It's tempting for us amateur observers of life and history to put events like September 11, 2001, in nice, neat, little boxes. It helps us understand momentous events and deal with the trauma.
The 9/11 mythology that has been nurtured, cared for, and augmented over the last 25 years hardly resembles the raw, searing pain we felt on that day and in the immediate aftermath of the attacks. We have sanitized it, drawn the emotion from it as we might draw poison from a snakebite, until what's left is banal and boring.
The "Falling Man" is still comfortably anonymous. Ultimately, photographer Richard Drew and many historians view "The Falling Man" less as a single named individual and more as an "Unknown Soldier" representing the tragic fate of the thousands of people who died trapped in the towers that morning.
The much-debated (and much-maligned) 9/11 memorial is perhaps the most unsatisfactory manifestation of a national tragedy we have. The winning design, Reflecting Absence, was overly stark, abstract, and somber. No American flags, no religious symbols. Critics called it "hyperindividualized" rather than unifying.
Others found the memorial moving and appropriate. The museum's historical orientation video and exhibits faced criticism from civil rights organizations and scholars who argued that the terminology used failed to sufficiently differentiate general Islam from extremist violent jihadism. I saw the orientation video, and aside from the narration not outright claiming that "THIS IS NOT ISLAM," it told the story of the attacks as straightforwardly as possible.
The scar tissue from 9/11 has covered the wounds from that day. This has allowed us to move on with our lives. But the sense of loss remains, and it's driven by the aftermath of the attacks that led to "Forever Wars" and a hyper-vigilant state that many feel has become too intrusive.
That sense of loss includes the illusion of unassailable continental isolation that vanished, proving that a superpower could suffer catastrophic domestic damage from low-tech, asymmetric threats. That sense of strategic invincibility, the result of our victory over the Soviet Union in the Cold War, cannot be overstated. We were the world's only superpower: economically, militarily, and culturally. We bestrode the world like a Colossus with a swaggering certainty about our abilities and our destiny. We lost that on 9/11, and the desire to regain it has diverted an inordinate amount of resources and strategic focus from domestic infrastructure, economic modernization, and long-term domestic investments.
Those prolonged military engagements, built on flawed intelligence, coupled with expanded federal powers, deeply eroded public trust in intelligence agencies, the media, and elected leadership. The pandemic finished the job, and now, "trust in institutions" is talked of in the past tense.
Jonathan Clarke, writing in City Journal, believes that this may be one of the last 9/11 anniversaries that's experienced through "memory" rather than "history."
This might be the last anniversary on which 9/11 will be “memory.” For many younger New Yorkers and Americans, it is already “history.” As living memory becomes historical memory, the emotional intensity of events fades. But the need to impose meaning never disappears. We continue to build superstructures of remembrance and myth around 9/11, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Those events mean different things to different people. And what each of us makes of them may reveal more about our present emotional needs—the story we are telling ourselves about ourselves—than about the events themselves.
Every year, the Tunnel to Towers 5K Run & Walk is held to honor the memory of Stephen Siller, an FDNY veteran whose shift at Squad 1 in Park Slope had ended when he heard about the attack on the Towers. He put his 60 pounds of firefighting gear back on and, finding the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel closed to vehicle traffic, jogged through the tunnel to the World Trade Center, where he died in the collapse of the South Tower.
Every year, I tell myself that I will run the race. Every year so far, it has come and gone without me. I’m still not ready.
Some Americans believe that it's a good thing that America has lost its utter confidence that what it was doing was right. They think that confidence led to "forever wars" and the "surveillance state."
In many ways, it did. But losing that confidence also has costs. In the coming existential confrontation with China, that confidence would certainly come in handy when confronting an implacable enemy that has been playing the long game for 50 years.
Perhaps we've evolved into something better. Perhaps we've matured as a nation and will now pick and choose our fights with more care and intelligence. If that's the one thing we've gained from the unspeakable tragedy of September 11, 2001, the day will not be a total loss.
We're still young. Two hundred and fifty years is little more than a blink of an eye in the history of humans on this planet. It's a fraction of the time European nation-states have existed. Perhaps the maturation process will be painful, but necessary. Self-correction has always been America's unique strength, and learning to balance humility with strength may ultimately ensure our survival.
Also for our VIPs: 9/11 Could Happen Again. 9/11 Will Happen Again.
Editor's Note: President Trump is leading America into the "Golden Age" as Democrats desperately try to stop it.
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