美国总统爱打猎

2012-04-29

英语学习 2012年6期

Fewer than 6 percent of Americans are hunters. But we love to put them in the White House. Actually, Eisenhower, Johnson, Carter, Bushes father and son1—half the presidents of the last 50 years have been avid hunters.

Its more than the macho2 thing. All over the world, masculinity is a prerequisite for power, but few hunters are in residence in presidential palaces from Italy to France to Japan.3 Like cowboys, hunters are quintessentially4 American.

From the earliest days of the American colonies, democracy and hunting were intertwined5. Many settlers despised the British system, where all game was owned by the crown or private estates and only wealthy landowners could hunt.6 As early as 1623, Plymouth Colony decreed that fowling, fishing and hunting were “free” to all.7

In 1842, the U.S. Supreme Court decided the landmark New Jersey case of Martin v. Waddell, in which one side had claimed exclusive ownership of oysters from beds adjacent to his land along the Raritan River; the court ruled that “dominion and property” in the nations lands and waters belonged to the people.8

The ruling fit the country. America was a vast frontier, teeming with wildlife on uncharted lands.9 Generation after generation set out to tame the wild territory, facing tremendous hardship for the limitless opportunities that beckoned.10

Our heroes were hunters, pioneers and Indian fighters. Daniel Boone11. Davy Crockett12. Teddy Roosevelt, by far the biggest hunter ever to occupy the White House, was also a prolific writer who envisioned successions of great hunters and political leaders taking the nation to world power.13 Americans were unique among“civilized” nations, shaped by rugged14 individualism and the violence and possibility of the frontier.

More than a century after the census declared the American frontier closed, the ethos lives on through popular culture—movie westerns, television, political imagery.15 Presidents chop wood on the ranch and talk of projecting American power to the other side of world.16 It helps if they can knock down17 a few birds.

Few other nations were formed through the violent subjugation18 of the frontier, and few other nations view hunters—or guns—as we do.

In Germany, for example, hunters are respected as stewards19 of the communitys land. They are responsible for wildlife management in the way that fish and game officers are here. The most highly trained among them—more than two years of study and apprenticeship on top of the six to nine months of classes followed by written, oral, practical and shooting proficiency tests required for a hunting license—are honored as jagermeister.20

Only a jagermeister, or “master hunter,” has the stature to lease a communitys aggregated lands,21 bringing in other hunters to help care for the private resource in exchange for the right to hunt. Presenting oneself as a swaggering big-game hunter would be a good way to lose the privilege entirely.22

In America, its a good way to win the White House.

More is at play here than our fascination with frontier culture.23 We also like big-T personalities.

Big-Ts, a.k.a. T-Types, are at one end of a continuum of human behavior on which psychologists assess the importance of risk or excitement as a motivating factor.24 The “T” stands for “thrills” (as opposed to aggression, which is Type-A). Big-Ts are risk-takers; little-ts are risk-averse.25 Big-Ts are action-oriented types, either mentally or physically. They like intensity, independence and conflict; they dislike structure and control.

Virtually all American presidents are on the big-T end of the scale26. So are many hunters (and, for that matter, animal-rights activists). The writers of the Declaration of Independence were big-Ts, as were the pioneers and many among the waves of immigrants who left behind everything they knew in a bold move for a better life.

These are the observations of Frank Farley27, a Temple University psychologist who named the personality type 20 years ago and believes it is responsible for Americas domination of science, technology and popular culture, not to mention world power.

“We are a big-T nation,” he said.

A key attribute of a big-T is the ability to stand firm, even to thrive, amid uncertainty. Imagine a hunter faced with a charging grizzly28—or a president responding to a terrorist attack.

In times of national economic downturn, voters have a gut-level attraction to the biggest of the big-Ts.29 They are our frontier heroes, able to shoot the bear between the eyes and destroy the enemy we dont understand.