Thread by @m_older

To prepare for my talk at @BelferCenter in a few hours I'm reviewing the literature on technological disasters belfercenter.org/event/nuclear-…

I'm reviewing them through my own article about disaster responses as human-made disasters in Disaster Research and the Second Environmental Crisis edited by Kendra, @USofDisaster, @ProfDisaster springer.com/gp/book/978303…

I adapted my main argument in that paper for @newhumanitarian here: thenewhumanitarian.org/opinion/2020/0…

ANYWAY, I was struck by this quote, from Kroll-Smith and Couch, The Real Disaster Is Above Ground: A Mine Fire and Social Conflict (1990): books.google.nl/books?id=rrQeB…

"The altruistic community that emerges in the wake of natural calamity contrasts sharply with the social hatred that characterized Centralians’ response to their long-term, humanly-produced disaster”.

"social hatred" as a phrase really resonates with me right now in relation how people are experiencing the pandemic, government responses to the pandemic, and other people reacting to those forces.

please note that by putting the pandemic in this category of disruptive, human-made disasters I am NOT suggesting the virus was made in a lab; rather, the pandemic is the conjunction of the virus with human actions and behavior, many of which worsened its impact.

Not all of those actions were blameworthy. The pandemic only exists because of global travel, but most of the early spread occurred before people understood or could be expected to understand what was going on.

Since then, however, there have been mistakes and misinformation, calculation and profit, some unintentional and some intentional, that have worsened the disaster. The people affected are angry, frustrated, sad. I am angry, frustrated, sad.

Kroll-Smith and Couch write, based on their study of an underground coal fire in Pennsylvania, “communal bonds disintegrate and are replaced by emergent groups that compete for control of the crisis.” Sound relevant?

Another researcher, Freudenburg, surveyed research on technological disasters (1997) and found three broad areas that spur this "social hatred" and harm to communities: ambiguity of harm; the emergence of “corrosive communities”; and sociocultural disruption.

Again, I probably don't even have to elaborate on those for you to see them around you today.

Maybe sociocultural disruption, which isn't a very specific term: he uses it to mean the way authority figures/orgs lose that authority, disillusionment with previously unquestioned social fabric. They way you might trust your government less than you used to, and that is scary.

This is just to say: it is normal to feel uncertain, shaken, angry. It is normal that these feelings lead to anger at others who interpret uncertainty differently or blame someone different or cling to an authority you can't believe in anymore.