the destruction of all or part of one’s emotional ecosystem. It has important parallels to the physiological shock experienced by a person who, as a result of injury, suddenly loses massive amounts of fluids.3 Such a blow threatens the whole body’s ability to function. The nervous system attempts to compensate for the imbalance by cutting off circulation to the arms and legs. Suddenly the hands and feet will seem cold and damp, the face pale, and the brow sweaty. This is an emergency state that can preserve the brain, the heart, and the other essential organs for only a brief period of time. If the fluids are not restored, the person will die. Shock is the fight for survival after a life-threatening blow to the body’s internal balance.
Just as the body has a system to maintain its internal balance, so, too, the individual has a way to maintain the external balance between himself and the world. This way of moving in the environment maximizes the odds that he will survive predators, find food, maintain shelter from the harsh elements, and live in harmony with family and neighbors. This method for navigating the external environment is selected because, based on individual and collective trial-and-error experiences with the mazelike possibilities offered by the surrounding world, it seems to offer the greatest chances for survival. Using this analogy to mazes we can call the chosen pattern of movement “a way to run the maze of life,” or, more simply, a “mazeway.”4
When the mazeway, the external system of protection, is damaged, the person will go into root shock.5 Just as a burn victim requires immediate replacement of fluids, so, too, the victim of root shock requires the support and direction of emergency workers who can erect shelter, provide food, and ensure safety until the victim has stabilized and can begin to take over these functions again.
Imagine the victim of an earthquake, a hurricane, a flood, or a terrorist attack. He suffers from root shock as he looks at the twisted remains of the known universe, searching for the road to the supermarket, which used to be there, but is now a pile of rubble. Imagining such a person—and knowing that these tragedies can happen to any of us—we open our hearts and wallets to the Red Cross and other relief organizations that show up immediately to be the temporary mazeway, the transfusion of an environment to those who are naked to the elements.
The experience of root shock—like the aftermath of a severe burn—does not end with emergency treatment, but will stay with the individual for a lifetime. In fact, the injury from root shock may be even more enduring than a burn, as it can affect generations and generations of people. Noah’s ark—and his effort to rebuild the world after the flood—is the true story of a lost world. We keep telling that story because we keep living it, not simply when the floods come, but after they have receded and we try to rebuild.
Carlos Peterson, a resident of the Lower Hill, was deeply affected by the bulldozing of his neighborhood. He related, “I remember being able to look from the third floor and actually see the bulldozers and the destruction of where we once lived. This urban renewal process was preparation for Pittsburgh’s Civic Arena. I was young and did not fully understand what was happening. I only knew this process was coming towards us. Coupled with the sense of personal loss of friends and neighborhood, this event had quite an influence on my life.” As an adult, he gained a deeper understanding of the process that continued to destroy the neighborhood. It was with a sense of increasing urgency that he sought to document what was happening around him. The photograph shown here depicts the bulldozing in the area of Crawford Street, with the dome of the Civic Arena in the background, and exposed tree roots in the foreground. The disrupted context, exterior to the individual and the group, is the fundamental process that engenders root shock.
Fig. 1.1. Carlos F. Peterson. “Hill-o-Phobia.” Carlos Peterson took this photograph after the bulldozing of a section of the Lower Hill. It shows the Civic Arena just behind the tree root. It is an image of the world torn apart that we will revisit in the work of other artists. COURTESY OF THE ARTIST.
Carlos Peterson worked, as well, to depict the emotional impact the environmental devastation had on him. “I decided to express my feeling using drawings and photography. . . . I decided to look at my surroundings from a grassroots level, with the perspective of knowing how such conditions made me feel. My impression was that we were like a bunch of nomads always fleeing, that was the feeling I had.
“When creating my drawings I attempted to look at a building from within, and the structure’s exterior. I would go into a vacant structure and photograph how it was, allowing memories of my experience to influence art. I would seek to tie in my impressions of what it would feel like had I been the last resident. Therefore, I would end up with a lot of stretched and distorted images that I thought reflected the economics in a downtrodden neighborhood.”
In “Stream of Consciousness,” the drawing shown here, the isolated buildings, open grave, and looming cross create a landscape of loss. The artist has placed his profile among the doomed buildings on the horizon. A dressmaker’s model and a fallen stop sign are poignant reminders that this world once worked and moved and meant something to the people who lived in it. Thus, Carlos Peterson attempts to reveal the texture and content of the painful emotions that accompany root shock.
“This drawing contains symbolism that characterized my state of mind during the time when the Hill District was at its lowest ebb. My drawings were my therapy through the smothering depression that came with the area’s carcass-like landscape. During that time I saw contradiction between religion and nature. Man-made structures and man always succumb to nature no matter how strong man’s faith, prayer, or objects. . . . Nature renews itself through death and dying. With this realization, I included my profile near the horizon just beyond the fence, upper right.”
Root shock, at the level of the individual, is a profound emotional upheaval that destroys the working model of the world that had existed in the individual’s head.6 Root shock undermines trust, increases anxiety about letting loved ones out of one’s sight, destabilizes relationships, destroys social, emotional, and financial resources, and increases the risk for every kind of stress-related disease, from depression to heart attack. Root shock leaves people chronically cranky, barking a distinctive croaky complaint that their world was abruptly taken away.
Root shock, at the level of the local community, be it neighborhood or something else, ruptures bonds, dispersing people to all the directions of the compass.7 Even if they manage to regroup, they are not sure what to do with one another. People who were near are too far, and people who were far are too near. The elegance of the neighborhood—each person in his social and geographic slot—is destroyed, and even if the neighborhood is rebuilt exactly as it was, it won’t work. The restored geography is not enough to repair the many injuries to the mazeway.8
Fig. 1.2. Carlos F. Peterson. “Stream of Consciousness.” In this drawing, Carlos Peterson included a series of images of loss and confusion, as he tried to make sense of the disintegration of the world around him. COURTESY OF THE ARTIST.
Root shock, it is important to recognize, ripples out beyond those who are affected—in the way we like to measure these things. September 11 demonstrated our society’s great love for distinguishing an “affected” group that needs help from an “unaffected” group that doesn’t. While the “affected” people did need help, many more people were affected than was generally conceded. I was part of a call-in television show that aired just before the first anniversary of the attack. People from Queens or Staten Island called to say, “I feel bad, but nothing happened to me. It’s making me feel guilty.” I insisted, over and over again, that September 11 had happened to all of us and that the bad feeling was a natural reaction to having one’s city attacked by terrorists.
But
