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I’m a fan of Catalonia but Catalan separatists are separating people. Their slogans say, “Spain steals from us!” or “Catalonia is not Spain”. Rhetoric like this divides people into opposite groups, each with a single identity: us (Catalans) and them (Spaniards). You must be one thing or the other. The government in Madrid unintentionally sharpens this divide by locking up separatist leaders.
我非常喜欢加泰罗尼亚，但加泰罗尼亚的分裂主义者正在让人民分裂。他们的口号是，“西班牙偷走了我们的东西！”或者“加泰罗尼亚不是西班牙”。此类口号把人民分成了两个对立的群体，每个人都有一个单一身份：我们（加泰罗尼亚人）和他们（西班牙人）。你必须是非此即彼。西班牙政府拘禁分裂主义领导人，无意中加剧了这种分裂。
Someone else who thinks in terms of single identity is Donald Trump. As he tells it, you’re American or Muslim; you’re a real American or a liberal elitist. There’s an uncomplicated joy to single identity: find your essence, then taunt an enemy who doesn’t share it. And along with your identity comes a free set of opinions that you never need to test against reality.
还有一个以单一身份来思考问题的人是唐纳德?特朗普(Donald Trump)。正如其所言，你是美国人或者是穆斯林，你是一个真正的美国人或者是自由主义精英。单一身份有一种简单的快乐：找到本质身份，然后嘲讽非同类身份的敌人。与你的身份一起出现的还有一套永远不需要经过现实检验的随意观点。
But thinking in single-identity terms breeds conflict. JH Elliott, the British historian and expert on Spanish history, describes Catalonia as “a very unhappy society over the last year or two”, in which “families have not been talking to each other”. Some disappointed Catalan separatists could easily morph into a terrorist movement like the Basque ETA or the IRA.
但是以单一身份思考问题会导致冲突。专注研究西班牙历史的英国历史学家JH?埃利奥特(JH Elliott)将加泰罗尼亚描述为“过去一两年来一个非常不快乐的社会”，在这个社会里，“家人之间互不沟通”。一些不满的加泰罗尼亚分裂主义者可能很容易演变为“巴斯克祖国与自由组织”(ETA)或爱尔兰共和国军(IRA)这样的恐怖主义集团。
Amartya Sen, the philosopher who won the Nobel Prize for economics in 1998, has a better idea: ditch single identity, and understand that every person has multiple identities. Sen began thinking about these issues aged 11. One day in 1944, a Muslim labourer named Kader Mia staggered bleeding into the Sen family garden in Dhaka (then in British India). Mia had just been knifed during Hindu-Muslim street riots. Sen recalls in his book Identity and Violence, “I could not do much for Kader Mia as he lay bleeding with his head on my lap.” Mia was rushed to hospital by Sen’s father but died there.
1998年获得诺贝尔经济学奖的哲学家阿玛蒂亚?森(Amartya Sen)有一个更好的想法：摒弃单一身份，并且明白每个人都有多重身份。森在11岁的时候就开始思考这些问题。1944年的一天，在达卡（当时在英属印度），一个名叫卡德?米亚(Kader Mia)的穆斯林工人流着血，跌跌撞撞地走进了森家的花园。米亚在印度教徒与穆斯林的街头骚乱中被捅伤了。森在《身份与暴力》(Identity and Violence)一书中回忆说：“卡德?米亚躺在我腿上流血的时候，我无能为力。”米亚很快被森的父亲送往医院，但终因伤势过重死在了那里。
Sen could never forget him. Mia would have lived if his Hindu assailant had recognised him as a fellow Indian, Bengali or poor male, instead of seeing him as a Muslim. So who was Mia? Who are we? Sen has a brilliantly simple answer: Mia had multiple identities. So do we all.
森永远不会忘记他。如果那个行凶的印度教徒把他看作是印度人、孟加拉人或者贫穷的男人，而不是把他视为穆斯林的话，那么米亚就不会死。那么米亚是谁？我们又是谁？森有一个非常简单的答案：米亚有多重身份，我们都有多重身份。
Nobody is just one thing. It’s misguided to say, for instance, “I am Hindu but you are Muslim” (although many in today’s India of Hindu nationalist prime minister Narendra Modi are saying exactly that). No person is “only” Muslim, or only Catalan. It’s ludicrous to file millions of people — of different life experiences, genders, ages, classes and passions — under just one category. Worse, dividing people into single identities automatically sets them against each other. If you keep telling somebody that he’s only Catalan and utterly unlike non-Catalans, he might eventually believe it.
没有人只有一种身份。例如，一个受到误导的说法是，“我是印度教徒，而你是穆斯林”（尽管在当今印度教民族主义总理纳伦德拉?莫迪(Narendra Modi)领导下的印度，许多人正是这么说的）。没有人“只是”穆斯林，或者“只是”加泰罗尼亚人。将数以百万计有着不同生活经历、性别、年龄、社会阶层和情感的人仅仅归于某一类是很荒唐的。更糟糕的是，将人们以单一身份自动区分开，会让他们彼此对立。如果你不断告诉某个人，他只是加泰罗尼亚人，与非加泰罗尼亚人完全不同，他最终可能会相信这一点。
In fact, in a poll by Metroscopia for El País newspaper last month, 76 per cent of people in Catalonia said they were both Catalan and Spanish. That’s why demonstrators in Barcelona for Spanish unity carried banners with the Catalan, Spanish and European flags surrounded by a heart. Other protesters used a slogan in Spanish and Catalan: “Hablemos/parlem” (“Let’s talk”). My favourite was a banner saying, “A flag is just a piece of cloth.”
实际上，在民调机构Metroscopia上月为西班牙《国家报》(El País)进行的一项民意调查中，76%的加泰罗尼亚人表示，他们既是加泰罗尼亚人也是西班牙人。在巴塞罗那，支持西班牙统一的示威人群高举的横幅上画的是，加泰罗尼亚区旗、西班牙国旗和欧洲旗帜被一颗心环绕着，原因就在这里。还有一些抗议者使用的是西班牙语和加泰罗尼亚语口号：“Hablemos/parlem”（让我们讨论吧）。我最喜欢的一面横幅上写着：“国旗只是一块布。”
Only 19 per cent of people in Metroscopia’s survey called themselves exclusively Catalan. And each of them will have had many other identities besides. A Catalan separatist might be a thirtysomething mother, daughter, pharmacist, Barcelona native, Katy Perry fan, European et cetera. She probably shares some of these identities with a Spanish nationalist in Madrid. As Sen says: “The main hope of harmony in our troubled world lies in the plurality of our identities, which cut across each other and work against sharp divisions.” Nobody is a caricature made of one or two demographic factors. We’re not all the same but we do have commonalities.
在Metroscopia所做的调查中，只有19%的受访者认为自己只是加泰罗尼亚人。而他们每个人都还有很多其他身份。一名加泰罗尼亚分裂主义者可能同时是一名三十几岁的母亲、女儿、药剂师、巴塞罗那本地人、名模凯蒂?佩里(Katy Perry)的粉丝、欧洲人等等。她的一些身份可能与马德里的一位西班牙民族主义者相同。正如森所言：“在我们这个麻烦不断的世界里，和谐的主要希望在于我们身份的多重性，它使人们彼此交织，消除严重分歧。”没有人是由一两个人口统计要素构成的漫画人物。我们并不完全相同，但我们确实有共性。
Even today’s blue- and red-state Americans would discover this, if they could ditch their single-identity rhetoric along with their fantasies of crushing the other side. But talking in single identities is infectious. Each time Trump says something racist, some liberals dismiss all his supporters as racist halfwits.
即便是当今美国蓝州和红州的人民，如果他们能够摒弃那套单一身份的说词，不再幻想压倒对方阵营的话，他们也会发现这个道理。但以单一身份发表的言论是有感染力的。每当特朗普说一些种族主义言论时，一些自由主义者就会把他的所有支持者斥为种族主义脑残。
When Trump slurs women, or black people, he encourages those groups to cluster around a single identity. The Black Lives Matter movement and last January’s Women’s Marchers have excellent goals. But as Mark Lilla argues in his recent book The Once and Future Liberal: After Identity Politics, these groups will probably fail if they become exclusively single-identity movements.
当特朗普诋毁女性或黑人时，他等于鼓励那些群体围绕一种单一身份抱团。“黑人的命也是命”(The Black Lives Matter)运动和今年1月的“女性大游行”(Women’s Marchers:)有着高尚的目标。但正如马克?利拉(Mark Lilla)在他的新书《昔日和未来的自由主义者：在身份政治以后》(The Once and Future Liberal: After Identity Politics)中所说的：“如果这些群体变成单一身份运动，他们可能会失败。”
If you want to persuade people who don’t share your one particular identity, you need to appeal to some of our shared identities. Lilla writes: “I am not a black male motorist?.?.?.?All the more reason, then, that I need some way to identify with one if I am going to be affected by his experience?.?.?.?The more the differences between us are emphasised, the less likely I will be to feel outrage at his mistreatment.”
如果你希望说服那些与你的某种身份不同的人，你需要借助一些双方共同的身份。利拉写道：“我不是一位黑人男性司机……因此，如果说我会被某个黑人男性司机的遭遇触动的话，那么我需要有更多的理由来同情他……我们之间的差异越被看重，我就越不可能对他遭遇的不公感到愤慨。”
The economist Branko Milanovic recently described what he learnt from the bloody break-up of his native Yugoslavia: “Be considerate. Think of people as persons. And do not impute to them opinions just because of their nationality.” It’s handy advice for today’s fragile societies such as India, the US and Spain.
最近，经济学家布兰科?米拉诺维奇(Branko Milanovic)从自己祖国南斯拉夫的血腥分裂中总结出了这样的教训：“要体谅他人。要把人当人看。不要仅仅因为他们的国籍就妄加评判他们。”对于当今一些脆弱的社会，比如印度、美国和西班牙，这是再好不过的建议了。
