是什么让社会愈加两极化及充满怨恨？哈佛政治哲学教授Michael Sandel认为我们生活在一个胜者与败者并存的时代，机遇总是堆积在那些已经很幸运的人身上。成功的人相信自己的成功全靠自己努力，同时看不起失败者。这种想法激起新经济体中成功者和失败者之间的仇恨与怒火，加剧了社会的分裂。
针对这一社会现象，他鼓励我们重新思考公民生活的三个层面：大学所扮演的角色、工作的尊严，以及成功的意义。用谦卑的精神，带领我们走向一个少点怨恨，更加慷慨的公共生活。
Here's a question we should all be asking: What went wrong? Not just with the pandemic but with our civic life. What brought us to this polarized, rancorous political moment?
我们所有人都应该要问这个问题：到底哪里出错了？不是只有疫情大爆发而已，还有我们的公民生活。是什么原因把我们带到这个两极化而且充满怨恨的政治时局？
In recent decades, the divide between winners and losers has been deepening, poisoning our politics, setting us apart. This divide is partly about inequality. But it's also about the attitudes toward winning and losing that have come with it.
近几十年来，成功者与失败者之间的鸿沟深化了，毒害了政治环境，分裂了我们。这样的鸿沟一部分是不平等所造成，但这也牵涉到我们对于随之而来的输赢的态度有关。
Those who landed on top came to believe that their success was their own doing, a measure of their merit, and that those who lost out had no one to blame but themselves.
那些在顶层的人认为自己的成功都是自己努力的成果，这是一种衡量价值的方式，而那些失败者不应归咎任何人只能责怪他们自己。
This way of thinking about success arises from a seemingly attractive principle. If everyone has an equal chance, the winners deserve their winnings. This is the heart of the meritocratic ideal. In practice, of course, we fall far short.
这种对于成功的想法来自一种看似吸引人的原则。如果每个人都有平等的机会，那么成功者就应该获得奖赏。这是功绩体制理想的核心。当然在实际面上，我们离这样的理想还很遥远。
Not everybody has an equal chance to rise. Children born to poor families tend to stay poor when they grow up. Affluent parents are able to pass their advantages onto their kids.
不是所有人都有平等的机会能往上。出身贫穷家庭的孩童往往在长大后依然贫困。富裕的父母可以将自己的优势传递给孩子。
At Ivy League universities, for example, there are more students from the top one percent than from the entire bottom half of the country combined.
举例来说，在常春藤联盟大学中，来自金字塔顶端1%家庭的学生人数比来自金字塔后50%家庭的学生加总起来还多。
But the problem isn't only that we fail to live up to the meritocratic principles we proclaim. The ideal itself is flawed. It has a dark side. Meritocracy is corrosive of the common good. It leads to hubris among the winners and humiliation among those who lose out.
但是问题不仅在于我们未能达到我们所宣称的功绩体制原则。而是这样的理想本身就有缺陷。它有一个黑暗面。功绩主义会侵蚀公共利益。这会导致成功者的傲慢，而使失败者蒙羞。
It encourages the successful to inhale too deeply of their success, to forget the luck and good fortune that helped them on their way. And it leads them to look down on those less fortunate, less credentialed than themselves.
它鼓励成功者去深信他们成功的事实，忘记帮助他们前进的运气和好运。而且让他们开始轻视那些运气比他们差、资格条件比他们差的人。
This matters for politics. One of the most potent sources of the populous backlash is the sense among many working people that elites look down on them. It's a legitimate complaint.
这对政治来说很重要。其中一个最强烈的群众反弹来源就是许多劳动者感受到菁英的鄙视。这是合理的抱怨。
Even as globalization brought deepening inequality and stagnant wages, its proponents offered workers some bracing advice. "If you want to compete and win in the global economy, go to college." "What you earn depends on what you learn." "You can make it if you try."
即使全球化加剧了不平等以及停滞的薪资，全球化的支持者为劳动者提供了一些令人振奋的建议。如果你想在全球的经济中竞争并且获得胜利，那么就去念大学。你赚多少钱取决于你学习什么。如果你尝试就可以成功。
These elites miss the insult implicit in this advice. If you don't go to college, if you don't flourish in the new economy, your failure is your fault. That's the implication. It's no wonder many working people turned against meritocratic elites.
这些菁英忽略了这当中隐含的羞辱。如果你不去念大学，如果你没在这个新经济中发展，那么你的失败就是你自己造成的。这就是其中的隐含之意。难怪许多劳动者反对功绩体制下的菁英。
So what should we do? We need to rethink three aspects of our civic life. The role of college, the dignity of work and the meaning of success.
所以我们应该怎么做？我们需要重新思考公民生活的三个层面。大学所扮演的角色、工作的尊严，以及成功的意义。
We should begin by rethinking the role of universities as arbiters of opportunity. For those of us who spend our days in the company of the credentialed, it's easy to forget a simple fact: Most people don't have a four-year college degree.
我们应该开始重新思考，将大学所扮演的角色看成是机会仲裁者。对于那些在证书陪伴下过日子的人来说，相当容易忘记一个简单的事实：大多数人并没有四年的大学学位。
In fact, nearly two-thirds of Americans don't. So it is folly to create an economy that makes a university diploma a necessary condition of dignified work and a decent life.
事实上，将近三分之二的美国人并没有大学学历。因此，创造一个经济体让大学文凭被看作获得有尊严的工作与体面生活的必要条件，这想法是相当愚蠢的。
Encouraging people to go to college is a good thing. Broadening access for those who can't afford it is even better. But this is not a solution to inequality.
鼓励人们去念大学是件好事。为那些负担不起的人提供更多的机会，这么做会更好。但是这并不是解决不平等的方法。
We should focus less on arming people for meritocratic combat, and focus more on making life better for people who lack a diploma but who make essential contributions to our society.
应该少放些心力去叫大家武装自己仅是为了功绩体制下的斗争。而是放更多心力创造更好的生活，为了那些没有文凭，但对我们的社会做出贡献的人。
We should renew the dignity of work and place it at the center of our politics. We should remember that work is not only about making a living, it's also about contributing to the common good and winning recognition for doing so.
我们应该恢复工作的尊严，而且把它放在我们的政治核心中。我们应该记住工作不仅是温饱而已，这也是在为公共利益做出贡献，并且因为这么做而得到认同。
Robert F. Kennedy put it well half a century ago. Fellowship, community, shared patriotism. These essential values do not come from just buying and consuming goods together. They come from dignified employment, at decent pay.
罗伯特·弗朗西斯·肯尼迪在半世纪前说得很好：共同参与、共同社会、共同的爱国主义。这些不可或缺的价值不仅是大家一起购买和消费产品而已。它们是来自有尊严的工作，以及正当的收入。
The kind of employment that enables us to say, "I helped to build this country. I am a participant in its great public ventures." This civic sentiment is largely missing from our public life today.
这样的工作让我们可以说，我有帮忙建造这个国家。我有参与伟大的公共事务。这种公民情感却在当今的公共生活中大量流失。
We often assume that the money people make is the measure of their contribution to the common good. But this is a mistake. Martin Luther King Jr. explained why.
我们经常假设大家赚到的钱是用来衡量一个人对公共利益做出多少贡献的方法。但这是一个错误的想法。马丁·路德·金恩解释了为什么这是错误的。
Reflecting on a strike by sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee, shortly before he was assassinated, King said, "The person who picks up our garbage is, in the final analysis, as significant as the physician, for if he doesn't do his job, diseases are rampant. All labor has dignity."
他回想起在田纳西州曼菲斯清洁工人所发起的*工罢**事件，那就发生在他被刺杀前不久。金恩说：“归根究柢，捡垃圾的人和医生一样重要，因为如果他不工作，疾病就会蔓延。所有工作都有其尊严。”
Today's pandemic makes this clear. It reveals how deeply we rely on workers we often overlook. Delivery workers, maintenance workers, grocery store clerks, warehouse workers, truckers, nurse assistants, childcare workers, home health care providers.
当今的疫情让这个道理更清楚。这揭示了我们有多么依赖那些经常被我们忽视的劳动者。送货员、维修工人、杂货店员工、仓库工人、货车司机、护理师助理、育儿员、居家照护业者。
These are not the best-paid or most honored workers. But now, we see them as essential workers. This is a moment for a public debate about how to bring their pay and recognition into better alignment with the importance of their work.
这些并不是薪资最好或是最光荣的工作者。但现在，我们将他们视为不可或缺的工作者。这是一个开启公共辩论的时刻，讨论如何使他们的薪水以及所获得的认同能够与其工作的重要性保持一致。
It is also time for a moral, even spiritual, turning, questioning our meritocratic hubris. Do I morally deserve the talents that enable me to flourish? Is it my doing that I live in a society that prizes the talents I happen to have? Or is that my good luck?
这也是一个道德与精神转变的时刻，质疑功绩体制傲慢的时刻。我在道德上应该得到使我蓬勃发展的才能吗？我的成就是否源自于我活在一个奖励才华的社会中，而这个才华是我正好所拥有的？还是只因为我很幸运而已？
Insisting that my success is my due makes it hard to see myself in other people's shoes. Appreciating the role of luck in life can prompt a certain humility. There but for the accident of birth, or the grace of God, or the mystery of fate, go I.
坚信成功是因为自身的缘故，让我很难设身处地感受他人的困境。意识到运气在生活中扮演的角色会促使我们变得谦卑。或许是出于偶然的缘故，或者神的恩典，或者命运的奥秘，所以我才能到达某个高度。
This spirit of humility is the civic virtue we need now. It's the beginning of a way back from the harsh ethic of success that drives us apart. It points us beyond the tyranny of merit to a less rancorous, more generous public life.
这种谦卑的精神是我们目前所需要的公民素养。这个契机让我们可以从分裂彼此的成功道德观走回正轨，引领我们超越功绩体制，走向一个少点怨恨，更加慷慨的公共生活。