Name: 【TED】特蕾莎-貝揚：禮貌是一種恥辱嗎？(Is civility a sham? | Teresa Bejan) (【TED】Teresa Bejan: Is civility a sham? (Is civility a sham? | Teresa Bejan))
Uploaded: 2021-01-14T08:00:28.000Z
Duration: 13 min 54 s

This talk contains mature language Viewer discretion is advised

譯者: Lilian Chiu 審譯者: Melody Tang

[本演說內容含有成人用語， 觀者請自行斟著。]

I'm here because I wrote a book about civility,

我來這裡，因為我寫了一本 關於舉止要有禮貌的書，

right around the 2016 American presidential election,

I started getting lots of invitations to come and talk about civility

剛好是 2016 年 美國總統大選前後，

and why we need more of it in American politics.

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。

The only problem was that I had written that book about civility

because I was convinced that civility is ...

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……

Now, that may sound like a highly uncivil thing to say,

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，

and studying the long history of civility and religious tolerance

以及在研究十七世紀 禮貌和宗教包容間的漫長歷史時，

I came to discover that there is a virtue of civility,

我漸漸發現舉止有禮是有優點的，

and far from being bullshit, it's actually absolutely essential,

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，

so societies like this one, that promise not only to protect diversity

but also the heated and sometimes even hateful disagreements

還要保護激昂甚至帶著仇恨的歧見，

that "disagreeable" is a synonym for "unpleasant."

和「不愉快」是同義詞是有理由的。

As the English philosopher Thomas Hobbes pointed out

英國哲學家湯瑪斯·霍布斯指出，

that's because the mere act of disagreement is offensive.

「不同意」這件行為本身就是冒犯。

And Hobbes is still right. It works like this:

霍布斯仍然是對的， 它的運作方式如下：

而我是對的，因為我永遠是對的，

how am I to make sense of the fact that you are so very, very wrong?

我要如何理解你錯得 非常非常離譜的這個事實？

It couldn't possibly be that you've just come to a different conclusion

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，

No, you must be up to something, you must be stupid,

你一定很笨、很頑固、有利害關係。

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，

So the mere fact of your disagreeing with me

不只意味著你在侮辱我的觀點， 也是在侮辱我的智慧。

is implicitly an insult not only to my views, but to my intelligence, too.

And things only get worse when the disagreements at stake

剛好是我們都認為是 很根本的議題上，

are the ones that we somehow consider to be fundamental,

不論是和我們的世界觀 或身分認同有關。

whether to our worldviews or to our identities.

You know the kinds of disagreement I mean.

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，

or increasingly, the politics of popular culture, at the dinner table,

這些都是大家真的 會產生嚴重歧見的議題，

these are the things that people really, seriously disagree about,

而他們在爭議中一定會以 自己的看法來反駁他們的對手。

and they define themselves against their opponents in the controversy.

But of course those fundamental disagreements

正是包容的社會——如美國—— 提議要包容的歧見，

are precisely the ones that tolerant societies

這可能就說明了為什麼， 至少在歷史上，

like the United States propose to tolerate,

包容的社會一直都不是 你有時候會聽說的

which perhaps explains why, historically, at least,

tolerant societies haven't been the happy-clappy communities of difference

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。

No, they tend to be places where people have to hold their noses

and rub along together despite their mutual contempt.

與美國的宗教包容時所學到的。

That's what I learned from studying religious tolerance

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。

And I also learned that the virtue that makes

that un-murderous coexistence, if you will, possible,

因為客氣有禮讓我們的歧見 變成可寬容的，

because civility makes our disagreements tolerable

so that we can share a life together even if we don't share a faith --

現今，大部分的人在談禮貌時——

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.

所以，如果客氣有禮這種美德 能讓包容歧見成為可能，

So if civility is the virtue that makes it possible to tolerate disagreement

使我們能真正和我們的對手接觸，

so that we can actually engage with our opponents,

seems to be mainly a strategy of disengagement.

它有一點像是 在比賽時不如你預期時，

It's a little bit like threatening to take your ball and go home

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。

is that it's always the sin of our opponents.

我們的健忘症似乎就會突然發作，

well, we seem to develop sudden-onset amnesia,

or we can always justify it as an appropriate response

說這是對於我們對手 最近一次惡行的妥當回應。

to the latest outrage from our opponents.

所以，「如果一個人打算 要摧毀我所支持的一切，

So, "How can I be civil to someone who is set out to destroy

Also convenient is the fact that most of today's big civility talkers

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，

when it comes to what they think civility actually entails.

We're told that civility is simply a synonym for respect,

我們聽到的是， 客氣有禮就是尊重、

but at the same time, it's clear that to accuse someone of incivility

但同時，很顯然， 指控一個人很粗魯，

is much, much worse than calling them impolite,

because to be uncivil is to be potentially intolerable

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。

So to call someone uncivil, to accuse them of incivility,

所以，若說一個人不文明， 指控他很失禮粗魯，

is a way of communicating that they are somehow beyond the pale,

that they're not worth engaging with at all.

他們在某種層面上是社會所不容的，

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【TED】特蕾莎-貝揚：禮貌是一種恥辱嗎？(Is civility a sham? | Teresa Bejan) (【TED】Teresa Bejan: Is civility a sham? (Is civility a sham? | Teresa Bejan))

eventually

strategy

crisis

tend