Why Chile Turned Right
As darkness settled in central Chile on the 3rd day after the Great Quake of February 2010, residents wielding metal pipes on the outskirts of Los Ángeles placed wooden barriers to block intruders from entering their neighborhood.
"We're trying to take care of the little we have here," said Ana Bedois, a 34 year-old mother of three infants. "We're here all night, first the mothers then the fathers".
Hobbesian Order
Thomas Hobbes once wrote that without Order imposed by higher authorities, people tend to act "without restraint" in order to dominate their neighbors. When this occurs, there is:
"no Industry... no Culture... no Knowledge... no Arts; no Letters; no Society; and worst of all, continuall feare and danger of violent death; and the life of man (is) solitary, poore, nasty, brutish and short."
And so in Chile, for a few short yet interminable days, restraint had broken down.
Merely Economic?
Many claim that Chile suffered from deep-rooted poverty and injustice, which explains, at least in part, why so many disaffected people broke into their neighbors' homes.
But the resulting turmoil seemed to be about more than just poverty. It seemed to be about danger and disorder, the piercing discomfort that something like this could happen at any time not just here but in New York, Paris or Shanghai.
Curiously, Hobbes based his thinking on the assumption that dictators arise because people will do nearly anything to avoid living in fear. That's how he justified dictatorship, a quid pro quo of security for freedom.
In Chile, the Law in many towns broke down to two simple rights: the right to live free from attack and the right to defend oneself if this right was violated.
So when power and phone lines went down in Concepción, many law-abiding citizens keenly felt the State's absence.
"If the government doesn't lay down a heavy hand soon" said one young mother, "the situation will soon get out of control".
In a word, this was about fear.
The Monster
In a place where many people remember what life was like under the junta, the military is a divisive symbol.
But something happened after the quake... not just about what Chileans thought about the Army, but what they thought about themselves.
In the days after the huge tremor - when aftershocks struck daily and city buildings buckled - people went to bed thinking about losing their possessions.
In towns like Arauco and Cañete - where the jolt had completely knocked out power and communication - residents prayed for the Army.
Just days before, they would have been unnerved by the sight of soldiers on the street.
The Bible
Much was exaggerated, the result of hysteria and panic; most people can't assimilate fear at such short notice.
But many Chileans sensed, more starkly than ever before, nature's nasty and brutish undertones.
In the Book of Job, it says:
"If you lay a hand on him
You will remember the struggle...
Any hope of subduing him is false;
The mere sight of him is overpowering...
When he rises, the mighty are terrified."
This terrible sea creature, Leviathan, also symbolized human nature or - put differently - who we often are in the absence of Order.
When Hobbes wrote Leviathan, his message was clear: we disobey this great force at our own peril.
Many Chileans recently had a "mere sight" of this force; it now appears the political consequences may be "overpowering" indeed.
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