英国卫报:你还在相信统计数据吗?(2)（在线收听）

Nowhere is this more vividly manifest than with immigration. The thinktank British Future has studied how best to win arguments in favour of immigration and multiculturalism. One of its main findings is that people often respond warmly to qualitative evidence, such as the stories of individual migrants and photographs of diverse communities. But statistics – especially regarding alleged benefits of migration to Britain's economy – elicit quite the opposite reaction. People assume that the numbers are manipulated and dislike the elitism of resorting to quantitative evidence. Presented with official estimates of how many immigrants are in the country illegally, a common response is to scoff. Far from increasing support for immigration, British Future found, pointing to its positive effect on GDP can actually make people more hostile to it. GDP itself has come to seem like a Trojan horse for an elitist liberal agenda. Sensing this, politicians have now largely abandoned discussing immigration in economic terms.

这一点在移民问题上表现得最为明显。智库“英国未来”研究了如何最好地为支持移民和多元文化主义赢得争论。它的主要发现之一是，人们通常对定性证据反应热烈，比如移民个体的故事和不同社区的照片。但统计数据——尤其是有关所谓移民给英国经济带来好处的数据——却引发了截然相反的反应。人们认为数字是被操纵的，不喜欢诉诸定量证据的精英主义。当被问及美国有多少非法移民时，一种普遍的反应是嘲笑。“英国未来”发现，指出移民对GDP的积极影响非但不会增加人们对移民的支持，反而会让人们对移民更加敌视。GDP本身似乎成了精英自由主义议程的特洛伊木马。意识到这一点，政客们现在基本上已经放弃了用经济术语来讨论移民问题。

All of this presents a serious challenge for liberal democracy. Put bluntly, the British government – its officials, experts, advisers and many of its politicians – does believe that immigration is on balance good for the economy. The British government did believe that Brexit was the wrong choice. The problem is that the government is now engaged in self-censorship, for fear of provoking people further.

所有这些都对自由民主提出了严峻的挑战。坦率地说，英国政府——包括政府官员、专家、顾问和许多政界人士——确实认为移民总的来说对经济有利。英国政府确实认为脱欧是一个错误的选择。问题在于，政府现在正在进行自我审查，以免进一步激怒人们。

This is an unwelcome dilemma. Either the state continues to make claims that it believes to be valid and is accused by sceptics of propaganda, or else, politicians and officials are confined to saying what feels plausible and intuitively true, but may ultimately be inaccurate. Either way, politics becomes mired in accusations of lies and cover-ups.

这是一个不受欢迎的两难境地。政府要么继续发表它认为有效的言论，并被怀疑论者指责为宣传，要么，政客和官员只能说一些看似可信、直观上真实的东西，但最终可能是不准确的。不管怎样，政治会陷入谎言和掩盖的指控中。