（三）人们的想法不会因为事实而改变 2019-05-18

Give the mind an out 保持头脑清醒

We’re reluctant to acknowledge mistakes. To avoid admitting we were wrong, we’ll twist ourselves into positions that even seasoned yogis can’t hold.

我们不愿承认错误。为了避免承认错误，我们可以把自己扭曲成即使是经验丰富的瑜珈师也无法保持的姿势。

The key is to trick the mind by giving it an excuse. Convince your own mind (or your friend) that your prior decision or prior belief was the right one given what you knew, but now that the underlying facts have changed, so should the mind.

关键是找个借口来欺骗我们的想法。说服你自己（或你朋友），在你所知道的情况下，你之前的决定或信念是正确的，但现在潜在的事实已经改变了，你的想法也应该改变。

But instead of giving the mind an out, we often go for a punch to the gut. We belittle the other person (“I told you so”). We ostracize (“Basket of deplorables”). We ridicule (“What an idiot”).

但是，我们通常不是保持头脑清醒，而是一拳打在肚子上。我们轻视别人（“我早就告诉过你”）。我们排斥别人（“一群可悲的人”）。我们嘲笑别人（“真是个白痴”）。

Schadenfreude might be your favorite pastime, but it has the counter productive effect of activating the other person’s defenses and solidifying their positions. The moment you belittle the mind for believing in something, you’ve lost the battle. At that point, the mind will dig in rather than give in. Once you’ve equated someone’s beliefs with idiocracy, changing that person’s mind will require nothing short of an admission that they are unintelligent. And that’s an admission that most minds aren’t willing to make.

幸灾乐祸可能是你最喜欢的消遣方式，但它会产生适得其反的效果，激活他人的防御，巩固他们的立场。当你低估想法相信某事的时候，你已经输掉了这场战斗。在这一点上，思想会深入挖掘，而不是屈服。一旦你把一个人的想法看作是白痴的，改变那个人的想法就等于承认他们是愚蠢的。这是大多数人不愿承认的。

Democrats in the United States are already falling into this trap. They’re not going to win the 2020 presidential elections by convincing Donald Trump supporters that they were wrong to vote for him last November or that they’re responsible for his failures in office. Instead, as author and psychology professor Robert Cialdini explains, Democrats must offer Trump supporters a way to get out of their prior commitment while saving face: “Well, of course you were in a position to make that decision in November because no one knew about X.”

美国的民主党人已经陷入了这个陷进。他们无法说服特朗普的支持者，让他们相信去年11月投票给特朗普是错误的，或者他们要为特朗普在总统任期内的失败负责，从而赢得2020年的总统大选。相反，正如作家兼心理学家Robert Cialdini所说的那样，民主党人必须为特朗普的支持者提供一种方法，让他们在挽回面子的同时摆脱之前的承诺：“当然，你可以在11月做出这个决定，因为没有人知道原因。”

Colombians adopted a similar strategy in the 1950s when the Rojas dictatorship collapsed. As I explain in my forthcoming book, although the Colombian military was complicit in the abuses of the Rojas regime, civilians deftly avoided pointing any fingers at the military. Instead, they managed to march the military back to the barracks with its dignity intact. They recognized that they would need the military’s cooperation both during the transition process and in its after math. So they offered an alternative narrative for public consumption that uncoupled the armed forces from the Rojasregime. In this narrative, which the military leaders found much easier to swallow, it was the “presidential family” and a few corrupt civilians close to Rojas - not military officers - who were responsible for the regime’s excesses. Were they to take a different approach, a military dictatorship - not democracy - may have resulted.

上世纪50年代，当罗哈斯独裁政权垮台时，哥伦比亚人也采取了类似策略。正如我在即将出版的书中所写的，尽管哥伦比亚军方与罗哈斯政权的暴行串通一气，但平民们巧妙地避免将矛头指向军方。相反，他们设法让军队带着尊严回到兵营。他们认识到，无论在过渡过程中还是过渡后，他们都需要军方的合作。因此，他们为公众消费提供了另一种说法，使武装部队脱离了罗哈斯政权。军方领导人发现，这种说法更容易让人接受。在这种说法中，总统家族和几名与罗哈斯关系密切的腐败平民而不是军官，对缅甸政权的暴行负有责任。如果他们采取不同的方法，可能会导致军事独裁而不是民主。

“The moment you belittle the mind for believing in something, you’ve lost the battle.”

“如果你低估想法相信某事，你就输了这场战斗。”