2019年经济学人 勿忘历史(2)

 

By the subsequent generation, however— the grandchildren of the flood's survivors¹—

但到后一代—洪水幸存者的孙子辈—

they started creeping downhill again, closer to the river, and encroaching on the zone of flood risk.

他们开始再次往下移居，更临近河流并慢慢侵占洪水风险区域。

Sites close to watercourses have always been prized, and in calculating where to build their homes,

接近河道的地址一直被视为重地，且在考虑建房区域时，

people have necessarily weighed the risks of flood damage against the advantages of being close to a river.

人们必会权衡洪水灾害的风险和临近河流的优势。

That memories of disaster weigh more heavily in this calculation immediately after the flood is not surprising, says Dr Fanta.

洪水发生后，在考量住址时，关于这段灾害的即刻记忆更加重要，这一点并不稀奇，Fanta博士说到。

But that the memory is so short-lived is. He had expected people to heed² history's warning for a century at least.

但是这段记忆却是如此短暂。他希望人们至少能够留心历史警告一个世纪之久。

This collective forgetfulness is even more puzzling in light of a central preoccupation of ancient chroniclers, the communication of risk.

鉴于古代记录者的主要关注点是传达风险，这种集体健忘甚至更加令人费解。

Writing to preserve their eras for posterity³, they recounted harrowing tales of extreme climatic events, fires, famines and plagues.

为了给后代保留他们的时代，他们叙述并记录下了关于极端气候事件、火灾、饥荒和瘟疫的悲惨故事。

Likewise, there is no shortage of written accounts of Hurricane Betsy or of historical floods in Prague—

同样也不乏关于飓风贝齐或布拉格历史性洪灾的书面记录—

the maximum heights of many of which are marked along the Vltava's banks.

很多最高水量都是沿着伏尔塔瓦河河岸标记的。

Such distant secondhand accounts are not enough, Dr Fanta concludes. To be deterred⁴ from placing themselves back in danger,

这种悠久的二手记录是不够的，Fanta博士总结到。为了阻止他们将自己再次置于危险之地，

people have to hear disaster tales from eye witnesses who can convey the visceral emotion of having lived through them.

人们需要倾听目击者的灾难故事，他们的故事中传达出了亲历者的真实情感。

The group's findings thus suggest that one way of teaching history more effectively might be to bring eye witnesses into the classroom.

因此该团队的发现表明教授历史的一种更加有效的方法或许是将目击者请到课堂上。

That approach will not work for ever, of course. Over time, witnesses' own memories fade, and then the witnesses themselves expire.

这种方法不会永远有效。随时间流逝，目击者的记忆消散，接着他们自己也会逝去。

The forgetting that Dr Fanta sees with respect to historical floods might also explain the recent rise of vaccine⁵ hesitancy and right-wing extremism,

Fanta博士认为对历史性洪灾的忘却或许也能解释为什么近期越来越多人对疫苗持观望态度以及右翼极端主义的增长，

he suggests, as the survivors of now-preventable infectious diseases and Hitler, respectively, die of old age.

因为如今可预防传染性疾病和希特勒时代的幸存者都病老归西。

Having not experienced those realities, or heard about them first-hand, many people alive today have quite simply forgotten the horror.

由于没有经历过这些事件或是亲耳听他们述说这些事情，如今很多人都已遗忘了这种恐惧。

1 survivors   

幸存者，残存者，生还者( survivor的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The survivors were adrift in a lifeboat for six days. 幸存者在救生艇上漂流了六天。
• survivors clinging to a raft 紧紧抓住救生筏的幸存者

2 heed   

v.注意，留意；n.注意，留心

参考例句：

• You must take heed of what he has told.你要注意他所告诉的事。
• For the first time he had to pay heed to his appearance.这是他第一次非得注意自己的外表不可了。

3 posterity   

n.后裔，子孙，后代

参考例句：

• Few of his works will go down to posterity.他的作品没有几件会流传到后世。
• The names of those who died are recorded for posterity on a tablet at the back of the church.死者姓名都刻在教堂后面的一块石匾上以便后人铭记。

4 deterred   

v.阻止，制止( deter的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• I told him I wasn't interested, but he wasn't deterred. 我已告诉他我不感兴趣，可他却不罢休。
• Jeremy was not deterred by this criticism. 杰里米没有因这一批评而却步。 来自辞典例句

5 vaccine   

n.牛痘苗，疫苗；adj.牛痘的，疫苗的

参考例句：

• The polio vaccine has saved millions of lives.脊髓灰质炎疫苗挽救了数以百万计的生命。
• She takes a vaccine against influenza every fall.她每年秋季接种流感疫苗。