Aggressive Technology in a Century of Industrial Disasters

When the science of humanity turns its attention toward industrial civilization, it should consider not only the condition of industrial producers, which has been the staple of industrial anthropology in works such as those by June Nash (We Eat the Mines and the Mines Eat Us: Dependency and Exploitation in Bolivian Tin Mines. New York: Columbia University Press. 1979) and Aihwa Ong, (Spirits of Resistance and Capitalist Discipline: Factory Women in Malaysia. Albany. State University of New York Press. 1987) but also the distinctive characteristics of industrial societies. One of these is the tendency of industrial societies to democratize physical risk. Some of the unique characteristics of industrial technology, particularly its complexity and its aggressive deployment, have for the first time in history exposed broad reaches of humanity to man-made, large-scale risk. By examining the industrial disasters of the past century, both in their technological dimensions and their moral qualities, we can begin to construct an anthropology of industrial civilization.