People become more empathetic and resourceful after disasters, not selfish

Evidence

Solnit dispenses with the myth that people become desperate and selfish after disasters. From the 1906 San Franscisco earthquake to Hurricane Katrina, she gives detailed accounts of the surprising resourcefulness, empathy, and sometimes even humor that arise in dark circumstances. Several of her interviewees report feeling a strange nostalgia for the purposefulness and the connection they felt with their neighbors immediately following a disaster. Solnit suggests that the real disaster is everyday life, which alienates us from each other and from the protective impulse that we harbor. — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing, 123

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s broader interest in attention and community — Solnit’s claim that everyday life is the real disaster parallels Odell’s case that deliberately guarded spaces are needed. — connects to: Post-crisis public imagination fixated on survivors who profited, not victims — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 437; Survivors who experienced unity in an emergency also helped others. — John Drury, The role of social identity processes…, 72; Social support in disasters ranges from individual acts to collective cooperation. — John Drury and Rupert Brown and Roberto González and Daniel Miranda, Emergent social identity and observing…, 27 (+5 more)
• SEED: Solnit’s ‘nostalgia for disaster purposefulness’ is a rich angle for an essay on what mundane life lacks by comparison.