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A review by savaging
A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities That Arise in Disaster by Rebecca Solnit
5.0
Some of my favorite Solnit yet.
David Graeber says there are two general axioms of (small-a) anarchism: 1) almost always, left to their own devices, humans are basically good; 2) almost always, power corrupts human goodness and leads to cruelty.
This book felt like the historical research capable of supporting this set of beliefs. In the aftermath of destruction, despite what the movies show us, people tend to engage in heroic acts to help people they've never met, and rapidly organize to create communal support systems. And authority figures tend to militarize and cause violence chaos out of an "elite panic" that private property is in danger.
Solnit engages two of my favorite thinkers, William James and Dorothy Day, centering their thought on the disaster they both lived through, the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. This is a long book, and was slow reading for me. But James' "moral equivalent of war" and Day's "other loves" were good thoughts to be stewing over for some weeks.
I loved Solnit's critique of the "fight or flight" rhetoric around crisis. She shows the research finding that many people, especially women, actually have a "tend and befriend" response to emergencies, building networks and making sure everyone is cared for.
I found myself caught up in Solnit's hopefulness: perhaps the pending Utah disasters of heatwave and megadrought will be met with this kind of community building! I also sometimes lost heart and grew skeptical. The 9/11 disaster only lead to endless war; the barrage of hurricanes lead to more and worse land grabs and development. Solnit offers an interesting critique of Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine, but doesn't convince me entirely: I feel suspended between the optimism and pessimism of the two.
But I do believe in those moments of recentering that disaster brings. Solnit quotes one resident of New York following the Trade Center attack: "No one went to work and everyone talked to strangers." May it ever be so, amen.
David Graeber says there are two general axioms of (small-a) anarchism: 1) almost always, left to their own devices, humans are basically good; 2) almost always, power corrupts human goodness and leads to cruelty.
This book felt like the historical research capable of supporting this set of beliefs. In the aftermath of destruction, despite what the movies show us, people tend to engage in heroic acts to help people they've never met, and rapidly organize to create communal support systems. And authority figures tend to militarize and cause violence chaos out of an "elite panic" that private property is in danger.
Solnit engages two of my favorite thinkers, William James and Dorothy Day, centering their thought on the disaster they both lived through, the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. This is a long book, and was slow reading for me. But James' "moral equivalent of war" and Day's "other loves" were good thoughts to be stewing over for some weeks.
I loved Solnit's critique of the "fight or flight" rhetoric around crisis. She shows the research finding that many people, especially women, actually have a "tend and befriend" response to emergencies, building networks and making sure everyone is cared for.
I found myself caught up in Solnit's hopefulness: perhaps the pending Utah disasters of heatwave and megadrought will be met with this kind of community building! I also sometimes lost heart and grew skeptical. The 9/11 disaster only lead to endless war; the barrage of hurricanes lead to more and worse land grabs and development. Solnit offers an interesting critique of Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine, but doesn't convince me entirely: I feel suspended between the optimism and pessimism of the two.
But I do believe in those moments of recentering that disaster brings. Solnit quotes one resident of New York following the Trade Center attack: "No one went to work and everyone talked to strangers." May it ever be so, amen.