加拿大总理的小故事

加拿大总理卡尼做了一个演讲。其中，他引用了捷克前总统哈维尔Havel的一个小故事。故事说，一个卖菜的人每天早上都把一个小牌匾放在窗口。牌匾上写着，“全世界的工人们团结起来”。这个卖菜的知道这话是假的，也不相信这个道理。但是因为每一家商店都这样做，所以他也这样做。为了跟大家一样；为了服从；也为了避免麻烦。但是当大家都不相信这句话的时候，幻觉就破灭了，人们就不再生活在一个谎言之中，这个牌匾也就被扔掉了。原文很漂亮，是这样说的：

Every morning, the shopkeeper places a sign in his window: “Workers of the world unite.” He doesn’t believe in it. No one does. But he places the sign anyway to avoid trouble, to signal compliance, to get along. And because every shopkeeper on every street does the same, the system persists — not through violence alone, but through the participation of ordinary people in rituals they privately know to be false.

Havel called this living within a lie. The system’s power comes not from its truth, but from everyone’s willingness to perform as if it were true. And its fragility comes from the same source. When even one person stops performing, when the greengrocer removes his sign, the illusion begins to crack.