Why stay in one town instead of chasing better opportunities? Why feel compelled to sacrifice your own well-being to care for your profoundly disabled child or fragile, dying grandparent, when you would never do the same for stranger?

为什么选择待在一座小镇而不去寻求更好的机会？为什么会被迫放弃自己本来好好的生活而去照顾体弱的孩子或者孱弱多病的祖父母？可你却绝对不会对陌生人这么做。

And yet, psychologically and philosophically, those attachments are as central to human life as the individualist, rationalist, Universalist values of classic Enlightenment utilitarianism. If the case for reason, science, humanism, and progress is really going to be convincing—if it’s going to amount to more than preaching to the choir—it will have to speak to a wider spectrum of listeners, a more inclusive conception of flourishing, a broader palette of values.

然而，无论是从心理学亦或是哲学，对于秉持经典启蒙实用主义价值观的个人主义者、理性主义者、普遍主义者而言，祖父母和孩子等家庭纽带是至关重要的。如果从理性、科学、人本主义角度而言，进步真是非常可喜——远非对唱诗班的说教，而是更广泛的受众群体、更包容的繁荣理念和五湖四海皆准的价值观。

The core of Enlightenment Now is a generic graph, variations of which appear over and over. Each one charts an indisputable measure of human progress—whether it’s more education, peace, and prosperity, or fewer infectious diseases, murders, and even deaths by lightning.

《现在启蒙，为时不晚》的核心是一张基本图景，总是会发生变化。每一个都描绘了人类进步势不可挡的举措——不管是倾注于教育、和平、繁荣亦或是传染疾病、谋杀、雷劈事件发生率的降低。

To accompany each graph, Pinker provides a summary of scientific data and social-science studies, involving hundreds of thousands of people, spanning human history and extending across the globe. The conclusion, startlingly, is that on almost every measure, things have gotten better and are still getting better. Even that dumpster-fire year 2017 marks an advance over2016. This pattern of radical improvement began in the 17th and 18th centuries. It accompanied the rise of Enlightenment values in general, and of science and democracy in particular.

品客提供了科学数据和社科研究，涵盖数以万计的人，上至人类历史下至全球，都配有图片。总而言之，很明显，几乎所有的举措，都是好上加好，迄今仍旧向好发展。即使是最糟糕的2017年，相较于2016年仍有进步。这种绝对性的改进形式始自17、18世纪。这种形势也是伴着启蒙价值观的全面兴起，尤其是科学和民主的复兴。

Earlier books and articles have made this point, as Pinker acknowledges. Among them, in fact, is one that he wrote, The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined. But arraying all the evidence in one place is an impressive and useful accomplishment. And Pinker is honest about some significant exceptions to this pattern—inequality, suicide, and climate change, for instance—although he doesn’t think they undermine his argument.

正如品客所言，他的早期作品和文章对此有所阐述。其中有一本《人性本善：为什么暴力减少了》就阐述了这一要义。但把所有证据都铺列到一处是非常醒目和有用的，且品客也如实地列出了一些重要特例，诸如不平等、自杀和气候变化等，但他并不认为这些不利因素削弱了他的论据。

He also notes that the U.S. is an outlier on some measures, not because America does better than other countries, but because it does worse. Ironically, the country that was founded on Enlightenment values lags far behind others in fulfilling the promise of those values.

他也指出美国在一些举措上属于个例，不是因为美国比其他国家做的更好，相反不如他国。颇具讽刺意味的是，这个建立在启蒙价值观的国度在兑现承诺时，反倒落后他人。

But if things are so much better, why do they feel, for so many people, so much worse? Why don’t people experience the progress that Pinker describes? Pinker doesn’t spend much time focusing on this question, and he gets a little tetchy when he does. Skepticism about Enlightenment values, in his view, comes from leftist humanities professors and highbrow-magazine editors who have read too much Nietzsche, or from theocrats on the right.

但是如果真是越来越好，为什么很多人认为他们过得越来越差呢？为什么人们没有感受到品客所描述的改变呢？品客并没有过多的关注这个问题，所以当他碰到质疑时有点急躁。在他看来，持左翼人本主义观点的教授和自诩趣味高雅的杂志编辑之所以怀疑启蒙价值观，是因为他们受尼采影响太深或是受神权影响过重。

Yet there’s a deeper reason that ordinary, well-meaning people may feel that something has gone wrong, despite so much evidence to the contrary. Inker’s graphs, and the utilitarian moral views that accompany and underlie them, are explicitly about the welfare of humanity as a whole. But values are rooted in emotion and experience as well as reason, in the local as well as the universal.

然而还有一个更深层的原因就是，普通的中等收入家庭可能并没感受到生活变好，尽管有很多证据都证明社会是向好发展的。品客的论述和实用道德观两者并存而且互为依托，很明显都是有关人类福利的。但是价值观无论在当地还是放眼全球，在情感、经验和理性方面都已根深蒂固。

From infancy, human beings develop specific attachments to particular people and places around them, and those connections underpin commitment, care, trust, and love. In the language of neuroscience you might call this the “oxytocin axis,” though it’s far too complex to be reduced to a single chemical. In most mammals, a “tend and befriend” brain system—which involves the neurotransmitter oxytocin, among others—plays an important role in the bonding between mothers and babies. In humans, with our distinctive capacity for cooperation, this system of attachment has been expanded to apply to a much broader range of relationships, from pair-bonded partners to friends and collaborators.

从婴儿起，人类就对周围的人和地有特殊的情感，并且随着责任、关心、信任和爱的延伸这种情感不断加强。尽管这远非单一化学元素那么简单，但用神经科学的话讲，可以将这种情感称作“催产素轴”。大多数哺乳动物的代际传递关系，就是脑系统中的神经递质催产素，对联系母亲和孩子的关系起着重要作用。对人类而言，我们独特的合作能力、代际传递体系已经延展至更广泛的关系，从成对的伙伴关系扩展至朋友和合作伙伴。

You might think these bonds reflect the fact that people are similar or have the same interests. In fact, the economist Robert Frank and the philosopher Kim Steely have proposed exactly the opposite view. The feelings that go with attachment—such as love, trust, and loyalty—allow people who have different capacities and clashing short-term interests to cooperate in a way that benefits everyone in the long run. Parents versus children, wives versus husbands, hunters versus gatherers—all of these relationships inevitably involve tension and conflict.

你可能会认为这些联系反映出的是人们的相似性或有共同的兴趣。实际上，经济学家罗伯特.弗兰克和哲学家金.斯特林认为正好恰恰相反。这种联系是建立在——爱、信任和忠诚之上——正所谓君子和而不同，方能长久相处。父母和孩子、妻子和丈夫，猎人和收集者——所有的这些关系都不可避免地存在冲突和紧张。

Rationality and contractual negotiation alone can’t resolve the differences that arise. If individuals all just pursue their own interests, even in coordination with others, they may end up worse off. But emotions can help. Steely argues that attachments act as “commitment mechanisms.” They ensure that partners won’t just walk out of an argument or renege on an agreement when it becomes inconvenient.

理性和协议性协商不会解决业已存在的分歧。如果每个人都追求个人利益，即使与他人协商，也终究可能发生冲突。但是情感会缓和冲突。斯特林认为情感联系就如“责任机制”。保证伙伴间不会因争论而走散或者当有异议时违背协议。

The dream of the 18th century was that a single, coherent set of values, rooted in rationality, could make a heaven on Earth. Pinker shares that dream. But more-recent philosophers such as Isaiah Berlin, sobered by the 20thcentury’s failed utopias, have argued for a more modest liberal pluralism that makes room for multiple, genuinely conflicting goods. Family and work, solidarity and autonomy, tradition and innovation are really valuable, and really intension, in both the lives of individuals and the life of a nation. One challenge for enlightenment now is to build social institutions that can bridge and balance these values. Family policy is a good example. People on both sides of the political and cultural divides in the U.S. are in rare agreement that programs like family leave and preschool deserve more support, even if the political will for such measures never seems to emerge.

18世纪的梦想是一套基于理性的单一、统一的的价值观，会让整个世界变成天堂。品客追求的正是这种梦想。但是近现代的哲学家：以赛琳.柏林对20世纪未成功的乌托邦式理想持谨慎态度，倾向于一个更加平和的自由多元主义，让多种真正的冲突有发展空间，反倒是好事。家庭和工作、团结和自主、传统和创新都极其重要，也互相发生冲突，无论之于个体还是国家都是这样。目前对启蒙的一个挑战就是建立社会体系，来跨越、平衡价值观的分歧。家庭政策为此树立了一个好的榜样。美国分站在政治、文化两端的人很少能达成一致，也只有像家庭假和学前教育这种会获得广泛支持，即使是单一政治派别倾向的举措也不可能获准。

But thinking about families may be able to inform liberalism in a deeper way. For the Enlightenment philosophers, as Pincer’s book reminds us, the great problem of politics was how to combine the desires and goals of thousands of autonomous individuals—how to coordinate the pursuit of happiness. The ancient Chinese philosopher Mengzi identified another conundrum: how to expand the mutual commitment and trust that define a family to the very different scale of a state. This is not an easy lift, especially for a nation as large and scattered as the U.S. But perhaps we can take a lesson from family terrain. Marriage counselors often say that relationships can weather anger, misunderstanding, jealousy, fundamentally different values—even the occasional bout of hatred. But they can’t survive contempt, which has become the signature political emotion of our age. Trying to make a state more like a community doesn’t mean making it more homogeneous or even more harmonious. Instead, the problem for enlightenment now is how to establish a background of trust and commitment that allows conflict without contempt.

但试想一下，家庭会以一种更深远的方式影响自由主义。品客书中告诉我们，对于启蒙哲学家而言，最大的政治问题是如何包含普罗大众的目标和愿望——如何调和幸福的追求。中国古代哲学家孟子提出了另一难题：如何增加相互的责任和信任是区别家庭和国家的本质。这可不容小觑，特别是对美国这样大而分散的国家。但是也许我们可以从家庭领域找到应对对策。婚姻顾问经常说：亲情可以化解愤怒、误解、嫉妒甚至偶尔也可以化解仇恨等截然不同的情感。但是也不能轻视，因为他们是横行在当今时代的政治戾气。所谓把国家治理得如社区一样并不意味着要更加趋同或和谐。相反，对于当代启蒙而言，问题是如何建立信任和责任，存不同而驱戾气。

（来源：爱语吧）