耶鲁大学校长2023年开学日演讲：放慢脚步，弥合裂缝！（附视频&演讲稿）
美东时间8月21日上午，耶鲁大学在Cross Campus举行了一年一度的开学典礼，这标志着所有新生在耶鲁学习生活的正式启航。
按照传统，仪式包括耶鲁大学学术领导们身着全套学士服列队行进、耶鲁大学临时牧师Maytal Saltiel的祝祷，以及耶鲁大学合唱团的音乐表演。耶鲁大学校长苏必德（Peter Salovey）和耶鲁本科学院院长Pericles Lewis发表了开学演讲，但由于校长在典礼前新冠病毒检测呈阳性，因此按照校园的健康规定居家隔离，所以采用视频致辞的方式向各位新生表示欢迎。
耶鲁大学校长2023-2024学年开学典礼演讲的主题为“放慢脚步，弥合裂缝”。在演讲中，校长寄语新生，“希望你们能培养谨慎地、有条理地行动习惯——放慢脚步，不仅为了放慢白驹过隙般的时间，也为反思听到的各种观点，准备好进入世界，弥合裂缝”。
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Good morning!
I’m sorry that I cannot be there with you in person today. Although I feel fine, I tested positive for Covid yesterday, and in accordance with the University’s health guidelines, I’m staying home. However, I’m delighted to join you through video.
It gives me great pleasure to welcome you, our entering students, and your family members to campus, and to mark officially the start of your undergraduate education.
This is a big moment – for you and for Yale!
I’m glad this day has arrived and I’m so glad you are here.
It is evident why you belong at Yale. Your academic distinction, leadership savvy, and outstanding motivation solidify your standing among students who have sat for centuries where you are sitting today. What is more, the richness of your diversity – across every dimension – reflects Yale’s commitment to creating an inclusive educational environment.
Now, as you prepare to enter Yale – and leave your unique imprint on it – allow me to alert you to a perennial observation among our alumni. Many of your predecessors, I must caution, have marveled at the breakneck clip at which today’s festivities give way to your graduation.
It’s a hard truth codified in one of Yale’s most celebrated traditions, the singing of our unofficial alma mater, “Bright College Years.” Your time here is described as the “shortest, gladdest years of life,” and as “gliding by,” “swiftly,” in fact.
So I encourage you to savor the qualities that drew you to this remarkable place.
Between the ceremonies that will bookend your “bright college years,” I encourage you to remain ever aware that time here moves at warp speed.
As you set off on the grand adventure of a liberal education, though, I want also to impart a bit of wisdom. Today, I want to urge you to cultivate the habit of moving deliberately, systematically – slowly – not necessarily to blunt the wistfulness you may feel in four years’ time, but to reflect on the ideas to which you will be exposed, and to be in a position to repair what is broken in the world you will then enter.
As perhaps never before, this year’s cohort of new undergraduate students has come of age in a culture of haste. Yours is a generation that has never known life without the instant spread of information. Social networking was born before nearly all of you. And similarly novel technologies that were unthinkable in my generation are native to yours.
Many of the innovations on which society has come to rely are the fruit of a mantra first articulated by Mark Zuckerberg. “Move fast and break things,” he instructed his staff at Facebook around the time of its 2004 launch. “Unless you are breaking stuff,” he continued, “you are not moving fast enough.”
To be sure, this mantra was eventually phased out as Facebook’s motto, but it remains very much a prevailing ethos that animates today’s tech ecosystem. “Blitzscaling,” as LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman characterized it, “drives ‘lightning’ growth by prioritizing speed over efficiency, even in an environment of uncertainty.”
Of course, this ethos also has seeped into the DNA of newer online platforms that prioritize, rather detrimentally, speed over depth – platforms that can stoke our emotional impulses all while suppressing our capacity to think broadly and engage with ideas that challenge us. The emerging frontier of artificial intelligence has given us a glimpse into its potential to compound these tendencies.
So, rather than “move fast and break things,” I say, here today, “slow down and fix things.”
Now, I am not a Luddite. I treasure the benefits of technological advance to our lives and our relationships. Here on campus, for example, the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the extraordinary usefulness of digital tools in sustaining our educational mission – and in allowing us to cope and connect with one another – amid social isolation and hardship. And sometimes, tech is just plain fun. I can spend hours on YouTube checking out Appalachian music from past decades.
But the propensity we have developed for the immediate deprives us of the time and space necessary for careful reflection. Social media feeds can bait us with the hollow lure of “likes” – and then bombard us with viewpoints that reinforce, indeed intensify, our most strongly held assumptions. We consume what we already believe to be true – and are largely shielded, therefore, from what is.
So, I encourage you: Slow down and fix things.
To place this advice in context, I’d like to draw upon my field of study, the discipline of psychology.
Last year, I had the special privilege of engaging in a public dialogue about generative AI with Professor Daniel Kahneman, a Nobel Prize-winning psychologist known best for his field-changing research on decision-making heuristics and biases. Years ago, my lab relied on his work to conduct research on how to make health messages more persuasive. And Yale was proud to bestow on him an honorary degree in 2014.
In his book, “Thinking, Fast and Slow”, Professor Kahneman details how our minds are governed by two systems. System 1 is the fast one. It’s based on emotion, reflex, and stereotype. And it makes us “gullible,” therefore, “and biased to believe.” System 2 is the slow one, in charge of “doubting and unbelieving” through analytical, deliberate, and rational thought.
“The confirmatory bias of System 1,” he says, in short, “favors uncritical acceptance of suggestions and exaggerations of the likelihood of extreme and improbable events.” Well, we can see here the hazards of nurturing it as a default way of thinking, particularly in a time of upheaval and unrest.
Of course, as members of the Class of 2027, your most formative years coincided with moments of monumental consequence. In high school, you witnessed a once-in-a-generation pandemic and the virulent spread of conspiracy theories about it. You saw violent insurrectionists disrupt the most basic functioning of our democracy, and Vladimir Putin launch the largest ground war in Europe since the Second World War. You have seen, and some of you have participated in, transformative social and cultural movements. And as recently as this summer, you experienced the hottest recorded week in history even as some deny the severity – in fact, the existence – of the climate emergency.
So, I sense you may rightfully feel, among a mix of other emotions, a burning desire to pursue speedy action. But our commitment to lux et veritas – to light and truth – compels us to slow down, to listen to each other, to deal with complex and sometimes conflicting ideas, to engage in deep thoughtfulness, and then to look for ways to fix things.
Now, let me be clear: this is not to suggest that the pace of progress ought to be glacial.
No, the challenges confronting society demand our restlessness to improve the world for this and future generations. Patience, as university president Kingman Brewster Jr. told incoming members of a Yale College class, “is not come by easily in a world for which survival is a serious question.” And that was to the Class of 1974! So “where then,” he asked, “is the purpose which makes patient learning supportable?”
As President Brewster would go on to insinuate, enduring, institutional progress takes not only knowledge but understanding. Solutions born of even the most well-founded scientific or historical expertise still require the public will to implement them. Changing other people’s minds requires us to expand our own; breakthroughs are brought about in a chorus, not an echo chamber. We must take time to think deliberatively if we want to fix things.
Let me provide an example from two Yale College alumni, David Broockman and Joshua Kalla, political scientists, the latter of whom is at Yale. Professors Broockman and Kalla focus on political persuasion, public opinion, and prejudice reduction. And their signal work on transgender rights and immigration informs and guides meaningful action in these and other realms of public discourse.
They found that the inclination to correct others who do not see the world as we do “may provide emotional relief, but it’s not likely to persuade”, in their words. “In fact, [expressing such frustration] can make people harden their existing views.” “Deep canvassing,” – that is “non-judgmentally exchanging narratives in interpersonal conversations” – can “facilitate durable reductions in exclusionary attitudes.”
OK. So they dispatched dozens of door-to-door canvassers in the wake of a new law to protect transgender people from discrimination. One group of canvassers “said nothing to residents about transphobia,” while the other “[asked] sensitive questions, [listened] to the answers with sincere interest, and then [asked] more questions.”
The result? Well, here is what they said, “Not everyone was swayed… but on average, [the group engaged in the deeper, thoughtful interactions] experienced a drop in transphobia [even] greater than the fall in homophobia among Americans from 1998 to 2012.” The canvassers, by listening sincerely – patiently – “had produced the equivalent of fourteen years of social change.” So, we must undertake the rigorous, painstaking, and yes, sometimes plodding, task of listening carefully to the broad range of perspectives that surround us instead of blazing forth complacently.
We must elevate the virtues, indeed the value, of patience and a willingness to listen to ideas we don’t like, and reject a counterproductive culture of calling out, denunciation, and ostracism. In an obvious paradox, slowing down can achieve faster, more effective results.
In thinking of this imperative, I am reminded of the Reverend Tish Harrison Warren’s recent exploration of patience as a virtue with the Yale Divinity School’s Center for Faith and Culture. “Internet advocacy – our very connected world – does make us [a] less patient people. I mean that in both ways,” she says, “less patient for change but also less patient with one another. It takes real work to slow down and listen to another person’s perspective, especially if you disagree.”
I think, too, of the late Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, another honorary Yale degree recipient I reference today, who expressed powerfully that “arguments are won only by giving your opponent a hearing.”
Here at Yale, and at colleges and universities like it, we advance this worthy endeavor by educating students to seek out competing ideas, to evaluate evidence, to mobilize the tools of reason and critical inquiry. Yes, this takes time and patience. But the effortful System 2 mode of thinking a liberal education promotes cultivates collaboration – and thereby propels sweeping contributions to our world.
That is, I think, what makes education “the strongest force available.”
It is what makes “patient learning” supportable, in fact, essential.
I take as my final words today a part of what Rabbi Sacks wrote on the merits of engaging with diverse perspectives. Jewish scholarship in the first century BCE, he noted, “was riven by a series of controversies between the schools of two great rabbis, Hillel and Shammai. Eventually, the views of Rabbi Hillel prevailed on most issues. The Talmud explains why: ‘the disciples of Hillel were pleasant and did not take offense, and they taught the views of their opponents as well as their own; indeed, they taught the views of their opponents before their own.’” He might have said, seek lux et veritas, light and truth, through audi alteram partem, listening to the other side – that is, if Rabbi Hillel spoke Latin.
Here in the arena of higher education, I am sure, you will do so. Here you will find an oasis – if not an island – of the pensive, interdependent thought process through which positive change advances. And then, in due course, you will be well-positioned to put this hallmark of your Yale education to work in the world.
You will know that taking the time to see the whole of a problem, to create something lasting and beneficial, and to build consensus – even, and most especially, with those whose worldview does not align with your own – is not an impediment but a prerequisite to progress.
Even as you slow down and contemplate new perspectives, you will still hold fast to your ideals and move thoughtfully – faithfully – to fulfill them.
I’m pleased to welcome you to Yale today.
I’m pleased to advise you: slow down, fix things.
早上好！
我要热烈欢迎新生和你们的家人来到学校，并宣布你们的本科生涯正式启航。
这是一个重要时刻——对你们是，对耶鲁也是！
我和台上的同事们都很高兴这一天终于到来了，你们来到这里，让我们非常欣喜。
很明显，你们为什么能成为耶鲁的一员，你们的学术造诣、领导才能、出色的驱动力，让你们脱颖而出，坐在这片几百年来优秀学子都坐过的草地上。从各个维度考虑，你们的多元化也反映出耶鲁致力于营造包容的教育环境。
现在，当你们准备踏入耶鲁校园，并留下自己的独特足迹时，我必须告诉你们一个我对校友们多年来的观察。你们的很多前辈都感叹，在愉快的开学典礼之后，时间会过得飞快，一转眼就要进行毕业典礼了。
这个残酷的事实在耶鲁的非官方校歌《美好校园年华》（Bright College Years）中也有体现。歌词把你们在校的时光形容为“最短暂最欢快的光阴”“快速地从指间流走”。毕业时唱这首歌是耶鲁最重要的传统之一。
所以，请你们好好享受这个非凡之地，珍惜那些吸引你选择耶鲁的特质。
在开学和毕业典礼之间的“美好校园年华”中，我希望你们一直记住，在这里，逝者如斯，不舍昼夜。
在你们踏上博雅教育的盛大旅程之际，我还想传授一点智慧。我希望你们能培养谨慎地、有条理地行动习惯——放慢脚步，不仅为了放慢白驹过隙般的时间，也为反思听到的各种观点，准备好进入世界，弥合裂缝。
这届新生是前所未有地在急速的世界中长大的一届。社交网络诞生在你们大多数人出生之前，你们这代人从未体验过没有即时信息的生活。同样，在我的年代完全无法想象的技术，对你们来说是与生俱来的。
如今世界赖以生存的很多新发明都来源于马克·扎克伯格（Mark Zuckerberg）提出的一句口号。2004年推出脸书时，他告诉员工：“快速行动，破除陈规”，“如果你不在破除什么，那就是行动得不够快。”
后来脸书逐渐淘汰了这句口号，但它仍然激励着现在的技术产业。正如领英的联合创始人雷德·霍夫曼（Reid Hoffman）提出的“闪电式扩张”一样，“即便在不确定的环境中，也要将速度置于功效之上，达到闪电一般的增速。”
这种风气也渗透到了新型网络平台之中。它们为速度牺牲了深度。我们为这些内容兴奋不已，却无法广泛思考，真正从所读所看中获得些什么。最近出现的人工智能应用也是一个例子，它可能让我们越来越怠于思考。
所以，与其“快速行动，破除陈规”，我主张大家“放慢脚步，弥合裂缝”。
我不是反对科技进步。科技进步方便了我们的日常生活和人际关系，这点我非常珍惜。就拿我们学校来说，新冠疫情期间，是因为有了线上工具，我们才得以继续授课，维持学校的教育使命；并在困难的隔离期间联络、互相支持。有些时候，科技也很有趣。我也会在YouTube上花几小时欣赏过去几十年间的阿巴拉契亚音乐。
但是近年来，我们越来越倾向于瞬间满足，仔细思考的时间越来越少。当我们在社交网络看到一条推文，我们先受空洞的“点赞数”吸引，然后读到的全都是与我们想法一致的评论，因为网络推送的是我们认为正确的东西——而不是真正正确的。
所以我建议你们：放慢脚步，弥合裂缝。
为了进一步论证这条建议，我想聊聊我的专业：心理学。
去年，我有幸与诺贝尔奖得主、心理学家丹尼尔·卡尼曼（Daniel Kahneman）就生成式人工智能进行公开对话。卡尼曼因其关于决策启发法和偏见的颠覆性研究而闻名。多年前，我的实验室便以他的科研成果为基础，研究如何让健康相关的讯息更有说服力。耶鲁大学非常荣幸能在2014年授予他荣誉学位。
在他的书《思考，快与慢》（Thinking, Fast and Slow）中，卡尼曼教授详细阐述了我们的思想是如何受两个系统控制的。系统一是快速的，它基于情绪、条件反射、固有印象，它使我们“容易上当，容易相信信息。”而系统二是慢的，它负责通过分析事实、谨慎商榷、理性思考，从而“质疑和不相信”信息。
简单来说，系统一会产生证实偏差，让我们不加思考，接受所有极端的、不太可能的事件。不难发现，如果它成为我们默认的思考路径，尤其在目前动荡不安的世界中，是非常危险的。
作为2027届的学生，你们形成价值观的年岁正好有很多大事发生。在高中时期，你们经历了百年不遇的疫情全球大流行，也听闻了大量与之相关的阴谋论。你们看到暴力叛乱分子完全破坏了我们的民主制度，也目睹了普京发起自第二次世界大战以来欧洲最大规模的地面战争。你们见证甚至参与了变革性的社会和文化运动。而就在今年夏天，你们经历了有气象记录以来最热的一周——即使现在还有些人不相信气候变化的急迫性。
所以我想，你们也许心情复杂，但都急切地希望尽快行动。但我们的校训“光明与真理”让我们必须放慢脚步、倾听彼此，处理复杂甚至相互冲突的观点，深思熟虑，然后再着手弥合裂缝。
我要明确一点：这不是说进步的步伐应该像冰川一样缓慢。
不是。社会上问题不断，让我们必须不断进取，改变这个世界，造福我们自己和未来的世代。但正如耶鲁大学前校长金曼·布鲁斯特（Kingman Brewster Jr.）在开学演讲时所说：“在一个生存都是严峻问题的世界里，耐心并不容易获得。”这是1974届学生的开学典礼！所以他问道，“是什么让我们支持有耐心的学习？”
布鲁斯特校长接着表示，持久的、系统性的进步需要的不仅是知识，还有理解。就算是科学家或史学家提出的最有理有据的结论，也只有公众愿意执行才有意义。改变他人的想法要求我们首先要开阔自己的视野；突破产生于众说纷纭，而不是孤芳自赏。想要解决问题，必须先深思熟虑。
接下来的例子来自耶鲁本科校友、政治学家大卫·布鲁克曼（David Broockman）和约书亚·卡拉（Joshua Kalla），后者在耶鲁任教。布鲁克曼教授和卡拉教授研究政治说服、公众舆论和偏见减少。他们在跨性别权利和移民领域的卓越工作对公众话语提供了信息和指导。
他们发现，当我们试着纠正与自己看法相左的人时，这种行为“可能会让自己更好受，但不太可能说服对方，甚至可能加固他们原来的观点。”反而是“深度游说”——“在对话中不加评断地交换故事”能“持久地减少排斥态度”。
在一条新的保护跨性别者权益的法律通过之际，他们派出数十名游说人士挨家挨户地拜访居民。其中一组完全不提“跨性别恐惧”，而另一组则问出敏感问题，真诚地聆听他们的回答，然后再提出更多问题。
结果呢？后者也没有说服所有人，但通过这一次对话，这组人“恐跨情绪”的下降幅度，甚至超过了1998至2012年间所有美国人“恐跨情绪”的降低。通过真诚、耐心的聆听，这些游说人士创造了的变化与14年间社会变革的程度相当。所以，就算有时候很辛苦，我们也要一丝不苟地倾听身边的各种看法，而不是自鸣得意、盲目前进。
我们必须更有耐心，更愿意聆听我们不喜欢的主张，弘扬这种美德，而抵制当众批评、谴责、排斥的文化，因为它们只会适得其反。放慢脚步，可以实现更快、更有效的结果——这个悖论道理很简单。
在考虑这句建议的时候，我想到了蒂什·哈里森·沃伦牧师（Tish Harrison Warren）最近和耶鲁神学院信仰与文化中心共同探索耐心这个美德时所说：“互联网将人与人连接在一起，但它让我们失去了耐心：我们没有耐心等待变化发生，也没有耐心去理解彼此。让自己慢下来，去倾听他人的见解是需要努力的，尤其当对方想法与你相左的时候。”
我也想到了已故的犹太教拉比勋爵乔纳森·萨克斯（Jonathan Sacks）——耶鲁也给他颁发过荣誉学位——他说过：“只有认真聆听对手，你才可能赢得争吵。”
在耶鲁和其他相似的学府，我们让学生探索不同的观点，评估证据，动用逻辑推理和批判性思维，来推行倾听这个有意义的习惯。不能否认，做到这件事需要时间和耐心。但博雅教育所培养的系统二的思考形式能推进合作，从而推动世界共赢。
我想，正是因此，我们会说教育是最强的力量。
也正是这个原因让耐心聆听能站得住脚——甚至成为必要技能。
最后，我想引用萨克斯拉比的一段话收尾。他指出，公元前一世纪的犹太学界是由两位伟大的拉比推进的——希勒尔（Hillel）和煞买（Shammai）。最终，希勒尔学派的观点在大多数问题上占了上风。犹太法典中这么说：“希勒尔的门徒更友善，听到什么都不会生气。他们不仅传授己方的看法，也讨论对方的立场，准确来说，是在提出自己学派的想法之前，先探讨对方的意见。”要是希勒尔会说拉丁语，他也许会说：“通过倾听他人来寻求光明与真理吧。”
在这个高等教育的舞台上，我相信你们都会去倾听别人。在这里，你们会找到一片为沉思者准备的绿洲，积极的改变从这里出发。然后，在适当的时候，你们便可以把这个耶鲁教育的特点带到工作中，带到世界的各个角落。
你们会发现，花时间去看到问题的全部，去创造一个耐久的、有益的东西，去建立共识——甚至，或者说尤其是与那些世界观与你不同的人——并不是进步的障碍。相反，它是进步的条件。
在你们放慢脚步，考虑新想法的同时，你们将继续坚守理想，并谨慎地、忠诚地朝着理想的方向前进。
我很高兴今天欢迎你们来到耶鲁。
我很高兴给你们提出建议：放慢脚步，弥合裂缝。
↓↓↓ 上下滑动，查看演讲稿 ↓↓↓
Good morning. It truly is a thrill to welcome all of you, our entering students, and your family members to campus for our Yale College Opening Assembly. Today is the official start of your undergraduate education at Yale, and on behalf of all my colleagues here on stage with me, we are delighted this day has arrived!
As you know, Yale’s motto is Light and Truth—Lux et Veritas in Latin, Urim v’Thummim in Hebrew—and you will see it etched ubiquitously on crests around campus. Today, I want to speak with you about the part of our motto we share with many other universities around the world through their mission, ethos, or culture: Veritas, or Truth.
For several years now, even as the world struggled to contain a public health crisis, we have witnessed the virulent spread of deceptive information, even outright lies. We have seen an assault on expertise, an assault on scientific and other scholarly findings—indeed, an assault on truth. Hardly a day passes without a report on someone who has “discovered,” in the comfort of his or her own home, that the scientific experts are wrong about COVID. Hardly a day goes by when someone on the internet does not spin some new, fact-free conspiracy theory. Historical events we all know to be true are denied by individuals with nefarious motives.
Here are five brief examples:
Earlier this year, some in our country, including those in positions of leadership, depicted a violent mob’s attempt to disrupt the most basic functioning of our democracy by denying an election outcome as “legitimate political discourse.”[1]
As destructive wildfires, severe drought in some places, and historic flooding in others portend a catastrophic climate emergency, we see those faithful to unfounded skepticism disregard overwhelming scientific consensus. In some counties in the United States, half of the residents still do not believe global climate change is real.[2]
In recent months, Vladimir Putin has propagated misinformation about rooting out Nazis as the motivation for his unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.[3]
Social media platforms have been mobilized to incite or stoke ethnic violence by propagating falsehoods in countries like Myanmar and Ethiopia.
And finally, a recent defamation trial focused on a notorious conspiracy theorist who claims that the murder of twenty school children and six adults in Sandy Hook, Connecticut—about a half-hour’s drive from here—was staged by the U.S. government.
Of course, spreading misinformation is not new. History teems with the haunting consequences of lies.
Philosopher Hannah Arendt—on whom Yale bestowed an honorary degree in 1971—writes of some of humanity’s darkest chapters and the malignant regimes that authored them: “the ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist.” It is rather, Arendt continues, “people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (i.e., the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (i.e., the standards of thought) no longer exist.”[4]
Yes, malevolence can feast on the environment devoid of Veritas. And at stake, therefore, in the abiding search for truth is humanity itself.
For our part, colleges and universities must combat the spread of misinformation, propaganda, and conjured conspiracy theories first by supporting faculty; they generate scientific data and scholarly insight. Faculty must be free to disseminate knowledge and teach you to think critically about ideas and their sources.
But to do so effectively, our institutions of higher education—faculty and students—must be open to engaging with diverse ideas, whether conventional or unconventional, of the left or of the right. It is Yale’s obligation to address the credibility crisis, for we have long stood for the pursuit of truth and devoted ourselves to it.
Colleges and universities like Yale are home to artists, scholars, scientists, and practitioners who spend their entire lives searching for truth. Yet, the growing polarization in society around ideas, whether embraced or eschewed by a particular faction, impedes this search, and threatens to erode public confidence in expertise, minimizing the impact of universities precisely when unvarnished truth is so desperately needed.
Faculty and students—indeed the university itself—will be viewed as reliable sources of information if we do not appear closed off to unpopular or otherwise nonmainstream ideas from thoughtful individuals responsibly articulated. Most Americans still have a positive view of universities and consider a college education important for future success. But confidence that higher education has a salubrious impact on society is eroded by a belief that we will not engage with ideas that challenge us.
Let me discuss a familiar example: that there has been a steady decline in the percentage of college students who believe the freedom to express unpopular points of view is secure. Actually, it is a myth that students do not want their campuses to be home to a broad range of perspectives. Recent opinion polling by the Knight Foundation confirms that most students believe it is more important to be exposed to all types of speech than to protect people by prohibiting offensive or biased speech.[5] What some refer to as “cancel culture” is not the dominant ideology of students.
Here at Yale, which is home to the country’s oldest collegiate debate society, students across the political spectrum can engage in spirited, yet civil discussions. Yale College students have selected Hillary Clinton as a Class Day speaker and honored both George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush as Yale Undergraduate Lifetime Achievement Award recipients. And the university has hosted interactions between individuals with ideological differences, such as a recent conversation between Emily Bazelon and Ross Douthat, and another one among four former Secretaries of State, Democrats and Republicans.
But let’s be frank. It can be difficult to articulate unpopular views on college campuses. That Knight Foundation survey I cited a moment ago suggests that only about half of all students feel “comfortable offering dissenting opinions.”
So, we need to build on an existing desire among students to engage each day—in classrooms, dining halls, and meeting spaces—with different viewpoints and to appreciate the importance of expressing their disagreement with one another. Indeed, in a university setting, we must be able to distinguish—emphatically—legitimate dissent from outright deceit. We must make room for beliefs we find objectionable as faithfully as we reject falsehoods we know to be lies.
And we must, therefore, nurture a bias toward openness, even—and especially—when this ethos exposes us to points of view that test our most strongly held assumptions. Such a climate affords the search for truth—and the credibility necessary to trust it.
Of course, as we search for truth, we must also be mindful of the power and influence of institutions like Yale. We must recognize, with humility, that what looks like a truth might not be one. I think, for instance, of our own history: our resistance to co-education for so long or our leadership at one time in eugenics. With power comes great responsibility. These disturbing realities are why some are reluctant even to use the word “truth” in describing our mission.
Nonetheless, at Yale, I have often observed our faculty actively encouraging students to interrogate data and other ideas presented to them, and I have seen students change their minds when confronted with contrary evidence. Every one of you will have that experience as part of your Yale education. I suspect you will have it often.
You can enroll in courses that bring together pairs of professors representing different disciplines, who model how looking at a problem from divergent perspectives can lead to new insights: a course on film taught by a film historian and a physicist, a course on the nature of choice taught by a philosopher and an economist, a course on transgender health taught by faculty members from American Studies and the nursing school. Similarly, in a recent semester, three experts from across the political spectrum co-taught a course on the crisis of liberalism, covering the Obama and Trump presidencies.
We will continue to create opportunities like these for you to have open conversations about contentious, complex issues—opportunities rooted in the reality that no ideological bloc can claim ownership of truth; that facts pledge no fealty to any of our preferred conclusions. And, therefore, that evidence must guide the beliefs we hold rather than conform to them.
In considering this imperative, I am reminded of the book, The Death of Truth, by Michiko Kakutani—a winner of the Pulitzer Prize, an alumna of Yale College (Class of 1976), and a champion of the sense of truth we seek to promote.
Kakutani’s stirring appeal for reason and objectivity concludes with an especially, if not unnervingly relevant warning for our era issued by James Madison: “a popular Government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy; or perhaps both.” Indeed, “without commonly agreed-upon facts,” Kakutani posits, “not Republican facts and [not] Democratic facts; not the alternative facts of today’s silo-world—there can be no rational debate over policies, no substantive means of evaluating candidates for political office, and no way to hold elected officials accountable to the people. Without truth, democracy is hobbled. The founders recognized this, and those seeking democracy’s survival must recognize it today.”[6]
I think, too, of James Hatch—an extraordinary Yale undergraduate who spent over two decades with the Naval Special Warfare Command before returning to complete his college education. As he wrote, the climate at Yale “is one where most students understand that there HAS to be a place where people can assault ideas openly and discuss them vigorously and respectfully in order to improve the state of humanity.”[7]
Yale is committed to the responsibility of promoting the public’s trust in academic research, expertise, and the value of higher education by ensuring that Mr. Hatch’s experience is typical of every student, every day, and in every classroom.
Philosophy 181 reflects this responsibility. In her course “Philosophy and the Science of Human Nature,” Yale’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences Dean Tamar Gendler ties contemporary cognitive science, which has helped us to gain an understanding of how our minds operate, to the work of ancient philosophers. Students in her class consider anew Plato’s allegory of the cave, in which people mistake shadows on a wall for reality. Dean Gendler walks her students through this allegory to challenge them to consider this question: How do you discover truth given that the human mind is imperfect?
Of course, our limitations pose no impediment to the search for truth. For they are, in fact, what can power the curiosity necessary to sustain it. By embracing our humility, we can broaden our understanding.[8]
So, at Yale, we will not merely reaffirm what you already think as you arrive. We will, instead, provoke you to uncover all you do not know before you leave. We will fine-tune your ability to sift fact from falsehood, for the core of a liberal education is comprised of reason, logic, and critical thinking.
Soon, you will be the beneficiary of such an education. Yet, it behooves you also to be an active participant in it as students—and then, in due course, as alumni.
And so, today, as you begin your college career, I call on all of us to promote a truth-seeking climate at Yale—in every seminar, in every residential college, and in every late-night conversation—by being willing to entertain ideas with which we do not agree, by being willing to extend grace and assume positive intent, by listening carefully, by thinking deeply, and by speaking with empathy and understanding.
Let us, together, elevate the virtues of tolerance and engagement, and reject the culture of public shaming, doxing, and ostracism.
And, in time-tested tradition, let us strengthen the open discourse that has, for centuries, been a hallmark of our intellectual community at Yale—and that has produced the scholarship and scientific breakthroughs that have improved the world well beyond it.
By doing so, you can develop expertise—and also help to rescue its standing. You can, in an increasingly dark world, bring Veritas to Lux—Truth to Light. And, perhaps equally as vital in a fragmented world, bring Lux to Veritas—Light to Truth.
Welcome to Yale.
早上好。很高兴能在耶鲁本科学院开学典礼上见到各位新生和你们的家人。今天是你们正式开启耶鲁本科生涯的第一天，我谨代表台上的同事们，对这一天的到来感到由衷地喜悦。
如各位所知，耶鲁大学的校训是“光明与真理”，拉丁语是Lux et Veritas，希伯来语是Urim v’Thummim。在耶鲁的校园里，这条校训随处可见。今天，我想和大家聊聊我们的校训中很重要的一部分，一个在世界各地大学的使命、精神与文化中广泛存在的追求，那就是真理。
近几年来，尽管全世界都在竭力应对公共卫生危机，我们仍目睹了假消息，甚至是谬论的肆虐。在这一过程中，专业知识遭受质疑，科学发现和学术研究面临考验——事实上，这些挑战都是一种对真理的侵犯。几乎每天都有这样的事情发生：报道称有人在家“发现”科学家们得出的新冠肺炎病毒有关结论有误；网友又编织出了全新的、毫无根据的阴谋论；我们公认的历史事实也被别有用心之人矢口否认。
这里列举5个简短的例子：
年初，美国一些人（包括处于领导地位的人）把一场企图颠覆我们民主基础和反对选举制度的暴徒行为称作“合法的政治诉求”。
当毁灭性的山火、局部严重干旱和历史罕见的洪水等昭示着灾难性的气候挑战时，一些人却笃信毫无根据的怀疑论，无视广泛建立起的科学共识。在美国的一些县城里，一半的居民还不相信全球气候变化正真实地发生着。
最近几个月，人们关于俄乌战争的情绪被误导和激化。
社交媒体平台上，有些人通过宣传虚假内容煽动种族主义情绪，比如在缅甸和埃塞俄比亚所发生的事。
最近的一桩诽谤罪判案中，一位臭名昭著的阴谋论者称发生在距离耶鲁校园约半小时车程的康涅狄格州桑迪胡克谋杀案（20名小学生和6名成年人在此次事故中丧生）系美国政府所为。
当然，传播假消息已经不是什么新鲜事了。历史充斥着谎言招致的恶果。
20世纪哲学家Hannah Arendt，曾于1971年获得耶鲁名誉学位。她在叙述人性黑暗和残酷政权时写道，真正的极权主体不是某一党派的坚定支持者，而是那些对事实与杜撰，正确与错误不加区分的人。
没错，恶毒可以在缺少真理的环境中猖獗。因此，在对真理的持续探索中，人性本身也岌岌可危。
就耶鲁而言，高校必须首先通过支持教师来打击虚假信息、阻止煽动和臆造阴谋论的传播，因为他们所做的正是收集科学数据并提出学术见解。教员们必须能够自由地传授知识，并教学生批判性地思考各种观点及其来源。
但要有效地做到这一点，高等教育体系中的老师和学生都必须对多元的思想保持开放，无论是传统还是非传统的，左派还是右派。耶鲁大学长期以来代表并致力于对真理的坚守，因此我们有责任应对公信力危机。
对于穷极一生追寻真理的艺术家、学者、科学家与一线实践者们，像耶鲁这样的大学是他们的家园。然而，社会上观点的极化，无论是否被某一特定派别所接受，都无疑阻碍了追寻真理的进程，也将会蚕食公众对专业知识的信心，并在人们亟需纯粹的真相时消解着大学的影响力。
当有思想的人负责任地阐述了不受欢迎的或非主流的观点，而我们对此保持开放，那么全体师生乃至整个大学将被视作可靠信息的来源。大多数美国人仍然对大学持有积极看法，认为大学教育对一个人的未来发挥着重要的作用。但是，对于高等教育将为社会带来有益影响的信心却被一种质疑所侵蚀，那就是我们不愿接受挑战的声音。
或者说有些人相信，学生中认为可以安全地发表不受欢迎的观点的比例在下降。实际情况绝非如此，学生们不愿校园成为多元观点的汇聚之地是一个谣言。根据美国奈特基金会（Knight Foudation）最近的一项调查，大多数学生认为接触各类言论比通过禁止冒犯性或偏见性的言论来保护大家更为重要。一些人所说的“取消文化”并不是学生群体的主流思想。
耶鲁拥有美国历史最悠久的大学辩论文化，持有任何政治立场的学生都可以加入到激烈而文明的讨论中。在耶鲁，你会看到美国民主党籍政治家、耶鲁法学院’73届校友希拉里·克林顿作为耶鲁本科生毕业日的受邀嘉宾演讲，也会看到共和党派、美国前总统布什父子荣获耶鲁本科生终身成就奖。同时，耶鲁大学为持有不同意识形态的人提供互动机会，比如此前一场对话中齐聚了来自两党的四任美国前国务卿。
但是坦白来讲，在校园里发表不受欢迎的见解的确有些困难。我刚提到的奈特基金会调查也显示，只有大约一半的学生“能够自如地表达不同意见”。
因此，我们需要提升学生每天在教室、餐厅和会议室内与不同观点探讨的持续渴望，并认识到向他人表达不同见解的重要性。事实上，在大学这个环境中，我们必须能够将正当的异议与彻头彻尾的谎言区分开来，必须坚定地为令人不悦的真知灼见留有空间，正如我们驳斥谬论时一样坚定。
因此，我们必须培养一种开放的态度，尤其是当我们最根深蒂固的思想受到挑战之时。这样的氛围承载着对真理的探寻，以及相信真理所需要建立起的公信力。
当然，在我们追寻真理的过程中，我们必须铭记耶鲁等学术机构的权力和影响力。我们必须谦虚地认识到，谬论也可能伪装成真理，比如，历史上我们曾错误地认为男女不应该同校，以及引领了“优生运动”的风潮。当权力同时意味着责任时，这些困扰成为了一些人拒绝使用“真理”一词来描述耶鲁使命的原因。
尽管如此，在耶鲁，我经常看到教师们鼓励学生对数据和观点提出质疑，也看到学生们面对相悖的证据时改变自己的观点。你们每个人都将在耶鲁经历这些，并且经常经历，这是耶鲁教育的一部分。
在耶鲁可选的课程中，经常可见两位代表不同学科的教授共同教授一门课。在他们的课上你将体会到，从不同的视角审视同一个问题将促生全新观点。比如，电影史教授与物理学家共同教授的电影课程，哲学家与经济学家共同讲解自然选择，美国研究和护理学院学者共同教授跨性别健康课程。类似地，最近一个学期，三位持不同政见的专家共同开设了一门关于自由主义危机的课程，横跨了奥巴马与特朗普的总统任期。
我们将继续为你们创造可以自由争论复杂问题的对话机会。这些时刻让我们意识到，现实中没有任何意识集团真正拥有真理；事实不会归顺于我们任何偏向的结论。因此，实证必须引导我们持有的观念，而非顺从于它。
讲到这里，我想到了一本名为《真理之死》的书，它的作者是耶鲁本科学院1976届校友、普利策奖获得者角谷美智子，一位我们所追寻真理的捍卫者。
角谷美智子在书中对理性与客观的呼吁，以詹姆斯·麦迪逊（美国第四任总统、美国宪法之父）的一句话结束，这也是对我们这个时代提出的警告：“一个公众的政府，若没有供民众获取的信息或获取信息的方式，将会奏响一场闹剧或悲剧，或两者兼具的惨剧的前奏。”当然，角谷美智子在书中认为，“如果没有公认的事实，这种事实不是指民主党或共和党眼中的事实，也不是指经过改编了的单一来源的信息，人们无法对政策展开理智的辩论，无法实际评估政治职位候选人，无法让他们对人民负责。没有真理，民主将步履蹒跚。美国开国元勋们认识到了这一点，那些寻求民主生存空间的人也必须认识到这一点。”
我还想到了James Hatch，一位曾在美国海军特种作战司令部服役二十年后重返校园的耶鲁本科生。他这样描述耶鲁的校园氛围：“这里的大多数学生都同意，为改善人类的状况，必须存在这样一个——观点可以被公开挑战，讨论可以激烈而有序进行的地方。”
耶鲁大学致力于承担提高学术研究、专业知识和高等教育机构公信力的责任，确保Hatch先生的体会是每名耶鲁学子在任何时刻和任何角落都能感同身受的。
耶鲁大学的一门名为《哲学与人性科学》的哲学课正反映了耶鲁在这方面的努力。在课程中，耶鲁文理学院院长Tamar Gendler将当代认知科学与古代哲学家的作品联系起来，帮助我们更好地理解在研读这些作品时，我们的大脑产生了怎样的活动。在她的课上，同学们重新解读柏拉图的洞穴寓言，洞穴里的人们将墙上的影子误认为现实。Gendler院长进一步引导学生对这一观点提出挑战：既然人类的头脑并不十全十美，真理又如何能够被发现呢？
当然，我们的局限并不能阻挡我们对真理的探寻。因为它们是维系我们保持好奇的动力。心怀谦逊，我们便可以扩展自己的认知。
所以，在耶鲁，我们不会重申你在来时已有的想法。相反，我们会在四年时光里激发你发现自己未知的事物。我们会帮助你打磨过滤假象的能力，因为通识教育的核心是由理性、逻辑与批判性思维组成的。
不久，你将从这种教育中受益。当然，你们也应该积极参与其中，无论现在作为一名学生，还是之后成长为一位校友。
今天，在你们即将开启自己的本科生涯之时，我呼吁所有人，在每一次研讨会上、每一所寄宿学院里与每一场深夜谈话之中，以对不同观点的包容，以尊重和积极的心态，以耐心的倾听和深刻的思考，以满怀同理心和理解的表达，为耶鲁的校园再倾注一些对真理的追寻。
让我们一同提升自己的包容度和参与度，反对公开羞辱、挖苦和排斥的文化。
让我们恪守历经岁月考验的优良传统，在耶鲁秉持公开讨论的学术氛围。在这样的社区中，我们才能产生推动世界的学术成就和科学突破，并不断超越。
正是这样，你们才能拓展专业知识，挽救知识的地位；你们才能够在日渐黑暗的世界里，让“真理”与“光明”同在；你们或许能够改变这个割裂世界的命运，让真理光芒四射。
欢迎来到耶鲁。
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