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Hmmm
I'm currently reading a post-apocalyptic* YA novel and it occurs to me: in postapocalyptic novels, we accept the fact that after a disaster there will be people -- individuals, small groups, gangs, whatever -- roving about ready to rape, steal, loot, and murder, and others will group together in order to protect themselves, quite often with lots of guns.
In practically post-apocalyptic situations recently - the 2004 tsunami, Katrina, Japan, etc - how much of that has there really been? Not rumors, which always blow situations up worse, but actual documented cases of that? And on how large a scale?
Just wondering, because it seems a cliche for every post-apocalyptic novel to assume that some segment of society is going to go all Mad Max on us when the Big One hits, when I don't really think that's necessarily the case. I read an article recently that unfortunately I only remember vaguely (either on the NPR or BBC iPhone apps, or on the BBC news site, most likely) that said a study concluded that more often than not the best in humanity comes out in disastrous situations, not the worst.
We may be extrapolating from areas of the world that are already pretty dangerous, most likely stemming from decades of war, strife, grinding poverty, and lack of resources, rather than one giant apocalypse. Hm.
* Of a sort.
ETA: This isn't the article I was thinking of, but it's similar - studying the Titanic and the Lusitania shows that the speed of the disaster seems to indicate which way humans behave. The Lusitania sunk in 18 minutes, and there was a lot more every-man-for-himself behavior on it, while on the Titanic, social norms had time to reassert themselves and people were more altruistic.
In practically post-apocalyptic situations recently - the 2004 tsunami, Katrina, Japan, etc - how much of that has there really been? Not rumors, which always blow situations up worse, but actual documented cases of that? And on how large a scale?
Just wondering, because it seems a cliche for every post-apocalyptic novel to assume that some segment of society is going to go all Mad Max on us when the Big One hits, when I don't really think that's necessarily the case. I read an article recently that unfortunately I only remember vaguely (either on the NPR or BBC iPhone apps, or on the BBC news site, most likely) that said a study concluded that more often than not the best in humanity comes out in disastrous situations, not the worst.
We may be extrapolating from areas of the world that are already pretty dangerous, most likely stemming from decades of war, strife, grinding poverty, and lack of resources, rather than one giant apocalypse. Hm.
* Of a sort.
ETA: This isn't the article I was thinking of, but it's similar - studying the Titanic and the Lusitania shows that the speed of the disaster seems to indicate which way humans behave. The Lusitania sunk in 18 minutes, and there was a lot more every-man-for-himself behavior on it, while on the Titanic, social norms had time to reassert themselves and people were more altruistic.
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My impression is that generally speaking, people tend to be well-behaved in the wake of sudden, unexpected disasters. It would be more likely for roving rape gangs, etc, to happen years after the disaster, if society has degenerated overall, than immediately after.
ie, disaster causes society to fall apart in general due to famine, lack of instant communication and fast travel, etc, and the resulting lack of law enforcement causes some segment of society to realize that there will be no consequences for their evil deeds, causing an increase in evil deeds.
The "asteroid = RAPE PARTY" trope, I suspect, has its roots in mistaken extrapolation from, as you say, areas which have become essentially lawless over a period of years (generally not due to natural disasters), and also from riots (which are also not typically caused by natural disasters.)
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ETA; The book also gets points for a depiction of a gay couple as unremarkable, but I've got an eyebrow raised as there seems to be no non-white people in Iowa. (Although I might have skimmed over the descriptions and missed it, or the author might be one of those who thinks that by not describing anyone's race he's including all races. I'll have to go back and reread those sections to be sure.)
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Oh! Otherwise unrelated, but speaking of martial arts!
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"We don't have all the race problems they have!" he'd say.
"That's because you've only GOT one race!" I wanted to say (but didn't).
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ETA; I meant to add that with Mexico, it's been a long time coming. The firat Matamoros murders to come to light happened when I was an undergrad, and a decade after that, my friends and I were still making annual trips down to Laredo for drinking weekends. It's been about a decade since then that we've stopped - I *think* the last one we went to was 2001 - because of the drug gang violence, but it still took ten years to get to that point.
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The people who are going to take advantage of a disaster aren't going to wait until the rest of society breaks down to do it. I think how many people fall into that category depends on the expected consequences of behaving a given way. If stealing and driving the neighbors off your property at gunpoint is perceived as the only way to keep your family safe, a lot more people are likely to do it than if it's perceived as being unnecessary and having negative consequences.
So, if the disaster is limited in range, and there's a feeling that society is still out there to be joined, with its rules to be followed, people will behave differently than if they feel that society has completely collapsed and survival has become the number one issue. But with or without that feeling, there will always be people in both categories--those whose nature is to care for others, and those whose nature is to grab what they can and hold onto it.
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As On the Beach by Nevil Shute also overwhelmingly focuses on the kindness and decency of people, for all that the book is soul-crushingly bleak otherwise. The kindness and decency actually make it worse.