哈佛教授斗不過(guò)好萊塢明星

Hollywood Trumps Harvard

哈佛教授斗不過(guò)好萊塢明星

Call me an idealist, but I’d like to think that the halls of higher education are less vulnerable to the siren calls of fame and fortune than other byways of American life are. I’d like to believe in a bold dividing line between academic virtues and celebrity values, between intellectual and commercial concerns.

大可以把我形容為理想主義者：我愿意認(rèn)為，高等教育的殿堂與美國(guó)生活的其他路徑相比，沒(méi)那么容易受到名望和錢(qián)財(cái)?shù)那治g。我愿意相信，學(xué)術(shù)界的品德與明星的價(jià)值之間，智識(shí)的思考與商業(yè)的考量之間，有一條醒目的界線。

But Henry Louis Gates Jr., a renowned Harvard professor, and Mehmet Oz, a surgeon on the faculty at Columbia, get in my way.

哈佛大學(xué)的著名教授小亨利·路易斯·蓋茨(Henry Louis Gates Jr.)，以及在哥倫比亞大學(xué)擔(dān)任教職的外科醫(yī)生梅梅特·奧茲(Mehmet Oz)，推翻了我的想法。

I link the two because they’re both in the news, not because they’re equally in thrall to the television camera or identically unabashed peddlers of something other than fact. Oz is by far the more compromised figure.

我把這兩個(gè)人聯(lián)系起來(lái)是因?yàn)樗麄兌际艿搅诵侣剤?bào)道的關(guān)注，而不是因?yàn)樗麄兺瑯邮艿搅藬z像機(jī)的束縛、兩人都同樣不加掩飾地兜售不符合事實(shí)的東西。奧茲名譽(yù)受損的程度，遠(yuǎn)超蓋茨。

But Gates, too, exemplifies what happens when a lecturer is bathed in bright lights and gets to hang with Ben Affleck, who will soon be on-screen in Batman’s billowing cape.

不過(guò)，蓋茨的經(jīng)歷也顯示出，大學(xué)教師沐浴在閃亮的燈光之中，并與本·阿弗萊克(Ben Affleck)為伍，會(huì)發(fā)生什么。本·阿弗萊克很快就會(huì)在銀幕上披上颯颯飄揚(yáng)的斗篷，扮演蝙蝠俠了。

Affleck was a guest last October on the PBS documentary series “Finding Your Roots,” in which Gates takes luminaries — Sting, Stephen King, Angela Bassett — on journeys into their pasts. Affleck signed up for the trip.

去年10月，阿弗萊克在PBS系列紀(jì)錄片《尋根》(Finding Your Roots)中擔(dān)任特邀嘉賓。蓋茨在這部紀(jì)錄片中與名人一道探尋自己的過(guò)去，如斯汀(Sting)、史蒂芬·金(Stephen King)、安吉拉·貝塞特(Angela Bassett)。阿弗萊克也自愿加入其中。

But when he learned that he had a slave-owning ancestor, he asked that the detail be excised, according to communications between Gates and his friend Michael Lynton, the chief executive of Sony Entertainment. Their exchange was part of the hacked Sony emails recently shared by WikiLeaks.

然而蓋茨與他的朋友，索尼娛樂(lè)(Sony Entertainment)首席執(zhí)行官邁克爾·林頓(Michael Lynton)的通信記錄顯示，當(dāng)阿弗萊克得知自己有一個(gè)蓄奴的先輩后，卻要求把這個(gè)細(xì)節(jié)剪掉。這些通信記錄來(lái)自索尼遭到黑客攻擊后外泄的電子郵件，這些郵件最近被發(fā)布在了維基解密(WikiLeaks)上。

“We’ve never had anyone ever try to censor or edit what we found,” Gates wrote to Lynton, going on to fret over the “integrity” of the series. “He’s a megastar. What do we do?”

“從來(lái)沒(méi)有人嘗試要?jiǎng)h減或編輯我們得出的發(fā)現(xiàn)，”蓋茨寫(xiě)郵件告訴林頓。接下來(lái)，蓋茨也對(duì)系列片的“誠(chéng)信”表現(xiàn)出了苦惱。“他是個(gè)巨星，我們應(yīng)該怎么辦?”

Gates left the detail out.

那部分內(nèi)容，蓋茨最終在片中略去未提。

After the disclosure of this late last week, he insisted, unpersuasively, that the cut reflected nothing more than the need to make room for other ancestors of Affleck’s who warranted inclusion in the episode.

上周晚些時(shí)候，這一情況公之于眾后，他堅(jiān)稱，剪掉這個(gè)情節(jié)只是表明，當(dāng)時(shí)需要騰出時(shí)間，在那一集中容納阿弗萊克其他值得收錄的先輩。只是這種說(shuō)法無(wú)法令人信服。

Regardless, it exposed Gates, a trusted authority on the African-American experience, to accusations that he’d sold out. It diminished him.

無(wú)論如何，作為非裔美國(guó)人經(jīng)歷方面值得信賴的權(quán)威，蓋茨都因?yàn)檫@番刪減受到了背叛的指責(zé)。這損害了他的名譽(yù)。(亨利·蓋茨是哈佛大學(xué)哈欽斯非洲及非裔美國(guó)人研究中心主任。——譯注)

But wasn’t that inevitable from the moment he hitched scholarship to show business?

但從他把學(xué)術(shù)事業(yè)與娛樂(lè)業(yè)聯(lián)系起來(lái)的那一刻，這種下場(chǎng)不就已經(jīng)無(wú)可避免了嗎?

“We conflate what a PBS special is with academic work,” Carol Anderson, who teaches at Emory University, told Jamil Smith in The New Republic. “We have to understand that so much of what we see there is packaged for a nonacademic audience that wants the picture of really deep, intellectual discussion, but is not quite ready for what that means.”

“我們把PBS的專題片與學(xué)術(shù)作品混為一談，”在埃默里大學(xué)(Emory University)擔(dān)任教職的卡羅爾·安德森(Carol Anderson)對(duì)《新共和》雜志(The New Republic)的賈米爾·史密斯(Jamil Smith)說(shuō)。“我們必須明白，我們見(jiàn)到的很多信息是包裝好，呈獻(xiàn)給學(xué)術(shù)圈以外的觀眾的。那些觀眾希望看到相當(dāng)高深、需要智力投入的討論的畫(huà)面，但對(duì)于這些討論意味著什么，那部分觀眾卻沒(méi)有做好準(zhǔn)備。”

What does the audience of “The Dr. Oz Show” want?

《奧茲博士秀》(The Dr. Oz Show)的受眾想要什么?

To judge by what Oz gives them, it’s winnowed thighs, amulets against cancer and breathless promises of “magic” and “revolutionary” breakthroughs.

如果按奧茲兜售給他們的東西來(lái)判斷，那么應(yīng)該是纖瘦的大腿、針對(duì)癌癥的護(hù)身符，以及“神奇”的、“革命性”突破等等激動(dòng)人心的承諾。

Oz has morphed not just willingly but exuberantly into a carnival barker. He’s a one-man morality play about the temptations of mammon and the seduction of applause, a Faustian parable with a stethoscope.

奧茲仿佛是參加狂歡節(jié)一樣大呼小叫，他愿意這樣做，甚至樂(lè)此不疲。他仿佛在上演一出一個(gè)人的道德劇，展示了錢(qián)財(cái)?shù)恼T惑力和掌聲的魔力，這是個(gè)戴著聽(tīng)診器的浮士德式寓言人物。

Many Americans probably had no idea that he remained affiliated with Columbia — he’s vice chairman of its surgery department — until they read last week about an email sent to the university by 10 physicians around the country. They accused him of “promoting quack treatments” for “personal financial gain” and urged Columbia to sever its ties with him.

在上周讀到全美有10名外科醫(yī)生向哥倫比亞大學(xué)發(fā)送電子郵件之前，許多美國(guó)人可能并不知道奧茲與哥倫比亞大學(xué)還有關(guān)系——他是該校外科學(xué)系的副主任。這些醫(yī)生指責(zé)奧茲為了“個(gè)人的收入”而“推廣騙人的療法”，敦促哥倫比亞大學(xué)與他斷絕關(guān)系。

He’s expected to defend himself on television later this week, and his publicity machine has gone into overdrive, seeking to discredit the physicians and frame the issue as one of free speech.

預(yù)計(jì)本周晚些時(shí)候他會(huì)在電視上為自己辯護(hù)，他的公關(guān)機(jī)器已經(jīng)開(kāi)始超速疾馳，試圖破壞那些醫(yī)生的信譽(yù)，然后把問(wèn)題描繪成言論自由。

But don’t forget that he was called before a United States Senate panel last year to explain his on-air gushing about green coffee extract, raspberry ketones and other faddish weight-loss supplements. Admonishing him, Senator Claire McCaskill noted that “the scientific community is almost monolithic” in its rejection of “products you called ‘miracles.’ ”

但不要忘記，他去年曾被美國(guó)參議院的一個(gè)委員會(huì)傳喚，要求他對(duì)自己在電視上大肆吹捧綠咖啡豆萃取物、樹(shù)莓酮，以及其他流行減肥補(bǔ)劑的言論作出解釋。參議員克萊爾·麥卡斯基爾(Claire McCaskill)告誡他，“您稱作‘奇跡’的產(chǎn)品，受到了科學(xué)界幾乎普遍的”駁斥。

Also remember that the British Medical Journal published a study of scores of his show’s medical recommendations, saying more than half didn’t have sound scientific backing.

此外，請(qǐng)不要忘記《英國(guó)醫(yī)學(xué)期刊》(British Medical Journal)發(fā)表了一篇文章，文中研究了他在節(jié)目中做出的數(shù)十項(xiàng)醫(yī)學(xué)建議，結(jié)論是超過(guò)一半缺乏充分的科學(xué)依據(jù)。

And bear in mind that the Sony emails included one that showed Oz to be eager, as Vox reported, “to use his platform on the show to help expand Sony’s fitness and health-tracking devices market.” Sony is one of the producers of “Dr. Oz.”

也不要忘記，據(jù)Vox報(bào)道，索尼外泄的電子郵件中，有一則顯示奧茲熱切地想“利用他的節(jié)目作為平臺(tái)，幫助拓展索尼的健身和健康追蹤儀器市場(chǎng)。”索尼是《奧茲博士秀》的制片方之一。

But well beyond Oz, there’s an unsettling corruption of academia by celebrity culture.

但是學(xué)術(shù)界受到明星文化腐蝕的令人不安的現(xiàn)象，遠(yuǎn)比奧茲的問(wèn)題更嚴(yán)重。

Many professors do double duty as television pundits, even though sound bites, which are inherently unsubtle, run counter to what scholarship exalts. And educational institutions choose speakers largely — and sometimes solely — for their star power. The University of Houston spent $155,000 to schedule Matthew McConaughey for its commencement next month.

許多教授兼職在電視上充當(dāng)專家，盡管電視上摘出的關(guān)鍵詞句會(huì)不可避免地有所夸大，與學(xué)術(shù)界贊賞的品格大相徑庭。而教育機(jī)構(gòu)選擇演講者時(shí)，關(guān)注的基本上是名氣——有時(shí)甚至只關(guān)注名氣。休斯頓大學(xué)(University of Houston)花了15.5萬(wàn)美元，安排馬修·麥康納(Matthew McConaughey)下個(gè)月在畢業(yè)典禮上發(fā)言。

Maybe he’s more learned than we realize. Or maybe erudition counts for less than buzz, even in those enclaves that are supposed to be about deep, durable things.

可能是因?yàn)辂溈导{比我們所了解的更有才學(xué)。也可能是因?yàn)閷W(xué)識(shí)不如名氣管用，即使是在大學(xué)這種理應(yīng)更在乎深刻、持久的東西的地方。