PBS高端访谈:新冠疫情会改变我们的社会吗（在线收听）

JUDY WOODRUFF: With COVID-19 cases on the rise in many parts of the country, it's easy to think that we are living in unprecedented times, but is that true? Jeffrey Brown spoke with two historians about how pandemics have shaped societies in the past, and what those experiences can teach us about living with the coronavirus now. It's part of our ongoing arts and culture series, Canvas.

JEFFREY BROWN: The doctors were unable to cope, since they were treating the disease for the first time. The images are contemporary, but the words ancient. Greek historian Thucydides describes a 5th century B.C. plague that devastated Athens as it warred with Sparta. The epidemic contributed to Athens' defeat and helped bring an end to its experiment with democracy, just one example of how disease has shaped human history.

FRANK SNOWDEN, Yale University: Everything about us, our art, our culture, our religion, has been informed, inflected, should we say, with the passage of death and suffering in the form of disease.

JEFFREY BROWN: Frank Snowden, professor emeritus at Yale University, is author of Epidemics and Society. He now lives in Rome, a city reopening after imposing a strict lockdown. It's also a city that has seen the impact of disease before. Skeletal remains from the 5th century A.D. Show victims of a malaria outbreak, one that wreaked havoc on the Roman Empire's military and economic might. Pandemics throughout history, often captured in the imaginations of artists, have hit in specific ways, with different impacts. Beginning in the 14th century, Bubonic plague changed the course of Western civilization. A third of Europe's population perished. Historians see enormous political and economic impacts. Worker shortages gave serfs more bargaining power and hastened the end of feudalism. Snowden also cites a growing awareness of public health.

FRANK SNOWDEN: Doctors had personal protective equipment, that is, the plague costumes, the masks and a rod for social distancing.

JEFFREY BROWN: William Shakespeare experienced plague in 16th and 17 century England.

FRANK SNOWDEN: There's not a play directly about plague. But if you want to shock your audience, you can mention the plague.

ACTOR: A plague on both your houses.

FRANK SNOWDEN: That would have had an extraordinary resonance in a Shakespearian play.

JEFFREY BROWN: But not all pandemics resonate in the cultural memory. The so-called Spanish Flu of 1918 was different.

NANCY BRISTOW, University of Puget Sound: In an amazing way, almost immediately following the pandemic, it just disappears from the American public conversation.

JEFFREY BROWN: Nancy Bristow, a history professor at the University of Puget Sound, is author of American Pandemic: The Lost Worlds of the 1918 Influenza Epidemic. Bristow's great-grandparents were two of the 675,000 Americans and up to 50 million people worldwide who died, numbers that far surpassed those killed in the World War raging at the same time. In some smaller ways, the pandemic did alter American life.

NANCY BRISTOW: As a result of the pandemic, public spitting really was frowned upon. Another thing that disappears for us is the public drinking cup.

JEFFREY BROWN: But, overall, Bristow says the pandemic reinforced the status quo.

NANCY BRISTOW: In the midst of the pandemic, people who were poor might suffer from cold and hunger and homelessness. People of color would find themselves excluded from the emergency hospitals that were produced. And yet, in the aftermath, there was no movement to repair those problems.

JEFFREY BROWN: So, a pandemic that didn't leave any trace, but you wish it had.

NANCY BRISTOW: That's exactly right. I think there were lessons that could have been learned. But, honestly, it's a somewhat human and certainly American tendency to put aside and eventually forget those things in our past that are unpleasant or that don't speak to who we want to be or imagine ourselves to be.

JEFFREY BROWN: As many have noted, the pandemic we're living through has exposed the continuing inequities in our time, with communities of color hit especially hard. And in the aftermath of the killing of George Floyd, protesters across the nation, many wearing masks, decided to take their calls for a more just society to the streets, despite the health risks. Frank Snowden says the history of pandemic and illness offers choices for us all.

FRANK SNOWDEN: It's a crisis because terrible things can happen. But it's also a time of opportunity. This is a time when we can reimagine our lives in ways that would make us safer than we were this time around, that could actually leave the world a safer, better place for our grandchildren.

JEFFREY BROWN: A hope for the future, with an eye on the past. For the PBS NewsHour, I'm Jeffrey Brown.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And we can hope.

 朱迪·伍德拉夫：由于COVID-19病例在美国许多地区呈上升趋势，人们很容易认为我们生活在前所未有的时代，但这是真的吗？杰弗里·布朗和两位历史学家谈到了过去流行病是如何影响社会的，这些经历能教会我们如何与冠状病毒共存。这是我们正在进行的艺术和文化系列“画布”的一部分。

杰弗里·布朗：医生们无法应付，因为他们是第一次治疗这种疾病。图像是当代的，但文字是古代的。希腊历史学家修昔底德描述了公元前5世纪的一场瘟疫，在雅典与斯巴达的战争中摧毁了雅典。这场流行病促成了雅典的失败，并有助于结束其民主实验，这只是疾病如何塑造人类历史的一个例子。

弗兰克·斯诺登，耶鲁大学：我们的一切，我们的艺术，我们的文化，我们的宗教，都被告知了，被改变了，我们应该说，死亡和痛苦以疾病的方式流逝。

杰弗里·布朗：弗兰克·斯诺登，耶鲁大学名誉教授，是《流行病与社会》的作者。他现在住在罗马，实行严格封锁后重新开放的城市。这也是一个曾经经历过疾病影响的城市。公元5世纪的遗骸显示了疟疾爆发的受害者，这场爆发对罗马帝国的军事和经济实力造成了严重破坏。历史上的传染病，往往是艺术家的想象所捕捉到的，以特定的方式，产生了不同的影响。从14世纪开始，黑死病改变了西方文明的进程。欧洲三分之一的人口死亡。历史学家看到了巨大的政治和经济影响。工人短缺给农奴们更多的议价能力，加速了封建主义的终结。

斯诺登还提到公众健康意识的增强。

弗兰克·斯诺登：医生们有个人防护装备，也就是说，瘟疫服装，口罩和保持社交距离的棍子。

杰弗里·布朗：威廉·莎士比亚在16和17世纪的英国经历了瘟疫。

弗兰克·斯诺登：没有一部关于瘟疫的戏剧。但如果你想震撼你的观众，你可以提到瘟疫。

演员：你们两个家都有瘟疫。

弗兰克·斯诺登：这会在莎士比亚的戏剧中产生非凡的共鸣。

杰弗里·布朗：但并不是所有的流行病都能在文化记忆中产生共鸣。所谓的1918年西班牙流感是不同的。普吉特桑德大学的南希·布里斯托：以一种惊人的方式，在流感大流行之后，它几乎立即从美国公众的谈话中消失。

杰弗里·布朗：南希·布里斯托，普吉特桑德大学历史教授，著有《美国大流行：1918年流感大流行的失落世界》。布里斯托的曾祖父母是67.5万美国人中的两位，全世界死亡人数高达5000万，数量远远超过了同时爆发的世界大战中的死亡人数。在一些较小的方面，大流行确实改变了美国人的生活。

南希·布里斯托：由于大流行，公众吐痰真的不受欢迎。另一件对我们来说消失的东西是公共酒杯。

杰弗里·布朗：但是，总的来说，布里斯托说大流行加强了现状。

南希·布里斯托：在大流行期间，穷人可能遭受寒冷、饥饿和无家可归的痛苦。有色人种会发现自己被排除在急诊医院之外。然而，在事后，没有任何行动来修复这些问题。

杰弗里·布朗：所以，一场没有留下任何痕迹的流行病，但你希望它有。

南希·布里斯托：没错。我认为有些教训是可以吸取的。但是，老实说，这是一种有点人性的，当然也是美国人的一种倾向，把过去那些令人不快的事情放在一边，最终忘掉，或者不和我们想成为的人说话，或者想象我们是他们。

杰弗里·布朗：正如许多人所指出的，我们所经历的流行病暴露了我们这个时代持续存在的不平等现象，尤其是对有色人种群体的打击。乔治·弗洛伊德被杀后，全国各地的抗议者，许多人戴着口罩，尽管存在健康风险，他们还是决定将呼吁建立一个更加公正的社会的呼声推向街头。弗兰克·斯诺登说，大流行和疾病的历史为我们所有人提供了选择。

弗兰克·斯诺登：这是一场危机，因为可怕的事情会发生。但这也是一个机会的时刻。在这个时候，我们可以重新想象我们的生活，让我们比现在更安全，这实际上会给我们的子孙后代留下一个更安全、更好的地方。

杰弗里·布朗：对未来的希望，着眼于过去。我叫杰弗里·布朗。

朱迪·伍德拉夫：我们可以期待。