教育界: 虎妈和伊顿公学的启示

Ten days ago my husband went to a reunion at Eton College for the leavers of 1974. About 150 men crowded into the 15th-century chapel to belt out a quick “Praise my Soul the King of Heaven” before settling down to eat, drink and reminisce about schoolboy pranks while quietly trying to work out who had done best in the 40 years since then.

十天前，我丈夫去参加伊顿公学(Eton College)1974届毕业生的重聚会活动。约150人挤进那座15世纪的教堂，快速地大声唱过《我心应当来称颂主》(Praise my Soul the King of Heaven)之后，坐下来享用可口的饮食，缅怀孩提时代的恶作剧，同时默默合计一下毕业后40年里谁混得最好。

Afterwards he made two observations. The first was how good they all looked. These men, blessed by breeding, education and money, still look at 57 and 58 easily recognisable as their teenage selves.

结果他发现了两个现象。第一个现象是他们看上去都如此神采奕奕。由于教养、教育及金钱的缘故，这些57到58岁的人仍然很容易认出少年时代的样子。

The second was how relatively undistinguished their careers had turned out to be. Apart from one senior politician and one former newspaper editor, they were a middling group of lawyers, property investors and fund managers, rich by national standards, but disappointing if you consider their start in life. They arrived at that school at 13, clever and mostly from wealthy families, to spend five years wearing tailcoats and becoming members of one of the world’s most elite networks. Yet there they were, in their prime, and it had amounted to not very much at all.

第二个现象就是，相对来说，他们的职业生涯并非特别耀眼。除了一位资深政界人士和一位前报社总编辑，他们构成了一个由律师、房地产投资人和基金经理人组成的中层团体。按照国家平均标准来说，他们确实很富有。然而，一考虑到他们人生的起点，他们的成就便令人失望了。当初进入伊顿公学时，13岁左右的他们天资聪明，多数来自富有家庭，在那里他们穿着燕尾服度过五年，并融入了世界最精英化的人脉网络之一。然而，年富力强的他们，成就却没高到哪去。

His observation turns on its head the usual complaint about Eton – that it is an exclusive club of men who run the country. It is true there is currently a trinity of Etonians in power, as prime minister, mayor of London and Archbishop of Canterbury. But they are the exceptions to a more surprising rule that Eton is a club of men born to do great things but who increasingly fail to do anything much at all.

人们通常抱怨伊顿公学毕业生构成一个封闭的“俱乐部”，掌管着英国的命脉，而我丈夫却有不同的发现。没错，目前有三位伊顿人大权在握，他们分别是英国首相、伦敦市长和坎特伯雷大主教(Archbishop of Canterbury)。不过他们其实只是一个更令人吃惊的规律的特例，这个规律是：尽管组成伊顿“俱乐部”成员生来就准备做大事，但没什么太大成就的人却越来越多。

Last week I stumbled on an answer to the Eton College 1974 leavers’ conundrum. It is contained in the combustible new book, The Triple Package, by “tiger mother” Amy Chua and her husband Jed Rubenfeld, which sets out to explain why Jews, Mormons and the Chinese do much better than other groups in the US. They argue that it is down to three things: a superiority complex, insecurity and impulse control. None of these is any good on its own, it is essential to have all three. Too much superiority, you have no incentive to lift a finger. Too much insecurity, and your doubts are paralysing. And without impulse control, or self-discipline, it is hard to crack on with anything.

就在上周，我无意间发现了伊顿公学1974届校友之谜的答案。答案就在一本引发争议的新书里。这本书名为《成功三法宝》(The Triple Package)，由“虎妈”蔡美儿(Amy Chua)和她丈夫杰德•鲁宾费尔德(Jed Rubenfeld)合作而成。该书旨在解释为什么在美国犹太裔、摩门教徒和华裔表现比其他族群好得多。他们声称，原因有三点：优越情结、不安全感和自控力。单独而言，以上三个要素起不到任何作用，必须同时具备这三者才能起作用。太过优越，你就没有动力做出任何努力了；不安全感太强，多疑会削弱你的行动能力；缺乏自控力或自律，你就难以应对任何问题。

If you apply this triple package to Etonians, you see at once what holds them back. They have superiority in spades. But they are low on insecurity, and have little impulse control as the culture relies on any achievement appearing effortless.

如果拿这三大要素来对照伊顿人，你马上就会发现是什么原因令他们止步不前。他们的优越感确实异乎寻常。然而，他们的不安全感很弱，而且几乎没什么自控力，这是因为伊顿文化的背后，是一种取得任何成就似乎都不费吹灰之力的观念。

Not only have Chua and Rubenfeld answered the Eton question, they have come up with the best universal theory of success I’ve seen. They intended it to apply to groups, but it works still better at explaining why some people from the same slice of society do better than others.

蔡美儿和鲁宾费尔德不仅仅回答了伊顿公学的问题。在我所见过的普适成功学理论中，他们提出的观点是最佳的一个。他们原打算用这一理论解释不同族群的差异，不过，它更适合用来解释为什么同一社会阶层的人中，部分人表现比其他人更好一些。

I’ve never met David Cameron. But I know Archbishop Justin Welby and Mayor Boris Johnson well enough to guess that neither is a stranger to insecurity. Both, too, have the capacity to work like dogs.

我从没与戴维•卡梅伦(David Cameron)打过交道。不过，我对贾斯汀•韦尔比(Justin Welby)大主教和鲍里斯•约翰逊(Boris Johnson)市长有足够的了解。我完全能想象得到，他俩对于不安全感都不陌生。同样，他俩都有约束自己勤恳工作的能力。

The triple package helps make sense of other success theories. We are endlessly told how many dyslexics and people who lost a parent young make it to the top. Now we know the reason: such things make them insecure. We also now know for the deprivation to work, the bereaved dyslexic must also know he’s great, and be prepared to do the necessary to become greater.

这三大法宝还有助于解释其它成功学理论。我们总会听到许多失读症患者和幼年丧父者如何攀上人生顶峰的成功故事。如今，我们终于明白了他们成功的原因：这是由于那些缺陷令他们缺乏安全感。我们还明白，要让这类缺陷发挥作用，拥有该缺陷的失读症患者还必须对自己的优秀心知肚明，必须做好准备通过必要的努力使自己更优秀。

One cheering thing about the theory is it has no time for passion – which has never struck me as either a necessary or a sufficient condition of great achievement. Nor is there any mention of other traits so often invoked including optimism, networking, resilience or life-long learning. From the triple package theory all other characteristics will flow, as needed.

该理论一个振奋人心的地方在于，它对“激情”只字未提——对我来说，激情既不是伟大成就的必要条件，也不是充分条件。另外，对于人们常常提及的乐观、人脉、韧性或终身学习之类的品质，该书也丝毫没有提及。根据三大法宝的理论，所有其它品质在必要时会自然涌现出来。

Less cheering is that it explains why the successful are seldom good eggs. Superior people are alienating; insecure people are exhausting. People who are both are doubly unbearable, especially when you take into account all the dissembling they usually do to mask both traits. And too much discipline is a dull trait in a friend as it means it is impossible to get them to down tools and open a bottle of wine instead.

相对来说，让人不那么振奋的一点是，该理论解释了为什么成功人士很少是讨人喜欢的人。有优越感的人会令他人敬而远之，没有安全感的人则会让他人失去耐性。这两者兼而有之的人则更加令人难以忍受。如果考虑他们通常会为掩饰这两种品质而做出的种种举动，情况就更是如此了。而过于自律对朋友来说又太过沉闷，因为这意味着不可能让他停下工作，开瓶葡萄酒享受一下。

Yet as a parent I extract a shred of comfort from The Triple Package. Chua’s first book, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, upset liberal mothers everywhere, making us feel uneasy about being such softies with our children. This time, I feel slightly let off the hook. Surely anything I do to try to increase my children’s superiority will lessen their feeling of inadequacy. While if I try to make them more insecure, I’ll risk denting their superiority. So the lesson I choose to extract is to muddle through, exactly as before.

不过，身为人母，我却从《成功三法宝》中得到一丝安慰。蔡美儿第一本书《虎妈战歌》(Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother)曾让各地的宽容妈妈十分不安，使我们为曾经这么软弱地对待子女感到忧虑。而这一次我感到一丝解脱。诚然，我所做的任何提升孩子们优越感的举动都会削弱他们对自身不足的感觉能力。然而，如果我试图降低他们的安全感，就有可能伤害到他们的优越感。因此，我从这本书中吸取的教训是：就像过去那样，胡乱应付就行了。