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【卫报】大卫·布鲁克斯：不一样的高见

Lineker于2011-05-25 13:15:09翻译 | 已有2235人浏览 | 有7人评论

大卫·布鲁克斯的社会论只是将两百年前英国启蒙思想家们的观点再重复一遍，那为什么现代英国政治家们会对这位《纽约时报》专栏作家的新书如此趋之若鹜呢？

David Brooks: 'You have to get beyond treating people as rational machines who respond to the economic incentives.’ Photograph: David Levene for the Guardian 大卫·布鲁克斯：“把人视为会对经济刺激作出反应的理性机器？现在看来我们必须要跳出这个思维框框。”摄影：David Levene/卫报

When David Brooks was a boy, he had two turtles named Gladstone and Disraeli.How come? “There's a New York Jewish culture that has a saying 'Think Yiddish, act British',” says Brooks.“My background was filled with Anglophile Jews.Jews of a certain generation, really my grandfathers' generation, gave each other names they thought would help them fit in – Irving, Sydney, Milton and Norman – and now in the US those are not English names any more, they're Jewish names.And I was brought up in that culture.Hence the turtles.” 孩提时代的大卫·布鲁克斯（David Brooks）曾养了两只乌龟，分别取名为格莱斯顿（Gladstone）和迪斯累利（Disraeli）。为什么会取这样的名字？“纽约的犹太人文化中流传着这样一句谚语‘像犹太人一样去思考，像英国人一样去表现’，”布鲁克斯说。“我是在亲英派的犹太人群体中间成长起来的。有些犹太人，尤其是我祖父那一辈，特别喜欢取一些能帮助他们融入这种文化的名字，如欧文、悉尼、米尔顿和诺曼之类，现如今在美国，这些名字早已不再是英式的了，它们变成了犹太式。我就是在这种文化中长大的，所以我会给乌龟取那样的名字。”

Hence much more than that.Brooks, though a 49-year-old Canadian-born, suburban New York-raised, Chicago university-educated and now so much of a stellar New York Times columnist that the White House sometimes rings him to ask what he's planning to write about, is deeply Anglophilic.事实上，名字只是一个小小的细节问题而已。今年49岁的布鲁克斯在加拿大出生，成长于纽约郊区，毕业于芝加哥大学，现在是《纽约时报》明星级的专栏作家，他的名气大到白宫有时候都会打电话来询问他打算写点什么，这样一位牛人，骨子里却是个亲英派。

“I am very British in that I'm reticent.There's a survey of how many times people in different countries touch each other during an hour over coffee.In Rio it was 180, in Paris 120.London, zero.” How about new York? “Maybe 40? I feel very at home here.” We're sitting in the Cinnamon Club, an Indian restaurant in Westminster frequented by policy wonks, and he looks more diffident than the only Englishman at our table.I resist the counter-cultural urge to play footsie.“沉默寡言是我非常英国化的一面。有人曾对不同国家的人在喝一个小时咖啡的过程中会触碰对方多少次进行过调查，结果表明，里约180次，巴黎120次，而伦敦是零次。”纽约呢？“也许会有40次吧？这里让我很有亲切感。”谈话间我们正坐在威斯敏斯特的肉桂俱乐部（Cinnamon Club），政治人士很爱光临这家印度餐馆。布鲁克斯看起来比我这个正统的英国人还要更内敛一些。我本来想一反常态的活跃下气氛，但最终还是作罢。

But what's important about Brooks is not so much that he acts British, but that he thinks British.His new book, The Social Animal: A Story of How Succe Happens, is steeped in the anti-rationalist philosophical reflections of the British Enlightenment.And this is no ordinary book: even before publication this week it has become, according to Times columnist Rachel Sylvester, “the must-read text for politicians searching for a new prism through which to examine the apparently intractable challenges of social immobility, school dropout rates, welfare dependency and crime”.Education secretary Michael Gove believes it contains vital clues for turning around failing schools;universities minister David Willetts reckons it may help define modern Conservatism;policy minister Oliver Letwin thinks it articulates the cherished Tory notion of the Big Society.The book is so hot that both David Cameron and Ed Miliband are meeting Brooks this week, and Steve Hilton, the PM's top strategist, has invited him to hold a seminar at No 10 on Friday.行为处事只是一个方面而已，关键在于，布鲁克斯也会以英式思维去思考问题。他的新书《社会性动物：成功如何来临的故事》（The Social Animal: A Story of How Succe Happens）充满了英国启蒙运动中反理性主义式的哲学思辨。这不是一本普通读物，用《泰晤士报》专栏作家蕾切尔·西尔维斯特（Rachel Sylvester）的话来说，甚至在本周公开出版之前，它就已经成为“那些正在寻求新视角来审视社会稳定、学校辍学率、福利依赖和犯罪等棘手难题的政治家们的必读教材”。英国内阁教育大臣迈克尔·戈夫（Michael Gove）认为布鲁克斯的这本新书暗含了扭转失败教育的关键线索；大学事务大臣戴维·威利茨（David Willetts）则推测它可能有助于对现代保守主义进行定义；而在内阁事务大臣奥利弗·莱特文（Oliver Letwin）看来，这本书清晰的阐明了保守党人士所珍视的“大社会（Big Society）”概念。此外，这本大热读物还惊动了大卫·卡梅隆和爱德·米利班德（Ed Miliband），二人拟于本周会见布鲁克斯，而首相的首席战略师斯蒂夫·希尔顿（Steve Hilton）也邀请布鲁克斯周五前去首相官邸举办一场专题研讨会。Brooks hails British rather than French Enlightenment thinkers as the guys who really understood what makes the social animal tick.While Voltaire, Condorcet and Descartes used reason to confront superstition and feudalism, thinkers acro the Channel – Brooks cites Burke, Hume and Adam Smith – thought it unwise to trust reason.Rather, and here Brooks quotes Hume with approval: “Reason is and ought to be the slave of the paions.” 这本更像是布鲁克斯献给英国启蒙思想家们的致敬之作，因为他们真正理解了激发社会性人类的源动力。相比伏尔泰、孔多塞和笛卡尔这些利用理性去直面迷信和封建主义的法国启蒙思想者们，海峡对面的思想家，如布鲁克斯在书中所提及的伯克、休谟以及亚当·斯密，则认为信任理性是不明智的行为。布鲁克斯甚至甚为激赏的引用了一句休谟的名言：“理性是并且应该是情感的奴隶。”

Why is The Social Animal so important if it just dusts off old thoughts of Brits from 200-plus years ago? First, Brooks argues misplaced faith in human rationality has underpinned policy-making for too long.Second, research in neuroscience, behavioural economics and psychology streing the importance of our non-rational minds can, if applied, create a better world.如果只是将英国人在两百多年前的古老思想再回顾一遍的话，那《社会性动物》也不会拥有如此之大的影响力。究其原因主要有两点，首先，布鲁克斯在书中论证了长期以来对人类理性的盲目迷信一直在支撑政策制定；其次，他认为，神经科学、行为经济学和心理学都强调了人类非理性思维的重要性，如果这些学科领域的研究成果被运用得当，将会创造出一个更美好的世界。

Brooks says that, overwhelmingly, human decision-making is not rational but unconscious.Much of the book's pleasure consists in reading digests of experiments(such as international differences in the incidence of touching during coffee)that show how non-rational we are and yet how succeful the social animal when breaking free of mere rational decision-making.The style and substance will be familiar to readers of pop psychology bestsellers such as Malcolm Gladwell's Blink or Jonah Lehrer's Proust Was a Neuroscientist: for Brooks the unconscious isn't a seething Freudian netherworld of sexual urges, but where we make the key decisions of our lives – whom to date and marry, how to vote.布鲁克斯表示，人类的决策过程并非是理性的，而是彻头彻尾的下意识。书中实验方面的摘录（如喝咖啡期间触碰几率的国别差异）读来相当有趣，这些实验展示了人类根深蒂固的非理性，以及当摆脱了纯粹理性决策的束缚后，作为社会性动物的人类又获得了怎样的成功。对于那些顶级心理学畅销书如马尔科姆·格拉德威尔（Malcolm Gladwell）的《眨眼之间》（Blink）或乔纳·莱勒（Jonah Lehrer）的《普鲁斯特是个神经学家》（Proust Was a Neuroscientist）的读者来说，布鲁克斯书中的分析手法和援引案例毫无陌生感，在他眼中，潜意识并不是什么弗洛伊德式的热辣性欲世界，而是我们用来进行日常重大决策——和谁约会、和谁结婚以及如何投票——的平凡之所。

Most succe stories stre academic ability, IQ, hard work, he argues.Brooks rather strees non-cognitive skills, which, he writes, is “the catch-all category for hidden qualities that can't be easily measured, but which in real life lead to happine and fulfilment.” “By that I mean emotions, intuitions, genetic inheritance.Soft stuff, which is pretty rich given that my wife thinks I'm insufficiently touchy feely.” 大部分的成功案例喜欢强调学术能力、情感以及努力工作等等因素，但布鲁克斯看重的则是非认知方面的技能，他在书中写到，非认知技能是“隐藏品质的全方位归总，这些隐藏的品质无法被轻易衡量，但在现实生活中却总能带来幸福和成就。”“在我看来，隐藏品质就是指情感、直觉、遗传这些看不见摸不着的东西，为什么我妻子会觉得我不够肉麻，关键问题就出在这些品质上。”

And what are these mysterious non-cognitive skills? Good character(energy, honesty, dependability, recognising your weaknees and controlling your worst impulses).He also mentions “street smarts”, by which he means reading situations and people, often unconsciously, and developing human relationships.He thinks these skills can be honed.到底这些神秘的非认知技能该如何定义？布鲁克斯认为可以归结为良好的品质（积极向上、正直诚实、稳定可靠、能正视自己的缺点并能控制自己的不良冲动）。此外，他还提及了所谓的“街头智慧（street smarts）”，即下意识的审势度人，建立人际关系。布鲁克斯觉得这些技能是可以磨练出来的。

He gives examples of policy-making without non-cognitive street smarts.“When we invaded Iraq we were blind to the social problems that would be involved.We didn't realise they didn't trust us.” Hold on – didn't he write a New York Times column urging invasion? “I did.I was so blind about it.In that column I wondered what Michael Oakeshott [the British conservative political philosopher] would have said.He would have said: this society is very complicated and you should be circumspect in thinking about what you can achieve, and that invading to install democracy without trust is doomed.And then I wrote: 'Having said that, I think we should invade.'” 他在书中列举了几个不带有非认知性街头智慧的决策案例。“在入侵伊拉克的时候，我们对涉及的社会问题视而不见。我们没有料到伊拉克人已经不信任我们了。”先打断一下——布鲁克斯不是在一篇《纽约时报》的专栏文章中敦促入侵伊拉克吗？“我是这样写过。我当时完全没搞清楚状况。在那篇文章里我想知道如果迈克尔·奥克肖特（Michael Oakeshott：英国保守派政治哲学家）面对这种状况会说些什么。他会说：这个社会异常复杂，要达成既定目标，你得考虑周全，建立无法取信于人的民主制度，这样的入侵行动注定是要失败的。之后我就写到：‘当然话虽这样说，但我认为我们还是应该入侵伊拉克。’”

Another example is the banking crisis, which, he reckons, happened because we trusted bankers.“Many thought we should let these rational wealth-seekers get on with it.We shouldn't.” 另外一个例证是银行危机，布鲁克斯认为之所以会发生这样的危机，是由于我们信任银行家的缘故。“很多人认为我们应该这些理性的财富攫取者们继续干下去。这种观点大错特错。”

The Social Animal's thesis is expreed through the form of a novel.He creates a couple, Harold and Erika, he from a rich background, she from a broken family in a disorganised neighbourhood, and traces them through their formative years, marriage, careers, retirement and death.The book has become a US bestseller and is worth reading – even if with mounting exasperation – since it seems to promise answers to some of western society's deepest problems: how to generate social mobility and reform a non-society devoid of mutual trust and bristling with security cameras.《社会性动物》一书的论点是通过小说的形式来表达的。布鲁克斯在书中虚构了一对夫妇哈罗德和艾瑞卡，丈夫来自大富人家，妻子则是出生于混乱街区的破裂家庭，作者追溯了两人的性格形成期、婚姻、职业、退休乃至终老。这本在美国已经位列畅销书的《社会性动物》的确值得一读，也许有人会越读越恼火，但它可能有助于解决西方社会中某些积重难返的顽疾，例如如何形成社会流动性、改革反社会的缺乏互信以及隐私保护问题。

No wonder leading Tories welcome Brooks.He is to the Big Society agenda what Richard Layard was to Labour's happine philosophy and Richard Sennett was to Blair's respect agenda.“The Big Society appeals to me because I don't think appealing to people as individuals gets you far.Many social problems are caused by insufficient social capital.Kids are brought up in broken homes and crime-ridden neighbourhoods;they don't go to university because they're not attached to their schools...to solve these problems you need to build dense social networks.You have to get beyond treating people as rational machines who respond to the economic incentives.” 难怪保守党的头头脑脑们会如此欢迎布鲁克斯。他之于大社会理念就如同理查德·莱亚德（Richard Layard）之于工党的幸福哲学，理查德·塞尼特（Richard Sennett）之于布莱尔政府的尊重议题。“大社会理念很吸引我，因为在我看来，在个体问题上过于纠缠会让人觉得索然无味。很多社会问题都是由于社会资本不足而导致的。在破裂家庭和犯罪街区长大成人的孩子因为中断学业而上不了大学......为了解决这些问题，你必须得建立广泛覆盖的社会网络。把人视为会对经济刺激作出反应的理性机器？现在看来我们必须要跳出这个思维框框。” 1 Brooks thinks his book, written with the US in mind, speaks to British problems.He quotes the jeremiads of self-styled Red Tory Phillip Blond about Britain having become a bipolar nation in which a bureaucratic, centralised state presides over a fragmented, disempowered and isolated citizenry.“I get to where Blond is by arguing that there have been two individualist revolutions.Conservatives embraced the individualism of the market and reacted furiously if the state impinged on individual economic choice.” Brooks writes that one consequence of this is chains such as Walmart closing local shops, destroying networks of community those shops created.布鲁克斯认为他的新书是以美国思维方式写就的，讲述的却是英国问题。他引述了自封为红色托利党人的菲利普·布兰德（Phillip Blond）的哀叹之辞，布兰德认为英国已经成为两极分化的国家，一个垄断且集中化的政权掌管着一个无组织无权势彼此孤立的公民社会。“通过论证有两类个人主义革命的存在，我最终了解了布兰德的立场。保守派拥护市场个人主义，如果国家侵犯了个人的经济选择权利，他们会暴跳如雷。“布鲁克斯在书中表示，这种链式扩张的后果，就如同沃尔玛挤垮本地商场并摧毁因商场而起的社区网络。

”There's also a liberal revolution in the moral sphere that says the state shouldn't impinge on choices about marriage, family structure, the role of women.That liberal revolution also took religion out of the public square.Together these revolutions undermine communal trust and law and order.“ It also, he writes in the Social Animal, led to welfare policies that ”enabled lonely young girls to give birth out of wedlock, thus decimating the habits and rituals that led to intact families“.“还有一种道德层面的自由主义革命，说的是国家不应该侵犯婚姻、家庭结构和女性角色这些个人选择问题。这种自由主义革命也将宗教带离了公共领域。这些革命结合在一起会渐渐破坏公共互信、法律和秩序。”自由主义革命催生的福利政策“会导致孑然一身的年轻女孩未婚先孕，原本有助于形成完整家庭的习惯和礼仪被统统扼杀。” Perhaps the fact that you're a self-described socialist will appeal to Ed Miliband, I suggest to Brooks.”Yes, but my socialism doesn't value state over society.It favours a more communitarian style of politics.The point is to ensure that people from different claes feel united in a common enterprise.When I meet Ed Miliband, I might ask if my kind of socialism appeals, or if he's stuck with the old one.“ 我向布鲁克斯建议说，也许他自我标榜为社会主义者的事实会吸引爱德·米利班德。“可能吧，但我的社会主义观并不会将国家凌驾于社会之上，它更偏向是一种社群主义的政治类型。关键在于确保来自不同阶层的人们能够团结在一个共同体中。和爱德·米利班德会面时，我或许会问问他这种社会主义观是否具有吸引力，还是说他痴迷于旧式社会主义而无法自拔。”

My hunch is that Brooks's socialism would make Miliband queasy.In the book, he eulogises charter schools – schools that get public money but are granted autonomy from state control in exchange for producing certain results, notably targeting kids from tough backgrounds.Erika, his character from a tough background, manages to get to just such a school established by a billionaire hedge fund trader.我有预感，布鲁克斯的新式社会主义可能会让米利班德感觉极度不适应。在《社会性动物》一书，布鲁克斯还对特许学校（charter schools）送上了溢美之词，特许学校依赖公共资金，拥有国家监督的自治权，作为交换，它必须在教育上——尤其是针对背景复杂儿童的教育上作出自己应有的贡献。书中的女主角艾瑞卡正是出身于复杂背景，她在一所由对冲基金交易商建立的特许学校中完成了学业。

But aren't charter schools anti-egalitarian, don't they stop people from different claes feeling united in a common enterprise? ”These schools are unequal, but in an unequal society you need that.Poor kids need different things from schools than rich kids because they often don't have the structure in their homes or neighbourhoods to give them a chance of succe and most schools don't help with that.“ 但是特许学校不是反平均主义的吗？它们不是会让来自不同阶层的人们无法团结在一个共同体中吗？“这样的学校的确是不平等的，但在一个不平等的社会中你需要这样的学校。和富人孩子相比，穷人孩子需要从学校中学到不同的东西，因为他们的家庭或街区结构通常不会赋予他们成功机遇，大部分的学校亦无法改善这种局面。”

Isn't there a risk that decentralisation undermines your socialism? ”Yeah.What I want to say to David Cameron is that if you decentralise power you risk getting rid of a basic level of fairne and equality.And you risk creating separate communities that don't talk to each other.“ Brooks cites Guardian columnist Polly Toynbee who on Tuesday rounded on Eric Pickles's localism bill.”It was a good article because it argued that when budget deficits are cut the poor are at greater risk.Not that I'm saying cutting the deficit is wrong;it's right, but it needs not to fall on the poorest hardest.“ 这样的分治举措会不会破坏布鲁克斯的社会主义观？“是啊。这也是我想对大卫·卡梅隆说的，权力分散不仅会让你丢掉基本层面的公正与平等，而且还会创造出彼此无法交流的孤立社区来。”布鲁克斯还提及了《卫报》专栏作家波莉·汤恩比（Polly Toynbee）周二发表的一篇文章，在这篇文章里，汤恩比对埃里克·皮克尔斯（Eric Pickles）的地方主义法案进行了批驳。“这是一篇很好的文章，它论证了当财政赤字被削减时，穷人担当的风险更大。当然，我不是说削减财政赤字是错误的；这种做法完全正确，但它不能落入让最穷的人承受最重打击的陷阱之中。”

Brooks tells me he is a fan of Anthony Trollope, something not admitted by a public figure since John Major.He recently gave a talk to New York's Trollope Society about the novel The American Senator.”In it the senator scorns British political institutions, arguing they're absurd and irrational.The Lords? Ridiculous.But what Trollope felt when he ridicules that senator, and what I share, is a belief in institutions to achieve communal goals and how wrong it is to try to impose rationalistic models on existence.“ 布鲁克斯还告诉我说自己是安东尼·特罗洛普（Anthony Trollope）的崇拜者，如果我没记错的话，自约翰·梅杰（John Major）之后，好像就没什么社会名人说过类似的话了。布鲁克斯最近还在纽约的特罗洛普学会就小说《美国参议员》（The American Senator）发表了一次演说。“在书中，参议员藐视了英国的政治体系，他认为这种体系是荒诞不理性的。上议院？荒谬。在奚落这位参议员时，我能切身感受到特罗洛普对能达成公共目标之体系的信任之情，以及对公众强加理性的隐忧。”

How un-American.Brooks reminds me of a reverse Jonathan Freedland.While Freedland's book Bring Home the Revolution argued the egalitarian ideas of American revolution should be imported to reform Britain's insufficiently rational polity, Brooks seems to be arguing that it doesn't matter that Britain's political institutions aren't rational, just that they need to be infused with more communal spirit and funky-sounding streets smarts.Whether that's a meage Britain wants to hear is another matter.彻头彻尾的非美国式。在我看来，布鲁克斯完全是乔纳森·弗里德兰（Jonathan Freedland）的对立面。弗里德兰在《革命带回家》（Bring Home the Revolution）认为，美国革命中的平等理念应该被输入英国，以改良理性不足的英国政体。但在布鲁克斯眼中，英国政治体系的不理性不足为惧，更多的社群精神和听起来有些不入流的街头智慧才是应该灌输到英国政体中的关键特性。兼听则明，偏听则暗，不管布鲁克斯的理念是对是错，听听总没坏处。• The Social Animal is published by Short Books, £14.99.To order a copy for £11.99 with free UK p&p, go to guardian.co.uk/bookshop or call 0330 333 6846.• 布鲁克斯的《社会性动物》已由Short Books出版社出版，定价为14.99英镑。Ten years of brain food 十年之精神食粮

Patrick Kingsley on the influential books of the past decade 《卫报》作家帕特里克·金斯利（Patrick Kingsley）开出的近十年来颇具影响力的书目榜单 The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell, 2000 《引爆流行》，马尔科姆·格拉德威尔（The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell），2000年

Why did crime drop so dramatically in New York during the mid-1990s? And how does a book by a relatively unknown journalist end up as an international bestseller? In an age before Facebook and Twitter, New Yorker writer Gladwell explored how social oddities move so suddenly from obscurity to popularity.为什么上世纪九十年代纽约的犯罪率会急剧下降？一位相对默默无闻的记者如何写出了一本在全世界热卖的畅销书？在Facebook和Twitter出现之前的时代中，《纽约客》作家格拉德威尔探究了一些社会怪癖是怎样从小众时尚一跃成为流行风向标。

No Logo, Naomi Klein, 2000 《颠覆品牌全球统治》，娜奥米·克莱恩（No Logo, Naomi Klein），2000年

Published in the aftermath of the 1999 Seattle riots, No Logo attacked the unethical practices of large brands and corporations, and tapped into the consciousne of a growing anti-globalisation movement.1999年的西雅图骚乱余波未了，2000年娜奥米·克莱恩的《颠覆品牌全球统治》一书随即应运而生，该书抨击了大品牌和大公司不道德的商业实践活动，同时激发了反全球化运动的快速觉醒。Freakonomics, Steven D Levitt and Stephen J Dubner, 2005 《魔鬼经济学》，史蒂文·莱维特和史蒂芬·杜伯纳（Freakonomics, Steven D Levitt and Stephen J Dubner），2005年 The work of an economist(Levitt)and a writer(Dubner), Freakonomics used economic theory and data to explain social phenomena.Gladwellian in approach, their book neverthele disagreed with some of The Tipping Point's conclusions.一位经济学家（莱维特）和一位作家（杜伯纳）联袂之作，《魔鬼经济学》利用经济学理论和数据来解释各种社会现象。虽然运用的是格拉德威尔式的分析方式，但却得出了与《引爆流行》不太相符的一些结论。The Long Tail, Chris Anderson, 2006 《长尾理论》，克里斯·安德森（The Long Tail, Chris Anderson），2006年

Globalisation may have created a fairly homogenous consumer market, but alternative culture still has a future – or so argued Anderson, the editor-in-chief of Wired.There is, he wrote, a ”long tail“ of niche products that collectively attract a great deal of consumer interest.全球化也许会催生出完全同质化的消费者市场，但非主流文化依然前途光明——这是《连线》主编安德森的言之凿凿。在他看来，“长尾效应”导致小众商品也能吸引大量消费者的关注。The Black Swan, Naim Nicholas Taleb, 2007 《黑天鹅》，纳西姆·尼古拉斯·塔勒布（The Black Swan, Naim Nicholas Taleb），2007年

While contemporary ideologues tried to rationalise the unexplained with statistics, philosopher Taleb said such accounts could work only in hindsight, and would not help predict future surprises(what he terms ”Black Swan events“).He advocates building a society that can limit the damage of Black Swan events once they inevitably occur.当当代理论家们忙着利用统计信息理性解释未知谜题时，哲学家塔勒布却表示，这只是后见之明，无助于预言未来不测（他将其称之“黑天鹅事件”）。他主张构建这样一个社会：一旦黑天鹅事件不可避免的发生，它能限制其造成的损失。

The Terror Dream, Susan Faludi, 2007 《恐怖之梦》，苏珊·法露迪（The Terror Dream, Susan Faludi），2007年 In The Terror Dream, journalist and feminist Faludi analysed America's psychological reaction to the 9/11 attacks.She argued that in fracturing the myth of American invincibility, the attacks also indirectly prompted a resurgence in patriarchal ideals, and a return to old-fashioned perceptions of gender.在《恐怖之梦》中，记者兼女权主义者苏珊·法露迪分析了美国人对9/11袭击事件的心理反应。她认为伴随着美国无敌神话的破灭，袭击事件同时也间接催生了父权理念的复兴和旧式性别观念的回归。Here Comes Everybody, Clay Shirky, 2008 《未来是湿的》，克莱·舍基（Here Comes Everybody, Clay Shirky），2008年

Here Comes Everybody showed how the web had democratised group interaction.Shirky, a theatre director turned internet evangelist, claimed communal websites such as Wikipedia made traditional institutions redundant, and predicted that bloggers would soon usurp mainstream news outlets as distributors of information.《未来是湿的》一书展示了互联网如何使得团队互动变得民主化。作者克莱·舍基是从戏剧导演转行的互联网作家，他宣称公共网页如维基百科令一些传统机构变得多余起来，并预言博客很快就会篡夺主流新闻媒体手中的信息分配权。

The Spirit Level, Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, 2009 《幸福的水平》，理查德·威尔金森和凯特·皮科特（The Spirit Level, Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett），2009年 Written in the midst of the financial crisis, The Spirit Level attempted to show how countries with wide income disparities tended to face more social problems – more crime, more violence, more drug abuse, worse education, and le social mobility.《幸福的水平》成书于金融危机之中，它试图向读者展示那些收入悬殊的国家是怎样一步步陷入更为糟糕的社会难题之中，这些社会问题包括犯罪和暴力事件频发、毒品泛滥、教育水平低下以及社会流动性不足。The Idea of Justice, Amartya Sen, 2009 《正义观》，阿玛蒂亚·森（The Idea of Justice, Amartya Sen），2009年

A revision of John Rawls's A Theory of Justice, Sen's book suggested that social justice is not a binary concept, but exists instead on a sliding scale.It inspired significant internal debate within New Labour – James Purnell and Liam Byrne were fans;Jon Cruddas was le convinced.堪称是约翰·罗尔斯《正义论》（John Rawls's A Theory of Justice）的修订本，阿玛蒂亚·森在书中旗帜鲜明的提出了社会正义并不一个二元概念，而是替代递减规律的实质性存在。《正义观》一书曾在新工党内部引发了激烈争论——詹姆斯·波内尔（James Purnell）和利亚姆·伯恩（Liam Byrne）支持书中的观点；而乔·克鲁达斯（Jon Cruddas）则不太认同。

Delusions of Gender, Cordelia Fine, 2010 《性别错觉》，科迪莉亚·法恩（Delusions of Gender, Cordelia Fine），2010年

For years, books such as Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus peddled the belief that there are major neurological differences between men and women.In Delusions of Gender, Fine, an Australian psychologist and academic, suggested differences in behaviour between men and women have social rather than genetic causes.近些年来，诸如《男人来自火星，女人来自金星》这类的书籍一直在兜售这样一种理念：男人和女人之间存在很多神经学方面的差异。但在《性别错觉》一书中，来自澳大利亚的心理学家兼学者科迪莉亚·法恩告诉我们，是社会而非遗传因素导致了男性与女性之间的行为差异。

David Brooks: 'You have to get beyond treating people as rational machines who respond to the economic incentives.’ Photograph: David Levene for the Guardian When David Brooks was a boy, he had two turtles named Gladstone and Disraeli.How come? ”There's a New York Jewish culture that has a saying 'Think Yiddish, act British',“ says Brooks.”My background was filled with Anglophile Jews.Jews of a certain generation, really my grandfathers' generation, gave each other names they thought would help them fit in – Irving, Sydney, Milton and Norman – and now in the US those are not English names any more, they're Jewish names.And I was brought up in that culture.Hence the turtles.“ Hence much more than that.Brooks, though a 49-year-old Canadian-born, suburban New York-raised, Chicago university-educated and now so much of a stellar New York Times columnist that the White House sometimes rings him to ask what he's planning to write about, is deeply Anglophilic.”I am very British in that I'm reticent.There's a survey of how many times people in different countries touch each other during an hour over coffee.In Rio it was 180, in Paris 120.London, zero.“ How about new York? ”Maybe 40? I feel very at home here.“ We're sitting in the Cinnamon Club, an Indian restaurant in Westminster frequented by policy wonks, and he looks more diffident than the only Englishman at our table.I resist the counter-cultural urge to play footsie.But what's important about Brooks is not so much that he acts British, but that he thinks British.His new book, The Social Animal: A Story of How Succe Happens, is steeped in the anti-rationalist philosophical reflections of the British Enlightenment.And this is no ordinary book: even before publication this week it has become, according to Times columnist Rachel Sylvester, ”the must-read text for politicians searching for a new prism through which to examine the apparently intractable challenges of social immobility, school dropout rates, welfare dependency and crime“.Education secretary Michael Gove believes it contains vital clues for turning around failing schools;universities minister David Willetts reckons it may help define modern Conservatism;policy minister Oliver Letwin thinks it articulates the cherished Tory notion of the Big Society.The book is so hot that both David Cameron and Ed Miliband are meeting Brooks this week, and Steve Hilton, the PM's top strategist, has invited him to hold a seminar at No 10 on Friday.Brooks hails British rather than French Enlightenment thinkers as the guys who really understood what makes the social animal tick.While Voltaire, Condorcet and Descartes used reason to confront superstition and feudalism, thinkers acro the Channel – Brooks cites Burke, Hume and Adam Smith – thought it unwise to trust reason.Rather, and here Brooks quotes Hume with approval: ”Reason is and ought to be the slave of the paions.“ Why is The Social Animal so important if it just dusts off old thoughts of Brits from 200-plus years ago? First, Brooks argues misplaced faith in human rationality has underpinned policy-making for too long.Second, research in neuroscience, behavioural economics and psychology streing the importance of our non-rational minds can, if applied, create a better world.Brooks says that, overwhelmingly, human decision-making is not rational but unconscious.Much of the book's pleasure consists in reading digests of experiments(such as international differences in the incidence of touching during coffee)that show how non-rational we are and yet how succeful the social animal when breaking free of mere rational decision-making.The style and substance will be familiar to readers of pop psychology bestsellers such as Malcolm Gladwell's Blink or Jonah Lehrer's Proust Was a Neuroscientist: for Brooks the unconscious isn't a seething Freudian netherworld of sexual urges, but where we make the key decisions of our lives – whom to date and marry, how to vote.Most succe stories stre academic ability, IQ, hard work, he argues.Brooks rather strees non-cognitive skills, which, he writes, is ”the catch-all category for hidden qualities that can't be easily measured, but which in real life lead to happine and fulfilment.“ ”By that I mean emotions, intuitions, genetic inheritance.Soft stuff, which is pretty rich given that my wife thinks I'm insufficiently touchy feely.“ And what are these mysterious non-cognitive skills? Good character(energy, honesty, dependability, recognising your weaknees and controlling your worst impulses).He also mentions ”street smarts“, by which he means reading situations and people, often unconsciously, and developing human relationships.He thinks these skills can be honed.He gives examples of policy-making without non-cognitive street smarts.”When we invaded Iraq we were blind to the social problems that would be involved.We didn't realise they didn't trust us.“ Hold on – didn't he write a New York Times column urging invasion? ”I did.I was so blind about it.In that column I wondered what Michael Oakeshott [the British conservative political philosopher] would have said.He would have said: this society is very complicated and you should be circumspect in thinking about what you can achieve, and that invading to install democracy without trust is doomed.And then I wrote: 'Having said that, I think we should invade.'“ Another example is the banking crisis, which, he reckons, happened because we trusted bankers.”Many thought we should let these rational wealth-seekers get on with it.We shouldn't.“ The Social Animal's thesis is expreed through the form of a novel.He creates a couple, Harold and Erika, he from a rich background, she from a broken family in a disorganised neighbourhood, and traces them through their formative years, marriage, careers, retirement and death.The book has become a US bestseller and is worth reading – even if with mounting exasperation – since it seems to promise answers to some of western society's deepest problems: how to generate social mobility and reform a non-society devoid of mutual trust and bristling with security cameras.No wonder leading Tories welcome Brooks.He is to the Big Society agenda what Richard Layard was to Labour's happine philosophy and Richard Sennett was to Blair's respect agenda.”The Big Society appeals to me because I don't think appealing to people as individuals gets you far.Many social problems are caused by insufficient social capital.Kids are brought up in broken homes and crime-ridden neighbourhoods;they don't go to university because they're not attached to their schools...to solve these problems you need to build dense social networks.You have to get beyond treating people as rational machines who respond to the economic incentives.“ Brooks thinks his book, written with the US in mind, speaks to British problems.He quotes the jeremiads of self-styled Red Tory Phillip Blond about Britain having become a bipolar nation in which a bureaucratic, centralised state presides over a fragmented, disempowered and isolated citizenry.”I get to where Blond is by arguing that there have been two individualist revolutions.Conservatives embraced the individualism of the market and reacted furiously if the state impinged on individual economic choice.“ Brooks writes that one consequence of this is chains such as Walmart closing local shops, destroying networks of community those shops created.”There's also a liberal revolution in the moral sphere that says the state shouldn't impinge on choices about marriage, family structure, the role of women.That liberal revolution also took religion out of the public square.Together these revolutions undermine communal trust and law and order.“ It also, he writes in the Social Animal, led to welfare policies that ”enabled lonely young girls to give birth out of wedlock, thus decimating the habits and rituals that led to intact families“.Perhaps the fact that you're a self-described socialist will appeal to Ed Miliband, I suggest to Brooks.”Yes, but my socialism doesn't value state over society.It favours a more communitarian style of politics.The point is to ensure that people from different claes feel united in a common enterprise.When I meet Ed Miliband, I might ask if my kind of socialism appeals, or if he's stuck with the old one.“ My hunch is that Brooks's socialism would make Miliband queasy.In the book, he eulogises charter schools – schools that get public money but are granted autonomy from state control in exchange for producing certain results, notably targeting kids from tough backgrounds.Erika, his character from a tough background, manages to get to just such a school established by a billionaire hedge fund trader.But aren't charter schools anti-egalitarian, don't they stop people from different claes feeling united in a common enterprise? ”These schools are unequal, but in an unequal society you need that.Poor kids need different things from schools than rich kids because they often don't have the structure in their homes or neighbourhoods to give them a chance of succe and most schools don't help with that.“ Isn't there a risk that decentralisation undermines your socialism? ”Yeah.What I want to say to David Cameron is that if you decentralise power you risk getting rid of a basic level of fairne and equality.And you risk creating separate communities that don't talk to each other.“ Brooks cites Guardian columnist Polly Toynbee who on Tuesday rounded on Eric Pickles's localism bill.”It was a good article because it argued that when budget deficits are cut the poor are at greater risk.Not that I'm saying cutting the deficit is wrong;it's right, but it needs not to fall on the poorest hardest.“ Brooks tells me he is a fan of Anthony Trollope, something not admitted by a public figure since John Major.He recently gave a talk to New York's Trollope Society about the novel The American Senator.”In it the senator scorns British political institutions, arguing they're absurd and irrational.The Lords? Ridiculous.But what Trollope felt when he ridicules that senator, and what I share, is a belief in institutions to achieve communal goals and how wrong it is to try to impose rationalistic models on existence.“ How un-American.Brooks reminds me of a reverse Jonathan Freedland.While Freedland's book Bring Home the Revolution argued the egalitarian ideas of American revolution should be imported to reform Britain's insufficiently rational polity, Brooks seems to be arguing that it doesn't matter that Britain's political institutions aren't rational, just that they need to be infused with more communal spirit and funky-sounding streets smarts.Whether that's a meage Britain wants to hear is another matter.• The Social Animal is published by Short Books, £14.99.To order a copy for £11.99 with free UK p&p, go to guardian.co.uk/bookshop or call 0330 333 6846.Ten years of brain foodPatrick Kingsley on the influential books of the past decade The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell, 2000 Why did crime drop so dramatically in New York during the mid-1990s? And how does a book by a relatively unknown journalist end up as an international bestseller? In an age before Facebook and Twitter, New Yorker writer Gladwell explored how social oddities move so suddenly from obscurity to popularity.No Logo, Naomi Klein, 2000 Published in the aftermath of the 1999 Seattle riots, No Logo attacked the unethical practices of large brands and corporations, and tapped into the consciousne of a growing anti-globalisation movement.Freakonomics, Steven D Levitt and Stephen J Dubner, 2005 The work of an economist(Levitt)and a writer(Dubner), Freakonomics used economic theory and data to explain social phenomena.Gladwellian in approach, their book neverthele disagreed with some of The Tipping Point's conclusions.The Long Tail, Chris Anderson, 2006 Globalisation may have created a fairly homogenous consumer market, but alternative culture still has a future – or so argued Anderson, the editor-in-chief of Wired.There is, he wrote, a ”long tail“ of niche products that collectively attract a great deal of consumer interest.The Black Swan, Naim Nicholas Taleb, 2007 While contemporary ideologues tried to rationalise the unexplained with statistics, philosopher Taleb said such accounts could work only in hindsight, and would not help predict future surprises(what he terms ”Black Swan events").He advocates building a society that can limit the damage of Black Swan events once they inevitably occur.The Terror Dream, Susan Faludi, 2007 In The Terror Dream, journalist and feminist Faludi analysed America's psychological reaction to the 9/11 attacks.She argued that in fracturing the myth of American invincibility, the attacks also indirectly prompted a resurgence in patriarchal ideals, and a return to old-fashioned perceptions of gender.Here Comes Everybody, Clay Shirky, 2008 Here Comes Everybody showed how the web had democratised group interaction.Shirky, a theatre director turned internet evangelist, claimed communal websites such as Wikipedia made traditional institutions redundant, and predicted that bloggers would soon usurp mainstream news outlets as distributors of information.The Spirit Level, Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, 2009 Written in the midst of the financial crisis, The Spirit Level attempted to show how countries with wide income disparities tended to face more social problems – more crime, more violence, more drug abuse, worse education, and le social mobility.The Idea of Justice, Amartya Sen, 2009 A revision of John Rawls's A Theory of Justice, Sen's book suggested that social justice is not a binary concept, but exists instead on a sliding scale.It inspired significant internal debate within New Labour – James Purnell and Liam Byrne were fans;Jon Cruddas was le convinced.Delusions of Gender, Cordelia Fine, 2010 For years, books such as Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus peddled the belief that there are major neurological differences between men and women.In Delusions of Gender, Fine, an Australian psychologist and academic, suggested differences in behaviour between men and women have social rather than genetic causes.美国女生必读的“非成功学”

http://news.cnxianzai.com 2012-06-15 02:04:20 来源：长江商报 评论

长江商报消息 本报讯（实习记者 刘雯）是否只有拥有高学历、高智商的人才能成功？是否只有成功才能带来幸福？我们都知道别人的成功无法复制，而这个社会的主要构成也并非幸运的天才，但成功学的书却依然盘踞在畅销书榜。也许大卫·布鲁克斯的《社会动物》会为你带来新的视野：非认知技能是给现实生活带来幸福和成就的关键技能，它是隐藏品质的全方位总归，其中包括情感、直觉、遗传这些看不见摸不着的东西。

今年49岁的大卫·布鲁克斯是《纽约时报》的专栏作家，作为一个敏锐的观察者，布鲁克斯长期关注个体的社会角色与行为，并用近30年的心理学研究所得著成了这本《社会动物》。该书英文版一上市，就成为了亚马逊畅销书排行榜的冠军，全球销量突破40万册，被翻译成20多种语言，被选为美国大学生必读的十本推荐书目之一。本月，该书中文版由中信出版社出版。

布鲁克斯彻底颠覆了以往成功学所描绘的成功：高学历、高智商、上流社会等，而是透过这些表面注意到了一些更深层次的东西。《社会动物》中描写了一个由普通走向成功的家庭，以这个家庭为例形象地阐述了作者的幸福观点，从心理学、生理学、政治学、经济学、行为学等学科综合分析，为我们活生生地展现了一个美国梦的实现。布鲁克斯明确表示：智商并不是成功的必要条件，作为一个“社会动物”，人类的决策过程并非是理性的，而是彻头彻尾的下意识。建立在庞大理论和数据基础上的纯粹的理性主义并不能帮助你做出正确的决策，反而可能会让你陷入盲目自信。成功是多种因素的聚合，具有很大的偶然性，而决定你成功的关键因素往往取决于你的潜意识。你的正确决定往往是一种灵感。简而言之，你可以复制比尔盖茨、乔布斯或克林顿的一切硬件，但你不能复制他们的情感和经历。

国内著名的积极心理学家汪冰这样评价本书：“我是谁？如何收获丰盛人生？当各种成功学大行其道，这本书却安静地颠覆了众人信奉的游戏规则，直指爱，情感，美德与直觉。30年的科学研究证明原来这些‘软实力’才是‘硬道理’，回归人类社会的存在规律才能收获个体生命的最大成就，因为我们都是社会动物。” 大卫·布鲁克斯：美国失业率居高不下 谁更痛苦

来源：21世纪网-《21世纪经济报道》 2010年02月22日09:21

金融危机令人厌恶。危机爆发之后，公共债务激增，国家拖欠债务，经济增长疲软，税收上升，失业现象历久犹存。

当前这场金融危机并无二致。美国必须创造1000万个新的就业机会，才仅仅能回归至2007年的失业水平。如今并无迹象显示，这一幕将很快出现，所以，我们将继续目睹高于8%的失业率。

男性遭受的影响最大。过去几十年来，在接受教育、获取技能方面，男性一直落后于女性。美国劳工统计局的资料显示，就22岁这个年龄看，从大学毕业的男性与女性的比例为100比185。此外，男性的工作集中在就业人数正在下降的产业（比如制造业），或周期性很强的产业（比如建筑业）。

所以，在这场危机期间，男性遭受的打击尤为严重。男性与女性的失业率差距已经到达了自政府开始记录这项数据以来的最高值。

在《大西洋月刊》一篇极具说服力的文章中，唐·派克（DonPeck）报道说，去年11月，在25岁至54岁这个年龄段的男性当中，差不多有五分之一的人没有工作，这是自劳工统计局于1948年开始统计这一数据以来的最高值。我们要么已经处于，要么即将抵达一个历史关口：女性就业的人数将首次超过男性。

年轻人受经济衰退的影响，也与其占总人口的份额不成比例。中学和大学毕业生正在迈入愁云密布的就业市场。在《大西洋月刊》的那篇文章中，派克汇集了针对衰退期进入职场的人的境遇所进行的学术研究成果。

在1981年的衰退期进入就业市场的大学毕业生所挣的薪酬，比经济繁荣期就业的大学生少25%。这种收入差距延续了数十年。在毕业17年之后，前者的收入比后者依然少10%。经济衰退期间就业的大学生一生的预期收入，可能要比他们更幸运的同伴少10万美元。

使用这些数据，可以很容易地推断出凄凉的文化后果。长期失业，是一个人所经受的最具毁灭性的体验之一，一些衡量尺度显示，这大致相当于配偶的死亡对人造成的打击。长期失业的男性更可能过度饮酒，更频繁地虐待自己的子女，他们的自我身份认知更易于遭受致命打击。处于失业状态的男性并非最合格的伴侣。因此，在失业率高企的区域中，结婚率往往陷于坍塌，而非婚生育率却并非如此。

与此同时，衰退期进入就业市场的年轻人的心理也会有所变化。他们在一生当中不大可能获得专业性工作，在之后的职业生涯中也不大可能转换工作，甚至也不打算追寻更好的机会。但也有不必过于绝望的理由。美国在1977年至1983年之间经历了滞涨和衰退，随后于80年代和90年代强势复苏。

这是因为人并非任由经济力量摆布的小卒。衰退考验社会资本。如果社会纽带牢固，国家可能会展现出令人惊讶的弹性。如果社会纽带脆弱，局面就会非常糟糕。美国之所以出色地经受住了“大萧条”的考验，正是拜牢固的家庭纽带和高企的社会信任度所赐。另一方面，后苏联时期的经济动荡之所以毁掉了俄罗斯经济，正是由于俄罗斯缺乏社会信任的缘故。

这次衰退暴露出了美国社会当中的弱点。数十年来，男性非常不适应服务型经济不断转变的要求。现在，他们正在付出代价。数十年来，工人阶层的社会结构一直在瓦解。现在，他们有坠入下层社会式的机能失调之中的危险。数十年来，年轻人一直生活在一个松散的、福利机构欠缺的世界中。现在，他们正纷纷返回家庭。

各地正在就如何从经济层面应对这场危机展开辩论，但社会方面的反应依然未成形。首先，我们需要重新定义阳刚之气，形成一种鼓励男孩留在学校，成年男性在服务业寻找工作的概念。福音派教会已做了大量工作，以展示充满男子汉气概的男性依然在培养。显然，我们还需要做更多事情，学校需要创造出更适宜男孩学习的环境。其二，反贫困项目一直把注意力集中在了内陆城市，但是，诸如宾夕法尼亚州中部以及密歇根州的农村地区这些工人阶层聚集的区域也非常脆弱。许多社会工作者不太喜欢在社会问题上持保守主义观点的区域工作，但如果工人阶层瓦解，那就要当心了。

第三，Facebook的确了不起，但当就业机会丧失，贫困逼近时，社交网站自身并不能创造出支持网络。必须有人向无社会联系的24岁的年轻人提供福利机构。

没有任何迹象表明，政府将灵活地修复这些社会缺口。或许要依赖社会企业家在危机中审视他们的优先事项。必须找到一种方式，用这个国家的闲置人才资源解决刚刚暴露的社会需要。