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Hurricane Katrina

Hurricane Katrina was astonishing not simply for the incredible destruction it brought to life and property in its part of the world. It also showed how money can safeguard a way of life, and how the lack of money can shatter a fragile economic balance.

Wealth and poverty always exist at either end of the economic bell curve. Not everyone in even the most generous and benevolent society can be rich. Events such as Hurricane Katrina only shine a spotlight on inequities. They do not eliminate them, or even solve them. At best, they suggest that a radical divide exists. At worse, they encourage discrimination and hopelessness by suggesting that such a divide can never be overcome.

Yet Katrina sparked an amazing initial burst of giving among those who could afford it to help those in need. Donor interest soon drifted off to fund newer tragedies, as such generosity is wont to do, but the enormity of this particular tragedy had hit very close to home for many, many Americans. Middle class people with no personal connections to New Orleans contributed spontaneously to rebuilding because it felt like the hurricane had hit home.

In a way, it had. Americans are often criticized (many times by their fellow Americans) for having too strong a sense of national pride. Nationalism can be a selfish impulse, pushing aside feelings of being part of the global village and encouraging insular snobbishness. Loving one's own country, whatever that country may be, can frequently come at the expense of looking down on other nations. National pride makes it impossible to have an equal share of pride in the history, traditions, and importance of those outside of one's own nation. Hurricane Katrina felt personal in a way that the tsunami that had hit Southeast Asia just before did not. Katrina had destroyed our own backyard, or, at the very least, had devastated a city we knew and belonged to, at least a little.

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Hurricane Katrina. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 09:22, March 29, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1705402.html