"Disasters
are, most basically, terrible, tragic, grievous, and no matter what
positive side effects and possibilities they produce, they are not to be
desired. But by the same measure, those side effects should not be
ignored because they arise amid devastation. The desires and
possibilities awakened are so powerful they shine even from wreckage,
carnage, and ashes. What happens here is relevant elsewhere. And the
point is not to welcome disasters. They do not create these gifts, but
they are one avenue through which the gifts arrive. Disasters provide an
extraordinary window into social desire and possibility, and what
manifests there matters elsewhere, in ordinary times and in other
extraordinary times."
A Paradise Built in Hell : The Extraordinary Communities That Arise in Disaster
Rebecca Solnit, Viking Penguin, New York, 2009
A Paradise Built in Hell : The Extraordinary Communities That Arise in Disaster
Rebecca Solnit, Viking Penguin, New York, 2009