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Not until we experience new forms of disaster can we understand what it is we need to prevent.
A report of the International Atomic Energy Agency supposed that “the designation of the affected population as ‘victims’ rather than ‘survivors’ has led them to perceive themselves as helpless, weak and lacking control over their future.” The nuances of the terminology reflect degrees of stigma, but they influence stigma too—the names we give to people’s discomfort affect how uncomfortable those people make us.
I feel this way all the time now. Nothing is safe. Everything’s fine.
Our inaction in the face of global warming seems a clear case of this. And we’ve had forty years to get our shit together. As a recent New York Times feature noted, “Nearly everything we understand about global warming was understood in 1979.” Why can’t we or won’t we save ourselves?
“Reality is different. We have to discover what is out there—what is real and what is merely a product of our imagination.”
Sometimes I think evil is merely cumulative, an effect of scale, a swarm intelligence. If it was just two boys who found each other in the woods, wouldn’t they band together, become friends? Or would they become a group in search of an enemy?
