哈佛教授鬥不過好萊塢明星

Call me an idealist, but I’d like to think that the halls of higher education are less vulnerable to the siren calls of fame and fortune than other byways of American life are. I’d like to believe in a bold dividing line between academic virtues and celebrity values, between intellectual and commercial concerns.

大可以把我形容爲理想主義者：我願意認爲，高等教育的殿堂與美國生活的其他路徑相比，沒那麼容易受到名望和錢財的侵蝕。我願意相信，學術界的品德與明星的價值之間，智識的思考與商業的考量之間，有一條醒目的界線。

But Henry Louis Gates Jr., a renowned Harvard professor, and Mehmet Oz, a surgeon on the faculty at Columbia, get in my way.

哈佛大學的著名教授小亨利·路易斯·蓋茨(Henry Louis Gates Jr.)，以及在哥倫比亞大學擔任教職的外科醫生梅梅特·奧茲(Mehmet Oz)，推翻了我的想法。

I link the two because they’re both in the news, not because they’re equally in thrall to the television camera or identically unabashed peddlers of something other than fact. Oz is by far the more compromised figure.

我把這兩個人聯繫起來是因爲他們都受到了新聞報道的關注，而不是因爲他們同樣受到了攝像機的束縛、兩人都同樣不加掩飾地兜售不符合事實的東西。奧茲名譽受損的程度，遠超蓋茨。

But Gates, too, exemplifies what happens when a lecturer is bathed in bright lights and gets to hang with Ben Affleck, who will soon be on-screen in Batman’s billowing cape.

不過，蓋茨的經歷也顯示出，大學教師沐浴在閃亮的燈光之中，並與本·阿弗萊克(Ben Affleck)爲伍，會發生什麼。本·阿弗萊克很快就會在銀幕上披上颯颯飄揚的斗篷，扮演蝙蝠俠了。

Affleck was a guest last October on the PBS documentary series “Finding Your Roots,” in which Gates takes luminaries — Sting, Stephen King, Angela Bassett — on journeys into their pasts. Affleck signed up for the trip.

去年10月，阿弗萊克在PBS系列紀錄片《尋根》(Finding Your Roots)中擔任特邀嘉賓。蓋茨在這部紀錄片中與名人一道探尋自己的過去，如斯汀(Sting)、史蒂芬·金(Stephen King)、安吉拉·貝塞特(Angela Bassett)。阿弗萊克也自願加入其中。

But when he learned that he had a slave-owning ancestor, he asked that the detail be excised, according to communications between Gates and his friend Michael Lynton, the chief executive of Sony Entertainment. Their exchange was part of the hacked Sony emails recently shared by WikiLeaks.

然而蓋茨與他的朋友，索尼娛樂(Sony Entertainment)首席執行官邁克爾·林頓(Michael Lynton)的通信記錄顯示，當阿弗萊克得知自己有一個蓄奴的先輩後，卻要求把這個細節剪掉。這些通信記錄來自索尼遭到黑客攻擊後外泄的電子郵件，這些郵件最近被髮布在了維基解密(WikiLeaks)上。

“We’ve never had anyone ever try to censor or edit what we found,” Gates wrote to Lynton, going on to fret over the “integrity” of the series. “He’s a megastar. What do we do?”

“從來沒有人嘗試要刪減或編輯我們得出的發現，”蓋茨寫郵件告訴林頓。接下來，蓋茨也對系列片的“誠信”表現出了苦惱。“他是個巨星，我們應該怎麼辦？”

Gates left the detail out.

那部分內容，蓋茨最終在片中略去未提。

After the disclosure of this late last week, he insisted, unpersuasively, that the cut reflected nothing more than the need to make room for other ancestors of Affleck’s who warranted inclusion in the episode.

上週晚些時候，這一情況公之於衆後，他堅稱，剪掉這個情節只是表明，當時需要騰出時間，在那一集中容納阿弗萊克其他值得收錄的先輩。只是這種說法無法令人信服。

Regardless, it exposed Gates, a trusted authority on the African-American experience, to accusations that he’d sold out. It diminished him.

無論如何，作爲非裔美國人經歷方面值得信賴的權威，蓋茨都因爲這番刪減受到了背叛的指責。這損害了他的名譽。（亨利·蓋茨是哈佛大學哈欽斯非洲及非裔美國人研究中心主任。——譯註）

But wasn’t that inevitable from the moment he hitched scholarship to show business?

但從他把學術事業與娛樂業聯繫起來的那一刻，這種下場不就已經無可避免了嗎？

“We conflate what a PBS special is with academic work,” Carol Anderson, who teaches at Emory University, told Jamil Smith in The New Republic. “We have to understand that so much of what we see there is packaged for a nonacademic audience that wants the picture of really deep, intellectual discussion, but is not quite ready for what that means.”

“我們把PBS的專題片與學術作品混爲一談，”在埃默裏大學(Emory University)擔任教職的卡羅爾·安德森(Carol Anderson)對《新共和》雜誌(The New Republic)的賈米爾·史密斯(Jamil Smith)說。“我們必須明白，我們見到的很多信息是包裝好，呈獻給學術圈以外的觀衆的。那些觀衆希望看到相當高深、需要智力投入的討論的畫面，但對於這些討論意味着什麼，那部分觀衆卻沒有做好準備。”

What does the audience of “The Dr. Oz Show” want?

《奧茲博士秀》(The Dr. Oz Show)的受衆想要什麼？

To judge by what Oz gives them, it’s winnowed thighs, amulets against cancer and breathless promises of “magic” and “revolutionary” breakthroughs.

如果按奧茲兜售給他們的東西來判斷，那麼應該是纖瘦的大腿、針對癌症的護身符，以及“神奇”的、“革命性”突破等等激動人心的承諾。

Oz has morphed not just willingly but exuberantly into a carnival barker. He’s a one-man morality play about the temptations of mammon and the seduction of applause, a Faustian parable with a stethoscope.

奧茲彷彿是參加狂歡節一樣大呼小叫，他願意這樣做，甚至樂此不疲。他彷彿在上演一出一個人的道德劇，展示了錢財的誘惑力和掌聲的魔力，這是個戴着聽診器的浮士德式寓言人物。

Many Americans probably had no idea that he remained affiliated with Columbia — he’s vice chairman of its surgery department — until they read last week about an email sent to the university by 10 physicians around the country. They accused him of “promoting quack treatments” for “personal financial gain” and urged Columbia to sever its ties with him.

在上週讀到全美有10名外科醫生向哥倫比亞大學發送電子郵件之前，許多美國人可能並不知道奧茲與哥倫比亞大學還有關係——他是該校外科學系的副主任。這些醫生指責奧茲爲了“個人的收入”而“推廣騙人的療法”，敦促哥倫比亞大學與他斷絕關係。

He’s expected to defend himself on television later this week, and his publicity machine has gone into overdrive, seeking to discredit the physicians and frame the issue as one of free speech.

預計本週晚些時候他會在電視上爲自己辯護，他的公關機器已經開始超速疾馳，試圖破壞那些醫生的信譽，然後把問題描繪成言論自由。

But don’t forget that he was called before a United States Senate panel last year to explain his on-air gushing about green coffee extract, raspberry ketones and other faddish weight-loss supplements. Admonishing him, Senator Claire McCaskill noted that “the scientific community is almost monolithic” in its rejection of “products you called ‘miracles.’ ”

但不要忘記，他去年曾被美國參議院的一個委員會傳喚，要求他對自己在電視上大肆吹捧綠咖啡豆萃取物、樹莓酮，以及其他流行減肥補劑的言論作出解釋。參議員克萊爾·麥卡斯基爾(Claire McCaskill)告誡他，“您稱作‘奇蹟’的產品，受到了科學界幾乎普遍的”駁斥。

Also remember that the British Medical Journal published a study of scores of his show’s medical recommendations, saying more than half didn’t have sound scientific backing.

此外，請不要忘記《英國醫學期刊》(British Medical Journal)發表了一篇文章，文中研究了他在節目中做出的數十項醫學建議，結論是超過一半缺乏充分的科學依據。

And bear in mind that the Sony emails included one that showed Oz to be eager, as Vox reported, “to use his platform on the show to help expand Sony’s fitness and health-tracking devices market.” Sony is one of the producers of “Dr. Oz.”

也不要忘記，據Vox報道，索尼外泄的電子郵件中，有一則顯示奧茲熱切地想“利用他的節目作爲平臺，幫助拓展索尼的健身和健康追蹤儀器市場。”索尼是《奧茲博士秀》的製片方之一。

But well beyond Oz, there’s an unsettling corruption of academia by celebrity culture.

但是學術界受到明星文化腐蝕的令人不安的現象，遠比奧茲的問題更嚴重。

Many professors do double duty as television pundits, even though sound bites, which are inherently unsubtle, run counter to what scholarship exalts. And educational institutions choose speakers largely — and sometimes solely — for their star power. The University of Houston spent $155,000 to schedule Matthew McConaughey for its commencement next month.

許多教授兼職在電視上充當專家，儘管電視上摘出的關鍵詞句會不可避免地有所誇大，與學術界讚賞的品格大相徑庭。而教育機構選擇演講者時，關注的基本上是名氣——有時甚至只關注名氣。休斯頓大學(University of Houston)花了15.5萬美元，安排馬修·麥康納(Matthew McConaughey)下個月在畢業典禮上發言。

Maybe he’s more learned than we realize. Or maybe erudition counts for less than buzz, even in those enclaves that are supposed to be about deep, durable things.

可能是因爲麥康納比我們所瞭解的更有才學。也可能是因爲學識不如名氣管用，即使是在大學這種理應更在乎深刻、持久的東西的地方。