A paradise built in hell
A startling investigation ofwhat people do in disastersand why it mattersWhy is it that in the aftermath of a disaster—whether manmade or natural—people suddenlybecome altruistic, resourceful, and brave? What makesthe newfound communities and purpose many findin the ruins and crises after disaster so joyous? Andwhat does this joy reveal about ordinarily unmet socialdesires and possibilities?In A Paradise Built in Hell, award-winning authorRebecca Solnit explores these phenomena, lookingat major calamities from the 1906 earthquake in SanFrancisco through the 1917 explosion that tore upHalifax, Nova Scotia, the 1985 Mexico City earthquake,9/11, and Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. Sheexamines how disaster throws people into a temporaryutopia of changed states of mind and social possibilities,as well as looking at the cost of the widespread mythsand rarer real cases of social deterioration during...
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- If you think most people "are just terrible", I think you've let cynicism corrupt your thinking, and I don't think we're going to get very far by talking.
I believe the opposite -- people fundamentally want to help each other, and we've structurally set up our society to force people out of that mode and into a competitive mode. Read "A Paradise Built in Hell", when push comes to shove, communities care for each other.
If we covered everyone's basic food, housing, education, and medical needs, I guarantee you'd see crime and addiction plummet.
- 'A Paradise Built in Hell' by Solnit is a good read about it
- > Would you agree it's less ominous, maybe even noble, when shit hits the fan though?
The "family first, others second" interpretation is, I think, even more problematic when shit hits the fan. In disasters, it never benefits a community to turn on itself. And in fact, I believe the natural human reaction to disaster is to become more altruistic rather than less; see "A Paradise Built in Hell" by Rebecca Solnit for more on this.
The actually noble interpretation of "family first" is "family first, my own priorities second," at least so long as it doesn't lead to unhealthy self-sacrifice.
- > Many people don't even have cash anymore, either in their wallet or at home. In case of a longer power outage a significant part of the population might not even be able to buy food for days.
So, what's really interesting is that these sorts of social collapses have happened. In fact, they often happen when natural disasters strike.
When they do happen, mutual aid networks just sort of naturally spring up and capitalism ends up taking a backseat. All the sudden worrying about the profits of Walmart are far less important than making sure those around you don't starve.
As it turns out, most people, even managers of stores, aren't so heartless as to let huge portions of the population starve. Everyone expects "mad max" but that scenario simply hasn't played out in any natural disaster. In fact, it mostly only ends up being like that when central authority arrives and starts to try and bring "order" back.
You can read about this behavior in "A Paradise Built in Hell" [1].
- Except that does not happen. For example, https://www.shareable.net/disaster-collectivism-how-communit...
“When a disaster strikes, like the flooding in Houston [after Hurricane Harvey], for example, you see everyday people pouring out all this generosity and solidarity,” says Christian Parenti, associate professor of economics at John Jay College in New York City. ...
"This idea is reinforced by author Rebecca Solnit in her landmark book, “A Paradise Built in Hell,” in which she explains that, “in the wake of an earthquake, a bombing, or a major storm, most people are altruistic, urgently engaged in caring for themselves and those around them, strangers and neighbors as well as friends and loved ones.”
Okay, it does happen in Siege of Leningrad conditions where people will murder for a ration card, but even then it was not something people were just going around and doing.
- Rebecca Solnit wrote a book, "A Paradise Built in Hell", on how people behave during disasters, and found broadly the same thing - contra the prepper myths, most people most of the time faced with disaster come together to work cooperatively to help each other.
We're a fundamentally social species - we've got smaller brains than Neanderthals did, we're not a particularly tough species, but we're very, very good at cooperating with each other.
