Thursday, October 06, 2005
WHIP IT, WHIP IT GOOD!
People have a habit of losing their civility when their habits are challenged. As basic necessities dwindle, the veneer of social graces tends to evaporate. Victor Frankl painted a deeply stark and riveting portrait of World War II concentration camp behavior when he described the deterioration of social conventions among intelligent, cultured people - those the Nazi killing machine was targeting. These descriptions are clinical because Frankl was a psychoanalyst, but heartfelt too because he was also a victim/prisoner.
My intent here isnt to quote at length from his book in order to support the concept that there were similar parallels in the breakdown of human behavior in New Orleans. My argument is that when a large number of people are deprived of the availability of water food and shelter, the eventual result is certainly going to be a deterioration of the general order which we take for granted during times of calm.
The job of the government is to intercede when that calm is broken but especially BEFORE the balance of order/chaos has tilted to the side of calamitous desolation.
To blame the people of New Orleans of disintegrating into a mobocracy when it was obviously the result of goverment's failure to respond, is comparable to accusing the back of brutalizing the whip.
My intent here isnt to quote at length from his book in order to support the concept that there were similar parallels in the breakdown of human behavior in New Orleans. My argument is that when a large number of people are deprived of the availability of water food and shelter, the eventual result is certainly going to be a deterioration of the general order which we take for granted during times of calm.
The job of the government is to intercede when that calm is broken but especially BEFORE the balance of order/chaos has tilted to the side of calamitous desolation.
To blame the people of New Orleans of disintegrating into a mobocracy when it was obviously the result of goverment's failure to respond, is comparable to accusing the back of brutalizing the whip.
