The Bombing of Hiroshima as an "Affective Event"

Lauren Berlant negotiates the way that intense moments of crisis can be interpreted and then retold in order to build on what she calls the "historical present". Her essay holds its basis in asking "How does a particular affective response come to be exemplary of a shared historical time, and in what terms?"(Berlant 845). She builds her claim that "affect, the body's active presence to the intensities of the present, embeds the subject in an historical field, and that its scholarly pursuit can communicate the conditions of an historical moment's production as a visceral moment"(846). This statement reminded me of how the intensity and complexity of the after affect of the bombing of Hiroshima creates a kind of emotional affect that can differ between the communities who experience the effect and from which perspective the violence was committed and received from. The communal affect that can be produced by media becomes part of the history of the event. I began thinking about the way that the common affect produced post-Hiroshima in the United States was one built upon a combination of awe, sympathy, and the evasion of responsibility. This kind of affect can then become part of the "historical present" and work to define both those who are able to tell the story of the present as well as those whose voices are limitted. I think it is important to understand "affective events" such as Hiroshima, and try to understand what type of history is being told through our actions in the present.