2013年11月15日 星期五 07:18 AM Why it is very clever to pretend to be stupid 自嘲的诀窍 英国《金融时报》专栏作家 露西•凯拉韦 中英文并排 Last week I had a drink with a woman who has just landed one of the biggest jobs in her industry. Over a couple of grapefruit negronis she told me she had no idea why she had been promoted and that she was not even sure if she wanted the job. 上周，我和一位女士小酌了一番，她刚刚获得所处行业内举足轻重的一份工作。几杯葡萄柚内格罗尼酒下肚后，她告诉我她不知道为什么会得到提拔，她甚至无法确定自己是否想要这份工作。 In return I told her that I was bumbling along more or less OK, though keeping the show on the road was getting increasingly tricky. 我回答她，我和她差不多，也在跌跌撞撞地混着，不过想继续平安混下去是越来越难了。 When I got back from this pleasant evening of mutual self-disparagement my younger son informed me that I had just failed to show up to an event at his school. He also said that a friend of mine, a barrister with a child in the same class who has form when it comes to missing school events, had gone along. 当度过一个一块儿自嘲的愉快夜晚回到家时，我的小儿子告诉我，我刚刚错过了他学校的一场活动。他还告诉我，我的一位律师朋友与她的孩子一起去了。这位朋友的孩子和我的小儿子同班，在错过孩子学校活动方面，我的这位律师朋友也是有过“前科”的。 I fired off a text to her at once: “The winner of the crap parent award for 2013 is...ME.” 我立刻向她发了条短信：“2013年最烂父母奖得主是……我。” She texted back: “The prize will not be yours for long. Give it a week, maybe 2, and it will be mine again.” 她回复说：“这奖你得不了多久。一周，或者两周，它将再度属于我。” What is the matter with us? All three are grown-up women who mainly cope fine at work and at home. Yet we insist on inflating our failures in an endless game of self-deprecation. 我们出什么问题了？我们三个都是成年女性，在工作和家庭方面大体都应对自如。然而我们却坚持在一场无休止的自嘲游戏中夸大我们的失败。 This is meant to be one of the ways women sabotage themselves. We talk ourselves down and by doing so, we hold ourselves down. Even women who have managed to rise go on harming themselves by incontinently banging on about how hopeless they are. 女性之所以这样做，是把它当作自我贬低的一种方式。我们用言语诋毁自己，这么做会令我们放低姿态。女性即使在事业上成功获得提升，也会一直自损，忍不住大谈特谈自己多么没救了。 There was a study of women on the boards of big UK companies showing they are four times as likely to engage in self-deprecation as their male colleagues, with the result that they are seen as weak. 一项对英国大公司董事会女性的研究表明，她们自嘲的几率是男性同事的四倍，结果就是她们被视为弱者。 But to conclude that self-deprecation is bad and must be stamped out is all wrong. It is just a matter of using it right. 不过就此得出结论，认为自嘲十分糟糕，必须杜绝，则是大错特错。其实，问题在于如何正确运用自嘲。 A few years ago academics at the University of New Mexico wrote a paper with the charming title, Dissing Oneself Versus Dissing Rivals. It proved that men who crack self-deprecating jokes make themselves irresistible to women – but only if they are alphas to start with. 几年前，美国新墨西哥大学(University of New Mexico)的学者们撰写了一篇论文，它有个十分有趣的标题——《嘲讽自己还是嘲讽对手》(Dissing Oneself Versus Dissing Rivals)。这篇论文证明，对女士来说，讲自嘲笑话的男士具有难以抵挡的魅力——不过前提是他们本来就是佼佼者。 When a low-status man disses himself, women are repulsed. If he jokes about being useless, women conclude he must therefore be useless. 当一位地位低下的男士嘲讽自己时，只会让女性敬而远之。如果他取笑自己一无是处，那么女士们会真的因此断定他确实是废物一个。 Even though the research was aimed at the bedroom, it works just as well in the boardroom, or in any office at all. It applies equally to men and women, although gives the British an advantage as self-dissing is something for which we have an inbuilt genius. 尽管这项研究是针对两性关系做出的，但其研究结论对董事会也适用，或者说对整个职场都适用。这个结论其实对男性和女性同样适用，不过在这方面英国人具有优势，因为我们天生就具有自我调侃的天才。 So long as there is no doubt about the status and superiority of the person using it, self-deprecation is one of the most effective tools there is. 对于自嘲者来说，只要他的地位和优秀无可置疑，他就可以把自嘲当作最有力的武器之一。 It disarms other people, makes them forget you are scarily powerful and lulls them into liking you instead. The only boss I’ve ever had whom I truly adored self-deprecated constantly. 自嘲会令他人放下戒心，令他们忘记你令人害怕的权势，并吸引他们喜欢你。比如，我唯一曾真心崇拜过的老板就喜欢不停地自嘲。 Between women friends it acts as a non-compete clause. I don’t actually think for a minute that I’m the worst parent in the UK: If I did, I’d keep quiet about it. But by telling my barrister friend that I am, what I’m actually saying is: I’m not dangerous. Come closer. 在女性朋友之间，自嘲就像一种互不竞争条约。实际上，我一点也没认为我是英国最糟糕的父母：如果我是，我会对此保持沉默。然而当我告诉我的律师朋友我是最糟糕的父母时，我实际上是在说：我对你没有危险，咱们再走近些吧。 The more ludicrous the self-dissing is, the better it works. Think of some of the modern-day masters: Tony Blair, Boris Johnson or Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury. 自嘲越是荒诞不经，效果就越好。请想想以下几位当代自嘲大师：托尼•布莱尔(Tony Blair)、鲍里斯•约翰逊(Boris Johnson)以及坎特伯里大主教(Archbishop of Canterbury)贾斯汀•韦尔比(Justin Welby)。 When I interviewed the latter recently, he told me that he was hopeless compared with his predecessor, that he was boring, not terribly holy, had a second-class mind and that he got terrified before big speeches. In a way it was all hogwash. Yet it made me putty in his hands. 当我最近采访韦尔比的时候，他对我说，与他的前任相比，他毫无希望，他很无趣，没有那种令人敬畏的神圣感，头脑也只是二流，重大演讲之前总会感到害怕。从某个角度来说，这些全是胡话。不过，这些话确实俘虏了我。 Self-deprecation is only dangerous if there is any chance at all that the person you are talking to might agree with it. 只在一种情况下自嘲才是危险的，那就是你的谈话对象有任何可能同意你的时候。 I learnt this from my mother. Even though she never managed to teach me how to cook, she did warn me never to diss the food I had just put on the table. 我是从我母亲那里学到这一点的。尽管她始终没能教会我如何烹饪，她却警告我永远都不要调侃我刚放到饭桌上的食物。 To say: “Oh dear this pasta is disgustingly soggy” simply draws the guests’ attention to how overcooked it is, which otherwise they might not have noticed. Worse, it then obliges them to say: “But no! It’s delicious.” “哦，天哪！这份意大利面稀烂得令人恶心！”这样的话只会让客人注意到这份意大利面如何煮过了头，而不说这话他们没准还没注意到这一点。更糟糕的是，听了这话之后，他们还不得不说：“哪里！好吃极了。” Self-deprecation that demands a contradiction is never OK. It boils down to neediness, which is always tiresome. 那种需要别人反驳的自嘲从来不会让人愉快。归根结底，它是告诉别人你需要安慰，这会让人觉得讨厌。 This shows where all those women in boardrooms are going wrong. The men there are not yet convinced that what they are producing isn’t the boardroom equivalent of soggy pasta. 这样就可以看出，董事会中那些自嘲的女士们问题都出在什么地方。问题在于，董事会中的男士还不能肯定，她们的工作成果不是董事会版的“稀烂的意大利面”。 Only when it is clear to everyone that a woman’s skill is beyond doubt will it be time for her to start telling everyone that she is useless. 只有在所有人都确信一位女士的能力毋庸置疑的情况下，这位女士才可以开始跟每个人说自己毫无用处。 译者/简易 相关文章 从骑车风格看性格 职场上讲能力而不是信心 恼人的网络攀比 意外怀孕要告诉雇主吗？ 不要公开表扬员工 相关话题 自嘲 露西•凯拉韦 露西•凯拉韦(Lucy Kellaway)是英国《金融时报》的管理专栏作家。在过去十年的时间里，她用幽默的语言调侃各种职场现象，并为读者出谋划策。她的专栏每周一出版在英国《金融时报》。露西在2006年获得英国出版业奖的“年度专栏作家”奖项。 读者评论 FT中文网欢迎读者发表评论，部分评论会被选进《读者有话说》栏目。我们保留编辑与出版的权利。 © 英国金融时报 有限公司 2013 FT中文网为英国金融时报的注册商标
Posted on: Fri, 15 Nov 2013 14:54:25 +0000
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