双语：为什么人文学科不应被摒弃

“We are drowning in information, while starving for wisdom.”“世人被知识压死，智慧却少得很。”

That epigram from E.O. Wilson captures the dilemma of our era. Yet the solution of some folks is to disdain wisdom. E·O·威尔逊( E.O. Wilson)一语道破了我们这个时代的困境。但一些人给出的应对之道竟是鄙弃智慧。

“Is it a vital interest of the state to have more anthropologists?” Rick Scott, the Florida governor, once asked. A leader of a prominent Internet company once told

me that the firm regards admission to Harvard as a useful heuristic of talent, but a college education itself as useless. “拥有更多人类学家是本州的关键利益所在吗？”佛罗里达州州长里克·斯科特(Rick Scott)曾经这样问道。某著名互联网公司的负责人曾经告诉我，该公司把哈佛大学的录取通知书当成一个人是否有才的具有启发性的有用

依据，但并不认为大学教育本身有什么参考价值。

Parents and students themselves are acting on these principles, retreating from the humanities. Among college graduates in 1971, there were about two business majors for each English major. Now there are seven times as many. (I was a political science major; if I were doing it over, I’d be an economics major with a foot in the humanities.) 学生和家长们正按照这类准则行事，纷纷摒弃人文学科。1971年，商科

本科毕业生和英语系本科毕业生的比例是2：1。现在，两者的比例是7：1。（我学的是政治学专业；如果可以重来一次，我会去学经济学，同时选修人文学科。）

I’ve been thinking about this after reading Fareed Zakaria’s smart new book,

“In Defense of a Liberal Education.” Like Zakaria, I think that the liberal arts teach critical thinking (not to mention nifty words like “heuristic”). 自从读了法里德·扎卡

里亚(Fareed Zakaria)颇有见地的新书《捍卫人文教育》(In Defense of a Liberal Education)之后，我一直在思考这一现象。和扎卡里亚一样，我认为人文教育有助于培养学生的批判性思维（具有“启发性”等漂亮话就更不用说了）。

So, to answer the skeptics, here are my three reasons the humanities enrich our souls and sometimes even our pocketbooks as well. 人文学科可以丰富我们的精神生活，有时甚至可以充实我们的钱袋子。为了回应怀疑论者，我在此给出三点理由。First, liberal arts equip students with communications and interpersonal skills that are valuable and genuinely rewarded in the labor force, especially when accompanied by technical abilities. 首先，人文教育有助于提高学生的沟通和人际交往能力，在职场上，这种能力可以给人带来巨大的回报，尤其是在跟技术能力共同起作用的时候。

“A broad liberal arts education is a key pathway to success in the 21st-century economy,” says Lawrence Katz, a labor economist at Harvard. Katz says that the economic return to pure technical skills has flattened, and the highest return now goes to those who combine soft skills — excellence at communicating and working

with people — with technical skills. “在21世纪的经济体系中，宽泛的人文教育是通往成功的重要途径，”哈佛大学的劳动经济学家劳伦斯·卡茨(Lawrence Katz)说。卡茨称，纯技术能力的经济回报已经趋平，既具有软能力——善于与他人交流和协同工作——又具有技术能力的人获得的回报是最高的。

“So I think a humanities major who also did a lot of computer science, economics, psychology, or other sciences can be quite valuable and have great career flexibility,” Katz said. “But you need both, in my view, to maximize your potential. And an economics major or computer science major or biology or engineering or physics major who takes serious courses in the humanities and history also will be a much more valuable scientist, financial professional, economist, or entrepreneur.”“因此

我认为，一个人文专业的学生，如果对计算机科学、经济学、心理学或者其他学科也

颇有研究，就会很有价值，在职场是会有很大的灵活性的。”卡茨说，“但在我看来，你必须‘脚踏两只船’，才能最大限度地挖掘自己的潜能。一个经济学专业的学生，

或者是计算机专业、生物学专业、工程学专业、物理学专业的学生，如果正经八百地

修过人文和历史课程，也会成为一个更有价值的科学家、金融专业人士、经济学家或

者企业家。”

My second reason: We need people conversant with the humanities to help reach wise public policy decisions, even about the sciences. Technology companies must constantly weigh ethical decisions: Where should Facebook set its privacy defaults, and should it tolerate glimpses of nudity? Should Twitter close accounts that seem sympathetic to terrorists? How should Google handle sex and violence, or defamatory articles? 我的第二个理由：我们需要通晓人文学科的人来帮忙做出明智的

公共政策决策——甚至是和科学有关的决策。科技公司必须不断对伦理决策进行权衡：Facebook的默认隐私设置应该是什么样的，该容忍些许裸体影像的存在吗？Twitter该关停似乎对恐怖分子颇为同情的账号吗？谷歌(Google)该如何处理关于性与暴力的内

容以及诽谤性文章？

In the policy realm, one of the most important decisions we humans will have to make is whether to allow germline gene modification. This might eliminate certain diseases, ease suffering, make our offspring smarter and more beautiful. But it would also change our species. It would enable the wealthy to concoct superchildren. It’s exhilarating and terrifying. 在政策领域，我们人类必须做出的一个最为重要的决定：是否允许修正人类生殖细胞基因。人类生殖细胞基因修正或许可以消灭特定种类

的疾病，减少痛苦，让我们的后代更聪明、更美丽。但它同时也会改变我们这个物种，会让富人有机会炮制出犹如超人的子女。这真是既令人振奋，又透着恐怖。

To weigh these issues, regulators should be informed by first-rate science, but also

by first-rate humanism. After all, Homer addressed similar issues three millenniums ago. 要权衡这类问题，监管者不仅要具有一流的科学素质，还要具有一流的人文素质。毕竟，早在3000年前，荷马(Homer)就提出过类似的问题。