演讲题目：How the teddy bear taught us compassion

演讲简介：

1902年，总统西奥多·罗斯福传奇性地给了一只黑熊一条生路 - 这促使了人们对一个叫做”泰迪熊“玩具的狂热。作家乔恩·莫阿拉姆深入讲述了这个故事，并让我们思考我们如何讲述关于野外动物的故事对一个种类的生存机会，以及整个自然世界会有怎样真正的影响。

中英文字幕

So it was the fall of 1902, and President Theodore Roosevelt needed a little break from the White House,

1902年的秋天，西奥多·罗斯福总统需要一个暂别白宫的小假期，

so he took a train to Mississippi to do a little black bear hunting outside of a town called Smedes.

于是他坐火车去了密西西比，在一个镇外狩猎黑熊，这个镇叫斯密德思。

The first day of the hunt, they didn't see a single bear, so it was a big bummer for everyone, but the second day,

在打猎的第一天他们没有看到熊，大家都觉得很无奈，然而第二天，

the dogs cornered one after a really long chase, but by that point, the president had given up and gone back to camp for lunch,

猎犬在很长的追逐后把一只熊逼进角落，但在那个时候总统已经放弃了追逐，并回到营帐吃午餐，

so his hunting guide cracked the animal on the top of the head with the butt of his rifle,

于是他的狩猎指导敲昏了动物，用他步枪的尾部去敲击熊头顶，

and then tied it up to a tree and started tooting away on his bugle to call Roosevelt back so he could have the honor of shooting it.

然后把它绑在一棵树上，随后吹着号角嘟嘟地走了，他想让罗斯福回来时享受射击的乐趣。

The bear was a female.

这是一只母熊。

It was dazed, injured, severely underweight, a little mangy-looking, and when Roosevelt saw this animal tied up to the tree,

它有些迷糊，也受了伤，体重严重不足，看起来脏脏的，当罗斯福看到这个动物被绑在树上时，

he just couldn't bring himself to fire at it.

他实在不忍心朝它开枪。

He felt like that would go against his code as a sportsman.

他觉得这样做会违反他的行为准则和运动员精神。

A few days later, the scene was memorialized in a political cartoon back in Washington.

几天后，华盛顿的一部政治卡通中记录了这一场景。

It was called "Drawing a Line in Mississippi," and it showed Roosevelt with his gun down and his arm out, sparing the bear's life,

它叫做《在密西西比划清底线》，画面展现了罗斯福放下了他的枪，同时伸出他的手臂，给熊留了一条生路，

and the bear was sitting on its hind legs with these two big, frightened, wide eyes and little ears pricked up at the top of its head.

这只熊坐在它的后腿上，两只大眼睛睁得圆圆的充满了恐惧，它的耳朵竖在头顶上。

It looked really helpless, like you just wanted to sweep it up into your arms and reassure it.

它看起来很无助，你恨不得想把它拥入怀中让它不要担心。

It wouldn't have looked familiar at the time, but if you go looking for the cartoon now, you recognize the animal right away: It's a teddy bear.

在那时它看起来不太眼熟，但如果你现在看这个卡通，你能马上认出这个动物：它就是泰迪熊。

And this is how the teddy bear was born.

这就是泰迪熊诞生的故事。

Essentially, toymakers took the bear from the cartoon, turned it into a plush toy, and then named it after President Roosevelt -- Teddy's bear.

简单说，玩具制造商将这个卡通中的熊做成了毛绒玩具，并用罗斯福总统的名字给它命了名：泰迪熊。

And I do feel a little ridiculous that I'm up here on this stage and I'm choosing to use my time to tell you about a 100-year-old story about the invention of a squishy kid's toy,

我确实觉得有点荒谬，我站在这个舞台上，我选择利用我的时间来告诉你们一个一百年前的故事，关于一个软绵绵的儿童玩具的发明，

but I'd argue that the invention of the teddy bear, inside that story is a more important story,

但我想说在泰迪熊的发明的故事里有个更重要的故事，

a story about how dramatically our ideas about nature can change, and also about how, on the planet right now,

这个故事关系到我们对自然的想法可以如此戏剧化的变化，这也关系到此时在这个星球上

the stories that we tell are dramatically changing nature.

我们所讲述的故事正戏剧化地改变自然。

Because think about the teddy bear.

您想想泰迪熊。

For us, in retrospect, it feels like an obvious fit, because bears are so cute and cuddly,

对于我们来说它像一个自然的产物，因为熊那么可爱，让人忍不住想抱，

and who wouldn't want to give one to their kids to play with, but the truth is that in 1902, bears weren't cute and cuddly.

谁不想自己的孩子跟其玩耍呢？而在1902年，熊并不那么可爱，也不让人想拥抱。

I mean, they looked the same, but no one thought of them that way.

我是说他们看起来一样，可是当时没人这么看待他们。

In 1902, bears were monsters.

在1902年熊是野兽。

Bears were something that frickin' terrified kids.

熊当时是让孩子们异常害怕的动物。

For generations at that point, the bear had been a shorthand for all the danger that people were encountering on the frontier,

对几代人来说，熊一直象征着所有人们在前线遇到的危险，

and the federal government was actually systematically exterminating bears and lots of other predators too, like coyotes and wolves.

联邦政府其实曾经系统性地灭绝狗熊以及其它捕食动物，比如说小狼和野狼。

These animals, they were being demonized.

这些动物当时被妖魔化。

They were called murderers because they killed people's livestock.

它们被称为杀人犯，因为它们杀害人们的家禽。

One government biologist, he explained this war on animals like the bear by saying that they no longer had a place in our advancing civilization,

一个政府生物学家解释说，针对动物的战争，比如说熊，是因为在我们日益发展的文明中它们不再有一席之地，

and so we were just clearing them out of the way.

所以我们将它们清除掉。

In one 10-year period, close to half a million wolves had been slaughtered.

在十年之间，将近50万只狼被屠杀。

The grizzly would soon be wiped out from 95 percent of its original territory,

灰熊很快就会从95%的原始领土上消失，

and whereas once there had been 30 million bison moving across the plains,

在那些曾经一时有3千万野牛穿越的平原上，

and you would have these stories of trains having to stop for four or five hours so that these thick,

你会听说这样的事儿：一些火车必须停靠四到五个小时

living rivers of the animals could pour over the tracks, now, by 1902, there were maybe less than 100 left in the wild.

才能让这群黑压压、活生生的动物如潮水一般穿过轨道，到1902年，这里只剩下不到100只野牛存活于野外。

And so what I'm saying is, the teddy bear was born into the middle of this great spasm of extermination,

所以我想说的是，泰迪熊诞生于一个异常严峻的灭绝时代，

and you can see it as a sign that maybe some people deep down were starting to feel conflicted about all that killing.

你可以把它看成一个征兆，也许有些人从心底开始对这些屠杀感到矛盾。

America still hated the bear and feared it, but all of a sudden, America also wanted to give the bear a great big hug.

美国始终痛恨熊，也害怕它，但突然间美国也想要给熊一个大拥抱。

So what I've been saying is that the stories that we tell about wild animals are so subjective they can be irrational or romanticized or sensationalized.

所以我一直在讲的是这些故事，这些关于野外动物的故事是很主观的，它们可能是非理性的、浪漫化的、或情绪化的。

Sometimes they just have nothing to do with the facts.

有时它们跟事实毫无相关。

But in a world of conservation reliance, those stories have very real consequences, because now,

在一个“保护依赖”的世界，这些故事会有很真实的后果，因为现在，

how we feel about an animal affects its survival more than anything that you read about in ecology textbooks.

我们对一种动物的看法对它生存的影响大于你在生态课本中读到的任何信息。

Storytelling matters now.

如今讲故事很关键。

Emotion matters.

情绪很重要。

Our imagination has become an ecological force.

我们的想象已经成为一股生态力量。

And so maybe the teddy bear worked in part because the legend of Roosevelt and that bear in Mississippi was kind of like an allegory of this great responsibility that society was just beginning to face up to back then.

因此，也许泰迪熊之所以起作用，部分原因是罗斯福和密西西比州那只熊的传说，有点像是对当时社会刚刚开始面对的重大责任的寓言。

It would be another 71 years before the Endangered Species Act was passed, but really,

那时还要71年《濒危动物保护法案通过》才会通过，但事实上，

here's its whole ethos boiled down into something like a scene you'd see in a stained glass window.

这是整个社会思潮浓缩成的一个景象，就像一副琉璃画。

The bear is a helpless victim tied to a tree, and the president of the United States decided to show it some mercy.

熊是个被绑在树上的无辜的受害者，而美国总统决定怜惜它。

Thank you.

谢谢。