Why disasters make us better
Films and books suggest that in a disaster, society crumbles – but actually, say the experts, we all get much nicer to each other. Steve Kilgallon investigates.
Popular fiction and cinema has told us what to expect when disaster strikes: society will crumble, the only law will be survival of the fittest, and our best option is to murder our next-door neighbour and roast them for dinner on the barbecue.
But 1984, Mad Max, The Handmaid’s Tale, The Road, The Hunger Games, A Clockwork Orange, The Wall, Children of Men, Fahrenheit 451, Brave New World, The Mandibles: they’re all wrong.
Not only that, say the experts: in times of crisis, history repeatedly tells us that we behave not just far better than we expect – but also better than we do in normal times.
However, every time we hit another crisis, we seem to forget the lessons of the past, and instead renew our subscription to what Dan Gardner calls the ‘‘disaster myth’’.
Does that matter? Yes, says Gardner, a New York Times-bestselling author and senior fellow in Ottawa University’s School of Public Policy and International Affairs, because it means in troubled times, governments the world over take the wrong approach.
During a crisis – such as a pandemic or a natural disaster – governments often hide information, for fear a volatile public will panic. Actually, panic is rare. Instead, they should share the truth, and so build the trust of their citizens.
For example, he says, right now, the Canadian government is wrongly keeping coronavirus death toll predictions secret, while the governor of the heavily-afflicted New York State, Andrew Cuomo, is being lauded for his openness.
‘‘And you don’t see civil disobedience breaking out in New York; what you see is New Yorkers taking it seriously, pulling together as people do, and as they did in 9-11,’’ says Gardner. ‘‘In an emergency, we have to pull together and co-operate. We really do sell our species short.’’
December 1917. A French ship laden with trinitrotoluene, aka the powerful explosive TNT, collides with another boat in the harbour of Halifax, Nova Scotia. The resulting explosion leaves 2000 dead, 6000 injured, 10,000 homeless, some $35 million worth of damage.
‘‘Truly,’’ wrote Samuel Henry Prince, ‘‘a sight to make the angels weep … the city ceased to be a city.’’
Prince’s study (Catastrophe and Social Change) of how
Halifax rebuilt itself was one of the first real analyses of how society responds to disaster.
Prince found people cooperated, behaved well, were altruistic. ‘‘There has been a new sense of unity in dealing with common problems,’’ he wrote.
And the revived Halifax was better in many ways: for example, it had a better healthcare system and improved leisure facilities like playgrounds, a stadium and a pool.
That pattern has been observed many times since by those in the specialised field of disaster studies, says Auckland University sociologist Steve Matthewman, who wrote a book on the sociology of disasters and is finishing a three-year research project on the Christchurch rebuild. ‘‘We are not nasty, selfish, individualistic creatures,’’ he says. ‘‘We are helpful and altruistic.’’
Consider the Canadian musk ox, agrees Gardner. In times of trouble, they form a circle, using a ring of horns to warn off predatory polar bears. We’re the same: ‘‘We pull together and we survive together, or we die. We have to work together.’’
Back in 1987, the British prime minister of the time, Margaret Thatcher, observed: ‘‘There is no such thing as society.’’
This week, her present-day successor and disciple, Boris Johnson, was moved by the coronavirus outbreak to declare: ‘‘There really is such a thing as a society.’’
We are not individuals, says Matthewman. ‘‘We cannot exist on our own,’’ he says. ‘‘We are products of culture, we are socialised by other human beings, we can only exist in our world because of countless others who grow our food, make our clothes, build our shelter, deliver our news.’’ And we can’t get through events like coronavirus without co-operation.
In a disaster, official help isn’t instantaneous: it takes time and, usually, it’s our neighbour, even the anonymous stranger, who will bring help. Just think of all the individual acts of bravery in the Canterbury earthquakes. When search and rescue crews arrive, often from overseas, they are usually only there to do the first part of their title.
Even in a pandemic, there’s examples, even such small-scale heroics as delivering groceries to an elderly neighbour.
And have you noticed on your statesanctioned walk around your neighbourhood that everyone seems much friendlier right now, more willing to smile and greet you? If you haven’t, then at least you’ve seen the teddy bears in the windows.
John Drury, professor of social psychology at Britain’s University of Sussex, calls it a ‘‘disaster community’’. Our shared experience of something like coronavirus gives us social solidarity, a feeling of being in the same boat. And we seek out emotional and practical benefits by organising groups together – even something as simple as a WhatsApp for your street. Even after the
immediate disaster is over, says Matthewman, we often find the structures of power aren’t quite as strong as we thought so we have to keep helping ourselves.
The best results can be initiated and delivered locally; again, Christchurch offers examples of missed opportunities by the state and great grassroots ideas, such as the Student Volunteer Army.
‘‘People are self-organising to support each other [in the Covid-19 world],’’ says Drury. ‘‘This always happens in disasters. There will never be enough professional responders to help all of us, so a lot of it will have to come from ourselves.’’
The goodwill effect, however, isn’t usually permanent. People get exhausted and find it hard to keep that early spirit alive.
But not always. Nearly a decade after it sprung to life during the earthquakes of 2010-2011, the Student Volunteer Army remains the biggest show on Canterbury University’s campus.
‘‘It worked because I assumed it would, and everyone assumed it would, and everyone just did it,’’ says its founder, professor of social psychology
Sam Johnson. That is, Johnson expected everyone would want to help – and that optimistic view of human nature meant most responded positively.
‘‘I think it came from growing up in small-town New Zealand, where if things went wrong, there was no one coming to help – you had to help yourself,’’ he explains. ‘‘I grew up on a farm, and even within the family doing harvest, if you broke something, you had to fix it yourself.
‘‘We saw that in Christchurch before, we see it now with this Covid – after a disaster, people are so motivated to help. You’ve got a very short window of time, and what I observed around the world is that institutions are terrible at responding to that surge in people wanting to help people.’’
Johnson’s principle is simple: you give people permission to do what they feel they ought to do anyway. ‘‘Am I allowed to do that or not? You cut that crap out … not only are you allowed to do it, you are expected to do it. The next stage is how you support them to do whatever that is.’’
So why has fiction got it so wrong for so long? Matthewman has two answers. One, he says, is that we have ‘‘been sold a lie for years: that we are selfish, when we are not’’.
‘‘People are self-organising to support each other. This always happens in disasters. There will never be enough professional responders to help all of us, so a lot of it will have to come from ourselves.’’ John Drury