A bear attacks a steel works in Japan. The Home Office reviews safety protocols. One might laugh if the symbolism were not so grim.
Here we have a creature of the wild, a symbol of untamed nature, violating the most artificial of human environments: a steel plant. The bear, displaced from its habitat by climate change or urban sprawl, wanders into a cathedral of industry and causes havoc. In Japan, this is a logistical problem.
In Britain, it is an occasion for the Health and Safety Executive to hold an urgent review. We have reached a point where the intrusion of a wild animal into a place of production is treated as a systemic failure rather than a freak event. This is the mark of a society that has forgotten what risk looks like.
The Victorians would have dispatched the bear with a rifle and returned to forging steel. We convene a committee. The contrast between Japan and Britain is instructive.
Japan, a nation that still remembers the samurai code of discipline and resilience, treats the incident as a curiosity. They will likely install better fencing and move on. Britain, ever eager to demonstrate its bureaucratic vigilance, will produce a 200-page report on 'wildlife risk management protocols'.
Our national character has shifted from one of stoic endurance to one of anxious prevention. We have become a nation of actuaries, calculating the probability of every improbable event. The bear attack is a gift to the commentariat.
It confirms every prejudice about the decline of industrial competence. But look deeper. The real story is not about bears or steel.
It is about the loss of a certain kind of courage. Courage to face the unexpected without a manual. Courage to accept that sometimes a bear walks into a factory and you have to deal with it there and then.
The HSE review is a symptom of a deeper malady: the illusion that we can warehouse all risk. We cannot. The bear reminds us that nature does not respect our categories.
