Tag Archives: slow violence

Final Prompt

An Exciting Summer for Nuclear Futures and Environmental Humanities – (Contains some spoilers)

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Since the end of our spring semester class, there have been two media blockbusters (the television miniseries Chernobyl and the film Godzilla: King of Monsters) that have made an immense impact on premium cable and the box office respectively. Chernobyl is an HBO historical drama miniseries that serves as a graphic and in-depth recounting of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant disaster. Godzilla: King of the Monsters is the sequel to the 2014 Godzilla movie, but more than that it is a rather significant reboot of the new multimedia franchise and fictional universe, called the “MonsterVerse ” which also includes King Kong and his new movies.
Chernobyl is a five episode miniseries on HBO, a premium cable network, and was introduced right after the world-famous Game of Thrones series came to an end. The show itself is an excellent retelling of the specific events that happened in the early morning of April 26, 1986. The beginning of the show is the accident itself from the perspective of workers inside the nuclear power plant before, during, and after the explosion. It offers immense and accurate scientific background and information about how a nuclear power plant operates as well as what exactly went wrong inside the reactor to cause the disaster. Fortunately viewers will not get lost in a sea of nuclear physics jargon, because the scientific numbers and data get put in terms that everyone can understand for the sake of one of the main characters who is not a physicist but is a top bureaucratic official for Mikhail Gorbechev. In addition to the in-depth look we get at the nuclear power plant, we also get an equally fascinating view inside the Kremlin, the secret meeting spot for the top officials of the Soviet Union. It is here we get the full display of subterfuge, conspiracy theories, and the questionable decision making of the Soviet Union due to paranoia, pride and obsession.
One of the most significant aspects of the show is the in-depth perspectives of the main characters: an accomplished physicist with a terrible secret and a life-long bureaucrat questioning his lifetime of work. This gives us a chance to see inside two incredibly important communist institutions: the Kremlin, and the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. However, arguably the best part of the show is the graphic detail put forth to show the damage and dangers of nuclear radiation. The special effects showing the catastrophic power of the exposed core are phenomenal. One moving example is when the first of the firefighters on the scene accidentally touches a smoldering piece of exploded core material and within minutes viewers see that the radiation has eaten through his gloves and has already severely burned his hand. Radiation sickness is gruesomely brought to a new and hideous light in the show, as horrible disfiguring boils, lesions, tumors and scars eventually make the characters unrecognizable and virtually inhuman in appearance. The Chernobyl miniseries gives new material vibrancy to nuclear radiation, a topic which many people may not be familiar with, and gives the general public a horribly vivid example of slow violence. The damage slowly caused by nuclear radiation sickness that torments the human body and horrifically changes down to the cellular level.
There is one rather significant drawback to the show: all of the actors are British and nearly the entire script of the show is in English. This takes away from the full immersion of being in the Soviet Union during the Chernobyl accident and gives the sense of a British reenactment rather than an authentic Eastern European account. There are some parts of Russian dialogue and announcements and more often than not they were not translated, leaving us foreign in a supposedly genuine Soviet retelling. This does not make the show unwatchable, but it is definitely something viewers will notice .
Godzilla has represented the seen and unseen damage of nuclear radiation and technology for more than 50 years. He has gone from rampaging monster to protector guardian several times and has had his appearance changed as well. He has often reflected the general understanding and consensus of nuclear power of the time. However the impact of nuclear radiation on the environment has been a very strong premise in the Godzilla movie franchise. Godzilla: King of the Monsters changes that and makes it one of the major plot points in the movie.
Godzilla: King of the Monsters starts right after the disaster in San Francisco that Godzilla caused in 2014. Since that attack, many of the “titans” or gigantic radioactive monsters have been discovered and researched by a quasi-governmental agency called “Monarch.” As the movie quickly progresses, other titans are awoken by various means: some wake up on their own and some are awoken by an Eco-terrorism group that believes the titans will bring environmental balance back to the earth, a balance they believe humans have disrupted. In support of this claim, there is scientific and physical evidence of nature flourishing and thriving wherever the titans roam or rest. The movie also mentions how the nuclear radiation given off by the titans accelerates natural growth and actually heals the planet. The plot picks up when the Eco-terrorists awaken “Monster Zero,” or “King Ghidorah”: a three-headed, two-tailed, lightning-emitting, flying monster. King Ghidorah eventually awakens the remaining titans and causes them to go on a destructive rampage wherever they reside. However, Godzilla ends up defeating him, and the other titans submit to Godzilla and become peaceful once again. This resolution provides evidence for the first time in this movie series that Godzilla may actually be here to help the earth and humans.
Overall, Godzilla: King of the Monsters is a CGI-masterpiece thrill ride, but the acting and plot leave a lot to be desired. The struggle between Monarch and the actual government seems tedious and unnecessary, while the overall goals of the Eco-terrorism group is a bit one-dimensional. However, it brings a lot of new ideas and premises to the Godzilla “MonsterVerse.” There is a subtle yet powerful message of nuclear futurity and environmental humanities that cannot be ignored. Although the titans give off massive amounts of nuclear radiation and destroy entire cities, the simple solution of destroying the monsters is not a viable option as it only causes more destruction. The titans have become part of the planet and we have to learn to deal with the problems we create. The idea that we must learn from our past mistakes and work with them in order to fix them (like in the course text Staying with the Trouble) is a fundamentally important principle of Environmental Humanities. Hopefully this subtle yet powerful message is a recurring theme and message in the evolving “MonsterVerse” movie franchise.

Additionally, Dark just released its second season on Netflix today. So hopefully we will have more things to discuss about nuclear futurity.

Final Prompt

Slow Violence and the Importance of Interdisciplinary Research and Communication

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Rob Nixon and his book Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor provided me with a world of new information and insightful connections that really shaped my thinking about the world, specifically the importance of discussion and interaction between diverse fields of study in Environmental Humanities. As a person who enjoys studying both science and the humanities, I think having a diversity of knowledge is always important and this reading reinforced my idea of the importance of interdisciplinary study, research, and communication. In preface of the book he sites and connects the ideas of three prominent figures from different fields of academia.

First he discusses Edward Said, a professor of literature, who discusses world literature and politics, political idealism and the distribution of information. Distribution of information is how knowledge is divulged and disseminated by the rich and privileged, such as the government and monopolies, to the public. In the modern neoliberal era, hoarding knowledge and information is equivalent to hoarding natural resources and money. In addition, not sharing information could lead to information being entirely geographically-based and therefore not available to the entire world. This may lead to large scale misinformation and isolation, where “alternative communities all across the world, informed by alternate information, [are] keenly aware of environmental human rights and libertarian impulse that binds us together in this tiny planet” (Nixon X).

Nixon next considers Rachel Carson, a science writer who discusses the military industrial complex, socio-environmentalism, and environmentalism of the poor. Nixon explains that she emphasizes the problems of compartmentalizing expertise and information, bloated corporate funding and the privileged feigning objectivity and interest in humanitarian efforts.

Finally Nixon examines Ramachandra Guha a sociologist. He explains how Guha focuses on how environmentalism is connected to global distribution of justice, militarization and unequal rates of consumption. Guha also strongly rejects the ideas of sentimentalizing “traditional” cultures and ecology, as he thinks ecology is a rather stagnant field of study because it does not properly consider sociopolitical factors.

In the introduction to his book, Rob Nixon discusses a multitude of different ideas and examples to really describe the idea of slow violence. The first example that really reached me was the dumping of chemical, nuclear, and other hazardous waste to Africa by first-world countries to appease their own environmentalism. This idea was advocated by Lawrence Summers, the president of the World Bank who thought it would “help correct an inefficient global imbalance in toxicity” (Nixon 1). The idea that you can balance “toxicity” in the world by sending it somewhere else, rather than reducing output or making less toxic, is obviously absurd and self-serving. In addition to decimating these lands for natural resources, both in the past and present, we are now sending them toxic materials that we have no real idea how to manage. This will lead to a world wrought with irreversible environmental, social, political and economic calamity.

Nixon describes slow violence as “gradual, out of sight, delayed destruction across space and time” and also as “neither spectacular or instantaneous, but rather incremental and accretive” by giving examples like climate change, toxic drift, deforestation, acidifying oceans, and the aftermath of war. The average person, sadly myself before this class, considers these topics every now and then, when the media deems it devastatingly interesting enough. We always learn that they have been occurring for a constantly and for a long time and now it is too late to actually help. When I heard these environmental tragedies listed one after another and how they are all examples of slow violence, it dawned on me how they are all connected in a horrible ways. Nixon explains how the media and public only respond to sensational and visceral events and they ignore the ones that you cannot see or feel. This made me immediately think of distribution of information because if the rich and privileged control the media and information they control what the public understands and how they feel. This creates a public that merely respond to tragedy as inevitable because they are fed regulated information, which Edward Said deems aptly as “the normalized quiet of unseen power” (Nixon 6). This really made me think about how social media and the internet almost seem to promote this concept by the mindless “retweeting” and “liking” of other people’s ideas. This creates a culture of using and promoting media-approved information, rather than researching your own information and sharing your own ideas. Although promoting and disseminating information is an invaluable part of academia and the media, it must be done with diligence and integrity and be available to all people. Otherwise environmental problems, along with a slew of other problems, will never be properly considered and solved.

Although it has nothing to do with the environment or nuclear futures, the concept of slow violence has always made me think of the issue of concussions and CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy) in sports. I enjoy sports and frequently watch the ESPN channel on television. A topic that always arises every football season is CTE and how it affects so many former athletes. Recent research shows that multiple and consecutive concussions slowly damage the brain beyond repair and that it can start early as little league tackle football. The result has been an increase in funding for research and a lot of former athletes donating their brain to science. Tragically Dave Duerson, a former professional football player, ended up shooting himself in the chest so his brain could be donated and researched for CTE and other brain injuries. The result of this information has also led to a decreased participation in little league tackle football and many former and current professional football players saying they would not allow their kids to participate in tackle football at a young age. This damage is slowly accumulating, the results of the tackles aren’t as gruesome as broken limbs, and can only be seen until the damage is beyond repair. This is a version of slow violence would rarely be considered because CTE of athletes is outside the scope of conventional academia. Consequently those who know of the CTE problem would not have much of an opportunity to hear about a term like slow violence because it is a term used mostly in environmental-related areas of study. This damage is eerily similar to nuclear radiation, it is slow, invisible and irreversible. The only way to ease this damage is to prevent it from happening. Like the nuclear industry, football and other sports have monopolized regulations that favor monetary gain over proper safety. The public has begun to see the problems in both of these industries and many are advocating overhauling changes to both. Only time will tell if this will lead to safer regulations and practices in either sports or the nuclear industry.

 

Related articles:

Decreased Participation in Youth Football

http://www.espn.com/espn/otl/story/_/page/popwarner/pop-warner-youth-football-participation-drops-nfl-concussion-crisis-seen-causal-factor

CTE Found in Nearly All of the Brains Donated by NFL Players

https://www.npr.org/2017/07/25/539198429/study-cte-found-in-nearly-all-donated-nfl-player-brains

Prompt 2

Anti-Natal Futures

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As a queer person with no interest in raising children, I feel a personal stake in Sarah Ensor’s conception of avuncular futurity—an ecological perspective grounded in “nonreproductive (and indirectly invested) figures” (410). Ensor’s “spinster stands in a kind of slanted or oblique relationship to the linear, vertical paradigms of transmission that govern familiar notions of futurity” (416). As the strange aunt of the future, the spinster reminds us of contingencies, paths not taken, alternate relations, networks of non-linear being. Reading Ensor, I felt invited to imagine myself as the future’s confirmed bachelor uncle. And yet I wonder now if that is quite right. The spinster is, after all, specifically female and exclusively so in Ensor’s paper.

The spinster, we might say, is legible as a kind of social outsider precisely insofar as she has been abstracted from time. She becomes a spinster only once it has been determined that she likely has no marriageable future; when that happens, however, she also comes to have no past—or at least no past in which a future, or the desire for one, ever existed. (We need think here only of the oddly virginal resonances of the phrase old maid, which erases the spinster’s lived past in favor of a kind of ahistorical, perpetual innocence. (414)

It is the gendered social expiration date that in part enables the spinster’s out-of-time perspective and role. There is no male correlate to “old maid.” (Interesting that there is too no aunt correlate to avuncular.) Indeed, the winking “confirmed bachelor” suggests not a misfortune that befalls but a choice, a willful headlong orientation toward the (childless) future. Wikipedia offers a little serendipity here. “Confirmed Bachelor” redirects to an article called “He never married,” which is described as “a code phrase used by obituary writers in the United Kingdom as a euphemism for the deceased having been homosexual.” With “he never married,” often the last words of an obituary, the subject is identified as queer at the same time that he is written out of the present and the future. These are final words that relegate queerness to a past that is dead and disconnected. My point with this response is not to discredit or even really critique Ensor’s spinster futurity. Rather, I wonder what other kinds of queer futurity we might find that, like Ensor’s, reject or remediate the antisocial turn in queer scholarship. Further I think highlighting gender makes clear the feminist potential in Ensor’s work for opening modes of female futurity that do not depend on reproductive capacity. Spinster futurity, in resisting “do it for the children” kinds of environmental discourse with its oblique perspective, also opens up space to think about complex, slow, or cumulative environmental happenings outside of a neat chain of causality. In this way it seems almost the perfect match for orienting ourselves with respect to Rob Nixon’s conception of slow violence, perhaps unsurprising given both authors’ indebtedness to Rachel Carson.

In Staying with the Trouble Donna Haraway offers another reorientation toward the environmental future. Her troubled and troubling conception of the Chthulucene is similarly aligned with resistance to simple cause and effect environmentalism. Haraway’s exigence more than anything seems to be a profound awareness of limits—the limits of our ways of thinking, the limits of our narratives, the limits of our power as individuals and as a species. Haraway’s sympoietic tentacular chthonic Gaia is so impossibly complex that thinking only about one actor, element, or problem is laughably inadequate. She implicitly questions what the goal of environmentalism should be. It cannot end, she seems suggest; the chthonic ones laugh in the face of discrete goals. Her sense of a world that becomes-with is intimately connected to the Chthulucene: “an ongoing temporality that resists figuration and dating and demands myriad names” (51). I sense that it is no accident that her Chthulucene resists easy definition; in the time of the Chthulucene, present, future, and past seem to lose relevance to a billion different distributed and interdependent nows. Haraway’s embrace of “kin” over kids, a benign anti-natalism, is grounded in this profound sense of interconnectedness of time and effects as much as it is in a sense of “response-ability” for overpopulation.  In her introduction, Haraway articulates her resistance to the conception of a discrete future that leads to faith in technofixes or a sense of our efforts being “too late.” That latter futurity has a real danger of paralyzing activism. Haraway has done something remarkable in being able to overcome that panic without losing a sense of the urgency for action.

As in Ensor, I sense a potential in Haraway’s reorientation of the future to be able to better understand and represent slow violence. Indeed, slow violence seems positively tentacular. Taken together, Ensor and Haraway persuasively make a case for an alternative futurity being almost a pre-requisite for negotiating a less destructive relationship with the environment and, as Haraway suggests, moving us out of the Capitalocene (or perhaps the Neo-Liberalocene).

 

(“Future is so Queer” by Eltpics is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0)