# The half-life of disaster



## somnambulist (Apr 27, 2011)

The world's media-driven nerves quickly move from shock to vague foreboding and 'disaster capitalism' surges on

The world watched in horror as the northeast coast of Honshu was shaken by an earthquake of unimaginable magnitude, then razed by a tsunami of monstrous force. The natural disaster struck with a suddenness defying comprehension. It is as if a body blow to Japan had knocked the wind out of the world. The hit was so sudden as to leave one speechless. One minute, a city; the next, twisted metal and rubble. Life one minute; death the next.

The media images showed all there was to say: the horror. The breathtaking, senseless horror of it, surpassing the human scale of understanding. Then amid the rubble, life began to stir again. The media lens zooms in to the human scale. Language regains its descriptive traction. A family finds a loved one against all odds. A volunteer doctor travels 18 hours each way to spend a few precious hours of his weekend days off ministering to the traumatised and wounded. A last survivor is pulled from the rubble days after all were feared dead. The human stories apply a narrative balm to shock-raw nerves. The shock is soon alloyed with admiration for the Japanese people's calm and fortitude in the face of the disaster. An affective corner starts to be turned: from horror to heart warming.

Of course, nothing can ever expunge the horror. It will be archived. The images of the disaster will be held indefinitely in store. For as long as there is an internet, they will remain available for recirculation. It is not so much that the horror is replaced by human warmth and its accompaniments. It is rather that it "decays" in the media. The horror transmutes into a different affective element, its intensity halved, then halved again, eventually reducing to trace levels. Globally, the event settles back into a more stable range of the periodic table of collective emotion.

Όλο το κείμενο εδώ


----------

