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Philosophical Lessons from Ike
by Warren R., September 2008
There are some extraordinary philosophical lessons to
learn from hurricane Ike, for those attentive and philosophically
astute to learn them. In this dire emergency, caused by the
direct hit of a near category 3 hurricane on the fourth largest city
in the country, more than two million people were without power, an
entire nearby resort island (Galveston) was demolished by flood
waters, and food, water and power were in short supply for several
days to a few weeks. Some observations about the aftermath of
Ike are worth cataloging as a preliminary:
- Even the most basic necessity –
water – depends on the continuous use of machinery – pumps – to
keep the positive pressure to ensure no bacterial intrusion.
Clean water also depends on chemistry – chemicals such as
chlorine to kill bacteria, plastics to bottle the clean water
people must drink when tap water is non-potable; the science of
chemistry to identify, test for and understand the medical
implications of ingesting a whole host of naturally occurring
microorganisms. When for four days Houston had low water
pressure and had not completed the myriad of testing required to
be rationally certain of purity, Houstonians had to boil water
or drink bottled water.
- A lengthy causal sequence is
required to supply the potable water and basic food needs of a
city. The pumps that keep positive water pressure are
driven by electricity, which in turn is generated by the burning
of hydrocarbons, and the transmission of the generated
electricity to the plant that houses the pumps and cleans the
water. Without the transmission means (high tension power
lines, connected by a complex network of switches and directed
by computers, cumulatively called “the grid”), or without the
hydrocarbons, the water cannot be produced for human
consumption. The food needs of a city are delivered by
those who use the hydrocarbons (fuel for the trucks) to bring
the food from the point of original production to the warehouses
and ultimately grocery stores that supply them to ultimate
consumers. Part of what is needed to complete this process
of production is electricity to drive the pumps that pump fuel
at fuel stations into trucks, as well as electricity to light
and most importantly refrigerate the warehouses and grocery
stores. Additionally what is needed is a network of
interconnecting roadways from farms to points of distribution.
- The causal sequence is not only
lengthy but complexly organized in mutually enhancing circles.
For example, electricity is produced from hydrocarbons but
electricity is needed to dispense hydrocarbons.
- The mayor of Houston, Mayor White,
as well as his counterparts at the county level, have an
unusually good grasp of these issues, at least at the economic
level. Mayor White admonished the media, who were
accusingly asking why the government “points of distribution” –
PODs – were not up and running faster, that it makes no sense to
deliver food to a location without a means of access by either
trucks or the public. He also had to remind the media that
a service station may have fuel but it is useless if the service
station has no electricity (this in response to accusing
questions as to why fuel trucks weren’t bringing gasoline to all
service stations). Like ignorant third graders, the media
were petulantly demanding everything “now,” and the mayor
reviewed for them these basic facts about the logical hierarchy
of production.
- Mayor White is an unusual man, a
democrat but originally a businessman rather than a career
politician. He understands not only these economic issues
but some fundamental moral and political issues as well.
He praised Houstonians for acting responsibly to assess and
remediate their own situation, not waiting for government to do
it but doing it on their own (clearing streets, removing trees,
checking on neighbors and helping them through the emergency).
He used the word “individual” repeatedly, stating that
individual responsibility and effort were what set Houstonians
apart from others (an oblique but generally well understood
reference to the angry mobs of lethargic welfare recipients
crying for government aid and egged on by politicians in the New
Orleans Katrina debacle). White told one reporter that no
one needs government permission to help a neighbor or friend.
He told another that the private sector was the ultimate “point
of distribution” in the form of grocery stores and fuel
stations, not the small number of government PODs. Mayor
White also repeatedly stated that the primary agent of restoring
power is not the government but a private company – Centerpoint
Energy. Although the Mayor was understandably frustrated
with the slow pace of restoring power, he never once harangued
Centerpoint Energy or tried to threaten or bully it. He
never hinted at a “takeover” or accused it of greed or
incompetence (nor did he menacingly assert that its management
was being overpaid). He let Centerpoint, and encouraged
citizens to let it, do its job. I do not agree with a lot
of what Mayor White has done in his administration – increased
taxes, attacked private property in the form of “land use”
restrictions and attacks on sexually oriented businesses – but I
am convinced from his actions during this crisis that at some
level he is pro-reason, pro-individual, and pro-free market.
- Centerpoint Energy did and is
doing an extraordinary job of restoring power, reconnecting half
a million customers within two days, then incrementally
expanding coverage by about 100,000 per day. This company,
with its expertise at maintaining the infrastructure of a
complex power grid, has organized skilled workers and machinery
in a truly remarkable effort analogous to a military campaign.
Bringing in linemen from across the state, the country and even
from Canada, staging them in 24-hour-per-day shifts, fueling
their trucks, feeding and housing them, organizing their effort
in a rationally hierarchy of restoration (attack that part of
the problem which affects the most customers first, then the
next most customers, etc.), is a truly gargantuan effort of
productive achievement.
Here are some of the deeper
philosophical lessons to be drawn from the above:
- Man’s life depends on modern
industrial civilization, with its complex chain of production,
its reliance on machinery and chemicals and oil drilling and
roads – all the disruptions to raw “nature” that the
environmentalists are continuously complaining about.
- Man’s mind, used rationally to
solve the problems of life, is the fundamental means of
survival, not welfare handouts. An extraordinary amount
can be achieved by individual effort with or without government
aid. In fact, comparing Houston to New Orleans (where
government at the city, state and national levels was
predominantly in the position of responsibility) is a textbook
experiment in the differences between the two types of aid, and
their consequences. As one concrete illustration, consider
that three years after Katrina New Orleans is still not rebuilt
and that the media report that 2300 homes that have been rebuilt
are built below the physically necessary elevation to survive
another flood. Only a welfare-type mentality, confident
that government will once again bail him out of the risk taken
by rebuilding irrationally, would act in such a way.
- Government aid is quite possibly
dispensable, even the short duration emergency type aid everyone
has come to expect, if industry with its motive of profit and
its knowledge and capability in this complex causal sequence is
permitted to act without restrictions.
- The truly gargantuan achievements
referred to above with respect to Centerpoint Energy, but
equally applicable to the fuel suppliers, the grocery chains,
the tree-clearing companies, the roofers, the home-supply
stores, the trucking industry, is unusually visible in an
emergency like this (although even there, as the media
interactions with Mayor White suggest, such visibility requires
a conceptual approach, not staring blankly at brute facts
without integration). What most people don’t realize is
that this is the achievement industry engages in each and every
day. This entire complex causal chain is something that is
enacted on a daily basis and keeps the food on our tables, the
water flowing from the tap, and the cars moving. And it is
enacted on a daily basis in every other industry, such as
communications, construction, entertainment and finance, to the
extent that these industries are left free to operate without
government controls.
Were these the lessons grasped by the
intellectuals and media spokesmen? Initially, it was difficult to
know what the rest of the country was saying about Houston because
we were under a storm-imposed blackout in which only the three local
stations were broadcasting. However, even comparing these
three stations and their broadcasts shows important differences in
interpretation and philosophical perspective. By far the best
station is KHOU channel 11. This station repeatedly emphasized the
issues of production and the causal sequence, admiringly
broadcasting stories about the complex organizational chain to bring
necessities to Houstonians, and the men and women who were engaged
in this process. The other two stations were starkly
different. At the bottom of the list is KTRK channel 13, which
broadcast stories in “investigative reporter” mode, attempting to
uncover conspiracies in what government and others were doing that
caused them to not get Houston on its feet fast enough according to
the station’s timetable. Its main investigative reporter,
Wayne Dolcefino, asked “what don’t they want us to know” when
officials understandably blocked reporters (along with everyone
else) from going to the Bolivar Peninsula, a hard-hit area of
Galveston Island that needed to be kept clear while search and
rescue crews combed the area for survivors. In the middle of
the heap but not particularly higher than channel 13 was KPRC
channel 2, which didn’t stoop as low as channel 13 but spent a good
bit of its air coverage emphasizing a few glitches (which did exist)
in the setting up of the PODs, calling them “huge disconnects.”
Neither of these other two stations came close to the level of
understanding of the production chain as did channel 11.
At the national level, the
interpretations could be seen once the blackout was lifted by the
return of power and internet connectivity. At first it was a
shock to see that Houston was not at the very top of every national
report, in fact it had a very small place. We had been
immersed in the emergency so fully for so many days that it took a
little reorientation to realize that it isn’t the only thing going
on in the world. In fact, this is perfectly appropriate
approach to reporting. Emergencies aren’t the essence of life.
They are temporary life-threatening situations that at worst
threaten a small segment of any country’s population. After
the initial shock, it was refreshing to read about what was going on
in sports, financial markets, the election and foreign affairs (not
that the news in any of these areas was particularly good, with the
possible exception of sports, depending on which teams you support).
The reports, from the New York Times, Reuters, and others, were
factual and sometimes alluded to the points identified above, in a
limited way. On the other hand, after the first few days when
the emergency was acute, the national media coverage faded to an
almost insignificant amount considering that the fourth largest city
in the country was still struggling to get back on its feet.
The normal recovery of a city of rational individuals and industrial
workers, laboring to restore their lives, loses its luster to those
in the media who want the drama of chanting crowds, with scenes of
homeless people asleep on cots in large stadiums. One cannot
but speculate that at least part of the reason the national media
coverage is so limited and matter of fact (especially compared to
their unending, monotonous coverage of the New Orleans Katrina
aftermath) is that Houston is just not helpless enough for their
world view. Certainly, the plentiful material for
philosophical implications was barely reported in the national
media. Nor were any such implications drawn. An
emergency, which highlighted the fundamental issues in human
survival, and which afforded a richly outfitted laboratory for
philosophical insight, became just another 2nd page story, and hence
a missed opportunity.
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