I have been overwhelmed by the events surrounding hurricanes Katrina and Rita and their aftermaths. And yet the natural disasters just keep coming. New Jersey and New Hampshire, among other places along the Atlantic coast, presently seem to be under water . . . Pakistan is shaking itself to pieces, literally; it's already snowing blizzards in Colorado; and we're experiencing long-term drought in eastern Nebraska.
Right after Katrina, a lot of "pundits" wrote letters to the editor of the Omaha World-Herald, suggesting (often in impolite terms) that New Orleans did not deserve to be rebuilt and that it would be a waste of money to do so.
If we followed that philosophy, no one would be able to live anywhere. We'd have abandoned San Francisco in 1906 (and 1988), Tucson in 1983 (flooding), Galveston at the turn of the last century, much of Florida after hurricane season (pick your year), Grand Island, Nebraska after the night of the 9 tornadoes, and so on.
Face it, folks. Life is risk. There is no place 100% safe to live. [Personally, and after having lived in/near all of the above-mentioned areas and in Southeast Asia besides, I prefer to stay in Nebraska: if a tornado comes, one has a possibility of NOT being smacked, but when any of the other named natural disasters occur, if you're where they are happening, you are smacked.--Ed.] Besides, we need to live in these "dangerous" places: they have ports, natural resources, gorgeous scenery, and other advantages we deem necessary for modern life.
What we need to stop doing is trying to control nature, for that seems only to increase the magnitude of the inevitable disasters when they occur. We must not destroy our wetlands (indeed, we must restore them), we must work to stop global warming, we must build with known technologies (and also develop new technologies) that let buildings survive earthquakes, storm surges, mudslides, and the like . . . and we need to remember that we are all in this together. More cooperation and less sniping are always in order.
If we'd learn to build and inhabit with nature and each other in mind, we'd better survive the storms of life, and better preserve the planet for our progeny to boot.
* * * * * * * * *
Coincidentally, I've just finished reading two books with widely divergent subjects, yet each deeply resonant after the present spate of natural disasters. The Children's Blizzard, by David Laskin, recounts the events and aftermath of a blizzard that hit the northern Midwest on January 12 and 13, 1888, wherein an inordinate number of children died because the storm came up suddenly just as they were leaving their rural schools for the day. "In three minutes, the front subtracted eighteen decrees from the air's temperature. Then evening gathered in and temperatures kept dropping in the northwest gale. By morning on Friday, January 13, 1888, more than a hundred children lay dead on the Dakota-Nebraska prairie . . ." (emphasis added)
The Great Mortality, by John Kelly, tells "the intimate History of the Black Death, the Most Devastating Plague of All Time."
Both books are so well-written that they read like novels, not like dry, dusty, self-important "History." Both books reveal the spectrum of human reaction, from selfless bravery to selfish venality, in the face of nearly incomprehensible events. And both books in their analysis show that some things don't change, no matter the time, the place, or the circumstances.
In The Children's Blizzard, one of the sub-stories is that of the fledgling federal weather service, some of its members' interactions with local bigwigs with clout, and those members' ouster in the face of the need always to find and punish scapegoats while letting the real architects of disaster off the hook. [Whatever happened to 'the buck stops here,' anyway?--Ed.] In The Great Mortality, one of the sub-stories contrasts what happened in the aftermath of plague in England as opposed to on the continent, concluding that "[s]ocial cohesion is a complex phenomenon, but applied gently--with respect for the vast differences in time and place--the Broken Windows theory of human behavior may speak to the relatively low level of upheaval in Black Death England.
"The theory, which informs much modern police work, holds that the physical environment buttresses the psychological environment the way a beam buttresses a roof. Why? Broken windows, dirty streets, abandoned cars, boarded-up storefronts, empty grass- and refuse-covered lots send the message: 'No one is in charge here.' And when authority and leadership break down, people become more prone to lawlessness, violence, and despair."
Eerie, isn't it? The hair on the back of my neck stood up when I read that, because the reported chaos in New Orleans fit that description exactly.
And yet, I wonder. Does the theory drive our perceptions, or do our perceptions drive the theory? After all, much of what was alleged to have happened in New Orleans in the wake of Katrina in actuality did not--I refer to the rapes, the robberies, the massively reported looting, and the shootings and beatings and what not. As more time passes, and better perspective is gained, we are finding that members of the Fourth Estate were so eager to get scoops on the air that they didn't check their facts first. And then the alleged horror stories took on lives of their own, and became embedded in our memories AS IF they were 100% fact, when they were in fact mostly false.
We have a microcosm of the birth of an urban legend here, methinks.
Don't misunderstand me. I do think the Broken Windows theory of human behavior is a good one. I've seen it myself. Neighborhoods that clean up and erase gang-related graffiti quickly after it appears have much less trouble with gang-related crimes than do neighborhoods which allow the graffiti to stay and besmirch them. But it's like any other stereotype: rooted in an observable fact, it can and has become so distorted and rigid that it becomes 100% true in people's minds despite being an incomplete description of isolated, specific behavior in one particular instance. So, did we see the rampant violence and lawlessness in New Orleans because that's what we expected to see, or did what we (thought we) saw shape our interpretation of events?
I am not sure what all this means. Every generation bemoans the declines in civilization and civility it sees as its children and grandchildren take over running the world . . . and this has been true for thousands upon thousands of years. Seems to me that we'd have hit bottom long ago if the naysayers in the older generations were completely right.
We must remember that difference does not inevitably equal decay.
And yet, when I compare "Cry havoc! And let slip the dogs of war!" to "Who let the dogs out?" I wonder.
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