The End of the World As We Know It?
Like many Americans, I am sitting helplessly by, watching the collapse of society as we know it in New Orleans. Aside from the loss of civil services, technology and power is the loss of human dignity. I am not talking about people being subjected to horrendous conditions which force them to break into stores in search of bread and water. I am talking about the seeming inability of those same people to properly assess their situation and try to help each other.
Why are people taking vacuum cleaners, televisions and electrical appliances? What will they possibly do with them in their flooded homes, in their condemned neighborhoods? And why steal the guns and ammo? Is it to hunt down the native wildlife for food, or to shoot at helicopters that are trying to save lives?
It will take years to analyze what has gone wrong here. Most importantly, why a city so vulnerable didn’t seem to have enough planning in place for the protection of its poorest citizens in the face of such a disaster. How could a city that exists only because of the strength of man-made barriers not be better prepared for their failure? And how long it will take to figure out how and why the citizens who found themselves in this devastation were unable to rally together to help each other, and instead, descended to the lowest level of barbarism?
New Orleans is not alone – this is the same question that came up when people in Iraq started to destroy their electrical infrastructures and oil refineries. Why would you destroy the very systems needed to sustain your own life? What drives human beings into acting in ways that are so contrary to survival?
I’ve been thinking back to the events of 9-11 and the tsunami, and cannot recall any stories of such lawlessness and disregard for others. Did it happen and we just didn’t see it?
And I wonder, as I watch events unfold, is this a warning to us all of how fragile our system of “civilization” is?
posted by Noreen @ Thursday, September 01, 2005
2 Comments:
I am simply disgusted by the lack of response to this disaster. The President FINALLY went to see the damage-FIVE days after the hurricane. People have gone without food and water for five days-the human body cannot be without water for that amount of time, especially in that heat. I just cannot believe how government officials can blatantly lie and minimize the devastation. The reports from the government and from those actually in the city are entirely contradictory. One wonders if they are even speaking about the same event. Perhaps the devastation could have been minimized if those trained to handle these types of emergencies-namely, the National Guard-were here to help, not stuck over in Iraq. I am enormously grateful that I was not affected by this disaster, but horrified that tens of thousands of people have been essentially ignored in their suffering for five days. It's no wonder many of them have completely lost hope.
-Your 1st daughter
I was wondering whether we were watching a collapse of society in what we were seeing in New Orleans, or perhaps we were seeing the results of a previous collapse of society in those who have become sheep, those who believe it is the government's responsibility to take care of them. Perhaps we should teach these people to take care of themselves, perhaps someone should have taught them long ago they are responsible for where they find themselves, and they are expected to act to survive, not just sit around waiting for someone to save themselves. They really did remind me of a sheep that we had once. It had tried to cross a creek that was partially frozen, and had broken through the ice. It laid there in the water, not even struggling, just bleating now and then. The water was only three inches deep! It could have stood up and walked out! We had to put a rope on it and pull it out onto the bank.
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