Searching for Safety [Paperback]

Aaron Wildavsky (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0887387144 | ISBN-13: 978-0887387142 | Publication Date: January 1, 1988

Nuclear power plants, new vaccines and drugs, pesticides designed to improve agricultural production, and a plethora of other technological advances hold great promise of improving the quality of human life, but also pose great risks to human well-being. Protecting ourselves against the risks associated with these modern technologies has emerged as a major public concern throughout the industrialied world. Searching for Safety is unique in its exposition of a theory that explains how and why risk taking makes life safer. It also exposes the high risk in backwardness, whether it is a result of policy or inadvertent. The book covers a wide range, including how the human body, as well as plants, animals, and insects, cope with danger. Wildavsky addresses the master dilemma head on, asking whether piling on safety measures actually improves safety. While he agrees that society should sometimes try to prevent large harms from occurring, he explains why such anticipatory measures are usually inferior to a strategy of resilience -learning from error how to bounce back in better shape. His purpose is to shift the risk debate from passive prevention of harm to active search for safety. Written for the intelligent layman, the book will be of special interest to individuals concerned with risk, technology, health, safety, environmental protection, regulation, and analysis of systems for making decisions.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Aaron Wildavsky (1930-1993) was considered one of the most innovative and prolific scholars in the field of political research, particularly in the field of risk. At the time of his death, he was a  professor of political science and public policy at the University of California, Berkeley. His work focused on reintroducing the importance of culture to political science and he was most famous for his role in developing the cultural theory of risk.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 356 pages
• Publisher: Transaction Publishers (January 1, 1988)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0887387144
• ISBN-13: 978-0887387142
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,091,595 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars a brilliant and well-written book on risk, August 4, 1998

By 

J. Postma ([e-mail]) (Schiedam, Netherlands) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Searching for Safety (Paperback)

Wildavsky starts out with the jogger's dilemma. A small, acute risk is taken for granted for the purpose of staying healthy. Tha author points out two strategies to cope with risk: resilience versus anticipation. A society without risk is a society that doesn't learn (and therefore shows no progress). Wildawsky is a strong supporter of the strategy of resilience (organising for flexibility). Anticipation is preferable in cases where there is a predictable risk and at the same time there are possibilities to reduce the risk or to prevent the danger (for example nulear plants). Most of the time Wildavsky is in favor of resilience (unknown and unsure risks and no specific measures known). Society shows a tendency towards risk-aversion, which leads the author to the conclusion that society limits itself. Brilliant and very readible book on the subject of risk and the way society handles it.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Begin Thinking About Safety Here, January 7, 2008

By 

Lester H. Hunt (Oregon, WI United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Searching for Safety (Paperback)

I first read this book in 1994, when it was new, and it has influenced my thinking about safety and risk more than any other single source. It is very sad to think that Wildavsky is gone. What a loss!

3 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Why have corporations pay for prevention when you can stick the taxpayer with the clean up?, October 24, 2005

By 

John Burd (Coal Township PA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Searching for Safety (Hardcover)

I remember this book, it was an assigned text in a college class of mine. It was awful so I wrote a paper which resulted in the book being dropped the very next semester. The bookstore had already ordered them so that did not go over well, but I was proud to do my part in removing what this book promotes from the public conscience. I looked for my paper but could not find it. Without spending a lot of time reconstructing it, let me say that this book was not what it could have been. I wish it railed more against idiot-proofing the world... though its point that a simple yellow line seems insufficient to keep people off the train tracks, yet works well for its purpose, is appreciated. The book promotes building the cheapest nuke plant possible, and with the money saved, the standard of living will increase, offsetting the inevitable disaster that will result from our risk taking, but at least our emergency response teams will be more resilient for having cleaned up the mess. And how can you put a value on this increased preparedness? I am afraid the true goal of this book is to package a shift from the corporate costs of prevention to a government / socialized cost of clean-up in a yummy way whereby you dont realize that your are drinking the cool-aid. Yes, that is this book in a nut shell. To conclude from a study of adding safety features to nuke plants, that the enemy is "counterproductive safety measures" (P.140), and not safety features AS IMPLEMENTED BY a bloated, inefficient government is unexplainable. Check out this extreme comparison from page 25, "Poisons are an integral part of nature. So is chemical warfare among plants, animals and insects. To ban carcinogenic substances, therefore, is to ban life." Excuse me? Is there another creature that can create non-biodegradable carcinogens on anything like the scale of human beings? If not, then perhaps this is why humans were given BRAINS. So we can perceive how dangerous we can be if left only to the motives of warfare or profit. A true "search for safety" would properly factor in the irreversibility of the risk like genetic experiments gone awry. To this concern, the author simply uses the 'it hasn't happened yet' defense (P.40) Considering that 'killer bees' were a only breeding experiment, think of the possibilities of cauliflower virus markers jumping species. Why does the media concern itself with a possible viral transmute of bird flu, and ignore the same risk we intentionally subject to the vegetables we eat? I would suppose the author would praise the mere spot checking of beef for mad cow disease, as do I. But to defend the risks being taken with the genetic engineering of food crops? Regulation is the only safe method, and it is not being done. But then again, the world's soybean crop has not been wiped out by a heretofore cauliflower only virus - yet.