Pure, uncaring nature in all its power
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The ancient Greeks had a word for it: hubris — the arrogance of an unfettered ego that allows someone to think they are the centre of the universe. With our computers and iPods and cars and jets and technology, who can blame us for believing we're the biggest, baddest thing in the universe — nothing smarter, nothing more powerful.
And then nature comes along and puts us in our place.
It happened this week, when the sea floor slipped beneath the Indian Ocean and worlds collapsed — the worlds of millions of people, from eastern Africa to the far reaches of Asia; the worlds of parents who lost children, brothers who lost sisters, villagers who lost their homes — all their worlds torn asunder by a shift in tectonic plates, thousands of kilometres out to sea.
Sunday's earthquake, we're told, measured 9 on the Richter scale. The scale is exponential, meaning a quake measuring 8 is many, many times stronger than one measuring a 7.
A 9 is amongst the strongest ever recorded. Whatever the number, for most of us the power of the quake is pure abstraction.
Knowing that, scientists have tried to place the event in some kind of perspective, with one Italian expert noting the energy released was equivalent to 1,000 atomic bombs, of the size dropped on Hiroshima.
That's still pretty abstract — thankfully. Even videos of the disaster have an abstract air about them, with scenes of struggle and chaos framed by blue skies and beach-hotel lobbies linked in Western imaginations to tropical vacations. Indeed many survivors talked about how catastrophe appeared out of a flawless blue sky — death interrupting another day in paradise for tourists on a Thai beach, or for local fishermen working on quiet waters off an Indian village. That incongruous mix of everyday tranquility shattered by violence brings to mind another video, from Sept. 11, 2001, when death also came from clear skies, and images of the aftermath seemed to belong to the world of disaster movies, rather than reality.
This week's quake, though, demonstrated destruction on a vastly greater scale, both in terms of lives lost and devastation wrought.
And the quake was different in another way, too: it had nothing to do with mankind — no terrorists were involved, no governments in the background, no cause and effect linked to politicians or diplomats.
This was pure, uncaring nature in all its power, showing mankind yet again that despite the many achievements which shape the world we live in, we remain small and impotent against natural forces beyond our comprehension or control.
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The ancient Greeks had a word for it: hubris — the arrogance of an unfettered ego that allows someone to think they are the centre of the universe. With our computers and iPods and cars and jets and technology, who can blame us for believing we're the biggest, baddest thing in the universe — nothing smarter, nothing more powerful.
And then nature comes along and puts us in our place.
It happened this week, when the sea floor slipped beneath the Indian Ocean and worlds collapsed — the worlds of millions of people, from eastern Africa to the far reaches of Asia; the worlds of parents who lost children, brothers who lost sisters, villagers who lost their homes — all their worlds torn asunder by a shift in tectonic plates, thousands of kilometres out to sea.
Sunday's earthquake, we're told, measured 9 on the Richter scale. The scale is exponential, meaning a quake measuring 8 is many, many times stronger than one measuring a 7.
A 9 is amongst the strongest ever recorded. Whatever the number, for most of us the power of the quake is pure abstraction.
Knowing that, scientists have tried to place the event in some kind of perspective, with one Italian expert noting the energy released was equivalent to 1,000 atomic bombs, of the size dropped on Hiroshima.
That's still pretty abstract — thankfully. Even videos of the disaster have an abstract air about them, with scenes of struggle and chaos framed by blue skies and beach-hotel lobbies linked in Western imaginations to tropical vacations. Indeed many survivors talked about how catastrophe appeared out of a flawless blue sky — death interrupting another day in paradise for tourists on a Thai beach, or for local fishermen working on quiet waters off an Indian village. That incongruous mix of everyday tranquility shattered by violence brings to mind another video, from Sept. 11, 2001, when death also came from clear skies, and images of the aftermath seemed to belong to the world of disaster movies, rather than reality.
This week's quake, though, demonstrated destruction on a vastly greater scale, both in terms of lives lost and devastation wrought.
And the quake was different in another way, too: it had nothing to do with mankind — no terrorists were involved, no governments in the background, no cause and effect linked to politicians or diplomats.
This was pure, uncaring nature in all its power, showing mankind yet again that despite the many achievements which shape the world we live in, we remain small and impotent against natural forces beyond our comprehension or control.
This is an edited excerpt of an editorial from the St. John's Telegram.
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posted by þΛųL jØŋαŦhΛŋ @ 13:15
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