🎉 优绩主义如何撕裂了美国社会与精神秩序：一个保守派精英的忏悔

David Brooks: So I have a confession to make: I’m a member of the educated elite. My parents were historians of Victorian England. Our turtles when I was growing up were named Disraeli and Gladstone. The culture in our home was “think Yiddish, act British.” Very stiff upper lip. We showed no emotion.

大卫·布鲁克斯： 容我坦诚相告：我是个不折不扣的知识精英。我父母是研究维多利亚时代英国历史的学者。童年时养的两只乌龟都取名“迪斯雷利”和“格莱斯顿”[1]。我家奉行“犹太智慧，英国做派”的家训，永远保持刻板的上流社会做派。

And then when I was seven, I read a book called _ Paddington the Bear _ and decided I wanted to become a writer. And that was central to my identity ever since in high school, which you call like fourth form or something like that. I wanted to date a woman named Bernice and she didn’t want to date me. She dated some other guy. I remember thinking, “What is she thinking? I write way better than that guy.” And so those were my values.

七岁那年，《帕丁顿熊》点燃了我的作家梦，这个执念贯穿了我的中学时代。你们（英国）或许称为“第四学级”？当时我迷恋一位叫伯妮斯的女孩却遭拒绝，她选了另一个男生。我百思不解：“她怎么会选那个家伙？我写作比他强多了！”这就是我当年的价值观。

And then when I was 18, the admissions officers at Columbia, Wesleyan, and Brown universities decided I should go to the University of Chicago. And some of you may know the saying about Chicago: it’s where fun goes to die. My favorite thing about Chicago — it’s a Baptist school where atheist professors teach Jewish students St. Thomas Aquinas. So it’s very educated elite. And I fit right in. I had a double major at Chicago in history and celibacy while I was there.

十八岁时，哥伦比亚、卫斯理和布朗大学的招生官们“慧眼独具”，把我打发去了芝加哥大学。诸位或许听过芝大那句名言：“让快乐去死的地方。”但我最爱这点：在这所浸信会背景的学府里，无神论教授们向犹太学生讲授圣托马斯·阿奎那[2]。这地方简直是为知识精英量身定制，我如鱼得水，主修历史与独身主义（玩笑）。

And then after school, I got a job where an educated elite person should get a job. I was hired to be the conservative columnist at _ The New York Times _ , a job I likened to being the chief rabbi at Mecca. Not a lot of company there. And then I got a job on PBS, which is our version of _ Newsnight _ . And again, educated elite. We have a wonderful audience, somewhat seasoned. And so if a 93-year-old lady comes up to me at the airport, I know what she’s going to say: “I don’t watch your program, but my mother loves it.”

毕业后，我如愿跻身精英阶层，成为《纽约时报》保守派专栏作家，这份工作好比在麦加当首席拉比，孤独可想而知。后来转战PBS新闻台（相当于你们的《新闻之夜》），又是“知识精英”，观众群尽是些可爱的“老派”知识分子。机场常有九旬老太太搭话：“我不看你们节目，但我母亲是忠实观众。”

So we members of the educated elite did some good things. We created the internet, brunch, and mocktails. You’re welcome. We did some bad things. We designed a meritocracy, designed around the skills we ourselves possess and rigged the game so we succeeded and everybody else failed.

我们这些知识精英确实成就斐然：创造了互联网、早午餐和无酒精鸡尾酒——不必言谢。但我们也犯下不少过错。我们设计了一套以自身技能为核心的精英选拔机制，通过规则操纵让自己稳操胜券，却让他人屡屡碰壁。

By age 12, American children of affluent kids are four grade levels above everybody else. By university age, rich kids are 77 times more likely to go to an Ivy League university than kids from poor schools. In adulthood, 54% of the people at elite workplaces went to the same 34 elite colleges. So we ended up creating a caste system. People with high school degrees die nine years sooner than people with college degrees. They are five times more likely to have kids out of wedlock. They are 2.4 times more likely to say they have no friends. So we created a caste system, even though we pretend to be egalitarian.

数据显示，美国富裕家庭12岁孩子的学业水平已领先同龄人四个年级；大学阶段，富家子弟进入名校的几率是寒门学子的77倍；精英机构中54%的员工竟都来自那34所顶尖学府。不知不觉中，我们铸造了一个森严的“种姓制度”。高中文凭者比大学毕业生平均早逝九年，非婚生育率高出五倍，自称“没有朋友”的比例更是2.4倍之多。我们表面上倡导平等，实则构建了种姓体系。

But the worst things we did were not material. America has a very strong economy. The worst things we did were spiritual. We privatized morality and destroyed the moral order. George Marston is a great historian who said what gave Martin Luther King’s rhetoric its power was the sense there’s a moral order built into the universe. That if slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong. If segregation is not wrong, nothing is wrong. We took that essential moral order that holds people together and we decided it’s up to you to find your own truth, find your own values.

但最严重的伤害并非物质层面——美国经济依然强健——而是精神层面的侵蚀。我们将道德私有化，摧毁了固有的道德秩序。历史学家乔治·马斯顿指出：马丁·路德·金演说震撼人心的力量，正源于那种“宇宙间本存在道德秩序”的信念。倘若连奴隶制都无错可言，世间便无是非之分；倘若种族隔离都无可指摘，道德将不复存在。我们亲手瓦解了这种凝聚人心的基本道德秩序，转而宣扬“真理自寻、价值自定”。

Back in 1955, a great American journalist named Walter Lippmann understood this was going to be a big problem. He said, “If what is right and wrong depends on what each individual feels, then we are outside the bounds of civilization.” And so without a strong moral order, it’s hard to have trust. It’s hard to find your meaning in life.

早在1955年，美国新闻巨擘沃尔特·李普曼[3]就预见了这场危机。他曾警告说：“若善恶取决于个人感受，人类便已置身文明之外。”失去坚实的道德秩序，信任便如沙上筑塔，人生意义更似雾里看花。

And so America, and I think Britain too, has become a sadder society. Rise in mental health issues, rise in suicide. 45% of high school students say they are persistently hopeless and despondent. Since 2000, the number of Americans without close personal friends is up by fourfold. Since 2000, the number of people who say they are in the lowest happiness category is up by 50%. We’ve just become sadder.

如今的美国——想必英国亦然——已沦为忧郁的国度：心理健康问题激增，自杀率持续攀升，45%的高中生坦言长期陷入绝望。本世纪以来，自称“没有挚友”的美国人增加了四倍；自认“极度不幸”的群体扩大了50%。我们正集体滑向更深的阴郁。

The third thing the educated elite has done — and this may not please you — is we produced Donald Trump. Some people think Donald Trump is a populist. Donald Trump and Elon Musk went to the University of Pennsylvania, Ivy League school, and became billionaires. J.D. Vance went to Yale. Pete Hegseth went to Princeton and Yale. Stephen Miller went to Duke. Fox News types like Laura Ingraham went to Dartmouth. And they represent the educated elite. And the key factor of the educated elite is that they’re not pro-conservative. They’re anti-left. They don’t have a positive vision, a conservative vision for society. They just want to destroy the institutions that the left now dominates. And this means, in the first place, they’re astoundingly incompetent.

而知识精英的第三宗罪——或许会冒犯诸位——就是催生了特朗普。有人称他是民粹主义者，殊不知这位宾夕法尼亚大学常春藤精英出身的亿万富翁，与马斯克实为同根而生。J.D.万斯出身耶鲁，皮特·赫格塞斯先后就读普林斯顿与耶鲁，斯蒂芬·米勒毕业于杜克，福克斯新闻的劳拉·英格拉汉姆则是达特茅斯校友。这些“反叛者”实则都是知识精英的嫡系。他们的核心特质并非拥护保守主义，而是单纯的反左翼。他们提不出建设性的社会愿景，更没有真正的保守派蓝图，只想摧毁左翼主导的现存体制。这首先暴露出他们惊人的无能。

I have a lot of sympathy with what drove people to vote for Trump, but I’m telling you as someone who’s on the front row to what’s happening: do not hitch your wagon to that star. Pete Hegseth gave away our bargaining chips with Putin before we even had negotiations. Elon Musk has 25-year-olds firing people who are controlling our nuclear codes. It’s like Sam Bankman-Fried got control of our nuclear arsenal.

我理解特朗普支持者的诉求，但作为近距离观察者必须警告：切勿将命运押注在这颗流星上。赫格塞斯（国防部长）尚未谈判就向普京亮出底牌；马斯克让25岁的年轻人掌管核密码权限，简直像让诈骗犯萨姆·班克曼- 弗里德[4]控制核武库。

Second, elite narcissism causes them to eviscerate every belief system they touch. Conservatives believe healthy societies are built on healthy institutions. They’re anti-institutionals. Conservatives believe in steady and gradual change, like Edmund Burke. They’re a disruption. Conservatives believe in constitutional government. Donald Trump says, “I alone can fix this.” Conservatives believe in moral norms. They’re destroying moral norms.

其次，精英式的自恋让他们摧毁所触及的一切信仰体系。保守主义坚信：健全社会植根于健全制度，而他们却反制度；保守主义倡导埃德蒙·伯克式的渐进改革，他们却要推倒重来；保守主义崇尚宪政，特朗普却宣称“只有我能解决一切”；保守主义恪守道德准则，他们却加速礼崩乐坏。

The other belief system that they are destroying is Judeo-Christian faith. It is based on service to the poor, service to the immigrant, service to the stranger. I went to Namibia and South Africa through the 1990s and 2000s and I watched people die of AIDS. Then I went back with my friend Mike Gerson and I saw those 25 million lives saved. I saw people living lives of dignity. And so what’s the first thing Donald Trump did? He eviscerated that program.

这群人正在摧毁的另一个精神支柱，是犹太- 基督教传统信仰的核心：服务贫弱者、庇护移民与异乡人。1990至2000年代，我亲眼目睹纳米比亚和南非的艾滋病患者相继离世。后来与友人迈克·格尔森[5]重返故地，见证全球防治计划拯救的2500万生命。那些重获尊严的面孔至今难忘。而特朗普上任首件事，就是肢解这项人道计划（USAID）。

My friends in America are conservative evangelicals in government who want to fight sex trafficking, fight poverty. They want to preserve national security. Donald Trump is declaring war on those Christians. So don’t.

我在美国政府任职的福音派保守派朋友们，至今仍在打击性贩卖、消除贫困、捍卫国家安全。而特朗普发动的，正是一场针对这些真正基督徒的战争。这绝非我们应有的道路。

So I’ve described three different things we educated elites brought you. We destroyed the social fabric through inequality. We destroyed the moral fabric through privatizing morality. And we destroyed the institutional fabric. What’s happening right now.

我们这些知识精英制造了三重破坏：通过建造不平等撕裂社会结构，通过道德私有化摧毁道德秩序，而现在，我们正通过反建制瓦解制度基础。

How can we come back? Well, we already are. I often ask people, “Tell me about a time that made you who you are as a human being.” And they never say, “I went on a fantastic vacation to Hawaii.” They say, “I went through a really hard time: the death of someone, the loss of someone, moving away from home, entering a new vocation.”

我们要怎么恢复秩序？其实转机已然显现。我经常问见到的人：“告诉我塑造你的人生时刻？”没有人会提及夏威夷度假的美好时光，人们讲述的总是一些艰难的时刻：至亲离世、失去挚友、背井离乡、职业转型。

Paul Tillich, a theologian, said those moments of suffering interrupt your life, and they remind you you’re not the person you thought you were. They carve through the floor of your basement of your soul and they reveal a cavity below. And they carve through that floor and they reveal a cavity below. And in those moments of suffering, you see yourself in a more deep way than you ever did before. And in those moments of suffering, you can either be broken or you can be broken open. And people who are transformed decide: I’m going to be broken open. And nations that are going to be transformed by moments of suffering say, “We’re going to be broken open.”

神学家保罗·田立克称之为“苦难时刻”：会击碎你惯常的生活轨迹，迫使你直面那个陌生的自己。它如同凿穿灵魂地窖的钢钎，击穿一层地板，显露出下方的空洞；再击穿这层阻隔，又见更深处的虚无。苦难让我们看清自己最真实的样子。面对苦难，人可能被彻底击垮，也可以破茧重生。那些真正想要蜕变的人，会选择后者。国家也是如此。

We’ve been through periods of national crisis before. Across the world, nations have constantly hit a spiritual and cultural crisis and then revived. This country, between 1820 and 1848. I was here in the 1980s. Britain recovered in the 1980s. Australia in the 1970s. Germany and Japan after World War II. South Korea in the 1980s. Rwanda after 1994. Chile in the 1990s. My own country — we’ve done this again and again. We’ve grown not through a happy merry ride. We’ve grown through a process of rupture and repair. When society and culture is in crisis, we figure it out.

我们经历过太多这样的时刻。世界上很多国家不断地遭遇精神和文化危机，然后又复兴。1820-1848年的英国[6]；1980年代我访问英国时，英国正在复苏[6]；1970年的澳洲 [7]；二战后的德日；1980年代的韩国；卢旺达在1994年后重建；智利也在1990年代走出阴霾；我所在的美国，也在这般破碎与重建中轮回。我们不是在莺歌燕舞中成长的，而是在断裂与弥合中前行。每当社会与文化陷入低谷，我们总会找到出路。

1770s, the old colonial order had to go. Sorry. 1830s, the East Coast elite had too much power. Andrew Jackson brought in an era of populism. 1860s, the slavery order had to go. Abraham Lincoln brought forth national redemption. 1890s, we had failed at industrialization. We had a civic renaissance of all these civic organizations that filled in the hole and created a sane society. 1960s, the conformist culture of the 1950s had to go. And we had the changes that came there.

美国在1770年代推翻殖民秩序（抱歉英国观众）；1830年代，东海岸的权贵阶层垄断政治，于是安德鲁·杰克逊带来了民粹主义时代；1860年代，奴隶制制度已无法延续，亚伯拉罕·林肯引领我们走向民族的救赎；1890年代，在工业化遗留的创伤中，我们掀起了一场“公民复兴”；1950年代的刻板与压抑，最终在1960年代被打破。历史变迁总会带来转机。

The temptation of those who don’t read history is to think this time is different. We’re in another period of rupture and repair.

那些不读历史的人，总以为“这一次不一样”，但事实上，我们不过是在经历又一次的破碎与重建。

We have spiritual resources. I’m a conservative. I believe that we are inheritors of a great spiritual legacy — what Michael Oakeshott called the great conversation. We have the voice of Genesis: that we’re all made in God’s image. That’s the foundation of democracy. We have the voice of Exodus: that we wander through the wilderness and eventually get to the promised land. We have the voice of Jesus, even if you’re not Christian: “Blessed are the meek, blessed are the poor in spirit.” That’s a source of great strength. In my country, we have the voice of Alexander Hamilton: the poor boys and girls should rise and succeed. We have the voice of Edmund Burke: that we should be modest about what we can know because culture is really complicated, and we should operate on society the way we would operate on our father — gradually and carefully. We have the voice of John Stuart Mill: we value diversity and pluralism because it leads to what he called “adventures in living.”

值得庆幸的是，我们拥有丰富的精神资源。作为一个保守主义者，我深信我们继承着伟大的精神遗产，正如迈克尔·奥克肖特所说的“伟大的对话”。我们聆听《创世纪》的教诲：人人都是按上帝形象所造，这是民主的根基；我们铭记《出埃及记》的启示：穿越荒野，终抵应许之地；我们感悟耶稣的箴言——即便你不是基督徒，“温柔的人有福了，虚心的人有福了”依然振聋发聩；在我的国家，我们传承着汉密尔顿的信念：寒门子弟亦能出人头地；我们遵循埃德蒙·伯克的告诫：要对认知保持谦卑，因为文明实在太过复杂，改造社会当如医治父亲，需循序渐进，慎之又慎；我们践行约翰·密尔的理想：珍视多元与包容，因为这样才能实现他所说的“生活的历险”。

When you have a spiritual, moral, and relational crisis, the job is to shift the culture. And we are moving, I think, from a hyper-individualistic culture the last 60 years toward a communal culture. I didn’t like the social justice movement, but it was an attempt to find community. I’m not particularly a big fan of MAGA, but it’s an attempt to find community. Culture change is about a shifting of the heart. It’s about providing new answers to the question, “How should I live my life?” It’s about soulcraft. And it isn’t done the way you do political change. Culture change works differently. It’s done, as Walter Bagehot put it, “If you want to win people over, enjoy the things that conservatives enjoy.”

当面临精神、道德与关系的危机时，真正的转变，关键在于改变文化风向。我相信，过去60年盛行的极端个人主义文化，正在向社群文化转变。虽然我不认同左派的“社会正义运动”，但它确实是对群体归属的追寻；我也不热衷右派的“MAGA运动”，但它同样在寻求共同体。文化变革的本质，是心灵的转向，是一场灵魂的塑造工程，它与政治变革截然不同。正如沃尔特·白芝浩曾说的：“若要赢得人心，就要学会欣赏保守派所珍视的美好事物。”

Culture changes when a creative minority find a beautiful way to live. Culture changes when a small group of people find a better way to live and the rest of us copy. That’s the story of the early church. It’s the story of the Clapham Sect. They weren’t my cup of tea. But it’s the story of Bloomsbury. I was mentored by William F. Buckley. It’s the story of the conservative movement in America.

当富有创造力的少数群体找到更美好的生活方式，文化就开始改变。当一小群人探索出更好的活法，而我们纷纷效仿时，变革就发生了。早期基督教会如此，克拉彭派[8]如此，布鲁姆斯伯里团体 [9]亦如此。我的恩师威廉·巴克利曾告诉我，美国保守主义运动也是如此。

Culture changes on a personal level. When we relate to each other with attentive and generous gaze. Simone Weil said, “Attention is the purest form of generosity.” Culture changes on a spiritual level. T.S. Eliot said, “You can’t create a system so perfect that the people in it don’t have to be good.” It’s when you put moral formation at the center of your society. And finally, it happens at the civic level. When a thousand voices and a thousand different organizations create civic institutions that provide healing and relationship in society. That’s how culture changes.

真正的文化变革，永远始于个人的觉醒。当我们以专注而慷慨的目光彼此相待，正如西蒙娜·薇依所言：“关注是最纯粹的慷慨。”文化的变革始于精神层面。T.S.艾略特告诫我们：“永远无法设计出完美到无需人们向善的制度。”唯有将道德塑造置于社会中心，变革才能真正发生。最终，这一切都要落实到公民层面：当千百个声音、千百个组织共同构建起治愈社会裂痕的公民机构时，文化便悄然改变。

I was at a bar about two months after October 7th. And if you had seen me there, you would have thought, “Sad guy drinking alone.” I call it reporting. So I’m scrolling through Twitter. And it has all these brutal images from the Middle East. But I come across a video of James Baldwin. And he says: “You know, there isn’t as much humanity as one would like. But there’s enough. And what you’ve got to remember is that when you walk down the street, every person you meet — you could be that person. That could be you. You could be that monster. You could be that saint. You could. And you have to decide who you’re going to be now.”

去年10月7日事件后两个月，我独坐酒吧，若你看见，大概会以为是个借酒消愁的失意者。我称之为“现场调研”。我正在看推特，刷到的全是中东战场的血腥画面，但我突然刷到一段詹姆斯·鲍德温[10]的访谈。他说：“你知道，这世上的人性光辉总比期望的少，但足够照亮黑暗。你要记住，街上与你擦肩的每个人，都可能是你的镜像。你都可能是他；他也可能是你。你或许成为那样的恶魔，也可能化身那样的圣徒。你可以。选择权在你手中。”

Now, James Baldwin was treated shabbily by my society because of his race and other things. But he had a right to be bitter. But even in that circumstance, he uttered the ultimate humanist statement: “You could be that person, that person could be you.” And the phrase that rang in my head when I heard that was “defiant humanism.” That even in harsh and brutal times, we’re called upon to see each other in the fullest, deepest, and most respectful way — that God imagined that they would be seen.

这位曾被我的社会因种族等原因苛待的黑人作家，本有理由满怀怨恨，但即使在那样的处境中，却道出最深刻的人道主义宣言：“你可以是那个人，那个人也可以是你。”我听到这句话时，在我脑海轰鸣的，是“抗争式人文主义”：即便在最黑暗的时代，我们仍被召唤，以最完整、最深刻、最尊重的目光看待彼此，如同上帝期望的那样。

Thank you very much.

谢谢大家。

参考文献

[1] 迪斯雷利与格莱斯顿：维多利亚时代的两位英国首相，分别代表保守派与自由派。
[2] 圣托马斯 · 阿奎那：欧洲中世纪经院派哲学家和神学家。
[3] 沃尔特 · 李普曼：美国新闻评论家和公共知识分子。
[4] 萨姆 · 班克曼 - 弗里德（ SBF ）： FTX 创始人，因金融犯罪被判刑。
[5] 迈克 · 格尔森：小布什政府演讲撰稿人。
[6] 英国 1820–1848 ：政治动荡、改革运动、经济困顿、爱尔兰大饥荒等。
[7] 澳大利亚 1975 宪政危机：总理被罢免，国家陷入前所未有争议。
[8] 克拉彭派： 18–19 世纪推动英国废奴运动的福音派团体。
[9] 布鲁姆斯伯里团体： 20 世纪初英国知识分子团体，代表人物有弗吉尼亚 · 伍尔夫、凯恩斯等。
[10] 詹姆斯 · 鲍德温： 20 世纪美国黑人作家与民权运动代表人物。

转载自羊说