Jason Godesky writes:

If Katrina is not the catalyst of the collapse, it is at least a harbinger of things to come. It is a preview of what follows from the catastrophic breakdown of hierarchical society. In New Orleans, we see a glimpse of what awaits every city, and likely in our lifetimes. It is a dark and terrible tribulation -- the greatest horror that any animal has ever had to face, wherein humanity will answer for 10,000 years of tyranny and despotism. But even in the darkest hour, hope endures.

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When a man tortures a pit bull to make him a fierce fighter, and then that pit bull mauls a child, we do not blame it on the inherently violent nature of dogs. We blame it on the man who tortured the pit bull to make him violent. New Orleans was a poor city even before Katrina. Those who remained were the poorest of the poor. We have become a people dependent on hierarchy. It has abused us so that we cannot live without it. We can no longer remember what "freedom" even means; all we can dream is to one day be the oppressor, rather than the oppressed. It is the sick fantasy of a slave beaten too hard, locked away too long, so that he no longer remembers what gentleness is, can no longer recollect the light.

The failure of our government to deal with this crisis is painfully evident for all to see. Recriminations have reverberated across the political spectrum, but already the have begun to settle into partisan camps. Liberals picked the easiest and most common sense target in George Bush; others have placed the blame at the feet of Mayor Nagin. This will likely continue to play out for some time with all the reason and decorum we've come to expect from modern American political discourse, but it seems we will once again only learn half the lesson.

This is what the State founds itself on. Precisely this kind of scenario. "Obey us, serve us, and we will protect you in times of catastrophe"; that is the social contract, that is the Faustian deal we strike with Leviathan. It is for that, that we sell ourselves to oppressors and tyrants, and shackle our lives, our futures, our souls to the will of the State. All we have asked in return is its protection from catastrophe. Now catastrophe has come, and the protection of the State is nowhere to be found.

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It is in times of crisis that our true nature is revealed. It is easy to go along in times of prosperity and plenty; it is in times of crisis that necessity strips us of our masks and lays bare our truth for all to see. And what truth has Katrina laid bare for us? That the victims of hierarchy cannot persist without her? Possibly. But more than that, it has revealed that hierarchy predates upon us, predicated upon a lie. It shows us that Leviathan cannot protect us, that when catastrophe befalls us, Leviathan will fail. It shows us that hierarchy, domination, coercion, all fail.

But it also shows us that in catastrophe, people turn to one another, and to the only thing that really works--tribes. It shows us that tribes endure. While your hierarchy fails, our tribes endure. It shows us that hope endures. And humanity--humanity endures.