风萧萧_Frank
以文会友
比尔·克林顿，2025 年柏林世界论坛
比尔·克林顿：“民主不仅仅是真正的选举和多数制”
作者：Tim Hains 日期：2025年3月19日
前总统比尔·克林顿周二在柏林举行的“2025 年民主、科技和人类未来世界论坛”上发表讲话：
比尔·克林顿：我认为我们今天面临的很多问题并不是新问题；我认为它们由来已久。我认为人们一直渴望权力和财富。我认为，如果可以逃脱惩罚，人们总是愿意为自己滥用权力找借口。
我认为民主最重要的一点是，当你没有获胜时它是如何运作的——也就是说，民主是一个法治高于意志统治的制度，社区的福利高于领导者的利益，人民的激情可以在不经过深思熟虑的情况下得到缓和。
当这位伟大的女性开始执政时，她正在与杜特尔特打交道，杜特尔特曾说他要杀死街上所有的毒贩，很多母亲希望他这么做，因为他们的孩子在街上被人贩毒，他们所做的太可怕了。最后，他即将被追究责任，但重要的是要记住，是某种真实的东西激发了人民的激情，使他赢得了一场真正的选举。
所以，我想说的第一件事是，民主不仅仅是真正的选举和多数人统治——它关乎那些相信少数人权利和个人权利的人，以及对每个人权力的限制。
我想说的第二件事是，除非你时不时地获胜，否则这一切都不重要——也就是说，我们在这里庆祝那些真正赢得选举的人，这很重要——你必须时不时地获胜；否则，没人会关注。
所以，我认为我们需要看看现在发生了什么。你们中的一些人说整个信息生态系统很奇怪。在我的国家，有些人从社交媒体获取所有信息，甚至来自主流报纸或网络电视的信息。
哦，这似乎很容易。问题是，如果你相信民主，这很难做到。你仍然必须让人们停下来，深呼吸，思考他们在时间的长河中处于什么位置，以及真正发生了什么。这并不容易，呃，我记得在上次选举中，我正竭尽所能为我的候选人做事，这两个戴着 MAGA 帽子的人显然是特朗普的支持者，他们走过来问我是否愿意和他们合影。我说：“当然。”然后，我拍了张照片，那个人说：“你平衡预算的方式很棒——我们之后再也没有这样做过，差得很远。”然后，他还说了几句好话，我说：“那么，我可以为我的候选人辩护吗？”那个人看着我笑了笑，说：“不，我已经太过分了。”
但他是诚实的；他明白自己已经被现在主导美国的身份政治所俘虏，所以，至少，我和他进行了一次文明的交谈。
我之所以这么说，是因为世界上每个国家都在发生这种情况。你看，很多让杜特尔特上台的人都是善良、正派的人，他们每天起床去上班，害怕自己无法在越来越无法无天和困难的环境中抚养孩子。
不久前，很多人的身份被被认为是强制性的社会行为所麻痹。我们的女儿让我们摆脱了对同性婚姻的反对，而这一直是我成长过程中的一部分。最后，当她还小的时候，她看着我说：“爸爸，这不是你的问题。你必须意识到，像婚姻这样亲密的关系，它与婚姻之外的人无关。”
突然间，我坐在那里，一盏灯亮了，一个负担被卸了下来。我告诉你这些，是因为如何达到这些里程碑很重要，如何继续战斗很重要，获胜也很重要——你必须时不时地获胜；你必须让人们相信你是对的，你不能放弃别人。
真正令人震惊的是——如果你不是美国人，那一定很奇怪——在过去几十年里，在全世界范围内，尽管我的国家发生了这么多好事，但我们却让数百万人相信他们主要是受害者，这真是太神奇了。我们必须给予应得的赞扬——宣传这一事业的人做得很好。
其次，我们允许国家存在太多不平等；有些事情值得愤慨，有些事情值得愤怒。我还想请你们所有人记住，你们给出了最好的论据，即你们不能仅仅因为民主对你们今天有好处或者它总体上产生了更好的结果就支持民主。民主确实如此——不同的群体基于
比同质群体做出更好的决策。我可以用一遍又一遍证明这一点的研究填满这个房间。同质群体是否人数众多，足以获胜，是否感到害怕和被剥夺，这都无关紧要。
因此，我恳求你们不要厌倦这项工作。一百多年前，在这个伟大的国家，一位伟大的基督教民主党人马克斯·韦伯写了一本很短的书，名为《政治作为一种职业》。我每隔两三年就会重读一遍；这是一本漂亮的小书，大约 117 页，其中最重要的一句话是：“政治是漫长而缓慢地钻硬木板。”
他说，如果你想做这项工作，你必须愿意付出时间的代价，然后，如果你掌权，如果你有宗教信仰，你必须相信每一天，你的灵魂都处于危险之中，因为对他人生命的权力行使，就是承担一个我们生来就没有智慧去充分行使的角色。这就是为什么我们必须克制；这就是为什么我们需要法治。
在美国，有一句方便的政治谚语说，即使是坏了的钟，一天也有两次是对的——这是真的，没有人是永远正确的。我们其他人注定要努力摆脱坏钟模式，尽可能接近永远正确。我们这些相信民主的人意识到，参与这一事业的人越多，社会就越有可能变得更好，而现在我们正在与这种冷漠的兴起作斗争，每个人都说：“哦，我太累了。我不想再想这件事了。”
“哦，我知道俄罗斯发生的事情很不幸，但是，哦，我能做些什么呢？我真的很喜欢这个男子汉，他说话强硬，行为强硬，让我摆脱了思考所有这些事情的负担。我的意思是，我每天都有工作要做，我有账单要付，我有孩子要担心，我关心什么？我知道什么？”
这就是我们在这里的每一个国家都必须接触的人。看，我喜欢政治；我玩得很开心。我一路输了两次选举，但我一直坚持下去。我当时太傻了，不知道那不是最终结果，我玩得很开心，我真的对人很感兴趣，名人和我遇到的人。这很有帮助。
我喜欢我们必须做出的经济学和科学决策的复杂性，我很高兴我们对人类基因组进行了测序，医生，我希望你能做到你说的一切，请快点。明年，我们将庆祝结婚 50 周年——不，今年，今年——我的意思是，今年，我忘了我已经进入了新的一年——就是今年。有一天有人问我：“好吧，我知道事情并不轻松，那么你怎么知道你有麻烦了？你的预警系统是什么？”我说：“当希拉里开始走到陌生人面前，问‘你见过我的第一任丈夫吗？’时，我就知道了。”
所以，我之所以这么说，是因为我确实希望你们能为我们创造机会，让我们活得更长，因为当你死后，拥有所有精神能力是一件很棒的事情——如果你的大脑和身体都能正常运作，那是一件很棒的事情。但最重要的是，无论你活多久，你将如何记录你的生活？你如何记录决定了你是否真的关心民主。你如何记录决定了你是否是以色列人，你最喜欢这个国家的什么。
今晚回家时，如果你想保持相关性，无论你是否在位，请问自己这个问题：首先，问问自己，我记录的方式是否有意义？对我来说，问题是：当你辞职时，人们的生活是否比你刚开始时更好？孩子们的未来是否更光明，事情是否在好转而不是分崩离析？这是我简单的小小记分卡，我的观点是，在公共生活中，如果你能说，“是的，他们过得更好，是的，孩子们有更光明的未来，是的，我们更有可能团结在一起而不是被摧毁”，我认为这是相当不错的努力。
如果你考虑一下媒体的运作方式，如果你考虑一下威权政治的发展方式，你会发现这一切都是基于摧毁一切——你必须保持愤怒，保持怨恨，确保你的人群获胜，而另一群人失败。这就是你对胜利的定义。这就是为什么那个戴着 MAGA 帽子的人在上次选举中看着我说，“我太过分了”，他的身份——他无法摆脱自己所处的位置。
在我看来，有人建议巴勒斯坦人撤离加沙，这样我们就可以在那里建立与拉斯维加斯大道相当的地方。如果你从未去过加沙，但有机会去的话，而且那里很安全，我推荐你去——那里美得令人窒息，海滩美得令人难以置信，而且没有尽头。我曾经向阿拉法特主席提出的一个论点是，如果我们能用足够的西岸来保护加沙，那么加沙将成为巴勒斯坦国巨大的财富来源。
受到巴勒斯坦人的尊重和接受——海滩可能是巴勒斯坦国未来令人难以置信的关键。而这还是在我们知道他们在近海水域有天然气之前。
但这一切都取决于你如何记分。所以，我要说的是：我一生都在努力帮助实现和平与进步。当极右翼开始试图接管美国时——不是通过白宫，而是通过国会，很多年前，但我已经卸任了——一位发言人说：“你知道，老布什总统和他的顾问科林·鲍威尔和海军上将斯考克罗夫特以及克林顿总统的问题在于，他们被困在了现实世界中。
他们根本就没有意识到，冷战结束后，美国曾短暂地成为世界上占主导地位的经济、政治和军事力量。我确实明白这一点，”他们说，“但我们应该利用这段时间重塑现实——我们不必生活在现实世界中。”我听到这个消息，心想：“天哪，这家伙一直在自欺欺人。”
所以，最后，一位记者问我是怎么想的——我是不是被困在了现实世界中？我说：“你知道，我在一个酗酒的家庭里长大。我整个童年都在努力融入现实世界。我喜欢这里，我想我会留下来。”但是，为了留下来，你必须为其他人腾出空间。为了留下来，你必须重视多样性，将其作为经济、政治甚至个人更新和充实的源泉。
所以，请原谅我，我认为整个世界都在经历一场身份危机，但这并不是什么新鲜事——它和时间一样古老；只是一切都披上了闪亮的新衣和人工智能。但是，如果你很脆弱，即使没有算法，你也会被坑，如果你相信个人的责任、自由和民主的力量，即使在你没有获胜的日子里，也没有人能把它从你身上夺走——没有人能把它夺走。
所以，别忘了——我要说的最后一点——纳尔逊·曼德拉告诉我，他在监狱里经历的最重要的事情是意识到把他关进监狱的人可以夺走他的一切，除了他的思想和心灵——那些他必须放弃的东西。不要放弃它们。只要你继续战斗，我们就会没事的。
Bill Clinton, Berlin World Forum 2025
Bill Clinton: "Democracy Is About More Than Real Elections And Majority Rule"
By Tim Hains On Date March 19, 2025
Former President Bill Clinton spoke Tuesday at the "World Forum 2025 on the Future of Democracy, Tech and Humankind" in Berlin:
BILL CLINTON: I think a lot of this problem we’re facing today is not new; I think it’s old. I think people have always hungered for power and wealth. I think people have always been willing to make excuses for themselves in the abuse of power if they could get away with it.
I think the most important thing about democracy is how it works when you don’t win—that is, it’s a system in which the rule of law is bigger than the rule of will, in which the welfare of the community is greater than the interest of the leader, and in which the passions of the people can be moderated before they’re acted on in a not well-thought-out way.
When this great woman started, she was dealing with Duterte who had said that he was going to kill all these drug dealers on the street, and a lot of mothers wanted him to do it because their children were getting given drugs on the street, and what they did was terrible. And, finally, he’s about to be held accountable, but it’s important to remember there was something real that started the passions of the people and that enabled him to win a real election.
So, the first thing I want to say is, democracy is about more than real elections and majority rule-- It’s about people who believe in minority rights and individual rights and restraints on everybody’s power.
The second thing I want to say is, it doesn’t matter unless you win now and again—that is, we celebrated people here who actually won elections, and it’s important—you have to win now and again; otherwise, nobody pays attention.
So, I think we need to look at what’s going on at this moment. Some of you have said this whole information ecosystem is bizarre. There are people in my country who get all their information from social media, even information that originated in mainstream newspapers or network television.
Oh, it seems so easy. The problem is, if you believe in democracy, it’s hard work. You still have to get people to stop, take a deep breath, and think about where they are in the flow of time and what’s really going on. It is not easy, and, uh, I remember in the last election, I was going out there doing what I could for my candidate, and these two guys in MAGA hats who were clearly for Trump came up and asked if I would take a picture with them. I said, “Sure.” So, I’m taking a picture, and the guy said, “It was great the way you balanced the budget—we hadn’t done it since, not close.” And, so he said a couple of other nice things, and I said, “Well, can I make my case for my candidate?” And the guy looked at me and smiled; he said, “No, I’m too far gone.”
But he was honest; he understood that he had been captured by the identity politics which now dominate America, and so, at least, I had a civilized conversation with him.
And I say that because this is going on in every country in the world. Look, a lot of the people that brought Duterte to power were good, decent people that got up every day and went to work and were terrified they couldn’t raise their kids in an increasingly lawless and difficult atmosphere.
A lot of people’s identity is paralyzed by what was considered mandatory social behavior not very long ago. Our daughter got us out of our opposition to gay marriage, which was just a visceral part of my upbringing, and, finally, when she was young, she looked at me and she said, “Dad, it’s not about you. You have to realize a relationship as intimate as marriage—it’s not about somebody who’s not in the marriage.”
And all of a sudden, I was sitting there, and a light came on, and a burden was lifted. I’m just telling you all this because how you reach these milestones is important, and how you keep fighting is important, and winning is important—you got to win every now and then; you got to convince people that you’re right, and you can’t give up on people.
The thing that is truly stunning—and it must be really weird if you’re not American to look at it—how, in the wide world, with all the good things that have happened to my country in the last few decades, we have convinced millions of people that they are primarily victims, is amazing. And we have to give credit where credit is due—the people that are propagating this business have done a good job.
Secondly, we have allowed too much inequality in our country; there are things to resent, there are things to be angry about. I would ask all of you also to remember that you gave the best argument that you cannot be for democracy just because it’s good for you today or it produces better outcomes in general. It does—diverse groups basically make better decisions than homogeneous groups. I could fill this room with the studies that have proved this over and over and over again. It doesn’t matter if the homogeneous group is numerous enough to win and afraid and feeling dispossessed.
So, I plead with you not to grow weary in doing this work. More than a hundred years ago, in this great country, a great Christian Democrat, Max Weber, wrote a very short book called "Politics as a Vocation." I reread it every two or three years; it’s a beautiful little book, about 117 pages long, and the most important line is, “Politics is the long and slow boring of hard boards.”
He said, if you want to do this work, you have to be willing to pay the price of time, and then, if you get in power, you have to be, if you’re religious, to believe that every single day, your very soul is on the line, because to exercise power over another person’s life is to assume a role that none of us were born with the wisdom to fully exercise. That’s why we have to have restraint; that’s why we need the rule of law.
In America, there’s a convenient political saying that even a broken clock is right twice a day—that’s true, and nobody’s right all the time. The rest of us are fated to live our lives trying to move away from the broken clock model as close to being right all the time as possible. Those of us who believe in democracy realize that the more people who can be part of that endeavor, the more likely the society is to be better off, and now we’re fighting this rise of apathy, where everybody says, “Oh, I’m so tired. I don’t want to think about this anymore."
"Oh, I know it’s unfortunate what’s happening in Russia, but, oh, what can I do about it? And I really like this macho person who talks tough, acts tough, and relieves me of any of the burdens of thinking about all this stuff. I mean, I have a job to do every day, I got bills to pay, I’ve got kids to worry about, what do I care? What do I know?”
That is the person we have to reach in every single nation represented here. Look, I love politics; I had a good time doing it. I lost two elections along the way, and I just kept going. I was so dumb, I didn’t know it wasn’t final, and I had a great time, and I was genuinely interested in people, famous people and just people I ran into. It helps.
I love the complexity of economics and scientific decisions we had to make, and I’m glad we sequenced the human genome, and, Doctor, I hope you can do everything you say, and, please, hurry up. Next year, we celebrate our 50th anniversary—no, this year, this year—I mean, this year, I forget I’m in a new year—it’s this year. And somebody asked me one day, “Well, I know it wasn’t all easy sailing, so how did you know you were in trouble? What was your early warning system?” I said, “When Hillary starts going up to total strangers and says, ‘Have you met my first husband?’—that’s when I know.”
So, I’m saying this because I do want you to develop the opportunity for us to live longer, because it’s a great thing to have all your mental facilities when you’re over—if you can hang around with your brain as well as your body, it’s a great thing. But the most important thing is, however long you live, how will you keep score with your life? How you keep score determines whether you really care about democracy. How you keep score determines if you’re an Israeli, what you love most about your country.
Ask yourself this, when you go home tonight, if you want to stay relevant, whether you’re in power or out: Ask yourself, first of all, am I keeping score in a way that makes any sense at all? For me, it is: Are people better off when you quit than when you started? Do the children have a brighter future, and are things coming together instead of being torn apart? That’s my simple little scorecard, and my view is that, in public life, if you can say, “Yes, they’re better off, and, yes, the kids have a brighter future, and, yes, we’re more likely to hold together than be blown apart,” I think that’s a pretty good effort.
If you think about the way media works, if you think about the way authoritarian politics goes, it’s all based on blowing all that up—you got to stay mad, stay resentful, and make sure your crowd wins while the other crowd loses. That’s how you define victory. That’s why that guy looked at me in the last election, in his MAGA cap, and said, “I’m too far gone,” and his identity—he couldn’t get outside of where he was.
It seemed to me that it was being suggested that the Palestinians should evacuate Gaza so that we could build the equivalence of the Strip in Vegas there. If you’ve never been to Gaza, and you ever get a chance to go, and it’s safe, I recommend it—it’s breathtakingly beautiful, the beach is unbelievable, and it goes on forever. And one of the arguments I used to make to Chairman Arafat is that it would be a source of enormous wealth for a Palestinian state if we could secure it with enough of the West Bank to be respectable and acceptable to the Palestinians—that the beach might be the unbelievable key to the future of a Palestinian state. And that’s before we knew they had any gas in the water offshore.
But it all depends on how you keep score. So, I will say this: I spent a lifetime trying to help make peace and progress. When the far right started trying to take over America—not through the White House, but through Congress, many years ago, but I was already out of office—one guy, one of these spokespeople, said, “You know, the problem with the first President Bush and his advisers, Colin Powell and Admiral Scowcroft, and President Clinton, is that they were trapped in the reality-based world.
They simply did not understand that, after the Cold War was over, we had a momentary period where America was the dominant economic, political, and military power in the world. I did understand that,” they said, “but we should have used it to remake reality—we didn’t have to be in the reality-based world.” I heard that, and I thought, “Oh God, this guy’s been drinking his own Kool-Aid.”
So, finally, a reporter asked me what I thought—was I trapped in the reality-based world? And I said, “You know, I grew up in an alcoholic home. I spent my entire childhood trying to get into the reality-based world. I like it here, and I think I’ll stay.” But, in order to stay, you had to make room for everybody else. In order to stay, you have to value diversity as a source of economic, political, and even personal renewal and enrichment.
So, if you’ll forgive me, I think the whole world’s having an identity crisis, but it’s not a new one—it’s as old as time; it’s just all in shiny new clothes and AI. But you can be screwed without an algorithm if you’re vulnerable, and if you believe in individual responsibility and freedom and the power of democracy, even on the days you don’t win, nobody can take it away from you—nobody can take it away.
So, don’t forget—last point I want to make—Nelson Mandela told me the most important thing that happened to him in prison was realizing that the people who put him in jail could take everything from him except his mind and his heart—those things he had to give away. Don’t give them away. We’re going to be fine if you keep fighting.
