Jeffrey Sachs 孔子的智慧可以幫助我們克服現代挑戰

傑弗裏·薩克斯：孔子的智慧可以幫助我們克服現代挑戰

https://www.chinaminutes.com/News/News-Article/jeffrey-sachs-confucius-wisdom-can-assist-us-in-overcoming-modern-challenges?

中國新聞| 東西方相遇 2023 年 10 月 12 日

傑弗裏·薩克斯：孔子的智慧可以幫助我們克服現代挑戰
再次感謝尼山論壇讓我們齊聚一堂進行這一極其重要的討論。 我們已經聽到了關於共同價值觀對我們這個時代的重要性以及我們這個時代共同價值觀的潛力的精彩演講。 中國的全球文明倡議和尼山論壇是世界上獨一無二的場所，可以幫助打造我們迫切需要的共同價值觀和社區。 我們在世界上有共同的價值觀嗎？ 我認為答案是我們在世界上可以擁有共同的價值觀。 這是一個潛力問題，但我們目前世界上還沒有共同的價值觀。 世界上存在著巨大的分歧、巨大的不信任、前所未有的緊張局勢和巨大的危險。

我們來這裏是為了幫助找到共同的價值觀和社區來解決這些緊張局勢，克服世界危機，特別是在世界各國之間找到和平與和諧。 我認為當今世界的極端緊張局勢有幾個原因。 也許最重要的是世界秩序正在發生變化，而且我相信變化是好的。

過去兩個世紀非常不尋常。 在那個時期，世界上一小部分地區，有時被稱為西方，或者我認為可以更準確地稱為世界的北大西洋地區，即美國和西歐，主導了世界政治的大部分 以及世界經濟的大部分。 北大西洋主導的世界已經結束。 這是好事，因為由於中國經濟的出色發展和世界許多其他地區的進步，這種情況已經結束。 因此，我們確實已經進入了多極世界，但我們對新的多極世界還沒有共同的理解或共同的價值觀。 我們各國之間也有著前所未有的相互依存關係。 我們比曆史上任何時候都更加相互聯係和相互依存。

當然，早在2000年前，羅馬帝國和漢朝之間就已經有了絲綢之路。 但這不是我們在數字時代所擁有的相互依賴，也不是我們技術、信息金融、貨物和人員的實際流動的緊密聯係。 我們還麵臨著前所未有的前所未有的共同全球挑戰，例如，由於過去兩個世紀工業化時代我們的經濟體係與地球相互作用的方式，目前世界正在遭遇一係列環境災難。 。 當然，我們還有更強大的武器。

在人類曆史上，我們第一次擁有了可以終結文明、甚至終結人類本身的武器。 所以我們的時代異常複雜。 而且我們現在並不處於一個和諧時期。 我們正處於一個壓力巨大的時期。 我把這種壓力的很大一部分責任歸咎於我自己的國家、美國，因為美國仍然有一種心態，因為我們聽說過霸權或全球卓越或在一個世界上占據主導地位，而這既不可行也不可取。

但這是當今美國政治文化的一個事實，它使世界比正確理解我們的全球互聯性和不合時宜的觀念、美國在某種程度上就是世界的過時觀念更加危險。 領導者。 在當今複雜且相互關聯的世界中，這幾乎是荒謬的。

現在，我們來這裏是為了更好地理解我們的世界和真正可行的共同價值觀。 我相信這是可能的，但正如我們明智的演講者已經指出的那樣，這是一條漫長而崎嶇的道路。 它不會來自口號、諺語或深刻的智慧。 事實上，這必須通過集體互動來實現。 經過多年的討論、辯論、遭遇和認識，我們作為人類的共性以及我們在地球上的共同利益。

我相信，古代智慧可以發揮極其重要的作用，幫助我們找到 21 世紀的共同價值觀。 這就是為什麽這個獨特的論壇在這個獨特的地方成為人類的一份禮物。 讓我說，我相信古代智慧至少可以通過四種方式幫助我們應對現代挑戰。

首先，古老的智慧可以幫助我們治愈我們自己的社會。 請記住，孔子本人在教導他的學生並向周時代的領導人講授時，已經在談論對古代智慧的需求。 所以2500年前，孔子自己就說過，我們需要古代智慧來理解我們現代的挑戰，現代在公元前500年的春秋時期，就已經需要古代智慧了。 按照孔師的智慧。

二、古代無線

sdom 幫助我們互相理解。 通過研究古代哲學，我們了解不同文明的根源。 因為儒家文明不同於西方文明。 它更多的是關於和諧與社會。 它比許多西方古代文明所特有的個人主義更具關係性。 因此，通過研究古代文明，我們了解了現代社會的深層根源，因為我們的社會反映了甚至可以追溯到數千年前的根源。

第三是通過學習古代智慧，我們銘記曆史。 我來自一個幾乎不了解曆史的國家。 這是一個新國家。 大約隻有240歲，250歲。 這在人類曆史上根本算不了什麽。 我們幾乎什麽都不記得了。 順便說一句，如果我們研究孔子、研究孟子，我們一定會記住，我們正在研究一個具有3000多年活力的文明和2500多年的儒家智慧。 這有助於我們認識到我們是多麽的短視。

因為美國西方國家認為，西方世界理所應當領導世界。 但這隻是人類曆史長河中僅僅兩個世紀的產物。 由於他們不了解人類曆史，他們不明白這個特定的想法是多麽短暫。 研究古代智慧如此重要還有第四個原因，那就是當我們研究孔子、亞裏士多德、佛陀和其他聖人的古代智慧時，我們確實找到了我們所尋求的共同價值觀。 這就是奇妙之處。

如果你研究我所說的我們文化的ABC，亞裏士多德、佛陀和孔子，我們會發現它們都是我們現代帕蘭德的美德倫理學家所說的。 他們都認為，要獲得和諧幸福的生活，就必須培養個人的美德，培養政治社會的美德。 所以他們是美德哲學家，他們教導我們提升我們的美德。 在儒家思想中，“仁”是“仁”，在亞裏士多德思想中，“仁”是“易”，即實踐智慧，以及其他美德，如節製、正義或堅韌。 但這些哲學家宣稱，我們需要提高自己來改善社會，我們需要有德行的領導人來幫助培養公民的美德。

這是亞裏士多德、佛陀和孔子的共同見解。 我想強調，如你所知，這些哲學家都是非常務實的人。 他們從事政治。 他們正在從事實踐。 他們是政治顧問。 他們不僅僅是我們所認為的紙上談兵的哲學家。 在他們那個時代，他們中沒有人在政治行動上取得那麽成功，因為美德並不容易實現。 我記得最偉大的哲學家中，蘇格拉底當然是被雅典政府處決的。 柏拉圖試圖成為錫拉庫薩城邦的政治顧問，但慘遭失敗。 這讓我鬆了口氣，因為我也是政府顧問，你可能會失敗。 如果柏拉圖會失敗，你也會失敗。

因此，知道即使是最偉大的哲學家在實踐中也失敗了，這是非常有趣的。 孔子當然也不得不離開魯國。 他不得不流亡國外。 他向這個地區的統治者講話，但沒有一個人認真聽他講話。 直到接下來的2500年，他的作用才變得如此強大。 所以哲學並不容易。 修德不容易，這對我們來說是一個重大的挑戰。 最後我想提一下，亞裏士多德本人在生命的最後一年，即公元前323年，不得不離開雅典，因為當亞曆山大大帝在巴比倫去世時，他的保護消失了，亞裏士多德不得不逃命。 所以弘揚德行的生活並不是那麽輕鬆的生活。

有時候政治家不想聽，但是哲學家的作用是非常非常強大的，智慧是非常深刻的。 我想以一個實際的說明結束，這就是當領導者了解美德的必要性時成功的希望。 我想提到60年前的一個案例，是我一生中一位偉大的美國總統約翰·F·肯尼迪總統的案例。 因為60年前，美國和蘇聯差點爆發核戰爭。 我今天強調這一點，因為美國和俄羅斯這兩個國家再次陷入戰爭。 因為我相信美國不理解肯尼迪總統所理解的東西。

六十年前，肯尼迪總統明白，我們需要通過共同價值觀找到一條途徑來與蘇聯實現和平。 他試圖讓美國人民相信，與一個被美國人民視為敵人的國家實現和平是可能的。 他在 60 年前發表了一場精彩的演講，我希望人們能夠學習，因為它是基於西方哲學的精華。 這就是所謂的肯尼迪和平演講。 他還談到了全球價值觀。 他在那次演講中說，所以我

我們不要對我們的分歧視而不見，而應該關注我們的共同利益以及解決這些分歧的方式。 如果我們現在不能結束這些差異，至少我們可以幫助世界實現多樣性的安全，因為歸根結底，我們最基本的共同聯係是我們都居住在這個小星球上。 我們都孕育著同一個時代。 我們都珍惜孩子的未來，我們都是凡人。 當肯尼迪總統發表這一聲明時，蘇聯總統表示我想與那個人講和。 五周後，他們就部分禁止核試驗條約達成了一致。 他們之所以實現和平，是因為肯尼迪看到了實現和平的可能性。 他伸出手來求和。

他說，我們同在一個星球，這幾乎是孔子所說的“四海之中，兄弟”，以此來與對方和平相處。 這是肯尼迪總統所說的。 尼卡達·克魯茲切也聽到了。 幾乎整整 60 年前的今天，肯尼迪總統在聯合國大會上向世界領導人說了以下這些話。 他說，阿基米德在解釋杠杆原理時，據說向他的朋友們宣告，給我一個可以站立的地方，我就能撬動世界。 我這個星球上的同胞們，讓我們在這個國家大會上表明自己的立場，看看我們能否在我們的城市推動世界實現公正和持久的和平。 這就是尼山論壇正在使之成為可能的事情。 我們感謝你們，感謝山東省政府，感謝中華人民共和國政府，感謝這個偉大國家的人民邀請我們來這裏共同努力。 非常感謝。

Jeffrey Sachs: Confucius' Wisdom Can Assist us in Overcoming Modern Challenges

https://www.chinaminutes.com/News/News-Article/jeffrey-sachs-confucius-wisdom-can-assist-us-in-overcoming-modern-challenges?

China News | East Meets West  12 October 2023 

Again by expressing my gratitude to the Nishan Forum for bringing us together for this extraordinarily important discussion. We have already heard wonderful talks about the importance of common values for our time, and the potential for common values of our time. And   China's Global Civilizations Initiative and the Nishan Forum are a unique venue in the world to help forge those common values and the community that we urgently need. Do we have common values in the world? The answer, I think, is that we can have common values in the world. This is a matter of potentiality, but we do not currently have common values in the world. We have great divisions, tremendous distrust, unprecedented tensions and very great dangers in the world. 

We are here to help find the common values and the community to solve those tensions, to overcome the world's crises, especially to find peace and harmony among the nations of the world. I think that there are several reasons for our extreme tensions in the world today. Perhaps the biggest is that the world order is changing, and I believe changing for the good. 

The last two centuries were very unusual. They were a period in which one rather small part of the world, which is sometimes called the West, or, I believe can be more accurately called the North Atlantic region of the world, the United States and Western Europe, dominated much of world politics and much of world economy. And that North Atlantic-led world has come to an end. And that is good, because it has come to an end because of China's wonderful economic development and the progress in many other regions of the world. So we have truly arrived at a multipolar world, and yet we do not have a shared understanding or common values for that new multipolar world. We also have unprecedented interdependence of our nations. We are more interconnected and interdependent than ever in history. 

Of course, already, 2000 years ago, there was a silk road between the Roman Empire and the Han Dynasty. But this was not the interdependence that we have in our digital age and our intense interconnections of technology, information finance, the physical flow of goods and people. We also face unprecedented common global challenges as never before, as exemplified by the range of environmental catastrophes now being visited upon the world because of the way that our economic system has interacted with the physical Earth for the past two centuries, during the age of industrialization. And of course, we have more powerful weapons. 

For the first time in human history, we have weapons that can end civilization, even end humanity itself. So our times are extraordinarily complicated. And we are not in a harmonious period. We are in a period of tremendous stress. I put a lot of responsibility for that stress on my own country, on the United States, which still has a mentality, as we heard of hegemony or global preeminence or dominance in a world in which that is neither feasible nor desirable. 

But it is a fact of American political culture to this day, and it makes the world very much more dangerous than if there were a proper understanding of our global interconnectedness, and of the anachronistic idea, the outdated idea that the United States somehow is world leader. This is almost preposterous in our complex and interconnected world today. 

Now, we are here to forge a better understanding of our world and truly workable common values. I believe this is possible, but as our wise speakers have already indicated, it is a long and rocky road. It will not come from a slogan or a saying or a piece of deep wisdom. In fact, it will have to come through collective interaction. Over many years of discussion, debate, encounter and realization of our commonality as human beings and our common interests on the planet. 

I believe that ancient wisdom can play a tremendously important role in enabling us to find common values for the 21st century. And that's why this unique forum, in this unique place, is such a gift for humanity. Let me say that I believe there are at least four ways in which ancient wisdom can help us in our modern challenges.

The first is that ancient wisdom can help us to heal our own societies. Remember that Confucius, himself, teaching his students and lecturing to leaders of the  Zhou era, already was talking about the need for ancient wisdom. So 2500 years ago, Confucius himself said, we need ancient wisdom to understand our modern challenges，modern in the era, 500 BC, in the spring and autumn period, already, ancient wisdom was needed. According to the wisdom of Master Kong.

Second, ancient wisdom helps us to understand each other. By studying ancient philosophy, we understand the roots of different civilizations. Because Confucian civilization is different from Western civilization. It is much more about harmony and society. It is much more relational than the individualism that characterizes a lot of Western ancient civilization. So by studying ancient civilization, we learn the deep roots of our modern societies, because our societies reflect roots that go back even thousands of years of course.

The third is by studying ancient wisdom, we remember history. I come from a country that knows almost no history. It's a new country. It's only 240 years old roughly, 250 years old. It's nothing in the span of human history. And we remember almost nothing. By the way, if we study Confucius and study Mencius, we are bound to remember that we are studying a civilization that is more than 3,000 years old in its vigor and Confucian wisdom, 2,500 years old. And that helps us to appreciate how a shortsighted we can be. 

Because the Western countries in the United States believe that it is natural that the Western world should lead the world. But this is an artifact of simply two centuries in the vast sweep of human history. And since they don't know the human history, they don't understand how fleeting that particular idea is. And there is a fourth reason why studying ancient wisdom is so important, and that is that when we study the ancient wisdom of Confucius, of Aristotle, of the Buddha and other sages, we do find the common values that we seek. This is what is so wonderful. 

If you study what I call the ABCs of our culture, Aristotle, Buddha and Confucius, we find that they are all what we would say in modern parland's virtue ethicists. They all believe that the way to a harmonious and happy life is by cultivating the virtues of the individuals and cultivating the virtues of political society. So they are virtue philosophers, and they teach us to promote our virtues. In Confucianism, that is Ren, and in Aristotelian thought, it is pronesis, or practical wisdom, and other virtues, such as temperance, or justice or fortitude. But these are philosophers who proclaimed that we need to improve ourselves to do improve society, and we need virtuous leaders to help cultivate the virtues of the citizens. 

This is a common insight of Aristotle, Buddha and Confucius. I want to emphasize, as you know, these philosophers were very practical people. They were engaged in politics. They were engaged in practice. They were political advisers. They were not only armchair philosophers, as we think of them. And none of them was that successful in their day in political action, because virtues are not easy to achieve. And I recall that of the greatest philosophers, of course, Socrates, was executed by the Athenian state. Plato tried to be a political adviser to the city state of SYRACUSEA and he failed miserably. It gives me great relief, because I'm also an advisor to governments, and you can fail. If Plato can fail, you can fail. 

So it's very interesting to know that even the greatest philosophers failed in practice. And Confucius, of course, had to leave the Lu kingdom. He had to go into exile. He spoke to the rulers in this region, none of them listened very carefully to him. It was only in the next 2500 years that his effect was so powerful. So philosophy is not easy. Cultivating virtue is not easy, and this is a major challenge for us. I recall finally, I wanted to mention that Aristotle, himself, in the last year of his life, in 323BC, had to leave Athens because his protection was gone when Alexander the Great died in Babylon, and Aristotle had to flee for his life. So the life of promoting virtue is not such an easy life.

Sometimes the politicians don't want to listen, but the effect of the philosophers is very, very powerful, and the wisdom is very profound. I want to end with a practical note, and that is the hope for success when leaders understand the need for virtue. And I want to refer to a case 60 years ago, which was a case of the one great United States president during my lifetime, president John F Kennedy. Because 60 years ago, the United States and the Soviet Union almost came to nuclear war. And I emphasize this today, because the same two countries, the US and Russia, are at war again. Because I believe the United States doesn't understand what President Kennedy did understand. 

Sixty years ago president Kennedy understood that we needed to find a way through common values to reach peace with the Soviet Union. And he tried to convince the American people that it was possible to make peace with a country that was regarded as an enemy by the American people. And he gave a phenomenal speech 60 years ago that I hope people will study, because it was based on the best of Western philosophy. And it's called Kennedy's Peace Speech. And he talked about global values. And he said in that speech, so let us not be blind to our differences, but let us direct attention to our common interests and to the means by which those differences can be resolved. And if we cannot end now those differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity, for in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breed the same era. We all cherish our children's future, and we are all mortal. When President Kennedy made that statement, his counterpart in the Soviet Union, said I want to make peace with that man. And five weeks later, they had agreed on the partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. They made peace because Kennedy saw that it was possible to make peace. He reached out to make peace.

He inspired peace with his counterpart by saying we all share this same planet, almost Confucius’s words when Confucius said, within the four seas, all men are brothers. This is what President Kennedy said. And Nicada Cruzche have heard it. And almost exactly 60 years ago, to this day, President Kennedy said the following to world leaders in the UN General Assembly. He said, Archimedes, in explaining the principles of the lever, was said to have declared to his friends, give me a place where I can stand and I shall move the world. My fellow inhabitants of this planet, let us take our stand here in this assembly of nations, and let us see if we, in our town can move the world to a just and lasting peace. This is what the Nishan Forum is making possible. We are grateful to you, grateful to the Shandong government, grateful to the government of the People's Republic of China, and grateful to the people of this great country for inviting us here to share in this endeavor. Thank you very much.