This relatively brief NYT Magazine commentary by author and Einstein Forum director Susan Neiman looks at how we deal, intellectually and morally speaking, with the difference between natural and man-made disasters:

An excerpt:

Our relation to moral categories is nothing if not ambivalent. We want them so badly that when natural disaster strikes, we would rather blame anyone than admit we live in a world that doesn't reflect them. On the other hand, we're experts in forgetting the moral responsibility we actually share. We all know the numbers: hunger and disease kill more children than any tsunami, week after week after week. Yet knowledge changes nothing if we view those deaths as a result of natural economic processes we are powerless to influence.

What emerges most clearly is the extent of our confusion. The world before Lisbon (note: Dec. 26 was the 250th anniversary of Lisbon being devastated by an earthquake) was teeming with moral categories; now we no longer know where to find them. Bush's call for moral clarity may be a travesty of both words, but it speaks to a genuine need. People want it so badly that they are willing to project it where it's lacking -- or settle for moral simplicity instead. And we are right to beware of simplicity that offers feel-good kitsch and frank manipulation in place of moral reflection.

But it would be wrong to reject moral sentiment just because it can be misused, and we should remember Lisbon's major lesson: if there is to be meaning in the world, we need to put it there. Contrary to cliche, no major Enlightenment thinker thought progress was inevitable. The picture of the future was often dark. Kant's evidence of our progress was minimalist: not the French Revolution, whose outcome was uncertain, but the hopefulness observers felt when thinking of it -- that was sign enough that we had made progress and might make some more. The signs coming out of the tsunami are better than that. Suddenly observers across the globe, in the face of the relief efforts, express sentiments they would very recently have been ashamed to reveal.

If it lasts a little longer, it will be the kind of thing the 18th century would call a sign of Providence.