PBS高端访谈:与陌生人交谈

JUDY WOODRUFF: Each week on Brief But Spectacular, we invite you to walk in the shoes of someone new. Tonight's episode features author Malcolm Gladwell, who tells us what to look for when meeting someone for the first time. His latest book is called Talking to Strangers. Gladwell also hosts the podcast Revisionist History.

MALCOLM GLADWELL, Author: What I learned about our encounters with strangers is that we're in too much of a hurry, that we seize on what available evidence is out there and jump to conclusions, and we are probably not as aware as we should be about how many mistakes we make in that process. Every time you meet someone new, there is a thrill of anticipation¹. You're presented with a puzzle, which is, who is this person, what do they want, what are they like, what motivates them? It's easy to create the illusion of intimacy² and create the illusion that you understand the person that you're talking to. But you should be careful, because you probably don't. When a judge confronts a defendant³ in an attempt to decide whether they should be given bail⁴ or not, how good are they at making that judgment⁵? They're trying to predict, is the person so dangerous that they shouldn't be released, or so not dangerous that they should? And what you discover in that moment is that judges do a very bad job of that. And that's because they're human beings, and human beings doing a bad job of summing up in a one-minute confrontation⁶ with a, between a defendant and a judge. The judge doesn't nearly have enough material to make a reasonable and accurate assessment⁷. I think we should be aware that an awful lot of what we consider to be conflict in the world is not conflict. It's misunderstanding. The story of Sandra Bland⁸ may be the most heartbreaking of that series of high-profile encounters between African-Americans and law enforcement. She's the young woman from Chicago who is in a small town in Texas and pulled over by a police officer. She was distressed⁹, and he thought she was dangerous. Those are two extremely different emotions with very, very different consequences.

SANDRA BLAND, Chicago Resident: Why am I being apprehended¹⁰? You just opened my car door. You just opened my car door. So, you're going to, you're threatening to drag me out of my own car?

MAN: Get out of the car!

MALCOLM GLADWELL: She was the furthest thing from a threat to him. But he perceived her that way. It ended in tragedy. We have an enormous amount of curiosity about the people we're meeting. That's what drives us to try and reach conclusions about them. And I don't mean to temper that curiosity. I mean to extend it. We have to find ways, not to replace the human judgment, but to assist it. And we're starting to do that with things like artificial intelligence, which are just ways of helping¹¹ human beings correct for some of their biases¹². We are trusting engines. And that's a good thing. And that's an easy thing for me to accept, because I grew up in Southern Ontario in the '70s. Very easy if you grew up in Southern Ontario to accept the fundamental notion that we're better off trusting strangers. We have to slow down and take our time and be willing to consider the possibility that people are more complicated than we assume. My name is Malcolm Gladwell. This is my Brief But Spectacular take on talking to strangers.

JUDY WOODRUFF: You can find more Brief But Spectacular essays on our Web site. That's PBS.org/NewsHour/Brief.

朱迪·伍德拉夫：每一期《简单而精彩》，我们都会带领大家去体会他人的别样人生。今晚的主人公是马尔科姆·格拉德威尔。他将讲述在第一次遇到某个人的时候看些什么。马尔科姆·格拉德威尔最近的一本书叫《与陌生人交谈》。格拉德威尔也是《修正主义历史》博客的主持人。

马尔科姆·格拉德威尔，作家：我从与陌生人邂逅中学到的是——我们太匆忙了，以至于我们根据随手看到听到的证据就妄下结论。我们大概率不会意识到在这个过程中，我们犯了多少错误。每次我们遇到陌生人，都会有一种期望突然产生。我们脑海中会出现一个谜团——这个人是谁、他们想要什么、他们是什么样的人、他们做事有怎样的动机。我们很容易就会产生一种与陌生人亲近的错觉，认为自己很了解这个与自己交谈的陌生人。但大家应该小心了，因为你很有可能不了解。当法官面对一个被告的时候，法官要试着判断出是否要让这个人获得保释。法官有多擅长做这样的判决呢？法官要试着预测——这个人如果释放出狱的话，是否会构成危险；亦或即便释放出狱，也不会构成危险。那一刻，你会发现：法官非常不擅长做这样的判断。这是因为：法官也是人，而人在与萍水相逢的人对峙时，往往会做出不合适的结论。以这个例子为例，这两个陌生人是法官和被告。法官也没有足够的资料能做出合理精确的评估。我认为，我们应该意识到——在这个世界上，很多我们眼中的冲突都不是冲突，是误解。说起非裔美籍人士和执法人员之间的“初次高调邂逅”，桑德拉·布兰德的故事可能是最让人心碎的那个。桑德拉是来自芝加哥的年轻女士。她在德克萨斯州的一个小镇被一名警官叫到路边停车。她很紧张，而那名警官认为桑德拉很危险。这两种情绪非常不同，也会造成非常不同的结果。

桑德拉·布兰德，芝加哥居民：为什么要逮捕我？你刚才打开了我的车门。你打开了我的车门。所以，你是要——你是要威胁着把我拖出我的车？

男：下车！

马尔科姆·格拉德威尔：桑德拉对这名警官来说根本不是一种威胁。但这名警官将桑德拉视为一种威胁。这个故事以悲剧结束。我们对于陌生人有着很大的好奇心。因此，我们试着对陌生人下结论。我不是说这种好奇心有什么不好，我只是想扩大这种好奇心的范畴。我们必须要寻找一些方法来帮助我们做判断，而不是要做出“人类惯有的草率判断”。我们开始用人工智能等工具来做这样的判断，这些都是帮助人类纠正偏见的工具。我们相信引擎，这是好事。我也很容易接受这种现象，因为我是70年代在安大略南部长大的。如果你在这里长大，你也很容易就能接受一种基本的理念——我们更容易相信陌生人。我们必须要放下脚步，慢慢来，我们要接受一种可能性——人是复杂的，比我们想的要复杂。我是马尔科姆·格拉德威尔，这是我本期分享的与陌生人交谈有关的《简短而精彩》。

朱迪·伍德拉夫：更多节目，可戳官网PBS.org/NewsHour/Brief。

1 anticipation   

n.预期，预料，期望

参考例句：

• We waited at the station in anticipation of her arrival.我们在车站等着，期待她的到来。
• The animals grew restless as if in anticipation of an earthquake.各种动物都变得焦躁不安，像是感到了地震即将发生。

2 intimacy   

n.熟悉，亲密，密切关系，亲昵的言行

参考例句：

• His claims to an intimacy with the President are somewhat exaggerated.他声称自己与总统关系密切，这有点言过其实。
• I wish there were a rule book for intimacy.我希望能有个关于亲密的规则。

3 defendant   

n.被告；adj.处于被告地位的

参考例句：

• The judge rejected a bribe from the defendant's family.法官拒收被告家属的贿赂。
• The defendant was borne down by the weight of evidence.有力的证据使被告认输了。

4 bail   

v.舀（水），保释；n.保证金，保释，保释人

参考例句：

• One of the prisoner's friends offered to bail him out.犯人的一个朋友答应保释他出来。
• She has been granted conditional bail.她被准予有条件保释。

5 judgment   

n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见

参考例句：

• The chairman flatters himself on his judgment of people.主席自认为他审视人比别人高明。
• He's a man of excellent judgment.他眼力过人。

6 confrontation   

n.对抗，对峙，冲突

参考例句：

• We can't risk another confrontation with the union.我们不能冒再次同工会对抗的危险。
• After years of confrontation,they finally have achieved a modus vivendi.在对抗很长时间后，他们最后达成安宁生存的非正式协议。

7 assessment   

n.评价；评估；对财产的估价，被估定的金额

参考例句：

• This is a very perceptive assessment of the situation.这是一个对该情况的极富洞察力的评价。
• What is your assessment of the situation?你对时局的看法如何？

8 bland   

adj.淡而无味的，温和的，无刺激性的

参考例句：

• He eats bland food because of his stomach trouble.他因胃病而吃清淡的食物。
• This soup is too bland for me.这汤我喝起来偏淡。

9 distressed   

痛苦的

参考例句：

• He was too distressed and confused to answer their questions. 他非常苦恼而困惑，无法回答他们的问题。
• The news of his death distressed us greatly. 他逝世的消息使我们极为悲痛。

10 apprehended   

逮捕，拘押( apprehend的过去式和过去分词 )； 理解

参考例句：

• She apprehended the complicated law very quickly. 她很快理解了复杂的法律。
• The police apprehended the criminal. 警察逮捕了罪犯。

11 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。

12 biases   

偏见( bias的名词复数 )； 偏爱； 特殊能力； 斜纹

参考例句：

• Stereotypes represent designer or researcher biases and assumptions, rather than factual data. 它代表设计师或者研究者的偏见和假设，而不是实际的数据。 来自About Face 3交互设计精髓
• The net effect of biases on international comparisons is easily summarized. 偏差对国际比较的基本影响容易概括。