TED演讲 | 犯错不一定不好，犯错有其自身的价值！

演说者：Kathryn Schulz

演说题目：犯错的价值 ！

Kathryn Schulz 是《纽约客》的编辑，她自我标榜为“犯错专家”，她花了五年时间专门研究什么是“犯错”并写下《我们为什么会犯错》，畅销全球。

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犯错的价值 ！ 来自TED英语演说 00:00 17:47

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中英对照演讲稿

So it's 1995, I'm in college, and a friend and I goon a road trip from Providence, Rhode Island to Portland, Oregon. And you know,we're young and unemployed, so we do the whole thing on back roads throughstate parks and national forests -- basically the longest route we can possiblytake.And somewhere in the middle of South Dakota, I turn to my friend and I askher a question that's been bothering me for 2,000 miles.

当时是1995年，我在上大学，我和一个朋友开车去玩。从罗得岛的普罗旺斯区出发到奥勒冈州的波特兰市。我们年轻、无业，于是整个旅程都在乡间小道 经过州立公园 和国家保护森林 我们尽可能绕着最长的路径、在南达科塔州之中某处 我转向我的朋友 问她一个两千英里路途上 一直烦恼我的问题。

 

'What's up with the Chinese character I keepseeing by the side of the road?' My friend looks at me totally blankly.There's actually a gentleman in the front row who's doing a perfect imitationof her look. And I'm like, 'You know, all the signs we keep seeing withthe Chinese character on them.' She just stares at me for a few moments,and then she cracks up, because she figures out what I'm talking about.

'路边那个一直出现的中文字到底是什么?'我的朋友露出疑惑的神情，正如现在坐在第一排的这三位男士所露出的神情一样（笑声） 我说'你知道的 我们一直看到的那个路牌 写着中文的那个啊'她瞪着我的脸一阵子突然笑开了 因为她总算知道我所指为何。

 

And what I'm talking about is this. Right, thefamous Chinese character for picnic area.I've spent the last five years of mylife thinking about situations exactly like this -- why we sometimesmisunderstand the signs around us, and how we behave when that happens, andwhat all of this can tell us about human nature.

我说的是这个，没错，这就是代表野餐区的那个中文字。过去的五年 我一直在思考 刚刚我所描述的状况 为什么我们会对身边的征兆产生误解当误解发生时我们作何反应 以及这一切所告诉我们的人性。

 

In other words, as you heard Chris say, I've spentthe last five years thinking about being wrong. This might strike you as astrange career move, but it actually has one great advantage: no jobcompetition. In fact, most of us do everything we can to avoid thinking aboutbeing wrong, or at least to avoid thinking about the possibility，that we ourselves are wrong.

换句话说,就像Chris 刚才说的过去五年的时间我都在思考错误的价值。你可能觉得这是个奇异的专业 但有一项好处是不容置疑的：没有竞争者。事实上，我们大部分的人都尽力不思考错误的价值 或至少避免想到我们有可能犯错。

 

We get it in the abstract.We all know everybody inthis room makes mistakes. The human species, in general, is fallible -- okayfine. But when it comes down to me right now, to all the beliefs I hold, herein the present tense, suddenly all of this abstract appreciation offallibility, goes out the window -- and I can't actually think of anything I'mwrong about. 

我们都知道这个模糊的概念。我们都知道这里的每个人都曾经犯错人类本来就会犯错 － 没问题。一旦这个想法临到我们自身我们现在所有的 所有的信念 对人类可能犯错的抽象概念，随即被我们抛弃 我无法想到我有哪里出错。

And the thing is, the present tense is where we live. We go tomeetings in the present tense; we go on family vacations in the present tense;we go to the polls and vote in the present tense. So effectively, we all kindof wind up traveling through life, trapped in this little bubble of feelingvery right about everything. I think this is a problem.

但是，我们活在现在我们开会，去家庭旅游 去投票 全都是现在式。我们就像现在一个小泡泡里经历人生 感觉自己总是对的，我认为这是个问题。

 

I think it's a problem for each of us asindividuals, in our personal and professional lives, and I think it's a problemfor all of us collectively as a culture. So what I want to do today is, firstof all, talk about why we get stuck inside this feeling of being right. Andsecond, why it's such a problem. And finally, I want to convince you that it ispossible to step outside of that feeling, and that, if you can do so, it is thesingle greatest moral, intellectual and creative leap you can make.

我认为这是每个人私人生活 和职业生活中的问题，我认为我们身为群体，这也造成了文化问题。于是，我今天想做的是先谈谈为甚么我们会 陷在这种自以为是的心态中。第二是为甚么这是个问题。最后我想说服大家，克服这种感觉 是可能的 而且一旦你做到了 这将成为你道德上智性上和创意上最大的进步。

 

So why do we get stuck in this feeling of beingright? One reason actually has to do with a feeling of being wrong. So let meask you guys something -- or actually, let me ask you guys something, becauseyou're right here: How does it feel -- emotionally --how does it feel to bewrong? Dreadful. Thumbs down. Embarrassing. Okay, wonderful, good. Dreadful,thumbs down, embarrassing -- thank you, these are great answers, but they'reanswers to a different question.

为甚么我们会陷在 这种自以为是的心态中？事实上这和犯错的感觉有关。我想问问你们 让我问问台上的你们 当你意识到自己犯错了，你感觉如何？“糟透了。很差劲。难堪。很好，是的。很糟糕，很差劲，很难堪。 ”谢谢你们提供这些答案但这些答案没有回答我的问题

 

You guys are answering the question: How does itfeel to realize you're wrong? Realizing you're wrong can feel like all of thatand a lot of other things, right? I mean it can be devastating, it can berevelatory, it can actually be quite funny, like my stupid Chinese charactermistake. But just being wrong doesn't feel like anything.

你们回答的问题是： 当你意识到你犯错的时候，你的感觉如何？意识到你犯错了就会有刚刚所说的这些感觉，不是吗？令人沮丧，暴露了一些真实有时候甚至有些好笑 像我误以为路牌是中文字。但犯错本身 事实上毫无感觉

 

I'll give you an analogy.Do you remember that LoonyTunes cartoon where there's this pathetic coyote who's always chasing and nevercatching a roadrunner? In pretty much every episode of this cartoon, there's amoment where the coyote is chasing the roadrunner and the roadrunner runs off acliff, which is fine, he's a bird, he can fly. But the thing is, the coyoteruns off the cliff right after him. And what's funny -- at least if you're sixyears old -- is that the coyote's totally fine too. He just keeps running --right up until the moment that he looks down and realizes that he's inmid-air.That's when he falls.

让我给你一个例子。你记得卡通里 那个总是在追逐 却从未抓到猎物的土狼吗？几乎在每一集里 牠的猎物 － 一只走鹃鸟都会跳下悬崖。反正牠是鸟，牠可以飞，但土狼也会跟着牠一起跳崖。那很好笑 如果你是个六岁儿童 土狼也很好。牠就这么继续跑 直到牠往下看 发现自己漫步在空中，这时候他才会往下掉。

 

When we're wrong about something -- not when werealize it, but before that -- we're like that coyote after he's gone off thecliff and before he looks down. You know, we're already wrong, we're already introuble, but we feel like we're on solid ground. So I should actually correctsomething I said a moment ago.It does feel like something to be wrong; it feelslike being right.

在我们犯错时 在我们意识到我们犯错时 我们就像那只土狼 还没意识到自己奔出悬崖，我们已经错了 已经惹上麻烦了但仍然感觉像走在地上。我应该改变我之前的说法。犯错的感觉就和 正确的感觉一样。

 

So this is one reason, a structural reason, why weget stuck inside this feeling of rightness. I call this error blindness. Mostof the time, we don't have any kind of internal cue to let us know that we'rewrong about something, until it's too late.

事实上我们这种自以为对的感受 是有构造性的原因的，我称之为错误盲点。大部份的时间里 我们身体里没有任何机制提醒我们错了 直到木已成舟。

 

But there's a second reason that we get stuck insidethis feeling as well -- and this one is cultural.Think back for a moment toelementary school. You're sitting there in class, and your teacher is handingback quiz papers, and one of them looks like this. This is not mine, by theway. So there you are in grade school, and you know exactly what to think aboutthe kid who got this paper. It's the dumb kid, the troublemaker, the one whonever does his homework.

但还有第二个理由 文化性的理由，回想小学时代，你坐在课堂里 你的老师发回小考考卷 像这样的小考考卷，虽然这张不是我的，你从小学时代就知道该对拿这张考卷的同学 下甚么评语“笨蛋，捣蛋鬼 从不做功课的坏学生”

 

So by the time you are nine years old, you'vealready learned, first of all, that people who get stuff wrong are lazy,irresponsible dimwits --and second of all, that the way to succeed in life isto never make any mistakes. We learn these really bad lessons really well. Anda lot of us -- and I suspect, especially a lot of us in this room -- deal withthem by just becoming perfect little A students, perfectionists,over-achievers.

你不过才九岁 你已经懂得，首先 那些犯错的人 都是懒惰、不负责任的傻瓜。第二 想要在人生中成功 就不要犯错，我们很早就得到这些错误讯息。而我们尤其是这个大厅里的许多人 都因此成为好学生 拿全A、完美主义、永不满意、

 

Right, Mr. CFO, astrophysicist, ultra-marathoner?You're all CFO, astrophysicists, ultra-marathoners, it turns out. Okay, so fine.Except that then we freak out at the possibility that we've gotten somethingwrong. Because according to this, getting something wrong means there'ssomething wrong with us. So we just insist that we're right, because it makesus feel smart and responsible and virtuous and safe.

不是吗？ 财务长、天体物理学家、超级马拉松先生们？结果是你们全成了财务长、天体物理学家、跑超级马拉松。那很好。但一旦我们发现有可能犯错就开始手足无措，因为依照规定 犯错 代表我们一定也有甚么不对劲。于是我们坚持己见 因为那让我们感觉聪明、得体 安全和可靠

 

So let me tell you a story. A couple of years ago, awoman comes into Beth Israel Deaconess medical center for a surgery. BethIsrael's in Boston. It's the teaching hospital for Harvard -- one of the besthospitals in the country. So this woman comes in and she's taken into theoperating room. She's anesthetized, the surgeon does his thing -- stitches herback up, sends her out to the recovery room. Everything seems to have gonefine.

让我告诉你们一个故事。几年前 一个女人到 Beth IsraelDeaconess 诊所做手术，Beth Israel 在波士顿，是哈佛大学的教学附属医院 全国数一数二的医疗中心。这个女人被送进开刀房，麻醉，外科医生做完手术缝合，将她送进恢复室，一切看上去都很好。

 

And she wakes up, and she looks down at herself, andshe says, 'Why is the wrong side of my body in bandages?' Well thewrong side of her body is in bandages because the surgeon has performed a majoroperation on her left leg instead of her right one. When the vice president forhealth care quality at Beth Israel spoke about this incident, he said somethingvery interesting.He said, 'For whatever reason, the surgeon simply feltthat he was on the correct side of the patient.'

她醒来，往自己身上一看 说“为甚么我的左腿绑着绷带？”她应该接受治疗的是右腿 但为他做手术的外科医生 却把刀开在左腿。当副院长出来为医院的医疗质量 和这次意外做出解释时 他说了句很有趣的话，他说“无论如何 这位外科医生感觉 他开下的刀是在正确的一侧”

 

The point of this story is that trusting too much inthe feeling of being on the correct side of anything can be very dangerous.This internal sense of rightness that we all experience so often is not areliable guide to what is actually going on in the external world.And when weact like it is, and we stop entertaining the possibility that we could bewrong, well that's when we end up doing things 88.like dumping 200 milliongallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, or torpedoing the global economy.

故事的重点是 相信自己的判断力 相信自己站在对的一边 是非常危险的。我们心中时常感觉到的 理直气壮的感觉在真实世界中 并不是个可靠的向导。当我们依此行事 不再思考我们是否犯错 我们就有可能把两百湾加仑的石油倒进墨西哥湾 或是颠覆世界经济。

 

So this is a huge practical problem.But it's also ahuge social problem.Think for a moment about what it means to feel right.Itmeans that you think that your beliefs just perfectly reflect reality. And whenyou feel that way, you've got a problem to solve, which is, how are you goingto explain all of those people who disagree with you?It turns out, most of usexplain those people the same way, by resorting to a series of unfortunateassumptions.

这是个很实际的问题，这也是个很大的社会问题。感觉对”究竟是什么意思？这代表着你认为你的信念 和真实是一致的。当你有这种感觉的时候你的问题就大了 因为如果你是对的 为甚么还有人和你持不同意见？于是我们往往用同一种 思考方式去解释这些异议。

 

The first thing we usually do when someone disagreeswith us is we just assume they're ignorant.They don't have access to the sameinformation that we do, and when we generously share that information withthem, they're going to see the light and come on over to our team.When thatdoesn't work, when it turns out those people have all the same facts that we doand they still disagree with us, then we move on to a second assumption,whichis that they're idiots.They have all the right pieces of the puzzle, and theyare too moronic to put them together correctly.

第一是当他人不同意我们的说法 我们便觉得他们无知。他们不像我们懂得这么多 当我们慷慨地和他们分享我们的知识他们便会理解，并加入我们的行列。如果不是这样 如果这些人和我们获得的信息一样多 却仍然不认同我们 我们便有了下一个定论，那就是他们是白痴，他们已经有了所有的信息却笨到无法拼凑出正确的图像。

 

And when that doesn't work, when it turns out thatpeople who disagree with us have all the same facts we do and are actuallypretty smart,then we move on to a third assumption: they know the truth, andthey are deliberately distorting it for their own malevolent purposes.So thisis a catastrophe.

一旦第二个定论也不成立 当这些反对我们的人 和我们有一样的信息 又聪明，我们便有了第三个结论 他们知道事实是甚么但却为了自己的好处 故意曲解真实。这真是个大灾难。

 

This attachment to our own rightness keeps us frompreventing mistakes when we absolutely need to and causes us to treat eachother terribly.104.But to me, what's most baffling and most tragic about thisis that it misses the whole point of being human.It's like we want to imaginethat our minds are just these perfectly translucent windows and we just gazeout of them and describe the world as it unfolds.

我们的自以为是 让我们在最需要的时候 无法预防犯错 更让我们互相仇视。对我来说 最大的悲剧是 它让我们错失了身为人的珍贵意义。那就像是想象我们的心灵之窗完全透明 我们向外观看 描述在我们之前展开的世界。

 

And we want everybody else to gaze out of the samewindow and see the exact same thing.That is not true, and if it were, lifewould be incredibly boring.The miracle of your mind isn't that you can see theworld as it is.It's that you can see the world as it isn't.

我们想要每个人和我们有一样的窗子 对世界做出一样的观察。那不是真的 如果是，人生将会多么无聊。心灵的神奇之处不在你懂得这个世界是甚么样子，而是去理解那些你不懂的地方。

 

We can remember the past, and we can think about thefuture, and we can imagine what it's like to be some other person in some otherplace.And we all do this a little differently, which is why we can all look upat the same night sky and see this and also this and also this.And yeah, it isalso why we get things wrong.

我们记得过去 思考未来 我们想象 自己成为他人，在他方。我们的想象都有些不同 于是当我们抬头看同一个夜空我们看到这个 这个 和这个，这也是我们搞错事情的原因。

 

1,200 years before Descartes said his famous thingabout 'I think therefore I am,'this guy, St. Augustine, sat down andwrote 'Fallor ergo sum' -- 'I err therefore I am.' Augustineunderstood that our capacity to screw up, it's not some kind of embarrassingdefect in the human system, something we can eradicate or overcome. It'stotally fundamental to who we are. Because, unlike God, we don't really knowwhat's going on out there.And unlike all of the other animals, we are obsessedwith trying to figure it out.

在笛卡儿说出那句有名的”我思故我在“ 的一千两百年前，圣奥古斯丁，坐下来 写下'Fallor ergo sum' '我错故我在'。奥古斯丁懂得我们犯错的能力 这并不是人性中 一个令人难堪的缺陷 不是我们可以克服或消灭的，这是我们的本质。因为我们不是上帝 我们不知道我们之外究竟发生了甚么。而不同于其它动物的是我们都疯狂地想找出解答

 

To me, this obsession is the source and root of allof our productivity and creativity. Last year, for various reasons, I foundmyself listening to a lot of episodes of the Public Radio show This AmericanLife. And so I'm listening and I'm listening, and at some point, I startfeeling like all the stories are about being wrong.And my first thought was,'I've lost it.I've become the crazy wrongness lady.I just imagined iteverywhere,'which has happened.

对我来说 这种寻找的冲动 就是我们生产力和创造力的来源。因为一些缘故 去年我在广播上 听了很多集的'我们的美国人生'。我听着听着 突然发现 这些故事全和犯错有关，我的第一个念头是 “我完了，我写书写疯了，四处都看到有关犯错的幻觉”。

 

But a couple of months later, I actually had achance to interview Ira Glass, who's the host of the show. And I mentioned thisto him, and he was like, 'No actually, that's true. In fact,' hesays, 'as a staff, we joke that every single episode of our show has thesame crypto-theme. And the crypto-theme is: 'I thought this one thing was goingto happen and something else happened instead.' And thing is,' says IraGlass, 'we need this. We need these moments of surprise and reversal andwrongness to make these stories work.'

说真的是这样，但几个月后 我访问了那个广播节目的主持人 IraGlass，我向他提到这件事 他回答我“事实上 你是对的”他说 “我们这些工作人员总是 开玩笑说每集节目之中的 秘密主题都是一样的，这个秘密主题就是'我以为这件事会这样发生 结果其它事情发生了' 他说'但是，这就是我们需要的，我们需要这些意外 这些颠倒和错误 这些故事才能成立。'

 

And for the rest of us, audience members, aslisteners, as readers, we eat this stuff up. We love things like plot twistsand red herrings and surprise endings. When it comes to our stories, we lovebeing wrong. But, you know, our stories are like this because our lives arelike this. We think this one thing is going to happen and something elsehappens instead.

而我们身为观众 听众、读者 我们吸收这些故事。我们喜欢故事转折 令人惊讶的结局。我们喜欢在故事里 看到犯错，但，故事会这样写是因为人生就是这样。我们以为某些事情会这样发生 发生的却是其它事。

 

George Bush thought he was going to invade Iraq,find a bunch of weapons of mass destruction, liberate the people and bringdemocracy to the Middle East. And something else happened instead. And HosniMubarak thought he was going to be dictator of Egypt for the rest of his life,until he got too old or too sick and could pass the reigns of power onto hisson. And something else happened instead. And maybe you thought you were goingto grow up and marry your high school sweetheart and move back to your hometown and raise a bunch of kids together. And something else happened instead.

小布什以为他入侵伊拉克 会找到大规模毁灭性武器 解放中东百姓，为他们带来民主自由。但却不是这样。穆巴拉克以为他到死都会是埃及的独裁者 一直到他年老或卧病 再把他的权力交给下一代，但却不是这样。或许你想过 你会长大、嫁给你的初恋情人 搬回老家，生一群孩子。但却不是这样。

 

And I have to tell you that I thought I was writingan incredibly nerdy book about a subject everybody hates for an audience thatwould never materialize.And something else happened instead. I mean, this islife. For good and for ill, we generate these incredible stories about theworld around us, and then the world turns around and astonishes us.

我必须说 我以为我写的是一本很冷僻的书 有关一个人人讨厌的主题 为一些从不存在的读者。但却不是这样。我们的人生，无论好坏我们创造了啦 那包围我们的世界 而世界转过头来，令我们大吃一惊。

 

No offense, but this entire conference is anunbelievable monument to our capacity to get stuff wrong. We just spent andentire week talking about innovations and advancements and improvements, butyou know why we need all of those innovations and advancements and improvements?Because half the stuff that's the most mind-boggling and world altering -- TED1998 -- eh.Didn't really work out that way, did it. Where's my jet pack, Chris?So here we are again.

说真的，这整个会议 充斥着这样难以置信的时刻 我们一次又一次地意识到自己的错误。我们花了整整一周 讨论创新，进步和改善 你知道我们为甚么需要这些创新、进步和改善吗？因为其中有一半 来自最应该改变世界的 98年的TED 呃。真是出人意料之外啊，不是吗？我的逃生火箭在哪，Chris?于是我们又在这里。

 

And that's how it goes. We come up with anotheridea. We tell another story. We hold another conference. The theme of this one,as you guys have now heard seven million times, is the rediscovery of wonder.And to me, if you really want to rediscover wonder, you need to step outside ofthat tiny, terrified space of rightness and look around at each other and lookout at the vastness and complexity and mystery of the universe and be able tosay, 'Wow, I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong.' Thank you. Thank you guys.

事情就是这样，我们重新想出其它点子、我们有了新的故事、我们开了另一个会议，这次的主题是 如果你还没有听到耳朵出油的话是重新找到想象的力量。对我来说 如果你真的想重新找到想象的力量 你需要离开 那个小小的、自我感觉良好的小圈圈 看看彼此、看看宇宙的 广大无垠 复杂神秘 然后真正地说 “哇，我不知道 或许我错了。”谢谢各位，谢谢。