I'm a teacher and a practitioner of civics in America.
我是美国的一名公民教育教师兼实践者。
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Transcript
now I will kindly ask those of you who've just fallen asleep to please wake up.
现在我恳请那些刚刚睡着的人请醒一醒。
why is it that the very word Civics has such a soporific even a narcoleptic effect on us?
为什么仅仅“公民学”这个词就会对我们产生催眠甚至嗜睡症般的效果？
I think it's because the very word signifies something exceedingly virtuous exceedingly important and exceedingly boring.
我认为这是因为这个词本身意味着极其高尚、极其重要，但也极其乏味的东西。
well I think it's the responsibility of people like us.
我认为这是像我们这样的人应当承担的责任。
people who show up for Gatherings like this in person or online in any way we can.
那些亲自或在线以任何方式参加此类聚会的人。
to make Civic sexy again as sexy as it was during the American Revolution as sexy as it was during the Civil Rights Movement.
让公民学再次变得性感——像美国革命时期那样性感，像民权运动时期那样性感。
and I believe the way we make Civics sexy again is to make it explicitly about the teaching of power.
我相信让公民学再次变得性感的方式是把它明确地与权力的教学联系起来。
and the way we do that I believe is at the level of the city.
我认为我们做到这一点的层面是在城市层面。
this is what I want to talk about today.
这就是我今天想要讨论的内容。
and I want to start by defining some terms.
我想先从定义一些术语开始。
and then I want to describe the scale of the problem I think we face.
然后我想描述我认为我们面临的问题的规模。
and then suggest the ways that I believe cities can be the seat of the solution.
然后提出我相信城市可以成为解决之所的一些方法。
so let me start with some definitions.
那么让我从一些定义开始。
by Civics I simply mean the art of being a pro-social problemsolving contributor in a self-governing Community.
我所说的公民学仅指在自我治理社区中成为亲社会问题解决型贡献者的艺术。
Civics is the art of citizenship.
公民学就是公民身份的艺术。
what Bill Gates Senor calls simply showing up for life.
正如比尔·盖茨先生所称的，简而言之就是“为生活出现”。
and it encompasses three things a foundation of values an understanding of the systems that make the world go around and a set of skills that allow you to pursue goals and to have others join in that Pursuit.
它包括三方面：价值观基础、理解使世界运转的系统，以及一套让你能够追求目标并让他人加入追求的技能。
that brings me to my definition of power which is simply this.
这把我带到了我对“权力”的定义，简单如下。
the capacity to make others do what you would have them do.
使他人去做你希望他们做的事的能力。
sounds menacing doesn't it?
听起来很威胁性，不是吗？
we don't like to talk about power.
我们不喜欢谈论权力。
we find it scary.
我们觉得它很可怕。
we find it somehow evil.
我们觉得它在某种程度上是邪恶的。
we feel uncomfortable naming it in the culture and mythology of democracy.
在民主的文化和神话中，我们称呼它会感到不舒服。
power resides with the people period end of story.
权力属于人民。句号，故事结束。
any further inquiry not necessary and not really that welcome.
无需进一步探问，也并不太受欢迎。
power has a negative moral veilance it sounds maavalan inherently it seems inherently evil.
权力带有负面的道德色彩，听起来先天上似乎就是邪恶的。
but in fact power is no more inherently good or evil than fire or physics it just is.
但实际上权力并不像火或物理那样天生善或恶，它只是存在。
and power governs how any form of government operates whether democracy or dictatorship.
权力决定了任何形式的政府如何运作，无论是民主还是独裁。
and the problem we face today here in America in particular but all around the world is that far too many people are profoundly illiterate in power.
我们今天面临的问题，尤其是在美国，但在全世界也是如此，是太多人对权力严重文盲。
what it is who has it how it operates how it flows what part of it is visible what part of it is not why some people have it why that's compounded.
它是什么、谁拥有它、它如何运作、它如何流动、哪些部分是可见的、哪些部分是不可见的、为什么有些人拥有它、为什么会被不断放大。
and as a result of this illiteracy those few who do understand how power operates in Civic life those who understand how a bill becomes a law yes but also how a friendship becomes a subsidy or how a bias becomes a policy or how a slogan becomes a movement.
由于这种文盲，那些理解权力如何在公民生活中运作的人——理解法案如何变成法律的人，当然还有理解友谊如何变成补贴、偏见如何变成政策、口号如何变成运动的人，
the people who understand those things will disproportionate influence and they're perfectly happy to fill the vacuum created by the ignorance of the great majority.
理解这些事的人将拥有不成比例的影响力，他们很乐意填补由大多数人无知造成的真空。
this is why it is so fundamental for us right now to grab hold of this idea of power and to democratize it.
这就是为什么现在对我们来说抓住权力这个概念并将其民主化是如此根本的原因。
one of the things that is so profoundly exciting and challenging about this moment is that as a result of this power illiteracy that is so pervasive there is a concentration of knowledge of understanding of clout.
此刻既令人深感兴奋又充满挑战的事情之一是，由于这种普遍存在的权力文盲，知识、理解和影响力被集中起来。
and you think about it how does a friendship become a subsidy seamlessly when a senior government official decides to leave government and become a lobbyist for a private interest and convert his or her relationships into capital for their new Masters.
想想看，当一位高级政府官员决定离职成为私人利益的游说者，并将他或她的人际关系转化为为新主子服务的资本时，友谊是如何无缝地变成补贴的。
how does a bias become a policy insidiously in just the way that stop and frisk for instance became over time a bureaucratic numbers game.
偏见是如何以隐蔽的方式变成政策的，就像“拦截盘问”（stop and frisk）随着时间推移成为一种官僚的数字游戏那样。
how does a slogan become a movement virally in the way that the tea party for instance was able to take the don't tread on me flag from the American Revolution or how on the other side a band of activists could take a magazine headline Occupy Wall Street and turn that into a global Meme and movement.
口号是如何像病毒一样变成运动的，比如茶党如何能够把“别践踏我”（Don't Tread On Me）这面美国独立时期的旗帜拿来使用，或者另一边的一群活动家如何把杂志标题“占领华尔街”（Occupy Wall Street）变成一个全球性的迷因和运动。
thing is though most people aren't looking for and don't want to see these realities so much of this ignorance this Civic illiteracy is willful.
问题是，大多数人既不寻求也不愿看到这些现实，因此这种无知——这种公民文盲——在很大程度上是故意的。
there are some Millennials for instance who think the whole business is just sorted they don't want to have anything to do with politics they'd rather just opt out and engage in volunteerism.
例如有些千禧一代认为这整件事已经被安排好了，他们不想和政治有任何瓜葛，宁愿退出并投入志愿服务。
there are some techies out there who believe that the Cure All for any power imbalance or power abuse is simply more data more transparency.
有些技术宅认为解决任何权力不平衡或权力滥用的万能药就是更多的数据、更多的透明度。
there's some on the left who think power resides only with corporations and some on the right who think power resides only with government each side blinded by their selective outrage.
有些左翼认为权力只掌握在公司手中，而有些右翼认为权力只掌握在政府手中，双方都被自己选择性的愤怒所蒙蔽。
there are the naive who believe that good things just happen and the cynical who believe that bad things just happened.
有些天真者相信好事会自然而然发生，有些愤世嫉俗的人则相信坏事自然而然发生。
the fortunate and and unfortunate alike who think that their lot is simply what they deserve rather than the eminently alterable result of a prior arrangement and inherited allocation of power.
无论是幸运的人还是不幸的人，都认为自己的境遇只是他们应得的，而不是先前安排和继承的权力分配所导致的本可以改变的结果。
as a result of all of this creeping fatalism in public life we here particularly in America today have depressingly low levels of Civic knowledge Civic engagement participation awareness.
由于公共生活中这种日益蔓延的宿命论，尤其是在我们美国，公民知识、公民参与、意识水平都令人沮丧地低下。
the whole business of politics has been effectively subcontracted out to a band of professionals money people Outreach people message people research people.
整个政治事务事实上已经被外包给了一群专业人士——金主、外联人员、信息人员、研究人员。
the rest of us are meant to feel like amateurs in the sense of suckers we become demotivated to learn more about how things work we begin to opt out.
我们其余的人被期望感觉自己像外行——也就是傻子，我们变得没有动力去了解事务的运作方式，开始选择退出。
well this problem this challenge is a thing that we must now confront and I believe that when you have this kind of disengagement this willful ignorance it becomes both a cause and a consequence of this concentration of opportunity of wealth and clout that I was describing a moment ago this profound Civic inequality.
这个问题、这个挑战是我们现在必须正视的，我相信当你有这种脱离参与、故意无知时，它既是我刚才描述的这种机会、财富和影响力集中——这种深刻的公民不平等——的原因也是其结果。
this is why it is so important in our time right now to reimagine Civics as the teaching of power perhaps it's never been more important at any time in our lifetimes.
这就是为什么在我们这个时代，将公民教育重新想象为权力的教学如此重要，也许在我们有生之年从未像现在这样重要。
if people don't learn power people don't wake up and if they don't wake up they get left out.
如果人们不学会权力，如果他们不觉醒，他们就会被排除在外。
now part of the art of practicing power means being awake and having a voice.
现在，实践权力的部分艺术在于保持清醒并拥有发声的权利。
but it also is about having an arena where you can plausibly practice deciding.
但这也关乎拥有一个你可以合理地练习决策的领域。
all of civics boils down to the simple question of who decides and you have to play that out in a place in an arena.
所有的公民事务都归结为一个简单的问题：谁来决定，而你必须在某个地方、在某个领域里去实践这一点。
this brings me to the third point that I want to make today which is simply that there is no better arena in our time for the practicing of power than the city.
这把我带到我今天想要提出的第三点，那就是在我们这个时代，没有比城市更适合练习权力的场域了。
think about the city where you live where you're from.
想想你居住的城市，想想你来自的城市。
think about a problem in the common life of your city.
想想你城市公共生活中的某个问题。
it can be something small like where a Street Lamp should go or something medium like which Library should have its hours extended or cut or maybe something bigger like whether a dilapidated Waterfront should be turned into a highway or a Greenway or whether all the businesses in your town should be required to pay a living wage.
它可以是小事，比如街灯应该放在哪里；可以是中等规模的，比如哪家图书馆应该延长或缩短开放时间；也可能是更大的问题，比如一处破败的海滨是该改造为高速公路还是绿道，或者你城里的所有企业是否应该被要求支付生活工资。
think about the change that you want in your city and then think about how you would get it how you would make it happen.
想想你想在城市里实现的改变，然后想想你会如何去获得它、如何让它发生。
take an inventory of all the forms of power that are at play in your city's situation.
盘点一下在你城市情况中发挥作用的所有形式的权力。
money of course people yes ideas information misinformation the threat of force the force of norms all these forms of power at play.
当然是金钱、人脉、思想、信息、错误信息、暴力威胁以及规范的力量——所有这些形式的权力都在起作用。
now think about how you would activate or perhaps neutralize these various forms of power.
现在想想你会如何激活或可能消解这些各种形式的权力。
this is not some Game of Thrones Empire level set of questions.
这并不是某种《权力的游戏》那样的帝国级别的问题。
these are questions that play out in every single place on the planet.
这些问题在世界上每一个地方都会发生。
I'll just tell you quickly about two stories drawn from recent headlines in Boulder Colorado.
我快速给你讲两个取自最近科罗拉多州博尔德新闻头条的故事。
voters not too long ago approved a process to replace the private power company literally the power company the electric company Excel with a publicly owned utility that would forgo profits and attend far more to climate change.
不久前选民批准了一个程序，用以用一个公有的、放弃盈利并更注重气候变化的公用事业来取代私营的电力公司，字面意思就是那家电力公司——Excel。
well Excel fought back and Excel has now put in play a ballot measure that would undermine or undo this municipalization.
Excel（电力公司）进行了反击，现在已经推出了一项选举提案，企图削弱或撤销这一市有化进程。
and so the citizen activist and Boulder who've been pushing this now literally have to fight the power in order to fight for power.
所以那些一直推动这件事的博尔德市公民活动家现在字面上不得不去“与权力作斗争”以争取权力。
in tuscala at the University of Alabama There's an organization on campus called kind of menacingly the machine and it draws from the largely white sororities and fraternities on campus and for decades the machine has dominated student government elections.
在阿拉巴马大学塔斯卡卢萨分校校园里有一个组织，名字听起来有些威胁性，叫做“the machine”，它吸纳了校园中以白人为主的联谊会和姐妹会，几十年来该组织主导着学生会选举。
well now recently the machine has started to get involved in actual ual City politics they've engineered the election of a former machine member a young pro business recent graduate to the Tuscaloosa City School Board.
最近该组织开始介入塔斯卡卢萨的实际市政政治，他们操作使一位前“the machine”成员——一名支持商业的年轻应届毕业生当选为塔斯卡卢萨市学区委员会成员。
Now as I say these are just two examples drawn almost at random from the headlines every day there are thousands more like them.
正如我所说的，这只是从头条新闻中几乎随意挑出的两个例子，每天还有成千上万类似的案例。
And you may like or dislike the efforts I'm describing here in Boulder or in Tuscaloosa but you cannot help but admire the power literacy of the players involved.
你可能喜欢也可能不喜欢我在这里描述的博尔德或塔斯卡卢萨的这些努力，但你不得不佩服这些参与者的权力素养。
Their skill you cannot help but reckon with and recognize the command they have of the elemental questions of Civic power.
他们的技巧你不得不去正视并承认，他们对公民权力这些基本问题的驾驭能力。
What objective what strategy what tactics what is the terrain who are your enemies who are your allies?
什么是目标？什么是策略？什么是战术？地形如何？谁是你的敌人？谁是你的盟友？
Now I want you to return to thinking about that problem or that opportunity or that challenge in your city the thing it was that you want to fix or create in your city and ask yourself do you have command of these Elemental questions of power?
现在我希望你回去思考在你所在城市中的那个问题、机会或挑战——你想修复或创造的那件事，并问问自己：你是否掌握了这些关于权力的基本问题？
Could you put into practice effectively what it is that you know?
你能否有效地把你所知道的付诸实践？
This is the challenge and the opportunity for us.
这对我们来说既是挑战也是机遇。
We live in a time right now where in spite of globalization or perhaps because of globalization all citizenship is ever more resonantly powerfully local.
我们生活在这样一个时代：尽管全球化存在，或者也许正因为全球化，所有的公民身份变得愈发明显地、强烈地具有地方性。
Indeed power in our time is Flowing ever faster to the city.
确实，在我们这个时代，权力正以更快的速度流向城市。
Here in the United States national government has tied itself up in partisan knots.
在美国，国家政府已经把自己裹在了党派的纠结之中。
Civic imagination and Innovation and creativity are emerging from local ecosystems now and radiating outward.
公民想象力、创新与创造力正从地方生态系统中涌现，并向外扩散。
And this great Innovation this great wave of localism that's now arriving and you see it in how people eat and work and share and buy and move and live their everyday lives.
这股伟大的创新潮流，这股如今到来的地方主义，你可以在人人的饮食、工作、共享、购买、出行和日常生活中看到。
This isn't some precious parochialism this isn't some Retreat into insularity.
这并非某种可贵的狭隘地方主义，也不是退缩为孤立的回避。
No this is emergent the localism of our time is networked powerfully.
不，这是自发出现的；我们这个时代的地方主义是强有力地联网的。
And so for instance consider the ways that strategies for making cities more bike friendly have spread so rapidly from Copenhagen to New York to Austin to Boston to Seattle.
例如，考虑一下让城市更适合骑行的策略如何从哥本哈根迅速传播到纽约、奥斯汀、波士顿和西雅图。
Think about how experiments and parti atory budgeting where everyday citizens get a chance to allocate and decide upon the allocation of City funds.
想想那些试验，比如参与式预算——普通市民有机会分配并决定城市资金的使用方式。
Those experiments have spread from Porto algra Brazil to here in New York City to the Ws of Chicago.
这些试验已经从巴西的波尔图阿legre（Porto Alegre）传播到纽约市，再到芝加哥的各个社区。
Migrant workers from Rome to Los Angeles and many cities between are now organizing to Stage strikes to remind the people who live in their cities what a day without immigrants would look like.
从罗马到洛杉矶以及许多中间城市的移民工人现在正在组织罢工，以提醒城市居民没有移民的一天会是什么样子。
In China all across across that country members of the new citizens movement are beginning to activate and organize to fight official corruption and graft and they're drawing the ire of officials there.
在中国，全国各地的新公民运动的成员开始动员和组织，去与官方腐败和渎职作斗争，他们因此引来了官员们的愤怒。
But they're also drawing the attention of anti-corruption activists All Around the World.
但他们也吸引了全世界反腐败活动家的关注。
In Seattle where I'm from we become part of a great Global array of cities that are now working together bypassing government all together national government all together in order to try to meet the carbon reduction goals of the Kyoto Protocol.
在我来自的西雅图，我们成为一个庞大全球城市集合体的一部分，这些城市现在在一起合作，完全绕过国家政府，以尝试实现《京都议定书》的减碳目标。
All of these citizens united are forming a web a great archipelago of power that allows us to bypass Brokenness and monopolies of control.
所有这些公民联合正在形成一张网络——一个巨大的群岛式权力，使我们能够绕过破碎体系和控制垄断。
And our task now is to accelerate this work our task now is to bring more and more people into the fold of this work.
而我们现在的任务是加速这项工作，我们现在的任务是把越来越多的人纳入到这项工作中。
That's why my organization citizen university has undertaken a project Now to create an every man's curriculum in Civic power.
这就是为什么我的组织“公民大学”（Citizen University）现在开展了一个项目，要创建一套面向所有人的公民权力课程。
and this Cur ulum starts with this Triad that I described earlier of values systems and skills.
这套课程从我前面提到的三元组——价值观、体系与技能——开始。
and what I'd like to do is to invite all of you to help create this curriculum with the stories and the experiences and the challenges that each of you lives and faces.
我想邀请在座的各位用你们的故事、经验和每个人面临的挑战来共同创建这门课程。
to create something powerfully Collective and I want to invite you in particular to try a simple exercise drawn from the early Frameworks of this curriculum.
去创造一些强有力的集体性成果，我尤其想邀请你们尝试一个摘自该课程早期框架的简单练习。
I want you to write a narrative a narrative from the future of your city and you can date it set it out one year from now five years from now.
我要你们写一个叙述——来自你们城市未来的叙述，并为它标注日期，可以是一年后，也可以是五年后。
a decade from now a generation from now and write it as a case study looking back looking back at the change that you wanted in your city.
可以是十年后、一代人之后，把它写成一个回顾性案例研究，回顾你想在城市中实现的改变。
looking back at the cause that you were championing and describing the ways that that change and that cause came in fact to succeed.
回顾你所倡导的事业，并描述那种变革与事业事实上如何最终获得成功的方式。
describe the values of your fellow citizens that you activated and a sense of moral purpose that you were able to stir.
描述你唤起的同胞公民的价值观以及你能够激发的道德目标感。
recount all the different ways that you engage the systems of government of the marketplace of social institutions of Faith organizations of the media.
回顾你与政府体制、市场、社会机构、信仰组织和媒体的各种互动方式。
catalog all the skills you had to deploy how to negotiate how to Advocate how to frame issues how to navigate diversity and conflict.
列出你必须运用的所有技能：如何谈判、如何倡导、如何构建议题框架、如何在多样性与冲突中穿行。
all those skills that enabled you to bring folks on board and to overcome resistance.
所有那些使你能够争取他人支持并克服阻力的技能。
what you'll be doing when you write that narrative is you'll be discovering how to read power and in the process how to write power.
当你撰写那个叙述时，你将发现如何解读权力，并在此过程中学会如何书写权力。
so share what you write do what you write and then share what you do.
所以分享你所写的，做你所写的，然后分享你所做的。
I invite you to literally share the narratives that you create on our Facebook page for citizen University.
我邀请你把你创作的叙事文字字面上分享到我们公民大学的Facebook页面上。
but even beyond that it's in the conversations that we have today all around the world in the simultaneous Gatherings that are happening on this topic at this moment.
但更重要的是，在我们今天在全球各地就此议题同时进行的聚会和对话中，
and to think about how we can become one another's teachers and students in power.
思考我们如何能在权力问题上互为老师与学生。
if we do that then together we can make Civic sexy again.
如果我们那样做，那么我们就能一起让公民参与再次变得有吸引力。
together we can democratize democracy and make it safe again for amateurs.
我们可以一起把民主民主化，让门外汉再次安全地参与其中。
together we can create a great network of cities that will be the most powerful Collective laboratory for self-government this planet has ever seen.
我们可以共同创建一个由城市组成的伟大网络，成为这个星球上有史以来最强大的自我治理集体实验室。
we have the power to do that thank you very much.
我们有能力做到这一点，非常感谢你们。
02 / UNDERSTAND
A closer look
IN THIS CONTEXT ·0:12
I'm a teacher and a practitioner of civics in America.
我是美国的一名公民教育教师兼实践者。
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