The Cause of Our Discontent

So far, we have read about two types of problem definition in the polis: symbols and numbers. Generally, the numbers and symbols we use to make a policy argument are meant to tell, or at least imply, a causal story. When we are unhappy with the status quo, particularly when we feel that things have gone very wrong, our "nature" as humans is to try to find the cause. Quite a bit of our recent politicking has been consumed by the so-called "blame game" in which one politician attempts to claim the other is responsible for the problems we face. We see this phenomenon now, with Democrats blaming the economic crash on the trend of Wall Street deregulation and Republicans blaming the Community Reinvestment Act, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac. Like most problems in the polis, the "true" cause is likely attributed to all of these, plus many other contributory factors, some of which could have at least been partially mediated by policy and others which were out of government's control.

Turning to this week's substantive reading and documentary, another recent instance where things went horribly wrong was the 2005 response to hurricane Katrina. We can establish certain facts about what happened in this case. On  August 29th, 2005 Katrina, a category 3 hurricane, hit the southeastern Louisiana coast. New Orleans, LA a southern city, built below sea-level, with large low-income and African American populations was in the path of the hurricane. New Orleans was (and is today) protected from storm surges by a series of levees built by the Army Corps of Engineers. One day prior to landfall, the Mayor of New Orleans ordered a mandatory evacuation of the city. After the storm hit, the levee system failed causing areas of the city of New Orleans, many of them historically Black and lower income, to flood. Thousands of residents who had not left the city were stranded in flooded homes and neighborhoods for days. Those who had evacuated to the Superdome and Convention Center faced overcrowding and resource shortages. Aid from local, state, and federal governments was slow to arrive, and much of the food and water aid did not arrive until seven days after the hurricane hit. Over 700 New Orleans residents lost their lives in the flood and hundreds of  thousands were displaced. An estimated 100,000 have yet to return home. The government response to hurricane Katrina has generally been considered a complete failure. Controversy over who is to blame and for what, continues even today.

In her chapter on causes, Stone presents four general types of causes: accidental, mechanical, inadvertent, and intentional. We have seen arguments for all of these causes in the Hurricane Katrina disaster. Least satisfying, and least likely to be true, is the accidental cause argument. Basically, this argument would posit that a hurricane is a force of nature and no one could have anticipated or predicted what the effects of such a hurricane could be. Alternatively, one could argue that even with complete preparation and "mitigation", the levees would have failed and people would have lost their lives. In other words, what happened was out of anyone's control. I believe that evidence from the documentary and the reading shows that this explanation is incorrect in this case.

We often see the argument that FEMA's response was ineffective due to mechanical causes. The federalist system required the state and local government to authorize a federal response, and such a response was never received by the federal government from the state of Louisiana. Of course, state and local officials vehemently dispute this fact. Many have also argued that the reorganization of FEMA into the Department of Homeland Security caused the agency to lose a substantial number of highly-trained experts and funding for disaster response. The employees of FEMA were, in this story, doing their job to the best of their ability, but were hampered by systemic issues. A similar story has been told about the National Guard response to Katrina. There is more about both of these mechanical explanations in the reading and documentary.

There is also an inadvertent story at play in the Katrina story. Many have argued that the people of New Orleans would have left the city if they could but were either uninformed or unable to do so. Many lacked correct information about flood zones and the likelihood that the levees would burst. Public transportation out of the city was lacking. By the time the evacuation order was issued, it was too late for many to coordinate sufficient transportation. There may also have been an unwillingness to believe that this was "the one" or that their usual hurricane preparations would be inadequate. Some argue that the existence of government emergency response agencies was itself an inadvertent cause of the devastation, creating a false sense of security among those affected.

Finally, we heard a substantial number of intentional causal explanations for the devastation caused by Katrina and the botched government efforts to return residents to the city after the storm. As Kanye West famously stated in the televised fundraiser for Katrina relief, "George Bush doesn't care about black people." This sentiment underlies many of the arguments that the devastation caused by the hurricane was intentional. Some believed that the levees were purposely blown to flood low-income neighborhoods and preserve wealthier white New Orleans neighborhoods. Many believe that the bureaucratic red tape surrounding the Road Home program was created to keep poor African American former residents from returning home. Stories of intentional causation are sometimes labeled "conspiracy theories". While they are often untrue, the tobacco settlement discussed by Stone illustrates that some conspiracy theories contain at least a degree of truth. If you have not seen the film "The Insider", it is worth a watch to see how an intentional causal explanation evolved from conspiracy theory to truth.

In reality, the causes of social problems and natural disasters are complex and multi-faceted, but "It's complicated" is rarely a satisfying explanation in the polis. Politicians try to avoid blame for problems by shifting the blame to their political opponents. This occurs with any problem, whether it is a devastating natural disaster or a long-standing persistent issue. How would you use these causal theories to explain a longstanding problem, like poverty or health disparities, in the polis? Have you seen politicians use these theories to explain problems in the presidential primary debates?