The Japanese earthquake, tsunami, and reactor malfunction were undeniably unfortunate events, and one naturally feels sympathy and wishes the best for those affected by them. Nevertheless, some people have blown the whole thing out of all recognizable proportion. Consider this AP article.
Disproportionate
Just to begin with one of the sillier bits:
Already, it seems reasonable to surmise it could prove one of the most significant calamities of our time — one that shapes policies, economies, even philosophies for decades to come in an increasingly interconnected world.
No, this doesn’t seem the least bit “reasonable” … it would, in fact, be profoundly unreasonable for this to happen. Just to look at things in the crudest possible terms: The Japanese earthquake is estimated to have killed 10s of thousands of people. The 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami killed 100s of thousands: an order of magnitude more. If the latter did not shape “policies, economies, even philosophies” in any meaningful way (leaving aside the fact that killing 200,000 people will always have some effect), it would be disproportionate if the former did.
Blind Without A Cane
There’s also this:
But in this event, psychological, even philosophical, shock over the confluence of human tragedy and nuclear catastrophe yields some fundamental questions. If a technological power like Japan can be so vulnerable, who’s safe? Is even minimal risk, as with nuclear power, too much risk? Do we need to rethink the role of government in protecting the public?
This is stupid. First of all, it’s obvious that man is pretty puny in the face of nature. If all the previous earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, meteor impacts, and Michael Bay movies haven’t convinced you of this elementary fact, you just haven’t been paying attention, and ought to quietly recuse yourself from policy discussions.
Secondly, the answer to the question “is even minimal risk … too much risk” is, self-evidently: “No, you dimwit, it’s not. Now sit down and shut up.” Life is inherently risky, and, in the end, it’s going to kill you. You couldn’t avoid all risk even if you wanted to; all you can do is trade one sort of risk for another. If you believe that it’s even possible to avoid minimal risks, you just haven’t been paying attention, and ought to quietly recuse yourself from policy discussions.
Francis Fukuyama
Francis Fukuyama emerges from his warren of shame at Stanford (lined with remaindered copies of “The End of History”) to opine that:
It does seem to me a natural disaster like this, because it reminds everybody of how commonly vulnerable they are, could be used as an opportunity to reshape the whole tone and character of politics.”
“Could” is a tremendously useful word when you want to make dramatic predictions that you don’t really expect to come true. Not to beat a dead horse, but if the ’04 tsunami didn’t “reshape the whole tone and character of politics”, if Katrina didn’t do it, if Loma Prieta or Northridge or Kobe or Chernobyl didn’t do it, why would this?
Pet Theory
The real culprit behind this piece seems to be one Rob Verchick, of Loyola University in New Orleans, author of the no-doubt-insightful tome “Facing Catastrophe: Environmental Action for a Post-Katrina World”. Rob’s spent some time in the Obama administration, at EPA and on the “Interagency Climate Change Adaptation Task Force”. So he’s got an axe to grind when he says things like:
One of the things that make this a unique situation is that it is a catastrophic event with incredible terrifying loss that’s occurring in a country that is also wealthy.
I guess when you’re as sharp a cookie as Rob, you can define “unique” so as to magically exclude other catastrophes in wealthy countries like, say, Katrina, Loma Prieta, Northridge or Kobe.
Takeaway
I see that my sarcasm runneth over, so let me try to bring this in for a landing. Disasters have always happened, and they always will. They may be mitigated by wealth and technology, but never prevented. That’s life, and human insouciance in the face of this reality is the only reasonable response.
What’s creepy is that some people want to seize upon the short-term emotional reactions triggered by a disaster to shape “policies, economies, even philosophies for decades to come”. There’s something unhealthy there.
