Something about the majesty and power of natural disasters brings on a philosophical frame of mind. Today in New England we’re riding out the remains of Hurricane Florence—thankfully much weakened—but the storm remains wrathful enough to encourage reflection. In part that must be because hurricanes, blizzards, and tsunamis shred the trappings of civilization and bring us face to face with stark realities of life. Rather than carp about who sent a mean tweet to whom, stricken communities have to fret about necessities like food, water, and fuel. The aftermath of disaster is back-to-basics time.
Thucydides, the chronicler of the ancient war between Athens and Sparta, blames natural, demographic, and societal conflagrations for setting free base instincts and desires. He has Athenian emissaries proclaim that fear, honor, and interest constitute three prime movers for human actions. Thucydides intimates that disasters—an earthquake in Sparta, plague in Athens, civil war in Corcyra—reduce a citizen’s interests to acquiring what’s needed for daily life, excluding loftier pursuits; fan fears that sustenance will remain out of reach; and pervert or overrule the sense of honor that keeps ignoble passions in check in normal times. Sparta collapsed into a slave war after the earthquake felled a generation of infantrymen, Athenians gave vent to vile passions as pestilence claimed the lives of a third of their countrymen, and brother slaughtered brother in Corcyra as democrats battled oligarchs.
For Thucydides, in other words, peeling away the veneer of civilization represents a cataclysm far beyond immediate material destruction and loss of life. Me, I’m a bit more sanguine. Yes, natural disasters incapacitate the institutions and services on which ordinary folk depend for daily life. But if the national character is virtuous, seeing it come through after some calamity leaves you feeling upbeat. The historian suggests that defects in the cultures of Sparta, Athens, and Corcyra account for their wretched state after catastrophes. Inspiration and even mirth are part of Hurricane Florence’s legacy—which says something good about American cultural health despite the everyday drone of backbiting in precincts such as Washington, D.C. Just tell me the video of a Florida man braving the winds and rain on the streets of Myrtle Beach, Old Glory in hand, doesn’t elicit a huzzah! from you. That’s Mel Gibson stuff.
Or how about Waffle House, that venerable Southern institution? Some 150 Waffle House employees have streamed into Wilmington, North Carolina, helping the chain stay open to feed first responders and the afflicted. CEO Walt Ehmer doesn’t appear to have been a student of philosophy judging from his background, but he’s an instinctive follower of Adam Smith. The Scottish scribe fashioned a concept of enlightened self-interest that shapes—or should shape—how businesses and ordinary folk conduct their affairs. The theme of his tome Theory of Moral Sentiments might be summed up thus: do good to do well. Ehmer and his colleagues served the public interest in the Carolinas—and burnished their reputation in the bargain. A reputation for public-spiritedness begets goodwill, and goodwill brings in customers.
And then there’s the Cajun Navy. There’s a spontaneity to U.S. society, and has been for centuries. For instance, the army that gathered around Boston in 1775 after Lexington and Concord was mostly a pick-up force. Organization followed later once the Continental Congress appointed George Washington commander-in-chief. The Revolutionary War appeared lost in the South until a band of Scots-Irish renewed the fighting, subduing a force of Loyalists at King’s Mountain, South Carolina. And so forth. So the Cajun Navy follows in a long tradition. Founded to respond to Hurricane Katrina in 2005, this loose federation of small boaters has done good works on storm-wracked scenes across the South in recent years—including in the Carolinas this past week.
Writing of Jacksonian America, Frenchman Alexis de Tocqueville saluted Americans’ proclivity for forming “civil associations” for purposes large and small. Tocqueville observed that they formed associations to “give fêtes, to found seminaries, to build inns, to raise churches, to distribute books, to send missionaries to the antipodes; in this manner they create hospitals, prisons, schools.” Not only did these associations help bring about their immediate aims; they brought together highly individualistic citizens and sowed fellow-feeling. “I often admired the infinite art,” he concluded, “with which the inhabitants of the United States managed to fix a common goal . . . get them to advance to it freely.”
If Tocqueville is right—and I believe he is—then how rank-and-file people respond to traumas such as natural disasters represents a barometer of American cultural well-being. Florence relief provides a hopeful reading on that gauge. Let’s preserve that self-starting ethos—and perform an act of cultural upkeep.
