TED | 我们为什么要工作？

 

 

演讲简介

我们为什么要工作？如果是想要赚钱，那就是最世俗的回答了。因为我们忽略了我们作为人类最大的特质，就是创造力和有思想。为什么工业革命之父亚当斯密曾说：在流水线工作的人会变得很笨，笨到人类的极点？因为他相信人类需要制度，通过薪酬的方式把人们变成要满足制度需要的人，剥夺了人们的创造机会。所以人们不应该被设计活在别人的概念里而忽略自己本身的人性。

 

 

 

演讲精彩片段（节选）欣赏

 

Today I'm going to talk about work. And the question I want to ask and answer is this: "Why do we work?" Why do we drag ourselves out of bed every morning instead of living our lives just filled with bouncing from one TED-like adventure to another?

今天我要谈一谈工作。我想跟大家一起讨论的问题是：“我们为什么要工作？”为什么我们每天早上要挣扎着起床（去上班）而不是享受生活，让我们的人生充满一个个像TED大会这样美妙的经历呢？

 

You may be asking yourselves that very question. Now, I know of course, we have to make a living, but nobody in this room thinks that that's the answer to the question, "Why do we work?" For folks in this room, the work we do is challenging, it's engaging, it's stimulating, it's meaningful. And if we're lucky, it might even be important.

你们也许也有同样的疑问吧。当然，我理解，我们要维持生计，但我相信，在座的各位不会认为“维持生计”是问题的答案，“我们为什么要工作？”对于在座的各位，工作是充满挑战的，它是迷人、刺激、富有意义的。如果我们幸运的话，它甚至可能不可或缺。

 

So, we wouldn't work if we didn't get paid, but that's not why we do what we do. And in general, I think we think that material rewards are a pretty bad reason for doing the work that we do. When we say of somebody that he's "in it for the money," we are not just being descriptive.

因此，如果没有薪水，我们就不会工作，但这还不是主要原因。通常情况下，我们认为物质奖励并不是我们工作的好理由。当我们说某人“做这个只是为了钱”的时候背后的含义大家懂的。

 

So the question is, "Why?" And here's the answer: the answer is technology. Now, I know, I know —yeah, yeah, yeah, technology, automation screws people, blah blah — that's not what I mean.

那么问题来了，“为什么呢？”我认为答案是这样：是技术。哦，我知道了，我明白了—— 是的，没错，技术、自动化毁了人类，诸如此类陈词滥调——我想说的并不是这个。

 

I'm not talking about the kind of technology that has enveloped our lives, and that people come to TED to hear about. I'm not talking about the technology of things, profound though that is. I'm talking about another technology. I'm talking about the technology of ideas. I call it, "idea technology" — how clever of me.

我所指的技术，并不是那些已经进入我们生活的，我们在TED演讲中能听到的技术。我说的并不是实物科技，尽管实物科技也很深奥。我指的是另一种技术。是关于思想的技术。我称之为“思维技术”——机智如我。

 

The distinguished anthropologist, Clifford Geertz, said, years ago, that human beings are the "unfinished animals." And what he meant by that was that it is only human nature to have a human nature that is very much the product of the society in which people live. That human nature, that is to say, our human nature is much more created than it is discovered. We design human nature by designing the institutions within which people live and work.

著名的人类学家克利福德·格尔茨多年前说过，人类是“未塑造好的动物。”他的意思是，只有人性，只有人类的人性正是人类所生活的社会的产物。这种人性，也就是说我们的人性，与其说是被发现的，不如说是被创造的。人性是由我们设计的，我们通过设计人类生活和工作的机制来设计人性。