On bawling calfs and the responses they demand

    Among the depressing daily stories about the chaotic efforts to clean up the nuclear disaster at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, the one on the front page of the New York Times last Sunday disturbed me even more than usual. The story was about the farm animals abandoned in the nuclear evacuation zone, and effectively left to starve to death--since their meat is no longer suitable for sale, and since there is no one left in the zone to take care of them. It was also about one farmer, who upon his return to his farm for a permitted brief visit to check on things, encountered a newborn calf, bawling hysterically next to its mother who had collapsed of starvation immediately after its birth. Something in that farmer snapped at that moment, and he decided to defy the authorities, move back onto his land, and do the best he could to feed the remaining radioactive animals left on his farm and on his former neighbors' farms.
    There are many legitimate and important way one could think about this incident – – whether the farmer's action were really motivated by compassion, or represented some sort of instrumental political gesture; what responsibilities humans should have to nonhumans in cases of humanly caused environmental disasters, and much more.
    Yet I wonder if in addition to all these, there is room for another kind of question, one we might tentatively call theological: as that image of the bawling calf beside its dead mother, the wonder of birth alongside the tragedy of death by abandonment, turns over and over in my mind this week, I begin to wonder if thinking about the Fukushima disaster as a result of vested interests, or the failures of expertise, or even the stupidity or selfishness of individual politicians is just not enough. Do we need another word, maybe even an old-fashioned theological work like Evil?
    I think about this farmer, too. He evidently has come under heavy criticism from the authorities for selfishly putting himself at risk, and forcing them to spend scarce public resources on him. He has come under equally heavy criticism from the political machinery for political grandstanding – – for making a global case out of a bawling calf--and even from some veterinarians who maintain that the overcrowding of animals on his farm is now inhumane. But what I think really moves some and disturbs others about what he has done is the incontrovertible fact of his personal sacrifice and his empathy for another set of living beings. As he tells it, his decision to save these animals just came in a flash, on seeing that calf, as if it was the most straightforward and simple decision in the world. This act is political, but it is powerfully political because it is also a straightforward and uncomplicated act of love.

Comments

[Steve Shiffrin]

Wonderful post, Annelise!

[Jimbino]

In Japan, I'm sure, the plural of "calf" is "calves."

[Patrick S. O'Donnell]

Oops: Annelise (I've never typed your name before, so please forgive me!)

[Patrick S. O'Donnell]

Nice inaugural post Annelies: thanks.

The only question I might answer or approach differently concerns the need for the term evil in this context. I'm not necessarily in favor of jettisoning the concept, but I don't see how it adds anything to either the explanation of what happened at Fukushima (including the decisions and imperatives that led to reliance on nuclear power to meet energy needs) or the lingering socio-political, economic, and ecological effects of the disaster. Indeed, I think if we properly understand the nature of contemporary capitalism and technology, the modern State, and some political and cultural variables perhaps unique to Japanese society, the notion of evil is irrelevant. It may serve to capture the existential anxiety, psychological unease and moral frustration that often accompanies our response to such disasters...or perhaps not. In fact, I suspect the tendency to invoke the idea of evil to make sense of what occurred here tends to weaken the kind of resolve and political will we need to prevent such disasters in the future, including a pellucid grasp what might have made such a disaster more probable in the first instance.

This may be especially the case if we see attributions of evil often have to do with what others have done, how others behave, projecting such characterizations on "the Other," be it terrorists, psychotic criminals, or genocidal actors (or, more vaguely, evil is, so to speak 'in the air' such actors breathe). It provides at once a consolation and a measure of distance, out of sorts, it seems with the rest of the story here.

Relatedly, I think it is mistaken with regard to possible motives, none of which seem irremediably evil, even if immoral, ignorant, selfish, what have you (the motley motivational structure mentioned in your post). Undoubtedly some individuals were possessed of decent intentions and most probably had mixed motives but I can't see how the concept of evil helps us better understand such motives or work to alter such motivational structures in the future (and, given my understanding of human nature, I believe in the possibility of such alterations).