In cultural mining, the practical sides of culture are carefully extracted, cleaned, blasted and remolded,

在文化挖掘中，文化的實用層面會被小心地提取、去蕪存菁、抨擊以及改造，

and then used to manufacture the mental tools that we need to navigate contemporary life.

然後用於製造我們航行於現代生活必備的精神工具。

It's been a historic problem that hugely valuable cultural insights have often been lodged within highly unappealing material far below ground.

那是個歷史性的問題，有些極具價值的文化見解，經常與不起眼的素材被埋藏在不見天日的地底。

It's been dark and cramped in the corridors of culture and hardly anyone other than certain accredited experts have been tempted to visit.

這條文化長廊一直是黑暗而促狹的，除了經認可的專家，很少會有人冒著風險去探究。

The material has been like metal in all, entirely impractical in its raw state.

這個素材就像金屬一般，在原始狀態下是完全不切實際的。

For culture to be useful to us it needs to go through a process of refinement.

為了使文化對我們有用，它需要經歷一個提煉的過程，

You have to separate cultural insight from a lot of surrounding material.

你必須將文化見解從周遭的物質中分離出來。

Like in gold mining, only a very small portion of what had originally been dug out will ever be usable to make the finished precious item that our society needs: good ideas.

就像採金一樣，我們挖出來的東西，只有很小一部分可以用來製造我們社會需要的精品：一些好想法。

It's around this process of refinement that the big difference between the school of life and standard universities becomes apparent.

在這提煉過程，人生學校與標準大學之間的差異逐漸明顯。

We're very grateful to these universities for digging the mine shards and keeping open the tunnels, but we have a different project.

我們十分感謝這些大學持續挖掘文化寶礦，並保持開放這條進入寶山的隧道，但我們有不同的計畫。

We're interested in the extraction and utilisation of the material on the surface rather than its preservation and interpretation below ground.

我們只對要如何在地面上提煉、利用這些素材感興趣，並非要如何在地底下保存、詮釋它們。

The idea of cultural mining is new and still feels a little weird, but it has a critical role to play in our world,

文化挖掘的概念還很新，也有點不可思議，但它在我們的世界扮演重要的角色，

because at present lots of people don't, sadly, believe that culture has anything much to offer them.

因為目前許多人，很遺憾地，不相信文化可以提供他們什麼東西。

This isn't their fault of course.

當然錯不在繼承資產的人，

When you look at the raw material form in which culture is generally laid out before us, no wonder most people don't bother, but that's a huge pity.

當你看著來自更早以前的原始素材，難怪許多人不感興趣，但那十分可惜。

We've started doing the mining deep in the cultural ground to help us meet the multiple confusions and anxieties of our own times.

我們已經開始對文化背景更深入挖掘，幫助我們去應對當前的各種混亂與焦慮。