空洞的意義

The Problem With Meaning

空洞的意義

Not long ago, a friend sent me a speech that the great civic leader John Gardner gave to the Stanford Alumni Association 61 years after he graduated from that college. The speech is chock-full of practical wisdom. I especially liked this passage:

不久前，一位朋友給我發(fā)來偉大的民權領袖約翰·加德納(John Gardner)從斯坦福畢業(yè)61年后給校友會所做的演講。這份講稿的字里行間充滿了實用的智慧。我尤其喜歡這一段：

“The things you learn in maturity aren’t simple things such as acquiring information and skills. You learn not to engage in self-destructive behavior. You learn not to burn up energy in anxiety. You discover how to manage your tensions. You learn that self-pity and resentment are among the most toxic of drugs. You find that the world loves talent but pays off on character.

“你成熟時學到的東西，并非獲取信息和技能這樣的易事。你學會不做那些自我毀滅的事情，學會不在焦慮中浪費精力;你發(fā)現(xiàn)如何控制自己緊繃的神經(jīng);你知道了自怨自艾、怨天尤人是最有害的東西;你發(fā)現(xiàn)才華雖被仰慕但性格好的人才會得好報。”

“You come to understand that most people are neither for you nor against you; they are thinking about themselves. You learn that no matter how hard you try to please, some people in this world are not going to love you, a lesson that is at first troubling and then really quite relaxing.”

“你開始明白，多數(shù)人既不喜歡你，也不討厭你;他們想的是自己。你知道了，不管多么努力地去取悅人，世界上就是有些人不愛你。得知這一點，一開始會讓人不安，最后卻能感到如釋重負。”

Gardner goes on in this wise way. And then, at the end, he goes into a peroration about leading a meaningful life. “Meaning is something you build into your life. You build it out of your own past, out of your affections and loyalties, out of the experience of humankind as it is passed on to you. ... You are the only one who can put them together into that unique pattern that will be your life.”

加德納妙語連珠。到了最后，他的結語討論的是過有意義的生活。“意義是你賦予自己生命的。這種賦予來源于你自己的過去、你的喜好和熱忱，以及人類世世代代流傳下來的經(jīng)驗……只有你，才能把它們融合成一種獨特的體驗，而這種體驗就是你的生命。”

Gardner puts “meaning” at the apogee of human existence. His speech reminded me how often we’ve heard that word over the past decades. As my Times colleague April Lawson puts it, “meaning” has become the stand-in concept for everything the soul yearns for and seeks. It is one of the few phrases acceptable in modern parlance to describe a fundamentally spiritual need.

加德納認為“意義”是人類存在的最高宗旨。他的演講讓我想起來，我們在過去幾十年經(jīng)常聽到這個字眼。就像我在《紐約時報》的同事阿普里爾·勞森 (April Lawson)說的那樣，“意義”已經(jīng)成為靈魂所渴望、尋找的一切事物的替代概念。這是現(xiàn)代用語可以接受的形容基本精神需求的少數(shù)詞語之一。

Yet what do we mean when we use the word meaning?

當我們使用意義這個詞時，我們指的是什么呢?

The first thing we mean is that life should be about more than material success. The person leading a meaningful life has found some way of serving others that leads to a feeling of significance.

首先指的是生活應該不僅僅局限于物質上的成功。過著有意義的生活的人已經(jīng)找到了服務于他人的方式，這讓他們感受到了自身的重要性。

Second, a meaningful life is more satisfying than a merely happy life. Happiness is about enjoying the present; meaning is about dedicating oneself to the future. Happiness is about receiving; meaningfulness is about giving. Happiness is about upbeat moods and nice experiences. People leading meaningful lives experience a deeper sense of satisfaction.

其次，有意義的生活要比快樂的生活更令人滿足。快樂是享受當下;意義在于投身未來?？鞓肥堑玫?意義在于給予?？鞓肥怯鋹傁蛏系那榫w，美好的體驗。過著有意義的生活的人能體會到更大的滿足感。

In this way, meaning is an uplifting state of consciousness. It’s what you feel when you’re serving things beyond self.

從這個方面來看，意義是一種令人振奮的意識狀態(tài)。就是你超越自己，服務于其他事物時的那種感覺。

Yet it has to be said, as commonly used today, the word is flabby and vacuous, the product of a culture that has grown inarticulate about inner life.

但不得不說，這個詞如今被廣泛使用，已經(jīng)變得無力、空洞，這是對內心生活日益不善表達的文化造成的結果。

Let me put it this way: If we look at the people in history who achieved great things — like Nelson Mandela or Albert Schweitzer or Abraham Lincoln — it wasn’t because they wanted to bathe luxuriously in their own sense of meaningfulness. They had objective and eternally true standards of justice and injustice. They were indignant when those eternal standards were violated. They subscribed to moral systems — whether secular or religious — that recommended specific ways of being, and had specific structures of what is right and wrong, and had specific disciplines about how you might get better over time.

這么說吧：看看歷史上取得偉大成就的人物——比如納爾遜·曼德拉(Nelson Mandela)、阿爾伯特·史懷哲(Albert Schweitzer)或亞伯拉罕·林肯(Abraham Lincoln)，他們之所以偉大，并不是因為他們希望舒適地沉浸在他們自己對意義的感知中。他們對于公正與否有著客觀且永恒不朽的評判標準。當這些永恒的標準被打破時，他們義憤填膺。他們認同的道德體系——無論是世俗的還是宗教的，推崇特定的存在之道，擁有界定對與錯的特定體系，以及有關如何逐漸變得更好的特定原則。

Meaningfulness tries to replace structures, standards and disciplines with self-regarding emotion. The ultimate authority of meaningful is the warm tingling we get when we feel significant and meaningful. Meaningfulness tries to replace moral systems with the emotional corona that surrounds acts of charity.

意義試圖以專注于自身的情感來取代體系、標準和原則。意義的終極表象，就是在我們覺得自身重要而有意義時，那種溫暖的刺痛。意義試圖以伴隨慈善之舉的那種情感來取代道德體系。

It’s a paltry substitute. Because meaningfulness is built solely on an emotion, it is contentless and irreducible. Because it is built solely on emotion, it’s subjective and relativistic. You get meaning one way. I get meaning another way. Who is any of us to judge another’s emotion?

它是一種微不足道的替代品。因為意義完全建立在一種情感之上，它空泛而且不能簡化。由于它完全建立在情感之上，所以它具有主觀性和相對性。你能以某種方式獲得意義。我又會以另一種方式獲得意義。我們當中有誰能去評判別人的情感?

Because it’s based solely on sentiment, it is useless. There are no criteria to determine what kind of meaningfulness is higher. There’s no practical manual that would help guide each of us as we move from shallower forms of service to deeper ones. There is no hierarchy of values that would help us select, from among all the things we might do, that activity which is highest and best to do.

由于它完全建立在情感之上，所以毫無用處。沒有標準可以確定什么樣的意義層次更高。也沒有實用手冊，能在我們從比較膚淺的服務形式向比較深刻的形式轉變時，對我們加以引導。也沒有什么價值體系，能幫我們從我們可能從事的所有事情中挑選出層次最高的、最好的活動。

Because it’s based solely on emotion, it’s fleeting. When the sensations of meaningful go away then the cause that once aroused them gets dropped, too. Ennui floods in. Personal crisis follows. There’s no reliable ground.

由于它完全建立在情感之上，所以會轉瞬即逝。一旦有意義的感覺消失，曾經(jīng)激發(fā)這種感覺的事情也會變得黯淡無光。倦怠襲來，個人危機也會隨之而來。找不到任何可靠的立足之地。