耶鲁大学校长2022年开学演讲：踏上追寻真理之路，学会倾听和包容不同意见！

今天小编搜罗了耶鲁大学校长2022年开学演讲：踏上追寻真理之路，学会倾听和包容不同意见！希望给择校的家长们提供参考。

在上周，美国耶鲁大学举行了2022-2023年度耶鲁本科学院的开学典礼。面对1500多名的大一新生，耶鲁大学校长彼得﹒沙洛维（Peter Salovey）发表开学演讲。在演讲中，彼得﹒沙洛维校长表示对真理的不懈追求则是人性使然，耶鲁大学一直欢迎和容纳各种不同意见，大学博雅教育的核心是理性、逻辑和批判性思维。学生要有能力识别事实和谎言，学会倾听和包容不同意见。这种能力将让学生终生受益！以下为演讲全文—— Good morning. It truly is a thrill to welcome all of you, our entering students, and your family members to campus for our Yale College Opening Assembly. Today is the official start of your undergraduate education at Yale, and on behalf of all my colleagues here on stage with me, we are delighted this day has arrived! 早上好。很高兴能在耶鲁本科学院开学典礼上见到各位新生和你们的家人。今天是你们正式开启耶鲁本科生涯的第一天，我谨代表台上的同事们，对这一天的到来感到由衷地喜悦。 As you know, Yale’s motto is Light and Truth—Lux et Veritas in Latin, Urim v’Thummim in Hebrew—and you will see it etched ubiquitously on crests around campus. Today, I want to speak with you about the part of our motto we share with many other universities around the world through their mission, ethos, or culture: Veritas, or Truth. 正如你们所知，耶鲁大学的校训是“光明与真理”，拉丁语是Lux et Veritas，希伯来语是Urim v’Thummim。在校园里，你们会看到它无处不在。今天，我想和大家谈谈我们校训中很重要的一部分，一个在世界各地大学的使命、精神与文化中广泛存在的追求，那就是真理。 For several years now, even as the world struggled to contain a public health crisis, we have witnessed the virulent spread of deceptive information, even outright lies. We have seen an assault on expertise, an assault on scientific and other scholarly findings—indeed, an assault on truth. Hardly a day passes without a report on someone who has “discovered,” in the comfort of his or her own home, that the scientific experts are wrong about COVID. Hardly a day goes by when someone on the internet does not spin some new, fact-free conspiracy theory. Historical events we all know to be true are denied by individuals with nefarious motives. 最近几年来，即使在世界努力遏制公共卫生危机的同时，我们也目睹了虚假信息的恶毒传播，甚至是赤裸裸的谎言。我们看到了这些谬论对专业知识的攻击，对科学和其他学术发现的攻击。事实上，这是对真理的侵犯。几乎每天都有人在舒适的家中“发现”科学专家对新冠肺炎的看法是错误的。几乎每天都有人在互联网上编造一些新的、没有事实根据的阴谋论。我们公认的历史事实也被别有用心之人矢口否认。 Here are five brief examples: 这里举五个简单的例子： ﹒Earlier this year, some in our country, including those in positions of leadership, depicted a violent mob’s attempt to disrupt the most basic functioning of our democracy by denying an election outcome as “legitimate political discourse.” ﹒今年早些时候，美国一些人（包括处于领导地位的人）把一场企图颠覆我们民主基础和反对选举制度的暴徒行为称作“合法的政治诉求”。 ﹒As destructive wildfires, severe drought in some places, and historic flooding in others portend a catastrophic climate emergency, we see those faithful to unfounded skepticism disregard overwhelming scientific consensus. In some counties in the United States, half of the residents still do not believe global climate change is real. ﹒破坏性的山林野火、一些地方的严重干旱和一些地方历史罕见的洪水都昭示着灾难性的气候挑战，一些人却笃信于毫无根据的怀疑论，无视广泛建立起的科学共识。在美国的一些县，一半的居民仍然不相信全球气候变化是真实的。 ﹒In recent months, Vladimir Putin has propagated misinformation about rooting out Nazis as the motivation for his unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. ﹒最近几个月，人们关于俄乌战争的情绪被误导和激化。 ﹒Social media platforms have been mobilized to incite or stoke ethnic violence by propagating falsehoods in countries like Myanmar and Ethiopia. ﹒社交媒体平台上，有些人通过宣传虚假内容煽动种族主义情绪，比如在缅甸和埃塞俄比亚所发生的事。 ﹒And finally, a recent defamation trial focused on a notorious conspiracy theorist who claims that the murder of twenty school children and six adults in Sandy Hook, Connecticut—about a half-hour’s drive from here—was staged by the U.S. government. ﹒最近的一桩诽谤罪判案中，一位臭名昭著的阴谋论者声称在距离这里大约半小时车程的康涅狄格州桑迪胡克的一起谋杀20名学童和6名成年人事件是由美国政府策划的。
Of course, spreading misinformation is not new. History teems with the haunting consequences of lies. 当然，传播错误信息并非新鲜事。历史上充斥着谎言所带来的后果。
Philosopher Hannah Arendt—on whom Yale bestowed an honorary degree in 1971—writes of some of humanity’s darkest chapters and the malignant regimes that authored them: “the ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist.” It is rather, Arendt continues, “people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (i.e., the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (i.e., the standards of thought) no longer exist.” 1971年获得耶鲁大学荣誉学位的哲学家汉娜﹒阿伦特（Hannah Arendt）曾写道：“极权统治的理想对象不是信服纳粹主义的人......而是无视事实与虚构（即经验的真实性）和真假（即思维标准）之间区别的人。” Yes, malevolence can feast on the environment devoid of Veritas. And at stake, therefore, in the abiding search for truth is humanity itself. 是的，恶意可以在没有真理的环境中大快朵颐。因此，对真理的不懈追求则是人性使然。 For our part, colleges and universities must combat the spread of misinformation, propaganda, and conjured conspiracy theories first by supporting faculty; they generate scientific data and scholarly insight. Faculty must be free to disseminate knowledge and teach you to think critically about ideas and their sources. 就我们而言，大学必须首先通过支持教师来打击错误信息和阴谋论的传播。教师必须自由地传播知识，教你批判性地思考思想及其来源。
But to do so effectively, our institutions of higher education—faculty and students—must be open to engaging with diverse ideas, whether conventional or unconventional, of the left or of the right. It is Yale’s obligation to address the credibility crisis, for we have long stood for the pursuit of truth and devoted ourselves to it. 但要有效地做到这一点，我们的教师和学生必须开放思想，接受左派或右派的各种思想，无论是传统的还是非传统的。耶鲁大学有责任应对公信力危机，因为我们长期以来一直坚持追求真理，并致力于真理。
Colleges and universities like Yale are home to artists, scholars, scientists, and practitioners who spend their entire lives searching for truth. Yet, the growing polarization in society around ideas, whether embraced or eschewed by a particular faction, impedes this search, and threatens to erode public confidence in expertise, minimizing the impact of universities precisely when unvarnished truth is so desperately needed. 耶鲁这样大学是艺术家、学者、科学家和实践者的家园，他们一生都在寻找真理。然而，社会上思想的两极分化日益加剧——无论是被某一特定派别所接受还是回避——都阻碍了对真理的追求，这将有可能侵蚀公众对专业知识的信心，降低大学的影响力。 Faculty and students—indeed the university itself—will be viewed as reliable sources of information if we do not appear closed off to unpopular or otherwise nonmainstream ideas from thoughtful individuals responsibly articulated. Most Americans still have a positive view of universities and consider a college education important for future success. But confidence that higher education has a salubrious impact on society is eroded by a belief that we will not engage with ideas that challenge us. 当有思想的人负责任地阐述了不受欢迎的或非主流的观点，而我们对此保持开放，那么全体师生乃至整个大学将被视作可靠信息的来源。大多数美国人仍然对大学抱有积极的看法，认为大学教育对一个人的未来很重要。但高等教育对社会产生有益影响的信心被一种信念所侵蚀，即我们不会参与挑战我们的思想。
Let me discuss a familiar example: that there has been a steady decline in the percentage of college students who believe the freedom to express unpopular points of view is secure. Actually, it is a myth that students do not want their campuses to be home to a broad range of perspectives. Recent opinion polling by the Knight Foundation confirms that most students believe it is more important to be exposed to all types of speech than to protect people by prohibiting offensive or biased speech.[5] What some refer to as “cancel culture” is not the dominant ideology of students. 让我来讨论一个熟悉的例子：学生中认为可以安全地发表不受欢迎的观点的比例在下降。实际情况绝非如此，学生们不愿校园成为多元观点的汇聚之地是一个谣言。根据美国奈特基金会（Knight Foudation）最近的一项调查，大多数学生认为，与禁止冒犯性或有偏见的言论相比，接触各种类型的言论更重要。一些人所说的“取消文化”并不是学生的主流思想。
Here at Yale, which is home to the country’s oldest collegiate debate society, students across the political spectrum can engage in spirited, yet civil discussions. Yale College students have selected Hillary Clinton as a Class Day speaker and honored both George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush as Yale Undergraduate Lifetime Achievement Award recipients. And the university has hosted interactions between individuals with ideological differences, such as a recent conversation between Emily Bazelon and Ross Douthat, and another one among four former Secretaries of State, Democrats and Republicans. 耶鲁是美国历史最悠久的大学辩论会的所在地，在这里，持有各个政治立场的学生都可以进行热烈而文明的讨论。耶鲁大学的学生们可以选择希拉里﹒克林顿作为课堂演讲嘉宾，并将老布什和小布什授予耶鲁大学终身成就奖获得者。我们还举办了意识形态差异个人之间的互动，例如最近艾米莉﹒巴塞隆和罗斯﹒杜塞之间的对话，以及不同党派四位前国务卿之间的另一场对话。
But let’s be frank. It can be difficult to articulate unpopular views on college campuses. That Knight Foundation survey I cited a moment ago suggests that only about half of all students feel “comfortable offering dissenting opinions.” 但让我们坦率地说，在大学校园里表达不受欢迎的观点可能很困难。我刚才引用的那项调查表明，只有大约一半的学生觉得“能够自如的表达不同观点”。 So, we need to build on an existing desire among students to engage each day—in classrooms, dining halls, and meeting spaces—with different viewpoints and to appreciate the importance of expressing their disagreement with one another. Indeed, in a university setting, we must be able to distinguish—emphatically—legitimate dissent from outright deceit. We must make room for beliefs we find objectionable as faithfully as we reject falsehoods we know to be lies. 因此，我们需要建立在学生的现有愿望基础上，让他们每天在教室、餐厅和会议空间以不同的观点参与并认识到表达彼此不同意见的重要性。事实上，在大学环境中，我们必须能够区分明显合法的异议和彻底的谎言。我们必须为令我们不认可的想法腾出空间，正如我们驳斥谬论时一样坚定。
And we must, therefore, nurture a bias toward openness, even—and especially—when this ethos exposes us to points of view that test our most strongly held assumptions. Such a climate affords the search for truth—and the credibility necessary to trust it. 因此，我们必须培养开放态度，尤其是当我们最根深蒂固的思想受到挑战之时。这样一种气氛为寻求真相和信任真相提供了必要的可信度。
Of course, as we search for truth, we must also be mindful of the power and influence of institutions like Yale. We must recognize, with humility, that what looks like a truth might not be one. I think, for instance, of our own history: our resistance to co-education for so long or our leadership at one time in eugenics. With power comes great responsibility. These disturbing realities are why some are reluctant even to use the word “truth” in describing our mission. 当然，在我们寻求真理的同时，我们也必须注意耶鲁的力量和影响力。我们必须谦虚地认识到，看似真实的东西可能并不真实。例如，我想到了耶鲁的历史：我们长期以来对男女同校教育的抵制，或者我们曾经在优生学方面的领导地位。权力伴随着巨大的责任。这些困扰成为了一些人拒绝使用“真理”一词来描述耶鲁使命的原因。 Nonetheless, at Yale, I have often observed our faculty actively encouraging students to interrogate data and other ideas presented to them, and I have seen students change their minds when confronted with contrary evidence. Every one of you will have that experience as part of your Yale education. I suspect you will have it often. 尽管如此，在耶鲁，我经常观察到我们的教师积极鼓励学生质疑课堂上展示的数据和其他想法，我也看到学生在面对相反的证据时改变了意见。作为耶鲁教育的一部分，我想你们每个人都会有这样的经历。
You can enroll in courses that bring together pairs of professors representing different disciplines, who model how looking at a problem from divergent perspectives can lead to new insights: a course on film taught by a film historian and a physicist, a course on the nature of choice taught by a philosopher and an economist, a course on transgender health taught by faculty members from American Studies and the nursing school. Similarly, in a recent semester, three experts from across the political spectrum co-taught a course on the crisis of liberalism, covering the Obama and Trump presidencies. 在耶鲁可选的课程中，经常可见两位代表不同学科的教授共同教授一门课。在他们的课上你将体会到，从不同角度看待问题如何产生新的见解：一门由电影历史学家和物理学家共同教授的电影课程，一门由哲学家和经济学家讲解的关于选择本质的课程，由美国研究和护理学院的教授讲授的跨性健康课程。类似地，在最近一个学期，来自不同政治派别的三位专家共同教授了一门关于自由主义危机的课程，涵盖了奥巴马和特朗普的总统任期。
We will continue to create opportunities like these for you to have open conversations about contentious, complex issues—opportunities rooted in the reality that no ideological bloc can claim ownership of truth; that facts pledge no fealty to any of our preferred conclusions. And, therefore, that evidence must guide the beliefs we hold rather than conform to them. 我们将继续创造这样的机会，让你们就有争议的、复杂的问题进行公开对话。这些机会植根于没有任何意识形态集团可以宣称拥有真相的现实；事实证明我们对任何一个我们喜欢的结论都不忠诚。因此，这些证据必须引导我们持有的信念，而不是顺从它们。
In considering this imperative, I am reminded of the book, The Death of Truth, by Michiko Kakutani—a winner of the Pulitzer Prize, an alumna of Yale College (Class of 1976), and a champion of the sense of truth we seek to promote. 考虑到这一点，我想起了普利策奖获得者、耶鲁大学（1976届）校友角谷美智子（Michiko Kakutani）的《真理之死》（the Death of Truth）。 Kakutani’s stirring appeal for reason and objectivity concludes with an especially, if not unnervingly relevant warning for our era issued by James Madison: “a popular Government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy; or perhaps both.” Indeed, “without commonly agreed-upon facts,” Kakutani posits, “not Republican facts and [not] Democratic facts; not the alternative facts of today’s silo-world—there can be no rational debate over policies, no substantive means of evaluating candidates for political office, and no way to hold elected officials accountable to the people. Without truth, democracy is hobbled. The founders recognized this, and those seeking democracy’s survival must recognize it today.” 在这本书中，角谷美智子对理性和客观性的激动人心的呼吁，以詹姆斯﹒麦迪逊（James Madison）对我们这个时代发出的一个特别的警告作为结尾：“一个没有大众信息或获取大众信息的手段的大众政府，只不过是一场闹剧或悲剧的序幕；或者两者兼而有之。”事实上，角谷美智子在书中认为，如果没有公认的事实，这种事实不是指民主党或共和党眼中的事实，也不是指经过改编了的单一来源的信息，人们无法对政策展开理智的辩论，无法实际评估政治职位候选人，无法让他们对人民负责。没有真理，民主将步履蹒跚。美国开国元勋们认识到了这一点，那些寻求民主生存空间的人也必须认识到这一点。 I think, too, of James Hatch—an extraordinary Yale undergraduate who spent over two decades with the Naval Special Warfare Command before returning to complete his college education. As he wrote, the climate at Yale “is one where most students understand that there HAS to be a place where people can assault ideas openly and discuss them vigorously and respectfully in order to improve the state of humanity.” 我还想到了詹姆斯﹒哈奇（James Hatch），他是一名杰出的耶鲁大学本科生，在返回耶鲁完成大学教育之前，他在海军特种作战司令部工作了20多年。正如他所写的那样，耶鲁大学的氛围“是一种大多数学生都理解的氛围，人们必须有一个地方，可以公开抨击思想，并积极和尊重地讨论它们，以提升人类文明。” Yale is committed to the responsibility of promoting the public’s trust in academic research, expertise, and the value of higher education by ensuring that Mr. Hatch’s experience is typical of every student, every day, and in every classroom. 耶鲁大学致力于促进公众对学术研究、专业知识和高等教育价值的信任，确保哈奇先生的经历体会是每名耶鲁学子在任何时刻和任何角落都能感同身受的。 Philosophy 181 reflects this responsibility. In her course “Philosophy and the Science of Human Nature,” Yale’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences Dean Tamar Gendler ties contemporary cognitive science, which has helped us to gain an understanding of how our minds operate, to the work of ancient philosophers. Students in her class consider anew Plato’s allegory of the cave, in which people mistake shadows on a wall for reality. Dean Gendler walks her students through this allegory to challenge them to consider this question: How do you discover truth given that the human mind is imperfect? 哲学181（耶鲁一门哲学课代码）反映了这一责任。在这门课程的“哲学与人性科学”模块中，耶鲁大学文理学院院长塔马尔﹒金德勒（Tamar Gendler）将当代认知科学与古代哲学家的工作联系起来，帮助我们理解了我们的思维如何运作。她班上的学生重新思考柏拉图关于洞穴的寓言，其中人们把墙上的阴影误认为是现实。马尔﹒金德勒带领她的学生们通过这个寓言来挑战他们思考这个问题：考虑到人类的思想是不完美的，你如何发现真理？ Of course, our limitations pose no impediment to the search for truth. For they are, in fact, what can power the curiosity necessary to sustain it. By embracing our humility, we can broaden our understanding. 当然，我们的局限性并不妨碍寻求真相。因为事实上，它们是维持好奇心所必需的力量。通过认识到我们自身的不足，我们可以扩展我们的认知。 So, at Yale, we will not merely reaffirm what you already think as you arrive. We will, instead, provoke you to uncover all you do not know before you leave. We will fine-tune your ability to sift fact from falsehood, for the core of a liberal education is comprised of reason, logic, and critical thinking. 因此，在耶鲁，我们将不会单单是重申你进入耶鲁时的想法。相反，我们将激励你在离开之前揭开你所不知道的一切。我们将锻炼你从谎言中筛选事实的能力，因为大学博雅教育的核心是理性、逻辑和批判性思维。 Soon, you will be the beneficiary of such an education. Yet, it behooves you also to be an active participant in it as students—and then, in due course, as alumni. 很快，你将成为这种教育的受益者。然而，你也应该作为学生积极参与，然后以校友的身份延续这种使命。 And so, today, as you begin your college career, I call on all of us to promote a truth-seeking climate at Yale—in every seminar, in every residential college, and in every late-night conversation—by being willing to entertain ideas with which we do not agree, by being willing to extend grace and assume positive intent, by listening carefully, by thinking deeply, and by speaking with empathy and understanding. 今天，当你们开始你们的大学生涯时，我呼吁我们所有人在耶鲁大学，通过愿意接受我们不同意的想法，通过愿意给予宽限和对积极的意图的认可，通过仔细倾听，通过深入思考，并以同理心和理解力对话，在每一次研讨会、每一所寄宿学院和每一次深夜谈话中，共同塑造追求真理的氛围。 Let us, together, elevate the virtues of tolerance and engagement, and reject the culture of public shaming, doxing, and ostracism. 让我们一起提升宽容和参与的美德，拒绝公开羞辱、人身攻击和排斥的文化。 And, in time-tested tradition, let us strengthen the open discourse that has, for centuries, been a hallmark of our intellectual community at Yale—and that has produced the scholarship and scientific breakthroughs that have improved the world well beyond it. 让我们恪守历经岁月考验的优良传统，在耶鲁秉持公开讨论的学术氛围。在这样的社区中，我们才能产生推动世界的学术成就和科学突破，并不断超越。 By doing so, you can develop expertise—and also help to rescue its standing. You can, in an increasingly dark world, bring Veritas to Lux—Truth to Light. And, perhaps equally as vital in a fragmented world, bring Lux to Veritas—Light to Truth. 正是这样，你们才能拓展专业知识，挽救知识的地位；你们才能够在日渐黑暗的世界里，让“真理”与“光明”同在；你们或许能够改变这个割裂世界的命运，让真理光芒四射。 Welcome to Yale. 欢迎来到耶鲁！
* 本文英文原文出自耶鲁官网，中文翻译略有删减，如有内容出入，以英文原文为准