Barbara, Howard, Bruce – I’ve been struggling to put into words my reaction to the 9/11 anniversary, to others‘ reactions to it, to the reactions to the reactions, and so on. Though I don’t want to be associated with the “it’s past time to move on” crowd or with a President whose response struck some of us as a typically trite and phony attempt to split the middle and change the subject, the truth is that I just don’t feel much about 9/11 anymore, and am neither proud nor ashamed to say so.
I can’t claim any direct, personal connection to the events or its victims. Having risen early and flicked on the TV while preparing for some on-line day-trading, I was 3,000 miles away from the principal scenes – watching in fascination, exchanging phone calls, e-mails, and chat messages with friends and associates, with no one among my friends, family, and acquaintances directly impacted. Nowadays, I am moved by recitations of personal stories or by the recorded scenes of death, fear, and desperation, but I hardly think that qualifies me for victim benefits. My failure of sympathy may also in part derive from too much study of history – an emotional paralysis of analysis. I can’t escape the recognition that the events of 9/11 don’t amount to much objectively in the annals of warfare and catastrophe, and I don’t think grown-ups, even authentic victims, should be afraid to acknowledge this simple fact.
For me and I believe for the vast majority of Americans, what distinguishes these particular atrocities on their own terms is that they were televised live, that they were in themselves astonishingly spectacular, and, most of all, that they happened to people with whom we identify – to fellow members of our extended tribe. For those whose identification with the victims is remote to non-existent, the spectacle might as well have been produced in Hollywood. For many Islamist and other enemies of “World Trade” and “the Pentagon,” the events and even our grief were and remain inspiring (in ways that they may be smart enough not to admit). For this reason, to the extent we remain focused on the events in themselves and demand recognition and sympathy, we’re bound to be frustrated – indeed, we’re offering our enemies and their fellow travelers new opportunities to inflict their animosity on us.
I wonder if the most appropriate reaction, rather than the grief and anger typical on the right or the leftist’s self-righteous denial or the President’s arguably self-serving call to community service, is dread. Victor Davis Hanson suggested recently that we’re suspended in a kind of limbo, awaiting a “critical moment of clarity”:
We continue practices that we say are either futile or wrong, and we demonize their architects in speech even as we ratify them through action. At some date, the Democrats and Obama may well close Guantanamo, try our own CIA interrogators, cease tribunals and renditions, ground the Predators, pull out of Afghanistan and Iraq, reach out to Iran and Syria, and distance the United States from Israel.
At that point, when liberal deeds at last match liberal rhetoric, the great 9/11 debate of the last eight years — are we still in lethal danger from radical elements of Islam or not? — will finally be decided by either our continued safety or another September 11.
I can see other alternatives to “our continued safety” than “another September 11,” but his larger point holds true for me. Regardless of how any of us happens to feel, 9/11 has all but faded from active communal memory. As a nation we have, for all practical purposes, decided at most to go through the motions of remembrance, until and unless the hypothesis of elemental danger to our lives and our way of life is confirmed by repetition.
In the meantime, I have less of a problem with “never forget” than I do with “get over it” or the President’s “summon the ordinary goodness etc.” I personally prefer”let’s roll” to the other candidates for 9/11 motto, but at this particular moment of national uncertainty, it’s perhaps the hardest of all to grasp.
Comments 45
“I can’t escape the recognition that the events of 9/11 don’t amount to much objectively in the annals of warfare and catastrophe, and I don’t think grown-ups, even authentic victims, should be afraid to acknowledge this simple fact.”
True words CK,and it takes some nerve to express that on a supposedly Neo-Consevative Blog.
September 12th, 2009 at 7:16 pm
@RCAR – The Tsar has nerves of steel and a hand next to the big red button.
September 12th, 2009 at 7:33 pm
I hear you, Colin. I was too close to the scene not to have a visceral response — my son had just started at Stuyvesant HS four blocks from Ground Zero, and for several hours the morning of 9/11 my wife and I had no idea what had happened to him or where he was (safe, as it turned out, thank God). The weeks and months after 9/11, with lower Manhattan closed to vehicular traffic, the city was in a state of mourning. People on the street looked detached and were faceless to others. Everywhere you went were photos of missing friends and relatives with the hopeful (but ultimately) hopeless plea to anyone who might have seen the person to have him/her call his/her mother, wife, sister, or best friend. Eventually, after the hope was replaced by grieving, those photos became shrines replete with flowers and candles. To this day, I can’t look at the Manhattan skyline without noticing a conspicuous absence. It’s like looking at a family portrait that includes the image of a dead relative and lingering on the face of the departed.
But I do hear you and applaud your candor. I just wonder, as you yourself do, whether the wounds have healed for the majority of Americans because 9/11 “might as well have been produced in Hollywood.” I certainly suspect that’s the case with my brother, a diehard liberal, who was safe and sound in Pittsburgh the morning of the attacks and spent the remainder of the Bush years dissing the president as an idiot who prolonged a war for personal gain.
I also believe that detachment from the events is the reason so many liberals, Obama included, are able to shrug offf 9/11. Understand, I am not claiming any privileged feelings or special grief. Rather, it’s that I think it’s difficult if not impossible for people who weren’t there, who didn’t live through the days of smoke-filled skies, to fully grasp what it was like. That of course goes double or triple for hypocrites like Obama for whom this is another political event.
September 12th, 2009 at 8:03 pm
@Howard Portnoy – Howard, there are rumors that liberals live in NYC in significant numbers. Perhaps they haven’t shrugged off that day any faster than anyone else.
September 12th, 2009 at 8:19 pm
@fuster — Not so sure, fuster. Them folks on the Upper West Side are pretty crazy.
September 12th, 2009 at 8:38 pm
We have one of the stickers “September 11″ with our flag on the front door window. They were enclosed in newspapers. In my study, there’s a photo of a burning tower and you can see the small image of a man trying to fly silhouetted against it. Our best IT guy’s father escaped from the WTC. He had a basement shoe repair shop and lost many of his friends who died on the upper floors.
Perhaps the only good thing The New York Times has done this century was the many months of beautifully written brief biographies of those who perished.
No, I did not know any of these people personally, but I adored Barbara Olson every time I saw her on television. And, wasn’t Todd Beamer’s “Let’s Roll” a battle cry we shall all remember as long as there is an America?
September 12th, 2009 at 11:04 pm
CK some thoughts – -
I tend to agree with you that in the scheme of things from a numbers perspective alone 9/11 really isn’t that significant. However, it left an indelible mark on me for several reasons.
1) Being an East Coaster and working near DC at the time I have never (except for misadventures I encouraged on my own) felt the fear and vulnerability I felt driving home from work that morning (this was after Flight 93 was forced down).
2) 9/11 set into motion the chain of events which led to my brother in law and good friend being killed in Iraq three years back. I can see the chain of causation and conflate the two as a result. I can’t really separate the two events – although I admit I was probably headed in your direction before his death.
3) In a sense, 9/11 marked a transition in my self awareness that we are vulnerable to our enemies on our own soil – -something that say the bombing of the Federal Building in Oklahoma City which was perhaps similar in scale — did not do.
4) My daughter had just been born and my son was around 6 at the time of the attacks and I was more afraid not for me but for them having to grow up in a world where such things were possible and could become part of their daily reality. I didn’t understand how that could be — it was as if I had been thrust through a door which suddenly appeared in front of me and slammed shut behind me and there was no way back.
In any event, it is kind of strange that I feel the same kind of limbo that VDH speaks of — but on a different scale. Will that door open up behind me so that we can go back through — I don’ think it will and if it doesn’t are we in a transitory phase now towards some different reality or will I always feel like this?
September 12th, 2009 at 11:07 pm
9/11 exposed the conviction of our “Employers” that the American Middle class is expendible. And we are.
Professor Ferguson describes in detail a recent incarnation of this core belief.
What I’m looking for is a defense of EconomicDarwinianism by the Zombie elites.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/215178/output/print
September 13th, 2009 at 11:48 am
Don’t know what this means.
As for nkh: Your brother-in-law didn’t die in Iraq because of 9/11. Obviously, no one one knows exactly what might have happened in the non-9/11 alternative universe, but our direct military involvement in and around the Persian Gulf was already in the cards – overdetermined. The Gulf War had left unfinished business just on the level of the confrontation with Saddam, and the entire confrontation with Saddam including the Gulf War was itself part of unfinished business on an even greater scale.
What 9/11 did was force lots of people all at once to cancel their overextended imaginary holiday from history – in other words to recognize that the holiday was only imaginary, that history had been advancing all along during the phony “End of History” period of the ’90s.
If there hadn’t been a 9/11, there would have been several mini-9/11s, or there would eventually have been something even worse. If we hadn’t intervened in Iraq in 2003, we would have been drawn in anyway at a later date. What led to the Iraq War- our role as reluctant hegemon and sentinel; the disjunction between the Middle East’s political, social, and cultural malformations on the one hand and its importance to the world on the other – meant that confrontation was inevitable. 9/11 seemed to accelerate the process, but we don’t know that something else wouldn’t have.
September 13th, 2009 at 1:05 pm
I’ll speak for myself: I observe certain occasions because I think they call on me to pause. Much of the brouhaha surrounding my post would have been avoided if I had managed to successfully close comments as I intended to. I got two comments almost immediately that seemed, in the one case to be inane beyond belief, and in the other, better written as a post since it was long, off topic, and called on several specific people to answer.
So my attempt to close comments failed, I offered a mild explanation of my intention for the post, and closed comments. What I didn’t do was rebuke anyone for choosing to observe 9/11 in their particular way, or not at all. In return, I became the object of name-calling among shrill cries of “CENSORSHIP!” from, of all people, an author on this blog.
When I want a discussion on a topic, I write a post. When I want to join a discussion, I write a comment. Since I have been on the receiving end of some truly childish and vulgar criticism, I no longer wonder why Contentions decided to can the comments.
CK, to address you thoughts about the significance of 9/11, I would offer that “war” is not the only prism by which to gauge the significance of an event. Even so, as the seminal event that sent us into all-out war in the Middle East, that 9/11 is tremendously significant.
Last, I saw a movie the other night that had a scene in which two characters were following a fellow when a funeral procession goes by. As a matter of respect, they paused and doffed their hats. They didn’t mourn, they just paused out of respect for those who were mourning. So maybe, on 9/11, you can virtually doff your hats to the posts of those of us who choose to remember by way of a post. If you can’t respect the day, respect the post; if not the post, then the blog. Keep it classy.
September 13th, 2009 at 2:31 pm
It’s harder to rally people’s hearts around watershed events that did not involve military attacks by other nations. I think this has always been one of the PR problems WWI had: it started stupidly, with a series of “overdetermined” military responses to a nitwit perpetrating the assassination of a guy who mattered to no one except God and his own inbred, gibbering-idiot relatives. WWI ended up being a prime example for the ages of what democracy, science, wealth, and military prowess could not contain or avert. Yep: we as a race really are that dumb.
WWII, by contrast, had definitive and politically significant inaugurations: the invasion of Poland in 1939 (70 years and just a couple of weeks ago), and the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. The political justification of WWII was cartoonishly obvious in its outlines, in a way few major human conflicts can claim.
By far the longest, biggest, and most expensive war the US was ever in — the Cold War — had no watershed-event start to it at all. Some analysts date the onset of it back to 1917, but how many of us do today? I think most people think of it as having “started” when Truman succeeded FDR and got a clear Missouri mule’s view of just how good an ally old Uncle Joe really was — i.e., the kind who’s got a bunch of people bound and gagged in the storeroom and is robbing you blind while he keeps you chatting out on the sidewalk, with balalaikas playing for good measure.
It may not tug at our hearts, but the fact still remains that 9/11 was a watershed event. It is even now forcing Americans to decide what kind of polity, what kind of republic, we truly want and intend to be. That’s actually bigger than what the terrorists did to us on that day eight years ago. I would still rather regime-change 100 nations than change one line of US law to curtail our own liberties, and that’s what 9/11 is a reminder of, to me.
September 13th, 2009 at 3:09 pm
@Barbara – Barbara, it was partly to doff my hat that I refrained from putting up my post until the day after.
I have to quibble with your terminology: What we’ve done in Iraq and Afghanistan doesn’t come close to “all-out war.” Indeed, I think it’s more than quibble: A main justification for how we approached Iraq and Afghanistan was and remains the avoidance of all-out war or anything close to it.
This isn’t a play on words or some other attempt to be clever. Ever since our, relatively remote, experience of “total war,” and all the more so since our invention, initial use, and further development of weapons that potentially re-define and augment the concept of total war, a major basis of our strategy has been to avoid its recurrence. I don’t think it’s too far off to say that we’re trying to preserve a world in which 3,000 casualties can continue to impress us.
Anyway, I don’t dispute the significance of 9/11 as a symbol or historical marker, and even less as a moment of tremendous human significance to direct and indirect victims of the attacks. My point is that for the vast majority of us, and in the current life of the nation, 9/11 matters because of what it may symbolize less than for what occurred on that day. Of special political significance is our uncertainty about the former: We don’t know whether 9/11 was the high point of anti-U.S. Islamist radicalism, the shape of things to come, or something else again, and we also don’t know when to expect definitive answers.
September 13th, 2009 at 3:13 pm
BTW, welcome back to the dead, JED!
For an economically stated alternative view on the Great War and its reputation that you may find, oddly enough, both disagreeable and congenial, I recommend David Warren’s recent column:
http://davidwarrenonline.com/index.php?id=1045
September 13th, 2009 at 3:17 pm
CK MacLeod wrote:
@RCAR – 9/11 exposed the conviction of our “Employers” that the American Middle class is expendible
Don’t know what this means
How’s the Middle class being doing since 9/11?
Is that a coincidence or the result of a policy?
September 13th, 2009 at 3:38 pm
So my attempt to close comments failed, I offered a mild explanation of my intention for the post, and closed comments. What I didn’t do was rebuke anyone for choosing to observe 9/11 in their particular way, or not at all. In return, I became the object of name-calling among shrill cries of “CENSORSHIP!” from, of all people, an author on this blog.
When I want a discussion on a topic, I write a post. When I want to join a discussion, I write a comment. Since I have been on the receiving end of some truly childish and vulgar criticism, I no longer wonder why Contentions decided to can the comments
That’s 11 Is/MYs in two short paragraphs. That’s a lot of inward focus.
September 13th, 2009 at 3:45 pm
@RCAR – Glad you noticed. My experience. Didn’t want to speak for anyone else.
September 13th, 2009 at 3:50 pm
@RCAR –
Both? Neither? Why presume a direct connection? Whatever you’re trying to get at, you need to be more specific.
September 13th, 2009 at 3:54 pm
@CK MacLeod –
Here’s your chance to let me/us know what you intended to say to “scientific socialist.”
I also do not understand you, even though you clearly explained your thoughts about our currency and debt. Decry the vanishing “middle class” (voteber dot is?) all you want, but I see no conspiracy. The unintended consequences of adamant auto unions and their politician allies are there for all to see. I don’t see how better legislation could have kept me from preferring an Acura to a Cadillac. You can’t legislate away honest to goodness competition.
September 13th, 2009 at 4:21 pm
That post was directed at RCAR, not Colin!!!
September 13th, 2009 at 4:22 pm
@CK MacLeod CK, I don’t know that yours and my attitudes about 9/11 are very different at all, but perhaps the issue *really* is: Does closing comments imply a negative judgment on the commenters? Sometimes, I suppose, but why do [some] people here take it as a personal affront, a violation?
I hereby out myself as a non-Contentious Zombie. I watched the comment threads deteriorate over time on Contentions. My pleasure in reading them was being eroded by unchecked trolls and by comments very similar to the ones that have been leveled at me (keep counting, RCAR). I touched a nerve by closing the thread because some people take it very personally that Contentions closed. But the same people who scream the loudest about censorship are the ones who engage in ad hominem attacks and trash talk. Huh- is it a coincidence or a result of policy?
I don’t share the view that it’s wrong of Contentions to close comments, and, until the Czar says, “Off with your head,” I’ll exercise my editorial good taste to the extent that technology will allow (keep counting, RCAR: how many are we up to?) In the end, staying on point and keeping the discussion sharp but not personal makes for better reading and more enjoyment for most.
I can hear you abacus whizzing from here, RCAR. Keep up the good work!
September 13th, 2009 at 4:29 pm
“I also do not understand you, even though you clearly explained your thoughts about our currency and debt. Decry the vanishing “middle class” (voteber dot is?) all you want, but I see no conspiracy.”
No Conspiracy,just bad trade policy. The most important factor in eliminating the wages/opportunities for those who work for someone is Trade Imbalance. When we buy more than we sell by Hundreds of $Billions(and we buy via debt,not equity),the jobs dry up. Those who sell have the jobs,those that buy support those that work.
September 13th, 2009 at 4:40 pm
And, I would say the most important factorS must include an unwillingness to work and adopt, as evidenced by auto unions’ refusal to let go of benefits which made no sense. Caterpiller and Deere thrive largely because they were able to say no whist GM et all were not.
Also, an increasing economic drain comes from the ever growing class of unionized government workers.
I am a former Teamster and member of SEIU.
September 13th, 2009 at 4:50 pm
OK, I’ve come back from figuring out what this “Barbara and the 9/11 post” thing is all about. Not being OSlash Hisself, I will only put in $.02.
I don’t see freedom of speech being endangered by a poster closing comments now and then. I can understand why Barbara preferred to not be inundated by spin-off objections to the sentiment in a post that was meant to be a simple pause for reflection.
That said, I don’t know that everyone agrees with the concept that comments after a post should address only the topic of that post, and not devolve into side discussions. This is a separate issue from the one at the 9/11 post, but it came up before. I personally am not offended by side discussions that develop within the comments sections of posts. Sometimes they are tiresome, but I’m not aware of any iron law of etiquette that they violate. The great thing about the web is that the scroll function really does work, unlike the process of trying to tune out noisy side discussions during a live oral presentation. The latter type of distraction IS rude to others.
My vote would be to take no official, corporate offense if someone wants to close comments preemptively on a post. I can’t get worked up about evolving side discussions, but live and let live seems like a good rule of thumb there.
September 13th, 2009 at 4:54 pm
@J.E. Dyer – Well, yes. I think that discussions evolve organically in a long thread, and that can get very interesting to follow. Occasionally, however, you get a thread in which the comments bear NO relationship to the post at all. There are so many authors here that there really is no excuse for an author not to post his or her stuff, rather than ignore what the post author put up. For non-authors, it’s as simple, on many threads, as saying, “Hey- what about…” and sending an author into action addressing a topic, or just taking it to the thread.
September 13th, 2009 at 5:01 pm
@Barbara –
I know it’s off topic, but I like the new gravitor, which is much better than the obscene ketchup heiress and her pompous gigolo.
Someone emerging from a dust storm?
September 13th, 2009 at 5:13 pm
@Zoltan Newberry – I have to say, I can’t look at a bottle of ketchup without laughing thanks to you. LOL.
No- that’s from The Hurt Locker. The guy’s a bomb defuser and the explosion behind him is one of his failures. Great movie btw.
Not to brag or anything, but there’s a wet mop clean up on aisle 3*: a real cursing troll. I think we’ve arrived: no more do we have to settle for Moms for Obama whiners!!
*Tea Party Post
September 13th, 2009 at 5:25 pm
Off topic again, but speaking of gravitars, what happened to my little green bat? I had named him and everything. My cat died since last I was posting here too, so this is an awful lot of mourning to ask me to go through.
September 13th, 2009 at 5:37 pm
JED, if you really named your little green bat… then I think I may have done you a favor by adjusting the avatar set-up here.
I’m very sorry to hear about your cat, and I hate to add to your woes.
Now, it’s conceivable – it would be a pain, I suspect – but it’s conceivable, that your disoriented lopsided goofy green spring-tailed bat could be retrieved. But I’d urge you instead to leave your bat behind and bravely step into the new world of avataristical self-expression.
You might want to act quickly if you want to keep Barbara from launching a “JED needs an avatar” thread… I’d be happy to provide suggestions…
September 13th, 2009 at 5:59 pm
http://www.strangefunkidz.com/images/content/154176.jpg
September 13th, 2009 at 6:05 pm
@Barbara – Thanks for explanation on the new avatar. I thought maybe you had become a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle.
September 13th, 2009 at 6:29 pm
or perhaps…
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/55/Tomahawk_Block_IV_cruise_missile.jpg
September 13th, 2009 at 7:17 pm
@fuster – Subtle. Like a chainsaw.
September 13th, 2009 at 7:31 pm
@Barbara – You’re still killing me. What’s wrong with that pic for Dyer?
September 13th, 2009 at 7:35 pm
I really like it. But then, I love explosives. As a rule, though, I like to avoid pics with any real Freudian connotations. But that’s just me. Hey, I don’t even believe half of what that guy says.
September 13th, 2009 at 7:45 pm
@Barbara – Tomahawk missiles may be explosive and destructive, but shouldn’t be considered exploitative.
I didn’t select it for the shape. Sometimes a missile is yust a missile.
September 13th, 2009 at 7:52 pm
Well, excuse me. I went to the “Edit User” template and it tells me avatar uploads are not allowed and I must contact the administrator.
Having a little imperial moment, there, O Great Czar of Czars?
September 13th, 2009 at 10:08 pm
Yes, JED – it is so – only the great and powerful admin/Czar can upload local avatars. Changing that would take work or $$$. You can e-mail me your avatar, and I’ll be happy to perform the necessary procedure.
September 13th, 2009 at 10:18 pm
CKM — done. Grazie bello.
September 13th, 2009 at 10:43 pm
@J.E. Dyer – On the other hand, gravatars turn out to be super-easy to create by yourself. I recommend them.
September 13th, 2009 at 11:54 pm
@fuster – Wouldn’t Freud have said “chust”? “Yust” sounds more like something from “I Remember Mama.” (“Yümpin’ Yiminy, Mama!”)
September 14th, 2009 at 12:07 am
@Peter Shalen – My finger must have slipped or something.
September 14th, 2009 at 12:12 am
@fuster – I happened to be in New York on March 17, 2002, and accidentally ran into the St. Patrick’s Day parade when I was trying to cross Fifth Avenue. A young yuppie-type woman was trying, awkwardly, to cheer the police. First she tried “DPNY!” and then “PDNY!” Finally one of the cops took pity on her and explained that it’s supposed to be “NYPD.”
September 14th, 2009 at 12:14 am
probably a form of dyslalia most common among people researching ethanol-based fuels.
After-effects and complications tomesimes.
September 14th, 2009 at 12:22 am
I can vouch for Colin’s ability and generosity.
Look at me! Between me and Mr. Peanut, we’ve got a first rate image factory going here.
September 14th, 2009 at 7:31 am
@fuster – Very entertaining theory, fuster, but I think it was merely the kind of stumbling one does when speaking an unfamiliar language—which is what praising the police was, for her.
September 14th, 2009 at 8:10 am