If you listened to political rhetoric these days, you’d think Washington state was headed over the brink. What drives policy? Talk of disaster.
Gov. Christine Gregoire, among others, is caught up in the gloom and doom. Politicians want a solution for Seattle’s tottering Alaskan Way Viaduct before it collapses into Elliott Bay. The Evergreen Point Bridge, Gregoire says, needs to be replaced before it sinks. The transportation department pulled all of the ferry service’s aging steel electric fleet lest they all fell apart right before Thanksgiving. Later, the governor was down on the Columbia River, saying a new I-5 bridge was needed to connect Washington and Oregon because we all know what happened in Minnesota when their bridge collapsed. Have an infrastructure need? Wave the bloody shirt of impending calamity and maybe you can break the gridlock.
In the meantime, real disasters (as opposed to future ones) have put the governor's leadership skills on display. She dealt with massive, FEMA-worthy floods on the west side of the Cascades and declared a state of emergency due to heavy snows on the east. Gregoire is everywhere when nature gets uppity, using the power of the state to restore order and stave off a grim future. Mishandling a disaster can make or break a politician. No one wants to suffer the fate of Bush or Brownie after Katrina.
It’s the job of leaders to worry. In ancient times, a king or queen looking for guidance might summon an astrologer or scryer to interpret ominous signs and portents. An oracle might be consulted, no matter that the seer might be stoned on volcanic fumes in Delphi. The old-fashioned version of a political pollster was a haruspex: a man, not unlike Karl Rove or James Carville, who consults the guts of sheep to help steer the course of empire.
But these leaders acknowledged they didn’t know the future. Today’s leaders assume they do: It all will go to hell if we don't watch every single step. We live in the age of terror, of global warming. The sky may not literally be falling, but climate change is causing our list of worries to grow longer: droughts, deluges, storms, tides, heat waves. And that’s just this week. Onetime “natural” disasters are all seen as manmade these days.
Unless, of course, that’s an inconvenient truth. In late 2006, when Seattle was overcome by torrential rains and a woman was drowned in her basement in the middle of town, the experts who examined the problem admitted some failure on the city’s part, but placed most of the blame on a “100-year storm.” When wild fires devastated southern California last year, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger defended the response of the state by indicating that it was overwhelmed by “the perfect storm.”
The language of disaster is used to whip us forward to solve chronic infrastructure problems, but is also an excuse for any policy failing or public-sector screw-up. We use disasters to get what we want, but they are also our scapegoats.
You might wonder what’s wrong with the politics of disaster. Isn’t it good to think ahead, to “hope for the best but prepare for the worst”? Of course. Prudence and caution and thinking ahead are civic virtues. But there are downsides to overusing fear.
One is the “crying wolf” effect. Too many warnings and people get cynical, like those who are wondering if the 520 bridge in Seattle is really so rickety, how come it's going to take 10 years to replace? Ditto the Viaduct, for which there is no replacement plan yet. And remember when former Gov. Gary Locke declared an “emergency” in order to hold a vote to keep the Seahawks from leaving?
Another problem is the implication that, if the correct policy steps are taken, disaster can be avoided. But disasters are inevitable, if infrequent, especially here in the Pacific Ring of Fire, where earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanic eruptions are geologically certain. We would do better to pursue policies that are realistic, not ones that suggest we can build a risk-free world.
And speaking of the risk- and liability-free fantasies, let’s remember that many of the classic infrastructure fiascos are not nature’s fault. The 1940 collapse of “Galloping Gertie,” the old Tacoma Narrows Bridge? Design flaw. The 1990 sinking of the old Lake Washington floating bridge? Workers left some hatches open. And that Minnesota bridge? It appears it wasn’t a victim of neglect. Rather, the NTSB concluded that it probably fell down because of a design flaw. What’s more, the flaw was exposed when extra weight was put on the bridge while it was undergoing maintenance. In other words, the bridge may have collapsed because it was being cared for. Never underestimate the creative destruction of human error.
Yet another downside of disaster-driven discussion is that fomenting panic can be an effective way of stampeding the public toward accepting unpopular policies. Having trouble paying for new freeways? Want to overcome resistance to road tolls? Scare folks into thinking their bridges are going to topple and you might get your way. That’s not leadership, however: It’s exploiting fear.
The temptation to hype disaster is deep within our civilization’s DNA. John Gray, professor at the London School of Economics, has authored a book called Black Mass: Apocalyptic Religion and the Death of Utopia. He contends that we have a long tradition of belief that the way to perfection is through apocalyptic destruction, a notion he says has been embraced by Christian fundamentalists, Islamo-fascists, French revolutionaries, Mao, Hitler, George W. Bush and the neo-cons, and numberless other cult leaders. It’s a religious tradition that is well-embedded even in today’s secular societies.
It’s a provocative thesis, but while no one in our state is quite so messianic, Gray’s theory does suggest why disaster messages are so effective at mobilizing the masses. We are raised to expect an apocalypse around every corner. That reliable reflex is something even the most benign politician will be tempted to exploit. L&P
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