Photo by John Trainor
Natural disasters bring people together, man-made disasters drive people apart.
That’s what I heard, loud and clear, as I listened to an NPR story about the long-term effects of the BP oil spill in the Gulf. Most of the story was about the devastating rise in depression, suicides, divorces and domestic violence since the spill, but this is the part that really stood out:
Experts say there’s a big difference between what happens after a natural disaster like Hurricane Katrina and what happens in the aftermath of a technological disaster such as the BP oil spill.
Therapist Pam Maumenee, who is on the oil spill crisis team at AltaPointe Health Systems in Bayou La Batre, Ala., says natural disasters tend to build helping, therapeutic communities.
But the opposite is true of a man-made disaster like the oil spill, she says.
“What you see are families against families, brothers against sisters, neighbors against neighbors,” she says. “The community becomes quite corrosive.”
This reality doesn’t surprise me, but it deeply saddens me. And it made me wonder what’s at the root of the different responses. We know bad things are going to happen in our communities and lives—that’s an unfortunate given. The part we do have control over is our response in those hard times—whether we’re willing to reach out or turn inward, to be vulnerable and trust others or to let suspicion and fear rule.
Shining a spotlight on selfishness and greed
Trust, I suspect, is also at the root of what makes our response to a natural disaster different from a man-made one. Man-made disasters, like oil spills, have selfishness and greed written all over them. They point to people—usually people who are living comfortably and safely—who were willing to gamble with other people’s lives, livelihoods and ecosystems in hopes of saving or making some extra money for themselves.
Man-made disasters are stark reminders of how selfish and greedy people can be. Those reminders, in turn, make us suspicious of even the people we know well and have trusted in the past. Man-made disasters often occur because people were looking out for the good of themselves rather than the good of everyone involved. Each time we are reminded of that sad approach to life, it feels like we’re faced with a choice: to be the naive person who wants to still trust others, and will probably end up being taken advantage of, as a result; or to join the ranks of those who look out only for themselves, and seem to prosper in the process.
Breaking the cycle in communities, corporations and families
It’s clearly a vicious cycle, but I think it’s one that’s possible to break if we acknowledge what’s going on and are determined to boldly take a different path. If you’re reading this with interest, but think it doesn’t apply to you because you’ve never been affected by an oil spill, think about the issue more broadly. Politics and corporate life are swarming with this “each man for himself” attitude.
Even marriages are vulnerable to these destructive patterns. The moment we suspect someone (a life partner or colleague, for instance) is only looking out for him/herself, our own attitude toward the relationship starts to shift. We begin directing all of our energy toward advocating for ourselves, because we can’t trust that anyone else is advocating for us. The vicious cycle commences and takes hold.
I know—it’s depressing, isn’t it? I really wish I could stop writing about depressing topics. But the good news here is that we can each do a little something every day to push back the wall of suspicion. Inwardly, we can work to override our fears and suspicions. And outwardly, we can go out of our way to look out for someone else, and let them know we see them as real people with real needs. When we advocate for them, part of what we’re giving them is the courage and energy to advocate for someone else.
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