I. History of monsters Flashcards
What is the overall narrative of the module?
From monsters to risk and back again
What are parts I and II?
I: Diagnosis i.e. what are monsters and how have we created them?
II: So what? i.e. in light of these monsters, what should be/has been done?
Define risk according to modern science.
The probability of a known event occurring
Define ecological risk.
New risks different to ‘insurable’ risk that are unmeasurable, incalculable, uncontainable, threaten life itself, have such complicated/complex causes that no single entity can be blamed nor held responsible (Ewald, 1993?)
What is a normal accident?
From Perrow’s Normal Accidents Theory (1984), accidents involving unanticipated interactions of multiple failures, when systems are complex and tightly coupled
What were “monsters” in the past?
Medieval framing of “the unknown” – supernatural, acts of God, uncontrollable, fate, divine will, luck, fatalism -> intervention to appease gods or powers i.e. pilgrimages, sacrifices
(Lupton, 2013)
e.g. ‘Namazu’ in 1700s folklore
How did “risk” come to replace monsters?
Enlightenment – 17th/18th century exploration, auditing, development of science i.e. record-keeping, data collection, measurement and calculation -> realisation that we can be responsible for changes
Science of statistics – using populations to identify patterns in individually random events -> risk no longer fate, but a result of behaviour and rendered calculable, measurable = definition of ‘risk’
Implication that we have ability to govern chance, minimise danger, take control of surroundings.
(Lupton, 2013)
What are two examples of the early “power” of science?
John Snow’s identification of water-borne cholera in 19th century London (1855)
Sir Alexander Fleming’s discovery of penicillin (1920s)
How have we returned to a society that engages with “monsters” as opposed to risk?
Industrial development - new disasters emerge directly because of human creations e.g. Titanic (1912)
19th and 20th century - emerging ‘monsters’ in literature (Shelley’s Frankenstein, 1818) and media (Godzilla, 1950s)
Fears of manmade disaster, power of science, nuclear, radiation. A new ‘order’ of risk (Ecological)
Monsters as ‘the product of complexity, assemblage and denial’, rise of ‘techno-natures’ i.e. ANT, STS -> mixing/hybridising of humans and nature, new complex interconnections, proliferating, in being ignored disaster occurs and we don’t know how to prepare/deal with it
What event exemplifies the way growing interconnectivity and complexity has resulted in (inevitable/uncontrollable) catastrophe?
Deepwater Horizon (2010) -> a result of hubris, desire for growth and ignorance of potential risk?
Drilling previously forbidden in Gulf of Mexico, oil industry ‘convinced regulators’ that safe, had the tech
Pipe ruptured – under-reported uncertainties, lack of recognition of changes in pressure and operational errors -> worst oil spill (780,000 m3!)
11 died on the oil rig, livelihoods + biodiversity ruined on coasts
Actors blamed: BP deferred blame on actual owners ‘Transocean’, further deferred onto Halliburton, who made the seal/tech -> National Oil Spill Committee blamed everyone
Could blame the ‘technoculture’ i.e. dependence on and drive for oil, BP, UK backing BP, interconnected shareholders
What did N. Klein (2011) say about the Deepwater Horizon incident?
It was perhaps a result of ‘culture’s dangerous claim to have complete understanding and command over nature that we can re-engineer the world with minimal risk to the natural systems that sustain us’ (i.e. hubris)
Outline Latour’s argument (2014)
Love your monsters.
‘We have failed to care for our technological creations’ - reminiscent of Shelley’s Frankenstein or Prometheus (hubris)
‘We have taken the whole of Creation on our shoulders…become coextensive with the Earth’
Two options, a decision to make -> keep trying to ‘modernise’ and emancipate from nature thereby ignoring growing interconnectivity (+ mosnter-creation) OR take a “compositionist” approach and embrace nature, become MORE INVOLVED with it, adopting precautionary approach, stop kidding ourselves that we can be free from nature
