讲堂｜2022年诺贝尔经济学奖得主本·伯南克普林斯顿大学演讲

June 2, 2013

2013年6月2日

（来源：China Daily）

It's nice to be back at Princeton. I find it difficult to believe that it's been almost 11 years since I departed these halls for Washington. I wrote recently to inquire about the status of my leave from the university, and the letter I got back began, "Regrettably, Princeton receives many more qualified applicants for faculty positions than we can accommodate."
重返普林斯顿感觉不错，很难相信，我离开校园赴华盛顿已近11年了。近期我向校方询问了我的教职问题，回信开头就是：“很遗憾，普林斯顿收到很多更有才华的学者的求职信，而教职有限。”

I'll extend my best wishes to the seniors later, but first I want to congratulate the parents and families here. As a parent myself, I know that putting your kid through college these days is no walk in the park. Some years ago, I had a colleague who sent three kids through Princeton even though neither he nor his wife attended this university. He and his spouse were very proud of that accomplishment, as they should have been. But my colleague also used to say that, from a financial perspective, the experience was like buying a new Cadillac every year and then driving it off a cliff. I should say that he always added that he would do it all over again in a minute. So, well done, moms and dads.

我将在稍后献上对毕业生的最美好的祝愿，首先我要恭喜在座的家长们。作为父母，我知道这年头供孩子读完大学不容易。数年前，我的一个同事有3个孩子毕业于普林斯顿，不过他们夫妻都不曾就读普林斯顿。夫妻俩对这一成就非常自豪，确实应该自豪。但我的同事也常说，从财政角度讲，培养孩子的这段经历如同每年买辆新的卡迪拉克，然后让车坠崖。他总会补充说，如果有机会重新选择，他会毫不犹豫地选择再来一遍。所以，感谢你们所做的一切，母亲们和父亲们。

This is indeed an impressive and appropriate setting for a commencement. I am sure that, from this lectern, any number of distinguished spiritual leaders have ruminated on the lessons of the Ten Commandments. I don't have that kind of confidence, and, anyway, coveting your neighbor's ox or donkey is not the problem it used to be, so I thought I would use my few minutes today to make Ten Suggestions, or maybe just Ten Observations, about the world and your lives after Princeton. Please note, these points have nothing to do with interest rates.

这确实是毕业典礼演讲的合适场所，能留下深刻印象。我相信，在这一讲台上，每个杰出的精神导师都深入探讨过“十诫”的教诲。我没有那样的信心，而且，无论如何，觊觎邻居的驴牛已不是目前的问题，所以我想我可以利用今天的几分钟，就你们毕业后面临的社会和生活，提出“十个建议”，或许只是“十个观察”。请注意，这十点与利率无关。

My qualification for making such suggestions, or observations, besides being kindly invited to speak today by President Tilghman, is the same as the reason that your obnoxious brother or sister got to go to bed later — I am older than you. All of what follows has been road-tested in real-life situations, but past performance is no guarantee of future results.

我之所以有资格提出这些建议或观察，除了蒂尔曼校长的善意邀请外，理由和你们讨厌的哥哥姐姐可以晚睡一样：我年纪比你们大。以下内容均经受过现实生活的考验，但以往表现并不能确保未来的结果。

1. A more contemporary philosopher, Forrest Gump, said something similar about life and boxes of chocolates and not knowing what you are going to get. Life is amazingly unpredictable; any 22-year-old who thinks he or she knows where they will be in 10 years, much less in 30, is simply lacking imagination. Look what happened to me: A dozen years ago I was minding my own business teaching Economics 101 in Alexander Hall and thinking of good excuses for avoiding faculty meetings. Then I got a phone call... In case you are skeptical of Forrest Gump's insight, here's a concrete suggestion for each of the graduating seniors. Take a few minutes the first chance you get and talk to an alum participating in their 25th, or 30th, or 40th reunion — you know, somebody who was near the front of the P-rade. Ask them, back when they were graduating 25, 30, or 40 years ago, where they expected to be today. If you can get them to open up, they will tell you that today they are happy and satisfied in various measures, or not, and their personal stories will be filled with highs and lows and in-betweens. But I am willing to bet, those life stories will in almost all cases be quite different, in large and small ways, from what they expected when they started out those many years ago. This is a good thing, not a bad thing; who wants to know the end of a story that's only in its early chapters? Don't be afraid to let the drama play out.

1.“当代哲学家”阿甘曾说人生就像一盒盒巧克力，你不知道下一块拿到的巧克力会是什么味道。人生确实难以预料，任何一个自以为知道自己10年后（更别提30年后）会走到哪一步的22岁年轻人都是缺乏想象力的。看看我吧，十几年前，我还在亚历山大会堂教授经济学入门，只想一门心思教好课，为躲避教员会议寻找好的借口。后来，我就接到那通电话……如果对阿甘的洞察力持怀疑态度，这里有个具体的建议给每一位毕业生。有机会就花几分钟和参加25年、30年或40年聚会的校友聊聊——你知道的，就是P-rade大游行时站在最前面的那些人。问问他们，在他们毕业的时候，他们有什么期望。如果你能让他们敞开心扉，他们会告诉你，他们对生活中哪些事满意或不满，他们经历过的高潮和低谷。但我敢打赌，他们的人生故事几乎多多少少都会与多年前刚走出校门时所预期的大不相同。这是好事而不是坏事，谁想在故事刚开篇就知道结局呢？不要畏惧让人生顺其自然。

2.Does the fact that our lives are so influenced by chance and seemingly small decisions and actions mean that there is no point to planning, to striving? Not at all. Whatever life may have in store for you, each of you has a grand, lifelong project, and that is the development of yourself as a human being. Your family and friends and your time at Princeton have given you a good start. What will you do with it? Will you keep learning and thinking hard and critically about the most important questions? Will you become an emotionally stronger person, more generous, more loving, more ethical? Will you involve yourself actively and constructively in the world? Many things will happen in your lives, pleasant and not so pleasant. If you are not happy with yourself, even the loftiest achievements won't bring you much satisfaction.

2. 事实上，我们的生活很大程度上受偶然性和看似微小决定和行动的影响，这是否意味着计划和奋斗没有意义？当然不是。无论未来人生如何，那将是一个宏大和漫长的项目，是你作为个人的发展过程。你的家人、朋友和你在普林斯顿的时光，已经为你造就了良好的开端。未来你会如何？会不断学习、竭力思考、对至关重要的问题持批判态度吗？会成为情感上更强大、更大度、更有爱心、更高尚的人吗？会更积极、更建设性地参与世事吗？你的人生会有很多故事，有快乐的，也会有不太快乐的。如果不能让自己感到幸福，那么就算取得最伟大的成就也不会带给你多大满足。

3.The concept of success leads me to consider so-called meritocracies and their implications. A meritocracy is a system in which the people who are the luckiest in their health and genetic endowment; luckiest in terms of family support, encouragement, and, probably, income; luckiest in their educational and career opportunities; and luckiest in so many other ways difficult to enumerate  — these are the folks who reap the largest rewards. The only way for even a putative meritocracy to hope to pass ethical muster, to be considered fair, is if those who are the luckiest in all of those respects also have the greatest responsibility to work hard, to contribute to the betterment of the world, and to share their luck with others.

3.成功的概念引导我思考所谓的精英体制及其含义。精英体制中的人是在健康和基因天赋上最幸运的人；在家庭的支持和鼓励上，可能还有收入上，是最幸运的；在教育和职业机遇上是最幸运的；在难以列举的很多方面都是最幸运的——这些人获得了最大回报。即使是公认的精英体制，若想达到道德标准、想被视为公平，唯一的途径就是让那些在各方面都最幸运的人担负起最大的责任，努力工作，致力于改善世界，并与他人分享幸运。

4.Who is worthy of admiration? The admonition from Luke — which is shared by most ethical and philosophical traditions, by the way — helps with this question as well. Those most worthy of admiration are those who have made the best use of their advantages or, alternatively, coped most courageously with their adversities. I think most of us would agree that people who have, say, little formal schooling but labor honestly and diligently to help feed, clothe, and educate their families are deserving of greater respect — and help, if necessary — than many people who are superficially more successful. They're more fun to have a beer with, too. That's all that I know about sociology.

4.谁值得尊重？路加福音的告诫——顺便说一句，这是大多数伦理和哲学传统所共有的——也有助于解决这个问题。最值得尊重的是那些充分利用其优势或说勇敢面对逆境的人。我想我们大多数人都会认同，相比很多表面上更成功的人，那些没有受过多少正规教育但诚实勤勉地为家人提供衣食和教育的人更值得尊重和必要的帮助。和他们喝两杯会更有趣。这就是我对社会学的全部了解。

5.Since I have covered what I know about sociology, I might as well say something about political science as well. In regard to politics, I have always liked Lily Tomlin's line, in paraphrase: "I try to be cynical, but I just can't keep up." We all feel that way sometime. Actually, having been in Washington now for almost 11 years, as I mentioned, I feel that way quite a bit. Ultimately, though, cynicism is a poor substitute for critical thought and constructive action. Sure, interests and money and ideology all matter, as you learned in political science. But my experience is that most of our politicians and policymakers are trying to do the right thing, according to their own views and consciences, most of the time. If you think that the bad or indifferent results that too often come out of Washington are due to base motives and bad intentions, you are giving politicians and policymakers way too much credit for being effective. Honest error in the face of complex and possibly intractable problems is a far more important source of bad results than are bad motives. For these reasons, the greatest forces in Washington are ideas, and people prepared to act on those ideas. Public service isn't easy. But, in the end, if you are inclined in that direction, it is a worthy and challenging pursuit.

5.既然我已经谈了我对社会学的了解，我也不妨谈谈政治学。提到政治，我一直喜欢莉莉·汤姆林的台词：“我试图愤世嫉俗，但我就是跟不上。”有时我们都会有这种感觉。事实上，我已经在华盛顿待了近11年了，正如我提到的，我常有这样的感觉。然而，归根结底，愤世嫉俗是批判性思考和建设性行动的糟糕替代品。当然，正如你在政治学中所学到的，利益、金钱和意识形态都有影响力。但经验告诉我，大多数时候，大部分政界人士都在根据自己的观点和良心努力做正确的事。如果你认为华盛顿经常出现的糟糕结果是出于不良动机和意图，那你是把政客和决策者想得太有能力了。面对复杂且可能难以解决的问题时，诚实犯错是导致不良结果的一个重要原因，而不是不良动机。出于这些原因，华盛顿最有影响的力量是观念，人们准备将这些观念付诸行动。公共服务并不容易。但是，说到底，如果想选择这一道路，那是值得的，并颇具挑战性。

6.Having taken a stab at sociology and political science, let me wrap up economics while I'm at it. Economics is a highly sophisticated field of thought that is superb at explaining to policymakers precisely why the choices they made in the past were wrong. About the future, not so much. However, careful economic analysis does have one important benefit, which is that it can help kill ideas that are completely logically inconsistent or wildly at variance with the data. This insight covers at least 90 percent of proposed economic policies.

6. 谈完社会学和政治学之后，我再来总结一下经济学。经济学是极其复杂的思维领域，擅长向决策者准确解释他们过去做出的选择为什么是错误的。但在预测未来时，就没那么准确了。然而，谨慎的经济分析确有重要益处，那就是能帮助扼杀那些不合逻辑或与数据不符的想法。这会对90%的经济政策建议产生影响。

7.I'm not going to tell you that money doesn't matter, because you wouldn't believe me anyway. In fact, for too many people around the world, money is literally a life-or-death proposition. But if you are part of the lucky minority with the ability to choose, remember that money is a means, not an end. A career decision based only on money and not on love of the work or a desire to make a difference is a recipe for unhappiness.

7.我不会告诉你们金钱无用，因为怎么你们也不会相信。事实上，对世界上很多人来说，金钱能够决定生存还是死亡。但如果你属于少数有抉择能力的幸运儿，请记住，金钱只是手段，而非目标。基于收入而非热爱或做出贡献的热情而做出职业选择，往往是日后苦恼的根源。

8.Nobody likes to fail but failure is an essential part of life and of learning. If your uniform isn't dirty, you haven't been in the game.

8. 没有人希望失败，但失败是生活和学习的重要部分。如果你衣衫整洁，那表明你还没有上场比赛过。

9.I spoke earlier about definitions of personal success in an unpredictable world. I hope that as you develop your own definition of success, you will be able to do so, if you wish, with a close companion on your journey. In making that choice, remember that physical beauty is evolution's way of assuring us that the other person doesn't have too many intestinal parasites. Don't get me wrong, I am all for beauty, romance, and sexual attraction — where would Hollywood and Madison Avenue be without them? But while important, those are not the only things to look for in a partner. The two of you will have a long trip together, I hope, and you will need each other's support and sympathy more times than you can count. Speaking as somebody who has been happily married for 35 years, I can't imagine any choice more consequential for a lifelong journey than the choice of a traveling companion.

9.我之前谈到过在一个不可预测的世界中对个人成功的定义。我希望你们定义自己的成功时，如果愿意，可以选择一位亲密的伴侣一起实现。在做出选择时，要记住外表美只是人类演变的一种方式，它使我们确信对方没有太多肠道寄生虫。别误会，我也认可美丽、浪漫和性吸引力——如果没有它们，美国影视业和广告业怎么生存下去呢？但是，尽管重要，这些不是寻找人生伴侣时唯一需要考虑的事情。你们俩将共同走过漫漫人生旅程，希望如此，需要彼此支持和同情的次数多得数不清。作为一位已婚35年的人士，我想象不到人生选择中有比选择人生伴侣更重要的了。

10.Call your mom and dad once in a while. A time will come when you will want your own grown-up, busy, hyper-successful children to call you. Also, remember who paid your tuition to Princeton.

10.时不时给父母去个电话。早晚有一天，你会希望自己长大成人、工作繁忙、超级成功的孩子给你来个电话。还有，请记好，是谁供你上的大学。

Those are my ten suggestions. They're probably worth exactly what you paid for them. But they come from someone who shares your affection for this great institution and who wishes you the best for the future.

以上就是我的十点建议。这些建议可能只是给了你们一些有用的提示，但它们来自一个跟你们一样对这所学校充满感情并希望你们未来一切顺利的人。

Congratulations, graduates. Give 'em hell.

最后，祝贺你们，毕业生们。给他们点颜色看看。

(编辑：林茵）