NEWSPAPER COLUMNS
 ¶ Most Recent
¶ Miscellany
|
COMMENTARY
February 23, 2011
Voltaire
From what I could make out, at the time of writing, about 200 bodies had been pulled from the rubble in Christchurch, New Zealand -- of which, more than 120 were still alive. These are mere statistics, and they tend to liquefy on occasions like this, like the mud and sand upon which much of Christchurch was built. The mayor of the city, fending off the usual media inquisition, patiently explained that his priority of the moment was saving lives, rather than generating statistics.I have a friend in Christchurch -- one of those good friends one meets thanks to new technology, which lets us acquire friends we've never met in the flesh. That technology has proved surprisingly resilient: his toilets weren't flushing, his TV set was out with the power, parts of his house were impassable from smashed crockery and glass. But his e-mail was working perfectly and, thanks to a cellphone, he had located all members of his extended family and been assured that they were well. Or as well as can be, in the case of a pregnant daughter-in-law, who was stranded and unable to return to her own home, thanks to impassable streets. The phenomenon of liquefaction is a fascinating one: the various factors that, in combination, can make a sandy soil suddenly behave as a liquid. I gather that in the case of Christchurch, and its port suburb Lyttelton, earthquake pressure suddenly pushes up the water table, turning the soil above into a slurry. The whole city seems afloat on a foam, and every aftershock is magnified. Statistics can do no justice to such events; even the officially stated, indubitably accurate figure of 6.3 on the Richter scale is no predictor of damage. There are quality considerations, of distance, angle, and geology, that trump the quantity considerations. The physics are probably better conveyed by diagrams than by numbers; but no diagram can match the complexity of any specific location. Casualties, in turn, cannot be predicted from any formula, even after the amount and nature of the physical damage is assessed. Things like the cholera epidemic that swept Port-au-Prince in the wake of its most recent destructive earthquake was a consequence less of smashed physical infrastructure (which was anyway fairly modest), than of a dysfunctional cultural infrastructure. The poor people of Haiti were very hard to organize, to do what needed doing. The aid agencies are blamed for this fallout, but with all the supplies they could ask for (which they got), facts of human nature were defeating them. Christchurch is, thanks to that liquefaction issue, even better placed for follow-on cholera, and any other disease that can be quickly spread when water supplies and waste disposal are compromised. But the message, "boil all water," is quickly conveyed, and from the very tone of the response to the catastrophe -- that "keep calm and carry on" attitude we associate with the Blitz -- we may be confident the disaster will be contained. Indeed, that is a reality written deeply into our world, in which natural disasters are by no means rare. And yet, even though the human cost of them is greatly enhanced by poor responses, they cause only a small fraction of the casualties achieved by human viciousness and stupidity. Looking back over a century or so, we can see that the greatest catastrophes were all man-made, including huge famines and war-borne epidemics from which millions perished, on top of genocides and massacres. These are not simple disasters but tragedies, in a sense. They are the consequence of human dreams of power; of men who think they know all the answers, and have said in their heart, "There is no God." The catastrophes that unfold from these demonic premises are not to be traced to some fault in material nature, but to a spiritual flaw in the heart of man. A flaw that we are loath to acknowledge: that men are sinful, and that our earthly visions can only end in dust. At the height of the Enlightenment, Voltaire wrote a famous satirical tract, Candide, about an earthquake in Lisbon. It struck on All Saints' Day, 1755, and was among the deadliest in history. The sea suddenly drained around the city, then tsunamis washed back, up the Tagus, carrying great masses of the survivors away. Fires then engulfed the sections of the city that had endured least damage. The darkly witty Voltaire used this occasion to mock Providence, and the whole idea of a benign Deity. This meme was then echoed by the progressive intelligentsia, right across Europe. It is still echoing to this day. There are earthquakes and earthquakes. From such as hit Christchurch, or Lisbon, quick recovery is possible. But from the one triggered by the Enlightenment idea, that man must take the place of God, the hecatombs are still piling. David Warren
© Ottawa Citizen
|
Top