或回收。

So Japan's policy of not trading with the outside world led to shortages of precious resources like wood and cotton.

是以，日本不對外貿易的政策導致木材和棉花等珍貴資源短缺。

So a tradition of patchwork developed, known as boro, meaning tattered rags, where fragments of old cloth were sewn together into garments that were then passed on down the generations, just like the one I'm wearing, which is over 100 years old.

是以，一種拼布傳統逐漸形成，這種傳統被稱為 "Boro"，意為 "破布"，人們將舊布的碎片縫在一起，製成衣服，然後世代相傳，就像我身上這件衣服一樣，已經有 100 多年的歷史了。

A kimono might be used until the cloth began to wear out, then turned into pajamas, then cut up into nappies, then used as cleaning cloths, and finally burnt as fuel.

和服可能會一直用到布料開始磨損，然後變成睡衣，再切成尿布，然後用作清潔布，最後作為燃料燒掉。

Edo had over a thousand circular businesses, from collecting candle wax strippings to be remolded, to down-and-out samurai repairing old umbrellas.

江戶有上千種圓形生意，從收集燭蠟碎片進行重塑，到落魄武士修理舊雨傘，不一而足。

Trade is even paid for human waste, which was then sold as agricultural fertilizer.

甚至還用人類排洩物進行交易，然後將其作為農業肥料出售。

Strict timber rationing rules were also introduced to restore the nation's depleted old-growth forests.

此外，還出臺了嚴格的木材配給規則，以恢復全國枯竭的原始森林。

This was one of the world's first large-scale examples of a low-waste, low-carbon ecological civilization.

這是世界上最早的低廢、低碳生態文明的大規模範例之一。

Now, Edo Japan wasn't a utopia, having feudal and patriarchal inequalities.

現在，江戶日本並不是一個烏托邦，存在著封建和父權制的不平等。

Yet 300 years on, it offers hope that we can create economies today that are driven not by the chronic wastefulness and ecological blindness of consumer capitalism, but by a deep culture of sustainability.

然而，300 年後的今天，它為我們帶來了希望，那就是我們可以創造出不是由消費資本主義的長期浪費和生態盲目性驅動，而是由深厚的可持續發展文化驅動的經濟。

I mean, if we were to adopt the circular mindset of Edo-nomics, we'd rapidly phase out the sale of products like standard smartphones, which use over half the elements of the periodic table and are often discarded after less than three years, and instead, we'd introduce regenerative standards so that the only phones permitted for sale would use recycled materials and be modular by design, like with easily replaceable screens and batteries.

我的意思是，如果我們採用江戶經濟學的循環思維模式，我們就會迅速淘汰標準智能手機等產品的銷售，因為這些產品使用了元素週期表中一半以上的元素，而且通常不到三年就會被丟棄，取而代之的是，我們將引入再生標準，這樣，唯一允許銷售的手機將使用可回收材料，並採用模塊化設計，比如可輕鬆更換的螢幕和電池。

And like many other historical examples, such as the ancestral circular economy in pre-colonial Hawaii, Edo shows that it's possible to combine radical sustainability with cultural flourishing.

與許多其他歷史範例一樣，如前殖民時期夏威夷的祖傳循環經濟，江戶展示了將徹底的可持續發展與文化繁榮相結合的可能性。

It gave birth to the artworks of Hiroshige, to the poetry of Basho, and to a thriving culture of sumo wrestling.

這裡誕生了廣重的藝術作品、芭蕉的詩歌以及蓬勃發展的相撲文化。

我的意思是，有什麼理由不喜歡呢？

Now, why am I telling you about the economy of ancient Japan?

現在，我為什麼要告訴你古代日本的經濟？

Because it reveals how history is one of our most undervalued resources for thinking about the future of humanity.

因為它揭示了歷史是我們思考人類未來時最被低估的資源之一。

And we have vast amounts of the stuff to tap into.

I mean, we're in an age of polycrisis from a climate emergency to risks from AI and threats to democracy.

我的意思是，我們正處在一個多危機的時代，從氣候緊急狀況到人工智能的風險，再到對民主的威脅。

And history can help us navigate our way through the turbulence, acting as a counselor rather than as a clairvoyant.

歷史可以幫助我們穿越動盪，充當顧問而不是千里眼。

But, you know, with my background as a political scientist, I've become increasingly frustrated by the way that our politicians and policymakers remain trapped in the tyranny of the now, driven by the latest opinion poll or hoping that new technologies will come to our civilizational rescue.

但是，你知道，以我政治學家的背景，我對我們的政治家和決策者仍然受困於 "現在 "的暴政，被最新的民意調查所驅使，或者希望新技術能夠拯救我們的文明，越來越感到沮喪。

They are failing to see that in order to go forwards, we'd be wise to look backwards.

他們沒有看到，為了向前邁進，我們最好向後看。

Now, the idea of learning from history, what's sometimes called applied history, is far from new.

現在，以史為鑑的理念，有時也被稱為應用歷史，已經不是什麼新鮮事了。

You know, 200 years ago, the German writer Goethe declared, he who cannot draw on 3,000 years is living from hand to mouth.

要知道，200 年前，德國作家歌德曾宣稱："不能汲取三千年經驗的人，是在苟且偷生。

Now, typically, learning from history focuses on warnings, captured in the famous aphorism that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

現在，以史為鑑通常側重於警示，這體現在一句著名的格言中，即那些不能記住過去的人註定要重複過去。

Yet my research on the power of history for tomorrow reveals just how much inspiration can be found in positive examples of what's gone right, not only in cautionary tales of what's gone wrong.

然而，我對歷史對明天的力量的研究表明，在正確的正面例子中，而不僅僅是在錯誤的警示故事中，可以找到很多靈感。

Time and again, we have acted together, often against the odds and succeeded, to overcome crises and tackle injustices.

我們一次又一次地共同行動，往往在逆境中取得成功，戰勝危機，解決不公正問題。

So let me just offer you a couple more examples of where we can find hope in history out of the dozens I've explored by looking across the last millennia, which speak to the ecological dilemmas of our time.

是以，請允許我再舉幾個例子，說明我們可以從歷史中找到希望，而我在過去幾千年中已經探索了幾十個例子，這些例子說明了我們這個時代的生態困境。

Now, if I could travel back to any moment in the past, it would be to the Spanish city of Cordoba in around the year 1000, which was part of the Islamic kingdom of Al-Andalus, which ruled over the southern part of today's Spain.

現在，如果我能回到過去的任何時刻，那一定是 1000 年左右的西班牙城市科爾多瓦，它是伊斯蘭王國安達盧西亞的一部分，統治著今天西班牙的南部地區。

Now, what made Cordoba so extraordinary was that Muslims, Christians, and Jews managed to live side by side in relative harmony, in a period known as the convivencia, literally the coexistence, or the living together.

科爾多瓦的非凡之處在於，穆斯林、基督徒和猶太人能夠相對和諧地毗鄰共存，這一時期被稱為 "共存"（convivencia）時期，字面意思是 "共存 "或 "共同生活"。

And although there were everyday tensions and occasional outbreaks of violence, it was generally a time of cultural tolerance.

雖然日常關係緊張，偶爾也會爆發暴力事件，但總體而言，那是一個文化寬容的時代。

Now, Muslims and Christians played music together.

現在，穆斯林和基督徒一起演奏音樂。

Jews and Muslims might have a game of chess.

猶太人和穆斯林可以下一盤棋。

People mixed together in the public bathhouses and in the marketplaces, creating webs of economic relations.

人們在公共澡堂和集市上混雜在一起，形成了經濟關係網。

There's the story of Samuel Hanarid, a Jewish poet whose skills as an Arabic scribe enabled him to rise to become the prime minister of the Muslim ruler of Granada and even lead his military forces.

塞繆爾-哈納裡德是一位猶太詩人，他的阿拉伯文抄寫技巧使他得以晉升為格拉納達穆斯林統治者的首相，甚至上司他的軍隊。

Now, convivencia was built not just on the shared language of Arabic and on the freedom of religion permitted by Islamic law, but was crucially due to the daily interactions of urban life.

現在，convivencia 不僅建立在共同的阿拉伯語和伊斯蘭法律允許的宗教自由基礎上，更重要的是建立在城市生活的日常互動中。

You know, there was this recent study of 29 countries which showed that levels of intercultural tolerance rise rapidly with even small increases in the size of cities, which is precisely what Cordoba, a city of nearly half a million people, proved more than 1,000 years ago.

你知道，最近對 29 個國家進行的一項研究表明，隨著城市規模的擴大，文化間的寬容程度也會迅速提高，而科爾多瓦這座擁有近 50 萬人口的城市在 1000 多年前就證明了這一點。

I think there's a message here for our era of growing xenophobia and far-right nationalism, which is set to increase as the ecological crisis compels more and more people to migrate from their homelands.

我認為這對我們這個仇外心理和極右民族主義愈演愈烈的時代是一個啟示，隨著生態危機迫使越來越多的人背井離鄉，仇外心理和極右民族主義必將愈演愈烈。

History offers an antidote to the idea of an inevitable clash of civilizations, showing how it's possible for us to live together with difference in multicultural communities, forging what the 14th-century Islamic historian Ibn Khaldun called Asabiya, an Arabic term meaning collective solidarity or group feeling, which he believed was vital to prevent the breakdown of civilizations.

歷史為不可避免的文明衝突提供了一劑良藥，向我們展示瞭如何在多元文化社區中和而不同地共處，形成 14 世紀伊斯蘭曆史學家伊本-哈勒敦（Ibn Khaldun）所說的 "Asabiya"（阿拉伯語，意為集體團結或群體情感），他認為這對防止文明的崩潰至關重要。

And we can all nurture the invisible threads of Asabiya in our everyday lives.

我們都可以在日常生活中培育 Asabiya 的無形之線。

It can be as simple as, you know, having a conversation with a stranger once a week or joining a local sports team with players from diverse backgrounds.

這可以很簡單，比如每週與陌生人交談一次，或者加入一支由來自不同背景的球員組成的當地運動隊。

So, you know, we can see prospects for a different kind of economy in 18th-century Edo Japan and for cultural coexistence in medieval Islamic Spain.

是以，我們可以在 18 世紀的江戶日本看到另一種經濟的前景，在中世紀的伊斯蘭西班牙看到文化共存的前景。

But what about compelling our governments to take the urgent action required to overcome our continuing addiction to fossil fuels, which is driving us over perilous planetary tipping points?

但是，如何迫使我們的政府採取必要的緊急行動，克服我們對化石燃料的持續依賴，因為化石燃料正將我們推向危險的地球臨界點？

Well, history offers a very clear reason for radical hope, that disruptive movements can change the system.

歷史為激進的希望提供了一個非常明確的理由，即破壞性運動可以改變制度。

Let's journey back to the 1820s, when over 700,000 enslaved people were working on British-owned sugar plantations in the West Indies.

讓我們回到 19 世紀 20 年代，當時有 70 多萬人在英國擁有的西印度群島蔗糖種植園工作。

Now, at that time, many plantation owners and financiers made remarkably similar arguments to today's fossil fuel executives to defend their actions.

現在看來，當時許多種植園主和金融家為捍衛自己的行為而提出的論據與今天的化石燃料高管極為相似。

They admitted that slavery, like oil and gas production, was morally questionable.

他們承認，奴隸制與石油和天然氣生產一樣，在道德上是有問題的。

But they claimed that ending it too rapidly could easily lead to economic collapse.

但他們聲稱，結束得太快很容易導致經濟崩潰。

So instead, they argued that slavery should be phased out gradually over many decades.

是以，他們認為奴隸制應在幾十年內逐步取消。

Well, it's an excuse we hear repeatedly today from the fossil energy industry which displays the very same foot-dragging gradualism.

今天，我們從化石能源行業一再聽到這種藉口，而化石能源行業表現出的正是拖沓的漸進主義。

Now, the British abolition movement was organized in the Society for Mitigating and Gradually Abolishing the State of Slavery.

現在，英國廢奴運動的組織機構是 "緩和並逐步廢除奴隸制協會"（Society for Mitigating and Gradually Abolishing the State of Slavery）。

Its reformist strategy of lobbying politicians and publishing pamphlets was making little headway.

其遊說政治家和出版小冊子的改革戰略收效甚微。

The turning point came in 1831 in an act of disruption which sent shockwaves through Britain, the Jamaica Slave Revolt.

轉捩點出現在 1831 年，牙買加奴隸起義這一破壞行動在英國引起了震動。

More than 20,000 enslaved workers rose up in rebellion in Jamaica, setting fire to over 200 plantations.

2 萬多名被奴役工人在牙買加起義，放火燒燬了 200 多個種植園。

The revolt was brutally crushed, but it sent a wave of panic through the British establishment who concluded that if they didn't grant emancipation, then the whole colony might be lost.

起義被殘酷鎮壓，但卻給英國當權者帶來了恐慌，他們認為如果不給予解放，那麼整個殖民地都可能失去。

Multiple studies showed that the revolt tipped the scales in favor of abolition leading to the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833.

多項研究表明，這次起義使廢除奴隸制的天平傾向於 1833 年的《廢除奴隸制法案》。

In the absence of this disruptive radical flank movement, it might have taken decades longer for abolition to enter the statute books than if left in the hands of the reformist white elite.

如果沒有這場具有破壞性的激進側翼運動，廢除死刑可能要比由改良主義的白人精英掌握多花幾十年的時間才能成為法規。

Now, many people are quick to criticize today's radical nonviolent climate movements like Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil, but let's remember that they are part of long traditions of successful disruptive movements going back to the Jamaica rebels and to the suffragettes and the Indian independence movement and U.S. civil rights activists whose actions have helped amplify existing crises and catapulted them onto the political agenda.

現在，許多人很快就會責備如今激進的非暴力氣候運動，如 "滅絕反叛 "和 "停止石油"，但讓我們記住，這些運動是成功的破壞性運動悠久傳統的一部分，可以追溯到牙買加的反叛者、女權運動者、印度獨立運動和美國民權活動家，他們的行動幫助擴大了現有的危機，並將其推上了政治議程。

In doing so, they've often broken the rules and sometimes the law to create change when all other pathways were blocked.

在此過程中，他們經常打破常規，有時甚至打破法律，在所有其他途徑都受阻的情況下創造變革。

The great tragedy is that while disruptive figures like Emmeline Pankhurst and Martin Luther King Jr. are now celebrated in our children's school history textbooks, their modern equivalents in today's ecological movements are frequently demonized by the press and criminalized by the police.

最大的悲劇在於，當艾米琳-潘克赫斯特和小馬丁-路德-金等破壞性人物如今在我們孩子的學校歷史教科書中受到讚頌時，他們在當今生態運動中的現代對應人物卻經常被媒體妖魔化，被警察定為罪犯。

我是說，我們什麼都沒學到嗎？

I mean, personally, I'm not a natural disruptor and prefer sitting in old libraries reading books, but because of what I've discovered in those libraries about the power of disruptive movements, I have found myself lying on the street, blocking the road with my teenage daughter in front of London's parliament, exasperated by the government's glacial pace of action on the climate crisis.

我的意思是，就我個人而言，我並不是一個天生的破壞者，我更喜歡坐在古老的圖書館裡看書，但由於我在這些圖書館裡發現了破壞性運動的力量，我發現自己躺在大街上，和我十幾歲的女兒一起堵在倫敦議會前的路上，對政府在氣候危機問題上遲緩的行動步伐感到氣憤。

I realize that it annoys commuters, but our inaction is going to infuriate future generations even more.

我知道這讓通勤者很惱火，但我們的不作為會讓子孫後代更加惱火。

I can't think of a better way to be a good ancestor.

我想不出有什麼更好的辦法來當一個好祖先了。

I mean, it's too late and too reckless to leave this crisis to simmer on the low flame of gradualism.

我的意思是，讓這場危機在漸進主義的低溫下醞釀，已經太晚了，也太魯莽了。

You know, I'm not optimistic about the prospects for the human species.

你知道，我對人類的前景並不樂觀。

I believe that humanity is currently on a pathway towards ecological and technological self-termination.

我認為，人類目前正走在生態和技術自我終結的道路上。

But history gives me genuine hope that it doesn't have to be this way.

但歷史給了我真正的希望，希望事情不一定非得如此。

The past is full of inspiring possibilities that must guide us today.

過去充滿了鼓舞人心的可能性，我們今天必須以此為指導。

So we always act as if change is possible.

是以，我們總是表現得好像變革是可能的。

Because from what I've seen, it just might be.

因為就我所見，可能就是這樣。

If our civilization is going to bend rather than break as we face the turbulence of the coming decades, we need to develop what I call temporal intelligence, the capacity to think on multiple time horizons, both forwards and backwards.

面對未來幾十年的動盪，如果我們的文明要彎曲而不是斷裂，我們就需要發展我所說的時間智能，即在多個時間跨度上思考問題的能力，包括向前和向後。

Now, of course, history has always been used and abused by those in power.

當然，歷史總是被當權者利用和濫用。

So we need to be wary of gross distortions and rosy romanticism and treat the past with care.

是以，我們需要警惕粗暴的歪曲和美好的浪漫主義，謹慎對待過去。

How might we do so and develop our temporal intelligence?

我們如何才能做到這一點並發展我們的時間智能？

Well, if schools taught applied history, then children might know how ancient Japanese sustainability practices could help reshape today's world.

好吧，如果學校教授應用歷史，那麼孩子們可能會知道日本古代的可持續發展實踐如何有助於重塑當今世界。

Or what if governments created not just foresight units, but backsight units, which systematically learn from the history of public policy?

或者，如果政府不僅設立前瞻部門，還設立後視部門，系統地從公共政策的歷史中汲取經驗教訓，又會怎樣呢？

And wouldn't it be fascinating to visit a History for Tomorrow museum, which explores how history can help us confront 21st century challenges from the ecological crisis to the risks of AI and genetic engineering?

參觀 "明日曆史 "博物館，探討歷史如何幫助我們應對 21 世紀的挑戰，從生態危機到人工智能和基因工程的風險，豈不令人神往？

I mean, as we journey towards tomorrow, let us be guided by the Maori proverb, I walk backwards into the future with my eyes fixed on the past.

我的意思是，在我們邁向明天的時候，讓我們以毛利諺語為指導：我倒退著走向未來，眼睛卻盯著過去。

In fact, I invite you all to repeat it out loud after me in Maori.

事實上，我請大家跟著我用毛利語大聲重複一遍。

So here we go, as loud as you can, me first.