Malcolm Gladwell Wants to Make the World Safe for Mediocrity (Ep. 20 - Live at Mason)

So, I think of you as a figure set, really, coming out of the postwar Caribbean Enlightenment.

所以，我认为你是一个来自战后加勒比启蒙运动的人物。

I put you in a context with, say, Sylvia Wynter, C.

我将你与 Sylvia Wynter, C. 放在一起。

L.

L。

R.

R。

James, Frantz Fanon.

詹姆斯，弗兰茨·法农。

A common theme in their work is the notion that science is something potentially liberating and emancipatory.

他们工作中的一个共同主题是科学是一种潜在的解放和解放的东西。

You’re picking up on that, with one of the channels of influence being your mother, who is herself a very well-known Caribbean writer and intellectual.

你正在接受这一点，影响的渠道之一是你的母亲，她本人是一位非常著名的加勒比作家和知识分子。

So there’s that Caribbean background: power of science to liberate human individuals.

这就是加勒比背景：科学的力量解放人类个体。

There’s, then, on you a Mennonite influence both from your childhood and your family, where you grew up in Canada.

那么，门诺派对你的影响既来自你的童年，也来自你在加拿大长大的家庭。

My understanding of Mennonites is, they tend to stress the notion that in the Scriptures, there’s not much talk of original sin, so you see the possibility for goodness in people.

我对门诺派的理解是，他们倾向于强调这样一个观念：在圣经中，没有太多谈论原罪，所以你看到人性中善良的可能性。

You then spent much of your life in Canada, so there’s a modesty that comes from that temperament, and also intellectual modesty.

然后你在加拿大度过了大部分的生活，所以这种气质带来了一种谦虚，还有理智上的谦虚。

You then have a father who is a mathematician, so there’s the emphasis on data.

然后你有一个数学家的父亲，所以强调数据。

And you got your 10,000 hours of practice, mostly at the Washington Post, as an early person behind the rise of data-based journalism.

作为数据新闻业兴起的早期推动者，您进行了 10,000 小时的实践，主要是在《华盛顿邮报》。

Key themes in your work: I think of them as contingency, optimism, and voluntarism; power of the individual.

您作品中的关键主题：我认为它们是偶然性、乐观主义和自愿主义；个人的力量。

Your first book, Tipping Point, is about how small moves can lead to big changes.

你的第一本书《引爆点》讲述的是小动作如何带来大变化。

Your last book, David and Goliath, is about how David can beat Goliath in many contexts.

你的上一本书《大卫与歌利亚》讲述了大卫如何在许多情况下击败歌利亚。

So again, contingency, optimism, voluntarism, the individual, and whether it boils down to: Is there a better way to shoot NBA free throws or could Elvis Costello have improved on his recording of Goodbye Cruel World?

再说一次，偶然性、乐观主义、自愿主义、个人，以及是否可以归结为：是否有更好的方法来投篮 NBA 罚球，或者埃尔维斯·科斯特洛 (Elvis Costello) 是否可以改进他的《再见残酷世界》(Goodbye Cruel World) 的录音？

There’s this consistently optimistic perspective, so you’re really a very systematic thinker with core themes running throughout your whole work.

有这种始终如一的乐观观点，所以你确实是一个非常系统的思考者，核心主题贯穿你的整个工作。

That’s my take on who’s Malcolm Gladwell.

这就是我对马尔科姆·格拉德威尔的看法。

How do you see it?

你怎么看？

Who is Malcolm Gladwell?

马尔科姆·格拉德威尔是谁？

There’s two kinds of influences.

有两种影响。

There’s negative and positive influences.

有消极和积极的影响。

You just left out the negative ones, I think.

我想你只是忽略了消极的一面。

On Joyce Gladwell, Malcolm’s mother

关于马尔科姆的母亲乔伊斯·格拉德威尔

What I find profound in that is her notion of both the importance of struggle and issues of race and feminism and fighting for your family, but also repeatedly being subjected to what she calls “the medicine of acceptance,” and how you can combine those two things — struggle and medicine of acceptance — in a life that also finds God.

我发现其中最深刻的是她的观念，即斗争、种族和女权主义问题以及为家庭而斗争的重要性，但也反复受到她所谓的“接受之药”的影响，以及如何将这两件事结合起来——“斗争和接受之药”——在一个也找到上帝的生活中。

And she’s full of profound stories on that.

她对此充满了深刻的故事。

So did you get your storytelling nature from her?

那么你讲故事的天性是从她那里遗传来的吗？

It’s funny — she’s not unusual in this.

这很有趣——她在这方面并不罕见。

This is why I always urge people to sit down with their parents while their parents are still with them, and turn on the tape recorder and force them to tell stories because surprising numbers of people don’t — unless they’re forced to, unless it’s a deliberate act — don’t tell the stories from their life that are meaningful.

这就是为什么我总是敦促人们在父母还和他们在一起的时候和他们的父母坐在一起，打开录音机，强迫他们讲故事，因为令人惊讶的是，有很多人不会——“除非他们被迫，除非这是故意的行为”——不要讲述他们生活中有意义的故事。

Writing that book was a very deliberate act on my mother’s part.

写那本书是我母亲经过深思熟虑的行为。

She was trying to make sense of .

她试图弄清楚。

.

。

.

。

One hesitates to call one’s own mother’s life extraordinary.

人们很难说自己母亲的一生是非凡的。

It wasn’t that it was extraordinary; it was just unusual.

并不是因为它有多么非凡，而是因为它很特别。这很不寻常。

She was a black woman trying to marry a white man in England in the ’50s.

20世纪50年代，她是一位试图与英国白人结婚的黑人女性。

So they were a little bit of an oddity.

所以他们有点奇怪。

Can I tell my favorite story about my father from this era?

我可以讲述这个时代关于我父亲的我最喜欢的故事吗？

It’s ’61, he needs a particular textbook, and this being 1961, you can’t go online, so he writes to all the libraries.

那是 61 年，他需要一本特定的教科书，而现在是 1961 年，你无法上网，所以他写信给所有的图书馆。

It turns out the closest library to Kingston, Jamaica, that has this book that he needs for his research is Georgia Tech.

事实证明，距离牙买加金斯顿最近的图书馆是佐治亚理工学院，那里有他研究所需的这本书。

So he writes to Georgia Tech and says, “Can I come and use your library?” And they say, “Yes.” So he makes preparations and it means sailing from Kingston to Miami and taking a bus from Miami to Atlanta because he doesn’t have any money.

于是他写信给佐治亚理工学院说：“我可以来使用你们的图书馆吗？”他们说：“是的。”所以他做了准备，这意味着从金斯顿坐船到迈阿密，然后从迈阿密乘巴士到亚特兰大，因为他没有钱。

What he doesn’t realize is that they said yes, but then the person who said yes got in trouble for saying yes before they figured out his race.

他没有意识到的是，他们答应了，但后来答应的人却因为在他们弄清楚他的种族之前答应了而陷入了麻烦。

Because all they knew was that a man from the University of the West Indies was planning to use their library.

因为他们只知道西印度群岛大学的一个人正计划使用他们的图书馆。

And of course their library in 1961 would’ve been segregated.

当然，他们的图书馆在 1961 年就会被隔离。

It set off this huge commotion at Georgia Tech as they tried to figure out whether my father was white or black.

这在佐治亚理工学院引起了巨大的骚动，因为他们试图弄清楚我父亲是白人还是黑人。

Finally they track him down.

最后他们找到了他。

The day before he’s about to leave, he gets a call from the dean of whatever at Georgia Tech: “Mr. Gladwell?” He says, “Yes?” “Dr. Gladwell, well, we have sort of a slightly odd question.” He goes, “Yes, what is it?” “Are you white?” My father says, “Yes.” And the guy says, swear to God, “Oh, thank God!”

在他准备离开的前一天，他接到佐治亚理工学院院长的电话：“格拉德威尔先生？”他说：“是吗？” “格拉德威尔博士，好吧，我们有一个有点奇怪的问题。”他说：“是的，那是什么？” “你是白人吗？”我父亲说：“是的。”那家伙说，向上帝发誓，“哦，感谢上帝！”