【08.08.11 纽约时报】和谐与梦想
来源：美国 纽约时报 The New York Times题目：Harmony and the Dream 和谐与梦想
编译：84年出生
原文链接：[url=http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/12/opinion/12brooks.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=Harmony%20and%20the%20Dream%20&st=cse&oref=slogin]http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/12/opinion/12brooks.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=Harmony%20and%20the%20Dream%20&st=cse&oref=slogin[/url]
原文：
The world can be divided in many ways — rich and poor, democratic and authoritarian — but one of the most striking is the divide between the societies with an individualist mentality and the ones with a collectivist mentality.
This is a divide that goes deeper than economics into the way people perceive the world. If you show an American an image of a fish tank, the American will usually describe the biggest fish in the tank and what it is doing. If you ask a Chinese person to describe a fish tank, the Chinese will usually describe the context in which the fish swim.
These sorts of experiments have been done over and over again, and the results reveal the same underlying pattern. Americans usually see individuals; Chinese and other Asians see contexts.
When the psychologist Richard Nisbett showed Americans individual pictures of a chicken, a cow and hay and asked the subjects to pick out the two that go together, the Americans would usually pick out the chicken and the cow. They’re both animals. Most Asian people, on the other hand, would pick out the cow and the hay, since cows depend on hay. Americans are more likely to see categories. Asians are more likely to see relationships.
You can create a global continuum with the most individualistic societies — like the United States or Britain — on one end, and the most collectivist societies — like China or Japan — on the other.
The individualistic countries tend to put rights and privacy first. People in these societies tend to overvalue their own skills and overestimate their own importance to any group effort. People in collective societies tend to value harmony and duty. They tend to underestimate their own skills and are more self-effacing when describing their contributions to group efforts.
Researchers argue about why certain cultures have become more individualistic than others. Some say that Western cultures draw their values from ancient Greece, with its emphasis on individual heroism, while other cultures draw on more on tribal philosophies. Recently, some scientists have theorized that it all goes back to microbes. Collectivist societies tend to pop up in parts of the world, especially around the equator, with plenty of disease-causing microbes. In such an environment, you’d want to shun outsiders, who might bring strange diseases, and enforce a certain conformity over eating rituals and social behavior.
Either way, individualistic societies have tended to do better economically. We in the West have a narrative that involves the development of individual reason and conscience during the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, and then the subsequent flourishing of capitalism. According to this narrative, societies get more individualistic as they develop.
But what happens if collectivist societies snap out of their economic stagnation? What happens if collectivist societies, especially those in Asia, rise economically and come to rival the West? A new sort of global conversation develops.
The opening ceremony in Beijing was a statement in that conversation. It was part of China’s assertion that development doesn’t come only through Western, liberal means, but also through Eastern and collective ones.
The ceremony drew from China’s long history, but surely the most striking features were the images of thousands of Chinese moving as one — drumming as one, dancing as one, sprinting on precise formations without ever stumbling or colliding. We’ve seen displays of mass conformity before, but this was collectivism of the present — a high-tech vision of the harmonious society performed in the context of China’s miraculous growth.
If Asia’s success reopens the debate between individualism and collectivism (which seemed closed after the cold war), then it’s unlikely that the forces of individualism will sweep the field or even gain an edge.
For one thing, there are relatively few individualistic societies on earth. For another, the essence of a lot of the latest scientific research is that the Western idea of individual choice is an illusion and the Chinese are right to put first emphasis on social contexts.
Scientists have delighted to show that so-called rational choice is shaped by a whole range of subconscious influences, like emotional contagions and priming effects (people who think of a professor before taking a test do better than people who think of a criminal). Meanwhile, human brains turn out to be extremely permeable (they naturally mimic the neural firings of people around them). Relationships are the key to happiness. People who live in the densest social networks tend to flourish, while people who live with few social bonds are much more prone to depression and suicide.
The rise of China isn’t only an economic event. It’s a cultural one. The ideal of a harmonious collective may turn out to be as attractive as the ideal of the American Dream.
It’s certainly a useful ideology for aspiring autocrats.
译文：
和谐与梦想
David Brooks
【纽约时报8月11报道】世界可以以很多方式划分——富裕和贫穷，民主和专制，但最显著的还是个人主义和集体主义这两种不同社会形态的划分。
这是一个比经济学家感知更深的划分。如果你给美国人看一个鱼缸，他通常会给你描述鱼缸里最大的鱼，告诉你它在做什么。但如果你让中国人描述这个鱼缸，他通常会描述整个鱼缸的情形。
这样的试验已做过多次，但结果总是揭示了同样的模式。美国人一般是注意个体，中国人和其他亚洲人群则重视整体。
心理学家理查德•内斯波特让美国人看几张图片：一张鸡的图片，一张牛的和一张干草的图片，然后让受试者选两张相配的，美国人经常会选择鸡和牛的图片。这两幅都是动物。然而，大部分亚洲人，会选择牛和干草的图片，因为牛要吃草。美国人更喜欢逻辑。亚洲人更容易留心关系。
个人主义占绝对优势的社会可以组成世界统一体，就像美国和英国，但另一方面，集体主义占绝对优势的社会也可以组成世界统一体，就像中国和日本。
个人主义的国家倾向把权利和隐私放在首位。这样社会中的人容易过高估计他们自己的能力，夸大他们自身对团体的重要性。生活在集体主义社会中的人则更倾向于强调和谐和责任。他们容易低估自己的能力，在谈到对团队的贡献时，也更加低调。
学者们讨论为什么有些文化就比其他文化更带有个人化倾向。有些人认为西方文化和价值观都来源于古希腊，而古希腊就强调个人英雄主义，其他的文化则更多的吸收部落哲学。最近，一些科学家称这都应归因于微生物。集体主义社会往往是在世界某处突然兴起的，尤其是在赤道附近，那里有大量的会引起疾病的细菌。在那样的环境下，你就需要避开外来者，他们可能会带来奇怪的疾病，并加强自身的一致性。
不论怎样，个人主义的社会倾向于在经济方面有更好的表现。我们西方有一种说法，解释个人主义发展的原因，先是文艺复兴和启蒙运动的道德观，然后就是资本主义的繁荣。根据这种说法，随着历史的发展，社会变得越来越个人主义。
但如果是集体主义社会奋力拼搏，从他们的经济停滞中走出来会怎么样呢？ 如果集体主义社会，尤其是那些亚洲国家，在经济上获得腾飞并与西方抗衡呢？那么，一种新的全球对话就要兴起了。
北京开幕式就是这样一种对话的声明。中国主张发展不仅可以由西方走自由主义路线实现，也可以走东方集体主义路线。
开幕式阐述了中国悠久的历史，但最显著的特色是数千名中国人整齐如一的形象--- 整齐如一的吟诵，整齐如一的舞蹈，队形变化精准一致，没有任何磕拌，没有任何碰撞。我们以前也看过集体表演，但这次是集体主义的演绎---在中国奇迹般发展的背景下，让我们看到了和谐社会展示的高科技的演出。
如果亚洲的成功地再次开启个人主义和集体主义的争论（虽然冷战结束以后几乎就没再提过），但这次，个人主义未必能横扫战场，甚至未必能占得优势。
一方面，世界上个人主义的国家相对来讲是很少的。另一方面，很多最新的科学研究发现的根本性东西就是西方个人主义的选择是一场幻影，而中国人把社会群体放在第一位是正确的。
科学家高兴的发现，所谓的理智选择是受到整体下意识的影响，就像情绪传染一样。而且，人类大脑极具浸透性，人们会自然的模仿周围的人们。连系是幸福的关键。生活在密集的社会网络中的人更容易快乐，而和社会极少接触的人更容易消沉自杀。
中国的腾飞不仅是一种经济现象，更是一种文化现象。一种理想的和谐的集体可能会像美国梦一样富有吸引力。
对充满抱负的独裁者而言，这当然是一种有用的意识形态。
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