總裁俱樂部的偽善晚宴
你是個(gè)中年男人?，F(xiàn)在是2018年初。一家你相當(dāng)熟悉的公司邀請(qǐng)你去參加在多切斯特酒店(Dorchester Hotel)舉行的一場(chǎng)全是男性參加的慈善晚宴。你可能以前參加過這個(gè)晚宴。即使沒有，你也知道那是一個(gè)著名的縱酒狂歡的場(chǎng)合;女服務(wù)員們都超級(jí)性感;那里總有那么點(diǎn)恣意妄為的氣氛。你會(huì)應(yīng)邀前往嗎?
The astonishing bit about the Presidents Club saga is that the charity managed to find 360 people to say yes. That is partly because it was an all-male dinner. There is nothing wrong with single gender events on principle. But there is something odd about very large ones in a corporate context. It’s an odd hangover from the days when women found they couldn’t climb the career ladder because the real networking was conducted in places they weren’t invited to, over drinks they didn’t much like and long after they’d gone home to put the kids to bed. Not nice.
總裁俱樂部(Presidents Club)丑聞中驚人之處在于這個(gè)慈善機(jī)構(gòu)竟成功讓360個(gè)人同意參加晚宴。部分原因是這是一場(chǎng)只邀請(qǐng)男性的晚宴。原則上講，單一性別活動(dòng)沒什么不對(duì)。但在企業(yè)背景下，一些規(guī)模很大的活動(dòng)也是如此不免有些奇怪。這是過去遺留的奇癥，那時(shí)女性們晉升無門，因?yàn)楝F(xiàn)實(shí)的社交活動(dòng)發(fā)生于那些她們得不到邀請(qǐng)的場(chǎng)合，發(fā)生在她們不太喜歡的推杯換盞之間，發(fā)生在她們?cè)缇突丶野差D孩子入睡之后。真不光彩。
It’s also partly about the sleaze itself. Sure most of the guests might not have known their high-heeled and black-knickered hostesses had to surrender their phones and sign legally dubious non-disclosure agreements. And we can (I hope) assume only a small percentage of the 360 guests were bottom grabbers in their own right. But still, you’d think most sentient modern men would find even the thought of their peers getting away with being — as the guidance given to the girls at interview put it — “annoying” a tad off putting.
另一部分原因也在于晚宴的骯臟之處本身。當(dāng)然，大多數(shù)來賓可能并不知道，那些穿著高跟鞋和黑色短褲的女服務(wù)員們不得不交出手機(jī)，并簽署法律上含糊不清的保密協(xié)議。而且我們可以(我希望)假設(shè)這360位客人中只有一小部分人本身是喜歡猥褻女性的色狼。你可以認(rèn)為大多數(shù)有理智的現(xiàn)代男性都會(huì)覺得，只是想想其他男性在做出“令人討厭”(用那些女孩們面試時(shí)拿到的指引上的話說)的舉動(dòng)之后還能逍遙法外，都讓人心生厭惡。
Despite this, the real reason to wonder why anyone, however much they might love a sleazy booze up, said yes is the perfectly obvious risk to their reputation. You would have had to be living in a cave for the past year not to know about the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements and grasped that times that were changing have now changed. This stuff just isn’t socially or politically acceptable any more.
盡管如此，我們之所以想要弄明白為什么有人(不論他可能多么喜歡放浪形骸的縱酒狂歡)會(huì)同意參加晚宴，是因?yàn)檫@很明顯會(huì)令他們的聲譽(yù)面臨風(fēng)險(xiǎn)。過去一年，只要你不是住在山洞里就會(huì)聽說過“#MeToo”(我也是)和“#TimesUp”(是時(shí)候停止了)這些運(yùn)動(dòng)，并且會(huì)意識(shí)到以往那些改變中的事情如今已經(jīng)真真正正地改變了?？偛镁銟凡堪l(fā)生的事情在社會(huì)上和政治上都不可能再被人們接受了。
Thirty years ago — when The Presidents Club had its first ridiculous dinner — wives might have complained about their drunk husbands getting back late at night having spent the equivalent of £100,000 on a car they didn’t need; and professional women might have felt a little resentful about being explicitly left out of a top networking occasion. But neither group could have done much about it. Today, those women can take down a corporate or government career in a matter of hours. You might not approve of that. But why take the risk?
30年前——那時(shí)總裁俱樂部剛剛舉行了第一次荒唐的晚宴——妻子們可能會(huì)埋怨她們醉酒晚歸的丈夫花10萬英鎊買了輛他們不需要的車;而職業(yè)女性也許會(huì)因?yàn)樽陨肀幻鞔_排除在頂級(jí)社交場(chǎng)合之外而感到些許不滿。但對(duì)此她們都無能為力。如今，這些女性在幾個(gè)小時(shí)內(nèi)就能終結(jié)一個(gè)人的企業(yè)或政府生涯。對(duì)此你可能不贊成。但為何要冒這個(gè)險(xiǎn)?
There’s an obvious answer — arrogance bred of a sense of immunity from being in a big group of properly powerful men, many of whom come with the confidence of knowing that they aren’t beholden to regulated or public companies.
一個(gè)明顯的答案是——傲慢。這種傲慢來源于知道自己屬于一大群有權(quán)有勢(shì)男人的一員而產(chǎn)生的逍遙法外感，他們中很多人都因?yàn)橹雷约翰槐貙?duì)受監(jiān)管企業(yè)或上市公司負(fù)責(zé)而有一種信心。
The core assumption, conscious or not, must have been that behaving badly, if done inside a large group of 360 top businessmen, charming aristocrats, minor celebrities and property chieftains, is different. Lower risk. But there’s something else in the mix here as well: the fig leaf of charity.
他們內(nèi)心的核心假設(shè)(不管有意與否)必然是，行為不端如果發(fā)生在360名商界頂級(jí)人士、迷人的貴族、小名星和房地產(chǎn)大佬之中會(huì)另當(dāng)別論。風(fēng)險(xiǎn)會(huì)更低。但是這其中還有別的因素：以慈善為名。
“But it’s for charity” is a catch-all excuse for all manner of things — and who’s going to call out well-off men for a little groping at a dinner that raises millions for good causes? If people hear the words “charity dinner” and don’t think about helping sick kids, but instead think “top food, bit of booze and a chance to use the auction bit to show the guys how much I’m making on the back of the government’s help to buy nonsense” — what does it matter? Think of the children!
“為了慈善”是個(gè)萬能的借口——誰會(huì)指責(zé)一群有錢男人在為慈善事業(yè)籌集數(shù)百萬美元的晚宴上有少許動(dòng)手動(dòng)腳呢?如果人們聽到“慈善晚宴”這個(gè)詞，想到的不是幫助患病的孩子，而是“頂級(jí)美食、縱酒狂歡以及一個(gè)借著拍賣向別人展示自己在政府的幫助下賺了多少錢來買沒用的東西的機(jī)會(huì)”——那又如何?想想孩子!
The problems here are manyfold. First, a dinner raising money for charity should probably be held to higher standards than one held just for fun. There has been too much scandal in the sector over the past few years for comfort. If it wants to maintain public trust (and how can it operate without it?) it can’t afford this kind of thing.
問題是多方面的。首先，一個(gè)為慈善募捐的晚宴或許應(yīng)該比一個(gè)僅僅為了娛樂而舉行的晚宴格調(diào)更高。過去幾年，慈善行業(yè)爆出的丑聞太多，令人擔(dān)憂。如果慈善業(yè)還想保持公眾的信任(沒有公眾的信任它要如何運(yùn)作?)就不能再發(fā)生這種事。
Second, your average charity dinner doesn’t come cheap. The Presidents Club event is a slightly special case (130 hostesses add up). Nonetheless, based on the latest accounts available, it seems to have cost the organisation about 30p to raise 70p for charity, a ratio that makes even the government’s methods of fundraising look insanely efficient. The Charity Commission will say that with 167,000 charities to police they can’t be badgering everyone about their morals and money-raising matters. But all that tells us is that we have too many “charities”, the answer to which is not to pour more taxpayers’ money into the commission, but to cut the number of organisations in the UK given charitable status. We can’t possibly need more than a couple of thousand (tops).
第二，你的慈善晚宴并不便宜。總裁俱樂部事件稍有點(diǎn)特殊(總共有130名女服務(wù)員)。然而，最新賬目顯示，該組織每籌集70便士善款的成本似乎是約30便士，這一比率甚至令政府籌資方式都顯得異常高效。英國慈善委員會(huì)(The Charity Commission)會(huì)說，他們要監(jiān)管167000家慈善機(jī)構(gòu)，所以不可能在道德和籌款問題上糾纏每家機(jī)構(gòu)。但所有這些都告訴我們，“慈善機(jī)構(gòu)”太多了，因此別再把更多納稅人的錢投給慈善委員會(huì)，而要減少英國被授予慈善地位的組織的數(shù)量。我們需要的慈善機(jī)構(gòu)不可能超過兩千家(最多)。
Yet despite misgivings about the event, the charities that were in line for donations should take the money. Not doing so suggests they are more concerned about the way their charity looks than what it achieves. It’s do-goodery gone mad. Their job is not to indulge in political grandstanding (that is already a very crowded market). Their job is to do useful things. The Charity Commission might want to find time to have a word with some of them about that, too.
然而，盡管人們對(duì)晚宴事件感到擔(dān)憂，但那些之前準(zhǔn)備接收善款的慈善機(jī)構(gòu)應(yīng)該把錢拿走。如果不這樣做就表示他們更關(guān)心自己做慈善的形象，而不是實(shí)際取得的成就。這是瘋狂的偽善。慈善機(jī)構(gòu)的職責(zé)不是沉溺于政治嘩眾取寵(已經(jīng)有太多人這樣做了)。他們的職責(zé)是干些有用的事。慈善委員會(huì)或許也應(yīng)該抽時(shí)間和他們中的某些人就此聊一聊。
The writer is editor in chief of MoneyWeek
本文作者是《Money Week》主編
