2019年经济学人勿忘历史(2)（打印版）

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

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 heed 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 posterity, 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 deterred 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 vaccine 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。