Anthropological Approach to Vulnerability and Major Hazards - Vulnerability of Coastal Ecosystems and Adaptation - page 264

disorder, but only that which is relative to a cosmology, that is to say
relative to a historically established order. In other words, human
societies evaluate the risks and dangers that could happen to them by
the light of their own world view. For reasons of simplicity, our
approach will only take account of two major anthropological
schemes: first, the so-called “modern” societies that believe that their
principle of general organization arises mainly from phusis (the laws
of matter) and, second, the so-called “traditional” societies that believe
that their principle of order arises above all from nomos (social rules).
In the conclusion section of this study, we will see, from the
second case (section 7.4), that what constitutes a catastrophe is not
always entirely negative. Within a single society, some individuals are
the victims whereas others profit from what has happened. In other
words, at a sociological level, there is always ambivalence toward
what happens, “the misfortune of some is the good fortune of others”
says the proverb. To go beyond the simple good sense of the proverb,
the in-depth study of the media treatment of the earthquake that struck
Edo (the old name for Tokyo) in 1855 will enable us to grasp the
intrinsic ambivalence associated with the reception of major hazards.
Finally, in section 7.5, an analysis will be presented, which will enable
us, on the one hand, to consider the profoundly ambivalent
character of all major hazards and, on the other hand, to demonstrate
its complexity in a synoptic form. This is in order to avoid
succumbing to a common tendency in the interpretation of
catastrophes: catastrophism.
7.2. Definitions: “environment and milieu” and “risk and danger”
In the following, the word “environment” designates objective
reality, that is to say what every individual must confront in order to
exist. In other words, whatever its form of life, every individual lives
within an environment that is shared with the entire living world.
Whether one is Papua or Breton, human or dog, or tick or lichen, the
environment is the same for all. However, although we live in a shared
environment, we perceive it in different ways. A Papuan does not pay
attention to the same thing as a Breton, a dog is not sensitive to the
same stimuli as a human, and similarly a tick and a lichen. Each