I have been thinking a great deal about a book I recently read, A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities That Arise in Disaster, by Rebecca Solnit.
It highlights the mutual aid communities that often spring up in the immediate aftermath of a disaster. While it is hard to think of a disaster as a positive structure, the book makes clear that something positive (and perhaps amazingly positive) can spring from such challenging roots. Examples assessed include the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, 9/11 in NYC, an explosion of an ammunition freighter during World War I in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Hurricane Katrina and the Mexico City earthquake of 1985.
What happens in the immediate aftermath of a disaster?
In the moments just after a disaster, the people on the scene already (aka the survivors) are the true "first responders". Indeed, at the World Trade Center, firefighters heading up the stairs encountered people coming down the stairs carrying others in wheelchairs. In San Francisco in 1906, with the city government and systems not functioning at all in the aftermath, people hauled cooking equipment out into the street to cook food for their neighbors, and indeed for anyone passing by who was in need. Communities of "mutual aid" sprung up where people helped other people, and there was, in the remembrance of participants, a surprisingly high and palpable level of joy amidst the difficulties.
People in the immediate vicinity do what needs to be done. Lower Manhattan was evacuated after 9/11. The water borne part of the evacuation (of about 500,000 people) was improvised spontaneously by people who used their boats to move people out of Manhattan. In earthquakes, survivors begin digging immediately.
What's going on?
In Solnit's view, the disaster removes the normal structures of society that usually guide people. The key institutions aren't functioning, and people feel free to improvise. They also feel a huge desire to give; for example after 9/11 bloodbanks all over the country were overflowing with people who wanted to do what they thought they could do to help. People on the scene give by doing what needs to be done. This spirit of giving continues until the authorities respond by sending in a bureaucratic organization (be it the army, the National Guard, or the Red Cross) to "organize" the response. The arrival of the professionals restore "order" (even if there was no disorder) and removes the apparent need for mutual support, destroying the temporary paradise that had been created of people giving and sharing. (Solnit also has a lot to say about the fears and responses of the local and national elites about people running their own lives, which she calls "elite panic".)
(Not) mesmerized by what we have to do
Solnit notes that in New York City in thedays just post-9/11, when lower Manhattan wasclosed and transportation was limited, but the rest of the city was physically largely unaffected, people were on the streets but didn't have any goal or task to do. As a result, people could come out and talk, come out and share. The removal of the daily tasks of life made people see the mutual, human world that was available under the surface of the never-ending treadmill of a world they usually feel they inhabit. People could just be with each other, without having some particular end in mind, and that felt very special and very good.
The lasting impact -- the example of Dorothy Day
I was also impressed with the story Solnit related about Dorothy Day, who founded The Catholic Worker newspaper and organization. Day was 8 years old and lived in Oakland during the San Francisco earthquake. The generosity of the people of Oakland to the survivors who came to sleep in Oakland's parks was an inspiration for Day throughout her life; she strove to recreate the spirit of those days just after the disaster. It was her experience as a child of the post-earthquake community that led her to a life devoted to creating a space where people could enact the goodness she saw they had in them.
So what?
Self-organizing, mutually assisting communities that bring so much joy should not depend on an earthquake or a hurricane or an explosion to happen. People are good at improvising and they like to help each other. I'd like to think about more ways to let this happen; we need to figure out how to get out of the way and let it happen. Have any ideas?
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