通用商务中级08:02work meaning

The Way We Think About Work Is Broken

我们对工作的理解错了

心理学家巴里·施瓦茨的 TED 演讲,追问「我们为什么工作」。他指出,真正让大多数人只为薪水而干活的,不是自动化,而是「观念技术」:亚当·斯密「人性天生懒惰」的错误假设,催生了只剩报酬、毫无意义的工厂制度,并反过来把人塑造成它所需要的样子。发人深省,适合学习管理与人性话题的思辨英语。

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台词(46 句)

00:12

Today I'm going to talk about work. And the question I want to ask and answer is this: "Why do we work?"

今天我要谈谈工作。我想提出并回答的问题是:「我们为什么要工作?」

00:21

Why do we drag ourselves out of bed every morning instead of living our lives just filled with bouncing from one TED-like adventure to another?

我们为什么每天早上要硬把自己从床上拽起来,而不是让生活变成从一场 TED 式的奇遇蹦到另一场?

00:32

(Laughter) You may be asking yourselves that very question. Now, I know of course, we have to make a living, but nobody in this room thinks that that's the answer to the question, "Why do we work?"

(笑声)你或许正在心里问自己这个问题。当然,我知道我们得谋生;可在座没有一个人会认为,「谋生」就是「我们为什么要工作」的答案。

00:44

For folks in this room, the work we do is challenging, it's engaging, it's stimulating, it's meaningful.

对在座各位来说,我们做的工作充满挑战、引人投入、令人振奋,也富有意义。

00:52

And if we're lucky, it might even be important. So, we wouldn't work if we didn't get paid, but that's not why we do what we do.

如果够幸运,它甚至可能举足轻重。所以,没有报酬我们固然不会工作,但报酬并不是我们做这份工作的原因。

01:00

And in general, I think we think that material rewards are a pretty bad reason for doing the work that we do.

而总的来说,我认为我们都觉得,把物质回报当作工作的理由,实在很糟糕。

01:06

When we say of somebody that he's "in it for the money," we are not just being descriptive.

当我们说某人「就是为了钱才干这个」时,我们可不只是在陈述事实。

01:13

(Laughter) Now, I think this is totally obvious, but the very obviousness of it raises what is for me an incredibly profound question.

(笑声)我认为这一点再明显不过,可正是它的显而易见,引出了一个在我看来极其深刻的问题。

01:21

Why, if this is so obvious, why is it that for the overwhelming majority of people on the planet, the work they do has none of the characteristics that get us up and out of bed and off to the office every morning?

既然这么显而易见,那为什么对这世上绝大多数人来说,他们所做的工作,却丝毫没有那些能让我们每天起床、奔向办公室的特质?

01:38

How is it that we allow the majority of people on the planet to do work that is monotonous, meaningless and soul-deadening?

我们怎么会容许这世上大多数人,去做那种单调乏味、毫无意义、消磨心灵的工作?

01:47

Why is it that as capitalism developed, it created a mode of production, of goods and services, in which all the nonmaterial satisfactions that might come from work were eliminated?

为什么随着资本主义的发展,它所创造的这种生产商品和服务的模式,把工作中一切可能带来的非物质满足感统统抹去了?

02:00

Workers who do this kind of work, whether they do it in factories, in call centers, or in fulfillment warehouses, do it for pay.

从事这类工作的人,无论是在工厂、呼叫中心还是配货仓库,都只是为了报酬而做。

02:09

There is certainly no other earthly reason to do what they do except for pay. So the question is, "Why?"

除了报酬,他们做这份活儿实在找不出别的什么理由。所以问题就是:「为什么?」

02:18

And here's the answer: the answer is technology. Now, I know, I know -- yeah, yeah, yeah, technology, automation screws people, blah blah -- that's not what I mean.

答案是这样的:答案是技术。我知道,我知道——是是是,技术嘛,自动化坑苦了大家,诸如此类——我说的可不是这个。

02:29

I'm not talking about the kind of technology that has enveloped our lives, and that people come to TED to hear about.

我说的不是那种早已包裹了我们生活、人们跑来 TED 听的技术。

02:36

I'm not talking about the technology of things, profound though that is. I'm talking about another technology.

我说的不是「实物的技术」——尽管它意义深远。我说的是另一种技术。

02:43

I'm talking about the technology of ideas. I call it, "idea technology" -- how clever of me.

我说的是「观念的技术」。我管它叫「观念技术」——瞧我多机灵。

02:50

(Laughter) In addition to creating things, science creates ideas. Science creates ways of understanding.

(笑声)科学除了创造实物,还创造观念。科学创造出各种理解世界的方式。

02:59

And in the social sciences, the ways of understanding that get created are ways of understanding ourselves.

而在社会科学里,被创造出来的这些理解方式,是我们理解自己的方式。

03:06

And they have an enormous influence on how we think, what we aspire to, and how we act. If you think your poverty is God's will, you pray.

它们极大地影响着我们如何思考、向往什么以及如何行动。如果你认为自己的贫穷是上帝的旨意,你就会祈祷。

03:16

If you think your poverty is the result of your own inadequacy, you shrink into despair.

如果你认为自己的贫穷源于自身的无能,你就会萎缩进绝望里。

03:23

And if you think your poverty is the result of oppression and domination, then you rise up in revolt.

而如果你认为自己的贫穷是压迫与统治的结果,你就会揭竿而起、奋起反抗。

03:29

Whether your response to poverty is resignation or revolution, depends on how you understand the sources of your poverty.

你对贫穷的回应,是逆来顺受还是掀起革命,取决于你如何理解贫穷的根源。

03:37

This is the role that ideas play in shaping us as human beings, and this is why idea technology may be the most profoundly important technology that science gives us.

这正是观念在塑造我们「为人」这件事上所扮演的角色,也正因如此,观念技术或许是科学赋予我们的、最意义深远的技术。

03:51

And there's something special about idea technology, that makes it different from the technology of things.

观念技术有一点很特别,使它有别于实物的技术。

03:58

With things, if the technology sucks, it just vanishes, right? Bad technology disappears.

对实物来说,如果技术很烂,它自然就消失了,对吧?糟糕的技术会被淘汰。

04:06

With ideas -- false ideas about human beings will not go away if people believe that they're true.

可对观念来说——关于人性的错误观念,只要人们相信它是对的,就不会消失。

04:16

Because if people believe that they're true, they create ways of living and institutions that are consistent with these very false ideas.

因为一旦人们信以为真,他们就会照着这些错误观念,创造出与之相符的生活方式和各种制度。

04:26

And that's how the industrial revolution created a factory system in which there was really nothing you could possibly get out of your day's work, except for the pay at the end of the day.

工业革命正是这样,造出了一套工厂制度——在这套制度里,一整天的劳作,除了下班时那点工钱,你几乎什么也得不到。

04:37

Because the father -- one of the fathers of the Industrial Revolution, Adam Smith -- was convinced that human beings were by their very natures lazy, and wouldn't do anything unless you made it worth their while, and the way you made it worth their while

因为工业革命之父之一——亚当·斯密——坚信人天生懒惰,除非你给他好处,否则他什么都不肯干;而你给他好处的方式,

04:50

was by incentivizing, by giving them rewards. That was the only reason anyone ever did anything. So we created a factory system consistent with that false view of human nature.

就是用激励、用奖赏。他认为那是任何人做任何事的唯一理由。于是,我们造出了一套与这种错误人性观相符的工厂制度。

05:01

But once that system of production was in place, there was really no other way for people to operate, except in a way that was consistent with Adam Smith's vision.

可这套生产制度一旦确立,人们就再没有别的运作方式了,只能照着亚当·斯密所设想的那一套来。

05:12

So the work example is merely an example of how false ideas can create a circumstance that ends up making them true.

所以,工作只是一个例子,说明错误的观念如何能制造出一种境况,最终反过来让这些观念「成真」。

05:23

It is not true that you "just can't get good help anymore." It is true that you "can't get good help anymore" when you give people work to do that is demeaning and soulless.

「现在再也雇不到好员工了」这话本身并不成立。但当你交给别人的,是一份低人一等、毫无灵魂的工作时,「再也雇不到好员工」就真的成立了。

05:39

And interestingly enough, Adam Smith -- the same guy who gave us this incredible invention of mass production, and division of labor -- understood this.

有意思的是,亚当·斯密——就是那位给我们带来大规模生产和劳动分工这一惊人发明的人——他其实明白这一点。

05:48

He said, of people who worked in assembly lines, of men who worked in assembly lines, he says: "He generally becomes as stupid as it is possible for a human being to become."

谈到那些在流水线上工作的人时,他说:「他通常会变得蠢到一个人所能达到的极限。」

06:01

Now, notice the word here is "become." "He generally becomes as stupid as it is possible for a human being to become."

请注意这里的词是「变得」。「他通常会变得蠢到一个人所能达到的极限。」

06:09

Whether he intended it or not, what Adam Smith was telling us there, is that the very shape of the institution within which people work creates people who are fitted to the demands of that institution and deprives people of the opportunity

无论亚当·斯密是否有意,他在这里其实是在告诉我们:人们工作所处的那套制度,它的形态本身,会塑造出一批恰好契合该制度要求的人,同时剥夺了人们的机会——

06:24

to derive the kinds of satisfactions from their work that we take for granted. The thing about science -- natural science -- is that we can spin fantastic theories about the cosmos, and have complete confidence that the cosmos is completely indifferent to our theories.

剥夺了他们从工作中获得那种我们习以为常的满足感的机会。自然科学有一点好处:我们可以对宇宙编织出各种奇妙的理论,同时完全笃定,宇宙对我们的理论根本漠不关心。

06:43

It's going to work the same damn way no matter what theories we have about the cosmos. But we do have to worry about the theories we have of human nature, because human nature will be changed by the theories we have

无论我们对宇宙抱有什么理论,它照样我行我素。但我们的确得为自己关于人性的理论操心,因为人性会被我们的理论改变——

06:59

that are designed to explain and help us understand human beings. The distinguished anthropologist, Clifford Geertz, said, years ago, that human beings are the "unfinished animals."

被那些本用来解释、帮助我们理解人类的理论改变。杰出的人类学家克利福德·格尔茨多年前说过,人是「未完成的动物」。

07:12

And what he meant by that was that it is only human nature to have a human nature that is very much the product of the society in which people live.

他的意思是:人性有一个特点,那就是人性在很大程度上是人们所处社会的产物——而这本身,恰恰就是人性。

07:23

That human nature, that is to say our human nature, is much more created than it is discovered.

所谓人性,也就是我们的人性,与其说是被发现的,不如说是被创造出来的。

07:30

We design human nature by designing the institutions within which people live and work.

我们通过设计人们生活和工作所处的各种制度,来设计人性。

07:37

And so you people -- pretty much the closest I ever get to being with masters of the universe -- you people should be asking yourself a question, as you go back home to run your organizations.

所以你们各位——差不多是我这辈子最接近「宇宙主宰」的一群人了——当你们回去经营自己的组织时,应该问自己一个问题。

07:50

Just what kind of human nature do you want to help design? Thank you. (Applause) Thanks.

那就是:你到底想帮着设计出怎样的人性?谢谢。(掌声)谢谢。