“英雄税”：“英雄”职业就应当不求回报无私奉献？

救死扶伤的医护人员是“英雄”职业中的大类。然而近两年，全球多地都出现了大规模的医护人员罢工，医务工作者们自新冠疫情后长期处在高压环境下，人手短缺、过度工作、不公平的薪资、心理健康问题等多种因素引发了医护“英雄”们的崩溃。

"It's a "wild" swing", says Gretchen Purser, associate professor of sociology,US, from the way those same workers were celebrated in the throes of the pandemic. "Three years ago, they were being lauded as heroes – literally heroes," she says, "and now they're just left to the aftermath of all this."

美国社会学副教授格雷琴·普瑟（Gretchen Purser）说：“与新冠疫情时期人们对医护工作者的赞誉相比，这实在是一次剧烈的变化。几年前他们被誉为名副其实的英雄，而现在却只能面对这一切的余波。”

拯救动物生命的兽医同样遭受着“英雄化”带来的问题。很多时候，主人们无法负担宠物疾病的治疗和手术费，这就使兽医们陷入一个困境：他们在医学上有能力提供帮助，但却无法在不收取费用的情况下提供治疗。兽医们最常受到的批评就是贪婪。

Emily Volk is a veterinarian. A lot of the time when we're talking about what we need to do for someone's pet, all they're hearing is the incredible cost," says Volk. "You get accused of only being here for the money. A couple of weeks ago, someone called me a thief."

艾米丽·沃尔克（Emily Volk）是一位兽医，她说：“很多时候当我们谈论需要为宠物做些什么时，主人们听到的只有惊人的治疗费用。你会被指责惟利是图。几周前，甚至有人说我是小偷。”

斯坦利和凯的第二篇论文讨论了“英雄化”可能在不同领域助长工作剥削，如教育、护理、社工、警务等。

实验参与者们首先被要求对每个行业中的典型工作者是否是英雄进行评分。然后他们需判断这个工作者在没有任何回报的情况下自愿多工作一天的可能性有多大。

As expected, the participants' responses were correlated. When the participants considered a job to be heroic, they had much higher expectations that the workers would sacrifice their day off for free. 

不出所料，参与者的回应是具有相关性的。当参与者认为某一职业有英雄性时，他们对于工作者无偿额外工作的期待就越高。

The researchers' final experiments studied the participants' opposition to policies that would harm workers' rights. Would the hero label reduce or increase people's outrage at news of teachers' pay cuts, for example?

研究者的最后一项实验研究了参与者对损害工作者权利的政策的反对态度。例如，英雄标签会减少还是增加人们对教师减薪消息的愤怒？

研究者用文字详细描述了一项消减学校预算的政策，然后要求实验参与者表明自己的态度。在某些情况中，这些文字还附有老师们身着超级英雄服装的卡通图像，其他情况下则为纯文字。

You might expect that the natural respect we hold for heroes would reduce support for the pay cuts – but this was not the case. Thanks, apparently, to the associations with selfless altruism, the participants tended to show less opposition to the policy when they saw the picture of the teachers in the capes.

你或许会认为：我们对英雄的天然敬意会减少对减薪政策的支持，事实却并非如此。显然，由于人们对无私利他主义的联想，当参与者们看到身穿英雄披风的老师图像后，他们对减薪政策的反对程度会降低。

"It's brutally ironic," says Stanley. "Because of our veneration, we're more tolerant of them being treated badly."

斯坦利认为，“这实在太过讽刺。因为对他们职业的崇敬，我们对他们受到的不公平待遇便更加宽容。”

The most obvious solution may be to discourage the use of the "hero" label – but Stanley doesn't think this would be feasible. It is so widely used to convey respect that it would be difficult to persuade people to stop using it, he says.

最明显的方法可能是避免使用“英雄”标签，但斯坦利认为这并不可行。“英雄”被广泛用于表达敬意，因此很难说服人们停止使用。

Instead, he thinks the answer may lie in cultivating greater awareness of the many different reasons that someone could choose a "heroic" profession – besides the general wish to help others. Someone might join the military for the specific training and education that comes with the job, for example.

相反，他认为答案可能在于帮助人们更深入地认识到，有人选择“英雄”职业可能出于多种原因，而不仅是一心助人。例如，有些人可能是为了工作带来的特殊训练和教育而参军。

Stanley's research has found that describing these motives can prevent people from making crude assumptions about their subsequent career choices. "We should teach the public about what it is that these people actually want, so that they rely less on the 'caricatures' and stereotypes," he says.

斯坦利的研究发现，描述这些动机能够避免人们对他们之后的职业做出粗略的假设。他说：“我们应该让公众认识到这些人真正想要的是什么，从而减少他们对夸大化印象或刻板印象的依赖。”

We are all multifaceted individuals, after all, with many competing needs and ambitions – and recognising this fact need not undermine our respect and admiration for the people who keep us safe, secure and healthy.

毕竟，我们每个人都是多面的个体，彼此间存在着竞争，也有自己的个人抱负。认识到这一事实并不一定会削弱我们对保障我们安全和健康的工作人员的尊重和敬佩。