怎麼學會打動聽衆的魔法

There’s an undying story about Britain that goes like this: in 1940, uncomplaining Brits saved the world from Hitler. Then they lived happily and conservatively until their country was taken over by Brussels and swamped by immigrants. This story of paradise lost gets retold at every British election. The novel twist of the coming election, on May 7, is that the story will be told Most effectively not by the Conservatives but by the anti-immigrant UK Independence party.

有一個關於英國的奇葩故事是這樣的：1940年，無怨無悔的英國人從希特勒手中拯救了世界。之後他們過着幸福而傳統的生活——直至自己的國家被歐盟接管，並且被大量移民搞得擁擠不堪。每次英國大選時，這個“失樂園”的故事都會被重述。對於5月7日將要舉行的大選，新變化在於，最能成功講述這個故事的不是保守黨(Conservatives)，而是反移民的英國獨立黨(UK Independence party)。

Anyone with anything to sell needs a story. That’s because people use stories to make sense of an incomprehensible world. Stories rather than facts win elections, sway policy makers and convince investors or donors to hand over money. Recently, I spent a day brainstorming about storytelling techniques with two film-makers and a Hollywood producer, to help out a charitable foundation that needs to promote its causes. Here are some pointers we came up with.

任何人推銷任何東西都需要一個故事。這是因爲人們用故事來理解難以讀懂的世界。故事（而非事實）可以贏得選舉，左右政策制定者，並說服投資人或捐贈者出錢。最近，我花了一天時間與兩位電影製作人以及一位好萊塢製片人對講故事的技巧進行“頭腦風暴”，爲的是幫助一家需要宣傳其事業的慈善基金會。下面是我們想出的一些要點。

The first thing to grasp: the person you’re trying to persuade is bored with you already. She doesn’t care about your tedious concerns. For instance: at times during the British election campaign of 2005, zero per cent of voters surveyed by Conservative pollster Michael Ashcroft had heard about his party’s promises of choice in schools. The Tories had policies but no story. They were like those speakers at conferences clicking through slides full of diagrams.

首先要明白的是：你正試圖說服的那個人對你已經感到厭倦了。她並不關心你繁瑣的關切。例如，2005年英國大選期間，保守黨民調專家邁克爾•阿什克羅夫特(Michael Ashcroft)調查的選民中，沒有一位聽說過該黨關於擇校的承諾。保守黨有政策，但沒有故事。他們就像一些會議上的發言者，只會點擊播放滿是圖表的幻燈片。

The best story (as the authors of the New Testament knew) is about attaining paradise. In politics, the right traditionally locates paradise in the past. The Conservative MP Laura Sandys once told me her party instinctively tended towards “a mythical view of the 1950s, when everyone had a rose arch in the garden, the children came home smiling from school, and the father from his secure job at 5.30. There was no crime or antisocial behaviour, and everyone respected authority.”

最好的故事（如《新約》作者們深知的）是關於如何到達“樂園”。在政治上，右翼傳統上把樂園定位在過去。保守黨議員勞拉•桑茲(Laura Sandys)曾對我說，該黨本能地傾向於“上世紀50年代的虛構情景，那時家家戶戶的花園都有一座玫瑰拱門，孩子們開心地從學校放學回家，父親工作穩定，五點半準時下班回家。沒有犯罪或反社會行爲，每個人都尊重權威。”

The left used to locate paradise in the future: think of Bill Clinton’s “the boy from Hope”, or the British Labour party’s fabulously unimaginative “Forward, not back” of 2005. Since the financial crisis the left has lost its optimism, so that the US Democrats now locate paradise in the Clintonian 1990s, and will probably enter the next election bearing aloft an ancient relic of that era.

左翼過去常把樂園定位在未來：想想比爾•克林頓(Bill Clinton)的“來自（阿肯色州）霍普的男孩”，或是英國工黨在2005年極其缺乏想象力的口號——“前進，別後退”。自金融危機以來，左翼已不再像過去那樣樂觀，因此，現在美國民主黨將樂園定位於克林頓式的上世紀90年代，而且很可能推選那個時代的老人投入下屆選舉。

Winning conservative slogans manage to locate paradise in the past and present simultaneously: Margaret Thatcher’s “Great Britain is great again!” told a story of national history in five words. Ronald Reagan’s “Morning in America” didn’t just invoke a new dawn. It also echoed the then still famous song about the American frontier from the musical Oklahoma!: “Oh, what a beautiful mornin’.” Reagan’s story was paradise regained.

保守黨勝選的口號成功地把樂園同時定位在過去和現在：瑪格麗特•撒切爾(Margaret Thatcher)的“Great Britain is great again!”（大不列顛再次變得偉大！）用5個英文單詞講述了一個關於國家歷史的故事。羅納德•里根(Ronald Reagan)的“美國的清晨”不僅喚起了一個嶄新的黎明。它還呼應了當時仍很有名的音樂劇《俄克拉荷馬！》中讚美美國邊疆的歌曲《噢，多麼美麗的清晨》。里根講述的是關於復樂園的故事。

Messianic movements locate paradise in the afterlife. That is Isis’s great story: ditch your PlayStation, come to Syria, build the caliphate, die with your place in history assured and collect your virgins in heaven.

救世主式的運動把樂園定位在來世。這是伊拉克和黎凡特伊斯蘭國(Isis)的偉大故事：丟掉你的PlayStation遊戲機，到敘利亞來，建立哈里發國，歷史必然銘記你的犧牲，你會在天堂獲得處女陪伴。

Every fairy tale ends with paradise: “And they lived happily ever after.” The campaign for gay marriage has succeeded by copying the fairy tale’s narrative structure: the characters overcome obstacles, and the story ends with a wedding. The campaign also borrows a word — “marriage” — that has always worked for the political right. Traditional rhetorical techniques sold the gay cause.

每一個童話故事都以人間樂園結尾：“從此以後，他們過着快樂的生活。”支持同性婚姻的運動通過效仿童話故事的敘事結構獲得成功：角色克服重重阻礙，故事以婚禮結束。這場運動也借用一個一直被政壇右翼有效利用的詞——“婚姻”。傳統措辭技巧推動了同性戀人羣爭取權益的事業。

Activists often ignore these basic rules of storytelling. Their stories tend to be angry, not hopeful: for instance, “Polar bears are dying out because oil companies are heating the planet.” That story doesn’t work, not merely because it lacks human protagonists but because it poses a problem without an obvious solution. Clearly oil companies will always be mightier than polar bears. And people consume oil, so this story will make them feel bad, and they will reject it.

活動人士往往忽視這些講故事的基本規則。他們的故事傾向於義憤填膺，而不是讓人抱以期待：例如，“北極熊正在滅絕，因爲石油公司使全球氣溫升高。”這個故事毫無效果，不只是因爲它缺乏人類主角，而且也因爲它提出了一個缺乏明顯解決方案的問題。顯然，石油公司將永遠比北極熊強大。而且人類使用石油，所以這個故事將讓人覺得不舒服，他們將拒絕接受。

Rather, what the voter, policy maker or investor wants to hear is a story with a solution. And he wants a solution to his problem, the thing that worries him, not to the storyteller’s problem. If you’re meeting a stressed policy maker, don’t land him with yet another problem that he doesn’t have the time, interest, energy or resources to solve. Instead suggest something specific that he can feasibly do for the cause that might earn him a bit of job satisfaction, and possibly even personal glory.

相反，選民、政策制定者或投資者想聽到的是一個具有解決方案的故事。而且他想爲自己（而非故事講述者）擔憂的問題找到解決方法。如果你遇到一位心力交瘁的政策制定者，不要再向他拋出他沒有時間、興趣、精力或資源解決的問題。相反，你可以提議一些他能爲你的事業辦到的實事，這樣或許會讓他獲得一些工作滿足感，甚至可能是個人榮譽。

Ideally, your story will make your listeners part of the solution. Tell them what they can do for their country. That was the beauty of Barack Obama’s 2008 slogan “Yes we can!” (The much derided kindergarten simplicity of the chant was, of course, a strength.) Winston Churchill in 1940 couldn’t promise paradise, because that would have sounded bonkers, but he did cast his listeners as heroes: “We shall fight on the beaches…”

理想情況下，你的故事將會使聽衆成爲解決方案的一部分。告訴他們能爲自己的國家做些什麼。這就是巴拉克•奧巴馬(Barack Obama) 2008年競選口號“Yes we can!”（是的，我們能！）的美妙之處。（當然，這一口號備受嘲弄的幼兒園式的簡單是一個優勢。）1940年，溫斯頓•丘吉爾(Winston Churchill)無法承諾建立人間樂園，因爲那聽起來像是白癡，但他把自己的聽衆塑造成了英雄：“我們將在海灘上戰鬥……”

If you want to be heard, you need a story. But the corollary is: if you don’t want to be heard, don’t tell a story. Be boring. Banks and Brussels both do that brilliantly. Put out long legal documents about “collateralised debt obligations” and people will switch off. Brussels jargon about “additionality” and “subsidiarity” achieves the same effect. Once nobody is listening, the actors can do what they like.

如果你想被聆聽，你需要一個故事。但出於同樣的道理，如果你不想被聽到，就不要講故事。寧可令人厭煩。銀行和歐盟在這方面都很拿手。銀行拿出關於債務抵押債券(collateralised debt obligations)的冗長法律文件時，人們就失去了興趣。布魯塞爾關於“額外性”(additionality)和“輔助性原則”(subsidiarity)的術語可以收得同樣的效果。一旦沒有人在聽，“演員們”就可以做他們喜歡的事。