> This is a stage of despair, faith in humankind’s goodness is lost. > Human behaviors that bolster the thin veneer of society: “kindness, generosity, considera

> This is a stage of despair, faith in humankind’s goodness is lost. > Human behaviors that bolster the thin veneer of society: “kindness, generosity, consideration, affection, honesty, hospitality, compassion, and charity” are lost. The ship is sinking, and it’s every man for himself. In some disasters, the opposite is true. I would like to understand the factors that made life different for the man in Bosnia who wrote the letter vs the outcomes other disasters. The letter seems to imply that there was some kind of siege on the city (or some kind of martial law?) and that the conflict was protracted. It could be really important to understand at what point things went sideways. My hunch is that the pain comes from above in the form of military force rather than bubbling up from from the bottom in the form of the people loosing their sense of charity. I could be wrong tho. In other shorter-lived disasters, people came together an helped each other in really powerful, life-changing ways. Such disasters include: Hurricane Katrina, Hurricane Sandy, the derechos in the midwest, flooding in the upper midwest, and the San Francisco earthquake.