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the political economy of palestine with hussein aboubakr mansour

侯赛因·阿布巴克尔·曼苏尔的巴勒斯坦政治经济
 ·  EconTalk (Russ Roberts, Library of Economics)  ·  原文

Most discourses about Israel or Palestine are morality plays of good guys vs bad guys.

大多数有关以色列或巴勒斯坦的讨论都是好人与坏人的道德剧。

Egyptian-born Hussein Aboubakr Mansour takes a different approach, seeing the conflict as a self-reproducing system of political and economic extraction where Arab regimes, opposition movements, rival states, Western academics, NGOs, and Gulf monarchies like Qatar all convert Palestinian victimhood into their own forms of power, money, and meaning.

出生于埃及的侯赛因·阿布巴克尔·曼苏尔采取了不同的方法,他将这场冲突视为一种自我复制的政治和经济榨取体系,阿拉伯政权、反对派运动、敌对国家、西方学者、非政府组织和卡塔尔等海湾君主国都将巴勒斯坦的受害者转化为他们自己的权力、金钱和意义。

Listen as Mansour speaks with EconTalk's Russ Roberts about his childhood in an Egypt organized around the liberation of Palestine and explores why any exit from the system must run not through policy, but rather through the human need for meaning itself.

听曼苏尔与 EconTalk 的拉斯·罗伯茨 (Russ Roberts) 谈论他在围绕巴勒斯坦解放而组织的埃及度过的童年,并探讨了为什么任何退出该体系的行为都不能通过政策,而必须通过人类对意义本身的需求。

This “model” explains a lot of different societal phenomena – here “Blame the Jews” (and Israel) can be a powerful weapon for all sorts of rent seeking.

这个“模型”解释了许多不同的社会现象——在这里“指责犹太人”(和以色列)可以成为各种寻租的有力武器。

It is amazing how often we hear about how “racist” the US is – it is almost as if those making the claim that slavery was never abolished and that people are being killed or lynched everyday on the streets – ignoring the real changes in the country is helpful to them because if “racism” does not exist, they do not have jobs (but yea, like everything, no societal problem is ever solved – it is like an asymptote – looking closer and closer to convergence but never getting there.

令人惊讶的是,我们经常听到美国有多么“种族主义”——就好像那些声称奴隶制从未被废除,人们每天都在街头被杀害或私刑的人一样——忽视这个国家的真正变化对他们有帮助,因为如果“种族主义”不存在,他们就没有工作(但是,是的,就像所有事情一样,没有一个社会问题得到解决——它就像一条渐近线——看起来越来越接近趋同,但却永远无法实现)那里。

This model also explains the enormous growth of “non profits” in a state like California – where BILLIONS are supposedly spent to solve homelessness or whatever – and no one knows where the monies are – except that there are HUGE numbers of non profits that have HUGE numbers of people with HUGE salaries and living comfortable lives – so yea, solving homelessness will hurt those jobs.

这个模型还解释了像加利福尼亚州这样的州“非营利组织”的巨大增长——据称该州花费了数十亿美元来解决无家可归问题或其他问题——但没有人知道这些钱在哪里——除了有大量的非营利组织拥有大量拿着高薪和过着舒适生活的人——所以,是的,解决无家可归问题会损害这些工作。

Room for optimism -?

乐观的空间-?

I can think of only one – economic growth and prosperity for the many millions.

我只能想到一个——数百万人的经济增长和繁荣。

The Abraham Accords will hopefully unleash trade and other activity and bring about real growth and improvement in the lives of millions and hope that can be translated to a wider geographical region.

《亚伯拉罕协议》有望释放贸易和其他活动,为数百万人的生活带来真正的增长和改善,并希望能够转化为更广泛的地理区域。

We will never ever reach perfection – the asymptote will be forever getting closer, but never ever reaching the limit – but hopefully the difference will become so small as to be insignificant

我们永远不会达到完美——渐近线将永远越来越接近,但永远不会达到极限——但希望差异会变得如此之小,以至于微不足道

The conversation led me to think less about Palestine than about systems.

这次谈话让我不再思考巴勒斯坦,而是思考系统。

It seems there are at least three interacting classes of systems.

似乎至少存在三类相互作用的系统。

Religious systems answer the human need for meaning.

宗教系统满足了人类对意义的需求。

Symbolic political economies answer questions of incentives, legitimacy, and power.

象征性政治经济学回答了激励、合法性和权力的问题。

Civilizational systems emerge over much longer timescales from the interaction of religions, institutions, laws, customs, and collective memory.

文明体系是在宗教、制度、法律、习俗和集体记忆的相互作用中经过更长的时间尺度才形成的。

None of these has agency in the way individuals do, yet each exerts selection pressures on the others.

这些都不像个人那样具有代理作用,但每个都对其他人施加选择压力。

That suggests a different set of questions than “Who is right?” First: what systems are interacting, and what selection pressures do they exert and face?

这提出了与“谁是对的?”不同的一系列问题。第一:哪些系统在相互作用,它们施加和面临哪些选择压力?

Second: where are the architectural control points—those places where changes propagate most effectively through the system?

第二:架构控制点在哪里——那些变化在系统中传播最有效的地方?

Third: if an intelligent designer wanted to steer the system, what levers would they reach for?

第三:如果一个聪明的设计师想要操纵这个系统,他们会使用什么杠杆?

Those levers may or may not be available to any actual actor, but they reveal the system’s architecture.

这些杠杆可能对任何实际参与者可用,也可能不可用,但它们揭示了系统的架构。

One point where I part company slightly is on Huntington.

我有些不同意的一点是亨廷顿。

I don’t think a clash of civilizations requires civilizations to be coherent actors, much less ascendant ones.

我认为文明的冲突并不要求文明成为一致的行动者,更不用说上升的文明了。

A clash can emerge when people formed within one symbolic and institutional ecology migrate into another.

当在一种象征性和制度性生态中形成的人们迁移到另一种象征性和制度性生态时,就会出现冲突。

The resulting tensions are civilizational in effect, even if the underlying mechanisms are the symbolic political economy described.

由此产生的紧张局势实际上是文明性的,即使其潜在机制是所描述的象征性政治经济。

The two frameworks seem more complementary than contradictory.

这两个框架看起来更多的是互补而不是矛盾。

What an extremely frustrating, meandering, ‘failure to get to the point’ conversation.

这是一次多么令人沮丧、曲折、“没有切中要点”的谈话。

An hour plus of preaching to the choir.

向唱诗班讲道一个多小时。

The author’s viewpoint feels profoundly Marxist in its fatalism, in his didactic tone, and its refusal to look at any individual or group of individuals to be of any importance.

作者的观点在其宿命论、说教语气以及拒绝将任何个人或个人群体视为重要的方面都给人深刻的马克思主义感觉。

Its almost theological in its assertions.

它的主张几乎是神学的。

He says at one point he doesnt want to be too fatalistic, but I couldnt find any solutions here.

他曾说过,他不想太宿命论,但我在这里找不到任何解决方案。

And if the point is that there is no solution, why are we spending so much time talking about this?

如果问题是没有解决方案,为什么我们要花这么多时间讨论这个问题?

The world will go on, and it would be interesting to see what that future may look like.

世界将继续发展,看看未来会是什么样子将会很有趣。

Could the guest provide some insight here?

请问这位嘉宾能在这里提供一些见解吗?

I saw this on his blog: “This essay is not a memoir; contemporary memoirs are a moral dead-end of solipsism and narcissism, an endless self-commentary in the tradition of Milton’s Satan, and I live with the regret of having written one.” Excuse me?

我在他的博客上看到这样的话:“这篇文章不是回忆录;当代回忆录是唯我论和自恋的道德死胡同,是弥尔顿撒旦传统中无休止的自我评论,我为写了一篇回忆录而感到遗憾。”对不起?

Hearing peoples stories is not interesting?

听人们的故事不有趣吗?

This to me is a very Marxist like take- everything is an abstraction, all that matters are systems.

对我来说,这是一种非常马克思主义的观点——一切都是抽象的,重要的是系统。

Everything is pre programmed anyway.

无论如何,一切都是预先编程的。

People certainly dont matter to someone thinking like this.

对于有这种想法的人来说,人们当然不重要。

I didnt hear one iota of concern in this conversation for the people in the middle east, Israelis and Palestinians alike.

在这次谈话中,我没有听到任何对中东人民、以色列人和巴勒斯坦人的担忧。

I love Russ and econtalk, but this talk was far from illuminating.

我喜欢 Russ 和 econtalk,但这个演讲远非有启发性。

Its hardly news to find out that governments spend money to promote their self interest.

政府花钱来促进自身利益并不是什么新闻。

I enjoy a good rant on occasion, but this was not it.

我有时喜欢大声咆哮,但不是这样。

It reminded me a bit of reading Noam Chomsky’s political writing, where everything somehow eventually circles back to being America’s fault.

这让我想起了阅读诺姆·乔姆斯基的政治著作,其中一切最终都会以某种方式回到美国的错。

I did find it interesting to hear a firsthand account of just how central Palestine is (or was) in Egyptian politics.

我确实觉得听到关于巴勒斯坦在埃及政治中的中心地位(或曾经)的第一手资料很有趣。

But beyond that, I wasn’t sure I understood the big idea.

但除此之外,我不确定我是否理解了这个大想法。

Yes, Egypt leverages the conflict to gain support from the U.S. Israel leverages the threats posed by Iran and terrorist groups to strengthen its relationship with the U.S. And Greenland is probably leveraging the threat of U.S. to gain additional support from Denmark and the EU.

是的,埃及利用冲突获得美国的支持,以色列利用伊朗和恐怖组织的威胁来加强与美国的关系,格陵兰岛可能利用美国的威胁来获得丹麦和欧盟的额外支持。

That all just seems like…

这一切看起来就像……

politics.

政治。

Could have just said, as he said before; “Identity as Injury, Injury as authority, Authority as the right to narrate”…..in universities and with respect to available funds.

本来可以说,正如他之前所说的; “身份是伤害,伤害是权威,权威是叙述的权利”......在大学和可用资金方面。

I read all of the essay until continuing required buying a subscription.

我阅读了整篇文章,直到需要购买订阅才能继续。

It wasn’t just the cost that caused me to back away, but Mansour’s turn toward religion.

让我退缩的不仅仅是代价,还有曼苏尔转向宗教。

For me, as an atheist, the “death of god,” for lack of a better phrase, did not inflict a wound but effected a healing.

对我来说,作为一个无神论者,“上帝之死”,因为缺乏更好的措辞,并没有造成伤害,而是起到了治愈的作用。

My faith is currently that by turning away from our gods, we can see the one most profound truth possible: We are here, now, together, and aware of those facts.

我目前的信念是,通过远离我们的神,我们可以看到一个最深刻的真理:我们在这里,现在,在一起,并意识到这些事实。

But that’s just how I articulate my resistance, which Mansour cautioned me to expect.

但这正是我表达抵制的方式,曼苏尔警告我要做好准备。

His point is fundamentally religious, and I don’t think it requires one to believe in a god to grasp it.

他的观点从根本上来说是宗教性的,我不认为人们需要信仰上帝才能理解它。

Toward the end of the conversation, he says, “There is obviously a religious end to the essay in which, basically, that a real conversion is ultimately what is needed.

在谈话即将结束时,他说:“这篇文章显然有一个宗教结尾,基本上,最终需要的是真正的转变。

An inner conversion, a teshuvah in the Hebrew sense, in which man turns from his own self-justification and just faces his reality with sober eyes, honestly, before God.”

一种内在的转变,希伯来语意义上的 teshuvah,即人放弃自我辩护,在上帝面前以清醒的眼光、诚实的态度面对自己的现实。”

For Christians, I think the rough analogue to “teshuvah” would be “metanoia,” which translates roughly as “turning away.” There is no solution within the system; the solution is to extricate oneself from the system.

对于基督徒来说,我认为“teshuvah”的粗略比喻是“metanoia”,大致翻译为“转身离开”。系统内部没有解决方案;解决办法就是从体制中解脱出来。

For a Jew, this might mean deciding that the creation of a Jewish state is not worth one more Palestinian life.

对于犹太人来说,这可能意味着认为建立一个犹太国家不值得再多一个巴勒斯坦人的生命。

For a Palestinian, that the right of return, the avenging of the nakbah, or even the creation of a Palestinian state, is not worth one more Israeli life.

对于巴勒斯坦人来说,返回的权利、为大灾难复仇,甚至建立一个巴勒斯坦国,都不值得再多一个以色列人的生命。

For the conservative Christian, it means abandoning the idea that the state of Israel is evidence of God’s acting in history–and a sign of the imminent parousia.

对于保守的基督徒来说,这意味着放弃以色列国是上帝在历史中行事的证据以及即将到来的基督再来的标志的观点。

For American Progressives (like me), it means realizing that this conflict really isn’t about satisfying my sense of justice.

对于美国进步人士(像我一样)来说,这意味着意识到这场冲突实际上并不是为了满足我的正义感。

For me as an atheist, I should consider that this confilct does not justify my condemnation of belief in gods.

对于我作为一个无神论者来说,我应该认为这种冲突并不能证明我对神的信仰的谴责是合理的。

And so on…

等等……

The main problem with this solution is that it is almost impossible to achieve in full, as it must be achieved on the individual level, by millions of individuals over a short period of time–and for almost all of us, the incentives are not to turn away, but to continue participating in the life of this autopoietic organism.

这个解决方案的主要问题是它几乎不可能完全实现,因为它必须在个人层面上实现,由数百万人在短时间内实现——对于我们几乎所有人来说,动机不是转身离开,而是继续参与这个自创生有机体的生命。

First time in 20 years I’ve been listening to Econtalk I’ve found and article I want to explore – with a paywall.

20 年来我第一次听我发现的 Econtalk 和我想探索的文章——通过付费专区。

Russ – Don’t interview people about an online article with a paywall – it’s not a book, right?

Russ – 不要就付费专区的在线文章采访人们 – 这不是一本书,对吧?

[Hi, Nic; and also David Blair.

[嗨,尼克;还有大卫·布莱尔。

The link we provide on this page in our Delve Deeper section does not have a paywall.

我们在“深入探究”部分中在此页面上提供的链接没有付费专区。

See https://critiqueanddigest.substack.com/p/a-metacritique-of-palestine –Econlib Ed.]

参见 https://critiqueanddigest.substack.com/p/a-metacritique-of-palestine –Econlib Ed.]

Unless this is the last sentence of the essay (it doesn’t seem like it should be), the end is behind a paywall:

除非这是文章的最后一句话(看起来不应该如此),否则结局是付费的:

“What is striking is that the totalism of interpretation, by virtue of being available and authoritative and meaningful, occupies the cognitive space that any honest analysis of Egypt would also have to occupy, and it occupies that space so completely that real understanding cannot be developed in the same minds that hold it.”

“引人注目的是,解释的极权主义凭借其可用性、权威性和有意义性,占据了任何对埃及的诚实分析也必须占据的认知空间,而且它占据了这个空间,以至于在持有它的同一头脑中无法发展出真正的理解。”

Still, what is available is very rich, so much so that on my second reading, I’m not sure I understood it the first time.

尽管如此,可用的内容还是非常丰富,以至于在我第二次阅读时,我不确定我第一次读时是否理解了它。

It seems to still be behind a paywall.

它似乎仍然处于付费墙后面。

A non-gated version would be great.

非门控版本会很棒。

This was the best analysis of the Palestinian victimhood narrative I’ve ever heard.

这是我听过的对巴勒斯坦受害者叙述的最好分析。

I’m uncertain how to evaluate this episode.

我不确定如何评价这一集。

Inscrutable comes to mind.

脑海中浮现出难以理解的东西。

Is this confounding because it’s brilliant, or confounding because it’s confused?

这是因为它很出色而令人困惑,还是因为它令人困惑而令人困惑?

I think I am hearing that pro Palestinian systems are often the result of [anti-]intellectualism acting and reacting within a self-preservation state of nature, ans that this logical loop (which is non-logical) is unlikely to be broken due to the incentives pushing/pulling on the individual actors.

我想我听说亲巴勒斯坦制度往往是[反]智主义在自我保护的自然状态下行动和反应的结果,并且由于对个体行为者的推动/拉动,这种逻辑循环(这是非逻辑的)不太可能被打破。

Please correct me if I am taking-away the wrong summary here.

如果我在这里删除了错误的摘要,请纠正我。

Luke — I agree with you.

卢克——我同意你的观点。

When David says above, “This was the best analysis of the Palestinian victimhood narrative I’ve ever heard,” I genuinely don’t know what “analysis” he’s referring to.

当大卫在上面说“这是我听过的对巴勒斯坦受害者叙述的最好分析”时,我真的不知道他指的是什么“分析”。

What I heard Hussein say is that the challenges facing Palestinians have become a highly salient political issue for many different groups around the world (particularly in the Middle East and the U.S.) and that there’s a self-reinforcing relationship between how these disparate groups talk about the issue.

我听到侯赛因说的是,巴勒斯坦人面临的挑战已经成为世界各地许多不同群体(特别是中东和美国)的一个高度突出的政治问题,而且这些不同群体如何谈论这个问题之间存在着一种自我强化的关系。

That seems…

看来……

obviously true.

显然是真的。

The confusing part is the “so what”.

令人困惑的部分是“那又怎样”。

Russ and Hussein seem to think there’s something conspiratorial or sinister about this emergent political issue, but they never really explain what that is.

拉斯和侯赛因似乎认为这个新兴的政治问题存在阴谋或险恶的成分,但他们从未真正解释过那是什么。

It’s sort of like the difference between saying “it’s all connected” in a normal voice versus saying it like Claire Danes in Homeland .

这有点像用正常声音说“一切都是有联系的”和像《国土安全》中的克莱尔·丹尼斯那样说的区别。

The Claire Danes voice makes you feel like you’ve missed some major insight.

克莱尔·丹尼斯的声音让你感觉自己错过了一些重要的见解。

I appreciated this conversation, but one thing that Russ (or most people defending Israel in a public relations manner) doesn’t discuss is the issue of the West Bank: the legitimacy (or lack thereof) of the settlements, the treatment of residents of the West Bank, etc. Before Oct 7, 2022, that seemed to be the big black eye on Israel from my perspective.

我很欣赏这次谈话,但 Russ(或大多数以公关方式捍卫以色列的人)没有讨论的一件事是西岸问题:定居点的合法性(或缺乏合法性)、西岸居民的待遇等。在 2022 年 10 月 7 日之前,从我的角度来看,这似乎是以色列的一大黑眼。

Gaza was a strip of land the kept sending rockets into Israel…

加沙是一块不断向以色列发射火箭的狭长地带……

of course Israel needs to defend itself from that.

当然,以色列需要为此辩护。

But from my admittedly meager understanding, Israel was taking land from those in the West Bank and treating them very poorly.

但据我承认,以色列正在从西岸人民手中夺取土地,并且对待他们非常恶劣。

This recent AP news article is an example of something that seems to have been occurring for the last decade: https://apnews.com/article/israel-west-bank-settler-violence-palestinian-qusra-huckabee-aad901d8ee7cf54e5e4952bf61a4f6d1

美联社最近的这篇新闻文章是过去十年似乎发生的事情的一个例子:https://apnews.com/article/israel-west-bank-settler-violence-palestinian-qusra-huckabee-aad901d8ee7cf54e5e4952bf61a4f6d1

Additional ideas and people mentioned in this podcast episode:

本播客节目中提到的其他想法和人物:

A few more readings and background resources:

更多阅读材料和背景资源:

More related EconTalk podcast episodes, by Category:

更多相关的 EconTalk 播客剧集,按类别:

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Russ Roberts: Today is June 30th, 2026, and my guest is author Hussein Aboubakr Mansour, of JINSA, the Jewish Institute for National Security of America.

拉斯·罗伯茨:今天是 2026 年 6 月 30 日,我的嘉宾是美国犹太国家安全研究所 JINSA 的作家侯赛因·阿布巴克尔·曼苏尔 (Hussein Aboubakr Mansour)。

His Substack is the Abrahamic Metacritique.

他的子堆栈是亚伯拉罕元批判。

Our topic for today is a rather extraordinary essay he wrote there.

我们今天的主题是他在那里写的一篇相当非凡的文章。

The title was "A Metacritique of Palestine: On the Political Economy of a Word Symbol."

标题是“巴勒斯坦的元批判:论一个词符号的政治经济学”。

Hussein Aboubakr Mansour: Thank you, Russ.

侯赛因·阿布巴克尔·曼苏尔: 谢谢你,拉斯。

Russ Roberts: Now, I want to say something before we start, and that is that Palestine, which is a rich, complicated word--it means different things to different people--but it has somehow become an incredibly salient political issue, not just here in the Middle East, but throughout the world.

拉斯·罗伯茨:现在,在我们开始之前我想说一件事,那就是巴勒斯坦,这是一个丰富、复杂的词——它对不同的人有不同的含义——但它已经成为一个极其突出的政治问题,不仅在中东,而且在全世界。

It was a serious issue in recent local British elections-- local British elections--local California elections, of course, here in Israel, all over the Middle East.

在最近的英国地方选举中,这是一个严重的问题——英国地方选举——加州地方选举,当然,在以色列这里,在整个中东地区。

And in some sense, your essay is trying to explain why the issue of Palestine is so salient, is so ubiquitous, is so central to so many conversations.

从某种意义上说,你的文章试图解释为什么巴勒斯坦问题如此突出、如此普遍、在如此多的对话中如此核心。

I'm going to start with a quote from the piece, and then, Hussein, you will get to talk.

我将从这篇文章中引用一段话开始,然后,侯赛因,你就可以开始讲话了。

Quote:

报价:

So, I want to unpack that a little bit.

所以,我想稍微解释一下。

Why don't you start and give us an idea of what you're trying to say there?

你为什么不开始告诉我们你想说什么?

Hussein Aboubakr Mansour: Well, first of all, thank you very much, Russ.

侯赛因·阿布巴克尔·曼苏尔:首先,非常感谢你,拉斯。

I'm extremely glad that my essay resonated with you.

我非常高兴我的文章引起了您的共鸣。

As you said, people can disagree about a lot of the claims, but they have to engage, and at least attempt to find a way to really understand the conflict, outside of all the morality plays that have dominated.

正如你所说,人们可以不同意很多主张,但他们必须参与,并且至少尝试在所有占主导地位的道德游戏之外找到一种真正理解冲突的方法。

And the morality plays, as I explain in the essay--and that's kind of actually what you lay down right now--are actually part of the problem.

正如我在文章中解释的那样,道德的发挥——这实际上就是你现在所放下的——实际上是问题的一部分。

Whether you care deeply about Israel or care deeply about the Palestinian people, you have to take these claims seriously because, ultimately, if this is any truth to the claims of the essay, helping these people ultimately means dealing with this very difficult problem.

无论你深切关心以色列还是深切关心巴勒斯坦人民,你都必须认真对待这些主张,因为最终,如果这与本文的主张相符,帮助这些人民最终意味着解决这个非常困难的问题。

Ultimately, what I'm trying to explain here, that Palestine, as it exists today as a global phenomenon, as you said, a globally salient issue--and you have a list of the leftists, and liberal, and the Arab nationalists, and Islamists, and so on--so it's extremely globally--it's probably the most globally salient issue today--is not really primarily a place, or a people, or a cause.

最终,我在这里试图解释的是,巴勒斯坦,正如你所说,今天作为一种全球现象存在,是一个全球性的突出问题——你有一份左翼分子、自由派、阿拉伯民族主义者和伊斯兰主义者等等的名单——所以它是极其全球性的——它可能是当今全球最突出的问题——实际上并不是一个地方、一个民族或一项事业。

It's really a self-reproducing system of political economic extraction.

这实际上是一个政治经济榨取的自我复制系统。

I call it an autopoietic symbolic convertibility machine that converts victimhood, in that particular site of conflict, into mutually reinforcing forms of value across all of these different stalls at the ideological market at once.

我称其为自创生的象征性兑换机器,它将特定冲突地点的受害者身份同时转化为跨越意识形态市场上所有不同摊位的相互强化的价值形式。

That is, it became central to our own ideological meaning-making and the politics that come around this.

也就是说,它成为我们自己的意识形态意义制定和围绕此的政治的核心。

This has not been always the case.

但情况并非总是如此。

This is why I insist people to understand that I'm talking about as it is today .

这就是为什么我坚持让人们理解我今天所谈论的内容。

There's a background of how this came to be--there's a history--but this is how it became to be today.

这是有其发生的背景——有一段历史——但这就是它今天的样子。

It has been like this in the Middle East for quite some time.

中东地区的这种情况已经有一段时间了。

As a matter of fact, one could make the argument, and I would make the argument, that it originated like this, this system of symbolic convertibility, or a mining site of value out of a certain story of victimhood.

事实上,人们可以提出论点,我也会提出论点,它是这样起源的,这种象征性的可兑换系统,或者是从某个受害故事中产生的有价值的采矿点。

It started like that in the Middle East since 1948 already, perhaps even before.

自 1948 年以来,甚至可能更早,中东就开始了这种情况。

But, with the great ideological systems of the Middle East, primarily Arab nationalism and revolutionary Third-Worldism--and both of them were closely linked--and later Islamism.

但是,中东伟大的意识形态体系主要是阿拉伯民族主义和革命的第三世界主义——两者密切相关——以及后来的伊斯兰主义。

What we have seen in the last 10 years or so is the complete success, or the catastrophic success, of the globalization of that system, of that political economic extractive system, really on a global scale, that operates even in domestic Western and American politics today.

在过去十年左右的时间里,我们看到的是该体系、政治经济榨取体系的全球化的完全成功,或者说灾难性的成功,实际上是在全球范围内,甚至在当今西方和美国的国内政治中也发挥着作用。

Russ Roberts: Now, tell us a little bit about yourself because part of the reason this essay is effective is your own personal story and your background.

拉斯·罗伯茨:现在,请向我们介绍一下您自己,因为这篇文章之所以有效,部分原因在于您自己的个人故事和背景。

You're from Egypt originally; you use your Egyptian background as a way to help us, outside of the Middle East, or outside of the Arab world more accurately, understand the water that people are swimming in.

你来自埃及;您利用您的埃及背景来帮助中东以外或阿拉伯世界以外的我们更准确地了解人们游泳的水域。

And, we don't understand.

而且,我们不明白。

So, talk about yourself and then how this extractive mining operation operates in Egypt--which is extraordinary.

因此,请谈谈您自己,然后谈谈埃及的采掘作业是如何运作的——这非常了不起。

Hussein Aboubakr Mansour: Well, it's quite pervasive, that is Palestine/anti-Zionism.

侯赛因·阿布巴克尔·曼苏尔:嗯,这是相当普遍的,那就是巴勒斯坦/反犹太复国主义。

There's a question here if there is actually any distinction--how much distinction actually is between both?

这里有一个问题,是否真的有什么区别——两者之间实际上有多大区别?

There is some distinction, but a lot of the content of Palestine as a word symbol, is that negationist impulse that is entirely directed and concretized in Israel and Zionism.

虽然有一些区别,但巴勒斯坦作为一个词的象征的很多内容,是完全在以色列和犹太复国主义中被直接和具体化的否定主义冲动。

It's central to Egyptian identity, sadly.

可悲的是,它是埃及身份的核心。

The entire Middle East is an extremely complex place.

整个中东是一个极其复杂的地方。

Everywhere on the planet is a complex place.

地球上的每个地方都是一个复杂的地方。

But the Middle East, as every learned man knows, has been a very dysfunctional region for quite some time.

但正如所有有学问的人都知道的那样,中东在相当长的一段时间内一直是一个功能失调的地区。

This functionality goes on many levels that has been confounding experts, scholars.

这种功能涉及多个层面,这让专家、学者们感到困惑。

You have religious problems, political problems.

你有宗教问题、政治问题。

You have constant state collapse, inability to produce stable structures--with notable exceptions: Israel, the Arab Gulf.

国家不断崩溃,无法建立稳定的结构——但值得注意的例外是:以色列、阿拉伯海湾。

You have revolutionary regime, seemingly endemic radicalism, antisemitism, anti-Americanism, and so on and so forth.

这里有革命政权、看似流行的激进主义、反犹太主义、反美主义等等。

All the phenomena of dysfunction that everyone knows.

所有人都知道的所有功能障碍现象。

And Egypt is one of the better cases.

埃及是较好的例子之一。

I mean, it went through waves of instability, it suffers from extremely persistent authoritarianism, and lack of democracy, and civic liberties, but at least it's one of the more stable states.

我的意思是,它经历了一波又一波的不稳定,它遭受着极其持久的威权主义的困扰,缺乏民主和公民自由,但至少它是更稳定的国家之一。

Even its stability--it hides a lot of confusion.

即使它的稳定性——它也隐藏着很多混乱。

What is really the main protagonist of history in Egypt?

埃及历史的真正主角是什么?

Is it Egypt itself?

是埃及本身吗?

Is it Arabs?

是阿拉伯人吗?

Is it Islam?

是伊斯兰教吗?

It's the questions of identity that, again, started really explosively in the Middle East.

身份问题再次在中东爆发。

They are being also globalized.

它们也正在全球化。

So, I grew up in this confusion in Egypt in the 1990s, which also in the 1990s in Egypt witnessed a wave of Islamic violence before it kind of subsided by the late 1990s.

所以,我是在 20 世纪 90 年代埃及的这种混乱中长大的,同样在 20 世纪 90 年代,埃及目睹了伊斯兰暴力浪潮,直到 90 年代末才有所平息。

But, central to all of this confusion always, and what brought it all back together to some sort of a cohesive idea of the self, was the hatred towards Israel, the hatred towards Zionism that we--whether you think you're a Muslim, whether you think you're primarily Arab, whether you think you're primarily Egyptian--ultimately the rock, the solid rock, is the fact that we are at war with Israel.

但是,所有这些混乱的核心始终是对以色列的仇恨,对犹太复国主义的仇恨——无论你认为你是穆斯林,无论你认为你主要是阿拉伯人,无论你认为你主要是埃及人——最终的磐石,坚固的磐石,就是我们与以色列交战的事实。

And this manifested itself pretty much in all forms of cultural production, from music to film, to literature.

这几乎体现在所有形式的文化生产中,从音乐到电影,再到文学。

And I write about this extensively in my Substack.

我在我的子堆栈中对此进行了广泛的讨论。

As a child, I was fascinated by this.

小时候,我对此很着迷。

It's a really large myth that organizes life.

这是一个组织生活的巨大神话。

The government invests in it, the opposition movements invest in it, the Islamist movement invests in it.

政府对其进行投资,反对派运动对其进行投资,伊斯兰运动对其进行投资。

So, it has also central political salience within the Egyptian political system itself.

因此,它在埃及政治体系本身中也具有核心政治意义。

And, growing up, I was just fascinated by this clear centrality.

而且,在成长过程中,我对这种明显的中心地位着迷。

I started to become gradually obsessed with it, and, of course, with all the antisemitic atmosphere--very thick atmosphere--around this.

我开始逐渐着迷于它,当然,也着迷于周围的所有反犹太主义气氛——非常浓厚的气氛。

I basically dedicated my life to try to understand the evils of Zionism and the evils of Israel.

我基本上毕生致力于理解犹太复国主义和以色列的罪恶。

And as I grew up, and I started to develop my understanding, I understood that I was inside a myth that is extremely dysfunctional and disastrous.

随着我长大,我开始发展我的理解,我明白我陷入了一个极其失调和灾难性的神话之中。

And, trying to deal with it with Egypt was extremely difficult.

而且,试图与埃及打交道是极其困难的。

I had clashes with the government, had to flee in 2012.

2012年,我与政府发生冲突,不得不逃离。

Since then, I've been in the United States.

从那时起,我就一直在美国。

And since then, given that this is now, truly is the formative story of my life, I've been investing many years in trying to understand why, and how come the society that I came from chose to organize itself, or the way it thinks morally and politically, around this issue, specifically.

从那时起,考虑到这确实是我一生的成长故事,我花了很多年的时间试图理解为什么,以及我所来自的社会如何选择组织自己,或者它在道德和政治上思考的方式,特别是围绕这个问题。

And then you go on to talk about how that belief --the centrality of the liberation of Palestine--informs Egyptians' view of agriculture, economic growth, culture.

然后你继续谈论这种信念——巴勒斯坦解放的中心地位——如何影响埃及人对农业、经济增长和文化的看法。

How?

怎么办?

In what way?

以什么方式?

Hussein Aboubakr Mansour: Well, it definitely was like that till I was grown up.

侯赛因·阿布巴克尔·曼苏尔:嗯,在我长大之前都是这样。

I hope it's a little better.

我希望情况好一点。

I haven't been to Egypt since 2012, and the country has been through a lot.

自从2012年以来我就没有去过埃及了,这个国家经历了很多事情。

You had a Muslim Brotherhood presidency.

你曾担任穆斯林兄弟会的总统。

You had a coup: Sisi.

你有一个妙招:塞西。

My feeling that there were some progress, given the fact that there were other real issues in terms of stability, economy, and so on.

考虑到稳定、经济等方面还存在其他实际问题,我的感觉是取得了一些进展。

But my feeling is that there has been a major regression since October 7th, for various reasons.

但我的感觉是,自10月7日以来,由于各种原因,出现了重大回归。

But yes: so, growing up, you'll find specifically--of course, I deal many times with intellectuals and elite culture.

但是,是的:所以,在成长过程中,你会特别发现——当然,我多次与知识分子和精英文化打交道。

So, Arab intellectuals, who are overwhelming--you have two options, either Leftist Arab intellectual or an Islamist Arab intellectual.

所以,阿拉伯知识分子,他们是压倒性的——你有两个选择,要么左翼阿拉伯知识分子,要么伊斯兰主义阿拉伯知识分子。

For a long time, it was this strict dichotomy.

很长一段时间,都是这种严格的二分法。

The secular Arab intellectual was some variation of the Left: either has loyalties to some form of the Old Left--Arab nationalism, Nasser, and so on and so forth--or the Arab New Left, which is much more centered around Palestine as the single mobilizing issue, but without necessarily any grand vision of political transformation of the region.

世俗的阿拉伯知识分子是左派的某种变体:要么忠于某种形式的老左派——阿拉伯民族主义、纳赛尔等等——要么忠于阿拉伯新左派,后者更多地以巴勒斯坦为唯一的动员问题,但不一定对该地区的政治转型有任何宏伟的愿景。

But, all these types of intellectual, whether the Leftists or the Islamists, had an extremely uncanny way of discussing issues and ultimately finding, at the root, Israel at the bottom.

但是,所有这些类型的知识分子,无论是左派还是伊斯兰主义者,都以一种极其不可思议的方式讨论问题,并最终从根源上发现以色列处于底层。

For example, I do remember specifically when the wave[?] of global anti-globalization, which was a major wave of protests and activism in Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East in the 1990s and the early 2000s.

例如,我确实记得全球反全球化浪潮,这是 20 世纪 90 年代和 2000 年代初欧洲、拉丁美洲和中东的抗议和激进主义浪潮。

It kind of merged into the anti-war movement, as the war on terrorism and the war in Iraq started.

随着反恐战争和伊拉克战争的开始,它某种程度上融入了反战运动。

Obviously, it was a moment of much ideological ferment in Arab societies, especially a place like Egypt.

显然,这是阿拉伯社会,尤其是像埃及这样的地方意识形态激烈发酵的时刻。

That was also the moment of the rise of global Jihadism and Al-Qaeda, as we know it.

正如我们所知,那也是全球圣战主义和基地组织兴起的时刻。

And even that moment of ferment in Arab society itself, you can draw a direct line to the events of the Arab Spring.

即使是阿拉伯社会本身的骚动时刻,你也可以与阿拉伯之春事件直接联系起来。

But I remember--I was young, but I was very interested in these issues, and I would watch intellectuals, let's say, on TV, discussing stagnation of Egyptian agriculture and just the fact that Egypt has become the number one wheat importer globally; we can't even feed ourselves; and so on and so forth.

但我记得——我很年轻,但我对这些问题非常感兴趣,我会在电视上看到知识分子讨论埃及农业的停滞以及埃及已成为全球第一大小麦进口国的事实;我们甚至无法养活自己;等等。

And then they discuss IMF [International Monetary Fund] austerity programs, changes of government policy that led to this.

然后他们讨论国际货币基金组织的紧缩计划以及导致这一计划的政府政策变化。

And then they go into a chain of causality into why this happened.

然后他们通过一系列因果关系来探究为什么会发生这种情况。

Well, we're in debt; we need to restructure our economy.

好吧,我们负债累累;我们需要重组我们的经济。

Part of the restructuring is these kind of tropical cash crops, but ultimately they think it's bad: we're shipping all of these strawberries in Europe, but our people are hungry, and we have to buy wheat from Russia.

重组的一部分是这些热带经济作物,但最终他们认为这很糟糕:我们将所有这些草莓运往欧洲,但我们的人民挨饿,我们必须从俄罗斯购买小麦。

Well, why did it have to end up this way?

那么,为什么事情会变成这样呢?

Well, our political or our economic project failed because of what Sadat did, let's say, at the late 1970s in terms of liberalization.

嗯,我们的政治或经济计划失败了,因为萨达特在 20 世纪 70 年代末在自由化方面所做的事情。

Well, why did he do that?

那么,他为什么要这么做呢?

Well, he did that because of Camp David.

好吧,他这样做是因为戴维营。

What was Camp David?

戴维营是什么?

It was a peace agreement that guarantees the security of Israel.

这是一项保障以色列安全的和平协议。

So, ultimately, it will come down why these intellectuals think that the Egyptian economy is suboptimally organized, it'll be actually because of Zionism.

因此,最终,这些知识分子认为埃及经济组织欠佳的原因将会得到解决,这实际上是因为犹太复国主义。

You can do this pretty much into others.

你几乎可以对其他人这样做。

The absence of democracy is a big one.

缺乏民主是一大问题。

I mean, you find intellectuals doing that in the United States.

我的意思是,你会发现美国的知识分子正在这样做。

Shadi Hamid, for instance, who writes a lot on Arab and Muslim issues at The Washington Post , keeps making this point many times, which is that Israel is central to the absence of democracy and human rights in Arab societies, because the number one objective of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East is protecting the security of Israel.

例如,在《华盛顿邮报》上发表了大量关于阿拉伯和穆斯林问题的文章的沙迪·哈米德就多次强调这一点,即以色列是阿拉伯社会缺乏民主和人权的核心原因,因为美国中东外交政策的首要目标是保护以色列的安全。

Well, if you get democracy in a neighboring country--say, Jordan and Egypt--in all likelihood, you're going to get someone anti-Zionist in power, because that's the popular sentiment.

好吧,如果你在邻国——比如约旦和埃及——实现民主,那么很可能就会有一个反犹太复国主义者掌权,因为这是普遍的情绪。

So, they have to suppress democracy and human rights, support all of these decrepit autocrats, in order to maintain the security of Israel.

所以,他们必须压制民主和人权,支持所有这些腐朽的独裁者,以维护以色列的安全。

So, if there is an Arab somewhere in Yemen or Algeria who is being tortured in the prisons of the police state in which they live, ultimately, through that chain of causality, it's because of Israel and because of Zionism.

因此,如果也门或阿尔及利亚的某个地方有一个阿拉伯人在他们所居住的警察国家的监狱中遭受酷刑,最终,通过因果链,那是因为以色列和犹太复国主义。

And that's quite convincing.

这很有说服力。

I mean, you have large intellectual structures that are built in order to make these large structural analyses that then center on Israel.

我的意思是,你们建立了大型知识结构,以便进行以以色列为中心的大型结构分析。

Russ Roberts: And you point out--you elaborate on this in the essay, and you use Egypt as an example: you talk about--and we'll talk about it in a minute--other nations in the Middle East.

拉斯·罗伯茨:你指出——你在文章中详细阐述了这一点,并以埃及为例:你谈论——我们稍后会谈论——中东的其他国家。

But, you point out that on some of these claims--which seem like fever dreams of blaming the other rather than taking responsibility--there is an element of truth in some of them.

但是,你指出,其中一些主张——看起来像是指责对方而不是承担责任的狂热梦想——其中一些有一定的真实性。

Now, how big an element, we're not going to go into now.

现在,一个元素有多大,我们现在不打算讨论。

But I want to make it clear that we're not saying--I don't think you're saying--that the Arab world is insanely obsessed with Israel, and there's no logic to it.

但我想澄清的是,我们并不是说——我不认为你是说——阿拉伯世界疯狂地迷恋以色列,这是没有逻辑的。

There's an element of truth in some of the claims: sometimes it's small, sometimes it's large.

有些说法有一定道理:有时很小,有时很大。

You just gave an example of the chain of the argument that you could make.

你刚刚举了一个你可以提出的论证链的例子。

And, there may be some truth to it, and it could be persuasive to many people.

而且,它可能有一定道理,并且对很多人来说可能有说服力。

But the key point here that I want to stick with for a moment--and we'll maybe delve more deeply into some of the side issues and examples--is that it serves the self-interest of many governments to blame their problems on--to find a scapegoat.

但我想暂时强调的关键点——我们可能会更深入地探讨一些次要问题和例子——是,将自己的问题归咎于寻找替罪羊符合许多政府的自身利益。

Now, this is not a deep insight.

现在看来,这并不是一个深刻的见解。

Sorry.

对不起。

Many people have noticed that it's convenient for people to blame The Other--whether it's the Jews or some other ethnic minority or racial minority in a country.

许多人已经注意到,人们很容易责怪他人——无论是犹太人还是某个国家的其他少数民族或少数族裔。

But you're saying something much deeper.

但你说的是更深层次的东西。

You're saying that it doesn't just help, let's say, an autocratic government, a tyrant, or a thug or a corrupt thug to say, 'Well, things aren't so good for you on the street, but that's all because of Zionism,' or 'that's all because of Israel.' That's just one piece of this complex system.

你是说,比方说,专制政府、暴君、暴徒或腐败暴徒说:“嗯,街上的情况对你来说不太好,但这都是因为犹太复国主义”或“这都是因为以色列”。这只是这个复杂系统的一部分。

And, many, many people--I want to try to again take a little summary here for listeners that don't want to get lost in the weeds--for many, many players in the intellectual marketplace, it's profitable to blame Israel for something.

而且,很多很多人——我想再次尝试为那些不想迷失在杂草中的听众做一点总结——对于知识市场上很多很多的参与者来说,把某些事情归咎于以色列是有利可图的。

In this case, it might be the poverty of the average Egyptian.

在这种情况下,这可能是普通埃及人的贫困。

But for other people, it might be about the failure of certain intellectual ideologies that should be more successful but aren't, and so on and so forth.

但对于其他人来说,这可能是关于某些知识意识形态的失败,这些意识形态本应更加成功,但事实并非如此,等等。

Hussein Aboubakr Mansour: It's more than ideological.

侯赛因·阿布巴克尔·曼苏尔:这不仅仅是意识形态的问题。

I think it's directly political.

我认为这直接是政治性的。

That is--I think ultimately these ideas succeed, aside from they have their own compelling aesthetic power.

也就是说,我认为这些想法最终会成功,除了它们本身具有令人信服的美学力量之外。

I mean, they are aesthetically total, final.

我的意思是,它们在美学上是完整的、最终的。

They are quite comprehensive in what they can include.

它们所包含的内容非常全面。

But I don't think that this is the reason that they are persistent.

但我不认为这就是他们执着的原因。

I think the reason that they are persistent is actually interest.

我想他们之所以执着,其实就是兴趣。

This serves interest.

这符合利益。

As you said, it serves the interest of a lot of--almost everyone involved in the process of ideological production, including the regimes that tacitly either allow this or promote it themselves.

正如你所说,它符合很多人的利益——几乎每个参与意识形态生产过程的人,包括默许这种情况或自己推动这种情况的政权。

I mean, the Egyptian regime is a big example that its own media constantly promote this point of view.

我的意思是,埃及政权就是一个很大的例子,它自己的媒体不断宣扬这种观点。

Specifically--well, what does the ideology itself achieves?

具体来说——意识形态本身实现了什么目标?

You are right: it blames--things are not good for you, not because of me, not because of what we're doing, it's because of someone else.

你是对的:它责备——事情对你不利,不是因为我,不是因为我们正在做的事情,而是因为别人。

It does more than that.

它的作用还不止于此。

It forecloses--it occupies--any place in which real political analysis can emerge.

它排除了——它占据了——任何真正的政治分析能够出现的地方。

That is, once it becomes established, it becomes total.

也就是说,一旦它建立起来,它就变得完整了。

It becomes so intuitive that even the chain of causality is not really on a--when you go down from the intellectual level to just kind of a mass layman level, they don't even need these chains of causality established.

它变得如此直观,甚至连因果链也不是真正的——当你从知识水平下降到大众外行水平时,他们甚至不需要建立这些因果链。

It's just--it's direct.

这只是——很直接。

A lot of our problems are because of Israel, and so on.

我们的很多问题都是因为以色列等等。

Whether on the intellectual level or the mass level, what you have is: you have this cognitive trap in which now you're trapped into this self-reinforcing idea that can reproduce itself, and revalidate itself, and rejustify itself, that then occupies the cognitive space through which you should have started to look at your problems objectively.

无论是在智力层面还是大众层面,你所面临的是:你有这样的认知陷阱,现在你陷入了这种自我强化的想法中,这种想法可以自我复制,重新验证自己,重新证明自己,然后占据认知空间,通过它你应该开始客观地看待你的问题。

You should have started to produce an actual analysis of why the economy is not functioning well.

你应该开始对经济运行不佳的原因进行实际分析。

There is no economic mobility, stagnation, and so on and so forth.

不存在经济流动、停滞等现象。

And obviously, an autocratic regime has a deep interest in promoting this because, once it's there, they actually have to do much less in terms of speech control, in terms of censorship, in terms of speech policing.

显然,独裁政权对推动这一点有着浓厚的兴趣,因为一旦实现了这一点,他们实际上在言论控制、审查制度和言论监管方面要做的事情要少得多。

This is actually true for a lot of these Arab regimes that--by the way, they are no near the levels of autocracy, let's say, China or North Korea.

对于许多阿拉伯政权来说,情况确实如此——顺便说一句,它们远没有达到专制的程度,比如说中国或朝鲜。

And they don't need to be, because ultimately this kind of ideological method of control is completely self-enforcing, self-producing.

而且它们不需要如此,因为最终这种意识形态控制方法是完全自我执行、自我产生的。

You don't need to police the people's speech themselves.

你不需要自己监管人们的言论。

But, the same regime--now here's the problem of Palestine.

但是,同一个政权——现在是巴勒斯坦问题。

You must control the flame.

你必须控制火焰。

That is, because of the revolutionary potency of this very word symbol itself, you can't let it get out of control.

也就是说,由于这个词符号本身的革命性力量,你不能让它失控。

Because, then that can be weaponized and mobilized against you.

因为,那么它就可以被武器化并动员起来对付你。

And that's what the oppositions movements try to do.

这就是反对派运动试图做的事情。

Again, Egypt is the example I know best, because I grew up there.

埃及是我最了解的例子,因为我在那里长大。

So, the regime would be holding the flame of liberation of Palestine and the hatred for Israel, and then the Islamic movements primarily will try to even raise the flame up even further as to consume the regime by pointing out, 'Oh, you're right, but you are the one who are guaranteeing the peace of Israel.'--

因此,该政权将持有解放巴勒斯坦的火焰和对以色列的仇恨,然后伊斯兰运动主要会试图进一步点燃火焰,通过指出“哦,你是对的,但你是保证以色列和平的人”来消灭该政权。

Russ Roberts: You're too soft.

拉斯·罗伯茨:你太软弱了。

You're too soft.

你太软了。

Hussein Aboubakr Mansour: You're too soft.

侯赛因·阿布巴克尔·曼苏尔:你太软弱了。

Yes.

是的。

You're too soft on Israel.

你对以色列太软弱了。

Not just you're too soft: you're a collaborator .

不仅仅是你太软弱:你还是一个合作者。

You have security arrangements with them, you have security collaboration.

你与他们有安全安排,有安全合作。

So, then the opposition tries to raise the flame even further in order for it to start burning the regime itself.

因此,反对派试图进一步点燃火焰,以便开始焚烧政权本身。

These Arab regimes then have these multiple thermostats that they have to all the time adjust the heat of this anti-Israel sentiment.

这些阿拉伯政权拥有多个恒温器,他们必须一直调节这种反以色列情绪的激烈程度。

It has to be just enough to keep people from thinking about their political problems and the real nature of the political system in which they're living, but not too high as to start hurting the regime itself.

它必须足以阻止人们思考他们的政治问题和他们所生活的政治体系的真实性质,但又不能太高以致开始伤害政权本身。

Now, this gets more complex when you know the fact that this same issue is also a regional game.

现在,当您知道同一问题也是一个区域性游戏这一事实时,情况会变得更加复杂。

It's not just that you're playing this game domestically--in your domestic politics--you're playing it against other regimes.

这不仅仅是你在国内玩这个游戏——在你的国内政治中——你是在对抗其他政权。

So, for example, you have a rival state.

例如,你有一个竞争对手。

Qatar is a chief example.

卡塔尔就是一个主要例子。

Qatar was the main instigator of a lot of instability during the Arab Spring.

卡塔尔是阿拉伯之春期间许多不稳定因素的主要煽动者。

Everybody remembers the 2017 blockade by a lot of Arab countries against Qatar, specifically because of sponsorship of Muslim Brotherhood movements, which are the main threat to a lot of these Arab regimes, and Al Jazeera, which is the main ideological media instrument, the largest media instrument in the Middle East.

每个人都记得2017年许多阿拉伯国家对卡塔尔的封锁,特别是因为穆斯林兄弟会运动的赞助,这是许多阿拉伯政权的主要威胁,而半岛电视台是主要的意识形态媒体工具,也是中东最大的媒体工具。

And people know what Al Jazeera does.

人们知道半岛电视台是做什么的。

So, you're playing another game against Qatar.

所以,你又要和卡塔尔进行另一场比赛。

Now, Qatar then can--and often does, and that's the way they do--inflame Palestine among your own population in order to make you unstable.

现在,卡塔尔可以——而且经常这样做,这就是他们所做的——在你们自己的人民中激怒巴勒斯坦,以使你们不稳定。

Of course, Iran is another big example.

当然,伊朗是另一个大例子。

I mean, Iran ultimately is trying to outmaneuver all the Arab states by making them the custodian of the word symbol of Palestine.

我的意思是,伊朗最终试图通过让所有阿拉伯国家成为巴勒斯坦这个词的象征的守护者来智胜所有阿拉伯国家。

So, you're playing this game domestically.

所以,你在国内玩这个游戏。

You need Palestine, but at the same time, you don't need it too much.

你需要巴勒斯坦,但同时,你也不太需要它。

You need to block the opposition from capitalizing on it.

你需要阻止反对派利用它。

This is how you see the accusation and counter-accusation of, in Arab politics, 'Oh, you're the one who is a product of Israel.' 'Oh no, you are the one who is a product of Israel.' But at the same time, you're not the only one.

这就是你如何看待阿拉伯政治中的指控和反指控,“哦,你是以色列的产物。” “哦不,你是以色列的产物。”但与此同时,你并不是唯一一个。

This game is actually part of a bigger board in which a lot of other regimes are playing against each other as well.

这个游戏实际上是一个更大棋盘的一部分,其中许多其他政权也在相互对抗。

Russ Roberts: Let me ask about that, as someone sitting here in Israel.

拉斯·罗伯茨:让我作为以色列的一个人来问这个问题。

One challenge to your theory is the Abraham Accords, which looks--and you mention this in the essay--it looks like it's a small group, but a handful of countries decide to step out of the game that you're talking about, recognize Israel, trade with them, invest here, and have Israeli and others invest in their countries.

对你的理论的一个挑战是亚伯拉罕协议,它看起来——你在文章中提到了这一点——它看起来像是一个小团体,但少数国家决定退出你正在谈论的游戏,承认以色列,与他们进行贸易,在这里投资,并让以色列和其他国家在他们的国家投资。

It's a dream of a lot of Israelis, including the Prime Minister, that Saudi Arabia would join the Abraham Accords.

沙特阿拉伯加入《亚伯拉罕协议》是包括总理在内的许多以色列人的梦想。

It gets rumored all the time.

一直有传言。

You hear, 'Oh, Saudi Arabia is actually thinking of joining.

你会听到,‘哦,沙特阿拉伯实际上正在考虑加入。

There's a big announcement coming soon.

即将发布一个重大公告。

I wonder what it is.

我想知道那是什么。

Maybe it's Saudi Arabia.' It turns out it's Kazakhstan joining the Abraham Accords.

也许是沙特阿拉伯。事实证明,哈萨克斯坦加入了《亚伯拉罕协议》。

It's not quite as exciting, but nice, pleasant, if you live here.

如果你住在这里的话,这里虽然不那么令人兴奋,但也很美好、令人愉快。

But, you have all these rumors that Saudi Arabiais liberalizing, they're going to cooperate with Israel against Iran, that's why October 7th happened to stop that.

但是,所有这些谣言都说沙特阿拉伯正在实行自由化,他们将与以色列合作对抗伊朗,这就是为什么 10 月 7 日碰巧阻止了这一点。

But, in the meanwhile, you have the United States, which is friends with Saudi Arabia and can use carrots and sticks to advance Saudi Arabia's position on Israel.

但与此同时,美国是沙特阿拉伯的朋友,可以使用胡萝卜加大棒来推进沙特阿拉伯对以色列的立场。

And you think, 'Well, so now it's time for this liberalization with Saudi Arabia to happen.' Then, all of a sudden, they crack down.

你会想,‘好吧,现在是与沙特阿拉伯实现自由化的时候了。’然后,突然间,他们镇压了。

Their rhetoric ratchets up.

他们的言辞逐渐升级。

Suddenly, they're saying that, 'Of course, we can't have anything to do with Israel.

突然,他们说,‘当然,我们不能与以色列有任何关系。

They oppressed the Palestinians.

他们压迫巴勒斯坦人。

What they did in Gaza was unacceptable, blah, blah, blah.' It feels like a yo-yo or maybe a tennis game.

他们在加沙的所作所为是不可接受的,等等,等等。”感觉就像溜溜球或者网球比赛。

I don't know what the right metaphor is.

我不知道正确的比喻是什么。

How do you understand that in your framework?

您在您的框架中如何理解这一点?

Hussein Aboubakr Mansour: Well,let me put another layer of analysis so we can have even a bigger picture.

侯赛因·阿布巴克尔·曼苏尔:好吧,让我进行另一层分析,这样我们就可以有更大的了解。

You're playing the domestic game: so a regime is trying to extract consent and acquiescence from its population through the Palestine word symbol.

你正在玩国内游戏:一个政权正试图通过巴勒斯坦一词符号来获取其人民的同意和默许。

Regionally, regimes try to extract influence from each other through the same word symbol.

在地区层面上,政权试图通过相同的文字符号来获取彼此的影响力。

But then there's also an international layer, which is: a lot of these Arab states extract massive concessions and privileges from Washington through playing the game itself.

但还有一个国际层面,即:许多阿拉伯国家通过玩游戏本身从华盛顿那里获得了巨大的让步和特权。

There are a lot of examples, but let's take Jordan and Egypt.

例子有很多,但我们以约旦和埃及为例。

Both of them are largely dependent on U.S. support and U.S. aid.

两者在很大程度上都依赖于美国的支持和援助。

And, the U.S. support and the U.S. aid is intrinsically linked, inherently linked, to their relationship with Israel.

而且,美国的支持和美国的援助与他们与以色列的关系有着内在的联系,内在的联系。

So, all of the Arab economies, almost all, are various forms of rentier economies.

因此,所有阿拉伯经济体,几乎全部,都是各种形式的食利经济体。

They live by extracting rent from natural resources and so on.

他们靠从自然资源等中抽取租金为生。

Egypt really has two forms of rent extraction.

埃及确实有两种形式的租金提取。

The first one is the Suez Canal, and the second one is their border with Israel and Gaza.

第一个是苏伊士运河,第二个是他们与以色列和加沙的边界。

It's a major piece of leverage from which they can extract from Washington a lot of concessions and a lot of aid.

这是他们可以从华盛顿获得大量让步和大量援助的重要筹码。

As a matter of fact, even in DC, here in Washington, when you hear people talking about cutting U.S. aid globally, one of the few exceptions they make is Egypt, specifically because of just its centrality to stability of the region through their peace with Israel.

事实上,即使在华盛顿特区,当你听到人们谈论削减美国在全球范围内的援助时,他们提出的少数例外之一就是埃及,特别是因为埃及通过与以色列的和平对该地区的稳定至关重要。

The border of Gaza is one big source of extraction.

加沙边境是石油开采的一大来源。

Just very quickly, when the Biden Administration came to the White House, obviously, they had serious problems with both MBS [Mohammed bin Salman, Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia] and President Sisi because of authoritarianism, human rights, and so on and so forth.

很快,当拜登政府入主白宫时,显然他们与MBS(沙特阿拉伯王储穆罕默德·本·萨勒曼)和塞西总统之间存在严重问题,原因是威权主义、人权等等。

And, President Biden didn't talk to President Sisi at all after he came to office.

而且,拜登总统上任后根本没有与塞西总统交谈。

The first time ever President Biden picked up the phone and called President Sisi was actually in the Hamas-Israel War of 2021, because then Egypt becomes very important because of their border with Gaza.

拜登总统第一次拿起电话给塞西总统打电话实际上是在2021年的哈马斯-以色列战争中,因为那时埃及由于与加沙的边界而变得非常重要。

So, you have also this international level.

所以,你也有这个国际水平。

Now, with Saudi Arabia, when you're talking about a state like Saudi Arabia [inaudible 00:30:42] and the Arab Gulf, when they are talking about normalization with Israel, they are playing all of these games at once, but usually their most important extraction is from the United States.

现在,对于沙特阿拉伯,当你谈论沙特阿拉伯[听不清00:30:42]和阿拉伯海湾这样的国家时,当他们谈论与以色列的正常化时,他们同时玩所有这些游戏,但通常他们最重要的提取来自美国。

Saudi Arabia wanted a civil nuclear program--a nuclear program--

沙特阿拉伯想要一个民用核计划——一个核计划——

Hussein Aboubakr Mansour: F-35s, and so on and so forth.

侯赛因·阿布巴克尔·曼苏尔:F-35,等等。

So, the calculus, especially in--there was a moment, sadly, this moment had passed, which is the moment that made the Abraham Accords possible--when it seemed possible to pull out of that game.

所以,微积分,尤其是——有一个时刻,可悲的是,这个时刻已经过去了,这就是使《亚伯拉罕协议》成为可能的时刻——当时似乎有可能退出这场游戏。

So, what I'm saying, by the way, all Arab statesmen understand fully, better than I do, because that's actually their politics.

所以,顺便说一句,所有阿拉伯政治家都比我更充分地理解我所说的,因为这实际上是他们的政治。

That's the game that they have to play the moment that they wake up in the morning.

这就是他们早上醒来那一刻必须玩的游戏。

The UAE [United Arab Emirates] had an extremely daring vision to really pull out of that game.

阿联酋有着极其大胆的愿景,想要真正退出这场游戏。

Because, that game is destructive.

因为,那个游戏是破坏性的。

It makes regional politics extremely difficult.

这使得地区政治变得极其困难。

It militates against states' pursuing their interests transparently and honestly.

它不利于各国透明和诚实地追求其利益。

The UAE obviously has a lot of ambition.

阿联酋显然有很大的野心。

It's a small country that's extremely wealthy and extremely successful.

这是一个极其富裕且极其成功的小国。

So they wanted to pull out of the game.

所以他们想退出游戏。

Not just--'Pull out of the game' would be actually the wrong term.

不仅仅是——“退出游戏”实际上是一个错误的术语。

They wanted to turn the game around.

他们想要扭转局面。

They basically wanted to turn it a different game in which accepting Israel then becomes the main asset that a lot of the Arab states can have when they are dealing with the West, when they are dealing with each other, and so on.

他们基本上想把它变成一个不同的游戏,让接受以色列成为许多阿拉伯国家在与西方打交道、相互打交道等时可以拥有的主要资产。

It was really a daring vision, and it seemed possible for a few years.

这确实是一个大胆的愿景,而且在几年内似乎都是可能的。

Even Saudi Arabia was going in that direction.

甚至沙特阿拉伯也在朝这个方向发展。

What happened is that, after October 7th, given the massive geopolitical shifts that came out of--you had a domino effect.

10 月 7 日之后发生的事情是,鉴于地缘政治发生了巨大的变化,产生了多米诺骨牌效应。

First of all, the gradual weakening of Iran by Israeli military action that ultimately changed the level of the Iranian threat itself.

首先,以色列的军事行动逐渐削弱了伊朗的力量,最终改变了伊朗威胁本身的程度。

And the Iranian threat was one of the main forces that determined the structure of power in the region, relationship--and relationships in the region.

伊朗的威胁是决定该地区权力结构、关系以及该地区关系的主要力量之一。

That is, for a long time, every single relationship in the region had to be triangulated through the Iranian threat and calculated against the Iranian threat.

也就是说,长期以来,该地区的每一种关系都必须通过伊朗威胁进行三角测量,并根据伊朗威胁进行计算。

So obviously that changes everything--the global salience of Palestine, I think, actually the Saudis and Arab statesmen are actually taking that into consideration.

显然,这改变了一切——我认为,巴勒斯坦在全球的重要性,实际上沙特和阿拉伯政治家实际上正在考虑这一点。

That is, they are actually looking at American domestic politics and wondering about the future of American support of Israel and what does that mean in terms of the asset that Israel represents.

也就是说,他们实际上是在关注美国的国内政治,想知道美国对以色列的支持的未来,以及这对以色列所代表的资产意味着什么。

Ultimately, I believe the Saudis recalculated.

最终,我相信沙特人重新计算了。

That, they can actually gain more by pulling back from the path that they were contemplating, along with the UAE, and actually go playing the old game.

也就是说,他们实际上可以通过与阿联酋一起从他们正在考虑的道路上撤退,并真正继续玩旧游戏来获得更多收益。

And, that way, they can have then a comparative advantage over both the Israelis--who are now becoming a formidable military power that is threatening to a lot of Arab states--and even against the Emiratis, who are becoming the most successful Arab state and most successful economy.

这样,他们就可以比以色列(以色列现在正在成为威胁许多阿拉伯国家的强大军事力量)甚至阿联酋(阿联酋正在成为最成功的阿拉伯国家和最成功的经济体)拥有比较优势。

And playing them against them will allow the Saudis to carve a place for their own regional leadership.

与他们对抗将使沙特能够为自己的地区领导地位赢得一席之地。

I believe that's what the Saudis recalculated.

我相信沙特人就是这么重新计算的。

That is, that they can win more by playing the old game back.

也就是说,他们可以通过重玩旧游戏来赢得更多。

And as you said, you can see--I mean, I'm writing something about this in which I kind of see in the Saudi official statements the gradual changes in the language after October 7th that went through phases: 'Well, we can't ignore the Palestinians anymore.' 'Well, we need some path towards a Palestinian State.'

正如你所说,你可以看到——我的意思是,我正在写一些关于此事的文章,其中我在沙特官方声明中看到了 10 月 7 日之后语言逐渐发生的变化,经历了几个阶段:“好吧,我们不能再忽视巴勒斯坦人了。” “好吧,我们需要一些通往巴勒斯坦国的道路。”

And then, it really hardened in 2025 into: 'A Palestinian State is the only way forward for the region.' Which is--the Saudis are extremely--Saudi statesmen, and I talked to a few of them--are extremely educated and intelligent people.

然后,它在 2025 年真正变得强硬起来:“巴勒斯坦国是该地区前进的唯一出路。”沙特人是非常的沙特政治家,我和他们中的一些人交谈过,他们是受过高等教育、非常聪明的人。

I believe they actually know that this is not a possibility.

我相信他们实际上知道这是不可能的。

Like, they themselves know that a Palestinian State is not really viable at all, given the conditions of the Palestinians themselves, whether in the West Bank or in Gaza; and, of course, the problems of internal Israeli politics.

比如,他们自己知道,考虑到巴勒斯坦人本身的条件,无论是在西岸还是在加沙,巴勒斯坦国根本不可行;当然,还有以色列内部政治问题。

I mean, this is almost an impossible ask.

我的意思是,这几乎是一个不可能的要求。

So I believe they are demanding the impossible because that's not really what they are demanding.

所以我相信他们要求的是不可能的事情,因为那并不是他们真正的要求。

It's a component in the new calculation that they're doing, in the game that they're playing.

这是他们正在进行的新计算、他们正在玩的游戏中的一个组成部分。

[More to come, 36:16]

[更多内容即将推出,36:16]

Russ Roberts: So, let's talk for a minute about the other players, just to be clear.

拉斯·罗伯茨:所以,为了清楚起见,让我们谈谈其他球员。

I mean, as I said, it's not so controversial to argue that states that--I'll just call them corrupt theocracies--states that extract resources from their own people need to keep the people quiet and comfortable and not looking too carefully at their own feelings as a regime, so they blame somebody--

我的意思是,正如我所说,争论这些国家——我只是称它们为腐败的神权政治——从本国人民那里榨取资源的国家需要让人民保持安静和舒适,而不是太仔细地考虑自己作为一个政权的感受,所以他们责怪某人——这一点并没有那么有争议。

Hussein Aboubakr Mansour: I want to say something also I forgot to say: that they're also trapped.

侯赛因·阿布巴克尔·曼苏尔:我还想说一些我忘记说的话:他们也被困住了。

The regime, yes, is using the word symbol, but also is trapped in the game.

政权,是的,正在使用符号这个词,但也被困在游戏中。

Like, let's say that I mm an Egyptian autocrat and decides tomorrow, 'This is a terrible game.

就像,假设我是一位埃及独裁者,明天就决定,‘这是一场糟糕的游戏。

I just don't want to play this anymore.'

我只是不想再玩这个了。

Well, you do that at your own peril.

好吧,你这样做需要你自己承担风险。

First of all, your opposition is going to play that game.

首先,你的对手将参加这场比赛。

The Qataris are going to play that game.

卡塔尔人将参加那场比赛。

om their relationship with their own landscape.

他们与自己的风景的关系。

They don't find it to be fearful enough</emErdo?an is going to play that game.

他们觉得这还不够可怕,埃尔多会玩这个游戏。

The Saudis are now playing it again.

沙特现在又玩起了这个游戏。

And the Iranians are playing that game.

伊朗人正在玩这个游戏。

You're going to be out of power probably in no time.

你可能很快就会没电了。

So, you're experiencing it not just as a mining site in which you are mining whatever resources you get from all the--you're mining acquiescence and quiet from the population, you're mining aid and privileges from Washington, you're mining other things from the region.

所以,你所经历的不仅仅是一个采矿场,在那里你可以开采从所有人那里获得的任何资源——你可以从人民那里开采默许和安静,你可以从华盛顿开采援助和特权,你可以从该地区开采其他东西。

You're also experiencing it as an entrapment.

你也将其视为一种陷阱。

You really can't get out of it.

你真的无法摆脱它。

You can't afford to.

你负担不起。

Russ Roberts: Yeah.

拉斯·罗伯茨:是的。

I think that's the important thing, because I think Westerners in particular, and particularly Americans, have a very--as I suggested at the beginning of the conversation--a morality-based view of foreign policy, which is very romantic, comforting, and is probably misapplied not only to foreign countries, but to their own American administrations.

我认为这很重要,因为我认为特别是西方人,特别是美国人,正如我在谈话开始时所建议的那样,对外交政策有一种基于道德的观点,这种观点非常浪漫、令人欣慰,而且可能不仅被误用于外国,而且也被误用于他们自己的美国政府。

At a minimum, you can debate, if you're an American, how moral or just American foreign policy is, but the fact that you--and you might need to believe that for your own emotional wellbeing, that it's not so self-interested.

至少,如果你是美国人,你可以争论美国的外交政策有多道德或公正,但事实上,为了你自己的情感健康,你可能需要相信,这并不是那么自私。

It's not extractive.

这不是提取的。

It's a beacon to--a freedom to the rest of the world.

它是世界其他地方自由的灯塔。

If you believe that, you might be being a little naive.

如果你相信这一点,那你可能就有点天真了。

There may be some truth to it, but you might be being naive.

这可能有一定道理,但你可能太天真了。

But, it's certainly naive to apply it to other regimes that are not democratic and are using rhetoric--the kind of rhetoric we're talking about--to serve themselves.

但是,将其应用于其他不民主的政权并使用言辞(我们正在谈论的那种言辞)为自己服务当然是天真的。

It just doesn't come naturally, I think, to even American diplomats --without going into names--to assume that the other side is self-interested.

我认为,即使是美国外交官——不提具体名字——也不会自然而然地认为对方是自私的。

I'll just take one example, and it doesn't matter whether it's historically accurate or not.

我只举一个例子,至于历史是否准确并不重要。

The story is told all the time that, I think, it was Madeleine Albright chased Yasser Arafat down the driveway when they were trying to get to a two-state solution.

我认为,这个故事一直在流传,当他们试图达成两国解决方案时,马德琳·奥尔布赖特在车道上追赶亚西尔·阿拉法特。

In the story, and again, I don't know if this is true, she had her shoes in her hand so she could run comfortably on the gravel, calling to come back, 'Come on.

在故事中,我不知道这是否属实,她手里拿着鞋子,这样她就可以在砾石上舒适地奔跑,呼唤着回来,“来吧。”

We're so close.'

我们是如此接近。

I think, just to give Arafat the benefit of the doubt, if he'd agreed to it, he probably would have been killed.

我想,如果阿拉法特同意的话,他可能会被杀。

Sadat was killed.

萨达特被杀。

He took a chance.

他抓住了机会。

You're not guaranteed you're going to be killed.

不保证你会被杀。

But as you say, if you break the rules of the game and you try to play a different game, step out of the game, it's not just, 'Well, maybe your seats in Parliament will go down.' That's not what they're worried about.

但正如你所说,如果你打破了游戏规则,并尝试玩不同的游戏,退出游戏,那么这不仅仅是“好吧,也许你在议会的席位会下降。”他们担心的不是这个。

They're worried about being killed.

他们担心被杀。

It's hard for, I think, Westerners to understand that calculus and that kind of political system.

我认为,西方人很难理解这种算计和那种政治制度。

It just doesn't compute for most of them.

对于大多数人来说,它只是不计算。

Hussein Aboubakr Mansour: Right.

侯赛因·阿布巴克尔·曼苏尔: 是的。

I think--there are multiple ironies here.

我认为——这里有很多讽刺之处。

I personally find Westerners more ideological than a lot of politicians in the Middle--definitely a lot more than almost every statesman in the Middle East, with the exception, maybe, of Iran--put it aside.

我个人发现西方人比许多中东政治家更具意识形态性——肯定比中东几乎所有政治家都要多得多,也许伊朗除外——把它放在一边。

But, I found both Israelis and Westerners at large--I mean, because they have all these various belief systems: liberalism and international liberalism, conservatism.

但是,我发现以色列人和西方人都普遍存在——我的意思是,因为他们有各种不同的信仰体系:自由主义、国际自由主义、保守主义。

And this is why I'm particularly upset at, let's say, the intellectuals of clash of civilization, because you're creating these narratives that really obfuscate the reality at all.

这就是为什么我对文明冲突的知识分子特别感到不安,因为你们正在创造这些真正混淆现实的叙述。

Mike Duran from Hudson had that saying that I really liked.

哈德逊的迈克·杜兰(Mike Duran)说过这句话,我真的很喜欢。

He said that the Middle East is a cockpit of power politics.

他说,中东是强权政治的竞技场。

That's definitely true.

这绝对是真的。

The Middle East doesn't have a regional structure, and that has been its endemic problem.

中东没有区域结构,这是其普遍存在的问题。

It doesn't have a regional structure that forces countries to cooperate, and then that regional structure develops its own story.

它没有迫使各国合作的区域结构,然后该区域结构就会发展自己的故事。

It actually doesn't have that at all.

它实际上根本没有这个。

It's all unilateral, self-interested, non-democratic regimes that are just fighting ruthlessly and selfishly for power amongst themselves.

这些都是单边的、自私的、非民主的政权,他们之间为了权力而残酷和自私地斗争。

So, you're right.

所以,你是对的。

That does not come natural to, I think, a lot of Westerners.

我认为这对很多西方人来说并不自然。

But I want also to emphasize it's not just a naivete, despite that this is definitely an element.

但我还想强调,这不仅仅是一种天真,尽管这绝对是一个因素。

I think it's a difference between Western liberal political structures that do function many times--I mean, problematically, I have other writings on this issue, that I don't like--that function as a religion many times.

我认为这是西方自由主义政治结构之间的区别,它们确实多次发挥作用——我的意思是,有问题的是,我在这个问题上有其他著作,但我不喜欢——多次作为宗教发挥作用。

Really, Middle Eastern states that are less ideological and much more self-interested than people think.

确实,中东国家比人们想象的更少意识形态,更自私。

Russ Roberts: Let's move away from the Middle East for a sec.

拉斯·罗伯茨:让我们先暂时离开中东。

Like I said, we've been focusing almost exclusively on the regimes of the Middle East.

正如我所说,我们几乎完全关注中东政权。

How does your framework help us understand a local election in London, a local election in New York, a state senator in California?

你的框架如何帮助我们理解伦敦的地方选举、纽约的地方选举、加利福尼亚州的州参议员?

These are people who really don't have access to the levers of aid, of foreign policy positions, and yet they stake out a political view and campaign on Palestine.

这些人确实无法获得援助和外交政策立场,但他们却对巴勒斯坦提出了政治观点和运动。

This doesn't really make sense--at least it doesn't seem to.

这确实没有道理——至少看起来没有。

Hussein Aboubakr Mansour: Well, it didn't exist a few decades ago.

侯赛因·阿布巴克尔·曼苏尔:嗯,几十年前它还不存在。

This is much more difficult to talk about.

这个就比较难说了。

You get a much more globalized view of events for the past few decades that basically resulted in the globalization of this world[?word?] symbol that now has its own power and its own salience within Western political systems themselves.

你对过去几十年的事件有了更加全球化的看法,这些事件基本上导致了这个世界[?词?]符号的全球化,现在它在西方政治体系本身中拥有自己的力量和显着性。

No, I think it became also like that.

不,我想事情也变成这样了。

It became also this extractive political economic system, or basically an extension of that system that operated in the Middle East for so long, into Western politics.

它也成为了这种榨取式政治经济体系,或者基本上是长期在中东运作的体系向西方政治的延伸。

And this has to do with various reasons: the decline of Western institutional health, in general, that would have helped to protect against this; cultural health; so on and so forth.

这与多种原因有关:总体而言,西方机构健康状况的下降有助于防止这种情况的发生;文化健康;等等。

Desperation of various forms of political meaning-making.

各种形式的政治意义的绝望。

But also, you do have issues of migration, the rise of post-coloniality in the university that then--it started really in the universities, in literature departments, as an academic new reading technique that then developed its own negative canon that displaced the Western canon and gradually took over the humanities out of the literature department, took over a lot of the humanities, including things that have nothing to do with Third World or colonialism, like Women's Studies.

但同时,你也确实遇到了移民问题,后殖民主义在大学中的兴起——它真正开始于大学的文学系,作为一种学术新的阅读技术,然后发展出自己的负面经典,取代了西方经典,并逐渐从文学系接管了人文学科,接管了很多人文学科,包括与第三世界或殖民主义无关的东西,比如妇女研究。

For example, in Women's Studies, the hierarchy that successfully was established is that the issues of Third World come first.

例如,在妇女研究中,成功​​建立的等级制度是第三世界问题优先。

You find that even in Women's Studies department.

即使在女性研究系,你也会发现这一点。

And this might explain why you should support the Hamas fighter more being angry at the Israeli women who are being raped.

这也许可以解释为什么你应该支持哈马斯战士对被强奸的以色列妇女感到愤怒。

This actually follows from a lot of these things that was established in the humanities.

这实际上是从人文学科中确立的许多东西中得出的。

Massive expansion of higher education gets a lot of people exposed to this.

高等教育的大规模扩张让很多人接触到这一点。

Now, you have also the issue of Middle Eastern regimes that are running these extractive systems, specifically the more successful ones.

现在,你还面临着运行这些采掘系统的中东政权的问题,特别是那些更成功的系统。

Qatar is a big example.

卡塔尔就是一个很大的例子。

The Turks are another.

土耳其人是另一个。

Various other Arab regimes investing in this, in Western societies.

在西方社会,其他各种阿拉伯政权也对此进行了投资。

They did this because they know that this amplifies the asset of the word symbol that they have in the region.

他们这样做是因为他们知道这会放大他们在该地区拥有的文字符号的资产。

That is, ultimately, it gives them more influence at your own home, at your own region, and this is what they were doing.

也就是说,最终,这会让他们在你自己的家里、你自己的地区发挥更大的影响力,而这正是他们正在做的事情。

So you[?] had that element as well, of people investing actively in this.

所以你[?]也有这样的因素,即人们积极投资于此。

Russ Roberts: I want to interrupt for a sec, because I think, on the surface, this sounds like Looney Tunes .

拉斯·罗伯茨:我想打断一下,因为我认为,从表面上看,这听起来像乐一通。

This is just an absurd conspiracy theory.

这只是一个荒唐的阴谋论。

If you feel that way--and that's my first thought--your second thought should be, 'Well, why did Qatar invest tens, hundreds of millions of dollars in American institutions?

如果你有这种感觉——这是我的第一个想法——你的第二个想法应该是,‘那么,为什么卡塔尔要向美国机构投资数千万、数亿美元呢?

Because they care about American education?' I mean, what's the motive there?

因为他们关心美国教育?我的意思是,那里的动机是什么?

There's some motive.

是有一定动机的

It's not just a random event.

这不仅仅是一个随机事件。

You can debate what it is, I guess.

我想你可以争论它是什么。

It doesn't have to be your explanation.

不一定是你的解释。

But whatever your reaction is, listeners, to Hussein's theories about, say, Qatar, or Turkey, or Saudi Arabia, for that matter, you have to have a theory to explain what they're doing.

但听众们,无论你对侯赛因关于卡塔尔、土耳其或沙特阿拉伯的理论有何反应,你都必须有一个理论来解释他们在做什么。

It's not an easy thing to explain.

这不是一件容易解释的事情。

Hussein Aboubakr Mansour: It's not an easy thing to explain.

侯赛因·阿布巴克尔·曼苏尔:这不是一件容易解释的事情。

Ultimately, you are not going to pay billions of dollars--the Qatar investment specifically--Qatar is the most egregious case, $20 billion dollars or something in the American higher education system.

最终,你不会支付数十亿美元——特别是卡塔尔的投资——卡塔尔是最令人震惊的例子,美国高等教育系统中的200亿美元之类的。

You are buying something.

你正在买东西。

You are purchasing something.

你正在购买一些东西。

These are non-democratic regimes.

这些都是非民主政权。

Qatar is a tiny state, has enormous wealth.

卡塔尔是一个小国,却拥有巨大的财富。

It has no demographic or military weight at all, yet they are very influential.

它根本没有人口或军事影响力,但影响力却很大。

Look at how much we hear about Qatar.

看看我们对卡塔尔的了解有多少。

They are central to U.S. policy in the region.

它们是美国该地区政策的核心。

They host our CENTCOM [U.S. Central Command] headquarter.

他们主持我们的中央司令部[美国]中央司令部]司令部。

They're the main Arab interlocutor with Iran, helped us reach this deal, helped President Trump get the hostages out from Hamas.

他们是阿拉伯国家与伊朗的主要对话者,帮助我们达成了这项协议,帮助特朗普总统从哈马斯手中救出了人质。

You watch the World Cup games, you find Qatar Airways pretty much in every game.

如果你观看世界杯比赛,你会发现卡塔尔航空几乎在每场比赛中都有身影。

How come a tiny state of 300,000 people managed to gain this level of influence, access to power, access to--?

一个只有 30 万人口的小国为何能够获得如此程度的影响力、权力和——?

This is exactly what they are buying.

这正是他们购买的东西。

Actually, people who don't think that they would do that are the ones who are being irrational.

事实上,那些不认为自己会这么做的人才是不理性的人。

Why wouldn't you do that?

你为什么不这样做呢?

If you have this endless stream of cash, why wouldn't you try to convert that into a form of power that you lack otherwise?

如果你有源源不断的现金,你为什么不尝试将其转化为你所缺乏的权力形式呢?

For example, patronizing Islamists buys Qatar--let's think about it as an extension arms.

例如,居高临下的伊斯兰主义者购买了卡塔尔——让我们将其视为一条延伸武器。

They don't have enough people to send all over as diplomats.

他们没有足够的人手作为外交官派往各地。

They really don't.

他们真的不知道。

It's a tiny population.

这是一个很小的人口。

They don't have enough human capital to send them to represent Qatar and try to push Qatari influences in all the capitals of the world.

他们没有足够的人力资本派他们代表卡塔尔并试图推动卡塔尔在世界各国首都的影响力。

But, once gullible Islamists think of Qatar as the holy patron of Islamism and the Muslim Brotherhood, they will do that.

但是,一旦轻信的伊斯兰主义者认为卡塔尔是伊斯兰主义和穆斯林兄弟会的神圣赞助人,他们就会这么做。

I mean, you're buying massive influence by doing this.

我的意思是,你这样做是在购买巨大的影响力。

Again, Palestine issue doesn't require explanation why they do that; but they managed, by the end of the day, making themselves very influential by virtue of these investments.

再说一遍,巴勒斯坦问题不需要解释他们为什么这样做;但最终,他们凭借这些投资使自己变得非常有影响力。

Now, the upshot from this is that these investments are leaving now effects on your own societies, on your own elite institutions, and your own elite education.

现在,其结果是,这些投资正在对你们自己的社会、你们自己的精英机构和你们自己的精英教育产生影响。

You see that specifically, for example, in Georgetown.

例如,在乔治敦,您可以看到这一点。

I invite the audience to go to Georgetown University's website and go to their Arab Studies Department, which is center--which is the largest in the country.

我邀请观众访问乔治城大学的网站并访问他们的阿拉伯研究系,该系是该国最大的中心。

Their Islamic Studies--it's called ACMCU [Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding]--Islamic Studies Center, which is also one of the largest in the world.

他们的伊斯兰研究——叫做ACMCU(阿尔瓦利德·本·塔拉尔王子穆斯林基督教理解中心)——伊斯兰研究中心,也是世界上最大的伊斯兰研究中心之一。

And go to their websites and see what their websites are talking about.

并访问他们的网站,看看他们的网站正在谈论什么。

See the faculty.

见师资。

Find one dissenting voice from a clear academic consensus that what they are doing is about Gaza, and about genocide, and about Palestine, and about Israel.

从明确的学术共识中找到一个不同的声音,即他们所做的事情是关于加沙、种族灭绝、巴勒斯坦和以色列的。

So, obviously, this is indeed happening.

所以,显然,这确实正在发生。

Again, I don't want to reduce this to ideological reasons, which a lot of people do.

再说一遍,我不想将其归结为意识形态原因,而很多人都是这么做的。

Well, it's because of hate, and ideology, and they're Muslim, and classic civilization.

嗯,这是因为仇恨和意识形态,他们是穆斯林,是古典文明。

No, these people are extremely rational, and they know what they are buying, and they are buying interest and influence.

不,这些人极其理性,他们知道自己买的是什么,买的是利益和影响力。

Russ Roberts: I want to--let's talk about why it persists.

拉斯·罗伯茨:我想——让我们谈谈为什么它会持续存在。

President Trump is--we're recording this in June of 2026.

特朗普总统——我们将在 2026 年 6 月记录这一点。

I'm somewhat agnostic about and uncertain about how his recent efforts with Iran and the Middle East are going to turn out--or Gaza, for that matter.

我对他最近在伊朗和中东或加沙问题上的努力将产生怎样的结果有些不可知论和不确定。

I think it's complicated.

我认为这很复杂。

I think it's too soon to come to a judgment, so I'm not going to come to a judgment on that.

我认为现在做出判断还为时过早,所以我不会对此做出判断。

History will make its own judgment.

历史将会做出自己的判断。

But, when you see a problem--and let's call the problem, and we haven't talked about Israel enough.

但是,当你看到一个问题时——让我们称之为问题,而我们对以色列的讨论还不够。

At the end, I want to talk about Israel.

最后我想谈谈以色列。

We'll do that soon.

我们很快就会这么做。

But when you see a problem--and the problem here, in this case, is that Israel, despite its two million Arab-Israeli citizens , is also entangled with Gaza and the West Bank in all kinds of ways.

但当你看到一个问题时——在这个例子中,问题是以色列尽管拥有 200 万阿拉伯-以色列公民,但也以各种方式与加沙和约旦河西岸纠缠在一起。

We've talked about it in a number of episodes on the program in the past.

我们过去在节目的多集中都讨论过这个问题。

But, you know, we wish we were better.

但是,你知道,我们希望我们能做得更好。

If you're an idealistic person, you wish it could lead to self-determination for the Palestinians, peace for Israel.

如果你是一个理想主义者,你希望这能带来巴勒斯坦人的自决,以色列的和平。

There are many, many things that could be better about the region and would allow human beings to flourish.

该地区还有很多很多可以改善的地方,可以让人类繁荣发展。

Now, hovering behind all that, of course,is--there is ideology, there is religion.

现在,当然,在这一切背后盘旋的是——意识形态,宗教。

I don't want to understate the challenges there.

我不想低估那里的挑战。

But what your perspective brings is an understanding that, quote, "fixing" this is not really feasible.

但你的观点带来的是一种理解,引用,“修复”这个问题实际上并不可行。

We know there's a longtime quote on the program, 'No solutions, only trade-offs.' And that's not even what we're talking about here.

我们知道该计划中有一句长期引用的话:“没有解决方案,只有权衡。”这甚至不是我们在这里讨论的。

You know, it's kind of a redundancy argument.

你知道,这是一种冗余论点。

It's going to have all these extra parts because that way, if you take out one, there's still plenty left.

它将拥有所有这些额外的部件,因为这样,如果你取出一个,仍然剩下很多。

And what you're saying there--I want to read one more piece--but kind of what you're saying there is that if you have an organization that's designed to fight cancer, solving cancer puts them out of business, and that is unattractive.

你在那里所说的——我想再读一篇——但你所说的是,如果你有一个旨在对抗癌症的组织,那么解决癌症就会让他们破产,这是没有吸引力的。

You think that would be the goal, but you worry sometimes that that's not the goal because then the participants would pay a price.

你认为这就是目标,但有时你担心这不是目标,因为那样参与者就会付出代价。

Side note: the one-state proposal, meaning Israel should allow Palestinians to return to--the 700,000 people that were refugees in 1948 who've now become--how many?--four million, six million, if we allowed them to come back to Israel, it will destroy the Jewish nature of the state, so that's very appealing to certain groups.

旁注:一国提案,意味着以色列应该允许巴勒斯坦人返回——1948年有70万难民,现在已经有多少?——四百万、六百万,如果我们允许他们回到以色列,这将破坏这个国家的犹太性质,所以这对某些群体非常有吸引力。

And so I just want to try to summarize that.

所以我只想尝试总结一下。

You're arguing that pushing your agenda for how to fix this, from whatever corner of this world you're in, it's just window dressing.

你认为推动你的议程来解决这个问题,无论你在世界的哪个角落,这都只是装饰门面。

It's not a real solution.

这不是一个真正的解决方案。

It can't actually be imposed.

实际上不能强加。

All it is, is a banner to wave around to your base and to your funders that you're continuing to uphold the right, the good, and the beautiful.

这只是一面旗帜,向你的支持者和你的资助者挥舞,表明你将继续维护正义、善良和美丽。

Hussein Aboubakr Mansour: Yes, but it doesn't necessarily emerge--I want to also be charitable to people.

侯赛因·阿布巴克尔·曼苏尔:是的,但这并不一定会出现——我也想对人们仁慈。

I mean, that would be a really malevolent reading, that everybody's coming--no, I think a lot of people come to this, which now became a huge--there's a huge professional class worldwide that is working on this.

我的意思是,这将是一个非常恶意的解读,每个人都来了——不,我想很多人都来了,现在已经成为一个巨大的——全世界有一个巨大的专业阶层正在致力于这个。

I mean, this is a massive, massive economic extractive system, as we said--

我的意思是,正如我们所说,这是一个巨大的经济榨取系统——

Hussein Aboubakr Mansour: Employment machine, peace processes, NGOs [non-government organizations], think about all the EU [European Union] aid.

侯赛因·阿布巴克尔·曼苏尔:就业机器、和平进程、非政府组织,想想所有欧盟的援助。

I remember, when I was researching this, just the NGO per capita in the Palestinian territories--the aid per capita--it's just absolutely insane.

我记得,当我研究这个问题时,巴勒斯坦领土上的人均非政府组织——人均援助——绝对是疯狂的。

The amount of Europeans who go work in Ramallah, and so on.

在拉马拉工作的欧洲人数量等等。

And not just them: You have U.N.

不仅仅是他们:你们还有联合国。

mechanisms, you have political machines, and various political systems working on this.

机制,有政治机器和各种政治制度致力于此。

Here, in America, in the Jewish community, there are a lot of people employed this.

在美国,在犹太社区,有很多人都在从事这种工作。

I mean, arguably, I am making my living from this issue.

我的意思是,可以说,我就是靠这个问题谋生的。

So, as you said, it has its own economic interest.

所以,正如你所说,它有自己的经济利益。

Now, it is entirely possible--and not possible: I think this is what happens--that when people come to this trying to bring in a solution, they are genuine .

现在,完全有可能——但也不可能:我认为这就是发生的事情——当人们试图提出解决方案时,他们是真诚的。

Because, they don't see the system.

因为,他们看不到系统。

They don't understand the problem.

他们不明白这个问题。

They come bringing a solution.

他们带来了解决方案。

But ultimately, what it becomes: it becomes another loop.

但最终,它变成了什么:它变成了另一个循环。

It joins another loop system.

它加入另一个循环系统。

Because it's so resistant to resolution, so ultimately, you're just going to join the ranks of everyone who is extracting value from the system.

因为它非常难以解决,所以最终,您将加入每个从系统中获取价值的人的行列。

So, I don't want to be malevolent in this.

所以,我不想在这件事上恶意。

Also--

还有——

Russ Roberts: In other words, there's not some sinister cynicism at work.

拉斯·罗伯茨:换句话说,工作中不存在任何险恶的犬儒主义。

It's just that people are naturally benefiting, economically, from the insolubility of the problem.

只是人们自然会从问题的无法解决中获得经济利益。

Hussein Aboubakr Mansour: But, there is cynicism.

侯赛因·阿布巴克尔·曼苏尔:但是,存在犬儒主义。

I have also a passage in the essay about this.

我在论文中也有一段话是关于这个的。

Cynicism goes up as you move up the hierarchy.

当你的职位晋升时,愤世嫉俗的情绪就会上升。

Right?

正确的?

Like, cynicism increases as you move up leadership.

就像,随着你的领导地位提升,愤世嫉俗的情绪就会增加。

For example, you go to political leaderships--including the Islamic Republic, I speculate--you'll find a lot of cynicism about all of this.

例如,你去拜访政治领导层——我推测包括伊斯兰共和国——你会发现对这一切持很多愤世嫉俗的态度。

There is blindness all over.

到处都是盲目的。

Everybody's captive of the system.

每个人都是体制的俘虏。

Everybody's extracting.

大家都在提取。

The reason that I want to ensure that--like, yeah, I'm trying to produce a systematic analysis of this really enormous problem that we're having, but I don't want to be kind of a Marxist analysis in which it's organized, it's neat, there's a structure, there's a base, there's some sort of a revolutionary subject that can destroy the system, there is an origination of it.

我想确保这一点的原因是——是的,我试图对我们面临的这个非常巨大的问题进行系统的分析,但我不想成为一种马克思主义的分析,其中它是有组织的,它是整洁的,有一个结构,有一个基础,有某种可以摧毁这个体系的革命主体,有它的起源。

No, there is none of that.

不,没有这些。

You can't actually point, at any point, and say that this can undo the entire system.

你实际上不能在任何时候指出这可以撤销整个系统。

Russ Roberts: Yeah.

拉斯·罗伯茨:是的。

It's like the universe.

就像宇宙一样。

'Where is the center?' 'Well, there isn't one.' 'What do you mean there's no center?

“中心在哪里?” “嗯,没有。” “你说没有中心是什么意思?

How can there be no center?'

怎么可能没有中心呢?

Russ Roberts: But I do think--and now, let me be a little less cynical and a little less about self-interest, financial self-interest.

拉斯·罗伯茨:但我确实认为——现在,让我少一点愤世嫉俗,少一点关于自身利益、经济利益的考虑。

There are a lot of good human beings who care deeply for peace in the Middle East, self-determination both for the Palestinian people and the persistence of a Jewish state that could live in peace alongside its neighbors.

有很多善良的人深切关心中东的和平、巴勒斯坦人民的自决以及能够与邻国和平共处的犹太国家的持久存在。

And I think my community, the Jewish community, either in the United States or Israel, is desperately eager to find the switch.

我认为我的社区,犹太社区,无论是在美国还是在以色列,都非常渴望找到转变。

Where's that switch?

那个开关在哪里?

Where's that little knob I can turn?

我可以转动的那个小旋钮在哪里?

Or: What can I spend money on?

或者:我可以花钱买什么?

Or what could I invest in?

或者我可以投资什么?

And: Which cause should I be--what horse should I be backing, either politically or policy-wise, to make things better?

并且:我应该从事哪项事业——我应该在政治上或政策上支持哪一匹马,以使事情变得更好?

And, there is a fatalism about what you wrote that says: This works too well for too many people to get fixed.

而且,你所写的内容有一种宿命论:这对太多人来说太有效了,无法修复。

And again, I think the cancer analogy is kind of--I don't know if it's a good analogy or not, but we don't believe that about cancer.

再说一次,我认为癌症的类比是——我不知道这是否是一个好的类比,但我们不相信癌症是这样的。

Even though we understand that there are people who profit from fighting cancer and would lose money if it disappeared, we assume that most of them are decent human beings, if not all of them, who want to solve the problem.

尽管我们知道有些人从抗击癌症中获利,但如果癌症消失就会损失金钱,但我们假设他们中的大多数(如果不是全部)都是正派的人,想要解决这个问题。

And, we're making some kind of progress in different ways on this problem.

而且,我们正在以不同的方式在这个问题上取得某种进展。

We're not making much progress on the Middle East.

我们在中东问题上没有取得太大进展。

I'd say a little bit.

我想说一点。

The Abraham Accords are encouraging.

《亚伯拉罕协议》令人鼓舞。

The military strength of Israel, in this moment, right today, and the damage it's been able to do to its worst enemies is positive.

就在今天,此时此刻,以色列的军事实力及其对最大敌人造成的损害是积极的。

Although many people would say it's not going to last long, and all it means is that the next round is coming whenever it comes.

虽然很多人会说这不会持续太久,但这意味着下一轮无论何时都会到来。

So, give me a little cause for optimism, if you can find it.

所以,如果你能找到的话,请给我一点乐观的理由。

Hussein Aboubakr Mansour: Well, you're right.

侯赛因·阿布巴克尔·曼苏尔:嗯,你是对的。

The analogy of cancer is not perfect, especially that cancer ultimately is a physiological, is a medical trial.

癌症的比喻并不完美,尤其是癌症最终是一种生理的,是一种医学的考验。

Yeah--

是啊——

Hussein Aboubakr Mansour: This is a massive political problem.

侯赛因·阿布巴克尔·曼苏尔:这是一个巨大的政治问题。

There's a lot of power into this.

这里面有很多力量。

I mean, people kill a large number of people to maintain power.

我的意思是,人们为了维持权力而杀害大量的人。

Think about the Arab states and how much they're ready to sacrifice with their own populations, or even the Palestinians, in order to just get a little bit--just one concession from Washington.

想想阿拉伯国家,他们准备为自己的人民甚至巴勒斯坦人做出多少牺牲,只为了得到一点点——只是华盛顿的一个让步。

Egypt is willing to close the border, and shut it, and ensure no Gazan passes, no matter what conditions are, just to make sure that they are very important to Washington, have a lot of leverage, and so on and so on.

埃及愿意关闭边境,关闭它,并确保加沙没有通行权,无论条件如何,只是为了确保它们对华盛顿非常重要,有很大的影响力,等等。

Not just that, but that's one point of it.

不仅如此,这就是其中的一点。

I think the cancer analogy is still good, and the idea that you said we still fight it.

我认为癌症的比喻仍然很好,而且你说我们仍在与它作斗争。

I mean, I'll still do what I'm-- if I had a completely fatalist, then writing this essay would have been my very last act, rationally, if I'm engaging with this at all, and then I can just--you know, I'm done.

我的意思是,我仍然会做我现在要做的事——如果我有一个完全的宿命论者,那么理性地讲,写这篇文章将是我最后的行为,如果我真的参与其中,那么我就可以——你知道,我已经完成了。

Which many times I do feel like it.

很多时候我确实有这种感觉。

But I'm still engaging in this, because, ultimately, we're humans, and we have a lot of both hubris and faith.

但我仍然参与其中,因为归根结底,我们是人类,我们有很多傲慢和信仰。

And I think the latter is much better than the former.

而且我认为后者比前者好得多。

So, I do have faith that this is not--this is not going to continue forever.

所以,我确实相信这不会永远持续下去。

Nothing continues forever.

没有什么会永远持续下去。

There's a lot of people who are suffering from this.

有很多人正在遭受这种痛苦。

Ultimately, as you said--and I've started this--I'm Egyptian.

最终,正如你所说——我已经开始了——我是埃及人。

I understand the central role that this plays in Egyptian political dysfunction.

我理解这在埃及政治失调中发挥的核心作用。

I'm from the Arab Spring generation.

我来自阿拉伯之春一代。

I saw the Arab Spring failed and become disastrous.

我看到阿拉伯之春失败并变得灾难性的。

And it did start with the very idealistic hopes of a lot of young people.

它确实始于许多年轻人的非常理想主义的希望。

Ultimately, I'm trying to do my part in order to contribute to understanding of a problem: hopefully, we find a way to fix.

最终,我试图尽自己的一份力量来帮助理解问题:希望我们能找到解决方法。

Now, you're right.

现在,你是对的。

There's a lot of people in the Jewish community who are very sincere about this.

犹太社区中有很多人对此非常真诚。

This is the reason that most of my work with the Jewish community, I believe--I have a lot of critiques about--let me just be clear: I have a lot of critiques about Jews and about Israel.

这就是我相信我与犹太社区的大部分工作的原因——我对此有很多批评——让我明确一点:我对犹太人和以色列有很多批评。

But by the end of the day, first of all, I find them the most vulnerable position in this entire system because this system operates on their vilification.

但到了最后,首先,我发现他们是整个系统中最脆弱的位置,因为这个系统是在他们的诽谤基础上运作的。

And, on obfuscating itself.

并且,混淆自己。

The primary mechanism--and this is maybe issue of the second I say in the critiques that I received--this whole thing operates through concealing itself by projecting it all on Israel.

主要机制——这可能是我在收到的批评中所说的第二个问题——整个事情的运作是通过将其全部投射到以色列身上来隐藏自己。

Israelis are doing this.

以色列人正在这样做。

In the entire conversation--what really drives me nuts in all the conversations about Israel and Palestine, it's like no one else exists.

在整个对话中——在所有关于以色列和巴勒斯坦的对话中真正让我发疯的是,就像没有其他人存在一样。

It's the Israelis and the Palestinians.

这是以色列人和巴勒斯坦人。

Not as if the Turks are heavily involved, the Iranians are heavily involved, the Egyptians are heavily involved, so-and-so are heavily involved.

并不是土耳其人严重参与、伊朗人严重参与、埃及人严重参与、某某人严重参与。

Everybody is playing a role, and everybody is getting something out of it.

每个人都在发挥作用,每个人都从中有所收获。

'No, no, no. It's the Israelis.' Which is not true at all.

'不,不,不。是以色列人。这根本不是真的。

The primary mechanism of mystifying itself is making it about Zionism and about Israel, and so on and so forth.

神秘化本身的主要机制是使其与犹太复国主义和以色列有关,等等。

So, I find Jews in--first of all, they are still in a good position.

所以,我发现犹太人——首先,他们仍然处于有利地位。

I mean, they are able to protect themselves.

我的意思是,他们有能力保护自己。

That's actually--the system runs because Israel is so resilient.

实际上,该系统之所以能够运行,是因为以色列具有如此强的韧性。

I mean, if Israel collapses tomorrow, this whole thing comes down.

我的意思是,如果以色列明天崩溃,整个事情就会崩溃。

So, they are protected; they have some amount of power.

所以,他们受到保护;他们有一定的权力。

But at the same times, they are the most vulnerable.

但与此同时,他们又是最脆弱的。

And they are the ones who have the most interest in trying to understand it objectively because of just how threatening it is to them.

他们是最有兴趣尝试客观地理解它的人,因为它对他们来说是多么的威胁。

So, they have an incentive--I think, in that system--they have a higher incentive to hear a contrary complex opinion like this than anyone else in the system.

因此,他们有动力——我认为,在那个系统中——他们比系统中的其他人更有动力去听到这样相反的复杂意见。

And that's why I am where I am.

这就是我现在的原因。

Russ Roberts: Well, that's why I liked it, probably.

拉斯·罗伯茨:嗯,这可能就是我喜欢它的原因。

It's part of the reason.

这是部分原因。

But I just want to be clear: I don't know if listeners--I don't know if we've done a good job doing justice to the complexity of your essay.

但我只是想澄清:我不知道听众是否——我不知道我们是否很好地公正地对待了你们论文的复杂性。

It's very long, and it's very thoughtful.

很长,也很周到。

We've just done kind of a thumbnail sketch of it here.

我们刚刚在这里画了一个缩略图。

Russ Roberts: Before I come back to some of the criticism you received, I want to come back and say why I think it's comforting, despite its seeming fatalism.

拉斯·罗伯茨:在我回到你收到的一些批评之前,我想回来说一下为什么我认为它令人欣慰,尽管它看起来像是宿命论。

I think--the reason I like the essay isn't because, 'Oh, now I can wipe my hands and not worry about it anymore.' It's because it helps me understand some of the things that happen in this part of the world, and in the West, and on college campuses in the West, and in Western countries.

我想——我喜欢这篇文章的原因不是因为,‘哦,现在我可以擦干我的手了,不再担心它了。’这是因为它帮助我了解在世界的这个地区、在西方、在西方的大学校园、在西方国家发生的一些事情。

It helps me see that it's actually not as dark as it appears.

它帮助我看到它实际上并不像看起来那么暗。

It's actually a little bit brighter.

实际上稍微亮一点。

It's not because there's a fundamental injustice--which is what all parts of this side feel, right?

这并不是因为存在根本性的不公正——这一方的所有部分都感受到了这种不公正,对吧?

Everybody in this conversation feels, whichever side you're on, that there's a terrible injustice being done.

这场谈话中的每个人都觉得,无论你站在哪一边,都感到这是一种可怕的不公正行为。

Sometimes it's a factual question, but a lot of times it's an emotional question.

有时这是一个事实问题,但很多时候这是一个情感问题。

It's a feeling of: I can defend the existence of the state of Israel, I can defend cheerfully most of what Israel's done since 1948; but I can also understand why people who live in Gaza are really angry, and hate Israel, and hate Jews.

这是一种感觉:我可以捍卫以色列国的存在,我可以愉快地捍卫以色列自 1948 年以来所做的大部分事情;但我也能理解为什么生活在加沙的人们真的很愤怒,仇恨以色列,仇恨犹太人。

Those are not in conflict.

这些并不冲突。

I understand that.

我明白这一点。

The part that is difficult to understand is the insistent focus on this one issue, to the exclusion of so many things that are also horrible, feels, quote, "unfair." Just like, if you are on the other side, the relentless success of Israel and the failure to advance the Palestinian cause feels grotesquely unfair.

难以理解的部分是对这一问题的持续关注,而排除了许多同样可怕的、感觉“不公平”的事情。就像,如果你站在另一边,以色列的不断成功和推进巴勒斯坦事业的失败会让人感觉非常不公平。

I totally get that.

我完全明白。

What this essay does is it says: it's not really about fair or unfair.

这篇文章的目的是说:这并不是真正的公平或不公平。

It's not about cruelty versus mercy, or justice versus injustice.

这不是残酷与仁慈、正义与不公正的问题。

It's: We're all tangled up in a very complex system of incentives that kind of sustains itself.

它是:我们都纠缠在一个非常复杂的激励系统中,该系统可以自我维持。

That's really what you write about.

这确实是你写的。

It might not have been true 30 years ago, 50 years ago.

30年前、50年前可能不是这样。

There were options to step out of--to restructure this, perhaps.

也许有一些选择可以走出去——重组这一点。

Israel made a lot of mistakes, and others made mistakes on behalf of the Palestinians; and even the Palestinians made mistakes.

以色列犯了很多错误,其他人也代表巴勒斯坦人犯了错误;甚至巴勒斯坦人也犯了错误。

The thing that drives me crazy--you mention the thing that drives you crazy.

让我发疯的事情——你提到了让你发疯的事情。

What drives me crazy is the Palestinians have no agency.

让我发疯的是巴勒斯坦人没有代理机构。

Ever.

曾经。

That is, I think, unfair to them, unfair to the human condition.

我认为这对他们不公平,对人类状况不公平。

But, put that to the side.

但是,把它放在一边。

My point is that: on the one hand, if you do look at the world as a morality play, you can get very upset and very angry and feel that injustice is triumphing, whichever side you're on in this debate.

我的观点是:一方面,如果你确实将世界视为一场道德游戏,你可能会感到非常沮丧和愤怒,并感到不公正正在取得胜利,无论你在这场辩论中站在哪一边。

And what your essay says is: It's actually a lot more complicated than that.

你的文章说的是:实际上比这复杂得多。

We've emphasized the incentives and the extraction, but when you tangle that up with and weave that in with the religious feelings around the issue on both sides, and you weave it in with the philosophical and ideological feelings that people have, you can see that it's not so straightforward.

我们强调了激励和提取,但是当你把它和双方围绕这个问题的宗教情感纠缠在一起、交织在一起时,你把它和人们的哲学思想情感交织在一起时,你就会发现事情并不是那么简单。

To use the word phrase of this show, the watch phrase: It's complicated.

用这个节目的词组来说,就是观看短语:它很复杂。

And I find some comfort in that.

我从中找到了一些安慰。

Hussein Aboubakr Mansour: Well, I'm glad.

侯赛因·阿布巴克尔·曼苏尔:嗯,我很高兴。

I want to say two things.

我想说两件事。

First of all, about the morality play.

首先,关于道德剧。

The morality play is arguably the primary form of the basic extraction.

道德剧可以说是基本提取的主要形式。

I mean, yes, I'm trying not to put a center in the system, but there is a basic form of extraction that creates value.

我的意思是,是的,我试图不在系统中放置一个中心,但有一种基本的提取形式可以创造价值。

I mean, ultimately, okay, if you're talking about extraction, there is value creation.

我的意思是,最终,好吧,如果你谈论的是提取,那就是价值创造。

This Arab autocrat, or Palestinian movement, or post-colonial intellectual in some university, when they are operating within the system, mining it, they are extracting value.

这个阿拉伯独裁者,或者巴勒斯坦运动,或者某些大学里的后殖民知识分子,当他们在体制内运作、挖掘它时,他们正在提取价值。

What is that form of value?

这种价值形式是什么?

That form of value is ultimately sentiment.

这种价值形式最终就是情感。

It's the moral sentiment and the moral enchantment of as many people as possible with this cause.

这是尽可能多的人对这一事业的道德情操和道德魅力。

That's really, really the most fundamental level of extraction that happens.

这确实是最基本的提取级别。

That's why I have a religious bit at the end that, ultimately, people have to find alternative transcendent sources of meaning because, as long as this is their form of meaning, this is going to be a mining site for politics.

这就是为什么我在最后有一个宗教观点,即最终人们必须找到替代的超验意义来源,因为只要这是他们的意义形式,这将成为政治的采矿点。

The other thing: I want to talk about the Palestinians.

另一件事:我想谈谈巴勒斯坦人。

Yeah.

是的。

You're right.

你说得对。

The system denies at all that they have agency.

系统根本否认他们有代理权。

I actually have a section that I really like in the essay about the Palestinians.

实际上,我非常喜欢这篇关于巴勒斯坦人的文章中的一个部分。

The Palestinians also are, of course, part of the system.

当然,巴勒斯坦人也是这个体系的一部分。

Now, you can argue that they are in the least-privileged position, but they're also--you're going to do the best you can do.

现在,你可以说他们处于最没有特权的位置,但他们也是——你会尽力而为。

Everybody has agency.

每个人都有代理权。

And they also have their own extraction.

而且他们也有自己的萃取。

You have a Palestinian militia that extracts, again, consent or power domestically from people, fight rival groups by claims that it is the most authentic representative of Palestine; but then will extract the regional games for resources .

巴勒斯坦民兵再次从国内人民那里获取同意或权力,声称自己是巴勒斯坦最真实的代表,与敌对团体进行斗争;但接下来会抽取区域游戏的资源。

I mean, we've seen this.

我的意思是,我们已经看到了这一点。

This has been endemic for the Palestinian movement since its start, really, after 1967, when you had every Palestinian militia represented was a proxy of some regional power: Ba'athist Syria, Iraq, Egypt, and so on and so forth.

自1967年巴勒斯坦运动一开始以来,这一直是巴勒斯坦运动的普遍现象,当时每个巴勒斯坦民兵代表都是某个地区大国的代理人:复兴党叙利亚、伊拉克、埃及等等。

And it's still the case today.

今天仍然如此。

I mean, Hamas is a proxy of Iran.

我的意思是,哈马斯是伊朗的代理人。

Now the PA [Palestinian Authority] is increasingly becoming a proxy of Saudi Arabia--or that's what the Saudis actually are trying to do.

现在,PA(巴勒斯坦权力机构)正日益成为沙特阿拉伯的代理人——或者说,这正是沙特实际上正在尝试做的事情。

So here you have two-way extraction--extraction from the bottom, extraction from the top--to get as much as you can.

所以这里有两种方式提取——从底部提取,从顶部提取——以尽可能多地提取。

If you're talking about the actual Palestinian layman, the problem is that the system is not just exploiting--ultimately, that's the commodity.

如果你谈论的是真正的巴勒斯坦外行,问题是这个制度不仅仅是在剥削——最终,这就是商品。

It's the victimhood of that Palestinian.

这是那个巴勒斯坦人的受害者。

It doesn't exploit their suffering: it invents it.

它并没有利用他们的痛苦:它发明了它。

That is, the system now, in order to keep itself, it has to ensure the value keeps coming.

也就是说,现在的系统,为了保持自身,它必须确保价值不断到来。

So, it needs to invent the Palestinian victim constantly and ensure that it's in adequate supply.

因此,它需要不断地创造巴勒斯坦受害者并确保其供应充足。

That's what UNRWA [United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East] had become.

这就是近东救济工程处(联合国近东巴勒斯坦难民救济和工程处)的发展历程。

Obviously, UNRWA, when it started, did not really--

显然,近东救济工程处刚开始时并没有真正——

Russ Roberts: It's the U.N.

拉斯·罗伯茨:这是联合国

Refugee Agency.

难民署。

Hussein Aboubakr Mansour: Yes, that deals exclusively with the Palestinians.

侯赛因·阿布巴克尔·曼苏尔:是的,这专门针对巴勒斯坦人。

It's a unique institution.

这是一个独特的机构。

And it does a unique thing, which is: It actually compounds the number of refugees.

它做了一件独特的事情,那就是:它实际上增加了难民的数量。

It doesn't decrease refugees: it actually increases the number.

它并没有减少难民:它实际上增加了难民数量。

It makes it a hereditary status.

这使其成为世袭地位。

This is basically a perpetuation.

这基本上是一种延续。

It's a structural feature of the system that is responsible for the perpetuation of this statelessness as an identity because that's, ultimately, the main currency that allows value extraction.

这是系统的一个结构特征,导致这种无国籍状态作为一种身份永久存在,因为它最终是允许价值提取的主要货币。

Russ Roberts: Yeah.

拉斯·罗伯茨:是的。

To push back, which is--I'm an Israeli, but on the other side, people would say, 'Well, come on, they're not manufacturing victimhood.

反驳说,我是以色列人,但另一方面,人们会说,‘好吧,来吧,他们没有制造受害者。

They don't have to.

他们不必这样做。

These people are victims.

这些人都是受害者。

Israel mistreats them, abuses them, sometimes kills them, keeps them from getting food, keeps them from getting economic opportunity.' There was an article this week in The New Yorker that, after October 7th, Palestinians who used to work in Israel having trouble getting work, which is a mind-blowing article to write--at least the headline.

以色列虐待他们,虐待他们,有时甚至杀害他们,不让他们获得食物,不让他们获得经济机会。” 《纽约客》本周有一篇文章称,10月7日之后,曾经在以色列工作的巴勒斯坦人很难找到工作,这是一篇令人兴奋的文章——至少是标题。

I didn't read the article.

我没有读这篇文章。

I don't know what the rest of it was.

我不知道剩下的是什么。

So, one of the critiques you've got of this essay was: you focus on your home team; they're players of the region, but you--whitewashed is too strong--but you didn't spend enough time blaming Israel and its incentives to keep this problem on a low flame.

所以,你对这篇文章的批评之一是:你专注于你的主队;他们是该地区的参与者,但你——粉饰太强烈了——但你没有花足够的时间指责以色列及其让这个问题保持低调的动机。

I like this metaphor--there's a Goldilocks aspect to it.

我喜欢这个比喻——它有金发姑娘的一面。

You want people to be angry about Zionism, but not too angry.

你希望人们对犹太复国主义感到愤怒,但不要太愤怒。

How does that apply to Israel, which is something you didn't write much--I think you gave a couple paragraphs.

这如何适用于以色列,这是你写得不多的东西——我想你只写了几段。

So, say something about that.

那么,说一下吧。

And you write about it in the second essay, but say something about it.

你在第二篇文章中写到它,但说一些关于它的事情。

Hussein Aboubakr Mansour: Well, I already kind of said the main reason.

侯赛因·阿布巴克尔·曼苏尔:嗯,我已经说了主要原因。

So, yeah.

所以,是的。

That's the main critique.

这是主要的批评。

The essay, actually, to my surprise, was one of the most popular things I ever wrote.

事实上,令我惊讶的是,这篇文章是我写过的最受欢迎的文章之一。

A lot of people read it, including pro-Palestinian activists and scholars.

很多人都读过这本书,包括亲巴勒斯坦活动人士和学者。

A lot of people had to respond to it because I think it was, indeed--a leftist academic should have done--this is what they do, as you know, this kind of structure analysis.

很多人不得不对此做出回应,因为我认为这确实是——左派学者应该做的——正如你所知,这就是他们所做的,这种结构分析。

Someone should have tried this a long time ago, but because they are part of the system, they refuse to.

很久以前就应该有人尝试这样做,但因为他们是系统的一部分,所以他们拒绝这样做。

So, I got a lot of pushback that, yeah, exactly what you said: 'Well, you completely ignored Israel.

所以,我受到了很多阻力,是的,正如你所说:‘好吧,你完全忽视了以色列。

You're not saying anything about what the Israelis do, how they are extracting value from this.'

你没有说以色列人做了什么,也没有说他们如何从中获取价值。”

First of all, of course, the Israelis are part of this.

首先,当然,以色列人也是其中的一部分。

The Israelis are extracting various forms of values from this.

以色列人正在从中提取各种形式的价值观。

American Jewish communities are a part of this system.

美国犹太社区是这个系统的一部分。

They are also extracting all kinds of value.

他们也在榨取各种价值。

And you can map it different ways: the left, the right, the right in Israel with its own extraction of ideological fantasies about ultimately annexation of the [?]--and so on and so forth.

你可以用不同的方式来描绘它:左翼、右翼、以色列的右翼,以及他们自己提取的关于最终吞并[?]的意识形态幻想——等等。

Again, the reason that I completely refuse to do this is because the persistent feature--the reason that no one is able to talk about this is because the critique of Israel and Zionism, which obviously comes enhanced with a legacy of two centuries of antisemitic sentiments and propaganda, and so on and so forth, floods the field of vision with which we can actually see what's going on.

再说一次,我完全拒绝这样做的原因是因为持续存在的特征——没有人能够谈论这一点的原因是因为对以色列和犹太复国主义的批评,显然是通过两个世纪的反犹太情绪和宣传等遗产而增强的,淹没了我们实际上可以看到正在发生的事情的视野。

So, I purposefully did not want to do this in order to exactly make it an issue, because insisting on Israel the entire time has been the single most destructive element for any understanding or trying to solve this problem.

所以,我故意不想这样做,只是为了让它成为一个问题,因为一直坚持以色列是任何理解或试图解决这个问题的最具破坏性的因素。

The second--and this meshes--so people know, I also have my deep critiques on Jews.

第二个——这也是相吻合的——所以人们知道,我也对犹太人有深刻的批评。

This actually meshes very well with ethno-narcissism that a lot of Jews have.

这实际上与许多犹太人的民族自恋非常吻合。

They like to feel everything's about them .

他们喜欢感觉一切都与他们有关。

So, they also play that game, too.

所以,他们也玩这个游戏。

When everything made about Jews and Israel, they respond that it's just--so, I wanted to get out of that entirely.

当一切都与犹太人和以色列有关时,他们回应说这只是——所以,我想完全摆脱这一点。

Russ Roberts: Yeah.

拉斯·罗伯茨:是的。

I'm trying not to interrupt.

我尽量不去打扰。

Keep going.

继续前进。

There's some amusing examples of that.

有一些有趣的例子。

Keep going.

继续前进。

Hussein Aboubakr Mansour: Right.

侯赛因·阿布巴克尔·曼苏尔: 是的。

The second thing is, okay, if you think that this is a valuable analysis and you think it didn't apply to Israel, well, why didn't you do it to yourself?

第二件事是,好吧,如果你认为这是一个有价值的分析并且你认为它不适用于以色列,那么你为什么不对自己这样做呢?

Here is the methodology.

这是方法论。

Here's my analysis.

这是我的分析。

The methods are transparent.

这些方法是透明的。

And some people did that, actually, and it was quite interesting.

事实上,有些人这样做了,这很有趣。

Some people took it and even put it in an LLM mode [large language model], and then it asked that, like, 'Hey.

有些人接受了它,甚至将其置于 LLM 模式(大语言模型)中,然后它问,就像,‘嘿。

Extend his analysis.'

扩展他的分析。

Russ Roberts: Which it did, effortlessly.

拉斯·罗伯茨:它毫不费力地做到了。

Hussein Aboubakr Mansour: Effortlessly, yes.

侯赛因·阿布巴克尔·曼苏尔:是的,毫不费力。

But, yeah.

但是,是的。

Basically--ultimately, what I want, force people to have is not new information, is not a new polemic, is not a new talking point that they can use in constant debating.

基本上,最终,我想要强迫人们拥有的不是新信息,不是新的争论,不是他们可以在不断辩论中使用的新话题。

I want to give them a way of seeing things and a way of thinking about them.

我想给他们一种看待事物和思考事物的方式。

So, if you're so passionate about Israel and what Israel is doing, well, go ahead--and, you like my essay--go ahead and try to think about Israel from within that framework.

所以,如果你对以色列和以色列正在做的事情如此热情,那么,继续——而且,你喜欢我的文章——继续尝试在这个框架内思考以色列。

Russ Roberts: So, I'll just add: Before we started recording this, I told you I think we should not talk about a piece of the essay that's actually quite fascinating--I just want to let listeners know it's out there--on post-Christian modernity.

拉斯·罗伯茨:所以,我要补充一点:在我们开始录制这篇文章之前,我告诉过你,我认为我们不应该谈论这篇实际上非常有趣的文章——我只是想让听众知道它就在那里——关于后基督教现代性。

And especially applied to Europe, which fascinates me.

尤其是在欧洲,这让我着迷。

I've written about how, when you go to Europe, you see this extraordinary cultural heritage of Christianity: the cathedrals, the music, the art.

我写过,当你去欧洲时,你会如何看到基督教的非凡文化遗产:大教堂、音乐、艺术。

The influence of Christianity on European culture--it's mind-blowing.

基督教对欧洲文化的影响令人震惊。

And, yet, there are almost no Christians left in Europe.

然而,欧洲几乎没有基督徒了。

So, when you experience Christian achievements of the past 500 to a thousand years, they're museum artifacts--the same way the Jews are in Europe.

所以,当你体验过去五百年到一千年的基督教成就时,它们都是博物馆的文物——就像欧洲的犹太人一样。

The Jews are artifacts in Europe because of the Holocaust.

由于大屠杀,犹太人在欧洲成为了人造物。

There aren't very many left.

剩下的人不多了。

There's a few trying to persist in a few places in Europe.

在欧洲的一些地方,有一些人试图坚持下去。

But in Christianity, they're Christian in name, but not in practice, in any sense.

但在基督教中,他们在名义上是基督徒,但在任何意义上都不是实践中的。

It's a weird thing.

这是一件很奇怪的事情。

It's a similar phenomenon.

这是类似的现象。

Religion in Europe is a museum, not a way of life.

欧洲的宗教是一座博物馆,而不是一种生活方式。

We'll see where that leads, at least in Christianity and Judaism.

我们将看看这会导致什么结果,至少在基督教和犹太教中如此。

Obviously, there's now Muslim populations in Europe that are still quite devoted to their religion.

显然,现在欧洲的穆斯林人口仍然非常虔诚地信仰他们的宗教。

You do actually--we didn't talk about it, and we'll close with this--you do actually have a little, tiny element of hope at the end of your essay.

事实上,你确实——我们没有谈论它,我们将以此结束——你在文章的结尾确实有一点点希望。

You imagine--you don't tell us how to get there from here--but you imagine a person who has been told that they're a victim, to maybe have a different perspective.

你想象一下——你没有告诉我们如何从这里到达那里——但你想象一个被告知自己是受害者的人,也许会有不同的观点。

Why don't you talk about that, and we'll close.

你为什么不谈谈这个,然后我们就结束了。

Hussein Aboubakr Mansour: Well, so, there's also--I have other parts of writing about this.

侯赛因·阿布巴克尔·曼苏尔:嗯,所以,还有——我还有其他一些关于这个问题的文章。

Generally, it's a larger thesis that I have about the modern world, in general, that, basically, in summary, that post-Christianity, or the post-Christian condition, having the post-Christian culture, is not really a Western or a Christian civilizational fact.

总的来说,这是我关于现代世界的一个更大的论点,总的来说,总的来说,后基督教,或者后基督教的状况,拥有后基督教文化,并不是真正的西方或基督教文明事实。

It actually, today, is a universal condition of the modern world.

实际上,今天它是现代世界的普遍状况。

Whether you are in the Middle East, whether you are in Asia, whether you are in Europe, it's all post-Christianity.

无论你在中东,无论你在亚洲,无论你在欧洲,这都是后基督教。

Now, this is obviously very complex for people, and a lot of people find it weird, but I write about it extensively.

现在,这对人们来说显然非常复杂,很多人觉得很奇怪,但我写了很多关于它的文章。

And this includes a lot of Islamic movements, Muslim Islamic ideologies, and so on and so forth.

这包括很多伊斯兰运动、穆斯林伊斯兰意识形态等等。

The post-Christian condition, by virtue of being post , abolished structures that meant the need for meaning.

后基督教的状况,由于是后基督教,废除了意味着需要意义的结构。

But it obviously cannot abolish the need.

但这显然不能消除这种需要。

You do need meaning, especially as you go through life and there is suffering.

你确实需要意义,尤其是当你经历生活并且存在痛苦时。

You can be a population-Nietzsche as much as you want, and go left, and just live happy-go-lucky until you meet the first friction in life--the first tragedy--and you're going to have many of those.

你可以随心所欲地成为一个尼采,然后向左走,然后过着无忧无虑的生活,直到你遇到生命中的第一次摩擦——第一次悲剧——而且你将会遇到很多这样的摩擦。

And then that becomes a real problem, because what does that mean exactly?

然后这就成为一个真正的问题,因为这到底意味着什么?

And that's when you feel the wound that we are left with, and that requires explanation and requires a meaning and interpretation and redemption--a story of redemption, ultimately.

那时你会感受到我们留下的伤口,这需要解释,需要意义、解释和救赎——最终是一个救赎的故事。

Now, that demand is bottomless, because the wound itself is bottomless.

现在,这种需求是无底的,因为伤口本身是无底的。

That is, the appetite for the symbol--in this case, Palestine--is insatiable, is because it's a demand for a lost totality.

也就是说,对象征——在本例中是巴勒斯坦——的胃口是无法满足的,因为它是对失去的整体的要求。

And I think a lot of people understand this somehow intuitively, in a very simplified form.

我认为很多人都以一种非常简单的形式直观地理解了这一点。

People say Palestine is the Jesus of the modern world.

人们说巴勒斯坦是现代世界的耶稣。

You read the pro-Palestine literature in the West now, and it is a religious devotional literature in which Palestine represents redemption for the planet, redemption for society--

你现在读西方的亲巴勒斯坦文学,这是一种宗教信仰文学,其中巴勒斯坦代表着对地球的救赎,对社会的救赎——

Russ Roberts: Just like climate change did just a few years ago.

拉斯·罗伯茨:就像几年前的气候变化一样。

It was a very similar--

这是一个非常相似的——

Hussein Aboubakr Mansour: Just a few years ago.

侯赛因·阿布巴克尔·曼苏尔:就在几年前。

But, Palestine now absorbed that, right?

但是,巴勒斯坦现在吸收了这一点,对吧?

Hussein Aboubakr Mansour: Yeah.

侯赛因·阿布巴克尔·曼苏尔:是的。

It became--like, queer--it's the future of queerness.

它变成了——就像,酷儿——这是酷儿的未来。

It absorbed a lot of these, kind of a black hole of modern politics.

它吸收了很多这些,有点像现代政治的黑洞。

And the reason that that has to do, indeed, with the Jewish element or the Jewish presence, center to this, and that's a complex analysis in the issue.

事实上,这与犹太人的因素或犹太人的存在有关,这是这个问题的复杂分析。

But because the Jew in all post-Christian ideological system was assigned or held in the position of the unresolved question about the wound itself, and about meaning, and about the lack of meaning.

但因为在所有后基督教意识形态体系中,犹太人都被赋予或持有关于伤口本身、关于意义以及关于意义缺乏的未解决问题的立场。

Now, when it comes to that very fundamental level of, let's say, where I came from--let's go back to where I came from--to Egypt.

现在,当谈到非常基本的层面时,比如说,我来自哪里——让我们回到我来自哪里——埃及。

You are living in a stable, but dysfunctional, country.

你们生活在一个稳定但功能失调的国家。

You really don't have economic prospects.

你确实没有经济前景。

You're worried about your children.

你担心你的孩子。

It's really bad.

真的很糟糕。

Like, if you're an Egyptian middle class or lower, which is the majority of the country, you have no political power.

例如,如果你是埃及的中产阶级或下层阶级(占该国的大多数),那么你就没有政治权力。

You see a policeman in a uniform in the street, and it's, like, basically, a thug or a mafia.

你在街上看到一个穿着制服的警察,基本上就像一个暴徒或黑手党。

You just don't know what they're going to come demand from you, and you have no power to resist.

你只是不知道他们会对你提出什么要求,而且你没有能力抗拒。

It's just not really a good condition.

这实在不是一个好的条件。

Then you turn on the TV, and you have this crisp image broadcasting from Doha with a very fluent, hijab-wearing, highly educated woman with very eloquent Arabic, probably has a Ph.D. from Georgetown University, and probably even a green card--because the American system loves these people.

然后你打开电视,就会看到从多哈传来的清晰图像,画面非常流利,戴着头巾,受过高等教育,能说一口流利的阿拉伯语,可能拥有博士学位。来自乔治城大学,甚至可能还有绿卡——因为美国的制度喜欢这些人。

And then she tells you that this political dysfunction in a country like Egypt--the lack of democracy, the lack of rights, the lack of economic prospects--is because of Israel.

然后她告诉你,像埃及这样的国家的政治失调——缺乏民主、缺乏权利、缺乏经济前景——都是因为以色列。

Israel did this to you.

以色列对你做了这样的事。

There are vulgar forms of this that now happens online in the Western space.

现在西方世界的网上也出现了这种粗俗的形式。

Like: 'This is what the Jews took from you.' Here you have a bargain.

比如:“这就是犹太人从你身上夺走的东西。”在这里你可以讨价还价。

You have the serpent making you a proposition that, basically, you're going to self-justify, you're going to justify yourself completely and utterly, and feel good about yourself as a victim, instead of actually trying to face your own reality.

蛇向你提出一个建议,基本上,你要自我辩解,你要完全彻底地为自己辩护,并为自己作为受害者感到高兴,而不是真正尝试面对自己的现实。

And the problem is that most people say yes to this proposition.

问题是大多数人都同意这个提议。

Ultimately, that's what creates that false system of meaning that then becomes politically salient, that men who are fighting for power can pick up and try to form into the various weapons that they fight each other with.

最终,这就是创造了错误的意义体系的原因,这种意义体系随后在政治上变得突出,为权力而战的人们可以拿起并试图将其形成他们相互斗争的各种武器。

And that's, at bottom, the tragedy and the problem of this.

归根结底,这就是悲剧和问题所在。

I mean, I don't want to sound fatalistic, but it sounds like a bigger[?]--who can deal--I remember one of the comments on the essay was, like, 'Okay, what am I going to do about hundreds of millions of people?

我的意思是,我不想听起来是宿命论,但这听起来像是一个更大的[?]——谁能处理——我记得这篇文章的评论之一是,‘好吧,我要对数亿人做什么?

This is not anything anyone could do.' Which is true; but I believe, ultimately, this is the issue.

这不是任何人都能做到的。这是真的;但我相信,归根结底,这就是问题所在。

Russ Roberts: But you imagine, at the end of your essay, that this person actually makes a different choice.

拉斯·罗伯茨:但是你想象,在你的文章的结尾,这个人实际上做出了不同的选择。

Hussein Aboubakr Mansour: Yes.

侯赛因·阿布巴克尔·曼苏尔:是的。

And that's what a--there is a religious--and now I am spoiling the essay to people.

这就是——有一个宗教——现在我正在向人们破坏这篇文章。

There is obviously a religious end to the essay in which, basically, that a real conversion is ultimately what is needed.

这篇文章显然有一个宗教结尾,基本上,最终需要的是真正的转变。

An inner conversion, a teshuvah in the Hebrew sense, in which man turns from his own self-justification and just faces his reality with sober eyes, honestly, before God.

一种内在的转变,希伯来语意义上的 teshuvah,即人放弃自我辩护,在上帝面前以清醒的眼光、诚实的态度面对自己的现实。

I do believe that the greatest tragedy of Islam in the 20th century--again, I have a lot of criticism on the clash of civilization thesis and its intellectuals--because multiple things.

我确实相信20世纪伊斯兰教最大的悲剧——我再次对文明冲突论及其知识分子提出了很多批评——因为有多种原因。

They obfuscated how politics actually work, what is actually the geopolitical structure in the Middle East.

他们混淆了政治的实际运作方式,以及中东地缘政治结构的实际情况。

They led people to think about fairytales and fantasies that completely mystified the real power politics and the awfulness of a lot of these powerful men in the Middle East have been doing.

它们引导人们思考童话和幻想,这些童话和幻想完全使真正的强权政治和中东许多有权势的人所做的可怕事情变得神秘。

But also, because it completely has hidden one of the largest tragedies of the world of the 20th century, which is that the religious structure of Islam, of pre-modernist[?], completely collapsed under the pressure of a lot of these modern ideologies.

而且,因为它完全掩盖了20世纪世界最大的悲剧之一,那就是伊斯兰教、前现代主义的宗教结构在许多现代意识形态的压力下完全崩溃了。

And was reconstituted.

并被重组。

Muslims started to reinvent--it's this kind of collapsed civilization that tried to restore itself by trying to assemble its symbolic fragments, tried to express themselves now in all of these new ideologies that they faced from Europe.

穆斯林开始重塑——正是这种崩溃的文明试图通过组装其象征碎片来恢复自身,试图在他们面临的来自欧洲的所有这些新意识形态中表达自己。

That's how he[?the hypothesized typical individual?--Econlib Ed.] ended up with a weirdly, seemingly uniform understanding of Islam that's extremely widespread amongst Muslims: that Islam is about liberating Palestine, is about politics, is about civilizational struggle against the West.

这就是他[?假设的典型个体?--Econlib Ed.]最终对伊斯兰教产生了一种奇怪的、看似统一的理解,这种理解在穆斯林中极为普遍:伊斯兰教是关于解放巴勒斯坦的,是关于政治的,是关于反对西方的文明斗争的。

None of this existed before the 20th century.

这一切在20世纪之前都不存在。

It's one of the greatest tragedy that this could happen.

这是可能发生的最大悲剧之一。

This story, which I tell in many other essays, the reason I tell is not just to justify, or defend, or explain, actually, what I think had happened, but actually to warn that, if something at this scale could happen, it could happen to you, too.

我在许多其他文章中讲述了这个故事,我讲述的原因不仅仅是为了证明、捍卫或解释我认为发生的事情,而是实际上警告说,如果这种规模的事情可能发生,它也可能发生在你身上。

If you're American, if you're a Jew, who you are--your very language, you could completely have this amnesia.

如果你是美国人,如果你是犹太人,你是谁——你的语言,你可能会完全失忆。

Your language completely transforms.

你的语言彻底改变了。

Who you are is completely lost by these ideologies that completely warp the human mind.

这些完全扭曲人类思想的意识形态完全迷失了你是谁。

And you can become something monstrous and ugly.

你可能会变得可怕而丑陋。

And you're completely unaware of it.

而你却完全没有意识到这一点。

Which is sadly--we see some beginnings of this happening in the United States and a lot of American institutions.

可悲的是,我们看到这种情况在美国和许多美国机构中已经开始发生。

So even this very large story, I tell now as an American, as a cautionary tale to America, because we are on this path .

因此,即使是这个非常大的故事,我现在作为一个美国人讲述,作为对美国的一个警示故事,因为我们正走在这条道路上。

Palestine now is as much our cause as it is the Middle East's.

现在,巴勒斯坦问题既是我们的事业,也是中东的事业。

Our universities are just as bad as a lot of the universities in Cairo and Lebanon.

我们的大学和开罗和黎巴嫩的许多大学一样糟糕。

Russ Roberts: Uh, that was a cheerful note to close on.

拉斯·罗伯茨:呃,这是一个令人愉快的结尾。

My guest today has been--I hope you're wrong, but you might not be.

今天我的客人是——我希望你错了,但你可能不会。

Hussein Aboubakr Mansour: Me, too.

侯赛因·阿布巴克尔·曼苏尔:我也是。

Thank you.

谢谢。

I have children.

我有孩子。

I hope I'm wrong.

我希望我错了。

Russ Roberts: Yeah.

拉斯·罗伯茨:是的。

My guest today has been Hussein Aboubakr Mansour.

今天我的客人是侯赛因·阿布巴克尔·曼苏尔。

Hussein, thanks for being part of EconTalk.

侯赛因,感谢您参与 EconTalk。

Hussein Aboubakr Mansour: Thank you, Russ.

侯赛因·阿布巴克尔·曼苏尔: 谢谢你,拉斯。

中文为机器翻译,仅供参考。