Why we need the humanities more than ever, by the President of Yale
为什么我们到了最需要人文学科的时刻
原载：世界经济论坛https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/03/the-key-to-responsible-and-responsive-leadership-the-humanities
译者：达沃斯博客翻译小组·李雪
In our complex and interconnected world, we need leaders of imagination, understanding, and emotional intelligence—men and women who will move beyond polarizing debates and tackle the challenges we face. To cultivate such leaders, we must value and invest in the humanities.
我们正身处复杂的、互相连通的世界中，迫切需要有想象力、善解人意的高情商领导者——只有这样的领导者，才能够带领人们超越分化的争论，积极着手处理我们面对的挑战。而要培养这样的领导者，我们唯有加大对人文学科的重视和投入。
I am a psychologist by training, and I study human emotions. Art, literature, history, and other branches of the humanities are vital for developing our emotional intelligence—essential to understanding ourselves and others. They help us grapple with uncertainty, understand complexity, and empathize.
作为一名心理学家，我主要的研究对象是人类感情。艺术、文学、历史和其他人文学科对于培养我们的情商至关重要，对人类认识自己、理解他人必不可少。人文学科能够帮助我们和不确定性作斗争，理解错综复杂的形势并与他人产生共鸣。
Consider what happens when you read a novel. Engrossed in the narrative, you are invited to imagine the world from a character’s perspective. You think about the interplay between a person’s desires and her actions. When you listen to music, go to the theater, or visit a museum, you have an emotional response—one that connects you with other people and new perspectives.
想象一下，你正在读一本小说。你沉浸于故事之中，受邀从其中某个角色的角度想象这个世界。你会思考她的欲望和行动是怎样相互作用的。在你听音乐、看戏剧、逛博物馆的时候，你会产生情感上的回应——这种回应会把你与他人和新的视角联系起来。
We develop our emotional intelligence—and learn skills of empathy, imagination, and understanding—through the humanities. These skills, if cultivated, enable leaders to respond successfully to challenges and opportunities in every sector. Our scientists are better at their work if they read literature; our diplomats and our generals are more effective when they understand languages; our data scientists are able to think beyond algorithms when they experience art and music.
我们培养自己的情商——学习体会他人的情感、提高想象力、懂得理解他人——这些都要通过学习人文学科。如果这些技能培养起来了，就能够让领导者有效地应对各个领域的挑战与机遇。文学有助于科学家的研究，学习多门语言能让外交官与军事领袖更加高效地工作，接触艺术和音乐可以使数据分析师看到算法以外的世界。
Around the world, we can see the gains of globalization. Debates continue, however, about how to promote more inclusive and equitable growth, embracing a diversity of peoples and cultures and respecting the environment.
全球化在世界各地都显现出了优势。然而，如何才能实现更加包容、更加公平的经济增长，增强民族和文化的多样性，同时更加尊重环境，仍然是人们讨论的焦点。
The humanities must be part of this conversation. Leadership on these difficult issues demands understanding more than the bottom line; it requires an appreciation of all that makes life meaningful and complete. As Lei Zhang, a successful business leader and Yale alumnus, said, “The humanities are fundamental to reason. Isolating data and technology from the humanities is like trying to swim without water; you can have all the moves of Michael Phelps, but you still won’t end up getting anywhere.” The humanities provide the context—the possibility of real understanding—for all that the future promises.
人文学科必然是讨论中的一环。领导者需要深刻理解这些复杂的问题，而不仅仅是略知一二，也需要明白人如何才能活得更加有意义、更加完整。张磊，一名耶鲁校友，也是一名成功的企业领导者，说：“人文学科是逻辑推理的基础。脱离了人文学科，空有孤立的数据和科技，就像是试图在没有水的环境里游泳。即使你有麦克·菲尔普斯的游泳技术，也是动也动不了的。”人文学科提供了一个环境——能够真正实现互相理解的可能性——无论未来将会如何。
Reaching across divides
To harness the extraordinary power of the humanities, we must ensure they are widely accessible. Institutions like my own, as guardians of some of the world’s greatest cultural treasures, must work to share the joy and wonder of the humanities with the public. Otherwise, potential leaders of the future will lose out on the opportunity to learn from the humanities.
超越彼此的不同
为了更好地发挥人文学科的力量，我们必须确保大多数人都有机会接受人文学科的教育。为了保卫世界最珍贵的文化宝藏，像耶鲁这样的教育机构必须行动起来，与公众分享人文学科的美好与神奇。否则，未来的领导者便会失去学习人文学科的机会。
Last year my colleague and friend, Harvard President Drew Gilpin Faust, wrote eloquently about the importance of scholarship and education in addressing inequality. Cultural and educational institutions can also make the world a more equal and inclusive place through the transformative power of the humanities.
去年，我的同事和朋友，哈佛校长福斯特（Drew Gilpin Faust）写了一篇文章，充分指出了奖学金和教育机会在消除贫困方面的重要性。通过人文学科中蕴藏的变革的力量，文化和教育机构能够将世界变得更加平等、包容。
I recently had the privilege of touring the new National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C. As I walked through this remarkable space, I was able to see, hear, and imagine the story of African Americans in the United States. I was particularly drawn to an exhibit about the influence of black Americans on music. My hobby and passion is bluegrass music, so I was fascinated by the exchange between African-American blues musicians and old-time Appalachian music played by Scotch-Irish immigrants. Understanding this influence made me listen to music I knew well with new ears—hearing cadences and rhythms I had never heard before.
最近，我有幸到华盛顿参观了新的非裔美国人历史与文化国家博物馆（National Museum of African American History and Culture）。走进这个不可思议的地方，我能够看到、听到、想象到非裔美国人的故事。其中，一个关于美国黑人对音乐的影响的展览尤其吸引了我。蓝草音乐（译注：乡村音乐的另一个分支，以Bill Monroe的乐队Bluegrass Boys命名）是我的兴趣所在，所以我对非裔美国人布鲁斯音乐家与苏格兰-爱尔兰移民演奏的阿巴拉契亚音乐（译注：美国东部阿巴拉契亚地区的音乐）之间的交流感到十分着迷。了解到这些相互影响，让我对习以为常的音乐有了新的感悟——听出了我从未听到过的节奏与韵律。
Museums make such moments of emotional and intellectual awakening possible. Today, technology can help us share these moments even more widely. Scholars at Yale, for instance, have partnered with the Library of Congress to launch Photogrammar, a website that allows users anywhere in the world to peruse, search, and visualize 170,000 photographs created as part of Roosevelt’s New Deal. These iconic images capture the raw emotion of people living through the Great Depression. In another project, Transcribe@Yale, we are “crowdsourcing” the transcription of documents in the Kilpatrick Collection of Cherokee Manuscripts, housed at Yale’s Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, so we can understand and preserve aspects of Oklahoma Cherokee culture that would otherwise be lost.
博物馆激发了那些唤醒我们的情感与智慧的时刻。如今，科技让我们能够把这些时刻分享给更多的人。比如说，耶鲁的学者就和国会图书馆（Library of Congress）合作建立了Photogrammar网站，世界各地的人们都可以审阅、搜索、察看罗斯福新政实施过程中的17万张照片。这些标志性的图片捕捉了20世纪30年代经济大萧条时期人们最真实的情感。再比如，另一个名为Transcribe@Yale的项目则是将存放在耶鲁古籍善本图书馆（Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library）的基尔帕特里克收藏版切诺基（译注：北美印第安人的一个民族）手稿的转写本“众包”出去，这样一来，我们才能理解并保护俄克拉荷马州的切诺基文化的一些侧面，使之不致流失。
Despite the promise of technology to connect people, too often we remain isolated in our own narrow circles. Joining the humanities with new digital tools can help us reach across divides—through time and space—and allow more people to explore our rich cultural resources.
尽管科技承诺把人与人联通起来，人们仍常常囿于自己的小圈子。然而当全新的数字工具与人文学科结合起来的时候，却能够帮助我们超越彼此的不同——穿越时间与空间的距离——让更多人探索到丰富的文化资源。
'The heritage of the human experience is impoverished’
The problems we face today are grave. Poverty, disease, climate change, and threats to national and global security test even our greatest leaders. At such times, it may seem prudent to forget about art, music, literature, and languages.
“人类历史留下的遗产将会枯竭”
我们正面临着许多巨大的难题。贫困、疾病、全球变暖、各国和全球受到的安全威胁正考验着世界上最为杰出的领导者。在这样的一个时代，把艺术、音乐、文学和语言抛在脑后可能看起来像是个明智的选择。
We have been here before. In 1939, as war raged in Europe and Asia, Yale President Charles Seymour worried that the liberal arts would be neglected. Although the public did not think they were “useful,” Seymour was convinced the humanities were indispensable. “Without them,” he wrote movingly, “the heritage of the human experience is impoverished.”
这不是我们第一次陷入这般境地。1939年，当欧洲和亚洲仍然战火肆虐之时，时任耶鲁校长的查尔斯·西摩（Charles Seymour，1885-1963）担心人文科学将会遭到忽视。尽管大多数人认为人文学科“没什么用”，西摩却认为它们是不可或缺的。他深情地写道：“没有人文学科，人类历史留下的遗产将会枯竭。”
Now, as then, we must value the humanities even in the midst of conflict and division. Only through the humanities can we prepare leaders of empathy, imagination, and understanding—responsive and responsible leaders who embrace complexity and diversity. Our institutions must also play a leadership role by making the treasures of the humanities widely available. It is our responsibility to prepare the leaders of tomorrow, and to elevate and protect “the heritage of the human experience” that we all share.
如今，就像那个时代一样，即便身处争端不断、分裂严重的世道之中，我们也必须重视人文学科。只有人文学科能够培养出有想象力、善解人意、情商又高的领导者——他们将会对错综复杂、纷争不断的形势做出反应并负起责任。耶鲁和其他教育机构也必须承担起领导者的责任，让大多数人都有机会分享人文学科中蕴藏的宝藏。我们有责任帮助未来的领导者做好准备，振兴并保护我们共同享有的“人类历史留下的遗产”。
(中文译稿本人有少许改动）
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