巴菲特就可以取笑女性吗？

When Warren Buffett was interviewed on CNBC last week about Unilever’s rejection of a bid from Kraft, he told a funny story. Or rather, he told a story he thought funny. He looked at the young woman doing the interview and asked if she knew the difference between a diplomat and a lady. No, Becky Quick replied.

不久前，联合利华(Unilever)拒绝了卡夫(Kraft)的收购要约，沃伦•巴菲特(Warren Buffett)就此接受了美国财经新闻频道CNBC的采访，其间巴菲特先生讲了一个有趣的故事。或者说，是一个他觉得有趣的故事。他看着采访他的年轻女士，问她知不知道一名外交官和一位女士的区别。不知道，贝基•奎克(Becky Quick)回答。

Eyes twinkling with amusement, Mr Buffett proceeded to tell her that if a diplomat says maybe, he means no. But “if a lady says no, she means maybe. And if she says maybe, she means yes. And if she says yes” — at this point Mr Buffett’s eyes disappeared into his grinning face — “she’s no lady!”

巴菲特先生高兴得两眼放光，他接着告诉对方，如果一个外交官说“也许”，那他的意思其实是“不”。但“如果一位女士说‘不’，那她的意思则是‘也许’。而如果她说‘也许’，那她其实是想说‘是’。如果她说‘是’”——说到这儿，巴菲特先生的眼睛笑成了一条缝——“那她就不是女人!”

The camera angle broadened to take in the face of the interviewer, who was staring at him in horror with her mouth locked into a smile. The joke was not funny. Even in the universe of unfunny sexist jokes this one was particularly crass.

这时镜头里也出现了采访者的脸，她惊愕地盯着巴菲特先生，笑容僵在脸上。这个笑话并不好笑。即使在无聊的性别歧视笑话大全中，它也尤为拙劣。

Yet Mr Buffett got away with it. Most newspapers (including this one) did not see fit to mention his ill-advised pleasantry. Fortune magazine merely referred to the “strange analogy” that he had used to explain the response of Unilever to the bid. On Twitter, the global breeding ground for easy moral outrage, very few people seemed to care that the man who runs one of the largest and most respected companies in the world had just told a joke that could be construed as making light of rape. A couple of people tweeted that Warren Buffett was a chauvinist pig, but that was about it.

然而巴菲特先生却并未因此受到指摘。多数媒体(包括本报)都认为对他这个欠考虑的玩笑不宜再提。《财富》(Fortune)杂志仅仅提到这是个“奇怪的比喻”，巴菲特只是想借此解释联合利华对收购的反应。在Twitter上，全世界的人都能轻易地做出道德审判，但却很少有人关注巴菲特先生不久前讲的这个无异于不把强暴当回事的笑话，而讲这个笑话的人却掌管着全世界最大、最令人尊崇的一家公司。倒是有几个人在Twitter上说沃伦•巴菲特是大男子主义，但也仅此而已。

Five years ago Sebastián Piñera, then president of Chile, made the same unfunny joke — only then all hell broke loose. The story was picked up by the BBC. Politicians queued up to denounce him, calling the joke “sexist and prehistoric”. One of them said Mr Piñera had brought shame on the nation and put back the cause of women by two decades.

5年前，智利总统塞巴斯蒂安•皮涅拉(Sebastián Piñera)，也说过同样无聊的笑话——那时候引起了轩然大波。BBC报道了这件事。政客们也竞相谴责他，说他的笑话“既带有性别歧视又泥古不化”。其中一位说皮涅拉先生使他们国家蒙羞还让妇女事业倒退了20年。

Lesser transgressions have landed people in an even bigger pickle. When Sir Tim Hunt, the Nobel Prize-winning scientist, said the trouble with having girls in labs was that you fell in love with them and they cried when criticised, he was made to resign. As was Kevin Roberts of Saatchi& Saatchi when he said there was no longer a problem with gender diversity in advertising. So why was Mr Buffett allowed to get away with it?

有的人在言语上的过失还没有这么严重，但却由此身陷更棘手的窘境。获得过诺贝尔奖的科学家蒂姆•亨特爵士(Sir Tim Hunt)曾说过，和女孩们共处实验室的麻烦就是你会爱上她们，以及她们受到批评时会哭哭啼啼，蒂姆•亨特因此被迫辞职。盛世长城(Saatchi & Saatchi)的凯文•罗伯茨(Kevin Roberts)也有同样的遭遇，罗伯茨曾说，在广告业中性别多样性已不再是问题。所以为什么巴菲特先生可以安然无事?

It could be that the bar for unacceptable tastelessness in the US has just got a lot higher. By comparison with what other prominent old men have been saying recently, Mr Buffett’s joke looks tame. Set against Donald Trump’s assertion that “If Ivanka weren’t my daughter, perhaps I’d be dating her”, it hardly seems creepy at all.

或许，在美国，人们如今对于粗俗的言论，在接受程度上比以往高了许多。和另一些声名显赫的年长男士近来说的某些言论相比，巴菲特先生的笑话还算温和。比起唐纳德•特朗普(Donald Trump)所说的“如果伊万卡(Ivanka)不是我女儿，也许我会和她约会”，巴菲特先生的玩笑看来一点儿也不值得大惊小怪。

Or it could be that we forgive the Sage of Omaha because he is 86. He grew up in a different time when sexism had not yet been invented. No doubt the young Buffett and his friends often innocently joked with one another that a “lady’s” no meant maybe — without anyone seeing any harm in it.

又或许，我们之所以不跟这位“奥马哈圣人”(Sage of Omaha)计较是因为他已经86岁高龄了。他成长的年代和现在完全不同，那时还没有性别歧视之说。年轻的巴菲特肯定经常若无其事地和朋友们互相开着这样的玩笑，一位“女士口中”的“不”其实是“也许”的意思——谁也没觉得这当中含有冒犯之意。

Yet this excuse will not do. Age is only a defence for oldies in their dotage. When your ancient uncle from the comfort of his Bath chair says something sexist or racist it is perfectly reasonable to let it go, on the grounds that he is out of the swing of it, that little is to be gained from correcting him, and often much to be lost from making him upset.

然而，这个借口烂极了。岁数只是老糊涂们的托辞。当你年老的叔叔，舒舒服服地坐在带篷的轮椅上，说了什么带有性别歧视或种族歧视的话时，你大可以不理他，因为他已经和现实脱节了，纠正他不会有什么效果，而且把他惹毛了常常会得不偿失。

But it is not like that with Mr Buffett. He is a public figure whose folksy language is often held up as an example. He controls an unconscionable amount of money — his Berkshire Hathaway fund is worth about $450bn. If he is out of touch with modern ways it matters very much indeed. Either he should get in touch, or he should retire.

但巴菲特先生不同。他是公众人物，他那些接地气的言论经常被奉为榜样。他掌管着巨额的资金——由他创立的伯克希尔•哈撒韦(Berkshire Hathaway)基金市值约有4500亿美元。如果他与现代观念隔绝，肯定会有很大的影响。他要么紧跟时代，要么退休。

But I suspect the true reason we forgive Mr Buffett is the most inexcusable of all. It is simply because he is Warren Buffett. I can think of no business leader who has been so worshipped for quite so long, ever, anywhere, with the possible exception of Joseph Rowntree and George Cadbury, both of whom went on being adored into their 80s.

然而我觉得，人们原谅巴菲特先生的真正原因其实才是最不可宽恕的一点。只是因为他是沃伦•巴菲特。我想不出，何时何地，有哪位商业领袖被人们这般崇拜了如此之久，也许约瑟夫•朗特里(Joseph Rowntree)和乔治•卡德伯里(George Cadbury)是例外，他们两位到80多岁依然深受爱戴。

People feel they need Mr Buffett, now more than ever. We are all so invested in his cuddly, homespun persona, and so revere his judgment that when he starts making hideous sexist jokes, there is only one thing for it. To pretend we have not heard.

人们觉得他们需要巴菲特先生，特别是现在。他可爱、朴素的形象在我们的脑海中根深蒂固，并且我们敬畏他的判断，所以当他说起低俗的、带有性别歧视意味的笑话时，我们只有一个选择。装作没听见。