It’s a funny old place the world. So many things change but human nature hasn’t changed much over the centuries. In the classic work of philosophy named after Zhuangzi (360-290BC) we find the story of the frog in the well. This story is so familiar that it has given Chinese one of its many four character idioms and yet so few of us really take the true meaning of it seriously.
　　The other night, while watching CCTV International reporting on the forthcoming activity, I was struck by the comment of the reporter that “the eyes of the world will be on Beijing this month”. I started thinking about her words and realized that actually this will not be so. The “eyes of the world” tend to be focused on many different things and the vast majority of people in the world will be worrying about their jobs, their family and (just possibly) what their own government is doing rather than worrying about what is going to happen to the Chinese economy. It reminded me of a friend of mine who went to work in the USA for a few months. He was genuinely surprised that the American newspapers seldom covered any story coming from the UK. British newspapers always seem to have a story or two about something in America but there is no reciprocal interest. Conversely, I always find it a bit irritating that the UK press and TV seldom have any news about China or India the two largest populations in the world. Surely there is at least one interesting article to be written every day about so many people.
　　The trouble is that, on the whole, despite the Internet and the “global village” most of us are still like the frog, much more concerned that the level of water in our own cracked well just reaches our armpits and the mud just covers our feet. Chinese students that I meet tend to take a lot of interest in foreign affairs but if you investigate more deeply it tends to be viewed through a Chinese prism. There is nothing wrong with that at all but what they don’t realize is that their counterparts in the USA or the EU know almost nothing about China. In this age globalization and rapid international communication most of us really know almost as little about the world outside as the frog knew of the Eastern Ocean. We don’t know much because we don’t care very much. It is not a difficult thing these days to get some basic facts about any country on the net, to read a foreign “l(fā)ocal” newspaper or to download foreign movies. We don’t really need to confine ourselves to out of date “culture guides” usually written by people who know little of the country. We can explore it all for ourselves. The question is do we really want to know?
　　It seems to me that one of the problems with the world today is that so many of us are so concerned with our own little world that we never take time to look at “the big picture”. Widening our horizon doesn’t just entail getting more and more facts about different places and peoples; it implies developing the ability to put things into perspective and considering what is important and what is less so.
　　Let us think about two big issues facing the world just now and we will realize how serious the problem of frog-like attitudes is. In the last two years the financial and economic “certainties” on which the relative prosperity of the developed and developing nations in the world were built have been greatly undermined mainly as a result of that perennial human failing ? greed. Greed from the rich and greed from those who wanted to be rich, but also unfortunately greed on the part of many governments to be considered big players in the world “game”. In the days of plenty there were few who looked at what was happening on a realistic scale and the few who did suggest that this situation was unsustainable were ignored and even ridiculed. There were just too many frogs and far too few turtles. The repairing of this broken system has shown that the frogs haven’t disappeared but are just fighting hard to get the water and mud levels back to their own satisfaction. The isolationist and beggar my neighbour attitude of the financial institutions and most governments makes this clear.
　　Unfortunately, a very similar attitude prevails in the matter of climate change. Words are easy to produce but concerted action to deal with this genuinely global problem is far less easy to come by. The most obvious signal produced by the expensive and eventually pointless Copenhagen Conference was that most countries are only really concerned with protecting the interests of their own people (or at least its own industries) and has shows little enthusiasm for seeking any kind of international accord. The frogs are all fighting for their own water; none of them cares that the water is likely to disappear from all the wells.
　　These are big problems and can’t be solved by little people. But in our own lives are we not also guilty of the same attitudes? As car drivers do we really care about the state of the pavements or whether we are parking in a most inconvenient spot? As passengers on the bus are we concerned about the elderly or mothers with small children or do we just want to make sure we have a seat ourselves? Big or small we are all to some extent frogs; if things are going well for us, then the world seems to be a wonderful place so why worry about others?
　　Many years ago, round about the time of Zhuangzi, the Romans had a saying quot hominess tot sententiae, which means that there are as many opinions as there are people or perhaps “everybody has his own idea”. Maybe we could translate the problem of the world today into Latin as quot ranae tot putei or every “frog has his own well”. Maybe the time has come to use the Internet as our turtle and climb out to have a better look at the world and our place in it.
　　
　　大千世界,無(wú)奇不有。在過(guò)去數(shù)千年時(shí)間里,很多事情都發(fā)生了變化,但是人的本性卻依然如故。在以莊子(公元前360-公元前290)的名字命名的中國(guó)古典哲學(xué)著作中,我們可以找到青蛙坐井觀天的故事。這個(gè)故事耳熟能詳,以至于由此在漢語(yǔ)中產(chǎn)生了許多4個(gè)字組成的成語(yǔ)。但是,很少有人能認(rèn)真地去領(lǐng)略“坐井觀天”這個(gè)成語(yǔ)的真正含義。
　　某天晚上,在看中央電視臺(tái)國(guó)際頻道的一個(gè)關(guān)于即將在北京舉辦的一個(gè)活動(dòng)報(bào)道的時(shí)候,我被記者的評(píng)述給雷倒了:“本月,世界的目光將聚焦北京。”我開(kāi)始思考記者的說(shuō)話,并意識(shí)到,事實(shí)情況將絕非如記者所說(shuō),相反,“世界目光”將聚焦到很多不同的事情上。世界上多數(shù)人將關(guān)心他們自己的工作、家庭以及(在可能的情況下)他們自己的政府的所作所為,而不會(huì)為中國(guó)經(jīng)濟(jì)領(lǐng)域里發(fā)生了什么事去操心。這又使我想起了一個(gè)去美國(guó)工作了幾個(gè)月的朋友。他在美國(guó)很詫異地發(fā)現(xiàn),美國(guó)的報(bào)紙很少報(bào)道英國(guó)的事情。英國(guó)的報(bào)紙每天似乎總能報(bào)道一兩件美國(guó)發(fā)生的事。英國(guó)在美國(guó)卻沒(méi)有得到這種對(duì)等的待遇。相反,對(duì)英國(guó)報(bào)紙和電視很少報(bào)道中國(guó)和印度這兩個(gè)世界上的人口大國(guó)的事,我感到憤憤不平。這兩個(gè)國(guó)家有那么多人,每天至少還是能有一篇關(guān)于他們的有意思的文章可寫(xiě)的。
　　雖然有了互聯(lián)網(wǎng)和所謂的“地球村”觀念,我們多數(shù)人仍然像那個(gè)“坐井觀天”的青蛙一樣,更多關(guān)心的是自己井里那點(diǎn)剛及自己腋窩深的水和腳底下剛能覆蓋住腳丫子的泥巴。我認(rèn)識(shí)的中國(guó)學(xué)生,都對(duì)國(guó)外的事情感興趣。但是,如果和他們往深里探討就會(huì)發(fā)現(xiàn),他們對(duì)國(guó)外的認(rèn)識(shí),是建立在中國(guó)式思維之上的。這本身并沒(méi)什么錯(cuò)。但是,他們卻并沒(méi)有意識(shí)到,和他們同齡的美國(guó)或歐洲學(xué)生,對(duì)中國(guó)幾乎一無(wú)所知。在這個(gè)全球化迅捷的國(guó)際交往時(shí)代,我們多數(shù)人對(duì)外部世界的真正了解甚少,這和“坐井觀天”故事里的青蛙對(duì)東海一無(wú)所知沒(méi)什么差別。對(duì)外界知道的不多,是因?yàn)槲覀儧](méi)有去給予太多的關(guān)注。當(dāng)今,從網(wǎng)上去獲取一個(gè)國(guó)家的情況、讀外國(guó)的“當(dāng)?shù)亍眻?bào)紙或下載外國(guó)電影,都不是什么難做的事。因此,我們完全沒(méi)必要把自己局限于去讀那些對(duì)外國(guó)的了解只限于皮毛的人士撰寫(xiě)的過(guò)時(shí)的“文化指南”。我們完全可以自己去探索。問(wèn)題是,我們是否真有去了解的欲望?
　　在我看來(lái),關(guān)乎當(dāng)今世界的一個(gè)問(wèn)題是我們當(dāng)中太多的人只關(guān)心自己的小世界,而從不花點(diǎn)時(shí)間去看一下世界“大畫(huà)面”。拓寬視野不僅能使你獲得對(duì)更多不同地方和不同人的認(rèn)知,而且有助于拓展你辨別是非的能力。
　　思考一下當(dāng)今世界面臨的兩件大事,我們就會(huì)意識(shí)到青蛙“坐井觀天”態(tài)度的嚴(yán)重性。在過(guò)去的兩年時(shí)間里,由于人類的長(zhǎng)期貪婪,發(fā)達(dá)國(guó)家和發(fā)展中國(guó)家繁榮得以立足的金融和經(jīng)濟(jì)穩(wěn)定性受到了嚴(yán)重的削弱。富人的貪婪、想致富的人的貪婪以及很多政府的貪婪在這場(chǎng)世界“游戲”中扮演了主演角色。在經(jīng)濟(jì)繁榮時(shí)期,很少有人去注意現(xiàn)實(shí)中實(shí)際發(fā)生了什么。即使有少數(shù)人提出繁榮形勢(shì)將不會(huì)持續(xù)的觀點(diǎn),也總是被大家忽視和嘲笑。這個(gè)世界上,“坐井觀天”的青蛙實(shí)在是太太多,而龜兔賽跑中的烏龜卻又實(shí)在太太少。在修復(fù)被破壞的體制過(guò)程中,我們會(huì)發(fā)現(xiàn),青蛙們不但沒(méi)有消失,而且還在拼命掙扎著要把井里的水和泥巴恢復(fù)到原來(lái)的水平上。金融機(jī)構(gòu)和大多數(shù)政府采取的孤立主義政策和向鄰國(guó)乞求援助的態(tài)度充分論證了這一切。
　　不幸的是,在有關(guān)全球氣候變化方面,類似的態(tài)度也是大行其道。嘴上功夫最容易練,但是,真正付諸于行動(dòng)去解決這個(gè)全球性的問(wèn)題可不是件簡(jiǎn)單的事情�；ㄙM(fèi)昂貴卻最終虎頭蛇尾的哥本哈根會(huì)議最明顯的一個(gè)信號(hào)就是多數(shù)國(guó)家真正關(guān)心的只是自己國(guó)家人民的利益(至少也是本國(guó)工業(yè)),卻沒(méi)有顯示出一丁點(diǎn)尋找國(guó)際化解決方案的熱情。所有的青蛙都在為自己井里有水而抗?fàn)?卻沒(méi)有一只青蛙去關(guān)心所有井里的水即將枯竭這一現(xiàn)實(shí)。
　　這些大問(wèn)題是我們小人物們所解決不了的。但是,在我們的生活中,難道不應(yīng)該為有這種態(tài)度而感到愧疚么?如果我們是開(kāi)車的人,我們是否真正關(guān)心過(guò)走路人的生活狀況或者我們是否把車停在了造成不便的地方?坐在公交車上,我們是關(guān)心老人或帶小孩的母親還是僅僅惦記著自己有沒(méi)有座位?不管大人物還是小人物,從某種程度上來(lái)說(shuō),我們都是青蛙,總認(rèn)為,如果我們自己過(guò)好了,世界就是個(gè)大同之地,因此,干么還要去關(guān)心別人呢?
　　許多年前,與莊子時(shí)代同期,有句羅馬諺語(yǔ)叫quot hominess tot sententiae,意思是“有多少人就有多少主意”或者“每個(gè)人都有自己的主見(jiàn)”。以此類推,我們可以把當(dāng)今世界的問(wèn)題用類似的拉丁語(yǔ)quot ranae tot putei來(lái)詮釋,意思“每個(gè)青蛙都有自己的井”。因此,也許到了把互聯(lián)網(wǎng)當(dāng)成烏龜?shù)臅r(shí)候了。我們應(yīng)該從自己的井里爬出來(lái),好好去看看世界,再回頭看看自己的井底。

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