We Can’t Just Play with sports

I believe that the greatest frontier of our ignorance lies in the relationship of man to man. I do not discount in the marvelous development in the world of things, nor do I devaluate the contributions of those who made these developments possible. Yet all these are but means, and unless we can learn to shape and to control them to ends that are constructive for the inhabitants of this earth, material miracles become not only futile but worse; worse, because they provide more means of destruction. I believe the frontier of human relationship can be extended. It will not be easy to do so. Man must learn more about himself than he already knows. The human emotions and the meaning of human behavior present difficulties in measurement much greater than those encountered in learning to measure steel or gold.

Perhaps the greatest impediment to the advancement of knowledge about us has been the fact that we have assumed we know. The man who can predict accurately the smell or color of the vapor which arises when two substances are mixed excites his fellow citizens far more than one who tries to predict the result of the clash of two personalities. In the second phenomenon we tend to solve by one of two methods. We dismiss it as unpredictable prior to the clash ,or, afterwards, we declare the result to have been inevitable and expected by everyone. In either case we are denying our ignorance.

We shall have overcome one of the largest obstacles to a solution of man’s favorable relationship with man when we know and acknowledge how little we know about ourselves. The step to follow our admission of ignorance is to seek the knowledge and understanding that we have concluded we do not have. This will be a long and difficult road, as long perhaps as from learning how to make fire to learning how to fission the atom. Man must turn his eyes and interest inward. He has already made more gadgets than he understands or knows how to control. He resembles a child after Christmas, unable to manage the strange and complicated machine toys that had challenged the interest of his parents. Our acceptance that we do not know and must seek to learn cannot wait. We have not the choice of the child. We cannot play with spools and leave the more complicated machines to our parents.

我们不能只玩卷轴

我相信，我们对人与人之间关系的了解是最为匮乏的。这并不是对物质世界非凡发展的低估，也不是对人们为此做出的巨大贡献的贬低。但这一切仅仅是一些方法手段而已，除非我们学会制造并使用它们，使之对地球居民具有建设性的意义，否则物质生产的奇迹只会变得无用且糟糕，因为它们只会带来更多的毁灭手段。我相信，人际关系的范围还能有所扩展。但这并非易事。人类必须更加了解自己。比起钢或金的纯度测量而言，对人类情感与行为意义的衡量更是难上加难。
或许，我们自以为了解自己，而这正是阻碍我们深入了解自己的最大障碍。两种化学物质混合并散发出蒸汽时，能够准确说出蒸汽的气味和颜色的人往往会令同伴兴奋不已，而与此相比，当人们试图预测两种个性碰撞的结果时，反响却远不及此。面对第二种现象，我们往往会采取下面的两种解决方法：在事发前，以无法预知其结果为由而不予理睬；或者事后，宣称所有人早已料到这不可避免的结果。无论采取何种方法，我们都是在拒绝承认自己无知。
可以说，当我们知道并承认对自己知之甚少时，就已经战胜了妨碍人们建立良好人际关系的一大障碍。在接受自己的无知后，接下来便是努力去获得我们所不拥有的知识与理解。这将是一个漫长而艰难的过程，或许会像从学会如何生火到学会如何分裂原子一样漫长。人必须将目光与兴趣投向自身。对于他所知道与理解的控制范围而言，人类的发明与创造已远远超出了这个极限。就像圣诞节后的小孩，面对他父母曾感兴趣的陌生而复杂的机械玩具却束手无策。我们应马上承认自己的无知，并努力学习。我们不像小孩子那样可以选择。我们不能只玩卷轴，而让父母去处理那些更复杂的机械。