Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
These symptoms, then, constituted “normal” effects of the earthquake over
the following days, weeks, or even months. But what of immediate reac-
tions? What was the “normal” state of mind when the earth shook?
An assistant at the Moscow psychiatric clinic concluded that the earth-
quake cast doubt on the conventional wisdom that the human being is
a “remarkably resilient creature.” One fifty-one-year-old local physician,
“strong and healthy,” declared that his experience on the night of the
Crimean earthquake “could not be described.” in the moment of crisis, he
“lost all courage, no longer even thought of my loved ones,” and it took
six to eight minutes before he “came to himself.” The eighteen seconds of
ground movement itself “meant a panicked terror, they were more horri-
ble than death. The tongue did not obey, the body shuddered, only with
difficulty could one use one's arms and legs. Not a single thought in the
head. Paralysis.”
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such an account could be explained neurologically: “The
earthquake shock inhibited the influence of the cortex and thereby height-
ened the effect of the unconscious sphere of the instincts.”
39
However, an-
other commentator complicated this picture. “Normal” reactions to fear,
he argued, were of two types, active and passive, though occasionally both
reactions were combined in a single person. Active personalities, including
those who had rescued or calmed others, “did not remain passive in the face
of the disaster and displayed a reaction corresponding to their active, deci-
sive character; they set their own wills to survival against the will of the ele-
ments.” Passive characters, on the other hand, responded with fatalism and
a sense of helplessness. As one survivor described it, at the moment of crisis
“man has no will to battle with the elements, he is their slave.” The passive
reaction could even express itself as an “unconscious death instinct [
unbe-
wußte Todesdrang
].” in general, “normal” reactions did not lead to “nonsen-
sical, purposeless acts.” To the contrary, “Terror in this way lent an unusual
concentration of psychic energy, awakened acuity and clarity of thought. . . .
The capacity to preserve the necessary concentration of attention for calm
judgment is a property of a well-organized psyche, which does not permit
sudden, reflexive, often purposeless reactions ( jumping from the second or
third floor).” still other “normal” witnesses reported “a feeling of enchant-
ment and wonder at the power of the elements that was close to ecstasy.”
During the weaker shocks, three even reported “erotic excitement.”
40
A most remarkable perspective was emerging from studies of “normal”
reactions to earthquakes. Many survivors reported that, in the midst of catas-
trophe, their response was not panic but something like the opposite. Per-
haps the most famous earthquake account of this genre was that of William
James. As a young man, James had trained in the tradition of Humboldt and
