行为与礼貌

Leopard

最近接连做恶梦，梦醒之余，久不能寐。人说”日有所思，夜有所梦“，对于恶梦来说，这种联系未免有些稀罕了。从小到大，我们大概做了很多的恶梦。当我们抱怨美梦不能实现的时候，实在是应该有些空间庆幸，那么多的恶梦也都没有成为现实。

在人的社会性得到（过分）强调的时代里，人的生物性或说自然性实在有必要花费时间与精力去好好理解与领悟。人本质上是一种生物，所以有自己的生物圈与生物钟。当顺着这种自然性的时候，我想应该在生物性上是和谐与快乐的，相反，逆着自然而然，强求或奢望，最终有个不自然的结束，也就没什么奇怪了。但是这个世界又是如此的复杂，人的社会性如此强势，有时未免感到茫然，所以信仰便产生了。信仰一开始一定是一小部分人的事，甚至是一个人的事，好的信仰自然会发扬光大，坏的信仰也可能发扬光大，或者叫滋长，所以想要寻找信仰的人要仔细分清好坏。但这里又存在着谁来差别好坏的问题，接着来的又是谁来判别判别者判别得对或者不对的问题，循环回到了柏拉图提出的“谁来监督监督者”的古老问题。

下面将要转载的这篇英文文章，题目叫“行为与礼貌”，其中重点强调了不要与人争论，大意是说，别人的意见和你不一致，要么是你自己错了，这种情况当然不要去争论。要么你自己是对的，别人错了，但别人有意争论，显然有其理由，比如基于他/她当前的认知只会得出这样的结论，又或者其在争论中获得某种快感，这些情况都是可以理解的，所以没必要去争论，不争论并不会对我们造成伤害，争论也很少以一方劝服另一方告终。

Conduct and Manners

I have mentioned good humor as one of the preservatives of our peace and tranquility. It is among the most effectual, and its effect is so well imitated and aided, artificially, by politeness, that this also becomes an acquisition of first rate value. In truth, politeness is artificial good humor, it covers the natural want of it, and ends by rendering habitual a substitute nearly equivalent to the real virtue. It is the practice of sacrificing to those whom we meet in society, all the little conveniences and preferences which will gratify them, an deprive us of nothing worth a moment's consideration; it is the giving a pleasing and flattering turn to our expressions, which will conciliate others, and make them pleased with us as well as ourselves. How cheap a price for the good will of another! When this is in return for a rude thing said by another, it brings him to his senses, it mortifies and corrects him the most salutary way, and places him at the feet of your good nature, in the eyes of the company.

But in stating prudential rules for our government in society, I must not omit the important one of never entering into dispute of argument with another. I never saw an instance of one of two disputants convincing the other by argument. I have seem many, on their getting warm, becoming rude, and shooting one another. Conviction is the effect of our own dispassionate reasoning, either in solitude, or weighing within ourselves, dispassionately, what we hear from others, standing uncommitted in argument ourselves. It was one of the rules which, above all others, made Doctor Franklin the most amiable of men in society, ''never to contradict anybody." I f he was urged to announce an opinion, he did it rather by asking questions, as if for information, or by suggesting doubts.

When I hear another express an opinion which is not mine, I say to myself, he has a right to his opinion, as I to mine; why should I question it? His error does me no injury, and shall I become a Don Quixote, to bring all men by force of argument to one opinion? If a fact be misstated, it is probable he is gratified by a belief of it, and I have no right to deprive him of the gratification. If he wants information, he will ask it, and then I will give it in measured terms; but if he still believes his own story, and shows a desire to dispute the fact with me, I hear him and say nothing. It is his affair, not mine, if he prefers error.

There are two classes of disputants most frequently to be met with among us. The first is of young students, just entered the threshold of science, with a first view of its outlines, not yet filled up with the details and modifications which a further progress would bring to their knowledge. The other consists of the ill-tempered and rude men in society, who have taken up a passion for politics. (Good humor and politeness never introduce into mixed society a question on which they foresee there will be a difference of opinion.) From both of those classes of disputants, my dear Jefferson, keep aloof, as you would from the infected subjects of yellow fever or pestilence. Consider yourself, when with them, as among the patients of Bedlam, needing medical more than moral counsel.