美国留学耶鲁大学耶鲁大学校长开学演讲开学演讲
又到一年开学季，学校迎来了新鲜的血液，是时候打一波鸡血了!而今年耶鲁大学校长苏必德(Peter Salovey)的开学演讲，引来很多大学生们的讨论，他用狐狸和刺猬的经典故事，向2021届新生表达了自己在求学之路上的个人看法，演讲内容犀利，发人深省!
公元前7世纪，古希腊诗人讲述了一个关于狐狸和刺猬的故事，自此之后，狐狸和刺猬成为两种对称出现的学习者代表，“狐狸观天下之事，刺猬以一事观天下”，狐狸寻求广泛的知识，刺猬向内追寻世界的根本原则。
在当今时代，我们究竟该成为什么样的学习者?8月26日，耶鲁大学第23任校长，心理学教授Peter Salovey(有地道的中文名，叫苏必德)向2021届耶鲁新生建议：Thinking Like a Fox!像狐狸一样思考!
重点摘要：
* 狐狸知道很多的事，刺猬则只知道一件大事。当受到威胁时，狐狸会随机应变，想出聪明的办法去应对这件事情。然而，当刺猬受到威胁时，它永远只会以一种方法来对应：就是把自己卷成一个球。狐狸机巧百出、灵活善变，而刺猬一计防御、以不变应万变。
* 多学习不同人的思想、多考虑不同人的观点。尽量都去尝试一下，然后找出什么是最适合自己的。
* 要学会像狐狸一样思考。
* 本杰明·富兰克林(Benjamin Franklin)、保利·默里( Pauli Murray)和格蕾丝·霍珀(Grace Hopper)是耶鲁大学狐狸式的伟人，耶鲁的新学院也因此以他们命名。
* 在耶鲁，你们将以广泛而灵活的方式开拓思维，学会成为谨慎思考的人，怀疑简单的答案，并获得知识。你们将接受磨练，学会如何有效地与他人合作。
演讲正文（中英对照）
Good morning and welcome—to my colleagues here on stage, to the family members who are with us today, and most of all, to the Class of 2021! And a special shout-out to Marvin Chun, beginning his first year as the new dean of Yale College.
大家早上好!各位同事、各位家长，尤其是2021届的本科新生们，欢迎你们!也特别欢迎马文(Marvin Chun)，我们今年新上任的耶鲁本科生院院长。
A few years ago, I helped a friend—a member of the Yale College Class of 1982, in fact—teach a Yale College seminar called “Great Big Ideas.” Each week, students in the seminar considered a “big idea” from a different field of study. For homework, they watched video lectures delivered by various experts and read primary sources. Then they came to class ready to debate each week’s “big idea.” By the end of the course, they had become conversant in major debates and questions in art history, political philosophy, evolutionary biology, and other fields. My friend described the educational impact of the course as “a mile wide and an inch deep.”
几年前，我帮一位朋友上过一门耶鲁本科生的讨论课，名字叫做“伟大的思想”——这位朋友其实是耶鲁本科1982届的校友。
每周，上讨论课的学生都会学习不同领域的知识，从不同领域理解什么是“伟大思想”。课后作业是观看各领域专家的视频讲座，并阅读一手文献，做好发言的准备。然后等到上课，大家聚在一起，就本周的“伟大思想”进行辩论。到课程结束时，他们对许多领域的重大问题和思想便有所掌握，诸如艺术史、政治哲学、进化生物学等。
我的朋友将这门课的教学效果描述为，“宽达一里，深仅一寸”，也就是“广泛涉猎、浅尝辄止”。
I was thinking about Great Big Ideas over the summer. Reflecting on the goal for the course reminded me of the story of the fox and the hedgehog. Now, this is a distinction attributed to Archilochus, the seventh century B.C. Greek poet and warrior, who said, “a fox knows many things, but a hedgehog one important thing.” When threatened, the fox remains flexible, coming up with a clever way to deal with that particular matter. The hedgehog, however, responds the same way to every threat: it rolls up into a ball. The fox is wily and resilient. The hedgehog consistent but inflexible.
那年的整个夏天，我都在思考着“伟大的思想”。回想其课程目标，让我想起了狐狸与刺猬的故事。
这二者的区别，据说是公元前七世纪，古希腊诗人阿尔奇洛克斯(Archilochus)提出的，他说“狐狸知道很多的事，刺猬则只知道一件大事。”
当受到威胁时，狐狸会随机应变，想出个聪明的办法去应对这件事情。然而，当刺猬受到威胁时，它永远只会以一种方法来对应：就是把自己卷成一个球。这两种动物，狐狸机巧百出、灵活善变，而刺猬一计防御，以不变应万变。
The philosopher Isaiah Berlin popularized this distinction in a 1953 essay.Berlin described the hedgehog as a thinker who sees the world through a single, grand idea—a focused lens. Someone like Karl Marx or Ayn Rand might be considered a hedgehog. The fox, on the other hand, becomes knowledgeable about many different things. It draws on a multitude of ideas and experiences depending on the situation or issue at hand. Perhaps Confucius and Aristotle are best described as foxes.
哲学家以赛亚· 柏林(Isaiah Berlin)在1953年发表的一篇论文中推介科普了这一区别。他将刺猬描述为一个思想家：透过一个巨大的思想，好比一个聚焦的镜头，去观察思考这个世界;卡尔·马克思(Karl Marx)与安·兰德(Ayn Rand)大概算是刺猬这一类。
而狐狸可谓是一部百科全书，知道许多事情，会根据眼前状况汲取大量他人的想法和经验;孔子与亚里士多德可能是最好的代表。
As Berlin says, “there exists a great chasm between those, on one side, who relate everything to a single vision…a single, universal organizing principle”—the hedgehogs—and “those who pursue many ends, often unrelated and even contradictory, connected, if at all, in some de facto way.” These are the foxes.
正如柏林所说，这两者之间存在着显著的差异，刺猬坚持一种普遍原则，万事万物都用一种理念来解释;而狐狸则从多个维度出发，抓住那些常常看似不相干甚至矛盾的线索，发现实际是有关联的。
This dichotomy is an over-simplification, as Berlin himself recognized. I am reminded of the joke about there being two kinds of psychologists: those who believe that humanity can be divided into two types of people, and those who do not. Yet the story of the fox and the hedgehog may help you today, right now, as you consider how to approach your time at Yale.
柏林自己也意识到，这种二分法过于简单化了。这让我想起一个笑话，说有两种心理学家，一种认为人可以被分成两类，另一种认为不可以。不管怎样，希望狐狸与刺猬的故事，能够让每一个在耶鲁学习的人有所思考：要以何种方式度过在耶鲁的这段时光。
Your education in Yale College will expose you to some grand ideas that may seem compelling as unifying life philosophies. You will learn about and from some brilliant hedgehogs and brilliant foxes. But at this stage of your education, I want to urge you to emulate the fox. As inspired as you might be by a single idea or way of looking at the world, I suggest that you entertain many different ways of thinking and consider various points of view. Try them all on; see what fits you best.
在耶鲁，你将接触一系列伟大的思想，堪称人生哲学。你也会从一些“伟大的刺猬”与“伟大的狐狸”身上学习到很多知识。但是在这个阶段，我希望鼓励你们多效仿狐狸。在观察世界的过程中，你可能会对某种思想或世界观产生强烈的共鸣，但是我建议，你们多学习不同人的思想、多考虑不同人的观点。尽量都去尝试一下，然后找出什么是最适合自己的。
The beauty of a liberal arts education—the education Yale College offers—is that it liberates you from having to pursue a narrow, vocationally-oriented program of study. I hope you will take advantage of—and enjoy—this intellectual freedom. You will be able to choose from a wide variety of courses, learning about how people in many different fields think and understand the world. Your professors will introduce you to a panoply of ideas and ask you to think critically about all of them. You will be expected to question conventional orthodoxies rather than subscribe to a single view of the world. This work will be challenging—have no doubt—but it will also be exhilarating and, yes, liberating.
人文教育之美就在于将你从狭隘的、以职业为导向的学习计划中解放出来——这也正是耶鲁本科学院所提供的教育。
我希望你们能够好好利用以及享受这种思想自由。你们可以选择各种课程，了解不同领域的人是如何思考并理解这个世界的。你们的教授会给你们介绍各种丰富有趣的观点，并且要求你们进行批判性思考。教授们更期望你们能够对一些正统观念提出质疑，而不是对某些观点一味地认同，深信不疑。
这样的学习，毫无疑问，将充满挑战，但是也解放思想、振奋人心。
There will be plenty of time later to hone your focus, to specialize and develop your expertise. Perhaps you will decide to pursue a doctorate or attend professional school. And there may even be times here at Yale when you will delve deeply into a certain topic for a paper or a project. When I received my graduate education here at Yale, for example, there were times when I had to be a hedgehog. Hedgehogs, too, have many fine qualities.
之后，你们会有很多时间去找寻自己要专攻的方向，学习专业知识，培养个人专长。也许你们将继续深造，攻读博士学位，也许会进入某个专业学院学习。在耶鲁，也有许多可以深入研究某篇论文或是某个项目的机会。比如，我在耶鲁读研究生的时候，很多时候都不得不像一个刺猬。刺猬也有许多优良的品质。
But over the years, I have loved seeing generations of Yale College students embrace the opportunity to think broadly and study widely. You also will develop as flexible thinkers and clear communicators. These foxlike attributes will serve you well no matter what you do after graduation.
多年来，我看到了一代又一代的耶鲁本科学生抓住机会，广泛地思考与学习。你们也将锻炼发展成为一个灵活的思考者和一个清晰的沟通者。无论你们毕业后从事什么样的工作，这些狐狸的属性都能够对你们有所帮助。
In fact, there are good reasons to believe that learning to think like a fox may pay important dividends. As many of you know, I am a psychologist. My research and teaching have been focused in the field of social psychology. And there is a social psychologist named Philip Tetlock at the University of Pennsylvania who has studied the ability of foxes versus hedgehogs—the human kind—to predict and prepare for the future. (Tetlock completed his doctoral work here in Yale’s psychology department, by the way.)
实际上，我们有理由相信像狐狸一样学会思考有很多好处。你们大多知道，我是一个心理学家。我的研究范围和教学领域都集中在社会心理学方面。
在宾夕法尼亚大学，有一位名叫菲利普·泰特洛克(Philip Tetlock)的学者，他研究了人类在中“狐狸”与“刺猬”的能力，以预测和筹备未来。(对了，泰特洛克也在耶鲁心理学系完成了他的博士研究。)(《狐狸与刺猬：专家的政治判断》)
Tetlock’s research is focused on political judgment—the accuracy with which politicians, experts, pundits, and others predict outcomes in the world and how various actions might affect those outcomes. So, for example, would a hardline foreign policy by the United States with respect to North Korea weaken Chairman Kim’s iron-clad grip on that country? Yes or no? Will President Assad’s regime in Syria fall in the next year? Yes or no?
泰特洛克的研究重点是政治判断 —— 也就是评估政治家，专家和其他人对世界大势预测的准确性，以及各种行为会如何影响这些结果。
比方说，美国对朝鲜的强硬外交政策是否会削弱金主席(金正恩)对这个国家的铁腕控制呢?明年，阿萨德政权是否会在叙利亚垮台?
Tetlock studied 284 prognosticators, experts who are paid to offer answers to questions in which they must predict the future about various world events. He analyzed 82,361 probability estimates made by these individuals in response to 27,450 forecasting questions, studying as well how they came to these judgments, how they reacted when they were wrong, and whether they revised their forecasts in response to new evidence.
泰特洛克选取了284名预测者进行了有偿调研，这些专家必须对未来的各种世界事件进行预测。泰特洛克分析了这些人针对27,450个预测问题做出的82,361个概率估计值，研究他们如何做出这些判断，在发现错误时做出如何反应，以及他们是否会根据新的证据修改预测结果。
He found that specialists in making predictions about such situations are about as accurate as you or I would be. Consider that: highly trained, well-paid experts are no more likely to be correct when predicting future events than ordinary people. Well-established talking heads are worst of all. They often stubbornly and overconfidently adhere to their original theories—the ideas most associated with them—even in the face of overwhelming evidence that they are wrong. Like hedgehogs, they stick with the point of view that made them famous and are dismissive of new information that contradicts their beliefs.
他发现，这些专家在这种情况下做出的预测，与你我做出的预测结果是一样的。请大家注意这一点：在预测未来事件时，那些训练有素且高薪酬的专家，也没有做出比普通人更为准确的预测。那些经常公开发布言论的人则更固执。他们常常对自己之前的理论过于自信和执拗，即使面对压倒性的证据，他们也不愿意相信自己是错误的。如同刺猬一样，他们坚持着让他们成名的某种观点，不屑于了解与坚信观点相悖的新信息。
However, Tetlock did find some individuals who were better at predicting the future. As he describes them, these are “thinkers who know many small things (tricks of their trade).” They “are skeptical of grand schemes,” and they are willing to “stitch…together diverse sources of information.” Perhaps most important, they are not overly confident in “their own forecasting prowess….” In other words, they are humble, critical, well-informed, and flexible thinkers; in short, they are foxes. Foxes are the best prognosticators.
但同时，泰特洛克确实发现了一些能够很好地预测未来的人。他将他们描述为“知道许多小事情的思想家”。他们对一些宏观计划保持怀疑态度，愿意将各种信息拼凑在一起。或许更重要的是，他们对自己的预测能力不够自信。
换句话说，他们是一群谦虚、会批判性思考、消息灵通且思维灵活的思想家。简单地说，他们都是狐狸。狐狸就是最好的预言家。
So, what does the fox say? (I leave it to you to explain that contemporary cultural reference to your parents.) The fox says, “I want to listen carefully, engage, explore, use my natural curiosity, and perhaps—in the end—outwit the others!” Foxes don’t get information only from sources with which they agree. When confronted by contrary ideas, the fox says, “bring it on.” Foxes are resilient. And they not only respond better to challenges—they may even be able to predict what challenges they will face down the road better than their hedgehog friends.
那么，狐狸说什么呢?(我把这个问题留给你们，你们可以用现代词语解释给你们的父母。)
狐狸说：“我想去仔细地倾听，去参与、去探索，充分发挥我的好奇心，最终超越别人!”狐狸不仅从他们认同的观点中获取知识，对于一些他们不赞同的观点，狐狸也会说“带走”。狐狸是灵活的。面对挑战时，他们不仅可以做出更好地反应，甚至可以预测到将来可能会遇到的困难。
All around us, we are surrounded by foxes who have shaped our lives and our world. In the last few days, some of you moved into one of Yale’s two new residential colleges, Pauli Murray or Benjamin Franklin. I am thrilled that we can offer a Yale College education to 15 percent more students in each cohort, starting this year with the Class of 2021. It is amazing how lovely and “Yale-like” the new colleges are; yes, you can still create Gothic architecture in 2017. Others of you are the first to live as freshmen in Grace Hopper College; you also are part of something new and exciting. Benjamin Franklin, Pauli Murray, and Grace Hopper—our three new college namesakes—share some common attributes. All three were curious individuals who never stopped learning new things. And all of them were exemplary foxes.
在我们周围到处都是狐狸，他们塑造了我们现在的生活和世界。前几天，你们中的一些人搬进了耶鲁今年新设立的两所寄宿学院——保利·默里(Pauli Murray)学院和本杰明·富兰克林(Benjamin Franklin)学院(耶鲁大学针对本科生实施学院住宿制，耶鲁大学的住宿学院系以其著名校友命名，目前共有15所住宿学院)。
我很高兴两所学院的设立让更多学生来到耶鲁，成为2021届学生们的一员，一起开启新的学年。新学院多么可爱，多么充满“耶鲁”风;是的，即使在2017年，你们也还可以入住哥特式建筑中。
你们当中也有人成为入住格雷斯学院(Grace Hopper College)的第一批新生。本杰明·富兰克林(Benjamin Franklin)、保利·默里( Pauli Murray)和格蕾丝·霍珀( Grace Hopper)——我们的新学院以他们三个的名字命名，他们三个人有着共同的特征——充满好奇心，从未停止学习新事物。 他们都是典型的狐狸。
It is probably obvious to you that Ben Franklin had a foxlike intellect, which he drew upon as an inventor, statesman, and writer. His response to seemingly insurmountable challenges? Invent something. And so Franklin, witnessing the destructive power of electricity, develops the lightening rod; has difficulty seeing both near and far in middle age and so invents bifocals; needs a source of indoor heating less smoky than a fireplace and therefore builds what we now call the Franklin stove. And I don’t even want to know what problem he was trying to solve when he invented the flexible catheter!
显而易见，作为一名发明家、政治家兼作家，本·富兰克林(Ben Franklin)有着狐狸般的才智。面对那些看似无法克服的挑战，他都能发明出一些东西来应对。富兰克林见证了电的破坏力，因此发明了避雷针;到中年视力受阻时，于是发明了双光眼镜;当人们需要一种比壁炉更少烟熏味的室内采暖工具时，他又发明了我们现在所称的“富兰克林炉”。我甚至已经不想知道他在发明软导管时想要解决什么问题!
As a diplomat, Franklin’s contributions to international relations were characterized less by ideology (the hedgehog’s approach) and more by flexible statesmanship (a foxlike strategy). He gained the support of France for the cause of American independence by articulating Enlightenment ideas to an appreciative audience, endearing himself and his insights to his French counterparts. Moreover, Franklin was perfectly willing to change his mind, as evidenced by his embrace of the abolitionist cause later in his life.
作为一名外交官，富兰克林对于国际关系的意识形态方面(刺猬的方法)贡献较少，更多表现为一个灵活的政治家(狐狸般的策略)。他获得了法国对美国独立战争的支持，向群众传播了启蒙思想，向法国同行表达了自己的深刻见解。此外，富兰克林非常愿意改变他的想法，比如他在晚年接受废奴主义。
Two centuries hence, Pauli Murray arrived at Yale to complete a doctorate in law. By this point she was already an accomplished attorney and a civil rights pioneer. While Murray was at Yale, her friend Eleanor Roosevelt tapped her to serve on the President’s Commission on the Status of Women. It was during this time that Murray developed the novel approach of using the 14th Amendment to combat sex discrimination, doing the research to support her ideas right here in Sterling Library. Legal scholars up until that time had viewed this amendment as providing due process and equal protection under the law regardless of race, religion, or heritage, but Murray saw in it another path for the advancement of civil rights. A short time later, while working on her thesis in New Haven, Murray wrote a memorandum that helped ensure the inclusion of protections on the basis of sex in the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
两个世纪后，保利·默里来到耶鲁大学完成了法学博士学位。当时，她已经是一位有成就的律师和民权先锋了。默里就读耶鲁期间，她的朋友埃莉诺·罗斯福鼓励她担任总统妇女地位委员会委员一职。
正是在那段时间，默里提出了使用第十四修正案来反对性别歧视的新方法，并在斯特林图书馆进行深入研究以支持她的观点。
那时，法律学者认为这项修正案是在法律框架下为种族、宗教或传统，提供正当程序说明和平等的保护，但在默里看来，这恰好是促进公民权利的另一条道路。不久之后，默里在纽黑文(New Haven)撰写论文时，写了一份备忘录，确保在1964年《民权法》中纳入基于性别的保护。
Pauli Murray was many things: a poet and writer, an attorney and legal scholar, an advocate for racial justice, and one of the founders of the National Organization for Women. She never stopped learning or trying new things. At the age of 62, she entered General Theological Seminary in New York and three years later became the first African American woman to be ordained as an Episcopal priest. Throughout her life, she listened, learned, and adapted to new challenges with astonishing success.
默里有多重身份：诗人、作家、律师、法律学者、种族平等的倡导者以及国家妇女组织的创始人之一。
她从未停止学习，一直在不断尝试新事物。在她62岁时，她在纽约进入了美国圣公会总会神学院，三年后，她成为第一位被任命为圣公会牧师的非裔美国妇女。她的一生，善于倾听、学习、适应新的挑战，最终取得了惊人的成功。
Finally, Rear Admiral Grace Hopper epitomizes the fox’s flexible intellect. She received her Ph.D. in mathematics from Yale, and after Pearl Harbor, she enlisted in the Navy, where she was assigned to work on one of the world’s first computers. Although her preparation in mathematics was important, Hopper had to think beyond what she had learned in school. Yale had not taught her to be a computer scientist—the profession didn’t even exist yet—but she had learned to think and solve problems. Hopper loved to say, “The most damaging words in the English language are, ‘It’s always been done that way.’” So, a lifelong maverick, Grace Hopper relied on her curiosity and her willingness to take risks, and in the process, she transformed the way we use computers, influencing all our lives.
最后，我们讲的是有着狐狸般灵活智慧的格蕾斯·霍珀少将。她在耶鲁大学获得了数学博士学位，在珍珠港事件之后加入了海军，被分配参与到世界上第一台计算机的开发编程工作。在数学方面的知识储备固然重要，但霍珀不得不思考超出学校课堂所学到的内容。耶鲁没有教她成为一名计算机科学家，“程序员”这个职业在那时甚至不存在，但她已经学会了思考如何解决问题。
霍珀常说，“英语中最具破坏性的一句话就是，‘它就是这样。’”因此，作为一个终身特立独行的人，格蕾丝·霍珀凭借她的好奇心和喜欢冒险的精神，最终改变了人类使用电脑的方式，影响了我们的生活。
Members of the Class of 2021: I am proud and delighted that you will be able to pursue an education here at Yale. Like Franklin, Murray, Hopper, and a host of other foxes, you will develop your intellect in broad and flexible ways. You will learn to be careful thinkers, suspicious of easy answers and received wisdom. You will hone these skills so you may work effectively with others and—in the words of Yale’s mission statement—“[improve] the world today and for future generations….” I know that you will experience great pleasure in becoming foxes yourselves.
2021届的所有学生们：我为你们能在耶鲁大学接受教育而感到自豪和高兴。像富兰克林、莫里、霍珀和许多其他的狐狸一样，你们将以广泛而灵活的方式开拓思维，学会成为谨慎的思考者，用批判性思维怀疑简单的答案，并获得知识。你们将接受磨练，学会如何有效地与他人合作。正如耶鲁的愿景所言：“改善当今世界和未来……”
我知道，在变成狐狸的过程中，你们会收获巨大的幸福和成就。
Welcome to Yale!
欢迎来到耶鲁!
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