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 We don’t really need to confine ourselves to out of date “culture guides” usually written by people who know little of the country.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,無奇不有。在過去數(shù)千年時間里,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)的名字命名的中國古典哲學著作中,我們可以找到青蛙坐井觀天的故事。這個故事耳熟能詳,以至于由此在漢語中產(chǎn)生了許多4個字組成的成語。但是,很少有人能認真地去領(lǐng)略“坐井觀天”這個成語的真正含義。
　　某天晚上,在看中央電視臺國際頻道的一個關(guān)于即將在北京舉辦的一個活動報道的時候,我被記者的評述給雷倒了:“本月,世界的目光將聚焦北京。”我開始思考記者的說話,并意識到,事實情況將絕非如記者所說,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,而不會為中國經(jīng)濟領(lǐng)域里發(fā)生了什么事去操心。這又使我想起了一個去美國工作了幾個月的朋友。他在美國很詫異地發(fā)現(xiàn),美國的報紙很少報道英國的事情。英國的報紙每天似乎總能報道一兩件美國發(fā)生的事。英國在美國卻沒有得到這種對等的待遇。相反,對英國報紙和電視很少報道中國和印度這兩個世界上的人口大國的事,我感到憤憤不平。這兩個國家有那么多人,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“坐井觀天”的青蛙一樣,更多關(guān)心的是自己井里那點剛及自己腋窩深的水和腳底下剛能覆蓋住腳丫子的泥巴。我認識的中國學生,都對國外的事情感興趣。但是,如果和他們往深里探討就會發(fā)現(xiàn),他們對國外的認識,是建立在中國式思維之上的。這本身并沒什么錯。但是,他們卻并沒有意識到,和他們同齡的美國或歐洲學生,對中國幾乎一無所知。在這個全球化迅捷的國際交往時代,我們多數(shù)人對外部世界的真正了解甚少,這和“坐井觀天”故事里的青蛙對東海一無所知沒什么差別。對外界知道的不多,是因為我們沒有去給予太多的關(guān)注。當今,從網(wǎng)上去獲取一個國家的情況、讀外國的“當?shù)亍眻蠹埢蛳螺d外國電影,都不是什么難做的事。因此,我們完全沒必要把自己局限于去讀那些對外國的了解只限于皮毛的人士撰寫的過時的“文化指南”。我們完全可以自己去探索。問題是,我們是否真有去了解的欲望?
　　在我看來,關(guān)乎當今世界的一個問題是我們當中太多的人只關(guān)心自己的小世界,而從不花點時間去看一下世界“大畫面”。拓寬視野不僅能使你獲得對更多不同地方和不同人的認知,而且有助于拓展你辨別是非的能力。
　　思考一下當今世界面臨的兩件大事,我們就會意識到青蛙“坐井觀天”態(tài)度的嚴重性。在過去的兩年時間里,由于人類的長期貪婪,發(fā)達國家和發(fā)展中國家繁榮得以立足的金融和經(jīng)濟穩(wěn)定性受到了嚴重的削弱。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世界“游戲”中扮演了主演角色。在經(jīng)濟繁榮時期,很少有人去注意現(xiàn)實中實際發(fā)生了什么。即使有少數(shù)人提出繁榮形勢將不會持續(xù)的觀點,也總是被大家忽視和嘲笑。這個世界上,“坐井觀天”的青蛙實在是太太多,而龜兔賽跑中的烏龜卻又實在太太少。在修復(fù)被破壞的體制過程中,我們會發(fā)現(xiàn),青蛙們不但沒有消失,而且還在拼命掙扎著要把井里的水和泥巴恢復(fù)到原來的水平上。金融機構(gòu)和大多數(shù)政府采取的孤立主義政策和向鄰國乞求援助的態(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,真正付諸于行動去解決這個全球性的問題可不是件簡單的事情�；ㄙM昂貴卻最終虎頭蛇尾的哥本哈根會議最明顯的一個信號就是多數(shù)國家真正關(guān)心的只是自己國家人民的利益(至少也是本國工業(yè)),卻沒有顯示出一丁點尋找國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爭,卻沒有一只青蛙去關(guān)心所有井里的水即將枯竭這一現(xiàn)實。
　　這些大問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?如果我們是開車的人,我們是否真正關(guān)心過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有座位?不管大人物還是小人物,從某種程度上來說,我們都是青蛙,總認為,如果我們自己過好了,世界就是個大同之地,因此,干么還要去關(guān)心別人呢?
　　許多年前,與莊子時代同期,有句羅馬諺語叫quot hominess tot sententiae,意思是“有多少人就有多少主意”或者“每個人都有自己的主見”。以此類推,我們可以把當今世界的問題用類似的拉丁語quot ranae tot putei來詮釋,意思“每個青蛙都有自己的井”。因此,也許到了把互聯(lián)網(wǎng)當成烏龜?shù)臅r候了。我們應(yīng)該從自己的井里爬出來,好好去看看世界,再回頭看看自己的井底。

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