编辑&播音&后期：雨晴
当提到“大象”时，你的第一反应是什么？庞然大物或许是我们对大象的一贯印象。的确，无论是“盲人摸象”的成语，还是“曹冲称象”的典故，都侧面反映了大象相对于周边事物不协调的庞大。作为地球上最大的陆地动物，大象拥有一个长鼻子，一对蒲扇似的耳朵，四根又宽又粗的腿，这些特征赋予了大象独一无二的特性。
Most Chinese's impression of elephants comes either from film and television or from the outsides of zoo's enclosures. This may leave a wrong impression on Chinese: elephants come from Africa. In fact, several thousand years ago, elephants were widely distributed in China, from the north of the Yellow River to Lingnan area, from the western Bashu to Yunnan, the traces of elephants can be found everywhere.
西周之前象文化十分繁荣，后来逐渐衰落。大象从黄河流域绝迹后，在江淮流域仍有不少分布。但自汉代以后，大象在江淮地区的数量急剧减少，只有云贵、岭南等更南方的地区还有大量分布。而到了宋代以后，江淮地区的大象彻底绝迹，大象就成为了岭南的特产。
Why did the elephants that were once widely spread throughout the Central Plains disappear? Some researchers attribute this to climate change. Elephants like to live in warm and humid environments. But after the replacement of Shang Zhou Dynasty, the climate in the Central Plains changed dramatically, from warm and rainy to cold and dry. As a result, wild elephants in the Yellow River began to migrate southwards, which continued for thousands of years.另一些学者则认为，人象之间的长期矛盾冲突才是大象退却的关键要素，古代中国人为了扩大农田面积而肆意砍伐森林，使得大象生存空间逐渐萎缩。
不只在古代中国，当代大象和人类的激烈冲突在全球范围内仍没有停歇。According to the World Society for the Protection of Animals, 100 years ago，there were 10 million elephants in Africa, and now only 400,000 elephants live on the continent, and every 15 minutes an elephant is killed by humans. Some studies have shown that many newborn male elephants are being degraded to protect themselves and no longer grow ivory.
当代的大象叙事正行驶在两条背道而驰的路径上：地球上大象日益消减的数量，在环境学家眼中是生态不断恶化的警示信息。社会学家却说，群体的回避与沉默，让“房间里的大象”变得越来越多。
"Elephant in the room" is an English proverb which means, there is an elephant in the room, and people are clearly aware of its vast existence, but pretend not to know. This proverb is used specifically to describe the social phenomenon of people turning a blind eye to problems and choosing silence. 这种实际上人尽皆知，却几乎无人提及，从不公开谈论的东西是一种“公开的秘密”，亦是“合谋的沉默”，它是保罗·克鲁格曼所说的:“隐藏在众目睽睽之下的，令人不安的真相”。
保持沉默，是拒绝承认我们对某些事物有所感知的最简单的方式。最公开的否认，其形式就是沉默。We use silence to deny that we have experienced something, we know something, and even we deny something. After all, in social life, some things are better to be silenced rather than be spoken out, and breaking the silence that surrounds these things is equal to disrupting and undermining the balance of life’s behavior.但是沉默过后，我们或许会懊悔，“为什么，当时我没有说出来呢？”
人类是趋利避害的物种。我们对外界的危险有着天然的警惕，因此我们设置了舒适圈，借此与他人保持安全的社交距离。担心遭到骚扰报复，于是作为受害者的我们选择了忍气吞声；害怕受到无辜牵连，身为旁观者的我们目睹校园暴力却绕道而行；因为畏惧，我们置身事外明哲保身，直到无理乘客与司机相争导致公交车坠入冰冷的河底，我们才明白，沉默终会使我们含恨。
沉默似乎是常见的个人特性。而以赛亚•伯林曾经犀利地指出，被我们视为当然的事物，其背后亦有复杂的原因。你的沉默也许并不全然是你的过错。
"The group buried all the doubt and the sense of independence", this may be too biased but also justified.只要有一个人发声就可以说话，但沉默却需要所有人的配合。When we all avoid the elephant in the room together, we call it the "collusion" of silence, in which silence is a collective action that requires cooperation. Cooperation means the existence of pressure and game（博弈）, and the result of self-game is often silence.同时，人的一切思维活动，都是在认知框架中进行的。所以人们同样也知道，在哪种情况下、对于哪些人、哪些话题该保持沉默，尽管沉默的标准只是由他人给定，尽管这种沉默并不总是合乎时宜。
Silence is not gold, it is more likely to be iron that pierces the heart of others and scratches ourselves with a sharp blade. Silence can strengthen itself, silence can reproduce itself. The longer we remain silent, the more inevitably it becomes to "cover up our silence with more silence". Today's silence will make tomorrow's silence more difficult to break.
从小就有人教导我们“谨言慎行”“说多错多”，殊不知，这种沉默同样可能演变成作恶者的共犯。有一个概念叫“恶之平庸性”，恶的化身不一定是十恶不赦、罪大恶极的“恶魔”，也有可能是平凡的、勤劳的甚至是敬业忠诚的普通人，他们绝大多数甚至并不知道自己在作恶，他们是鲁迅先生笔下的“无恶意的闲人看客”——在一生的看客生涯中，他们看着别人的苦难不幸甚至是死亡，依然像阿Q一样大喊，“杀革命党，哎，好看好看”；是新冠疫情中在网络上开地图炮、对手足同胞苛责辱骂的键盘侠；是那些保持沉默、司空见惯、冷眼旁观的人们。是我，也是你。
谈及“沉默”这个话题，人们常会引用鲁迅先生的那段话:“假如一间铁屋子，是绝无窗户而万难破毁的，里面有许多熟睡的人们，不久都要闷死了，然而是从昏睡去死灭，并不感到就死的悲哀。现在你大嚷起来，惊起了较为清醒的几个人，使这不幸的少数者来受无可挽救的临终的痛楚，你倒以为对得起他们么？”
可很少有人记得后面那句——“然而几个人既然起来，你不能说决没有毁坏这铁屋子的希望。”
愿我们都有去看，去听，去说的勇气。
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