While writing my last post on intelligence in the streets of Port-au-Prince, I tried to distinguish the contingent (e.g. an earthquake) from the arbitrary (e.g. a language like Creole, or making international help travel through NGOs). I was attempting to distinguish the accidental (temporality or diachrony) the systematic (history as epochs in synchrony). And put myself into an interesting theoretical bind.
It looked simple: On January 12, 2010 there was earthquake in Port-au-Prince. Everyone had to do something that they did not have to do the day before. “Everyone” is a very large crowd of people caught up with Haiti. This includes “Haitians,” non-Haitians concerned with Haiti in an ongoing manner (e.g NGO staff, journalists), and those who became concerned with Haiti as calls for help were answered by people around the world. The earthquake was, literally, a stone thrown in a lake, rippling far an wide but altogether NOT part of the lake, its shores and shoals. The earthquake was contingent.