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Nature shows bad sides of Human Nature
Sep. 1st, 2005 09:58 amIt strikes me that Hurricane Katrina has shown some of the bad sides of human nature.
I may be wrong, but it seems to me that there are three basic groups of people who remained in New Orleans for "bad" human nature reasons. Two of these groups (the stupid, who didn't believe how bad it would be, and the criminal, who hoped to take advantage of others) aren't really worthy of help, in my opinion, and I don't feel badly at all for what they are now suffering.
The third group, however, is the poor. This group exemplifies a truly bad side of human nature -- that of the non-poor who treat the poor as something less than human. Why weren't the poor evacuated from the city? When the forecasts were for New Orleans to be uninhabitable for at least several days (with no drinkable water or sewer facilities), how could anyone have thought that putting people in the SuperDome was a reasonable solution? People who could afford to take time from work left days early. Others hopped in their cars and traveled to hotels outside the area. But, the poor didn't really have those options.
And, I assume that this disaster will be resolved like many in the past: the upper & middle class will return and rebuild, getting funds to restore their houses. The poor, who are generally renters when they aren't homeless, will receive little assistance, even though their loss is proportionally much higher than the other classes.
I may be wrong, but it seems to me that there are three basic groups of people who remained in New Orleans for "bad" human nature reasons. Two of these groups (the stupid, who didn't believe how bad it would be, and the criminal, who hoped to take advantage of others) aren't really worthy of help, in my opinion, and I don't feel badly at all for what they are now suffering.
The third group, however, is the poor. This group exemplifies a truly bad side of human nature -- that of the non-poor who treat the poor as something less than human. Why weren't the poor evacuated from the city? When the forecasts were for New Orleans to be uninhabitable for at least several days (with no drinkable water or sewer facilities), how could anyone have thought that putting people in the SuperDome was a reasonable solution? People who could afford to take time from work left days early. Others hopped in their cars and traveled to hotels outside the area. But, the poor didn't really have those options.
And, I assume that this disaster will be resolved like many in the past: the upper & middle class will return and rebuild, getting funds to restore their houses. The poor, who are generally renters when they aren't homeless, will receive little assistance, even though their loss is proportionally much higher than the other classes.