经济学人68:欺骗的重要 The importance of trickery

搜索关注在线英语听力室公众号：tingroom，领取免费英语资料大礼包。

　　文艺；书评；欺人与自欺；疑心病

　　The Folly² of Fools：The Logic³ of Deceit and Self-Deception in Human Life. By Robert Trivers.

　　《傻瓜的傻事儿》，罗伯特·特里沃斯著。

　　Deceiving others has its advantages. Camouflage⁴ in nature is useful to the hunter and the hunted.The smarter the animal,the more likely it is to use (and detect) deception to its benefit. Humans are particularly good at exploiting trickery to get ahead—for more money, more power or a desired mate. Yet deception is difficult, regardless of intelligence. Lying often leaves us nervous and twitchy, and complicated fictions can lead to depression and poor immune function. And then there are the ethical⁵ implications.

　　欺骗他人是有好处的。自然界的伪装对猎手和猎物都有用。动物越聪明，越有可能利用（察觉）欺骗为自己谋利。人类尤其善于利用欺骗以获得成功——为了更多的钱财，更大的权力，亦或理想的伴侣。可是不管你多聪明，欺骗都没那么容易。撒谎让我们神经紧张，焦虑不安，复杂的谎言还导致抑郁及免疫力下降。其次还会牵涉到道德问题。

　　In “The Folly of Fools” Robert Trivers, an American evolutionary⁶ biologist, explains that the most effectively devious⁷ people are often unaware⁸ of their deceit. Self-deception makes it easier to manipulate others to get ahead. Particularly intelligent people can be especially good at deceiving themselves.

　　美国进化论生物学家罗伯特·特里沃斯在《愚妄人的愚昧》一书中解释道，最狡诈的人通常都意识不到他们在欺骗。用自欺操纵别人，成功更显轻而易举。特别聪明的人可能也会特别善于欺骗自己。

　　Mining research in biology, neurophysiology, immunology and psychology⁹, Mr Trivers delivers a swift tour of links between deception and evolutionary progress. Some of it is intuitive. The grey squirrel, for example, cleverly builds false caches to discourage others from raiding its acorns¹⁰. Placebos¹¹ are sometimes as effective as medication without the nasty side effects. Other illustrations require more head-scratching. Mr Trivers argues that competition between our maternal¹² and paternal¹³ genes¹⁴ can create “split selves”, which try to fool each other on a biological level. Human memory often involves an unconscious process of selection and distortion, the better to believe the stories we tell others.

　　搜寻了生物学，神经生理学，免疫学和心理学的研究后，特里沃斯先生简要说明了欺骗和进化过程间的各种关系。有些关系是天生的。比如，灰松鼠会造假窝，以防止别人偷抢它的橡木果实；安慰剂有时和药一样有效，但却没有令人难受的副作用。其他的例子则相对费解。特里沃斯先生声称，从生物学角度，母体和父体遗传基因间的竞争会引起“自我分裂”的说法欺骗了大家。人类记忆常常会有一个无意识的选择与扭曲的过程，促使我们相信讲给他人的假话。

　　All of this deceit comes at a price. Mr Trivers suggests that the most cunning people (whether conscious fibbers or not) tend to benefit at the expense of everyone else. He highlights the way overconfident Wall Street traders may hurt investors¹⁵ and taxpayers¹⁶ at little personal risk. Then there are politicians who spin stories of national greatness to bolster¹⁷ support for costly¹⁸ wars in which they will not be fighting.

　　欺骗都要一定的代价。特里沃斯先生指出，最狡猾的人（不管是不是睁眼说瞎话）往往会在其他所有人的代价之上得益。他强调过分自信的华尔街商人冒很小的个人风险就可能会伤害投资者和纳税人的利益。此外，也有政治家编造“国家伟大”的故事，大力支持他们不会参与但却花费高昂的战争。

　　There is certainly no shortage of human folly to consider. Mr Trivers offers some fascinating evidence of our biological cunning, yet the science of self-deception often takes a back seat to his political views and scepticism of the social sciences. This book could probably do without his long digressions about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the Iraq war. But by the time readers reach these last few chapters, they will be wary¹⁹ of taking any story at face value anyway.

　　书里当然还讲了其他的人类蠢事。有关我们生物学上的狡猾，特里沃斯先生给出了一些很棒的证据，然而一谈到政治见解和社会科学怀疑论，自欺科学就退而其次了。以色列-巴勒斯坦冲突和伊拉克战争的冗长讲述有偏题之嫌，删去也未尝不可。但是等读者读到最后几章，他们将变得谨慎，绝不再轻信谎言。

分享到：