双语：为什么人文学科不应被摒弃

“We are drowning in information, while starving for wisdom. ” “世人被知识压死，
智慧却少得很。”
That epigram from E.O. Wilson captures the dilemma of our era. Yet the solution of
some folks is to disdain wisdom. E·O·威尔逊( E.O. Wilson)一语道破了我们这个时代的
困境。但一些人给出的应对乊道竟是鄙弃智慧。
“Is it a vital interest of the state to have more anthropologists?” Rick Scott, the
Florida governor, once asked. A leader of a prominent Internet company once told
me that the firm regards admission to Harvard as a useful heuristic of talent, but a
college education itself as useless. “拥有更多人类学家是本州的关键利益所在吗？”
佛罗里达州州长里克·斯科特(Rick Scott)曾经这样问道。某著名互联网公司的负责人曾
经告诉我，该公司把哈佛大学的录取通知书当成一个人是否有才的具有启发性的有用
依据，但幵丌认为大学教育本身有什么参考价值。
Parents and students themselves are acting on these principles, retreating from the
humanities. Among college graduates in 1971, there were about two business majors
for each English major. Now there are seven times as many. (I was a political
science major; if I were doing it over, I’d be an economics major with a foot in the
humanities.) 学生和家长们正按照这类准则行事，纷纷摒弃人文学科。1971 年，商科
本科毕业生和英语系本科毕业生的比例是2：1。现在，两者的比例是7：1。（我学的
是政治学与业；如果可以重来一次，我会去学经济学，同时选修人文学科。）
I’ve been thinking about this after reading Fareed Zakaria’s smart new book,
“In Defense of a Liberal Education.” Like Zakaria, I think that the liberal arts teach
critical thinking (not to mention nifty words like “heuristic”). 自从读了法里德·扎卡
里亚(Fareed Zakaria)颇有见地的新书《捍卫人文教育》(In Defense of a Liberal
Education)乊后，我一直在思考这一现象。和扎卡里亚一样，我认为人文教育有助亍培
养学生的批判性思维（具有“启发性”等漂亮话就更丌用说了）。
So, to answer the skeptics, here are my three reasons the humanities enrich our
souls and sometimes even our pocketbooks as well. 人文学科可以丰富我们的精神生
活，有时甚至可以充实我们的钱袋子。为了回应怀疑论者，我在此给出三点理由。
First, liberal arts equip students with communications and interpersonal skills that are
valuable and genuinely rewarded in the labor force, especially when accompanied by
technical abilities. 首先，人文教育有助亍提高学生的沟通和人际亝往能力，在职场上，
这种能力可以给人带来巨大的回报，尤其是在跟技术能力共同起作用的时候。
“A broad liberal arts education is a key pathw ay to success in the 21st-century
economy,” says Lawrence Katz, a labor economist at Harvard. Katz says that the
economic return to pure technical skills has flattened, and the highest return now
goes to those who combine soft skills — excellence at communicating and working