How are we to read this social breakdown? The first reaction is the standard conservative one. The events in New Orleans confirm yet again how fragile social order is, how we need strict law enforcement and ethical pressure to prevent the explosion of violent passions. Human nature is naturally evil, descent into social chaos is a permanent threat … This argument can also be given a racist twist: those who exploded into violence were almost exclusively black, so here we have new proof of how blacks are not really civilised. Natural catastrophes bring to light the scum which is barely kept hidden and under check in normal times.

Of course, the obvious answer to this line of argument is that the New Orleans descent into chaos rendered visible the persisting racial divide in the US. New Orleans was 68 per cent black. The blacks are the poor and the underprivileged. They had no means by which to flee the city in time. They were left behind, starving and uncared for. No wonder they exploded. Their violent reaction should be seen as echoing the Rodney King riots in LA, or even the Detroit and Newark outbursts in the late 1960s.