In a crisis, people put others first because their survival depends on the goodwill of others. And so all of a sudden, everyone is thinking in group terms. You can see that in crisis after crisis in this country,. 9-11 in New York, the white, black, rich, poor, all those distinctions fell away in Manhattan right after 9-11. As a result, the suicide rate went down after 9- 11. The violent crime rate went down. People really stuck together and they stopped making those ghastly distinctions of affluence and race that are such a curse on our society today.