IN LESS THAN two centuries as a US state, California has maintained its reputation as a sunny paradise while also enduring the nation’s most erratic climate: the occasional massive winter storm roaring in from the Pacific; years-long droughts. But recent investigations into the fossil record show that these past years have been relatively stable.
(from ‘The Biblical Flood That Will Drown California’ Wired Magazine Online)
“unprecedent
ed” is one of the most frequent adjectives popular media attaches to current events. To me, most uses of this term are an egregious example of fake news ranking along with white supremacy, climate change denial, and anti-vaccination propaganda.
To be ‘unprecedented’ an event must never have happened before – ever. That’s not just within your grandmother’s memory, that’s never, never on this Earth, never in the universe. To label something that you haven’t happened to hear about as ‘unprecedented’ is the height of ignorant, self-centered egotism and very dangerous.
Why is this dangerous? Because it lulls the listener into thinking the event won’t happen again and that there is no point in preparing for it. It encourages confirmation bias, the idea that what I already know about is important and that broadening my information about the world has no value to me. It promotes a sense of helplessness, the feeling that, as a human being, I am in the grip of forces I have no tools to manipulate and am facing problems no one has ever confronted or solved before.
Whether a headlined event seems positive or negative to us, let’s push back when reporters try to exaggerate our emotional response with that word, “unprecedented”. Humanity has survived and thrived for much longer than our historical record. As the article quoted at the beginning of this blog demonstrates, “hasn’t happened in over 100 years”, “is unknown in my country”, or “is unacceptable within my culture” doesn’t mean it has never been seen before.
The news media needs to do its homework. Unusual or unfamiliar events, both bad and good, are an opportunity to uncover historical, geological, behavioral or cultural context, to see events within the broader scope of human and planetary experience. There isn’t much new under the sun.