国家地理 为什么病毒让我们措手不及(4)

In countries like mine, we might have become inured¹ to the threat of a global pandemic because we saw so many "This Is the Big One" threats flaming out, confined to regions that felt comfortably remote. Except for AIDS, raging epidemics³ have tended not to go global: SARS in 2003 pretty much stayed in Asia, MERS in 2012 didn't really leave the Middle East, Ebola in 2014 was mostly a West African scourge⁴. As we kept watching ourselves dodge⁵ a bullet, it was easy to attribute susceptibility in other countries to behaviors that didn't exist in ours. Most of us didn't ride camels, didn't eat monkeys, didn't handle live bats or civet cats in the marketplace.

身处在美国这样的国家，我们可能对全球大流行病的威胁已经有点无感，因为看过太多“最大疫病来袭”这类雷声大雨点小的威胁，最后局限在离我们很遥远的地方，让我们感觉不到危险。除了艾滋病，肆虐的流行病往往没有蔓延到全球：2003年的SARS几乎完全限于亚洲，2012年的MERS一直留在中东，2014年的埃博拉主要是西非的灾难。眼看我们每次都逃过一劫，很容易把其他国家的易感染性归因于一些只存在于那些国家的行为。我们大多数人不骑骆驼、不吃猴子、不会在市场里接触活体蝙蝠或果子狸。

This "othering" of the threat has, in many ways, been our undoing⁶ all along. In rereading my book recently, I found a sentence that highlights the persistence⁷ of this shameful⁸ attitude. "Ask a field virologist what constitutes an epidemic² worth looking into," I wrote, "and he'll answer with characteristic cynicism, 'The death of one white person.'"

这种把威胁“他者化”的作法，从很多方面来说正是我们如此脆弱的原因。我最近重新阅读自己的书籍时，发现有一句话凸显了这种可耻的心态的持续存在。“随便问一个临床病毒学者，什么事情会让一场流行病值得研究？”我写道：“他会以他们这一行特有的嘲讽态度告诉你：‘当一个白人死去。’”

I've turned my file drawers inside out looking for an old notebook that might contain the name of one such "field virologist," to no avail. But even without that crucial confirmation⁹, I believe in the essential point of that haunting sentence. We've been "othering" away the safety of our species for decades. We're doing it still, fostering an official and personal complacency that ultimately brought humanity to its knees.

我翻遍文件柜，想找一本旧笔记本，里面可能记下了这位“临床病毒学者”的名字，却一无所获。但即使缺少这个关键证据，我仍相信这句令人难忘的话所传达的核心重点。我们的“他者化”心态在过去数十年来持续危害我们物种的安全，至今我们还在这么做，这助长了政府和个人轻忽大意的态度，最终让全人类屈服。

1 inured   

adj.坚强的，习惯的

参考例句：

• The prisoners quickly became inured to the harsh conditions.囚犯们很快就适应了苛刻的条件。
• He has inured himself to accept misfortune.他锻练了自己，使自己能承受不幸。

2 epidemic   

n.流行病；盛行；adj.流行性的，流传极广的

参考例句：

• That kind of epidemic disease has long been stamped out.那种传染病早已绝迹。
• The authorities tried to localise the epidemic.当局试图把流行病限制在局部范围。

3 epidemics   

n．流行病

参考例句：

• Reliance upon natural epidemics may be both time-consuming and misleading. 依靠天然的流行既浪费时间，又会引入歧途。
• The antibiotic epidemics usually start stop when the summer rainy season begins. 传染病通常会在夏天的雨季停止传播。

4 scourge   

n.灾难，祸害；v.蹂躏

参考例句：

• Smallpox was once the scourge of the world.天花曾是世界的大患。
• The new boss was the scourge of the inefficient.新老板来了以后，不称职的人就遭殃了。

5 dodge   

v.闪开，躲开，避开；n.妙计，诡计

参考例句：

• A dodge behind a tree kept her from being run over.她向树后一闪，才没被车从身上辗过。
• The dodge was coopered by the police.诡计被警察粉碎了。

6 undoing   

n.毁灭的原因，祸根；破坏，毁灭

参考例句：

• That one mistake was his undoing. 他一失足即成千古恨。
• This hard attitude may have led to his undoing. 可能就是这种强硬的态度导致了他的垮台。

7 persistence   

n.坚持，持续，存留

参考例句：

• The persistence of a cough in his daughter puzzled him.他女儿持续的咳嗽把他难住了。
• He achieved success through dogged persistence.他靠着坚持不懈取得了成功。

8 shameful   

adj.可耻的，不道德的

参考例句：

• It is very shameful of him to show off.他向人炫耀自己，真不害臊。
• We must expose this shameful activity to the newspapers.我们一定要向报社揭露这一无耻行径。

9 confirmation   

n.证实，确认，批准

参考例句：

• We are waiting for confirmation of the news.我们正在等待证实那个消息。
• We need confirmation in writing before we can send your order out.给你们发送订购的货物之前，我们需要书面确认。