“We are drowning in information, while starving for wisdom.”

“世人被知识压死，智慧却少得很。”

That epigram from E.O. Wilson captures the dilemma¹ of our era. Yet the solution of some folks is to disdain² wisdom.

E·O·威尔逊( E.O. Wilson)一语道破了我们这个时代的困境。但一些人给出的应对之道竟是鄙弃智慧。

“Is it a vital interest of the state to have more anthropologists?” Rick Scott, the Florida governor, once asked. A leader of a prominent Internet company once told me that the firm regards admission to Harvard as a useful heuristic of talent, but a college education itself as useless.

“拥有更多人类学家是本州的关键利益所在吗？”佛罗里达州州长里克·斯科特(Rick Scott)曾经这样问道。某著名互联网公司的负责人曾经告诉我，该公司把哈佛大学的录取通知书当成一个人是否有才的具有启发性的有用依据，但并不认为大学教育本身有什么参考价值。

Parents and students themselves are acting³ on these principles, retreating from the humanities. Among college graduates in 1971, there were about two business majors for each English major. Now there are seven times as many. (I was a political science major; if I were doing it over, I’d be an economics major with a foot in the humanities.)

学生和家长们正按照这类准则行事，纷纷摒弃人文学科。1971年，商科本科毕业生和英语系本科毕业生的比例是2：1。现在，两者的比例是7：1。（我学的是政治学专业；如果可以重来一次，我会去学经济学，同时选修人文学科。）

I’ve been thinking about this after reading Fareed Zakaria’s smart new book, “In Defense⁴ of a Liberal Education.” Like Zakaria, I think that the liberal arts teach critical thinking (not to mention nifty words like “heuristic”).

自从读了法里德·扎卡里亚(Fareed Zakaria)颇有见地的新书《捍卫人文教育》(In Defense of a Liberal Education)之后，我一直在思考这一现象。和扎卡里亚一样，我认为人文教育有助于培养学生的批判性思维（具有“启发性”等漂亮话就更不用说了）。

So, to answer the skeptics, here are my three reasons the humanities enrich our souls and sometimes even our pocketbooks as well.

人文学科可以丰富我们的精神生活，有时甚至可以充实我们的钱袋子。为了回应怀疑论者，我在此给出三点理由。

First, liberal arts equip students with communications and interpersonal skills that are valuable and genuinely rewarded in the labor force, especially when accompanied by technical abilities.

首先，人文教育有助于提高学生的沟通和人际交往能力，在职场上，这种能力可以给人带来巨大的回报，尤其是在跟技术能力共同起作用的时候。

“A broad liberal arts education is a key pathway to success in the 21st-century economy,” says Lawrence Katz, a labor economist⁵ at Harvard. Katz says that the economic return to pure technical skills has flattened⁶, and the highest return now goes to those who combine soft skills — excellence⁷ at communicating and working with people — with technical skills.

“在21世纪的经济体系中，宽泛的人文教育是通往成功的重要途径，”哈佛大学的劳动经济学家劳伦斯·卡茨(Lawrence Katz)说。卡茨称，纯技术能力的经济回报已经趋平，既具有软能力——善于与他人交流和协同工作——又具有技术能力的人获得的回报是最高的。

“So I think a humanities major who also did a lot of computer science, economics, psychology⁸, or other sciences can be quite valuable and have great career flexibility,” Katz said. “But you need both, in my view, to maximize your potential. And an economics major or computer science major or biology or engineering or physics major who takes serious courses in the humanities and history also will be a much more valuable scientist, financial professional, economist, or entrepreneur.”

“因此我认为，一个人文专业的学生，如果对计算机科学、经济学、心理学或者其他学科也颇有研究，就会很有价值，在职场是会有很大的灵活性的。”卡茨说，“但在我看来，你必须‘脚踏两只船’，才能最大限度地挖掘自己的潜能。一个经济学专业的学生，或者是计算机专业、生物学专业、工程学专业、物理学专业的学生，如果正经八百地修过人文和历史课程，也会成为一个更有价值的科学家、金融专业人士、经济学家或者企业家。 ”

My second reason: We need people conversant⁹ with the humanities to help reach wise public policy decisions, even about the sciences. Technology companies must constantly weigh ethical¹⁰ decisions: Where should Facebook set its privacy defaults, and should it tolerate glimpses of nudity? Should Twitter close accounts that seem sympathetic to terrorists? How should Google handle sex and violence, or defamatory articles?

我的第二个理由：我们需要通晓人文学科的人来帮忙做出明智的公共政策决策——甚至是和科学有关的决策。科技公司必须不断对伦理决策进行权衡：Facebook的默认隐私设置应该是什么样的，该容忍些许裸体影像的存在吗？Twitter该关停似乎对恐怖分子颇为同情的账号吗？谷歌(Google)该如何处理关于性与暴力的内容以及诽谤性文章？

In the policy realm, one of the most important decisions we humans will have to make is whether to allow germline gene modification¹¹. This might eliminate certain diseases, ease suffering, make our offspring smarter and more beautiful. But it would also change our species. It would enable the wealthy to concoct¹² superchildren. It’s exhilarating and terrifying.

在政策领域，我们人类必须做出的一个最为重要的决定：是否允许修正人类生殖细胞基因。人类生殖细胞基因修正或许可以消灭特定种类的疾病，减少痛苦，让我们的后代更聪明、更美丽。但它同时也会改变我们这个物种，会让富人有机会炮制出犹如超人的子女。这真是既令人振奋，又透着恐怖。

To weigh these issues, regulators should be informed by first-rate science, but also by first-rate humanism. After all, Homer addressed similar issues three millenniums ago.

要权衡这类问题，监管者不仅要具有一流的科学素质，还要具有一流的人文素质。毕竟，早在3000年前，荷马(Homer)就提出过类似的问题。

In “The Odyssey,” the beautiful nymph Calypso offers immortality¹³ to Odysseus if he will stay on her island. After a fling with her, Odysseus ultimately rejects the offer because he misses his wife, Penelope. He turns down godlike immortality to embrace suffering and death that are essential to the human condition.

在《奥德赛》(The Odyssey)中，美丽的仙女卡吕普索(Calypso)向奥德修斯(Odysseus)许诺，只要留在她的岛上，他就可以长生不老。跟仙女有了一段风流韵事之后，奥德修斯最终拒绝了这个提议，因为他思念自己的妻子佩涅洛佩(Penelope)。他拒绝像神一样永生，选择面对人类必须面对的痛苦和死亡。

Likewise, when the President’s Council on Bioethics issued its report in 2002, “Human Cloning and Human Dignity,” it cited scientific journals but also Ernest Hemingway’s “The Old Man and the Sea.” Even science depends upon the humanities to shape judgments¹⁵ about ethics¹⁴, limits and values.

同样地，总统生物伦理委员会(President's Council on Bioethics)2002年发布题为《人的克隆与人类尊严》(Human Cloning and Human Dignity)的报告时，既援引了科学杂志的内容，也提到了欧内斯特·海明威(Ernest Hemingway)的《老人与海》(The Old Man and the Sea)。即便事关科学，在做出涉及伦理、限度和价值等方面的判断时，也要借助人文学科。

Third, wherever our careers lie, much of our happiness depends upon our interactions with those around us, and there’s some evidence that literature nurtures¹⁶ a richer emotional intelligence.

第三，不论从事什么职业，我们的幸福在很大程度上都取决于我们如何跟周围的人交流。有一些证据表明，涉猎文学有助于提高情商。

Science magazine published five studies indicating that research subjects who read literary fiction did better at assessing the feelings of a person in a photo than those who read nonfiction or popular fiction. Literature seems to offer lessons in human nature that help us decode¹⁷ the world around us and be better friends.

在《科学》杂志上发表过的五项研究表明，比起阅读非虚构类作品或者通俗小说的研究对象，阅读文艺小说的研究对象能够更好地评估照片上的人处于何种情绪之中。文学似乎提供了与人的本质有关的课程，帮助我们解读周围的世界，帮助我们更好地与人相处。

Literature also builds bridges of understanding. Toni Morrison has helped all America understand African-American life. Jhumpa Lahiri illuminated¹⁸ immigrant contradictions. Khaled Hosseini opened windows on Afghanistan.

文学还可以架设起理解的桥梁。托妮·莫利森(Toni Morrison)帮助整个美国理解非裔美国人的生活。裘帕·拉希里(Jhumpa Lahiri)阐明了移民群体面对的种种矛盾。卡勒德·胡赛尼(Khaled Hosseini)打开了观察阿富汗的窗口。

In short, it makes eminent¹⁹ sense to study coding and statistics today, but also history and literature.

总而言之，在当下这个时代，学习编程和统计学固然意义重大，学习历史和文学同样十分重要。

John Adams had it right when he wrote to his wife, Abigail, in 1780: “I must study Politicks and War that my sons may have liberty to study Mathematicks and Philosophy. My sons ought to study Mathematicks and Philosophy, Geography, natural History and Naval²⁰ Architecture, navigation, Commerce and Agriculture, in order to give their Children a right to study Painting, Poetry, Musick, Architecture, Statuary, Tapestry²¹ and Porcelaine.”

1780年，约翰·亚当斯(John Adams)在给妻子的一封信里写道：“我必须修习政治学与战争学，才能让我们的后代拥有修习数学和哲学的自由；我们的后代必须修习数学、哲学、地理学、博物学、造船学、航海学、商学及农学，才能让他们的后代拥有修习绘画、诗歌、音乐、建筑、雕刻、绣织和瓷艺的权利。”这话一点没错。