You remember the tag line from the old movie “Jaws?” Just when you thought it was safe to go in the water . . . then the ominous music that reminds us that it was never totally safe to go in the water. Things happen and sometimes, they are really bad.
Most of the time, in fact nearly always even though there are various sharks around, everything runs along with amazing smoothness given the complexity of modern living. The computer functions at blazing speed for years; the car starts 14,000 times in a row on the first try; thousands of off-shore oil wells pump billions of gallons for nearly a half century. Then the hard drive crashes, the battery is dead, and the Gulf coast may never be the same. In an instant all is changed and we are astounded that such a thing could happen. In the case of the BP disaster, the most amazing thing is that it has never happened, at least on this scale, before now.
When things work flawlessly, the tendency is to think that it will forever be so. Such is not the case; it never has been and never will be. All systems, humans included (maybe especially humans) are headed toward entropy. There are number of definitions for that word, but the one that fits best in this context is the inevitable and steady deterioration of a system or a society.
It happens so slowly that we don’t notice . . . until the cataclysmic event occurs. The hard drive crash and the car failing to start aren’t true disasters. When the heart stops, when the oil platform explodes, then things will never be the same for those involved. In most cases, changes have been occurring, unnoticed, for a long time.
Even before the smoke clears, the question floods into everyone’s consciousness: How could this happen? A better question is why we did not anticipate it. If that had been realistically addressed, then the disaster might have been avoided or at least modified.
Failing to have done that, the next reaction is find out who was to blame and deal with them. In many cases, there are those who should have known that trouble was lurking below the surface. They may have been too distracted by other issues to realize the seriousness of it. Worse still, they may have been too complacent in their current position. Worst of all, is that the issue was known and those in position to take preventive action failed to do so, usually for economic reasons.
Now, instead of the constant harping of those who don’t want the government so involved in regulating our lives, we are hearing that the government is at fault in the oil spill because of too little regulation. There is more than enough blame to go around.
Perhaps BP has been negligent; maybe the government has been too lax in its safety requirements; maybe the National Guard should have been mobilized to minimize the coastal damage as soon as the magnitude of the problem surfaced, so to speak.
Eventually, some state of equilibrium on our path to entropy will be achieved but if nothing else comes out of this, it should be a realization that nothing . . . absolutely nothing . . . is changeless.
I remember a fable about a man who constructed the perfect white fence; it was the most perfect structure in all the history of fences so he resolved never to touch it. In a remarkably short period of time—less than a decade—it had completed its entropic journey.
Solutions must be found. Blame, if just, must be adjudicated. As we as a society and as individuals continue our journey, its important to remember the words of Reinhold Niehbuhr: Give us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, the courage to change those we can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
By Hayden Hollingsworth [email protected]
