比起特朗普 人們對橄欖球比賽更感興趣

Last weekend, I travelled to the Adirondack Mountains of Hamilton County, in upstate New York, for a Columbus Day vacation.

上週末，我前往紐約北部漢密爾頓縣(Hamilton County)的阿第倫達克山脈(Adirondack Mountains)度過哥倫布日(Columbus Day)假期。

Since the second presidential debate was scheduled for Sunday night, I’d planned to watch it in a local bar, hoping to gauge audience reaction.

第二次總統候選人電視辯論安排在那個星期天的晚上，我計劃在一家當地酒吧觀看辯論，希望能看一看觀衆的反應。

Everybody I knew from New York was on tenterhooks about the debate — taking place just days aFTer the release of the shocking video in which Donald Trump spoke about groping women.

在紐約，我認識的每個人都坐立不安，等待着辯論開場——因爲就在僅僅數天前，唐納德•特朗普(Donald Trump)談論他猥褻婦女的經歷的令人震驚的視頻剛剛曝光。

I had unthinkingly assumed that, at this critical juncture in the election campaign, the debate would be airing on bar screens everywhere.

我想當然地以爲，在大選的這個關鍵節點，每個地方的酒吧屏幕上都會播放這場辯論。

Wrong.

我錯了。

As I visited the main drinking joints of the local town, I was repeatedly rebuffed.

當我來到鎮上的各家主要酒吧，我遭遇了一次又一次的生硬拒絕。

Finally, the burly, mustachioed owner of one of the bars explained why: the local bars had agreed that they would not tune their TVs to the debate since they did not want to create trouble — or stir up argument in a region where most people already backed the same party (Republican).

最終，一家酒吧留着捲曲八字鬍的魁梧店主向我解釋了原因：當地酒吧達成了一致，不會將電視調到播放辯論的頻道，因爲他們不想惹麻煩——也就是在一個多數人已經支持同一個政黨（共和黨）的地區挑起爭論。

In any case, there was more interest in an American football game scheduled that night, featuring the New York Giants, than Trump and the scandal about the video.

無論如何，比起特朗普和有關那段視頻的醜聞，人們對預定當晚播出的一場紐約巨人隊(New York Giants)的橄欖球比賽更感興趣。

It is a trivial tale.

這是個微不足道的小故事。

But it also points to a lesson that journalists, social scientists, writers and anyone who studies others for a living needs to remember: namely, that we are all creatures of our own cultural environment, prone to lazy assumptions and biases.

但它給記者、社會科學家、作家以及任何靠研究他人爲生的人指出了他們需要記住的一個教訓：即我們都是自身所在的文化環境的產物，容易受到想當然的假設和偏見的影響。

Sometimes these seem laughable (like my own naivety over the TV debate); sometimes they matter (most journalists completely failed to recognise the appeal of Trump until just before he won the Republican nomination).

有時這看起來很可笑（比如我自己在播放電視辯論上的想當然）；有時很重要（多數記者在特朗普贏得共和黨總統侯選人提名前完全沒有認識到他的吸引力）。

Either way, our biases are important.

無論是哪一種，我們的偏見很重要。

And that, in turn, suggests we could all benefit by looking at a concept that I first learnt about when I was studying anthropology: the dirty lens problem.

這進而暗示，我們都可以從研究一個概念中受益——髒鏡頭問題，這是我在學習人類學時首次接觸到的。

This dirty lens tag refers to the idea that when scientists peer at an object through a microscope, their view can be distorted by a clouded lens.

髒鏡頭指的是，科學家在通過顯微鏡觀察物體時，他們的視野可能會因爲模糊的鏡頭而扭曲。

In a laboratory, smudges and smears can usually be wiped away with a cloth.

在實驗室裏，可以用一塊布來擦去這些污漬。

But in the social sciences, the lens is our mind, ears and eyes, and it is harder to spot and remove our mental smudges.

但在社會科學中，鏡頭是我們的思想、耳朵和眼睛，發現並消除我們精神上的污漬更困難。

There is no cloth.

也沒有什麼可供擦去污漬的布。

Is there any solution? In anthropology classes at university, we were urged to do four things.

有什麼解決方法嗎？在大學裏的人類學課程中，我們被敦促去做4件事。

First, to take the obvious (but oft-forgotten) step of recognising that our lenses are dirty.

首先，採取顯而易見（但常常被忘記）的一步，認識到我們的鏡頭是髒的。

Second, to consciously note our biases.

第二，有意識地注意到我們自身的偏見。

Third, to attempt to offset these biases by trying to see the world from different perspectives; we must listen and look without preconception.

第三，嘗試通過從不同視角來看世界，從而抵消這些偏見；我們必須不帶任何先入之見地去聽去看。

Last but not least, to remember that our personal lens will never be perfectly clean, even if we take the first three steps.

最後，同樣重要的是，記住我們個人的鏡頭永遠不會絕對潔淨，哪怕我們做到了前三步。

We must be humble and remember the limits of knowledge.

我們必須保持謙遜，記住認識存在侷限。

(Or as I sometimes joke to colleagues: on a good day, we journalists probably get 40 per cent of the truth; but what keeps me going is that I think that the FT tends to get a much higher percentage than most of its rivals.)

（或者，就如我有時對同事開玩笑說：在好的情況下，我們記者很可能獲得了40%的真相；但讓我繼續前行的是，我認爲英國《金融時報》很可能比大多數競爭對手獲得了更高百分比的真相。

Putting this four-step mantra into practice is painfully hard.

把這四步真言付諸實踐是一件非常困難的事情。

One problem is that these days the media landscape — and the academic world — is so resource-constrained that it is difficult to find enough time to clean our lens.

一個難題是，近來媒體界——以及學術界——的資源都如此有限，以至於很難抽出足夠時間來清潔我們的鏡頭。

It is doubly hard when commentators and journalists are under pressure to perform (offer views) rather than absorb (listen quietly and patiently to what others say).

讓事情倍加艱難的是，評論員和記者還面臨着壓力，必須拿出表現（發表觀點）而不是吸收（安靜耐心地傾聽別人在說些什麼）。

And in today’s cyber-saturated age there is another problem: although our smartphones give us the illusion that we are all hyperconnected all of the time, in reality, there is an ever-present tendency to self-segregate into echo chambers, because we tend to choose our news from customised sources.

而在今天的網絡飽和時代，存在另外一個問題：儘管我們的智能手機讓我們產生了我們無時不刻都處於超連接狀態的錯覺，但現實是，在迴音室裏自我隔離的傾向越來越嚴重，因爲我們傾向於選擇定製新聞來源。

If you don’t agree with this, look at who you follow on Twitter or who your Facebook friends are — and consider how much this shapes your concept of the news.

如果你不認同這一點，看一看你在Twitter上關注了哪些人，或者你的Facebook朋友都是誰，然後想一想這在多大程度上塑造了你對新聞的概念。

Then try deliberately changing your electronic news sources for a week or replacing who you follow.

之後在一週時間裏試着有意識地改變你的電子新聞來源或者關注不同的人羣。

Difficult or not, we need to teach our kids — and ourselves — to think about our dirty lens.

無論困難與否，我們都需要教我們的孩子，以及我們自己，思考一下我們的髒鏡頭。

Periodically, we should try to embrace a completely different world view, or at least listen patiently to others.

我們應該定期嘗試接觸一種完全不同的世界觀，或者至少耐心地傾聽別人所說的話。

There is another principle that we need to remember: a decade ago, when the 2008 financial crisis hit, I decided (somewhat cynically) that the only way for a country to avoid a massive banking crisis was to have regular, small bank failures.

我們還需要記住一個原則：10年前，2008年金融危機來襲時，我（或多或少有些憤世嫉俗地）得出一個結論，一個國家避免大規模銀行業危機的唯一方法是時常經歷一些小規模的銀行倒閉。

Frequent, tiny failures are perhaps the only thing that really stop regulators and bankers from getting too complacent.

頻頻發生的小規模破產或許是唯一一件能真正阻止監管者和銀行家變得過於自滿的事情。

So too with our minds — and dirty lenses.

同樣的道理也適用於我們的思想——和髒鏡頭。

In that sense, then, I am grateful to those bars in Hamilton County — and the way they wrongfooted my assumptions on Sunday night.

因此，在這個意義上，漢密爾頓縣的那些酒吧，以及週日晚上他們讓我的假設落空的方式，都讓我心存感激。

As it happens, in the end I did find an establishment that was showing the debate.

事實上，最後我還是找到了一個播放那場電視辯論的地方。

But it was a hotel that catered to outsiders (like me.) It was still a fascinating, boisterous evening, and I learnt a lot.

但那是一家面向外來者（比如我）的酒店。那依然是一個迷人的、熱鬧的夜晚，我學到了很多。

But the lesson that will stay with me from that night is that we all need to check our lens — with all its biases or dirt.

但從那個晚上起，有個教訓將一直伴隨我，那就是我們都需要檢查一下自己的鏡頭——看看有沒有偏見或者塵土。

Particularly in this contentious election.

尤其是在這場有爭議的選舉中。