"Apocalypses are not only catastrophes; they are also opportunities: chances for us to see ourselves, to change."
June 6, 2011 5:59 AM Subscribe
Apocalypse: What Disasters Reveal: An essay by Junot Díaz.
Fukushima reactor #1 has gotten really hot again.
posted by longdaysjourney at 9:22 AM on June 6, 2011 [1 favorite]
posted by longdaysjourney at 9:22 AM on June 6, 2011 [1 favorite]
This is what Haiti is both victim and symbol of—this new, rapacious stage of capitalism. A cannibal stage where, in order to power the explosion of the super-rich and the ultra-rich, middle classes are being forced to fail, working classes are being re-proletarianized, and the poorest are being pushed beyond the grim limits of subsistence, into a kind of sepulchral half-life, perfect targets for any “natural disaster” that just happens to wander by. It is, I suspect, not simply an accident of history that the island that gave us the plantation big bang that put our world on the road to this moment in the capitalist project would also be the first to warn us of this zombie stage of capitalism, where entire nations are being rendered through economic alchemy into not-quite alive. In the old days, a zombie was a figure whose life and work had been captured by magical means. Old zombies were expected to work around the clock with no relief. The new zombie cannot expect work of any kind—the new zombie just waits around to die.
And this too the earthquake revealed.
It's a shame this isn't getting a better discussion on the Blue. Diaz may not be treading particularly new ground in pointing out that "natural disasters" are more a result of the human socio-economic conditions in which they occur (and that said conditions are a result of profoundly powerful global economic forces), but he's a splendid writer for this kind of macro-elegy.
posted by Panjandrum at 12:40 PM on June 6, 2011 [1 favorite]
And this too the earthquake revealed.
It's a shame this isn't getting a better discussion on the Blue. Diaz may not be treading particularly new ground in pointing out that "natural disasters" are more a result of the human socio-economic conditions in which they occur (and that said conditions are a result of profoundly powerful global economic forces), but he's a splendid writer for this kind of macro-elegy.
posted by Panjandrum at 12:40 PM on June 6, 2011 [1 favorite]
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posted by jeffburdges at 6:31 AM on June 6, 2011