耶魯大學校長2023年開學日演講：放慢腳步，彌合裂縫！（附影片&演講稿）

高質量英語演講&專訪影片哪裡看？

請您點選上方“精彩英語演講”，選擇“設為星標”

全網最新鮮，熱門的英語演講第一時間為您奉上！

美東時間8月21日上午，耶魯大學在Cross Campus舉行了一年一度的開學典禮，這標誌著所有新生在耶魯學習生活的正式啟航。

按照傳統，儀式包括耶魯大學學術領導們身著全套學士服列隊行進、耶魯大學臨時牧師Maytal Saltiel的祝禱，以及耶魯大學合唱團的音樂表演。耶魯大學校長蘇必德（Peter Salovey）和耶魯本科學院院長Pericles Lewis發表了開學演講，但由於校長在典禮前新冠病毒檢測呈陽性，因此按照校園的健康規定居家隔離，所以採用影片致辭的方式向各位新生表示歡迎。

耶魯大學校長2023-2024學年開學典禮演講的主題為“放慢腳步，彌合裂縫”。在演講中，校長寄語新生，“希望你們能培養謹慎地、有條理地行動習慣——放慢腳步，不僅為了放慢白駒過隙般的時間，也為反思聽到的各種觀點，準備好進入世界，彌合裂縫”。

耶魯大學校長2023年開學演講

↓↓↓ 上下滑動，檢視演講稿 ↓↓↓

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！

我要熱烈歡迎新生和你們的家人來到學校，並宣佈你們的本科生涯正式啟航。

這是一個重要時刻——對你們是，對耶魯也是！

我和臺上的同事們都很高興這一天終於到來了，你們來到這裡，讓我們非常欣喜。

很明顯，你們為什麼能成為耶魯的一員，你們的學術造詣、領導才能、出色的驅動力，讓你們脫穎而出，坐在這片幾百年來優秀學子都坐過的草地上。從各個維度考慮，你們的多元化也反映出耶魯致力於營造包容的教育環境。

現在，當你們準備踏入耶魯校園，並留下自己的獨特足跡時，我必須告訴你們一個我對校友們多年來的觀察。你們的很多前輩都感嘆，在愉快的開學典禮之後，時間會過得飛快，一轉眼就要進行畢業典禮了。

這個殘酷的事實在耶魯的非官方校歌《美好校園年華》（Bright College Years）中也有體現。歌詞把你們在校的時光形容為“最短暫最歡快的光陰”“快速地從指間流走”。畢業時唱這首歌是耶魯最重要的傳統之一。

所以，請你們好好享受這個非凡之地，珍惜那些吸引你選擇耶魯的特質。

在開學和畢業典禮之間的“美好校園年華”中，我希望你們一直記住，在這裡，逝者如斯，不捨晝夜。

在你們踏上博雅教育的盛大旅程之際，我還想傳授一點智慧。我希望你們能培養謹慎地、有條理地行動習慣——放慢腳步，不僅為了放慢白駒過隙般的時間，也為反思聽到的各種觀點，準備好進入世界，彌合裂縫。

這屆新生是前所未有地在急速的世界中長大的一屆。社交網路誕生在你們大多數人出生之前，你們這代人從未體驗過沒有即時資訊的生活。同樣，在我的年代完全無法想象的技術，對你們來說是與生俱來的。

如今世界賴以生存的很多新發明都來源於馬克·扎克伯格（Mark Zuckerberg）提出的一句口號。2004年推出臉書時，他告訴員工：“快速行動，破除陳規”，“如果你不在破除什麼，那就是行動得不夠快。”

後來臉書逐漸淘汰了這句口號，但它仍然激勵著現在的技術產業。正如領英的聯合創始人雷德·霍夫曼（Reid Hoffman）提出的“閃電式擴張”一樣，“即便在不確定的環境中，也要將速度置於功效之上，達到閃電一般的增速。”

這種風氣也滲透到了新型網路平臺之中。它們為速度犧牲了深度。我們為這些內容興奮不已，卻無法廣泛思考，真正從所讀所看中獲得些什麼。最近出現的人工智慧應用也是一個例子，它可能讓我們越來越怠於思考。

所以，與其“快速行動，破除陳規”，我主張大家“放慢腳步，彌合裂縫”。

我不是反對科技進步。科技進步方便了我們的日常生活和人際關係，這點我非常珍惜。就拿我們學校來說，新冠疫情期間，是因為有了線上工具，我們才得以繼續授課，維持學校的教育使命；並在困難的隔離期間聯絡、互相支援。有些時候，科技也很有趣。我也會在YouTube上花幾小時欣賞過去幾十年間的阿巴拉契亞音樂。

但是近年來，我們越來越傾向於瞬間滿足，仔細思考的時間越來越少。當我們在社交網路看到一條推文，我們先受空洞的“點贊數”吸引，然後讀到的全都是與我們想法一致的評論，因為網路推送的是我們認為正確的東西——而不是真正正確的。

所以我建議你們：放慢腳步，彌合裂縫。

為了進一步論證這條建議，我想聊聊我的專業：心理學。

去年，我有幸與諾貝爾獎得主、心理學家丹尼爾·卡尼曼（Daniel Kahneman）就生成式人工智慧進行公開對話。卡尼曼因其關於決策啟發法和偏見的顛覆性研究而聞名。多年前，我的實驗室便以他的科研成果為基礎，研究如何讓健康相關的訊息更有說服力。耶魯大學非常榮幸能在2014年授予他榮譽學位。

在他的書《思考，快與慢》（Thinking, Fast and Slow）中，卡尼曼教授詳細闡述了我們的思想是如何受兩個系統控制的。系統一是快速的，它基於情緒、條件反射、固有印象，它使我們“容易上當，容易相信資訊。”而系統二是慢的，它負責透過分析事實、謹慎商榷、理性思考，從而“質疑和不相信”資訊。

簡單來說，系統一會產生證實偏差，讓我們不加思考，接受所有極端的、不太可能的事件。不難發現，如果它成為我們預設的思考路徑，尤其在目前動盪不安的世界中，是非常危險的。

作為2027屆的學生，你們形成價值觀的年歲正好有很多大事發生。在高中時期，你們經歷了百年不遇的疫情全球大流行，也聽聞了大量與之相關的陰謀論。你們看到暴力叛亂分子完全破壞了我們的民主制度，也目睹了普京發起自第二次世界大戰以來歐洲最大規模的地面戰爭。你們見證甚至參與了變革性的社會和文化運動。而就在今年夏天，你們經歷了有氣象記錄以來最熱的一週——即使現在還有些人不相信氣候變化的急迫性。

所以我想，你們也許心情複雜，但都急切地希望儘快行動。但我們的校訓“光明與真理”讓我們必須放慢腳步、傾聽彼此，處理複雜甚至相互衝突的觀點，深思熟慮，然後再著手彌合裂縫。

我要明確一點：這不是說進步的步伐應該像冰川一樣緩慢。

不是。社會上問題不斷，讓我們必須不斷進取，改變這個世界，造福我們自己和未來的世代。但正如耶魯大學前校長金曼·布魯斯特（Kingman Brewster Jr.）在開學演講時所說：“在一個生存都是嚴峻問題的世界裡，耐心並不容易獲得。”這是1974屆學生的開學典禮！所以他問道，“是什麼讓我們支援有耐心的學習？”

布魯斯特校長接著表示，持久的、系統性的進步需要的不僅是知識，還有理解。就算是科學家或史學家提出的最有理有據的結論，也只有公眾願意執行才有意義。改變他人的想法要求我們首先要開闊自己的視野；突破產生於眾說紛紜，而不是孤芳自賞。想要解決問題，必須先深思熟慮。

接下來的例子來自耶魯本科校友、政治學家大衛·布魯克曼（David Broockman）和約書亞·卡拉（Joshua Kalla），後者在耶魯任教。布魯克曼教授和卡拉教授研究政治說服、公眾輿論和偏見減少。他們在跨性別權利和移民領域的卓越工作對公眾話語提供了資訊和指導。

他們發現，當我們試著糾正與自己看法相左的人時，這種行為“可能會讓自己更好受，但不太可能說服對方，甚至可能加固他們原來的觀點。”反而是“深度遊說”——“在對話中不加評斷地交換故事”能“持久地減少排斥態度”。

在一條新的保護跨性別者權益的法律透過之際，他們派出數十名遊說人士挨家挨戶地拜訪居民。其中一組完全不提“跨性別恐懼”，而另一組則問出敏感問題，真誠地聆聽他們的回答，然後再提出更多問題。

結果呢？後者也沒有說服所有人，但透過這一次對話，這組人“恐跨情緒”的下降幅度，甚至超過了1998至2012年間所有美國人“恐跨情緒”的降低。透過真誠、耐心的聆聽，這些遊說人士創造了的變化與14年間社會變革的程度相當。所以，就算有時候很辛苦，我們也要一絲不苟地傾聽身邊的各種看法，而不是自鳴得意、盲目前進。

我們必須更有耐心，更願意聆聽我們不喜歡的主張，弘揚這種美德，而抵制當眾批評、譴責、排斥的文化，因為它們只會適得其反。放慢腳步，可以實現更快、更有效的結果——這個悖論道理很簡單。

在考慮這句建議的時候，我想到了蒂什·哈里森·沃倫牧師（Tish Harrison Warren）最近和耶魯神學院信仰與文化中心共同探索耐心這個美德時所說：“網際網路將人與人連線在一起，但它讓我們失去了耐心：我們沒有耐心等待變化發生，也沒有耐心去理解彼此。讓自己慢下來，去傾聽他人的見解是需要努力的，尤其當對方想法與你相左的時候。”

我也想到了已故的猶太教拉比勳爵喬納森·薩克斯（Jonathan Sacks）——耶魯也給他頒發過榮譽學位——他說過：“只有認真聆聽對手，你才可能贏得爭吵。”

在耶魯和其他相似的學府，我們讓學生探索不同的觀點，評估證據，動用邏輯推理和批判性思維，來推行傾聽這個有意義的習慣。不能否認，做到這件事需要時間和耐心。但博雅教育所培養的系統二的思考形式能推進合作，從而推動世界共贏。

我想，正是因此，我們會說教育是最強的力量。

也正是這個原因讓耐心聆聽能站得住腳——甚至成為必要技能。

最後，我想引用薩克斯拉比的一段話收尾。他指出，公元前一世紀的猶太學界是由兩位偉大的拉比推進的——希勒爾（Hillel）和煞買（Shammai）。最終，希勒爾學派的觀點在大多數問題上佔了上風。猶太法典中這麼說：“希勒爾的門徒更友善，聽到什麼都不會生氣。他們不僅傳授己方的看法，也討論對方的立場，準確來說，是在提出自己學派的想法之前，先探討對方的意見。”要是希勒爾會說拉丁語，他也許會說：“透過傾聽他人來尋求光明與真理吧。”

在這個高等教育的舞臺上，我相信你們都會去傾聽別人。在這裡，你們會找到一片為沉思者準備的綠洲，積極的改變從這裡出發。然後，在適當的時候，你們便可以把這個耶魯教育的特點帶到工作中，帶到世界的各個角落。

你們會發現，花時間去看到問題的全部，去創造一個耐久的、有益的東西，去建立共識——甚至，或者說尤其是與那些世界觀與你不同的人——並不是進步的障礙。相反，它是進步的條件。

在你們放慢腳步，考慮新想法的同時，你們將繼續堅守理想，並謹慎地、忠誠地朝著理想的方向前進。

我很高興今天歡迎你們來到耶魯。

我很高興給你們提出建議：放慢腳步，彌合裂縫。

耶魯大學校長2022年開學日演講

↓↓↓ 上下滑動，檢視演講稿 ↓↓↓

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。很高興能在耶魯本科學院開學典禮上見到各位新生和你們的家人。今天是你們正式開啟耶魯本科生涯的第一天，我謹代表臺上的同事們，對這一天的到來感到由衷地喜悅。

如各位所知，耶魯大學的校訓是“光明與真理”，拉丁語是Lux et Veritas，希伯來語是Urim v’Thummim。在耶魯的校園裡，這條校訓隨處可見。今天，我想和大家聊聊我們的校訓中很重要的一部分，一個在世界各地大學的使命、精神與文化中廣泛存在的追求，那就是真理。

近幾年來，儘管全世界都在竭力應對公共衛生危機，我們仍目睹了假訊息，甚至是謬論的肆虐。在這一過程中，專業知識遭受質疑，科學發現和學術研究面臨考驗——事實上，這些挑戰都是一種對真理的侵犯。幾乎每天都有這樣的事情發生：報道稱有人在家“發現”科學家們得出的新冠肺炎病毒有關結論有誤；網友又編織出了全新的、毫無根據的陰謀論；我們公認的歷史事實也被別有用心之人矢口否認。

這裡列舉5個簡短的例子：

年初，美國一些人（包括處於領導地位的人）把一場企圖顛覆我們民主基礎和反對選舉制度的暴徒行為稱作“合法的政治訴求”。

當毀滅性的山火、區域性嚴重乾旱和歷史罕見的洪水等昭示著災難性的氣候挑戰時，一些人卻篤信毫無根據的懷疑論，無視廣泛建立起的科學共識。在美國的一些縣城裡，一半的居民還不相信全球氣候變化正真實地發生著。

最近幾個月，人們關於俄烏戰爭的情緒被誤導和激化。

社交媒體平臺上，有些人透過宣傳虛假內容煽動種族主義情緒，比如在緬甸和衣索比亞所發生的事。

最近的一樁誹謗罪判案中，一位臭名昭著的陰謀論者稱發生在距離耶魯校園約半小時車程的康涅狄格州桑迪胡克謀殺案（20名小學生和6名成年人在此次事故中喪生）系美國政府所為。

當然，傳播假訊息已經不是什麼新鮮事了。歷史充斥著謊言招致的惡果。

20世紀哲學家Hannah Arendt，曾於1971年獲得耶魯名譽學位。她在敘述人性黑暗和殘酷政權時寫道，真正的極權主體不是某一黨派的堅定支持者，而是那些對事實與杜撰，正確與錯誤不加區分的人。

沒錯，惡毒可以在缺少真理的環境中猖獗。因此，在對真理的持續探索中，人性本身也岌岌可危。

就耶魯而言，高校必須首先透過支援教師來打擊虛假資訊、阻止煽動和臆造陰謀論的傳播，因為他們所做的正是收集科學資料並提出學術見解。教員們必須能夠自由地傳授知識，並教學生批判性地思考各種觀點及其來源。

但要有效地做到這一點，高等教育體系中的老師和學生都必須對多元的思想保持開放，無論是傳統還是非傳統的，左派還是右派。耶魯大學長期以來代表並致力於對真理的堅守，因此我們有責任應對公信力危機。

對於窮極一生追尋真理的藝術家、學者、科學家與一線實踐者們，像耶魯這樣的大學是他們的家園。然而，社會上觀點的極化，無論是否被某一特定派別所接受，都無疑阻礙了追尋真理的程序，也將會蠶食公眾對專業知識的信心，並在人們亟需純粹的真相時消解著大學的影響力。

當有思想的人負責任地闡述了不受歡迎的或非主流的觀點，而我們對此保持開放，那麼全體師生乃至整個大學將被視作可靠資訊的來源。大多數美國人仍然對大學持有積極看法，認為大學教育對一個人的未來發揮著重要的作用。但是，對於高等教育將為社會帶來有益影響的信心卻被一種質疑所侵蝕，那就是我們不願接受挑戰的聲音。

或者說有些人相信，學生中認為可以安全地發表不受歡迎的觀點的比例在下降。實際情況絕非如此，學生們不願校園成為多元觀點的匯聚之地是一個謠言。根據美國奈特基金會（Knight Foudation）最近的一項調查，大多數學生認為接觸各類言論比透過禁止冒犯性或偏見性的言論來保護大家更為重要。一些人所說的“取消文化”並不是學生群體的主流思想。

耶魯擁有美國曆史最悠久的大學辯論文化，持有任何政治立場的學生都可以加入到激烈而文明的討論中。在耶魯，你會看到美國民主黨籍政治家、耶魯法學院’73屆校友希拉里·克林頓作為耶魯本科生畢業日的受邀嘉賓演講，也會看到共和黨派、美國前總統布什父子榮獲耶魯本科生終身成就獎。同時，耶魯大學為持有不同意識形態的人提供互動機會，比如此前一場對話中齊聚了來自兩黨的四任美國前國務卿。

但是坦白來講，在校園裡發表不受歡迎的見解的確有些困難。我剛提到的奈特基金會調查也顯示，只有大約一半的學生“能夠自如地表達不同意見”。

因此，我們需要提升學生每天在教室、餐廳和會議室內與不同觀點探討的持續渴望，並認識到向他人表達不同見解的重要性。事實上，在大學這個環境中，我們必須能夠將正當的異議與徹頭徹尾的謊言區分開來，必須堅定地為令人不悅的真知灼見留有空間，正如我們駁斥謬論時一樣堅定。

因此，我們必須培養一種開放的態度，尤其是當我們最根深蒂固的思想受到挑戰之時。這樣的氛圍承載著對真理的探尋，以及相信真理所需要建立起的公信力。

當然，在我們追尋真理的過程中，我們必須銘記耶魯等學術機構的權力和影響力。我們必須謙虛地認識到，謬論也可能偽裝成真理，比如，歷史上我們曾錯誤地認為男女不應該同校，以及引領了“優生運動”的風潮。當權力同時意味著責任時，這些困擾成為了一些人拒絕使用“真理”一詞來描述耶魯使命的原因。

儘管如此，在耶魯，我經常看到教師們鼓勵學生對資料和觀點提出質疑，也看到學生們面對相悖的證據時改變自己的觀點。你們每個人都將在耶魯經歷這些，並且經常經歷，這是耶魯教育的一部分。

在耶魯可選的課程中，經常可見兩位代表不同學科的教授共同教授一門課。在他們的課上你將體會到，從不同的視角審視同一個問題將促生全新觀點。比如，電影史教授與物理學家共同教授的電影課程，哲學家與經濟學家共同講解自然選擇，美國研究和護理學院學者共同教授跨性別健康課程。類似地，最近一個學期，三位持不同政見的專家共同開設了一門關於自由主義危機的課程，橫跨了奧巴馬與特朗普的總統任期。

我們將繼續為你們創造可以自由爭論複雜問題的對話機會。這些時刻讓我們意識到，現實中沒有任何意識集團真正擁有真理；事實不會歸順於我們任何偏向的結論。因此，實證必須引導我們持有的觀念，而非順從於它。

講到這裡，我想到了一本名為《真理之死》的書，它的作者是耶魯本科學院1976屆校友、普利策獎獲得者角谷美智子，一位我們所追尋真理的捍衛者。

角谷美智子在書中對理性與客觀的呼籲，以詹姆斯·麥迪遜（美國第四任總統、美國憲法之父）的一句話結束，這也是對我們這個時代提出的警告：“一個公眾的政府，若沒有供民眾獲取的資訊或獲取資訊的方式，將會奏響一場鬧劇或悲劇，或兩者兼具的慘劇的前奏。”當然，角谷美智子在書中認為，“如果沒有公認的事實，這種事實不是指民主黨或共和黨眼中的事實，也不是指經過改編了的單一來源的資訊，人們無法對政策展開理智的辯論，無法實際評估政治職位候選人，無法讓他們對人民負責。沒有真理，民主將步履蹣跚。美國開國元勳們認識到了這一點，那些尋求民主生存空間的人也必須認識到這一點。”

我還想到了James Hatch，一位曾在美國海軍特種作戰司令部服役二十年後重返校園的耶魯本科生。他這樣描述耶魯的校園氛圍：“這裡的大多數學生都同意，為改善人類的狀況，必須存在這樣一個——觀點可以被公開挑戰，討論可以激烈而有序進行的地方。”

耶魯大學致力於承擔提高學術研究、專業知識和高等教育機構公信力的責任，確保Hatch先生的體會是每名耶魯學子在任何時刻和任何角落都能感同身受的。

耶魯大學的一門名為《哲學與人性科學》的哲學課正反映了耶魯在這方面的努力。在課程中，耶魯文理學院院長Tamar Gendler將當代認知科學與古代哲學家的作品聯絡起來，幫助我們更好地理解在研讀這些作品時，我們的大腦產生了怎樣的活動。在她的課上，同學們重新解讀柏拉圖的洞穴寓言，洞穴裡的人們將牆上的影子誤認為現實。Gendler院長進一步引導學生對這一觀點提出挑戰：既然人類的頭腦並不十全十美，真理又如何能夠被發現呢？

當然，我們的侷限並不能阻擋我們對真理的探尋。因為它們是維繫我們保持好奇的動力。心懷謙遜，我們便可以擴充套件自己的認知。

所以，在耶魯，我們不會重申你在來時已有的想法。相反，我們會在四年時光裡激發你發現自己未知的事物。我們會幫助你打磨過濾假象的能力，因為通識教育的核心是由理性、邏輯與批判性思維組成的。

不久，你將從這種教育中受益。當然，你們也應該積極參與其中，無論現在作為一名學生，還是之後成長為一位校友。