Modern Disasters as Outrage and Betrayal

Abstract

The concept of disaster in the modern world has been socially constructed from traditional notions relating to catastrophic events. Disasters in modern societies contain strong elements of a release of repressed existential anxiety, triggered by a perceived betrayal of trust by contemporary institutions. It is speculated that the well-known “disaster myths “ that figure in media and other accounts of disastrous events are elements of a related characterization of disasters as a loss of control of social order.