Perhaps people respond more generously to the victims of natural disasters than they do to those in extreme poverty because, after a natural disaster, we tend not to blame the victims. We seem to accept that to be struck by an earthquake, a tidal wave, or a hurricane is just bad luck (unless, as the American evangelist Pat Robertson suggested after the Haitian earthquake, your ancestors made a pact with the devil in order to free themselves from colonial rule).
或许人们对天灾的回应比极端贫困更慷慨的原因，是在一场天灾以后，我们不会去责怪受害者。我们似乎觉得被一场地震，海啸或者飓风袭击就是因为运气不好（除非，正如美国传教士帕特·罗伯森在海地地震后所说，海地人的祖先为了把自己从殖民统治中解脱出来，与魔鬼作了个约定）。