false 3 15 false true Mon Sep 15 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Thu Jul 17 05:48:23 -0700 2008 Mon Sep 15 03:34:13 -0700 2008 1
In 1998, Portugese writer Jose Saramago won the Nobel Prize in Literature. In his novel, Blindness, he uses an inexplicable epidemic of blindness, striking an unnamed city to illustrate how a society might unravel under the stress of a crisis that limits food, water, sanitation, law, order, government, and hope, among other essential needs.

Saramago offers little faith in humanity as people begin to abuse power, take advantage of others, rob, kill, rape, and show full lack of regard for their fellow humans. One sliver of goodness is to be found in a group of individuals, which includes the lone character in the novel who can still see, as they begin to live together as a family.

One thing I took from this novel, and it's a frightening realization, is how fine the line is between the comfortable lives that most of us live and the nightmarish world of a collapsed society. Whether it comes in the form of war or a terrorist attack, a hurricane, the aftermath of an environmental crisis, an epidemic (remember the SARS scare?), we could be one step/misstep away from the hell on earth that Saramago describes here.

It's not a pleasant thought, but it's something we must keep our eyes open to. What position would we take in a lawless, desperate society? What are the limits of our good will, our optimism, our sense of order, our desire and ability to do the right thing in the face of horrific circumstances?]]>