The Reason Behind Socio-Economic Classes

Did human nature drive “civilizations” to create socio-economic classes? 

There is evidence that the division of socio-economic classes existed in the earliest civilizations.  Traces of social boundaries have been found in the architecture in the Mohenjo-Daro civilization (present-day Pakistan) around 2000 BCE.  There, the "city" was divided into sectors.  Many archaeologists believe that the sectors represented different social classes.  One sector was the administrative class, and another was the industrial class.  The industrial sector housed the “lower-class” individuals.

This early separation of societal groups led me to the conclusion that something about human nature drives societies to create socio-economic boundaries.  I attribute this to humans' natural ethnocentric attitudes.  Though many people today say they believe in an equal society where everyone is treated the same, in reality, this has rarely if ever existed.  I believe that even the most righteous people look as some others condescendingly.  Everyone thinks they are better in some way or deserve more respect than others.  There may be selfless people, but no one is completely selfless.  

I think the reason humans created socio-economic classes was because there were jobs that no one wanted to do but needed to be done.  Not everyone could have their dream-job because someone needed to build the homes for the wealthier to live in, to farm the food for them to eat, and to clean the expensive property that the powerful owned.  When it came time to do jobs demanding hard labor, the individuals who took those jobs were often those who had little choice; those who were a lower class of citizen.   

In modern day societies, these individuals are usually paid less even though they work more. This is just how societies run.  This reinforces their socio-economic status.  These individuals are looked at condescendingly by the rich and the powerful.

Over the course of history the problem with this system has been that the children of the poor usually don't have much of a chance to rise in the ranks of their civilizations.  Once a family starts working in one kind of occupation, it has less money and less powerful contacts, and future generations are more likely to follow in their footsteps.  Only recently have people discovered that by giving everyone in society a strong education, individuals can break out of their socio-economic class and become whomever they wish.  

It was inevitable that humans created socio-economic classes because of our fundamental nature.  However, the thing that I would argue that can be changed about this natural tendency to create classes is the respect given to everyone despite where they work in a civilization.   Even though individuals may be doing different jobs for their civilizations, everyone is contributing positively to the prosperity of the society.  Everyone deserves to be treated with equal respect. 

Mesopotamia: A Thriving Ancient Civilization

How did the Mesopotamian civilization find ways to prepare for and overcome environmental disasters? What set Mesopotamia apart from other civilizations when it came to surviving for the longest period of time?

I believe that Mesopotamia flourished for such a long period of time because of its ability to create new and sophisticated (for their time-period) technology, a strong army, and their awareness of potential dangers.

The ancient Mesopotamians created tools to allow them to successfully farm even in difficult environmental conditions.  Mesopotamia was stationed between the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers, so that water could easily be used.  However, these water sources were undependable.  They may have dried up from the heat during the summer.  Therefore, the Mesopotamians created irrigation systems to overcome this issue.  They built ditches near rivers, making artificial waterways.  This way, they could ensure that their crop fields would receive water.  

Mesopotamians found an easy way to get food by domesticating animals.  This was different from the traditional hunter/gatherer lives that people had been living.  By domesticating animals, the Mesopotamians overcame problems such as a lack of animals in close proximity to people’s homes.  Because of domestication, there was always a steady supply of meat so the civilization wouldn’t starve.

Mesopotamia's strong army allowed the civilization to overcome environmental disasters in two ways.  First off, unlike in the Indus Valley region, the Mesopotamian army was large enough to keep unwanted immigrants from coming in.  This was helpful because if too many individuals started coming to Mesopotamia, there would be a greater strain on the land to produce more food.  The people who already lived there would receive less food, because there wouldn’t be enough for everyone to fulfill their needs.  

The army was also helpful because if an environmental disaster struck, the army could conquer more land to allow Mesopotamians to move to more fertile and healthier areas.  In the Indus Valley region, the individuals were restricted to the land that they had.  If there was a famine, their army wasn't strong enough to conquer more land so individuals had to hope that they could survive off of what they had.

The last reason that Mesopotamia was able to survive for longer than the Indus Valley region was because they were more prepared for environmental disasters.  In the reading called An Ancient Indus Valley Metropolis, it stated that many believe Mohenjo-Daro (a city in the Indus Valley region) was destroyed because of flooding.  This is quite possible because Mohenjo-Daro was very close to the Indus River. I also read from BBC History that the homes in Mohenjo-Daro had no windows looking out at the roads.  This makes it clear that individuals were not concerned about their safety if there was a flood. They weren't prepared to deal with a disaster like the one that probably hit them, and therefore when time came to escape their flooding homes, they couldn't.  

Unlike the Indus Valley “civilization,” the ancient Mesopotamian “civilization” was able to prepare and recover from environmental disasters because of their sophisticated technology, their strong army, and their preparation for potential disasters.

The Language Killers

Why are languages that have been used for hundreds or even thousands of years suddenly disappearing from our earth? What can be done to preserve a language?

Today, we can almost count the dominant languages on one hand.  These are English, Spanish, French and (different dialects of) Chinese. These are the common languages that huge numbers of people all over the world speak.   The reason for the spread of these languages is that throughout recent history, the countries where these languages originated have conquered land, spread their ideas, and distributed their wealth.  

Chinese is rapidly becoming more widely spoken because individuals around the world see that China has a growing economy. They believe that in the future, knowing Chinese will help people make money by “doing business” in China.

This example is similar to the way the Banto language took over Africa in the first century BCE.  The Banto speaking villages, around present-day Nigeria, were the "center of a region and in time set standards of values." Because of this, the non-Banto speaking villages began learning Banto and fusing it with their native languages.  In time, Banto was the leading language in of Africa.

At the other end of the spectrum, some languages have died out because they are not seen as being useful. A language that nearly vanished is Yiddish.  Yiddish is a mix of German and Hebrew.  Few people speak Yiddish today because many Yiddish speakers were killed in World War II.  There are still some communities that speak Yiddish but there aren't many young people who are trying to keep Yiddish alive. Most people are trying to learn a much more practical language like English or Spanish or Chinese.

The spread of universal languages can be a positive progression for our world because it allows people everywhere to communicate and understand eachother.  However, the downside is that these languages are taking the place of languages that have been used by societies by hundreds to even thousands of years.  

How are communities able to save the languages that their ancestors have used for generations in a world where major languages are taking over?

I believe that there needs to be more of a push for young individuals to learn languages that tie them to their “cultural” roots.  Though it may seem challenging and unnecessary from the perspective of future economic opportunities, it is important for one to keep part of his culture alive.  If more young individuals were interested in learning Yiddish, then maybe Yiddish would live on for longer.  I fear that in a hundred years, there will be as many languages spoken in the world as one can count on his fingers. 

Why Do Many Societies Crumble?

During our history class, we discussed why many of the civilizations that we created could potentially run into major troubles. I believe that the reason why many of our classroom teams made civilizations that wouldn’t be able to survive was similar to the reason why many early and current civilizations and governments actually have crumbled.  

The overlapping issue that most of our created civilizations had was that when we didn’t think enough about how citizens can get access to basic necessities and stay safe while doing so created them.  Instead, we focused on complex aspects of the civilization such as governmental systems and religious practices.   This shortcoming led to many groups, including ours, to have to come up with new ideas on the spot (while being questioned by Mr. Moran) that answered how citizens would obtain the basic things they needed.  These answers were not well thought out and therefore lacked rationality. 

I believe that the problem we had while creating our own civilizations is very similar to problems that real world societies continue to have. This issue is that the individuals who lead civilizations often focus on preserving their territory or conquering other land.  But these creations are not as vital to people as having a stable food supply, a clean water source, and sufficient protection.  These developments would only be vital to civilizations that can easily provide for the basic needs of their people. Instead, often times leaders get so involved in other matters that they forget to prioritize what people really needed.  When the people living in a society aren't provided with their basic needs such as food and water or other things that they consider to be basic human rights, then they often revolt against their leadership.  The result is chaos, destruction, and sometimes the end of a civilization.   If basic human needs cannot be met, everything else that has been established crumbles.

To refer back to a previous blog, maybe a utopia is possible, but only under circumstances that a society builds on the principle of keeping its citizens healthy and happy. 

Is a Utopia Realistic?

For the past few days in our history class, we have been working together in small groups to create ancient ideal civilizations.  Our guidelines were to design a realistic civilization that can protect itself from destructive forces such as environmental disasters, wild animals, and competing civilizations. Our community also had to be able to supply its citizens with their basic physiological needs. However, no matter how close our group thought we were to making a civilization that could withstand anything, another potential problem always sprang up.  This made me think about whether a utopia can actually be created.  Can a civilization possibly be invulnerable to all major threats and catastrophes?

When civilizations were first being established, their primary goal was to prosper in an area of land where they felt safe and could supply their people with basic physiological necessities.  However, there were always problems.  If a civilization was near a large water source with the purpose of obtaining food and water, a flood could strike them.  If a civilization relied greatly on agricultural farming for food, they could still be hit with a drought resulting in a famine.  Even if a civilization was successful in avoiding environmental problems, they were always vulnerable to attacks from other civilizations.  In any scenario, there was a chance of a disaster ruining the civilization.

Therefore as centuries passed, humans began to invent tools and devices to protect themselves from environmental disasters and wars with other civilizations.  The civilization with the best technology would find the most food, conquer the greatest amount of land, and protect itself from the largest environmental catastrophes.  However, as inventions progressed and production rates increased, a problem came back to haunt humans that they hadn't had to cope with sense the early years of civilization: the wrath of the environment.  

Before the human race knew it, they had found themselves ruining their environment that had sustained them for thousands of years. The consequences were and have been substantial. Due to large amounts of pollution, global warming and depletion of fresh water are issues that will dramatically affect human health in the near future.

It seems that no matter how many advancements the human race can produce to help protect itself from the possible disasters, it can never achieve a completely safe world.  In my opinion, a utopia is only an idea, a dream, or a goal that humans should aim for.  However, in reality it is impossible to achieve a true perfect world. 

Communities: A Profound Connection Between Members

Do the members of civilizations and communities share the same types of connections, or are communities the result of members finding more profound similarities with one another?  Can the concept of a civilization and community coexist? In the reading, "Civilization": What's in a Word?, it is claimed that early "civilizations" shouldn’t be called civilizations, because the word civilization implies being made up of people with "distinct and widely shared identities.” Instead, what we call early civilizations were just groups of people in that lived in a shared area.  They may or may not have had any physical or psychological connections, but they were labeled as civilizations because they lived within a region of land and worked together to survive. It wasn't until much later that communities were formed. 

I believe that the text contains a valid argument. When I look at ancient “civilizations”, I don’t see many connections that brought citizens together.  They worked with one another to survive, not to share something they were committed to. Civilizations actually had many problems because of the lack of connection between individuals.  Because of the wide range of different beliefs, necessities, and lifestyles, civilizations were hard to maintain.  Different sectors of people wanted to break off and make their own civilizations based on their sub-groups’ best interests.

To me, a community is made up of a set of people that intentionally bring themselves together through common perspectives, beliefs, and goals.  These people choose to be together because they find deep connections with one another than just living near each other. 

Communities then must have evolved from "civilizations."  This may have been because people saw the benefits of having deep connections with one another in order to achieve similar goals. Another possibility is that people felt more comfortable living and spending time with others who shared commonalities with them. However, civilizations and communities can still coexist.  I believe communities make up civilizations.  In other words, each community has a connection with one another, such as a geographic location, and therefore is joined together to make a civilization. 

Thesis for Haiti

Immediately after the earthquake in Haiti, there seemed to be a clear plan to distribute aid and to rebuild the country with the billions of dollars that had been collected and so many supportive organizations. Yet, the world has still not seen many changes in the conditions of Haiti. Therefore, who is at fault for the slow progression? Although many blame the slow recuperation exclusively on the lack of leadership shown by the historically corrupt Haitian government, the disconnection between the that NGOs and Haitian, the lack of NGO urgency to work on improving living conditions, and the excessive amount of NGOs that are damaging the already fragile economy have slowed down the recovery that is essential to the health and safety to the citizens of Haiti. 

A Flaw in Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

When I look at Maslow's hierarchy of needs in this week’s history reading, there is one section of the triangle that I believe should be switched around.  In my opinion, being and feeling “safe” and out of harm's way should be considered the primary need of humans. Then the basic physiological needs should follow on the next tier.

This is my reasoning. In order to acquire the necessities that all humans need, an individual must to make sure his life is not in any immediate danger.  If an individual feels that his safety is at risk, he needs to resolve this issue before he can set out to look for food or water. Meeting basic human requirements may allow individuals to better protect themselves and their safety, but in order to find these needs, an individual must to feel unthreatened by outside factors.

Even in the Neolithic Age, when civilizations were first establishing themselves, their primary focus was to ensure that they were in a safe environment. They didn’t want to be in an are where they would risk their safety with other civilizations or wild animals before they went out to look for their basic physiological needs.  For them, establishing a safe home came before finding food.

Even in present times, people don't address their physiological needs before they know that it is safe to do so.  Humans want to ensure that they won’t be robbed when making a weakly trip grocery store to pick up food.  Humans need to know that their water is uncontaminated before they turn on the faucet and drink from it. Obtaining safety and security needs to come first on the hierarchy of needs. Without confidence in one’s safety, the basic human needs cannot be obtained.  My rule of survival is to make sure one is not being hunted before one can become a hunter.

The Domestication Justification

Looking at the animal diseases and animal cruelty found at cattle farms and farm factories, the question needs to be asked, was the domestication of animals a positive or negative advancement for human kind?  Is there a way to ensure that everyone will have access to food without putting their lives or the animals’ lives at risk?

The domestication of animals dates back to the Neolithic age.  The idea was formed to raise cattle rather than to have to periodically hunt for food.  These animals produced meat and dairy and kept reproducing on the farm, so there were always domesticated animals to provide food.  The domestication of animals saves humans time and effort because rather than having to look for food, they already have it on their property.  Raising domesticated cattle and other animals in large herds was seen as helpful for feeding growing populations. As populations grew, and more people needed to eat, more food needed to be produced.  Domesticating animals was a way to make sure animals reproduced and provided enough food to be eaten. 

However, domesticating these animals also had huge consequences. Domesticated animals brought diseases with them such as mad cow disease.  According to archaeological findings, "there appeared a huge drop off in population in the time period right after the domestication of animals."  In other words, a massive amount of people "throughout the world caught animal-based diseases and died."  These diseases spread through civilizations and even trading routs.

In addition, the demand for more food increased, leading to a greater quantity of animals being farmed. With a greater amount of animals, the size of land that each animal had to live on shrank.  This lead to unhealthy living conditions for the animals, and more disease spread throughout the animals themselves.  Unfortunately, many of these diseases were then spread to humans through consumption of meat and continue to be dangerous to this day.  

In present times, farmers need to find a way to feed the growing population of farmed animals. They resort to feeding their cattle corn instead of letting their cows graze in open fields. Corn is cheaper and more plentiful than having to find and buy land for cows to eat grass on.  Eating corn has a unhealthy impact on the animals and also poses risks to human consumers.

The pros and cons of domesticating of animals can be looked at through three different perspectives: that of the animal rights workers (and animals), from that of basic meat consumers, and from that of the owners of meat packaging companies.  From the animals' perspectives, the domestication is unfair and cruel.  Animal rights workers believe that mass domestication is unfair, and animals should have the same right to live their lives in the open as humans have.  To many meat consumers, the justice of domesticating animals is irrelevant; as long as people can buy get as much safe meat as they want. In reality though, eating meat is always a risk when raised through factory farming. From the perspective of a meat packaging business, domestication is great!  They can make millions without feeling guilt by selling meat from animals that are treated poorly, because their goal is primarily to make money.  Well, that doesn't really seem fair.

My solution to this problem is to maintain the domestication of animals, but to improve how they are treated.  Huge meat production companies should not be allowed to keep their cattle in unhealthy living conditions.  Allowing cattle to roam in open spaces ensures safer meat for the carnivorous population. 

Source Cards

Primary - Report


Nadler, Samantha. "Haiti One Year On: Chronic Challenges." Washington Report on the Hemisphere vol. 31 (February, 2011), 1-4. 


ProQuest Research Library
Keywords: Money, Taken, Grants

______________________________________________________________________

Secondary - Article


Reitman, Janet. "Beyond Relief." Rolling Stone (August 2011), 58-71.


ProQuest Research Library
Keywords: Foreign Aid, Slow Recovery, Blame
______________________________________________________________________


Secondary - Article


Williams, Shernay. "'Baby Doc' Charged With Corruption In Haiti." Afro - American Red Star        vol. 119 no. 24 (January 2011), A.2. 


ProQuest Research Library
Keywords: Duvalier, Government, History
______________________________________________________________________


Secondary - Article


Anonymous. "Haiti At Six Months." International Herald Tribune (July 2010), 6.


ProQuest Newsstand
Keywords: Aid, Government, NGO's

Forgetting Haiti

In Haiti, 230,000 people were killed during the earthquake in 2010.  This is a massive number, but quickly after the disaster, the media and the world moved on, quickly going back to living normally, as thousands in Haitians kept living their lives in mass chaos and destruction. Therefore, I pose the question, how is it possible that our world has essentially forgotten Haiti? 

The situation in Haiti post earthquake was described by one aid worker as being like a "story from the Holocaust."  There were "thousands of bodies everywhere" and the situation was "true madness."  In the aftermath of the earthquake, bodies actually had to be carried into "mass graves" by dump trucks because they were polluting the streets.  Countries from all over the world pitched in to help the situation.  Rescue teams were sent in.  Money was pledged to the government. Information about the earthquake could be found all over the media and was the hot topic throughout the world. However, in a matter of months, it seems like the whole tragedy has been forgotten within the media and even individuals’ minds.  I, for one, haven't seen an article in the newspaper regarding Haiti in months.  However, the situation over there is hardly improving.

Why have we forgotten this issue?  What makes this problem less drastic as time goes on? I believe little has changed about this situation and therefore, we need to pay the same attention to it as we did last January.  Yet I do have an explanation for why this issue doesn’t get much attention anymore. Studies have been done that conclude that humans find mass death less thought provoking (in a sad way) and easier to cope with than a single or a few deaths.  In the Haitian case, there were so many victims of the earthquake that we have trouble fully understanding and relating to the problem.   As time passes, we become less interested in the Haiti earthquake because we were never really been able to understand what 230,000 deaths meant.  Our human brains just don't have the ability to grasp this horror and to allow us to be as emotional as if one or two people died.  I know that when a few people are killed in an accident I feel worse for them and their families that when thousands are killed.  I simply cannot feel as emotional and sympathetic with such a large scale of destruction.

The other factor that led this story to be forgotten is the need for constant new material in the media world.  When newspapers and television shows air, they want to hook their audiences by supplying them with captivating new information.  If a newspaper or television program had covered the story in Haiti for ten months, we would have become bored with their material and business would drop.  As morally important as it is to keep the world interested in aiding the victims of Haiti, the media realistically does not want to spend any more time covering Haiti stories unless they can write new information.

The current conditions in Haiti need to be improved, but many people in the world are not interested enough anymore to spread this idea.  Human brains are not able to understand and sympathize with mass amounts of death. The media world needs to cover new stories every few weeks. Therefore, the world has forgotten about the devastation in Haiti. 

Haiti Question Sources

                Given the history of the poor and corrupt Haitian government, were donations and aid dealt with appropriately by the government and other decision makers after the earthquake.  

When searching for information to help me answer this question, I couldn't find one source that would answer everything, but I needed a combination of a few to give me background information as well as details.  

Therefore, the first thing that I found interesting was the history of Haitian government and government officials stealing public money and donations from other countries, instead of them being used to help Haitian citizens. According to The Ottawa Citizen, in 1992, "Haiti's military leaders plundered a Canadian aid account of about $3 million" instead of the country's impoverished receiving this money.  This source supplied me with information regarding the tradition of Haiti's corrupt leadership.  Another source that gave me information about this history was the San Francisco Chronicle.  This source provided me with the background of a previous president of Haiti, President Jean Claude Duvalier, who allegedly stole hundreds of millions of dollars from Haiti. These two sources would be useful to use when writing an essay because they bring me to the conclusion that Haiti has been struck with a long history of government corruption. 

At this point, I needed to find information concerning Haiti's government's current status.  From Samantha Nadler's Washington Report on the Hemisphere, I discovered information regarding the Haitians slow rebuilding of their country and usage of the money they have been given.  This is an excellent source for me to use because it supplied me with information concerning the Haitian government's usage of grants.  This source supplied me with information that would be beneficial to an essay on this topic because it explained how much of the money Haiti has been given hasn't found its way to the intended causes, but instead the bank accounts of leaders in charge of distributing aid.  

          The Ottawa Citizen, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the Washington Report on the Hemisphere are sources that allow me to determine whether the Haitian leadership was/is effectively carrying out their responsibilities to their citizens.  

The Collapse of Haitian Leadership

On January 12, 2010, a magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck Haiti, killing many, injuring 300,000 people and leaving 250,00 residences destroyed.   This was a sudden and massive disaster, but long before the earthquake the people of Haiti had been struggling under a system of poverty and corruption. It seems to me therefore that the destruction to governmental and religious structures was like a metaphor for the longstanding failure of leadership that the citizens of Haiti had to endure.

Previous to the earthquake, living conditions for citizens were considered horrible, and the government wasn't working hard to help the cause.  Haiti was the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. The government knew that if they were to be hit by a major natural disaster, the structure of their cities would not withstand it.  As we saw after the earthquake, countries around the world were willing to give Haiti money to help their citizens, but much of it wasn't even delivered to the victims in need.  Citizens of Haiti relied on their unstable government to provide them with aid because that was the only government they had.

When the earthquake hit, the Haitians saw the literal collapse in the organizations that previous to the disaster were hardly stable.  The Presidential Palace and the National Assembly buildings came down. A huge percent of government workers were killed in the disaster, leaving the remaining individuals traumatized and incapable of making quick decisions in the time of crisis.

The religious leadership also collapsed along with Port-Au-Prince Cathedral.  In my mind, this was also a metaphor to show the instability in relying on religious leaders to fix Haiti's problems.  The archbishop himself was killed, and at that point, there was no one to give hope to people.

In Haiti, victims could no longer rely on their government or religious leadership to supply them with aid and hope.  The earthquake was detrimental to the citizens of Haiti because it made it impossible for them to rely on their already unstable leadership that they depended on, leaving them to rely on themselves.

An Active Citizen

What is the role of an active citizen in a community during a time of crisis?  In 2005 one of the most devastating natural disasters in American history hit New Orleans, a city six feet below sea level. As the levees broke from the storm and left many homes and businesses under water, nearly 2000 lives were lost, and over $80 billion of property was damaged.

For weeks after Hurricane Katrina, people relied on the government to save them and supply them with the necessities that they no longer could acquire on their own. However, the government was not as helpful as citizens had hoped. Buses arrived days late to bring dying civilians to medical facilities.  Rescue operations were slow due to poor planning. Many locals believed that this was similar to the situation during Hurricane Betsy in 1965, when government resources were used primarily towards saving people in higher income neighborhoods.

Therefore, many residents of New Orleans believed that it was their civic duty to step up and do what they could for each other.  As people tried to escape the flooding, there became a sense of community in many areas throughout the city.  Regular people risked their lives, diving into murky waters to save others that they had ever met before.  The disaster joined people together to work for the good of their neighborhoods and their city.  

Rescuing people from the depths of the floods wasn't the only act people did to make a positive difference.  In my opinion, one of the best demonstrations of an active citizen was when a man chose to give hope to fellow residents that had lost everything they owned by encouraging them with songs.  In the Superdome, this man sang songs of hope amidst the starving and weary people around him.  Soon a massive crowd began following him around the inside and outside of the Superdome singing praises to god.  This made a positive impact on the community by assisting people to psychologically recover from their losses by giving them hope.  

These two examples highlight what is an active citizen's job.  An active citizen doesn't have to be a hero, but just a person who can step up when no one else is there to help.  The men and women who risked their lives saving others did so because there was no one else to volunteer.  The man that sang to give hope to the people around him stepped up because there was no one else to give hope to them. You could call these men and women heroes, but in my opinion, they were just helpful citizens doing their job in a community that mattered to them.

Equality in Evacuation

Was there a great enough effort to evacuate everyone in New Orleans before the Hurricane Katrina hit?  Sure, everyone was told that there was a mandatory evacuation. But many residents didn’t own cars, and many means of public transportation were either too crowded or too expensive to get out quickly. Therefore, I pose the question, did the mayor declare mandatory evacuation of New Orleans primarily to protect the citizens, or to make the government look like it was being responsible even though it didn’t pull together all of the resources it could have?

            In the documentary we watched about Hurricane Katrina, we saw a large number of government officials pointing fingers at each other for not doing everything they could have to develop clear rescue plans.  While these people were quarreling about who should be in charge of helping the victims of the recent storm, they could have been working together to execute a massive rescue mission to save thousands of people in New Orleans together.

Instead of immediately doing everything they could to help the needy, these officials kept passing the responsibility of heading a rescue mission.  Subsequently, if someone were to be blamed for not taking the right action, they could protect their political images.

The idea that the government did not having everyone’s interests in mind in a time of crises is similar to what many believe happened during Hurricane Betsy in 1965.  In that case, people believe that the levees were purposely blown up so that the water would run into the lower 9^th ward and not the wealthy neighborhoods.  Much like this situation, the wealthier citizens with cars and money were able to evacuate more easily.  The poorer people either had to sit at home and hope that nothing would happen to them, or to grab everything they could and try to find some public transportation.  Clearly, the state and federal government did not make a great enough effort to evacuate everyone. 

            Personally, I believe that the easiest way to have fixed this problem would have been for New Orleans to run more buses and trains that usual, and to have them all have been free.  This way, all passengers could evacuate without having to spend money.  Even the poorer citizens could find a way to get out of New Orleans before the storm hit. 

            Hurricane Katrina is a perfect example of certain members of society being treated unequally. When lives were on the line, not enough was done to save the individuals who couldn’t save themselves.

The Modernization of Disaster Response

With earthquakes, floods, storms, and drought, earth has been struck with a range of natural disasters since the beginning of time. The only thing that has changed about these disasters is the way that humans prepare for and resolve them. It would seem obvious that society is better able to deal with these disasters today than hundreds or thousands of years ago.  However, this is not always the case.

        Over the last century, advancements in technology have allowed us to prepare for and recuperate from many disasters. These technological advancements allow people to evacuate from dangerous areas, or to quickly receive aid if they fall victim.  Before many disasters hit, like tornados or tsunamis, radar systems and communication devices enable civilians in danger to receive information about how to best stay safe. Radar and other measurement systems are in place to predict future events and allow scientists to give the public fair warning before they occur. To convey these messages, new technology also allows the authorities to efficiently communicate information to the public.  Through television, radio, and phones, people can receive messages concerning their safety within minutes of weather reports.  These inventions allow the public to receive a warning so they can prepare themselves.

       Another relatively recent advancement that allows individuals to avoid disasters is access to high-speed transportation.  A large percentage of Americans either own cars or can use public transportation.    Now, once an evacuation is in progress, most people can quickly leave dangerous areas.  Through speedy transportation, rescue organizations can also quickly assist victims.  Using easy access to transportation, vital resources can be brought to people in need in a short amount of time.  Helicopters and boats can drop food and water to those low on resources. Transportation can also be used to move injured or stranded civilians to hospitals and safer areas. Communication is also key to helping people in need. Once a disaster hits, people around the globe have access to information about the victims in need.  They can either go physically help, or send resources to the region. 

Hundreds of years ago people had no way of knowing a deadly disaster would strike.  When a disaster hit, everyone was caught off guard, and therefore it produced havoc and chaos.  Once people realized that they had to escape from dangerous areas, there weren’t trains or buses or automobiles that could take them hundreds of miles away within a matter of hours.  They were trapped. Even after the catastrophe hit, victims were able to receive little aid because no one around the world knew what had happened.  There were no televisions or radios to share the knowledge.  All in all, if a disaster were to strike a region hundreds of years ago, the number of victims would likely have been higher, and the chance of them receiving any aid would likely have been minimal.

Therefore, it seems clear that new technological advancements have allowed people to stay safer in the midst of natural disasters.  However, I would argue that one thing hasn’t changed: equal access to assistance.  Ideally, everyone is supposed to receive the same care at the same time.  Yet in most cases, the wealthy are the first to be helped.   So, I ask the question; we may have made advancements to potentially predict and recover from natural disasters, but have we made the same advancements in morality that lead to everyone having the same access to aid in a time of crisis?