評論
打印
What are some practical habits of hope?
希望的一些實際習慣是什么?
Everyone has to find their own way. It could be participating in politics or joining a protest movement or practicing religion. Certainly, in Chicago, where I live, black churches are a center of hope for the community. My synagogue is social justice–oriented—the idea being that each person can do something for the community; we have gardens and produce fresh produce for the poor.
每個人都必須找到自己的方式。可以是參與政治、參加抗議運動或宗教活動。當然，在我居住的芝加哥，黑人教堂是社區的希望中心。我的猶太教堂以社會公正為導向，理念是每個人都能為社區做事情；我們有花園，為窮人生產新鮮農產品。
A big constant is the arts, which are tremendous schools of hope. Whatever the work is, even if it’s really grim, artists get us to examine the insides of people in a way that isn’t filled with disgust, that leads us to a deeper understanding.
一個很大的定數是藝術，這是極好的希望學校。無論作品是什么，即使真的很殘酷，藝術家也讓我們審視人內心的方式不充滿厭惡，引導我們理解得更深。
I’m about to teach a course on Arthur Miller’s play Death of a Salesman. It’s a terrifying play about America and the destruction of the American dream, but it opens up something in our own community and in people that we might not have understood. Artists have a vision of humans as capacious; they don’t view people as tools, and that attitude promotes habits of hope.
我將教授阿瑟·米勒的戲劇《推銷員之死》。這是一部關于美國和美國夢破滅的恐怖劇，但它在我們自己的社區和人群中打開了一些我們之前可能不理解的東西。藝術家們認為人類是廣闊的；他們不把人看作工具，這種態度促進了希望的習慣。
But so does philosophy. The liberal arts education is such a great school of citizenship because it has the imaginative part, as well as the Socratic part. Socratic philosophy gets you to a model of rational, respectful debate. If you’re in a philosophy class, you’re not going to be yelling at somebody; you’re going to be dissecting their argument and trying to figure out what the premises are, whether the premises lead to the conclusion and, if not, what went wrong. You get into the habit of rational, respectful deliberations, and that is an important practice of hope.
而哲學也是如此。博雅教育之所以是一所偉大的公民學校，是因為它既包含蘇格拉底式的教育，也有想象力的教育。蘇格拉底哲學把你帶到一個理性的，尊重的辯論模式。如果你在上哲學課，你不會對別人大喊大叫；你要剖析他們的論點，試圖找出前提是什么，前提是否能引出結論，如果不能，錯在哪里。你會養成理性、尊重他人的思考習慣，這是希望的重要實踐。
You talk of rational debate. How do we get back to that?
你談到了理性辯論。我們再談談這一點吧?
I am currently developing a new course, Conflicting Theories of Justice and Law, for students who are polarized. I want to give them a safe space to argue together. They’ll be presented with conservative, libertarian, liberal and more radical theories, and then they can ask themselves where they fit into the debate. That is one of the most hopeful things of all—a classroom where people who differ greatly can talk with friendship and civility across tremendous divides.
我目前正在為兩極分化的學生開設一門新課程，《正義與法律的沖突理論》。我想給他們一個安全的空間一起辯論。他們將面對保守主義、自由主義、自由主義和更激進的理論，然后他們可以捫心自問，自己在這場辯論中處于什么位置。這是最讓人充滿希望的事情之一——在一個教室里，不同的人可以跨越巨大的鴻溝，以友誼和禮貌進行交談。
I will be co-teaching it with conservative colleagues, and that’s important because it might get students to choose a course they wouldn’t think of taking. They often vote with their feet, and they polarize themselves. Our law school is unique among the major law schools because we have the largest proportion of very conservative religious students. If you are Mormon or evangelical Christian, you will not be marginalized or vilified the way you might be at Harvard or Yale.
我將和保守的同事們共同教授這門課，這很重要，因為這可能會讓學生們選擇他們想不到的課程。他們經常用腳投票，使自己兩極化。我們的法學院在各大法學院中獨樹一幟，因為我們非常保守的宗教學生比例最大。如果你是摩門教徒或福音派基督徒，那么你不會像在哈佛或耶魯那樣被邊緣化或受到詆毀。
Any last thoughts on overcoming cynicism or apathy during these difficult times?
在這艱難的時代，最后再談談克服憤世嫉俗或冷漠的想法吧？
I think we should honor people, like Cicero, who take risks, who are willing to get involved and who are not overly self-protective. Politics is difficult and painful, and the people who get in there and do it with good grace and joy—it’s one of the most important things anyone can do.
我認為我們應該尊重西塞羅這樣的人，他們敢于冒險，愿意參與其中，而且不會過度自我保護。政治是困難和痛苦的，而那些進入政治并以優雅和快樂的態度去做它的人——做了任何人都能做的最重要的事情之一。
To me, the cynical response is totally unappealing. The ancient Cynics are very different from what’s meant by cynicism today, which is thinking everything is worthless. If you think, as I do, that this is the only life you’ve got—well, if that’s not worthwhile, what is? The world has so much in it that is wonderful and beautiful—people, nature, animals. I hope that young people, in particular, do what they can to preserve the planet. It needs a lot of work if we’re going to hang on.
對我來說，這種憤世嫉俗的反應完全沒有吸引力。古代的犬儒主義者與今天的犬儒主義者大不相同，他們認為一切都是毫無價值的。如果你像我一樣，認為這是你唯一的生活——好吧，如果這不值得，那又有什么意義呢? 世界上有那么多美好和美麗的東西——人、自然、動物。我尤其希望年輕人盡其所能保護地球。如果我們要堅持下去，還有很長的路要走。
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