2023年经济学人 完美主义的陷阱（在线收听）

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    The enemy of the good

    优秀之敌

    The Perfection Trap. By Thomas Curran.

    完美陷阱。托马斯·柯伦著。

    In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story “The Birth-Mark”, a chemist called Aylmer marries a young woman, Georgiana, whose sole imperfection is a red blemish on her left cheek.

    在纳撒尼尔·霍桑的短篇小说《胎记》中，一位名叫艾尔默的化学家娶了一位名叫乔治安娜的年轻女子，她唯一的缺陷就是左脸颊上有一块红色斑点。

    He considers it a “fatal flaw”; she pleads with him to use his skills to remove it.

    艾尔默认为这是一个“致命的缺陷”，乔治安娜恳求他用他的化学能力祛除红斑。

    Stumbling on his journal, however, Georgiana is astonished to find it is a catalogue of scientific mishaps.

    然而，乔治亚娜偶然发现了艾尔默的日记，她惊讶地发现日记上记录的都是各种科学失败事件。

    Might his loathing of her birthmark stem from his professional disappointment?

    艾尔默对她胎记的厌恶难道是源于他在工作上的失意？

    At length Aylmer concocts a potion that has the desired effect—and promptly kills her.

    最后，艾尔默炮制了一种药水，这种药水达到了预期的效果，但也立即让乔治安娜丧命。

    Hawthorne’s 180-year-old tale illustrates the perils of perfectionism.

    霍桑的这篇180年前的故事说明了完美主义的危险。

    It is Thomas Curran’s starting-point for a study of what he calls a “hidden epidemic”.

    这也是托马斯·柯伦对他所说的“隐藏的流行病”的研究起点。

    He thinks the obsessive pursuit of ever higher standards, rather than propelling achievement, is mainly a scourge.

    柯伦认为，痴迷于追求更高的标准，而不是推动成就，在很大程度上是一种祸害。

    A social psychologist at the London School of Economics, he describes himself as “a recovering perfectionist”.

    作为伦敦政治经济学院的社会心理学家，他将自己描述为“一个正在康复的完美主义者”。

    Drawing on both academic research and his own experiences of “deficit thinking”, he makes a vigorous case, albeit one occasionally marked by cliché (he sees his younger self as a “chin-stroking, cardigan-wearing intellectual”).

    根据学术研究和他自己的“缺陷思维”经历，他提出了有力的论据，尽管偶尔有俗套的地方(他认为自己年轻时是一个“摸着下巴、穿着针织开衫的知识分子”)。

    Mr Curran distinguishes between three sorts of perfectionism.

    柯伦区分了三种完美主义。

    The first, which looks inward, is the relentless self-scolding of the workaholic or punctilious student.

    第一种是向内的，是工作狂或刻苦学生的严厉自责。

    A second version, directed towards others, is commonly found in bosses who have unrealistic expectations of their staff and decry their supposed failings (he cites Steve Jobs as an example).

    第二种是指向他人的，通常出现在那些对员工抱有不切实际的期望，并强烈批评员工的错误的老板身上(他举了史蒂夫·乔布斯的例子)。

    The third and most troublesome kind is the form imputed to society: “an all-encompassing belief that everybody, at all times, expects us to be perfect”.

    第三种也是最麻烦的一种，是将完美主义归因于社会：“一种包含一切的信念，认为所有人在所有时候都期望我们是完美的”。

    Its victims tend to feel lonely; often they harm themselves and harbour thoughts of suicide.

    这种完美主义的受害者往往感到孤独，他们经常伤害自己，并怀有自杀的想法。

    Having noted the ways in which this pathology inflames vulnerabilities and erodes resilience, Mr Curran suggests some causes.

    注意到这种病态心理如何让人变得更脆弱性并削弱人们的韧性后，柯伦提出了导致完美主义的一些原因。

    These include a lack of job security, neurotic supervision by helicopter parents and the gaudy blandishments of advertising, which fuel consumption and anxiety.

    这些原因包括缺乏工作稳定感、直升机父母的神经质监督，以及加剧消费和焦虑的花言巧语的广告。

    “The very fabric of this economy”, he claims, “is woven from our discontent.”

    “这种经济的基本结构，”他称，“就是用我们的不满之情编织而成的。”

    Inevitably he blames social media, which inundate users with images of finely sculpted bodies, flawless outfits, ambrosial holidays and exquisite weddings.

    不可避免地，柯伦将此归咎于社交媒体，社交媒体让用户淹没在雕塑般的优美身材、完美的穿搭、奢华优裕的度假和精致的婚礼图片之中。

    A less familiar culprit is Don Hamachek, an American psychologist, who in the 1970s coined the term “normal perfectionism”, thereby legitimising morbid self-criticism, says Mr Curran.

    柯伦还表示，另一个不太为人所知的罪魁祸首是美国心理学家唐·哈马切克，他在20世纪70年代创造了“正常的完美主义”一词，从而使病态的自我批评变得合理。

    He even reproaches Barack Obama for enjoining young people to learn from their mistakes.

    柯伦甚至指责贝拉克·奥巴马要求年轻人从错误中吸取教训。

    Instead, he says, failures should be “allowed to simply wash through us as a joyous reminder of what it means to be a fallible human”.

    他说，相反，应该“让失败从生活中流过，愉快地提醒我们，人无完人意味着什么”。

    The author’s greatest odium, though, is directed at meritocracy.

    然而，作者最憎恨的是优绩主义。

    In this he draws on the thinking of Michael Sandel, a philosopher at Harvard.

    在这一点上，他借鉴了哈佛大学哲学家迈克尔·桑德尔的思想。

    Especially in “The Tyranny of Merit” (published in 2020), Professor Sandel has argued that using education as a giant sorting machine creates a toxic obsession with credentials, dividing society into winners and losers and depleting the common good.

    尤其是在2020年出版的《精英的傲慢》一书中，桑德尔教授认为，把教育当作一台巨大的分类机器，会产生一种对成绩证书的有毒的痴迷，从而将社会分成赢家和输家，并让公共利益所剩无几。

    Like other critics of meritocracy, Mr Curran has a point—until you consider the alternatives.

    与其他批评优绩主义的人一样，柯伦的观点是有道理的--直到你考虑了其他选择。

    Daily life, in his view, now resembles an endless tribunal.

    在他看来，现在日常生活就像一个没有尽头的法庭。

    Young people suffer most from the constant scrutiny of scores and rankings.

    持续不断的分数和排名方面的审视对年轻人影响最大。

    Decrying a fixation on economic growth, he applauds countries, such as Bhutan and New Zealand, where decision-makers take account of citizens’ happiness.

    在谴责了对经济增长的偏执后，柯伦对不丹和新西兰等国家表示赞赏，这些国家的决策者会考虑公民的幸福感。

    Mr Curran’s preferred fix is a universal basic income, which he says would “extinguish the fire of perfectionism”.

    柯伦倾向的解决办法是全民基本收入，他认为这将“扑灭完美主义的火焰”。

    Whatever its economic merits, his argument errs in treating perfectionism as a purely cultural phenomenon.

    无论其经济价值如何，他的观点都错误地将完美主义视为一种纯粹的文化现象。

    Might it not also be a disposition embedded in the psyche?

    难道完美主义不也是一种根植于内在心理的倾向吗？

    Tellingly, his guidance—“Keep going. Do not yield”; “Keep practising that acceptance of fortune and fate”—is couched in the language of the perfectionist’s round-the-clock report card.

    很能说明问题的是，他的指导建议--“继续前进，不要屈服”“不断练习接受或好或坏的命运”--就是用完美主义者时刻不停的成绩报告单式的语言表述的。