The Ethics of Memory: Commemorating Disasters in an Age of Risk

Abstract

While technological disasters have become common to contemporary society, little attention has been paid to the relationship between memory and risk society. By analyzing a commemoration marking the fortieth anniversary of the 1972 Buffalo Creek, West Virginia coal impoundment failure, this article argues that these types of commemoration serve as a resource for a collective identity of advocacy, an identity, however, constituted by fear and distrust. As a form of deliberative rhetoric, a disaster commemoration may also generate a vision of the future and establish the inexpediency of certain modern industrial practices and products. While the generation of public fear raises ethical issues, the creation of such an emotional state serves as a means of political advocacy and collective public action.

Notes

After the Buffalo Creek flood, the existing Coal Mine Health and Safety Act of 1969 was expanded to include new regulations. In addition, Congress passed the National Dam Inspection Act of 1972 and similar dam inspection legislation was passed in West Virginia in 1973. The Buffalo Creek disaster also prompted a movement that eventually led to the 1977 Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act.

Catastrophes such as the Exxon Valdez, Chernobyl, the Bhopal chemical tragedy, and Love Canal exemplify the tendency to offer commemorations at such milestone anniversaries as the 5th, 10th, and 25th year after the initial disaster.