PBS高端访谈:音乐人卡哈内引发的火车政治

Judy Woodruff: Songwriter Gabriel Kahane wrote his latest album, "Book of Travelers," while riding a train across the United States following the 2016 presidential election. In tonight's Brief But Spectacular episode, in the wake of this week's midterm elections, he offers a solution to better understanding those whose political views differ from our own.

Gabriel Kahane: So, I had written maybe a dozen-and-a-half songs leading up to the 2016 election. I began to feel that I needed to leave behind the digital world. I bought a series of train tickets for this kind of circuitous¹, looping trip around the continental² U.S., which amounted to 8,980 miles. And I decided³ that, regardless of the outcome of the election, I was going to leave the morning after, just to talk to strangers, leave my phone at home, leave the Internet behind, and try to have a kind of unmediated encounter with a side of America that I didn't really know. I set some ground rules for myself when I was on the train. One of the things that I was really interested in doing wasn't arguing with people. And I think that that is sort of one of the fundamental problems that we face right now, is this idea we all sort of have contempt for the other side. We say, well, I just can't engage with that person. And there were some cases where I failed, and I would then go back to my sleeper⁴ car and write in my journal: You argued. You said you weren't going to do that. The Amtrak dining car is an incredibly unusual space. I was having meals with somewhere between six and nine strangers a day. The dining car creates this atmosphere of social adjacencies, ways in which people encounter one another that they wouldn't in their regular lives, and particularly not in their digital lives. I met an incredible array of people. I met truck drivers, software engineers. I met three siblings⁵ in their 60s who are in a family band. Trains in America are inefficient⁶ in a way that few other train systems are. In that inefficiency⁷, there's a space in which to kind of reconnect with a slower pace of life, a slower pace of thought. And one of the things that I thought about quite a bit on this trip when I was looking out at mountains in Montana, looking at the plains in North Dakota, was the way that we have grown to believe that something that is more efficient is necessarily better. As we become more blindly enamored of things that are efficient, without kind of interrogating⁸ what is being lost, I think that we send ourselves into both a more divided space, but also a space that's less able to grapple with complex truth. There are no simple solutions to the kinds of intractable problems that we face as a country, whether we're talking about systemic racism⁹, automation, the hollowing out of manufacturing jobs. All of these are incredibly complicated problems, in an era where our attention spans are shorter, where we're constantly looking at a screen, but not taking time to think about someone else's experience. And I think there's a real consequence to not having that space to just sit silently and think, what is it to be in this other person's body? And that you know, that's something which I think is a cause for grave concern. My name is Gabriel Kahane, and this is my Brief But Spectacular take on why trains in America are the road to radical¹⁰ empathy.

Judy Woodruff: Now we know. And you can find additional Brief But Spectacular episodes on our Web site. That's PBS.org/NewsHour/Brief.

朱迪·伍德拉夫：作曲家加布里埃尔·卡哈内创作的最后一个专辑名为《旅行者的列车》。当时他正乘坐火车游历美国，那时刚刚举行完2016年的总统大选。今晚的《简短而精彩》播出之际也正值本周中期选举结束之后，加布里埃尔·卡哈内为我们更好地理解与普通人政见不同的人是怎样的。

加布里埃尔·卡哈内：在2016年大选开始前，我写了大概有18首歌。我开始觉得我需要将数码世界抛诸脑后。我买了很多张火车票，就是为了以这种间接迂回的方式游历美国大陆，总里程达8980英里。然后我决定，无论大选结果怎样，第二天早上我一定要离开，我要跟陌生人对话，我要把手机丢在家里，也不上网。我要试着接触我未曾见过的美国。我坐火车的时候给自己设定了几个基本原则。我尤其喜欢做的一件事情并不是跟人理论。我觉得我们现在面临的基本问题之一，就是总是轻视自己的对立面。我们总是会说，我跟那个人对付不来。有些时候，我也有这样的时候。这时候，我就会走回我的卧铺车厢，然后在日志中写下这样的话：你理论过了，你也说过你不会再做这样的事了。美国货车上的餐车是一个很不可思议的地方。每天，我都会和大概6-9个人一起用餐。餐车会给人营造一种社交连接的感觉，让人们可以遇到一些平时生活中不会遇到的人，甚至在网络世界里也不会遇到的人。我见过很多人，比如卡车司机、软件工程师等等。我见过60岁的三胞胎组成了家庭乐队。从某种方面来说，美国货车的效率很低，与其他的火车系统无法相提并论。但正是在这样一种低效之下，反而多出了一个空间，让我们可以与慢节奏的生活重新连接，从而得以进行慢节奏的思考。当我在旅途中望着蒙大拿州群山、看着北达科他州平原的时候，我思索了一件事情：越长大，我们越觉得：效率越高的事情就越好。而随着我们越来越迷恋高效的事情，我们就会越不会去想是否在过程中失去了什么。我觉得这样的做法让我们把自己困在了一个分隔的空间里，无法去思考复杂的现实。我们的国家面临着很多棘手的问题，这些问题没有简单的解决方案。比如，如何处理已经根植于很多人心中的种族主义、自动化技术、制造业的空洞化，等等。这些都是很复杂的问题，毕竟在当前的时代里，我们的注意广度变得更短了。因为我们总是盯着电脑屏幕，而不会花时间去思考某个人的个人经历。我觉得如果没有空间能静坐下来思考其他人的想法，是会有严重后果的。我觉得这个是一个值得深深担忧的问题。我是加布里埃尔·卡哈内，这就是我本期带来的《简短而精彩》，这是我在美国乘坐火车时候换位思考的感受。

朱迪·伍德拉夫：感谢您的分享。观众朋友们可以在我们的官网上看到其他期的视频，网址是PBS.org/NewsHour/Brief。

1 circuitous   

adj.迂回的路的，迂曲的，绕行的

参考例句：

• They took a circuitous route to avoid reporters.他们绕道避开了记者。
• The explanation was circuitous and puzzling.这个解释很迂曲，让人困惑不解。

2 continental   

adj.大陆的，大陆性的，欧洲大陆的

参考例句：

• A continental climate is different from an insular one.大陆性气候不同于岛屿气候。
• The most ancient parts of the continental crust are 4000 million years old.大陆地壳最古老的部分有40亿年历史。

3 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

4 sleeper   

n.睡眠者，卧车，卧铺

参考例句：

• I usually go up to London on the sleeper. 我一般都乘卧车去伦敦。
• But first he explained that he was a very heavy sleeper. 但首先他解释说自己睡觉很沉。

5 siblings   

n.兄弟，姐妹( sibling的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• A triplet sleeps amongst its two siblings. 一个三胞胎睡在其两个同胞之间。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• She has no way of tracking the donor or her half-siblings down. 她没办法找到那个捐精者或她的兄弟姐妹。 来自时文部分

6 inefficient   

adj.效率低的，无效的

参考例句：

• The inefficient operation cost the firm a lot of money.低效率的运作使该公司损失了许多钱。
• Their communication systems are inefficient in the extreme.他们的通讯系统效率非常差。

7 inefficiency   

n.无效率，无能；无效率事例

参考例句：

• Conflict between management and workers makes for inefficiency in the workplace. 资方与工人之间的冲突使得工厂生产效率很低。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• This type of inefficiency arises because workers and management are ill-equipped. 出现此种低效率是因为工人与管理层都能力不足。 来自《简明英汉词典》

8 interrogating   

n.询问技术v.询问( interrogate的现在分词 )；审问；（在计算机或其他机器上）查询

参考例句：

• She was no longer interrogating but lecturing. 她已经不是在审问而是在教训人了。 来自辞典例句
• His face remained blank, interrogating, slightly helpless. 他的面部仍然没有表情，只带有询问的意思，还有点无可奈何。 来自辞典例句

9 racism   

n.民族主义；种族歧视(意识)

参考例句：

• He said that racism is endemic in this country.他说种族主义在该国很普遍。
• Racism causes political instability and violence.种族主义道致政治动荡和暴力事件。

10 radical   

n.激进份子，原子团，根号；adj.根本的，激进的，彻底的

参考例句：

• The patient got a radical cure in the hospital.病人在医院得到了根治。
• She is radical in her demands.她的要求十分偏激。