Daniel Henninger has some thoughts on what the deaths of two firemen in the abandoned Deutsche Bank builfing opposite Ground Zero tells us about post-9/11 America:
The details of this public-policy morass are no exception in the post-9/11 world. They are the norm. The hyper-complex requirements and mindset reflected in the public record over 130 Liberty St. mirror the endless debate and litigation we’ve also layered into efforts to surveil and prosecute terrorists.
Yes, partisanship plays its part, but intellectual hubris and self-regard plays a larger part. We’ve got a society that’s smarter than ever, but maybe too smart for its own good. Whether the problem before us is national security, the environment or protecting baby, we compulsively drive the system now to develop the most exquisite, complex procedures, which allow us to think ourselves both perfectly safe and ethically perfect.
Procedural perfectionism has been raised to religious status. Normal people now think like lawyers, bureaucrats and administrators, rather than as in the techworld, where the culture values fast mid-course corrections and can-do.
One may ask: The political and commercial forces that produced stasis for 130 Liberty St. may outwardly mourn the deaths. But would any of them pull back from their obsessions now to get the building down fast? I doubt it.
We have met the enemy, and he is still us.
So Manhattan’s culture has transformed dynamists into stasists? Hasn’t it specialized in standing athwart history for decades?
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