双语：我们不需要人生准则

我们不需要人生准则
principles for living we could all do without
作者：英国《金融时报》专栏作家 露西•凯拉韦

英语短文 英语美文摘抄

ray dalio is deluded, insensitive, emotionally illiterate, simplistic, breathtakingly smug, weird and plain wrong.<

雷蒙德•戴利奥(ray dalio)易上当受骗、麻木不仁、情商为零、过分简单化、惊人的自命不凡、古怪、且错得离谱。

harsh words, but i know the founder of one the world's most successful hedge funds will welcome them. the bridgewater chief has just made a list of his top 300 rules for life and number 31 is to write down the weaknesses of others. number 11 is never to say anything about a person you would not say to them directly, while number 22 is to “get over” fretting about whether comments are positive or negative. all that matters in dalioland is whether they are accurate or inaccurate.<

话说的很重，但我知道，作为世界上最成功对冲基金之一的创始人，雷蒙德会喜欢这些词的。这位bridgewater的掌门人刚刚列了一张单子，罗列出自己最重要的300条人生准则。第31条是写下他人的缺点；第11条是当面不说的话决不在背后乱说；而第22条则是“克制”自己，努力做到荣辱不惊。在雷蒙德的世界里，他只关心准确与否。

these rules are contained in the most curious management document i have ever come across. simply entitled “principles”, it is being handed out to staff at bridgewater to help them be as successful as their boss. it is also being passed gleefully from pillar to post on the internet.<

这些准则包含在我所见过的最奇怪的管理文件中。文件被简单地冠名为“准则”，并分发给了bridgewater员工，以帮助他们做到像老板一样成功。他们还欣喜地在互联网上四处传播。

but this is no mere staff manual. in it, mr dalio spends the first three chapters expounding on his general philosophy of life, which he says is a bit like skiing. so long as you do what the instructor tells you, all will go well. there is no ego in the exercise, he assures us: “with increased usage [the principles] will evolve from ‘ray's principles' to ‘our principles' and ray will fade out of the picture.”<

但这不仅仅是员工手册。在其中，雷蒙德将开篇的头三章，都用来详述自己的人生哲学——他形容有一点像滑雪。只要你按照教练的指导做，一切皆会顺利。他向我们保证，在应用中完全没有彰显自我：“随着应用的增多，（这些准则）将从‘雷蒙德的准则'逐渐发展成‘我们的准则'，而雷蒙德的色彩将渐渐褪去。”

but for the time being ray is rather firmly in the picture, writing a work that in its ambition reminds me of aristotle's nicomachean ethics. both writers are pretty confident and both believe in principles that are not a priori, but discovered by doing. the main difference is that the greek philosopher had less of an appetite for words such as “leverage” and “drilldown” than the modern hedge fund chief. and he avoided bogus equations such as<

但眼下，雷蒙德的个人色彩还相当浓厚。作品中的雄心让我想起了亚里士多德(aristotle)的《尼各马可伦理学》(nicomachean ethics)。两位作者都相当自信，都相信并非由推理得出、而是通过实践发现的准则。二人的主要区别在于，那位希腊哲学家没有当代这位对冲基金经理那么喜欢“杠杆”或“钻取”等词。他也没有用一些伪等式，例如：痛苦+深思=进步。

pain + reflection = progress.<

雷蒙德的哲学是美国梦狂热的原教旨主义版本。他宣称，“人们劳有所得”——如果你坐拥约40亿美元的财富，这个观点还是令人欣慰的。他还认为，“人们赚多少钱，大致反映了他们对社会的付出”——又是一种让雷蒙德安心的想法，但如果我是一名教师，我可能不会同意。

mr dalio's philosophy turns out to be a fanatical, fundamentalist version of the american dream. “people get what they deserve in life,” he states – a comforting view when you have made a fortune of about $4bn. he also thinks that “how much money people have earned is a rough measure of how much they gave society what it wanted” – again, a reassuring thought for ray, though if i were a teacher i might not agree.<