ABSTRACT
In this phase of disaster, unlike the prior phase where everybody feels like “united we stand,” what happens is people move into fragmentation. They move into groups they feel safer with and those groups tend to see other people as not necessarily understanding things. At its most extreme, remember that “looking for the tiger” threat detection system I talked about … we start to see each other as potential enemies. And it takes a very conscious effort because of that exhaustion, thin skin and fragmentation dynamic to listen very carefully past the minefield and understand that there is a bias to be offended and to fragment for safety, and [we need] to really make an effort to build a common purpose. The good news is one of the things that people are wired to build a common purpose for is children.
