听力课堂TED音频栏目主要包括TED演讲的音频MP3及中英双语文稿，供各位英语爱好者学习使用。本文主要内容为演讲MP3+双语文稿:我们为什么把经济危机归咎于个人？，希望你会喜欢！

【演讲者及介绍】Liene Ozoliņa

Liene Ozoliņa教社会学并研究后社会政治与文化。

【演讲主题】我们为什么把经济危机归咎于个人？Why do we blame individuals for economic crises

【中英文字幕】

翻译者psjmz mz 校对者FANG DAN

It was a cold, sunny March day. I was walking along the street in Riga. I remember the winter was slowly coming to an end. There was still some snow around here and there, but the pavement was already clear and dry. If you've lived in Riga, you will know that feeling of relief that the first signs of spring bring, and you no longer have to trudge through that slushy mix of snow and mud on the streets. So there I am, enjoying my stroll, as I suddenly notice a stencil on the pavement in front of me, a graffiti: white letters painted on these dark grey bricks. It says, "Where is your responsibility?"

在某个寒冷、 阳光灿烂的三月天里， 我走在里加的街道上。 我记得冬天慢慢地结束了。 周围还有一些积雪， 但路面已经非常干净了。 如果你生活在里加， 你就能体会到春天的第一个迹象 带来的那种轻松感， 并且你再也不用在遍布积雪的 泥泞街道上跋涉了。 那天，我走在街上， 享受着闲庭信步， 突然注意到前面 地砖上的一块图案， 那是一片涂鸦： 灰色的砖块上 有一些白色的字母。 上面写道： “你的责任在哪里？”

The question stopped me in my tracks. As I'm standing there considering its meaning, I notice I'm standing outside the Riga Municipality Social Welfare Department. So it appears that the author of this graffiti, whoever it is, is asking this question to people coming to apply for social assistance.

这个问题使我不禁停住了脚步。 于是，我站在原地， 开始思考着它的含义。 我注意到自己正站在 里加市社会福利部外面。 似乎这个涂鸦的作者—— 不管他是谁—— 正在向前来申请社会福利的人 询问这个问题。

That winter, I had been doing research on the aftermath of the financial crisis in Latvia. When the Global Financial Crisis erupted in 2008, Latvia got hit hard as a small, open economy. To balance the books, the Latvian government chose a strategy of internal devaluation. Now, in essence, that meant drastically reducing public budget spending, so, slashing public sector workers' wages, shrinking civil service, cutting unemployment benefits and other social assistance, raising taxes.

那个冬天， 我一直在研究拉脱维亚 金融危机的后果。 当 2008 年全球金融危机爆发时， 作为一个小规模的开放经济体， 拉脱维亚遭受了重创。 为了平衡收支， 拉脱维亚政府选择了 内部贬值的战略。 从本质上说，就是 大幅削减公共预算支出， 比如，削减公共部门的工资， 缩减社会服务， 削减失业福利和其他社会援助， 加税。

My mother had been working as a history teacher her whole life. The austerity for her meant seeing her salary cut by 30 percent all of a sudden. And there were many in a situation like hers or worse. The costs of the crisis were put on the shoulders of ordinary Latvians.

我母亲当了一辈子历史老师。 紧缩就意味着， 突然之间她的薪水 减少了 30%。 很多人的情况跟她相似或者更糟。 这场危机的代价需要 拉脱维亚的普通百姓来承受。

As a result of the crisis and the austerity, the Latvian economy shrank by 25 percent in a two-year period. Only Greece suffered an economic contraction of a comparable scale. Yet, while Greeks were out in the streets for months staging continuous, often violent protests in Athens, all was quiet in Riga. Prominent economists were fighting in the columns of "The New York Times" about this curious extreme Latvian experiment of this austerity regime, and they were watching on in disbelief how the Latvian society was putting up with it.

因为这场危机和紧缩， 拉脱维亚经济 在两年内萎缩了 25%。 只有希腊的经济紧缩程度 达到了同样的规模。 然而，当希腊人走上雅典的街头， 进行了长达数月的 暴力抗议活动时， 里加却一片静悄悄。 著名的经济学家 在《纽约时报》的专栏上 争论起拉脱维亚这种奇怪的 极端紧缩实验， 他们难以置信地看着 拉脱维亚社会 是如何默默承受这一切的。

I was studying in London at the time, and I remember the Occupy movement there and how it was spreading from city to city, from Madrid to New York to London, the 99 percent against the one percent. You know the story. Yet when I arrived in Riga, there were no echoes of the Occupy here. Latvians were just putting up with it. They "swallowed the toad," as the local saying goes.

我当时正在伦敦学习， 我记得那里的占领运动 如何从一个城市蔓延到另一个城市， 从马德里到纽约，再到伦敦， 99% 的人反抗 1% 的人。 大家都知道这些事件的背景。 然而当我到达里加时， 这里没有一丁点“占领”的迹象。 拉脱维亚人已经接受了这个事实。 正如当地谚语所说， 他们“吞下了癞蛤蟆（自食苦果）”。

For my doctoral research, I wanted to study how the state-citizen relationship was changing in Latvia in the post-Soviet era, and I had chosen the unemployment office as my research site. And as I arrived there in that autumn of 2011, I realized, "I am actually witnessing firsthand how the effects of crises are playing out, and how those worst affected by it, people who have lost their jobs, are reacting to it."

为了我的博士研究， 我想去研究后苏联时代 拉脱维亚的国家与公民关系 发生了怎样的变化， 我选择了失业办公室作为 我的研究地点。 当我在 2011 年秋天到达那里时， 我意识到：“我其实是在亲自见证 危机是如何产生影响的， 以及那些受影响最严重的人， 那些失去工作的人 是如何响应的。”

So I started interviewing people I met at the unemployment office. They were all registered as job seekers and hoping for some help from the state. Yet, as I was soon discovering, this help was of a particular kind. There was some cash benefit, but mostly state assistance came in the form of various social programs, and one of the biggest of these programs was called "Competitiveness-Raising Activities." It was, in essence, a series of seminars that all of the unemployed were encouraged to attend. So I started attending these seminars with them. And a number of paradoxes struck me.

于是我开始采访我在 失业办公室遇到的人。 他们都是注册的失业者， 希望得到国家的帮助。 然而，我很快发现， 这是种特殊的帮助。 会有一些现金补助， 但绝大部分国家救助 是以各种社会项目的形式呈现， 其中一种最大的项目叫做 “竞争力提升活动”。 从本质上说，这是一系列 鼓励失业者去参与的研讨会。 于是我开始和他们一起 参与这些研讨会。 然而，有一些悖论 开始困扰着我。

So, imagine: the crisis is still ongoing, the Latvian economy is contracting, hardly anyone is hiring, and there we are, in this small, brightly lit classroom, a group of 15 people, working on lists of our personal strengths and weaknesses, our inner demons, that we are told are preventing us from being more successful in the labor market.

想象一下： 危机仍在继续， 拉脱维亚经济正在萎缩， 人才市场一片萧条， 而就在这个 灯火通明的小教室里， 我们 15 人的团队 正在研究每个人的优点和缺点， 我们的内在恶魔， 那些我们被告知会阻碍 我们在劳动市场上 成功的因素。

As the largest local bank is being bailed out and the costs of this bailout are shifted onto the shoulders of the population, we are sitting in a circle and learning how to breathe deeply when feeling stressed.

当时，当地最大的银行 正在接受救助， 且救助的成本 被转移到了普通人身上， 而我们也围坐在一起， 学习在感到沮丧压抑时 如何深呼吸。

As home mortgages are being foreclosed and thousands of people are emigrating, we are told to dream big and to follow our dreams.

随着贷款抵押的房屋 正在被法院拍卖， 成千上万的人正在移民， 我们被告知要有远大的梦想， 要追随我们的梦想。

As a sociologist, I know that social policies are an important form of communication between the state and the citizen. The message of this program was, to put it in the words of one of the trainers, "Just do it." She was, of course, citing Nike. So symbolically, the state was sending a message to people out of work that you need to be more active, you need to work harder, you need to work on yourself, you need to overcome your inner demons, you need to be more confident -- that somehow, being out of work was their own personal failure. The suffering of the crisis was treated as this individual experience of stress to be managed in one's own body through deep and mindful breathing.

作为社会学家， 我知道那种社会政策 是国家和公民之间 沟通的重要方式。 这个项目传递的信息 用一个培训者的话来说就是， “只管去做。” 显然，她是在引用耐克的广告词。 所以象征性的，国家 给失业者传递的信息是， 你需要更加积极， 你需要更为努力， 你需要靠自己， 你需要克服心魔， 你需要更有信心—— 失业多多少少 也是他们个人的失败。 这场危机的痛苦 被视作可以被个人的身体 通过深度而专注的呼吸 来管理的个人经历。

These types of social programs that emphasize individual responsibility have become increasingly common across the world. They are part of the rise of what sociologist Loïc Wacquant calls the "neoliberal Centaur state." Now, the centaur, as you might recall, is this mythical creature in ancient Greek culture, half human, half beast. It has this upper part of a human and the lower part of a horse. So the Centaur state is a state that turns its human face to those at the top of the social ladder while those at the bottom are being trampled over, stampeded. So top income earners and large businesses can enjoy tax cuts and other supportive policies, while the unemployed, the poor are made to prove themselves worthy for the state's help, are morally disciplined, are stigmatized as irresponsible or passive or lazy or often criminalized.

这些强调个人责任的社会项目 在全球变得日渐普遍。 部分是因为社会学家华康德 （Loïc Wacquant）所提出的 “新自由主义的半人马。” 半人马，如果各位还记得， 是古希腊文化中的神秘生物， 半人，半马。 上半身是人，下半身是马。 所以半人马的国家， 就是指那些 把它的人脸 面对着社会上层阶级， 而那些处于底层的人 则被践踏的国家。 于是高收入者和大公司 可以享受减税和其他支持性政策， 而失业者和穷人 则被要求去证明 他们值得国家援助， 证明他们的道德自律。 他们也常常被污蔑为 不负责任、消极、懒惰， 或常常因违法行为被定罪。

In Latvia, we've had such a Centaur state model firmly in place since the '90s. Take, for example, the flat income tax that we had in place up until this year that has been benefiting the highest earners, while one quarter of the population keeps living in poverty. And the crisis and the austerity has made these kinds of social inequalities worse. So while the capital of the banks and the wealthy has been protected, those who lost the most were taught lessons in individual responsibility.

在拉脱维亚， 自上世纪 90 年代以来， 这种半人半马的国家模式 就已经存在了。 例如，我们在今年之前 一直实行的单一所得税 一直让高收入者受益， 四分之一的人口 仍然生活在贫困中。 经济危机和财政紧缩使得 这种社会不平等更加严重。 所当银行和富人资本得到保护时， 失去最多的人 反而被教导承担个人责任。

Now, as I was talking to people who I met at these seminars, I was expecting them to be angry. I was expecting them to be resisting these lessons in individual responsibility. After all, the crisis was not their fault, yet they were bearing the brunt of it. But as people were sharing their stories with me, I was struck again and again by the power of the idea of responsibility.

那么当我和在这些研讨会上 遇到的人交谈时， 我预期他们会愤怒。 我预期他们 会抵制这些关于个人责任的培训。 毕竟，危机不是他们的错， 然而他们受到的冲击却最大。 但随着人们和我们分享他们的故事， 我一次次被责任这种力量 所震撼。

One of the people I met was Žanete. She had been working for 23 years teaching sewing and other crafts at the vocational school in Riga. And now the crisis hits, and the school is closed as part of the austerity measures. The educational system restructuring was part of a way of saving public money. And 10,000 teachers across the country lose their jobs, and Žanete is one of them. And I know from what she's been telling me that losing her job has put her in a desperate situation; she's divorced, she has two teenage children that she's the sole provider for. And yet, as we are talking, she says to me that the crisis is really an opportunity. She says, "I turn 50 this year. I guess life has really given me this chance to look around, to stop, because all these years I've been working nonstop, had no time to pause. And now I have stopped, and I've been given an opportunity to look at everything and to decide what it is that I want and what it is that I don't want. All this time, sewing, sewing, some kind of exhaustion."

我遇到的其中一个人是扎纳特。 她在里加的职业学校 教缝纫和其他工艺有 23 个年头了。 受到危机的冲击后， 学校作为紧缩措施的一部分被关闭。 教育系统重组是节省 公共资金的一种方式。 全国有 1 万名教师 失去了工作， 扎纳特就是其中一员。 从她的描述中我了解到， 失业把她推到了绝望的境地； 她离婚了，有两个 10 多岁的孩子 需要她一个人抚养。 然而，随着我们交谈的深入， 她却说，这场危机真是个机会。 她说，“我今年50岁了。 我猜生活是想给我这个机会 停下来，去看看周围， 因为这些年来 我一直无休地工作， 没有时间暂停一下。 如今我停下来了， 我有了这个机会去看看 这一切，并决定 什么是我想要的， 以及什么是我不想要的。 一直以来都是缝呀，缝呀， 真让人精疲力竭。“

So Žanete is made redundant after 23 years. But she's not thinking about protesting. She's not talking about the 99 percent against the one percent. She is analyzing herself. And she was thinking pragmatically of starting a small business out of her bedroom making these little souvenir dolls to sell to tourists.

于是在 23 年后， 扎纳特被裁员了。 但她没有考虑抗议。 她不谈 99% 对抗 1% 这些。 她在分析自己。 她很务实地 打算在自己的卧室里 做些小纪念品娃娃卖给游客。

I also met Aivars at the unemployment office. Aivars was in his late 40s, he had lost a job at the government agency overseeing road construction. To one of our meetings, Aivars brings a book he's been reading. It's called "Vaccination against Stress, or Psycho-energetic Aikido." Now, some of you might know that aikido is a form of martial art, so, psycho-energetic aikido. And Aivars tells me that after several months of reading and thinking and reflecting while being out of work, he has understood that his current difficulties are really his own doing. He says to me, "I created it myself. I was in a psychological state that was not good for me. If a person is afraid to lose their money, to lose their job, they start getting more stressed, more unsettled, more fearful. That's what they get."

我也在失业办公室遇见了埃瓦斯。 埃瓦斯年近 40， 他失去了政府机构 监督道路建设的工作。 在我们的某次会面上， 埃瓦斯带来了一本他正在阅读的书。 书名叫《压力的疫苗，心力的合气道》。 在座有些人可能知道， 合气道是一种武术， 所以，心力的合气道。 埃瓦斯告诉我，在经历失业后 数个月的阅读和反思后， 他理解了当下的困难 是他自找的。 他和我说， “这都是我咎由自取。 我处在了对自己 非常不利的心理状态中。 如果一个人害怕 失去金钱，失去工作， 他们会开始变得更加紧张， 更加不安，更加害怕。 而这就是后果。”

As I ask him to explain, he compares his thoughts poetically to wild horses running in all directions, and he says, "You need to be a shepherd of your thoughts. To get things in order in the material world, you need to be a shepherd of your thoughts, because it's through your thoughts that everything else gets orderly." "Lately," he says, "I have clearly understood that the world around me, what happens to me, people that enter in my life ... it all depends directly on myself." So as Latvia is going through this extreme economic experiment, Aivars says it's his way of thinking that has to change. He's blaming himself for what he's going through at the moment.

我让他详细解释一下， 于是他把自己的思想诗意地 比做四处奔跑的野马， 他说，“你需要引导自己的思想。 要让现实世界井然有序， 你就需要引导自己的思想， 因为只有通过你的思想， 其他一切才会变得井然有序。” “最近”，他说道， “我清楚地明白了， 我周围的世界， 发生在我身上的事情， 进入我生活的人… 全都取决于我自己。” 于是随着拉脱维亚正在经历 一场极端的经济实验， 埃瓦斯说， 他的思考模式也需要改变。 他在为自己正在经历的一切自责。

So taking responsibility is, of course, a good thing, right? It is especially meaningful and morally charged in a post-Soviet society, where reliance on the state is seen as this unfortunate heritage of the Soviet past. But when I listen to Žanete and Aivars and to others, I also thought how cruel this question is -- "Where is your responsibility?" -- how punishing. Because, it was working as a way of blaming and pacifying people who were hit worst by the crisis. So while Greeks were out in the streets, Latvians swallowed the toad, and many tens of thousands emigrated, which is another way of taking responsibility.

负责任当然是好事，对吧？ 在苏联解体后的社会里， 这种做法尤其有道德上的意义， 对国家的依赖被视为苏联过去的 不幸遗产。 但当我听着扎纳特和埃瓦斯 和其他人的聊天时， 我也在想， 这个问题真是太残酷了—— “你的责任在哪里？”—— 惩罚的意味如此明显。 因为这是责备和安抚 受危机冲击 影响最大的人群的一种方式。 所以当希腊人上街时， 拉脱维亚人“吞下了癞蛤蟆”， 成千上万的人移居国外， 另一种负起责任的方式。

So the language, the language of individual responsibility, has become a form of collective denial. As long as we have social policies that treat unemployment as individual failure but we don't have enough funding for programs that give people real skills or create workplaces, we are blind of the policymakers' responsibility. As long as we stigmatize the poor as somehow passive or lazy but don't give people real means to get out of poverty other than emigrating, we are in denial of the true causes of poverty. And in the meantime, we all suffer, because social scientists have shown with detailed statistical data that there are more people with both mental and physical health problems in societies with higher levels of economic inequality. So social inequality is apparently bad for not only those with least resources but for all of us, because living in a society with high inequality means living in a society with low social trust and high anxiety.

所以这个说辞，个人责任的说辞， 已经成为集体否认的一种方式。 只要我们的社会政策把失业率 视为个人失败， 而没有足够的资金来资助那些 能给人们提供真正技能的项目 或者创造工作机会， 我们就忽视了政策制定者的责任。 只要我们把穷人 说成是消极或懒惰的， 但除了移民外，不能给他们 脱贫的真正方法， 我们就是在否定贫穷的真正原因。 同时， 我们全都在承受经济危机的后果。 因为社会科学家提供的 详细统计数据显示， 在经济不平等的社会中， 人们的心理和生理问题更多。 所以社会不平等显然不仅仅 不利于资源最匮乏的人群， 对我们所有人也是如此， 因为生活在高度不平等的社会， 意味着生活在一个 低信任度及高焦虑的社会中。

So there we are. We're all reading self-help books, we try to hack our habits, we try to rewire our brains, we meditate. And it helps, of course, in a way. Self-help books help us feel more upbeat. Meditation can help us feel more connected to others spiritually. What I think we need is as much awareness of what connects us to one another socially, because social inequality hurts us all. So we need more compassionate social policies that are aimed less at moral education and more at promotion of social justice and equality.

所以我们就走到了今天这一步。 我们都在阅读自助指南， 我们努力改变习惯， 我们试图重构大脑， 我们冥想。 当然，在某种程度上 这样做确实有些帮助， 自助书籍帮助我们感觉乐观。 冥想能够帮助我们感觉在精神上 跟他人建立更紧密的链接。 我认为，我们需要的是 更多地意识到是什么 把我们联系在一起， 因为社会不平等 会伤害我们所有人。 因此，我们需要更多 富有同情心的社会政策， 更少地着眼于道德教育， 更多地倡导社会公平和平等。

Thank you.

谢谢。