【Beyond Feelings】8.1 Egocentric People 译文

Egocentric means centered or focused on oneself and interested only in one’s own interests, needs, and views. Egocentric people tend to practice egospeak, a term coined by Edmond Addeo and Robert Burger in their book of the same name. Egospeak, they explain, is “the art of boosting our own egos by speaking only about what we want to talk about, and not giving a hoot in hell about what the other person wants to talk about.” More important for our discussion is what precedes the outward expression of self-centeredness and energizes it: egocentric people’s habit of mind. Following Addeo and Burger, we might characterize that habit as egothink.

自我为中心就是只关注于自身以及自己的兴趣、需要和观点。以自我为中心的人倾向于Egospeak，这是Edmond Addeo和Robert Burger在他们的同名书中创造的术语。他们解释说，Egospeak是“通过只说我们想谈论的东西来提高我们自我的艺术，而不是在地狱里谈论别人想要谈论的东西。”对于我们的讨论更重要的是，以自我为中心的人的思维习惯先于自我中心的外在表现，并激活它。在Addeo和Burger之后，我们可以将这个习惯定义为利己主义。

Because the perspective of egothink is very limited, egocentric people have difficulty seeing issues from a variety of viewpoints. The world exists for them and is defined by their beliefs and values: What disturbs them should disturb everyone; what is of no consequence to them is unimportant. This attitude makes it difficult for egocentric people to observe, listen, and understand. Why should one bother paying attention to others, including teachers and textbook authors, if they have nothing valuable to offer? What incentive is there to learn when one already knows everything worth knowing? For that matter, why bother with the laborious task of investigating controversial issues, poring over expert testimony, and evaluating evidence when one’s own opinion is the final, infallible arbiter? It is difficult, indeed, for an egocentric person to become proficient in critical thinking.

因为利己主义的视角非常有限，以自我为中心的人很难从各种观点看待问题。世界是为他们而存在的，是由他们的信仰和价值观决定的:扰乱他们的应该扰乱每一个人;对他们来说没有结果的就是不重要的。这种态度导致自我为中心的人很难去观察、倾听和理解。如果人们没有什么价值可提供的话，为什么还要关注其他们，包括老师和教科书作者呢?当一个人已经知道所有值得知道的事情时，还有什么动机去学习呢?就此而言，当一个人的意见是最终的、可靠的仲裁者时，为什么还要费心费力地调查有争议的问题，仔细研究专家证词和评估证据呢?确实，对于一个以自我为中心的人来说，要精通批判性思维是很困难的。