2020年12月六级第2套仔细阅读 Passage 2 原文翻译及答案解析

Back in 1964, in his book Games People Play, psychiatrist Eric Berne described a pattern of conversation he called "Why Don't You—Yes But", which remains one of the most irritating aspects of everyday social life. The person adopting the strategy is usually a chronic complainer. Something is terrible about their relationship, job, or other situation, and they moan about it ceaselessly, but find some excuse to dismiss any solution that's proposed. The reason, of course, is that on some level they don't want a solution; they want to be validated in their position that the world is out to get them. If they can "win" the game—dismissing every suggestion until their interlocutor gives up in annoyance—they get to feel pleasurably righteous in their resentments and excused from any obligation to change.

回溯到1964年，精神科医生埃里克·伯恩在他的著作《人们玩的游戏》中描述了一种他称之为“为什么你不—但是”的对话模式，这至今仍是日常社交生活中最令人恼火的方面之一。采用这种策略的人通常是一个习惯性的抱怨者。他们的关系、工作或其他情况有些糟糕，他们不停地抱怨，但找借口驳回任何提出的建议。当然，原因在于在某种程度上他们不想要解决方案；他们希望自己的立场得到认同，即世界在故意针对他们。如果他们能“赢”这场游戏——驳回每一个建议，直到对话者恼怒地放弃——他们就会在怨恨中感到愉快的正义感，并免除了任何改变的义务。

Part of the trouble here is the so-called responsibility/fault fallacy. When you're feeling hard done by—taken for granted by your partner, say, or obliged to work for a half-witted boss—it's easy to become attached to the position that it's not your job to address the matter, and that doing so would be an admission of fault. But there's a confusion here. For example, if I were to discover a newborn at my front door, it wouldn't be my fault, but it most certainly would be my responsibility. There would be choices to make, and no possibility of avoiding them, since trying to ignore the matter would be a choice. The point is that what goes for the baby on the doorstep is true in all cases: even if the other person is 100% in the wrong, there's nothing to be gained, long-term, from using this as a justification to evade responsibility.

部分问题在于所谓的责任/过错谬误。当你感到被亏待时——比如被伴侣视为理所当然，或被迫为一个愚蠢的老板工作——很容易执着于这样的立场：解决这个问题不是你的工作，而这样做将是承认过错。但这里存在混淆。例如，如果我在家门口发现一个新生儿，这不会是我的过错，但它肯定是我的责任。会有选择要做，而且无法避免，因为试图忽略这件事本身就是一个选择。关键在于，门阶上婴儿的情况在所有情况下都适用：即使对方100%错误，长期来看，以此作为逃避责任的借口也毫无益处。

Should you find yourself on the receiving end of this kind of complaining, there's an ingenious way to shut it down—which is to agree with it, ardently. Psychotherapist Lori Gottlieb describes this as "over validation". For one thing, you'll be spared further moaning, since the other person's motivation was to confirm her beliefs, and now you're confirming them. But for another, as Gottlieb notes, people confronted with over-validation often hear their complaints afresh and start arguing back. The notion that they're utterly powerless suddenly seems unrealistic—not to mention rather annoying—so they're prompted instead to generate ideas about how they might change things.

如果你发现自己成为这种抱怨的接收方，有一种巧妙的方法可以制止它——那就是热情地同意它。心理治疗师洛里·戈特利布称之为“过度验证”。一方面，你将免受进一步的抱怨，因为对方的动机是确认她的信念，而现在你在确认它们。但另一方面，正如戈特利布指出的，面对过度验证的人常常会重新听到自己的抱怨并开始反驳。他们完全无力的想法突然显得不切实际——更不用说相当烦人——因此他们反而被促使去产生关于如何改变事情的想法。

"And then, sometimes, something magical might happen," Gottlieb writes. The other person "might realise she's not as trapped as you are saying she is, or as she feels." Which illustrates the irony of the responsibility/fault fallacy: evading responsibility feels comfortable, but turns out to be a prison; whereas assuming responsibility feels unpleasant, but ends up being freeing.

“然后，有时，可能发生一些神奇的事情，”戈特利布写道。对方“可能意识到她并不像你所说的那样被困住，也不像她感觉的那样。”这体现了责任/过错谬误的讽刺：逃避责任感觉舒适，但结果是一座监狱；而承担责任感觉不愉快，但最终是自由的。