重播最多时刻：阿兰·德波顿 - 个人主义正让我们痛苦不堪！

你的话让我开始思考幸福这个概念——它究竟是我们这个物种天生就该追求的东西，还是我们现代人新近决定聚焦的目标？我们是否正在这种追逐中给自己制造巨大痛苦？或许我们的祖先根本不曾考虑过这些。如今我们满脑子想着自我实现，而他们可能更关心生存与繁衍。

You got me thinking about this concept of happiness as you're speaking and whether it's a natural thing for our species to be aiming at or whether it's a new, more modern thing that we've decided to focus upon. And are we causing ourselves immense distress in this pursuit of this thing that maybe our ancestors didn't didn't ever think about? This whole know, we think about self actualization and they were probably thinking about survival and reproduction more.

你看，这些都属于现代社会的悖论。现代文明显然带来了巨大优势，但也带来了我们应当清醒认识的特定复杂性。其中之一就是宗教的消亡——在世界上许多地方，我们仍属于最早尝试在没有宗教支撑下过好日子的几代人。想想宗教如何架构时间与人类经验吧。

Look, these all belong to the sort of paradoxes of modern times. Modern times have obviously brought us enormous advantages, but they've also brought us particular complexities that I think we'd be wise to to realize. One of them is the disappearance of religion. I mean, we are still among the first generations in many parts of the world to be, trying to live good lives without the support of religion. Think of our religion's structure time and human experience in time.

作为宗教信徒，你会立刻感到当下时刻远不如之前亿万年的历史重要，也不及之后延续的时光。此刻不过是时间长河中的微粒，而你只是宏大叙事中的片段。这种认知能即刻消解你的自我膨胀。可如今我们都想成为大人物，不是吗？

As a religious person, you immediately feel the present moment is not as important as a hundred, two hundred, two thousand million year history that has come before and that will continue after. The present moment is a speck in time, and and there's a whole narrative of which you're part of. That immediately diminishes you in scale. Now nowadays, all of us want to be rather large. Don't we want to be big big people?

我们渴望留下深刻印象。但可以说，这正是通往精神疾病的捷径——优雅接纳自己在宇宙中的渺小位置，才是通往平静和谐的大门。当人们说'酒店服务员让我觉得自己很渺小'，那是糟糕的渺小感；但存在良性的渺小感：比如捧起三千年前用异族语言写就的古籍。

We wanna make a big impression. But arguably, this is a fast route to mental illness because the graceful acceptance of your miniscule position in the cosmos is the gateway to calm and harmony. And when people say, I went into this hotel, the person made me feel small. That's the bad way of being made to feel small, but there's a good way of being made to feel small. Pick up an ancient text, read words that were written by someone in a foreign tongue three thousand years ago.

那会让你感到渺小。走进沙漠，观察岩石上铭刻的岁月痕迹，沙粒记载的时光长河——这会让你认清自己的位置。与动物相处也很有效，它们毫不在意你的社会地位、自我重要感或你精心编织的成功叙事。

That'll make you feel small. Go into the desert. Notice the the age of the rocks inscribed in you know, time inscribed in sand. That'll put you in your place. Spend time with an animal that has no concern for your status, your sense of importance, your foiled narrative of your own success.

这些令现代人发狂的执念，在古老的宗教领域都不存在。正如我所说，宗教告诉我们：你只是宏大故事的一部分。它们还揭示——多数信仰都强调——生命本质与你本人都存在缺陷。想想天主教的原罪论，虽然伴随诸多糟粕...

All these things that drive modern humans mad, these are not present in an older kind of religious sphere. And as I say, what religions do is they tell us you're part of a bigger story. They also tell us, many faiths tell us that life and you particular are imperfect. Think of Catholicism and its notion of original sin. Now, lots of lots of bad stuff associated with original sin.

我个人对其许多方面并不热衷，但让我们看看积极面：天主教宣称每个人都是破碎的，每个人都有缺陷——这其实是个很有助益的认知起点。

I'm not a huge fan of many aspects, but let's look at the good side. Right? What Catholicism tells us that everybody's broken. Everybody is flawed. It's quite a helpful starting point.

对吧？如果你想着'好吧，我有点缺陷，别人也是，大家都是'，那么我们都在尽力而为——这便打开了通往脆弱性与友谊的大门。

Right? Because if you think, well, alright, I'm a bit broken, but so is somebody else, so is somebody else. So we're all doing our best. That's the gateway to vulnerability, to friendship, if you like.

降低期待。

Lower expectations.

不仅是降低期待，更是与他人建立联结。你看，很多成功人士反而难以结交真朋友。为什么？因为他们把成功等同于无懈可击。

Lower expectations, but also to to connection with others. You know? So often people who become successful find it really hard to make friends. Why? Because they associate success with invulnerability.

他们越是成功，就越难承认关于人性的真相——我们所有人有时都只是无助的孩子，至少是受惊的无助孩童。保持与这种感受的联系已属不易，更遑论向他人坦承。因此，宗教再次巧妙地降低了我们对自身及世界的期待：我们不过是存在缺陷的凡人，完美世界存在于别处。

And the more successful they get, the harder it is for them to admit to the real truth about being human, which is that we're all helpless children, some of the time, at least frightened helpless children. And it becomes harder to make to keep up the contact with that, let alone admit that to somebody else. So, again, religions handily reduce our expectations and our sense of ourselves. We are merely flawed humans. There is a perfect world.

它不在比佛利山庄，不在新加坡或悉尼的豪华地段，它存在于另一个维度的世界。换言之，人间本质就是不完美的——这倒是个不错的认知起点。

It doesn't exist in Beverly Hills. It doesn't exist in the fancy parts of Singapore or Sydney. It exists up there in a in another world. In other words, the human realm is inherently imperfect. Quite a good starting point.

想象你约会时遇到的两种人。第一位告诉你：

I mean, even if you went on a date. Right? Imagine two characters you might go on a date with. Right? First one tells you, yeah.

'我近乎完美，且正追求彻底完美。'你会觉得：哇，真厉害——但也令人却步。另一位则说：'我有缺陷，但正在学习与缺陷共处，并探索如何认知和改善它们。'你会瞬间觉得：与这样的人相处可能更轻松。

I'm kinda perfect, and I'm achieve I'm aiming to achieve total perfection. Think, wow. Good for them, but slightly scary. Next is somebody else who goes, I'm kinda flawed, but I'm sort of managing my flaws, and I'm interested in how to get to know my flaws and work with them. Instantly one thinks, life might be easier around such a person.

追求完美会让日常生活变得异常艰难，而宗教恰好解决了这个问题：它让我们在神性眼中提升价值的同时，也坦然接受凡人的局限。这种认知让我们与自我达成和解。宗教还告诉我们：此生无法臻至完美。

There's there's something about the pursuit of perfection which makes day to day life extremely hard, and religions slightly by the by tick that box. They were able to reduce us in our own eyes while raising us in the eyes of a divine being. And that has helped us to have an easier relationship with ourselves. And the notion also was you cannot perfect this life. You know?

完美生命存在于彼岸世界——我们将在来世而非现世建立天国。这再次卸下了我们的重担。现代人总认为当下至关重要，此刻即是全部。

Life becomes perfect in another realm. We'll build Jerusalem somewhere else, not on this earth, in the next world. Again, it takes the pressure off us. We modens, we modern people, we think the present moment is supremely important. Now is important.

正在发生的一切都具有绝对意义，百年前或千年前皆不足道，当下成为唯一的时间尺度。你被要求追求完美——若存在不足，便是对完美理想的辜负。这同样令人窒息。

Everything that's going on right now is supremely important. Doesn't matter remember a hundred years ago or a thousand years ago, now is the only criteria of time. You are perfectible, right? So if there's something wrong with you, you're failing against an ideal of perfection. Again, very, very hard.

而最大的挑战在于：你被预设应当获得幸福。人类终极目标是快乐本身——不是成就伟业，不是为他人而活，而是个人幸福。这理念固然美好，却制造了无数困境。想想涂尔干：这位20世纪初的法国社会学家在其著作中对比古代与现代社会的差异时，

And that you are made, I mean, the biggest the biggest challenge of all, you're made to be happy as you suggested. That the true goal of every human is happiness, not fulfillment, not, the realization of a grand scheme, living for others, your own happiness. And again, it's a beautiful idea, but goodness me, does it cause problems? Goodness me. Think of Emile Durkheim, beginning of the twentieth century, French sociologist writes this book, contrasting the differences between ancient societies and modern societies.

发现一个惊人现象：相较于宗教主导的前现代农耕村落，技术驱动的现代都市社会虽充满机遇，却伴随着更高的自杀率。他在190年出版的《自杀论》中指出：现代社会的佼佼者往往最易走向自我毁灭。为什么？这成为现代社会学诞生的关键命题——

And he identifies one troubling difference between ancient societies, pre modern agricultural village based societies where religion plays a role, and modern urban technologically driven success oriented individualistic societies, and that's the suicide rate. He realizes in his book on suicide published in 1900 that modern societies for all their advantages leads their members of a share of their members often the most ambitious of their members to take their own lives. Why? What's going on? And this becomes well, it's the birth of modern sociology, really.

它深刻探讨了现代性对灵魂的冲击。我始终着迷于这个悖论：丰裕中的痛苦，进步中的倒退。这种矛盾令我无法释怀。

It's it becomes a major inquiry into what modern times does to the soul, and I'm deeply fascinated by that. I can't let that one go because what's this paradox? What's this paradox of suffering amidst plenty, of regress amidst progress? This fascinates me.

我与'平静抗争悲惨生活'组织的CEO西蒙·古林交谈过，他向我分享了一些关于自杀的统计数据。他说在英国每90分钟就有一人死于自杀，其中76%为男性，每一起自杀死亡背后有25次尝试。45岁男性最大的死亡原因是自杀，15至49岁人群最大的死亡原因也是自杀。19至35岁年龄段报告陷入危机的可能性是其他群体的两倍，而16至24岁是有自杀倾向增长最快的历史群体。最近，关于年轻女性与自杀倾向的讨论也大量涌现，这 unfortunately 是一个近期爆发的不幸趋势。

I spoke to the CEO of Calm Campaign Against Living Miserably, Simon Gulling, And he shared some stats with me about exactly what you're talking about, about suicide. He said someone dies by suicide in The UK every ninety minutes, seventy six percent are male, there's 25 attempts for every death. The single biggest cause of death for men 45 is suicide, single biggest cause of death for fifteen to forty nine year olds is suicide. That nineteen to thirty five year old category are twice as likely to report being in crisis than any other group and sixteen to twenty four is the fastest growing group in history to exhibit suicidality. And more recently, there's a big conversation emerging now around young women and suicidality, which is a fairly recent, unfortunately, exploding trend.

年轻女性出现自杀倾向的这一趋势。

This trend of young women now experiencing suicidality.

你看，人们不仅仅在情况糟糕时自杀。他们在情况糟糕且认为——这是个微妙点——认为这是自己的过错时自杀。他们无法将感受到的困境与强烈的责任感分离，而这种责任感又伴随着羞耻。这是怎么回事？当我说我们生活在一个个人主义的世界时，实际上意味着人们觉得自己掌控着自己的叙事，发生在他们身上的事紧密反映了他们是谁以及他们做了什么。

And look, people don't just commit suicide when things are bad. People commit suicide when things are bad and they think, it's a delicate point, they think it's their fault. They cannot disassociate the trouble they feel from an intense sense of responsibility, which then also entails shame. And what's going on there? You see, when I say that we live in an individualistic world, what that really means is we live in a world where people feel that they control their own narratives, that what happens to them is very tightly a reflection of who they are and what they've done.

而过去并非总是如此。在很长历史时期，人们并不必然被紧密绑定于他们生活的可见结果。比如金钱方面，古英语中穷人被称为‘不幸者’，对吧？

And this was not always the case. You see, for long periods of history, people were not necessarily tightly held to the observable outcomes of their lives. This happened with money, for example. In old English, a poor person was known as an unfortunate. Right?

让我们拆解‘不幸者’这个词。里面含有‘fortuna’这个词。‘Fortuna’是什么？对罗马人来说，Fortuna是幸运女神，命运女神。罗马人因此不断向命运女神献祭，作为一种表达‘这不是我的错’的方式。

What is an un let's unpack that word unfortunate. There's the word fortuna in there. What was fortuna? For the Romans, fortuna was the goddess of luck, the goddess of fortune. And the Romans were therefore all the time sacrificing things to the goddess of fortune as a way of saying, you know, please, you know, it's not me.

这是，你知道的，一种外部力量。如今这听起来完全怪异。我是说，在世界上最个人主义的国家美国，穷人被称为什么？这不是个好词。他们被称为‘失败者’。

It's, you know, this outside agency. Nowadays, this sounds completely weird. I mean, what do we call in the most individualistic country in the world, United States, what are poor people called? It's not a nice term. They're called losers.

对吧？你会说，那是个失败者。所以我们从‘不幸者’变成了‘失败者’。这是四百年的轨迹。这段时间发生的是一个关于谁该为人们的命运负责的故事。

Right? You say, that's a loser. So we've gone from unfortunate to loser. That's a trajectory of four hundred years. What's happened in that time is a story about who's responsible for people's fate.

如今，你知道，如果我对你说，史蒂文，我最近不太顺利。我刚被解雇。我的书卖得不好。但这不是我的错，我只是有点倒霉。你是个很好的人，但也是个现代人。

And nowadays, you know, if I said to you, Steven, things are not being so well for me. I I've just been sacked. You know, my my book haven't sold, you know, But it's not me. I've just had a bit of bad luck. You, very nice person, but a modern person.

你心里会想，你一定做错了什么。对吧？你会想，你一定有什么问题，因为这就是我们的思维方式。我们不给人运气的好处。对吧？

Side of you be thinking, you must have done something wrong. Right? You'd be thinking, you must have something wrong because that's how we think. We don't allow people the benefit of luck. Right?

同样，如果你对我说，哦，我的播客做得非常成功。我们现在有8,000百万百万亿。没错。你现在有多少？然后你对我说，哦，我只是有点好运。

Similarly, if you said to me, oh, you know, my podcast will be doing brilliantly. We've now got 8,000 million million billion. That's right. How many you got nowadays? And and you said and you said to me, oh, I just just bit of good luck.

对吧？我觉得，史蒂文真的很...你知道，他非常谦虚，但这并非事实。他有所作为。我们相信人们的行为会导致结果或失败。这就是为什么极端情况下人们会结束自己的生命——因为他们认为除了自己，没有其他原因能解释发生在自己身上的事。

Right? I think, oh, Steven's really you know, he's very modest, but, know, it's not true. He's done something. We believe that people do things and that that action leads to results or failures. And that's why people take their own lives because in extremists, people think there is nothing other than me to explain what happens to me.

当然，现实要复杂得多。我并非说这就是真相，但这是人们感知的真相。你看，我们生活在一个崇尚精英的世界里。'精英主义'这个词人人都在谈论。

Of course, the reality is much more complicated. I'm not saying that's the truth, but that is the perceived truth. You know, look, we live in a world that is meritocratic. Right? That word meritocracy is on everybody's lips.

纵观美国乃至全球的左右翼政客，所有人都想打造精英主义世界。有些人认为我们已经实现了。

If you put take politicians left and right in The United States, all over the world, everybody wants to create a world that is meritocratic. Some people think we've already got there.

这个词是什么意思？我不明白。

What does that word mean? I don't know.

精英主义是指——精英主义理念下的世界，人们的成就取决于自身才能，而非父母身份、社会腐败阶层或其他外在因素。左右翼政客都说要建立这样的世界：孩子各得其所，努力就有回报，人人都有成功机会。这种现代 rhetoric（说辞）听起来很棒，某种程度上确实是巨大进步。

Meritocratic is the concept of meritocracy is a world in which people's outcomes are dependent on their merit rather than on who their parents were, some corrupt class in society, the influence of whatever. So, you know, a left wing politician and a right wing politician say, we wanna make a meritocratic world where your kids will go to where they deserve, where if you work hard, you can get there, and, where everyone has a chance to succeed. You know that kind of rhetoric. It's the rhetoric of modern times. Now it sounds great and in many ways, it's an enormous advance.

但让我们聚焦其心理代价。若你坚信顶层人士理应位居顶层，就意味着底层者也活该身处底层。精英世界观将成败从偶然转化为必然命运，这让成功者变得冷酷——他们认为'我全靠自己，无需感谢他人，或许也不必缴太多税'。

But again, let's just focus on the psychological toll of that. Because if you really believe in a world in which those who get to the top deserve to get to the top, by implication, you are also positing the existence of a world in which those who are at the bottom deserve to be at the bottom. In other words, a meritocratic worldview turns success and failure from chance to a necessary fate, And that's why it makes the winners quite hard, potentially quite heartless because they're thinking, well, I got there on my own. Don't need to thank anybody. Might not need to pay many taxes.

为什么要缴税？而那些底层则被彻底压垮。我们创造了这种附带隐性代价的复杂意识形态。

Why pay taxes? It's fine. And similarly, those at the bottom are kind of crushed. So we've created this very complicated ideology where there's a hidden toll.

这变化就发生在近两代人之间吧？比如我母亲——虽然来自不同国家有不同传统——她年轻时在非洲，人们想要好运就会牵羊去巫医那里献祭。他们坚信命运由神明主宰。

And this has happened within a couple of generations, isn't it? Because I even think about my mother. She's from I know it's a different country and there's different traditions there. But even in my mother's generation, when she grew up in Africa, if they wanted good fortune, they would take their sheep, their animals and they would take it to the local witch doctor and basically offer a sacrifice. They'd obviously pray but they were they were so in the opinion that their outcomes were determined by a religious God of sorts.

即便后来她移居英国创业，思想也逐渐转变，就像你说的近乎'个人责任的诅咒'——她现在坚定认为结果与努力直接相关。我从没想过这种观念在心理层面可能有害。

And even her moving to The UK and starting businesses here, I think she's moved a little bit away from that thinking to the sort of as you kind of almost posit is, it's almost like the curse of personal responsibility or at least the the pitfalls of personal responsibility where she now definitely thinks that her outcomes are correlated to her hard work. And it's so interesting, I've never considered the fact that that could be bad for us on a psychological level.

当然，我们知道其积极面。我强调的是较少被讨论的部分。个人责任感固然好，但何时会压垮精神？谈到你母亲从农业社会过渡到现代都市——在前现代社会，人们初次见面会问'你来自哪里？'

Sure, because we know that there are good sides of it, of course we do. So I'm really pointing out something that is less often spoken about because we know the good sides. Of course, a world in which people take responsibility can be good, but at what moment does it crush the spirit? And, you know, talking about your mother and and, know, moving away from an agricultural society, a rural society to an urban modern individualistic society. You know, in many parts of the world, in in the old world, in the premodern world, when people met each other for the first time, they would say, where are you from?

你的祖先是谁？谁是你的父亲？谁是你的母亲？那曾是人们的身份标识。如今，当然如你所知，人们初次见面最先问的问题是什么？

Where are your ants who are your ancestors? Who who's your father? Who's your mother? That was people's identity. Nowadays, of course, as you know, what's the first question that anyone asks anyone?

你是做什么的？根据你如何回答这个问题，人们要么非常高兴见到你，要么会委婉地冷落你，让你独自待在角落无人问津。我们生活在一个——这个词听起来可能有点奇怪——我们生活在一个势利的世界里。‘势利’这个词常与某种古老的英国趣味联系在一起，比如那些拥有城堡或古老血统的人。

What do you And according to how you answer that question, people are either really pleased to see you or they kinda gently sideline you and you're left by the peanuts. And, you know, no one wants to talk to you. We live in a world, which could sound like an odd world word. We live in a world of snobs. Now the word snob is often associated with some kind of old English interest in, people with castles or, you know, ancient lineage.

但我指的不是这个。势利本质上就是根据一个人身份的某一方面（且仅此一方面）来评判他。比如你遇到一个服装势利者，你说你的夹克是从某处买的，他们会说：‘你不可能是个好人，因为你对时尚品味如此漠不关心。’

I don't mean that. Snobbery is really just any way of judging a human being according to one, but only one aspect of their whole identity. Right? So if you meet a cloth snob and you say, you know, my my my jump is from, you know, wherever, they'll go, you can't be a good person because you are so underinvested in your fashion taste. Right?

无论你的心灵多么纯洁，诗歌写得多么出色，只要衣服穿错了，那就是个服装势利者。现代社会中占主导地位的势利形式当然是职业势利。而反势利的典范，可以说就是你的母亲——那个理想的母亲形象。

Doesn't matter how pure your heart is or how great your poems are or whatever, look your clothes are wrong, so that's a clothes snob. Now the dominant form of snobbery in the modern world is of course job snobbery. And that's why, you know, the opposite of a snob is your mother. Your mother, as it were one's mother, the ideal mother. Right?

真正的母亲不在乎你的成就如何。她或许虚构地关心你是谁，但大多数人并不关心我们是谁，他们在意的是我们表现得如何。我们常被告知生活在一个物质至上的社会，世界如此物质主义。

The other mother doesn't care how you've performed. She's maybe fictive, caring about who you are, but most people do not care who we are. They care how we have performed. And so, you know, we're often told we live in such materialistic societies. The world's so materialistic.

人们说我们都在追逐金钱，但我认为我们真正追逐的是金钱在社会中带来的爱与尊重。我们将物质财富的拥有与荣誉和尊重的获得挂钩。但如果你换种方式，说可以通过持有塑料代币获得爱与尊重，人们同样会追逐那些塑料代币。

You know, we're all chasing money. I don't think we're actually chasing money. I think we're chasing the love and respect that money in our society brings. We have connected the possession of material goods with the possession of honor and respect. But, you know, if you if you rearrange it a different way and you said, you know, you could own a plastic, token and get love and respect, people would always want the plastic tokens.

我们想要的并非物质本身，而是情感回报。有时我们认为某些人非常贪婪，只知道购买更多东西和豪车。但下次你看到有人开法拉利时，别想‘这人真庸俗贪婪’，而要想‘这是个极度渴望被爱的人’。

It's not it's not the material goods we want. It's the emotional rewards, which actually, you know, sometimes we think people are very greedy. All they're doing is shopping for more things and buying fancy cars. But, you know, the next time you see a guy driving a Ferrari, don't think this guy's a greedy person. You know, he's so vulgar and greedy and Just think, this is somebody with a really intense need for love.

因为对物质的热切追求往往掩盖着某种更深刻的东西——那就是对爱与尊重的热切渴望。

Because often, the avid pursuit of material goods is really masking something much more poignant, which is the avid pursuit of love and respect.

我这辈子曾经历过这样的阶段——买遍路易威登、开路虎、住豪宅，那时我迫切想向某些人证明自己或获得认可。而如今我越有安全感，你越会看到我每天只穿全黑衣服、不戴手表、不开跑车，做决定时更注重实用性。

It was for my whole my whole life. I, you know, I bought all the Louis Vuitton Range Rover mansion, in that chapter of my life where I was really trying to prove something to someone or be accepted by someone, and that's why I got it. In fact, the more secure I've gotten myself, the more you'll see me every day just wearing all black, no watch, no sports car, and leaning towards utility in the decisions that I make.

这非常有趣。我认为这是个成长过程。我们并非说这些商品不该人人可得，关键在于：你对它们的需求是源于心理创伤还是真实愿望？若源于创伤，那就是问题，因为它无法治愈创伤。

That's so fascinating. And I think that is a journey. One doesn't want to say these goods shouldn't be available to everybody. Of course they can be available to everybody, but the question is, is your need for them coming from a wound or coming from a genuine desire? And when it comes from a wound, it's a problem because it's not going to solve the wound.

这就是问题所在。因为你要得到的爱，看起来就像名声一样。我总认为，成为好父母的一个明确标志是，你的孩子对成名毫无兴趣，因为名声试图填补的缺口，本应通过更亲密的人际联系来满足。但我们确实生活在一个对此无暇顾及的世界。因此，无论是在名声经济还是物质商品经济中，我们都创造了一个世界，人们被极大地激励着远离他们真正渴望的东西——被爱、被看见、被倾听，而陷入物质获取的漩涡。

That's the problem. Because the love that you're going to get look, it's like fame. I always think a sure sign of being a good parent is that your children have no interest in being famous because fame is trying to satisfy a gap that should ideally be satisfied through more intimate human connections. But we do live in a world which doesn't have much time for that. And so both in the sort of economy of fame and the economy of material goods, we've created a world where people are hugely incentivized to move away from what they really want, which is to be loved, to be seen, to be heard, and into a kind of vortex of material acquisition.

你刚才听到的是往期节目中被重播最多的片段。如果想收听完整内容，我已将链接放在下方。详情请查看描述。谢谢。

What you just listened to was a most replayed moment from a previous episode. If you want to listen to that full episode, I've linked it down below. Check the description. Thank you.