Reading Response Maybe.docx

Before going into an exploration of the possibilities of “disaster utopias” manifesting in other forms and contexts, I would like to first contextualise the rationale for disaster utopias as I interpret it from the examples in A Paradise Built in Hell. Being case studies of human behaviour in states of chaos (“chaos” being defined as a disruption of everyday routines), Solnit seems to use disaster utopias as a source of hope in the potential of trusting and relying on others outside our immediate circle of relations for safety and survival. The first comparison that came to my mind when thinking about the potential reliability of strangers was to my own solo travel experiences, which led me to believe (as I do now) that strangers can often be very reliable. In discussing redemptive disasters, Solnit introduces the idea of disasters being a form of temporary liberation (as first declared by Charles E. Fritz) – which I felt was fascinating because it is similar to the state of a traveller whose main concerns are all within their present reality. Of course, the context of a traveller is completely different to that of a disaster because of how they are sole outsiders (and thus, also in a situation of risk actually) unlike a community suffering shared loss. But I wonder if travel experiences offer hope for an “everyday utopia” – which perhaps might even be able to exist in a more permanent state than disaster utopias.