William Deresiewicz 斯坦福大学演讲：不要在不断的优秀里走向平庸# WaterWorld - 未名水世界
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William Deresiewicz 2010年在斯坦福大学的演讲：
我的题目提出的问题，当然，是一个传统地面向人文科学的专业所提出的问题：学习文
学、艺术或哲学能有什么实效价值（practical value）？你肯定纳闷，我为什么在以
科技堡垒而闻名的斯坦福提出这个问题呢？大学学位给人带来众多机会，这还有什么需
要质疑的吗？
但那不是我提出的问题。这里的“做（do）”并不是指工作（job），“那(that)”并
不是指你的专业（major）。]我们不仅仅是我们的工作，教育的全部也不仅仅是一门主
修专业。（We are more than our jobs, and education is more than a major.）教
育也不仅仅是上大学，甚至也不仅是从幼儿园到研究生院的正规学校教育。我说的“你
要做什么”的意思是你要过什么样的生活（what kind of life are you going to
lead?）？我所说的“那”指的是你得到的正规或非正规的任何训练，那些把你送到这
里来的东西，你在学校的剩余时间里将要做的任何事。
我们不妨先来讨论你是如何考入斯坦福的吧。
你能进入这所大学说明你在某些技能（skills）上非常出色。你的父母在你很小的时候
就鼓励你追求卓越（excel）。他们送你到好学校，老师的鼓励和同伴的榜样激励你更
努力地学习。除了在所有课程上都出类拔萃之外，你还注重修养的提高，充满热情地培
养了一些特殊兴趣。你用几个暑假在本地大学里预习大学课程，或参加专门技能的夏令
营或训练营。你学习刻苦、精力集中、全力以赴。所以，你在数学、钢琴、曲棍球等众
多方面都很出色。
掌握这些技能当然没有错，全力以赴成为最优秀的人也没有错。错误之处在于这个体系
遗漏的地方：即任何别的东西（everything else）。我并不是说因为选择钻研数学，
你在充分发展话语表达能力的潜力方面就失败了；也不是说除了集中精力学习地质学之
外，你还应该研究政治学；也不是说你在学习钢琴时还应该学吹笛子。毕竟，专业化的
本质就是要专业性。可是，专业化的问题在于它把你的注意力限制在一个点上，你所已
知的和你想探知的东西都限界于此（it narrows your attention to the point where
all you know about and all you want to know about）。真的，你能知道的一切就
只是你的专业了。
专业化（specialization）的问题是它让你成为专家（specialist），切断你与世界上
其他任何东西的联系，不仅如此，还切断你与自身其他潜能的联系（It cuts you off,
not only from everything else in the world, but also from everything else
in yourself.）。当然，作为大一新生，你的专业才刚刚开始。在你走向所渴望的成功
之路的过程中，进入斯坦福是你踏上的众多阶梯中的一个。再读三年大学，三五年法学
院或医学院或博士，然后再干若干年住院实习生或博士后或助理教授。总而言之，进入
越来越狭窄的专业化轨道。你可能从政治学专业的学生变成了律师或者公司代理人，再
变成专门研究消费品领域的税收问题的公司代理人。你从生物化学专业的学生变成了博
士，再变成心脏病学家，再变成专门做心脏瓣膜移植的心脏病医生。
再次，做这些事没有任何错。只不过，在你越来越深入地进入这个轨道后，再记得你最
初的样子（remember who you once were）就益发困难了。你开始怀念那个曾经谈钢琴
和打曲棍球的人，思考那个曾经和朋友热烈讨论人生和政治以及在课堂内容的人在做什
么。那个活泼能干的19岁年轻人已经变成了只想一件事的40岁中年人。（The 19-year-
old who could do so many things, and was interested in so many things, has
become a 40-year-old who thinks about only one thing.）难怪年长的人这么乏味
无趣。（That's why older people are so boring.）“哎，我爸爸曾经是非常聪明的
人，但他现在除了谈论钱和肝脏外再无其他。” （"Hey, my dad's a smart guy, but
all he talks about is money and livers."）
还有另外一个问题。
或许你从来没有想过当心脏病医生，只是碰巧发生了而已。随大流最容易，这就是体制
的力量。（It's easy, the way the system works, to simply go with the flow.）
我不是说这个工作容易，而是说做出这种选择很容易。或者，这些根本就不是自己做出
的选择。你来到斯坦福这样的名牌大学是因为聪明的孩子都这样（because that's
what smart kids do.）。你考入医学院是因为它的地位高，人人都羡慕。你选择心脏
病学是因为当心脏病医生的待遇很好。你做那些事能给你带来好处，让你的父母感到骄
傲，令你的老师感到高兴，也让朋友们羡慕。从你上高中开始，甚至初中开始，你的唯
一目标就是进入最好的大学，所以现在你会很自然地从“进入下个阶段”的角度看待人
生（you naturally think about your life in terms of
"getting into" whatever's next）。“进入”就是能力的证明，“进入”就是胜利。
先进入斯坦福，然后是约翰霍普金斯医学院，再进入旧金山大学做实习医生等。或者进
入密歇根法学院，或高盛集团（GoldmanSachs）或麦肯锡公司（McKinsey）或别的什么
地方。你迈出了这一步，下一步似乎就必然在等着你。
也许你确实想当心脏病学家。十岁时就梦想成为医生，即使你根本不知道医生意味着什
么。你在上学期间全身心都在朝着这个目标前进。你拒绝了上大学预修历史课（AP
history）时的美妙体验的诱惑，也无视你在医学院第四年的儿科学轮流值班时照看孩
子的可怕感受。
但不管是什么，要么因为你随大流，要么因为你早就选定了道路，20年后某天醒来，你
或许会纳闷到底发生了什么：你怎么变成现在这个样子，这一切意味着什么。不是它是
什么，不在于它是否“大画面”（big picture）而是它对你意味着什么。 你为什么做
它，到底为了什么。这听起来像老生常谈，但这个被称为中年危机（midlife crisis）
的“有一天醒来”（"waking up one day"）一直就发生在每个人身上。
不过，还有另外一种情况，或许中年危机并不会发生在你身上。
让我通过告诉你们一个同伴的故事来解释我的意思吧，即她没有遭遇的情况。几年前，
我在哈佛参加了一次小组讨论会，谈到这些问题。后来参加这次讨论的一个学生给我联
系，这个哈佛学生正在写有关哈佛的毕业论文，讨论哈佛是如何给学生灌输她所说的“
自我效能”（self-efficacy），一种相信自己能做一切的意识。自我效能或更熟悉的
说法“自我尊重”（self-esteem）。她说在考试中得了优秀的有些学生会说“我得优
秀是因为试题很简单。” 但另外一些学生，那种具有自我效能感或自我尊重的学生，
考试得了优秀会说“我得优秀是因为我聪明。”
再次，认为得了优秀是因为自己聪明的想法并没有任何错，不过，哈佛学生没有认识到
的是他们没有第三种选择（a third alternative）。当我指出这一点时，她十分震惊
。我指出，真正的自尊意味着最初根本就不在乎成绩是否优秀。真正的自尊意味着对此
问题的足够认识：尽管你在成长过程中的一切都在教导你要相信自己，但你所达到的登
记，还有那些奖励、成绩、奖品、录取通知书等所有这一切，都不能来定义你是谁（
defines who you are）。
她还说，这个年轻的女孩子说哈佛学生把他们的自我效能带到了世界上，如她所说的“
创新”（innovative）。但当我问她“创新”意味着什么时，她能够想到的唯一例子不
过是“世界大公司五百强的首席执行官”（ "being CEO of a Fortune 500"）。我告
诉她这不是创新，这只是成功（that's just successful），而且是根据非常狭隘的成
功定义而认定的成功而已。真正的创新意味着运用你的想象力，发挥你的潜力，创造新
的可能性。（True innovation means using your imagination, exercising the
capacity to envision new possibilities.）
但这里我并不是在谈论技术创新，不是发明新机器或者制造一种新药，我谈论的是另外
一种创新，是创造你自己的生活（inventing your own life）。不是走现成的道路而
是创造一条属于自己的道路。（Not following a path, but making your own path.
）我谈论的想象力是道德想象力（moral imagination；眠按：这个是心理学专业名词
）。“道德”在这里无关对错，而是与选择有关。道德想象力意味着创造自己新生的能
力（envision new ways to live your life）。
它意味着不随波逐流（going with the flow），不是下一步要“进入”什么名牌大学
或研究生院。而是要弄清楚自己到底想要什么，而不是父母、同伴、学校、或社会想要
什么。即确认你自己的价值观（own values），思考迈向自己所定义的成功的道路，而
不仅仅是接受别人给你的生活(simply accepting the life that you've been handed
)，不仅仅是接受别人给你的选择。当今走进星巴克咖啡馆，服务员可能让你在牛奶咖
啡（latte）、加糖咖啡（macchiato）、特制咖啡（espresso）等几样东西之间做出选
择。但你可以做出另外的选择，你可以转身走出去。当你进入大学，人家给你众多选择
，或法律或医学或投资银行和咨询以及其他，但你同样也可以做其他事，做从前根本没
有人想过的事(something that no one has thought of before)。
让我再举一个反面的例子。
几年前我写过一篇涉及同类问题的文章。我说，那些在耶鲁和斯坦福这类名校的孩子往
往比较谨慎，去追求一些稳妥的奖励。我得到的最常见的批评是：教育项目“为美国而
教”（Teach for America）如何？从名校出来的很多学生毕业后很多参与这个教育项
目，因此我的观点是错误的。我一再听到TFA这个术语。“为美国而教”当然是好东西
，但引用这个项目来反驳我的观点恰恰是不得要领，实际上正好证明了我想说的东西。
“为美国而教”的问题或者“为美国而教”已经成为体系一部分的问题，是它已经成
为另外一个需要“进入”的门槛。
从其内容来看，“为美国而教”完全不同于高盛或者麦肯锡公司或哈佛医学院或者伯克
利法学院，但从它在精英期待的体系中的地位来说，完全是一样的。它享有盛名，很难
进入，是值得你和父母夸耀的东西，如果写在简历上会很好看（it looks good on
your résumé），最重要的是，它代表了清晰标记的道路（a clearly marked path.
）。你根本不用自己创造，什么都不用做，只需申请然后按要求做就行了，就像上大学
或法学院或麦肯锡公司或别的什么。它是社会参与方面的斯坦福或哈佛，是另一个栅栏
，另一枚奖章。该项目需要能力和勤奋，但不需要一丁点儿的道德想象力。
道德想象力是困难的，这种困难与你已经习惯的困难完全不同。不仅如此，光有道德想
象力还不够。如果你要创造自己的生活（invent your own life），如果你想成为真正
的独立思想者（truly autonomous），你还需要勇气：道德勇气（moral courage）。
不管别人说什么，有按自己的价值观行动的勇气，不会因为别人不喜欢而试图改变自己
的想法。具有道德勇气的个人往往让周围的人感到不舒服。他们和其他人对世界的看法
格格不入，更糟糕的是，让别人对自己已经做出的选择感到不安全或无法做出选择。只
要别人也不享受自由，人们就不在乎自己被关进监狱。可一旦有人越狱，其他人都会跟
着跑出去。
在《青年艺术家的肖像》（A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man）中，詹姆斯&
#8226;乔伊斯（James Joyce）让主人公斯蒂芬•迪达勒斯（Stephen Dedalus）
就19世纪末期的爱尔兰的成长环境说出了如下名言“当一个人的灵魂诞生在这个国家时
，有一张大网把它罩住，防止它飞翔。你会给我谈论民族性、语言和宗教。我想冲出这
些牢笼。”（"When the soul of a man is born in this country there are nets
flung at it to hold it back from flight. You talk to me of nationality,
language, religion. I shall try to fly by those nets."）
今天，我们面临的是其他的网。
其中之一是我在就这些问题与学生交流时经常听到的一个术语“自我放任”（"self-
indulgent"）。“在攻读学位过程中有这么多事要做的时候（so many other things）
，试图按照自己的感觉生活难道不是自我放任吗？”“毕业后不去找个真正的工作（
getting a real job）而去画画难道不是自我放任吗？”
这些是年轻人只要思考一下稍稍出格（a little bit different）的事就不由自主地质
问自己的问题。更糟糕的是，他们觉得提出这些问题是理所应当（feel compelled）的
。许多学生在毕业前夕的未来探索中跟我说，他们感受到来自同伴那里的压力（the
pressure they felt from their peers），需要为创造性的生活或思想生活辩护（to
justify a creative or intellectual life）。好像自己已经走火入魔了似的：抛弃
确定无疑的东西是疯了，认为思想生活可行是疯了，想象你有权尝试是疯了。（You're
made to feel like you're crazy: crazy to forsake the sure thing, crazy to
think it could work, crazy to imagine that you even have a right to try.眠按
：“羊霸王”比更外界的压力更厉害。）
想象我们现在面临的局面。这是美国社会的贫困——思想、道德和精神贫困的最明显症
状，美国最聪明的年轻人竟然认为听从自己的好奇心行动就是自我放任。你们得到的教
导是应该上大学，但你们同时也被告知如果真的想得到教育，那就是“自我放任”。如
果你自我教育的话，更糟糕。这是什么道理？进入证券咨询业是不是自我放任？进入金
融业是不是自我放任？像许多人那样进入律师界发财是不是自我放任？搞音乐，写文章
就不行，因为它不能给人带来利益（what good does that really do anyone）。但为
风险投资公司工作就可以。追求自己的理想和激情是自私的，除非它能让你赚很多钱。
那样的话，就一点儿也不自私了。（It's selfish to pursue your passion, unless
it's also going to make you a lot of money, in which case it's not selfish
at all.）
你看到这些观点是多么荒谬了吗？这就是罩在你们身上的网，就是我说的需要勇气的意
思。这是永不停息的过程（a never-ending process）。在两年前的哈佛事件中，有个
学生谈到我说的大学生需要重新思考人生决定的观点，他说“我们已经做出了决定，我
们早在中学时就已经决定成为能够进入哈佛的高材生。”我在想，谁会打算按照他在12
岁时做出的决定生活呢？(who wants to live with the decisions that they made
when they were 12?) 让我换一种说法，谁愿意让一个12岁的孩子决定他们未来一辈子
要做什么呢？或者一个19岁的小毛孩儿？
你能做出的决定是你现在想什么，你需要准备好不断修改自己的决定。
让我说得更明白一些。我不是在试图说服你们都成为音乐家或者作家。成为医生、律师
、科学家、工程师或者经济学家没有什么不好，这些都是可靠的、可敬的选择（valid
and admirable choices）。我想说的是你需要思考它，认真地思考（think about it
hard）。我请求你们做的，是根据正确的理由做出你的选择。我在敦促你们的，是认识
到你的道德自由（moral freedom）并热情拥抱它。
最重要的是，不要过分谨慎。（Don't play it safe.）去拒否（RESIST）我们社会给
予了过高奖赏的那些卑怯的价值观的诱惑：舒服、方便、安全、可预测的、可控制的。
这些，同样是罗网。最重要的是，去拒否失败的恐惧感。是的，你会犯错误。可那是你
的错误，不是别人的。你将从错误中缓过来，而且，正是因为这些错误，你更好地认识
你自己。由此，你成为更完整和强大的人（a fuller and a stronger person）。
人们常说你们年轻人属于“后情感”一代（a "postemotional" generation），我想我
未必赞同这个说法，但这个说法值得严肃对待。你们更愿意规避混乱、动荡和强烈的感
情（avoid messy and turbulent and powerful feelings），但我想说，不要回避挑
战自我（the challenging parts of yourself），不要否认欲望和好奇心（the
desires and curiosities）、怀疑和不满（the doubts and dissatisfactions）、快
乐和阴郁（the joy and the darkness），它们可能改变你预设的人生轨迹。大学刚开
始，成年时代也才刚开始。打开自己，直面各种可能性吧。这个世界的深广远超你现在
想象的边际。这意味着，你自身的深广也将远超你现在的想象。
What Are You Going to Do With That?
By William Deresiewicz
The essay below is adapted from a talk delivered to a freshman class at
Stanford University in May.
The question my title poses, of course, is the one that is classically aimed
at humanities majors. What practical value could there possibly be in
studying literature or art or philosophy? So you must be wondering why I'm
bothering to raise it here, at Stanford, this renowned citadel of science
and technology. What doubt can there be that the world will offer you many
opportunities to use your degree?
But that's not the question I'm asking. By "do" I don't mean a job, and by "
that" I don't mean your major. We are more than our jobs, and education is
more than a major. Education is more than college, more even than the
totality of your formal schooling, from kindergarten through graduate school
. By "What are you going to do," I mean, what kind of life are you going to
lead? And by "that," I mean everything in your training, formal and informal
, that has brought you to be sitting here today, and everything you're going
to be doing for the rest of the time that you're in school.
We should start by talking about how you did, in fact, get here. You got
here by getting very good at a certain set of skills. Your parents pushed
you to excel from the time you were very young. They sent you to good
schools, where the encouragement of your teachers and the example of your
peers helped push you even harder. Your natural aptitudes were nurtured so
that, in addition to excelling in all your subjects, you developed a number
of specific interests that you cultivated with particular vigor. You did
extracurricular activities, went to afterschool programs, took private
lessons. You spent summers doing advanced courses at a local college or
attending skill-specific camps and workshops. You worked hard, you paid
attention, and you tried your very best. And so you got very good at math,
or piano, or lacrosse, or, indeed, several things at once.
Now there's nothing wrong with mastering skills, with wanting to do your
best and to be the best. What's wrong is what the system leaves out: which
is to say, everything else. I don't mean that by choosing to excel in math,
say, you are failing to develop your verbal abilities to their fullest
extent, or that in addition to focusing on geology, you should also focus on
political science, or that while you're learning the piano, you should also
be working on the flute. It is the nature of specialization, after all, to
be specialized. No, the problem with specialization is that it narrows your
attention to the point where all you know about and all you want to know
about, and, indeed, all you can know about, is your specialty.
The problem with specialization is that it makes you into a specialist. It
cuts you off, not only from everything else in the world, but also from
everything else in yourself. And of course, as college freshmen, your
specialization is only just beginning. In the journey toward the success
that you all hope to achieve, you have completed, by getting into Stanford,
only the first of many legs. Three more years of college, three or four or
five years of law school or medical school or a Ph.D. program, then
residencies or postdocs or years as a junior associate. In short, an ever-
narrowing funnel of specialization. You go from being a political-science
major to being a lawyer to being a corporate attorney to being a corporate
attorney focusing on taxation issues in the consumer-products industry. You
go from being a biochemistry major to being a doctor to being a cardiologist
to being a cardiac surgeon who performs heart-valve replacements.
Again, there's nothing wrong with being those things. It's just that, as you
get deeper and deeper into the funnel, into the tunnel, it becomes
increasingly difficult to remember who you once were. You start to wonder
what happened to that person who played piano and lacrosse and sat around
with her friends having intense conversations about life and politics and
all the things she was learning in her classes. The 19-year-old who could do
so many things, and was interested in so many things, has become a 40-year-
old who thinks about only one thing. That's why older people are so boring.
"Hey, my dad's a smart guy, but all he talks about is money and livers."
And there's another problem. Maybe you never really wanted to be a cardiac
surgeon in the first place. It just kind of happened. It's easy, the way the
system works, to simply go with the flow. I don't mean the work is easy,
but the choices are easy. Or rather, the choices sort of make themselves.
You go to a place like Stanford because that's what smart kids do. You go to
medical school because it's prestigious. You specialize in cardiology
because it's lucrative. You do the things that reap the rewards, that make
your parents proud, and your teachers pleased, and your friends impressed.
From the time you started high school and maybe even junior high, your whole
goal was to get into the best college you could, and so now you naturally
think about your life in terms of "getting into" whatever's next. "Getting
into" is validation; "getting into" is victory. Stanford, then Johns Hopkins
medical school, then a residency at the University of San Francisco, and so
forth. Or Michigan Law School, or Goldman Sachs, or McKinsey, or
whatever. You take it one step at a time, and the next step always seems to
be inevitable.
Or maybe you did always want to be a cardiac surgeon. You dreamed about it
from the time you were 10 years old, even though you had no idea what it
really meant, and you stayed on course for the entire time you were in
school. You refused to be enticed from your path by that great experience
you had in AP history, or that trip you took to Costa Rica the summer after
your junior year in college, or that terrific feeling you got taking care of
kids when you did your rotation in pediatrics during your fourth year in
medical school.
But either way, either because you went with the flow or because you set
your course very early, you wake up one day, maybe 20 years later, and you
wonder what happened: how you got there, what it all means. Not what it
means in the "big picture," whatever that is, but what it means to you. Why
you're doing it, what it's all for. It sounds like a cliché, this "waking
up one day," but it's called having a midlife crisis, and it happens to
people all the time.
There is an alternative, however, and it may be one that hasn't occurred to
you. Let me try to explain it by telling you a story about one of your peers
, and the alternative that hadn't occurred to her. A couple of years ago, I
participated in a panel discussion at Harvard that dealt with some of these
same matters, and afterward I was contacted by one of the students who had
come to the event, a young woman who was writing her senior thesis about
Harvard itself, how it instills in its students what she called self-
efficacy, the sense that you can do anything you want. Self-efficacy, or, in
more familiar terms, self-esteem. There are some kids, she said, who get an
A on a test and say, "I got it because it was easy." And there are other
kids, the kind with self-efficacy or self-esteem, who get an A on a test and
say, "I got it because I'm smart."
Again, there's nothing wrong with thinking that you got an A because you're
smart. But what that Harvard student didn't realize—and it was really quite
a shock to her when I suggested it—is that there is a third alternative.
True self-esteem, I proposed, means not caring whether you get an A in the
first place. True self-esteem means recognizing, despite everything that
your upbringing has trained you to believe about yourself, that the grades
you get—and the awards, and the test scores, and the trophies, and the
acceptance letters—are not what defines who you are.
She also claimed, this young woman, that Harvard students take their sense
of self-efficacy out into the world and become, as she put it, "innovative."
But when I asked her what she meant by innovative, the only example she
could come up with was "being CEO of a Fortune 500." That's not innovative,
I told her, that's just successful, and successful according to a very
narrow definition of success. True innovation means using your imagination,
exercising the capacity to envision new possibilities.
But I'm not here to talk about technological innovation, I'm here to talk
about a different kind. It's not about inventing a new machine or a new drug
. It's about inventing your own life. Not following a path, but making your
own path. The kind of imagination I'm talking about is moral imagination. "
Moral" meaning not right or wrong, but having to do with making choices.
Moral imagination means the capacity to envision new ways to live your life.
It means not just going with the flow. It means not just "getting into"
whatever school or program comes next. It means figuring out what you want
for yourself, not what your parents want, or your peers want, or your school
wants, or your society wants. Originating your own values. Thinking your
way toward your own definition of success. Not simply accepting the life
that you've been handed. Not simply accepting the choices you've been handed
. When you walk into Starbucks, you're offered a choice among a latte and a
macchiato and an espresso and a few other things, but you can also make
another choice. You can turn around and walk out. When you walk into college
, you are offered a choice among law and medicine and investment banking and
consulting and a few other things, but again, you can also do something
else, something that no one has thought of before.
Let me give you another counterexample. I wrote an essay a couple of years
ago that touched on some of these same points. I said, among other things,
that kids at places like Yale or Stanford tend to play it safe and go for
the conventional rewards. And one of the most common criticisms I got went
like this: What about Teach for America? Lots of kids from elite colleges go
and do TFA after they graduate, so therefore I was wrong. TFA, TFA—I heard
that over and over again. And Teach for America is undoubtedly a very good
thing. But to cite TFA in response to my argument is precisely to miss the
point, and to miss it in a way that actually confirms what I'm saying. The
problem with TFA—or rather, the problem with the way that TFA has become
incorporated into the system—is that it's just become another thing to get
into.
In terms of its content, Teach for America is completely different from
Goldman Sachs or McKinsey or Harvard Medical School or Berkeley Law, but in
terms of its place within the structure of elite expectations, of elite
choices, it is exactly the same. It's prestigious, it's hard to get into, it
's something that you and your parents can brag about, it looks good on your
résumé, and most important, it represents a clearly marked path. You don'
t have to make it up yourself, you don't have to do anything but apply and
do the work—just like college or law school or McKinsey or whatever.
It's the Stanford or Harvard of social engagement. It's another hurdle,
another badge. It requires aptitude and diligence, but it does not require a
single ounce of moral imagination.
Moral imagination is hard, and it's hard in a completely different way than
the hard things you're used to doing. And not only that, it's not enough. If
you're going to invent your own life, if you're going to be truly
autonomous, you also need courage: moral courage. The courage to act on your
values in the face of what everyone's going to say and do to try to make
you change your mind. Because they're not going to like it. Morally
courageous individuals tend to make the people around them very
uncomfortable. They don't fit in with everybody else's ideas about the way
the world is supposed to work, and still worse, they make them feel insecure
about the choices that they themselves have made—or failed to make. People
don't mind being in prison as long as no one else is free. But stage a
jailbreak, and everybody else freaks out.
In A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce has Stephen Dedalus
famously say, about growing up in Ireland in the late 19th century, "When
the soul of a man is born in this country there are nets flung at it to hold
it back from flight. You talk to me of nationality, language, religion. I
shall try to fly by those nets."
Today there are other nets. One of those nets is a term that I've heard
again and again as I've talked with students about these things. That term
is "self-indulgent." "Isn't it self-indulgent to try to live the life of the
mind when there are so many other things I could be doing with my degree?"
"Wouldn't it be self-indulgent to pursue painting after I graduate instead
of getting a real job?"
These are the kinds of questions that young people find themselves being
asked today if they even think about doing something a little bit different.
Even worse, the kinds of questions they are made to feel compelled to ask
themselves. Many students have spoken to me, as they navigated their senior
years, about the pressure they felt from their peers—from their peers—to
justify a creative or intellectual life. You're made to feel like you're
crazy: crazy to forsake the sure thing, crazy to think it could work, crazy
to imagine that you even have a right to try.
Think of what we've come to. It is one of the great testaments to the
intellectual—and moral, and spiritual—poverty of American society that it
makes its most intelligent young people feel like they're being self-
indulgent if they pursue their curiosity. You are all told that you're
supposed to go to college, but you're also told that you're being "self-
indulgent" if you actually want to get an education. Or even worse, give
yourself one. As opposed to what? Going into consulting isn't self-indulgent
? Going into finance isn't self-indulgent? Going into law, like most of the
people who do, in order to make yourself rich, isn't self-indulgent? It's
not OK to play music, or write essays, because what good does that really do
anyone, but it is OK to work for a hedge fund. It's selfish to pursue your
passion, unless it's also going to make you a lot of money, in which case it
's not selfish at all.
Do you see how absurd this is? But these are the nets that are flung at you,
and this is what I mean by the need for courage. And it's a never-ending
process. At that Harvard event two years ago, one person said, about my
assertion that college students needed to keep rethinking the decisions
they've made about their lives, "We already made our decisions, back in
middle school, when we decided to be the kind of high achievers who get into
Harvard." And I thought, who wants to live with the decisions that they
made when they were 12? Let me put that another way. Who wants to let a 12-
year-old decide what they're going to do for the rest of their lives? Or a
19-year-old, for that matter?
All you can decide is what you think now, and you need to be prepared to
keep making revisions. Because let me be clear. I'm not trying to persuade
you all to become writers or musicians. Being a doctor or a lawyer, a
scientist or an engineer or an economist—these are all valid and admirable
choices. All I'm saying is that you need to think about it, and think about
it hard. All I'm asking is that you make your choices for the right reasons.
All I'm urging is that you recognize and embrace your moral freedom.
And most of all, don't play it safe. Resist the seductions of the cowardly
values our society has come to prize so highly: comfort, convenience,
security, predictability, control. These, too, are nets. Above all, resist
the fear of failure. Yes, you will make mistakes. But they will be your
mistakes, not someone else's. And you will survive them, and you will know
yourself better for having made them, and you will be a fuller and a
stronger person.
It's been said—and I'm not sure I agree with this, but it's an idea that's
worth taking seriously—that you guys belong to a "postemotional" generation
. That you prefer to avoid messy and turbulent and powerful feelings. But I
say, don't shy away from the challenging parts of yourself. Don't deny the
desires and curiosities, the doubts and dissatisfactions, the joy and the
darkness, that might knock you off the path that you have set for yourself.
College is just beginning for you, adulthood is just beginning. Open
yourself to the possibilities they represent. The world is much larger than
you can imagine right now. Which means, you are much larger than you can
imagine.
William Deresiewicz is a contributing writer for The Nation and a
contributing editor at The New Republic. His next book, A Jane Austen
Education, will be published next year by Penguin Press.
我的题目提出的问题，当然，是一个传统地面向人文科学的专业所提出的问题：学习文
学、艺术或哲学能有什么实效价值（practical value）？你肯定纳闷，我为什么在以
科技堡垒而闻名的斯坦福提出这个问题呢？大学学位给人带来众多机会，这还有什么需
要质疑的吗？
但那不是我提出的问题。这里的“做（do）”并不是指工作（job），“那(that)”并
不是指你的专业（major）。]我们不仅仅是我们的工作，教育的全部也不仅仅是一门主
修专业。（We are more than our jobs, and education is more than a major.）教
育也不仅仅是上大学，甚至也不仅是从幼儿园到研究生院的正规学校教育。我说的“你
要做什么”的意思是你要过什么样的生活（what kind of life are you going to
lead?）？我所说的“那”指的是你得到的正规或非正规的任何训练，那些把你送到这
里来的东西，你在学校的剩余时间里将要做的任何事。
我们不妨先来讨论你是如何考入斯坦福的吧。
你能进入这所大学说明你在某些技能（skills）上非常出色。你的父母在你很小的时候
就鼓励你追求卓越（excel）。他们送你到好学校，老师的鼓励和同伴的榜样激励你更
努力地学习。除了在所有课程上都出类拔萃之外，你还注重修养的提高，充满热情地培
养了一些特殊兴趣。你用几个暑假在本地大学里预习大学课程，或参加专门技能的夏令
营或训练营。你学习刻苦、精力集中、全力以赴。所以，你在数学、钢琴、曲棍球等众
多方面都很出色。
掌握这些技能当然没有错，全力以赴成为最优秀的人也没有错。错误之处在于这个体系
遗漏的地方：即任何别的东西（everything else）。我并不是说因为选择钻研数学，
你在充分发展话语表达能力的潜力方面就失败了；也不是说除了集中精力学习地质学之
外，你还应该研究政治学；也不是说你在学习钢琴时还应该学吹笛子。毕竟，专业化的
本质就是要专业性。可是，专业化的问题在于它把你的注意力限制在一个点上，你所已
知的和你想探知的东西都限界于此（it narrows your attention to the point where
all you know about and all you want to know about）。真的，你能知道的一切就
只是你的专业了。
专业化（specialization）的问题是它让你成为专家（specialist），切断你与世界上
其他任何东西的联系，不仅如此，还切断你与自身其他潜能的联系（It cuts you off,
not only from everything else in the world, but also from everything else
in yourself.）。当然，作为大一新生，你的专业才刚刚开始。在你走向所渴望的成功
之路的过程中，进入斯坦福是你踏上的众多阶梯中的一个。再读三年大学，三五年法学
院或医学院或博士，然后再干若干年住院实习生或博士后或助理教授。总而言之，进入
越来越狭窄的专业化轨道。你可能从政治学专业的学生变成了律师或者公司代理人，再
变成专门研究消费品领域的税收问题的公司代理人。你从生物化学专业的学生变成了博
士，再变成心脏病学家，再变成专门做心脏瓣膜移植的心脏病医生。
再次，做这些事没有任何错。只不过，在你越来越深入地进入这个轨道后，再记得你最
初的样子（remember who you once were）就益发困难了。你开始怀念那个曾经谈钢琴
和打曲棍球的人，思考那个曾经和朋友热烈讨论人生和政治以及在课堂内容的人在做什
么。那个活泼能干的19岁年轻人已经变成了只想一件事的40岁中年人。（The 19-year-
old who could do so many things, and was interested in so many things, has
become a 40-year-old who thinks about only one thing.）难怪年长的人这么乏味
无趣。（That's why older people are so boring.）“哎，我爸爸曾经是非常聪明的
人，但他现在除了谈论钱和肝脏外再无其他。” （"Hey, my dad's a smart guy, but
all he talks about is money and livers."）
还有另外一个问题。
或许你从来没有想过当心脏病医生，只是碰巧发生了而已。随大流最容易，这就是体制
的力量。（It's easy, the way the system works, to simply go with the flow.）
我不是说这个工作容易，而是说做出这种选择很容易。或者，这些根本就不是自己做出
的选择。你来到斯坦福这样的名牌大学是因为聪明的孩子都这样（because that's
what smart kids do.）。你考入医学院是因为它的地位高，人人都羡慕。你选择心脏
病学是因为当心脏病医生的待遇很好。你做那些事能给你带来好处，让你的父母感到骄
傲，令你的老师感到高兴，也让朋友们羡慕。从你上高中开始，甚至初中开始，你的唯
一目标就是进入最好的大学，所以现在你会很自然地从“进入下个阶段”的角度看待人
生（you naturally think about your life in terms of
"getting into" whatever's next）。“进入”就是能力的证明，“进入”就是胜利。
先进入斯坦福，然后是约翰霍普金斯医学院，再进入旧金山大学做实习医生等。或者进
入密歇根法学院，或高盛集团（GoldmanSachs）或麦肯锡公司（McKinsey）或别的什么
地方。你迈出了这一步，下一步似乎就必然在等着你。
也许你确实想当心脏病学家。十岁时就梦想成为医生，即使你根本不知道医生意味着什
么。你在上学期间全身心都在朝着这个目标前进。你拒绝了上大学预修历史课（AP
history）时的美妙体验的诱惑，也无视你在医学院第四年的儿科学轮流值班时照看孩
子的可怕感受。
但不管是什么，要么因为你随大流，要么因为你早就选定了道路，20年后某天醒来，你
或许会纳闷到底发生了什么：你怎么变成现在这个样子，这一切意味着什么。不是它是
什么，不在于它是否“大画面”（big picture）而是它对你意味着什么。 你为什么做
它，到底为了什么。这听起来像老生常谈，但这个被称为中年危机（midlife crisis）
的“有一天醒来”（"waking up one day"）一直就发生在每个人身上。
不过，还有另外一种情况，或许中年危机并不会发生在你身上。
让我通过告诉你们一个同伴的故事来解释我的意思吧，即她没有遭遇的情况。几年前，
我在哈佛参加了一次小组讨论会，谈到这些问题。后来参加这次讨论的一个学生给我联
系，这个哈佛学生正在写有关哈佛的毕业论文，讨论哈佛是如何给学生灌输她所说的“
自我效能”（self-efficacy），一种相信自己能做一切的意识。自我效能或更熟悉的
说法“自我尊重”（self-esteem）。她说在考试中得了优秀的有些学生会说“我得优
秀是因为试题很简单。” 但另外一些学生，那种具有自我效能感或自我尊重的学生，
考试得了优秀会说“我得优秀是因为我聪明。”
再次，认为得了优秀是因为自己聪明的想法并没有任何错，不过，哈佛学生没有认识到
的是他们没有第三种选择（a third alternative）。当我指出这一点时，她十分震惊
。我指出，真正的自尊意味着最初根本就不在乎成绩是否优秀。真正的自尊意味着对此
问题的足够认识：尽管你在成长过程中的一切都在教导你要相信自己，但你所达到的登
记，还有那些奖励、成绩、奖品、录取通知书等所有这一切，都不能来定义你是谁（
defines who you are）。
她还说，这个年轻的女孩子说哈佛学生把他们的自我效能带到了世界上，如她所说的“
创新”（innovative）。但当我问她“创新”意味着什么时，她能够想到的唯一例子不
过是“世界大公司五百强的首席执行官”（ "being CEO of a Fortune 500"）。我告
诉她这不是创新，这只是成功（that's just successful），而且是根据非常狭隘的成
功定义而认定的成功而已。真正的创新意味着运用你的想象力，发挥你的潜力，创造新
的可能性。（True innovation means using your imagination, exercising the
capacity to envision new possibilities.）
但这里我并不是在谈论技术创新，不是发明新机器或者制造一种新药，我谈论的是另外
一种创新，是创造你自己的生活（inventing your own life）。不是走现成的道路而
是创造一条属于自己的道路。（Not following a path, but making your own path.
）我谈论的想象力是道德想象力（moral imagination；眠按：这个是心理学专业名词
）。“道德”在这里无关对错，而是与选择有关。道德想象力意味着创造自己新生的能
力（envision new ways to live your life）。
它意味着不随波逐流（going with the flow），不是下一步要“进入”什么名牌大学
或研究生院。而是要弄清楚自己到底想要什么，而不是父母、同伴、学校、或社会想要
什么。即确认你自己的价值观（own values），思考迈向自己所定义的成功的道路，而
不仅仅是接受别人给你的生活(simply accepting the life that you've been handed
)，不仅仅是接受别人给你的选择。当今走进星巴克咖啡馆，服务员可能让你在牛奶咖
啡（latte）、加糖咖啡（macchiato）、特制咖啡（espresso）等几样东西之间做出选
择。但你可以做出另外的选择，你可以转身走出去。当你进入大学，人家给你众多选择
，或法律或医学或投资银行和咨询以及其他，但你同样也可以做其他事，做从前根本没
有人想过的事(something that no one has thought of before)。
让我再举一个反面的例子。
几年前我写过一篇涉及同类问题的文章。我说，那些在耶鲁和斯坦福这类名校的孩子往
往比较谨慎，去追求一些稳妥的奖励。我得到的最常见的批评是：教育项目“为美国而
教”（Teach for America）如何？从名校出来的很多学生毕业后很多参与这个教育项
目，因此我的观点是错误的。我一再听到TFA这个术语。“为美国而教”当然是好东西
，但引用这个项目来反驳我的观点恰恰是不得要领，实际上正好证明了我想说的东西。
“为美国而教”的问题或者“为美国而教”已经成为体系一部分的问题，是它已经成
为另外一个需要“进入”的门槛。
从其内容来看，“为美国而教”完全不同于高盛或者麦肯锡公司或哈佛医学院或者伯克
利法学院，但从它在精英期待的体系中的地位来说，完全是一样的。它享有盛名，很难
进入，是值得你和父母夸耀的东西，如果写在简历上会很好看（it looks good on
your résumé），最重要的是，它代表了清晰标记的道路（a clearly marked path.
）。你根本不用自己创造，什么都不用做，只需申请然后按要求做就行了，就像上大学
或法学院或麦肯锡公司或别的什么。它是社会参与方面的斯坦福或哈佛，是另一个栅栏
，另一枚奖章。该项目需要能力和勤奋，但不需要一丁点儿的道德想象力。
道德想象力是困难的，这种困难与你已经习惯的困难完全不同。不仅如此，光有道德想
象力还不够。如果你要创造自己的生活（invent your own life），如果你想成为真正
的独立思想者（truly autonomous），你还需要勇气：道德勇气（moral courage）。
不管别人说什么，有按自己的价值观行动的勇气，不会因为别人不喜欢而试图改变自己
的想法。具有道德勇气的个人往往让周围的人感到不舒服。他们和其他人对世界的看法
格格不入，更糟糕的是，让别人对自己已经做出的选择感到不安全或无法做出选择。只
要别人也不享受自由，人们就不在乎自己被关进监狱。可一旦有人越狱，其他人都会跟
着跑出去。
在《青年艺术家的肖像》（A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man）中，詹姆斯&
#8226;乔伊斯（James Joyce）让主人公斯蒂芬•迪达勒斯（Stephen Dedalus）
就19世纪末期的爱尔兰的成长环境说出了如下名言“当一个人的灵魂诞生在这个国家时
，有一张大网把它罩住，防止它飞翔。你会给我谈论民族性、语言和宗教。我想冲出这
些牢笼。”（"When the soul of a man is born in this country there are nets
flung at it to hold it back from flight. You talk to me of nationality,
language, religion. I shall try to fly by those nets."）
今天，我们面临的是其他的网。
其中之一是我在就这些问题与学生交流时经常听到的一个术语“自我放任”（"self-
indulgent"）。“在攻读学位过程中有这么多事要做的时候（so many other things）
，试图按照自己的感觉生活难道不是自我放任吗？”“毕业后不去找个真正的工作（
getting a real job）而去画画难道不是自我放任吗？”
这些是年轻人只要思考一下稍稍出格（a little bit different）的事就不由自主地质
问自己的问题。更糟糕的是，他们觉得提出这些问题是理所应当（feel compelled）的
。许多学生在毕业前夕的未来探索中跟我说，他们感受到来自同伴那里的压力（the
pressure they felt from their peers），需要为创造性的生活或思想生活辩护（to
justify a creative or intellectual life）。好像自己已经走火入魔了似的：抛弃
确定无疑的东西是疯了，认为思想生活可行是疯了，想象你有权尝试是疯了。（You're
made to feel like you're crazy: crazy to forsake the sure thing, crazy to
think it could work, crazy to imagine that you even have a right to try.眠按
：“羊霸王”比更外界的压力更厉害。）
想象我们现在面临的局面。这是美国社会的贫困——思想、道德和精神贫困的最明显症
状，美国最聪明的年轻人竟然认为听从自己的好奇心行动就是自我放任。你们得到的教
导是应该上大学，但你们同时也被告知如果真的想得到教育，那就是“自我放任”。如
果你自我教育的话，更糟糕。这是什么道理？进入证券咨询业是不是自我放任？进入金
融业是不是自我放任？像许多人那样进入律师界发财是不是自我放任？搞音乐，写文章
就不行，因为它不能给人带来利益（what good does that really do anyone）。但为
风险投资公司工作就可以。追求自己的理想和激情是自私的，除非它能让你赚很多钱。
那样的话，就一点儿也不自私了。（It's selfish to pursue your passion, unless
it's also going to make you a lot of money, in which case it's not selfish
at all.）
你看到这些观点是多么荒谬了吗？这就是罩在你们身上的网，就是我说的需要勇气的意
思。这是永不停息的过程（a never-ending process）。在两年前的哈佛事件中，有个
学生谈到我说的大学生需要重新思考人生决定的观点，他说“我们已经做出了决定，我
们早在中学时就已经决定成为能够进入哈佛的高材生。”我在想，谁会打算按照他在12
岁时做出的决定生活呢？(who wants to live with the decisions that they made
when they were 12?) 让我换一种说法，谁愿意让一个12岁的孩子决定他们未来一辈子
要做什么呢？或者一个19岁的小毛孩儿？
你能做出的决定是你现在想什么，你需要准备好不断修改自己的决定。
让我说得更明白一些。我不是在试图说服你们都成为音乐家或者作家。成为医生、律师
、科学家、工程师或者经济学家没有什么不好，这些都是可靠的、可敬的选择（valid
and admirable choices）。我想说的是你需要思考它，认真地思考（think about it
hard）。我请求你们做的，是根据正确的理由做出你的选择。我在敦促你们的，是认识
到你的道德自由（moral freedom）并热情拥抱它。
最重要的是，不要过分谨慎。（Don't play it safe.）去拒否（RESIST）我们社会给
予了过高奖赏的那些卑怯的价值观的诱惑：舒服、方便、安全、可预测的、可控制的。
这些，同样是罗网。最重要的是，去拒否失败的恐惧感。是的，你会犯错误。可那是你
的错误，不是别人的。你将从错误中缓过来，而且，正是因为这些错误，你更好地认识
你自己。由此，你成为更完整和强大的人（a fuller and a stronger person）。
人们常说你们年轻人属于“后情感”一代（a "postemotional" generation），我想我
未必赞同这个说法，但这个说法值得严肃对待。你们更愿意规避混乱、动荡和强烈的感
情（avoid messy and turbulent and powerful feelings），但我想说，不要回避挑
战自我（the challenging parts of yourself），不要否认欲望和好奇心（the
desires and curiosities）、怀疑和不满（the doubts and dissatisfactions）、快
乐和阴郁（the joy and the darkness），它们可能改变你预设的人生轨迹。大学刚开
始，成年时代也才刚开始。打开自己，直面各种可能性吧。这个世界的深广远超你现在
想象的边际。这意味着，你自身的深广也将远超你现在的想象。
What Are You Going to Do With That?
By William Deresiewicz
The essay below is adapted from a talk delivered to a freshman class at
Stanford University in May.
The question my title poses, of course, is the one that is classically aimed
at humanities majors. What practical value could there possibly be in
studying literature or art or philosophy? So you must be wondering why I'm
bothering to raise it here, at Stanford, this renowned citadel of science
and technology. What doubt can there be that the world will offer you many
opportunities to use your degree?
But that's not the question I'm asking. By "do" I don't mean a job, and by "
that" I don't mean your major. We are more than our jobs, and education is
more than a major. Education is more than college, more even than the
totality of your formal schooling, from kindergarten through graduate school
. By "What are you going to do," I mean, what kind of life are you going to
lead? And by "that," I mean everything in your training, formal and informal
, that has brought you to be sitting here today, and everything you're going
to be doing for the rest of the time that you're in school.
We should start by talking about how you did, in fact, get here. You got
here by getting very good at a certain set of skills. Your parents pushed
you to excel from the time you were very young. They sent you to good
schools, where the encouragement of your teachers and the example of your
peers helped push you even harder. Your natural aptitudes were nurtured so
that, in addition to excelling in all your subjects, you developed a number
of specific interests that you cultivated with particular vigor. You did
extracurricular activities, went to afterschool programs, took private
lessons. You spent summers doing advanced courses at a local college or
attending skill-specific camps and workshops. You worked hard, you paid
attention, and you tried your very best. And so you got very good at math,
or piano, or lacrosse, or, indeed, several things at once.
Now there's nothing wrong with mastering skills, with wanting to do your
best and to be the best. What's wrong is what the system leaves out: which
is to say, everything else. I don't mean that by choosing to excel in math,
say, you are failing to develop your verbal abilities to their fullest
extent, or that in addition to focusing on geology, you should also focus on
political science, or that while you're learning the piano, you should also
be working on the flute. It is the nature of specialization, after all, to
be specialized. No, the problem with specialization is that it narrows your
attention to the point where all you know about and all you want to know
about, and, indeed, all you can know about, is your specialty.
The problem with specialization is that it makes you into a specialist. It
cuts you off, not only from everything else in the world, but also from
everything else in yourself. And of course, as college freshmen, your
specialization is only just beginning. In the journey toward the success
that you all hope to achieve, you have completed, by getting into Stanford,
only the first of many legs. Three more years of college, three or four or
five years of law school or medical school or a Ph.D. program, then
residencies or postdocs or years as a junior associate. In short, an ever-
narrowing funnel of specialization. You go from being a political-science
major to being a lawyer to being a corporate attorney to being a corporate
attorney focusing on taxation issues in the consumer-products industry. You
go from being a biochemistry major to being a doctor to being a cardiologist
to being a cardiac surgeon who performs heart-valve replacements.
Again, there's nothing wrong with being those things. It's just that, as you
get deeper and deeper into the funnel, into the tunnel, it becomes
increasingly difficult to remember who you once were. You start to wonder
what happened to that person who played piano and lacrosse and sat around
with her friends having intense conversations about life and politics and
all the things she was learning in her classes. The 19-year-old who could do
so many things, and was interested in so many things, has become a 40-year-
old who thinks about only one thing. That's why older people are so boring.
"Hey, my dad's a smart guy, but all he talks about is money and livers."
And there's another problem. Maybe you never really wanted to be a cardiac
surgeon in the first place. It just kind of happened. It's easy, the way the
system works, to simply go with the flow. I don't mean the work is easy,
but the choices are easy. Or rather, the choices sort of make themselves.
You go to a place like Stanford because that's what smart kids do. You go to
medical school because it's prestigious. You specialize in cardiology
because it's lucrative. You do the things that reap the rewards, that make
your parents proud, and your teachers pleased, and your friends impressed.
From the time you started high school and maybe even junior high, your whole
goal was to get into the best college you could, and so now you naturally
think about your life in terms of "getting into" whatever's next. "Getting
into" is validation; "getting into" is victory. Stanford, then Johns Hopkins
medical school, then a residency at the University of San Francisco, and so
forth. Or Michigan Law School, or Goldman Sachs, or McKinsey, or
whatever. You take it one step at a time, and the next step always seems to
be inevitable.
Or maybe you did always want to be a cardiac surgeon. You dreamed about it
from the time you were 10 years old, even though you had no idea what it
really meant, and you stayed on course for the entire time you were in
school. You refused to be enticed from your path by that great experience
you had in AP history, or that trip you took to Costa Rica the summer after
your junior year in college, or that terrific feeling you got taking care of
kids when you did your rotation in pediatrics during your fourth year in
medical school.
But either way, either because you went with the flow or because you set
your course very early, you wake up one day, maybe 20 years later, and you
wonder what happened: how you got there, what it all means. Not what it
means in the "big picture," whatever that is, but what it means to you. Why
you're doing it, what it's all for. It sounds like a cliché, this "waking
up one day," but it's called having a midlife crisis, and it happens to
people all the time.
There is an alternative, however, and it may be one that hasn't occurred to
you. Let me try to explain it by telling you a story about one of your peers
, and the alternative that hadn't occurred to her. A couple of years ago, I
participated in a panel discussion at Harvard that dealt with some of these
same matters, and afterward I was contacted by one of the students who had
come to the event, a young woman who was writing her senior thesis about
Harvard itself, how it instills in its students what she called self-
efficacy, the sense that you can do anything you want. Self-efficacy, or, in
more familiar terms, self-esteem. There are some kids, she said, who get an
A on a test and say, "I got it because it was easy." And there are other
kids, the kind with self-efficacy or self-esteem, who get an A on a test and
say, "I got it because I'm smart."
Again, there's nothing wrong with thinking that you got an A because you're
smart. But what that Harvard student didn't realize—and it was really quite
a shock to her when I suggested it—is that there is a third alternative.
True self-esteem, I proposed, means not caring whether you get an A in the
first place. True self-esteem means recognizing, despite everything that
your upbringing has trained you to believe about yourself, that the grades
you get—and the awards, and the test scores, and the trophies, and the
acceptance letters—are not what defines who you are.
She also claimed, this young woman, that Harvard students take their sense
of self-efficacy out into the world and become, as she put it, "innovative."
But when I asked her what she meant by innovative, the only example she
could come up with was "being CEO of a Fortune 500." That's not innovative,
I told her, that's just successful, and successful according to a very
narrow definition of success. True innovation means using your imagination,
exercising the capacity to envision new possibilities.
But I'm not here to talk about technological innovation, I'm here to talk
about a different kind. It's not about inventing a new machine or a new drug
. It's about inventing your own life. Not following a path, but making your
own path. The kind of imagination I'm talking about is moral imagination. "
Moral" meaning not right or wrong, but having to do with making choices.
Moral imagination means the capacity to envision new ways to live your life.
It means not just going with the flow. It means not just "getting into"
whatever school or program comes next. It means figuring out what you want
for yourself, not what your parents want, or your peers want, or your school
wants, or your society wants. Originating your own values. Thinking your
way toward your own definition of success. Not simply accepting the life
that you've been handed. Not simply accepting the choices you've been handed
. When you walk into Starbucks, you're offered a choice among a latte and a
macchiato and an espresso and a few other things, but you can also make
another choice. You can turn around and walk out. When you walk into college
, you are offered a choice among law and medicine and investment banking and
consulting and a few other things, but again, you can also do something
else, something that no one has thought of before.
Let me give you another counterexample. I wrote an essay a couple of years
ago that touched on some of these same points. I said, among other things,
that kids at places like Yale or Stanford tend to play it safe and go for
the conventional rewards. And one of the most common criticisms I got went
like this: What about Teach for America? Lots of kids from elite colleges go
and do TFA after they graduate, so therefore I was wrong. TFA, TFA—I heard
that over and over again. And Teach for America is undoubtedly a very good
thing. But to cite TFA in response to my argument is precisely to miss the
point, and to miss it in a way that actually confirms what I'm saying. The
problem with TFA—or rather, the problem with the way that TFA has become
incorporated into the system—is that it's just become another thing to get
into.
In terms of its content, Teach for America is completely different from
Goldman Sachs or McKinsey or Harvard Medical School or Berkeley Law, but in
terms of its place within the structure of elite expectations, of elite
choices, it is exactly the same. It's prestigious, it's hard to get into, it
's something that you and your parents can brag about, it looks good on your
résumé, and most important, it represents a clearly marked path. You don'
t have to make it up yourself, you don't have to do anything but apply and
do the work—just like college or law school or McKinsey or whatever.
It's the Stanford or Harvard of social engagement. It's another hurdle,
another badge. It requires aptitude and diligence, but it does not require a
single ounce of moral imagination.
Moral imagination is hard, and it's hard in a completely different way than
the hard things you're used to doing. And not only that, it's not enough. If
you're going to invent your own life, if you're going to be truly
autonomous, you also need courage: moral courage. The courage to act on your
values in the face of what everyone's going to say and do to try to make
you change your mind. Because they're not going to like it. Morally
courageous individuals tend to make the people around them very
uncomfortable. They don't fit in with everybody else's ideas about the way
the world is supposed to work, and still worse, they make them feel insecure
about the choices that they themselves have made—or failed to make. People
don't mind being in prison as long as no one else is free. But stage a
jailbreak, and everybody else freaks out.
In A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce has Stephen Dedalus
famously say, about growing up in Ireland in the late 19th century, "When
the soul of a man is born in this country there are nets flung at it to hold
it back from flight. You talk to me of nationality, language, religion. I
shall try to fly by those nets."
Today there are other nets. One of those nets is a term that I've heard
again and again as I've talked with students about these things. That term
is "self-indulgent." "Isn't it self-indulgent to try to live the life of the
mind when there are so many other things I could be doing with my degree?"
"Wouldn't it be self-indulgent to pursue painting after I graduate instead
of getting a real job?"
These are the kinds of questions that young people find themselves being
asked today if they even think about doing something a little bit different.
Even worse, the kinds of questions they are made to feel compelled to ask
themselves. Many students have spoken to me, as they navigated their senior
years, about the pressure they felt from their peers—from their peers—to
justify a creative or intellectual life. You're made to feel like you're
crazy: crazy to forsake the sure thing, crazy to think it could work, crazy
to imagine that you even have a right to try.
Think of what we've come to. It is one of the great testaments to the
intellectual—and moral, and spiritual—poverty of American society that it
makes its most intelligent young people feel like they're being self-
indulgent if they pursue their curiosity. You are all told that you're
supposed to go to college, but you're also told that you're being "self-
indulgent" if you actually want to get an education. Or even worse, give
yourself one. As opposed to what? Going into consulting isn't self-indulgent
? Going into finance isn't self-indulgent? Going into law, like most of the
people who do, in order to make yourself rich, isn't self-indulgent? It's
not OK to play music, or write essays, because what good does that really do
anyone, but it is OK to work for a hedge fund. It's selfish to pursue your
passion, unless it's also going to make you a lot of money, in which case it
's not selfish at all.
Do you see how absurd this is? But these are the nets that are flung at you,
and this is what I mean by the need for courage. And it's a never-ending
process. At that Harvard event two years ago, one person said, about my
assertion that college students needed to keep rethinking the decisions
they've made about their lives, "We already made our decisions, back in
middle school, when we decided to be the kind of high achievers who get into
Harvard." And I thought, who wants to live with the decisions that they
made when they were 12? Let me put that another way. Who wants to let a 12-
year-old decide what they're going to do for the rest of their lives? Or a
19-year-old, for that matter?
All you can decide is what you think now, and you need to be prepared to
keep making revisions. Because let me be clear. I'm not trying to persuade
you all to become writers or musicians. Being a doctor or a lawyer, a
scientist or an engineer or an economist—these are all valid and admirable
choices. All I'm saying is that you need to think about it, and think about
it hard. All I'm asking is that you make your choices for the right reasons.
All I'm urging is that you recognize and embrace your moral freedom.
And most of all, don't play it safe. Resist the seductions of the cowardly
values our society has come to prize so highly: comfort, convenience,
security, predictability, control. These, too, are nets. Above all, resist
the fear of failure. Yes, you will make mistakes. But they will be your
mistakes, not someone else's. And you will survive them, and you will know
yourself better for having made them, and you will be a fuller and a
stronger person.
It's been said—and I'm not sure I agree with this, but it's an idea that's
worth taking seriously—that you guys belong to a "postemotional" generation
. That you prefer to avoid messy and turbulent and powerful feelings. But I
say, don't shy away from the challenging parts of yourself. Don't deny the
desires and curiosities, the doubts and dissatisfactions, the joy and the
darkness, that might knock you off the path that you have set for yourself.
College is just beginning for you, adulthood is just beginning. Open
yourself to the possibilities they represent. The world is much larger than
you can imagine right now. Which means, you are much larger than you can
imagine.
William Deresiewicz is a contributing writer for The Nation and a
contributing editor at The New Republic. His next book, A Jane Austen
Education, will be published next year by Penguin Press.