Lex Et Ratio: After the Flood
| Jurisdiction | United States,Federal |
| Citation | Vol. 2005 No. 12 |
| Publication year | 2005 |
December 2005 - #9. LEX ET RATIO: After the Flood
We all watched with dismay, even horror, as one of America's great historic cities sank beneath the floodwaters. We found ourselves enthralled, and appalled, by the scenes of destruction and disorder, by the sight of bereft humanity packed into the Superdome, by the transformation of a sports palace into a warehouse of death, sickness, and despair. We witnessed people huddled on rooftops as bodies floated by in the muck and sludge that filled the streets. We heard the tales of inundated hospitals and retirement homes. As reports of sniper fire and looting flashed across our screens, local government broke down and the federal government seemed lost, out-of-touch, and helpless. Post-Katrina New Orleans seemed to say something to us about our society, our government, our people - something we found deeply disturbing. After the flood comes the reckoning.
The State of Nature
The chaos in New Orleans - a combination of the license of Mardi Gras with the hopelessness of hell - called to mind the danger and unhappiness of the Hobbesian state of nature. Hobbes famously argued that the nature of humans is such that, absent the coercive power of government, life would be a war of all against all.(fn1) People, he tells us, are driven by "a perpetual and restless desire of power after power, that ceaseth only in death."(fn2) People are by nature egoistic, striving for the gratification of their own appetites above all. Further, given the relative natural equality of all people - not so much in the moral sense as in the raw, physical sense that differences in natural abilities substantially offset one another - the state of nature offers an incommodious environment for individual success, let along human well-being. Without government, competition over scarce resources to gratify identical appetites characterizes relations among individuals, and fear that others may surpass you in power colors your life. So long as there is no common power to hold them in awe, every man is the enemy of every other man, "continuall feare, and danger of violent death" pervade our existence, and life is "solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short."(fn3)
Although Hobbes did not imagine that such a state ever existed, he thought that times of civil war, when government has broken down and is unable to protect the lives of the people living under it, came close.(fn4) Strikingly, and disturbingly, he insisted that in the state of nature no distinction exists between right and wrong, just and unjust.(fn5) This astounding suggestion grew out of his belief - one shared by many today - that rules of morality are conventional rather than natural, the products of society rather than written into the nature of things. Only with the establishment of a sovereign power does morality come to exist, implying that the disappearance of sovereign power causes the disappearance not only of law but of morality as well. Unlike his successor, John Locke, Hobbes denied that private property exists in the state of nature, for property exists only when it is recognized by power. In the state of nature, everything is up for grabs and "only that [is] every man's that he can get, and for so long as he can keep it."(fn6) With no inherent moral sense to govern him, with no established authority to command him, Hobbesian man takes what he wants, attacks whomever he wants, impelled ceaselessly to gratify his base appetites and preserve his own life.
Did we not witness the emergence of Hobbesian man from the floodwaters of New Orleans? Did the aftermath of Katrina not compel us to recognize that, when circumstances permit, there are those among us who, with frightening rapidity, return to the wild and treat life as a war of all against all? The violence and looting - however overemphasized by the greedy, gloating media - revealed a population, albeit far from a majority, driven by the very motive forces Hobbes described: the will to power, a willingness to do anything to preserve one's self or get what one wants, and above all, "continuall feare, and danger of violent death." The far more numerous peaceful folk - trapped in the Convention Center and the Superdome, on rooftops and freeway overpasses - felt abandoned by their government, embittered, hopeless. Life in New Orleans after the deluge seemed to many to have become "solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short."
The Promise of Government
Government, at the very least, promises its citizens security in their persons and property. Indeed, according to the social contract tradition underlying our national political philosophy,(fn7) people in the state of nature choose to establish government precisely in order to protect life, liberty, and property against the assaults of internal and external enemies. Government is legitimate because, and only as long as, it serves this function. Government emerges from - or is logically dependent upon - a contract in which individuals band together, give up some of their rights, and offer their obedience in exchange for the defense of their remaining rights, and government loses its legitimacy when it fails to fulfill its half of the bargain. When government reneges on its promise, the people can have recourse to what Locke called the "appeal to heaven."(fn8) When in the course of human events, government no longer protects people's life, liberty, and property, it can be altered or absolved, and replaced by a new one of the people's own choosing.(fn9)
This is not to deny that government may serve many other purposes and may be directed to other, nobler ends. A strong case may be made for the classical claim that government exists for the purpose of making the good life - in all the implications of the term "good" - possible for citizens.(fn10) The public good, the res publica, involves more than private wealth, undirected liberty, and comfort. Government ought to facilitate the endeavor to transcend these basics toward something higher and ultimately more human. Nevertheless, the fact remains that government cannot help us achieve the good unless it first provides security. Those whose lives are in jeopardy, whose liberty is unduly constricted, whose claim to property is always in question, cannot live the good life. The fundamental aim of all government, the sine qua non of political order, must be protection of life, liberty, and property from those who would interfere with them.
Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the collapse of order in New Orleans during the deluge was the almost total absence of government. The governmental response to the disaster was an unmitigated failure, and an embarrassment, on all levels. Local government broke down - a perhaps predictable result in a poor, mid-sized, crime-ridden, traditionally corrupt American city. State government seemed powerless and, in any event, had innumerable calls on its attention and resources from the rest of devastated Louisiana. When state and local officials called for the evacuation of New Orleans, they made no provision - and really did not seem to notice its lack - for the movement of thousands of poor families who did not have access to cars or buses. Federal government seemed to be on vacation, both literally and figuratively. Locked in bureaucratic red tape and indecision, the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) seemed as much at sea as the residents trying to cope with the emergency. So confused was the situation that volunteers and supplies, sent by states, communities, and organizations from across the country, were rejected, diverted, lost. No one in government knew who was doing what - but all knew the blame for official impotence lay with someone else. As the mutual recriminations filled the airwaves - as everyone sought to score...
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