This is very simple. We live in a society that judges success by the things you are able to own. People feel good about buying things. We spend our life
Now, all of their material lives have been washed away. People are stealing things to comfort themselves in the material way that the advertising agencies have been conditioning people to do forever.
It's flooded, you have nothing. The idea of a TV might make the guy feel better. Should people be stealing? Only for real needs. Do I understand the psychological reaction that is causing it? Yes I do.
-The Oklahoma Hippy
As far as people not grasping how this occurs, I think the fundamental problem is that most people in this country (as you have pointed out previously) have a very sheltered and insular view of the world. People both fail to consider the rammifications of their own actions on others, as well as ignore the potential effects of events outside their own immediate social and geographic boundaries upon themselves.
ReplyDeleteBut to look at some specifics and reitterate the failure of government in this situation:
a) Several precincts in New Orleans have had massive walk-outs by law enforcement officers who remained behind initially. They left, without question, because they did not receive enough aid from state and federal parties within the necessary time-frame (which would have ideally been from a point prior to the hurricane's actual arrival). Ignore for a moment the concept that many of these men and women have also, like their neighbors, lost everything worldly and lost people they cared for, and consider that even those who still chose to remain in the face of that adversity were simply abandoned to that fate alone. The only reasonable thing to expect is that a large portion of them would eventually just give up.
b) The mobilization of aid workers that occurred with any significant immediacy came largely from the private sector. Religious organizations and privately held charities reacted within hours of the worst-case scenarios becomming a reality because they prepared for days in advance for that contingency. But these people aren't trained to maintain order among frightened and desparate people; to put it more clearly, they are trained to work in miserable conditions but they are not trained to operate against an opposition (like people sniping at rescue workers and helicopters delivering food). There is a vast organization that is trained to do that kind of job under those kinds of conditions...but unfortunately they're all preoccupied overseas.
c) New Orleans wasn't exactly a shining example of public safety and community welfare without the hurricane; this is a city with a long history of high violent crime rates, corruption in government and law enforcement, and a harsh dividing line between the poor and disenfranchised and the rest of the city. I think it is reasonable to say that social Darwinism and pragmatism are second nature to the disaffected people who couldn't afford to leave in time, not to mention the opportunistic gang members and other criminals who thrive on the misery of others even during good times. Social control (i.e., crime rates, public mores, investment in community, etc) in this kind of environment absolutely rely on external methods like law enforcement and political leadership, and when the city and state infrastructures are taxed beyond their ability to cope, the only place to turn is the federal government...who waited until the last minute to give a reactive effort rather than attempting to proactively protect the lives of those people.
d) And last but not least, there is the factor of hope. When the Federal Building was bombed in my native Oklahoma City, the reaction from neighboring states and the federal government took minutes...not days. The same could be said for 9-11. Yes, the logistics of both situations are dramatically simpler than the de facto destruction of an entire city, but effectual or not that same level of urgency and immediacy should have been there and was not. Arguments about intelligence agency failures aside, the nation was forced to react to those events after they occurred, whereas this was entirely forseeable and much of the problems entirely preventable.
So, disregarding the element of society that commits murder and rape in this situation, the anger, frustration, and isolation that even the most decent of person must feel under these circumstances can lead nowhere but to an utter lack of consideration for anything other than survival. Even under the best of auspices, when safety and recovery from disaster are guaranteed, people are prone to panic and become irrational; imagine for a moment being in one of those situations of massive proportions...and knowing -- not suspecting, but knowing...that you had been written off.
That is what causes this to become epidemic. The lack of leadership, the absence of consequence, and the death of hope.
~J