我們不需要人生準則
principles for living we could all do without
作者：英國《金融時報》專欄作家 露西?凱拉韋

英語短文 英語美文摘抄

ray dalio is deluded, insensitive, emotionally illiterate, simplistic, breathtakingly smug, weird and plain wrong.<

雷蒙德?戴利奧(ray dalio)易上當受騙、麻木不仁、情商為零、過分簡單化、驚人的自命不凡、古怪、且錯得離譜。

harsh words, but i know the founder of one the world's most successful hedge funds will welcome them. the bridgewater chief has just made a list of his top 300 rules for life and number 31 is to write down the weaknesses of others. number 11 is never to say anything about a person you would not say to them directly, while number 22 is to “get over” fretting about whether comments are positive or negative. all that matters in dalioland is whether they are accurate or inaccurate.<

話說的很重，但我知道，作為世界上最成功對沖基金之一的創始人，雷蒙德會喜歡這些詞的。這位bridgewater的掌門人剛剛列了一張單子，羅列出自己最重要的300條人生準則。第31條是寫下他人的缺點；第11條是當面不說的話決不在背后亂說；而第22條則是“克制”自己，努力做到榮辱不驚。在雷蒙德的世界里，他只關心準確與否。

these rules are contained in the most curious management document i have ever come across. simply entitled “principles”, it is being handed out to staff at bridgewater to help them be as successful as their boss. it is also being passed gleefully from pillar to post on the internet.<

這些準則包含在我所見過的最奇怪的管理文件中。文件被簡單地冠名為“準則”，并分發給了bridgewater員工，以幫助他們做到像老板一樣成功。他們還欣喜地在互聯網上四處傳播。

but this is no mere staff manual. in it, mr dalio spends the first three chapters expounding on his general philosophy of life, which he says is a bit like skiing. so long as you do what the instructor tells you, all will go well. there is no ego in the exercise, he assures us: “with increased usage [the principles] will evolve from ‘ray's principles' to ‘our principles' and ray will fade out of the picture.”<

但這不僅僅是員工手冊。在其中，雷蒙德將開篇的頭三章，都用來詳述自己的人生哲學——他形容有一點像滑雪。只要你按照教練的指導做，一切皆會順利。他向我們保證，在應用中完全沒有彰顯自我：“隨著應用的增多，（這些準則）將從‘雷蒙德的準則'逐漸發展成‘我們的準則'，而雷蒙德的色彩將漸漸褪去。”

but for the time being ray is rather firmly in the picture, writing a work that in its ambition reminds me of aristotle's nicomachean ethics. both writers are pretty confident and both believe in principles that are not a priori, but discovered by doing. the main difference is that the greek philosopher had less of an appetite for words such as “leverage” and “drilldown” than the modern hedge fund chief. and he avoided bogus equations such as<

但眼下，雷蒙德的個人色彩還相當濃厚。作品中的雄心讓我想起了亞里士多德(aristotle)的《尼各馬可倫理學》(nicomachean ethics)。兩位作者都相當自信，都相信并非由推理得出、而是通過實踐發現的準則。二人的主要區別在于，那位希臘哲學家沒有當代這位對沖基金經理那么喜歡“杠桿”或“鉆取”等詞。他也沒有用一些偽等式，例如：痛苦+深思=進步。

pain + reflection = progress.<

雷蒙德的哲學是美國夢狂熱的原教旨主義版本。他宣稱，“人們勞有所得”——如果你坐擁約40億美元的財富，這個觀點還是令人欣慰的。他還認為，“人們賺多少錢，大致反映了他們對社會的付出”——又是一種讓雷蒙德安心的想法，但如果我是一名教師，我可能不會同意。

mr dalio's philosophy turns out to be a fanatical, fundamentalist version of the american dream. “people get what they deserve in life,” he states – a comforting view when you have made a fortune of about $4bn. he also thinks that “how much money people have earned is a rough measure of how much they gave society what it wanted” – again, a reassuring thought for ray, though if i were a teacher i might not agree.<