Looking at 9/11, half a decade later
Does it seem as though five years have passed since that dreadful day of the stunningly blue sky, the orange flames, the plumes of grey-black smoke?
In some ways it seems a lifetime; one looks back at before-9/11 and thinks “never such innocence again.”
But the New York skyline without its two huge exclamation points no longer seems so bereft. Yes, it happened, and somehow we have assimilated that fact, although we still haven’t comprehended all its consequences nor divined its deepest meaning.
But it no longer seems impossible that such a thing happened. Now it seems surprising that it came as such a shock at the time, because the general pattern and the shape of things to come should already have been clear. There was Khobar Towers. The twin Embassy blasts. The Cole.
But the clearest foreshadowing of the event that would henceforth be known only by those numbers, “9/11”–as though words were somehow inadequate to describe it–was its most direct predecessor, the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. That earlier attack distinguished itself in audaciousness by being the only large-scale Islamist totalitarian terrorist attack within the boundaries of the United States prior to 9/11.
And it was every bit as serious in intent. The only reason it wasn’t taken as seriously as it should have been was the seemingly Keystone Cops-like incompetence of its perpetrators. They would learn from their errors, and quickly. It would take us longer to learn what we needed to know.
Another thing that makes 9/11 feel more distant in time than five years ago is the dissipation of the unity that seemed to unite us in the first few months afterwards. I say “seemed” because there were always many dissenting voices, even from the start–voices that blamed the US for the attack, or said that the Jews had stayed home that day. Voices that suggested America deserved what it got. Voices that were against attacking Afghanistan, saying we would kill millions of people in that country.
Yes, 9/11 seems a long time ago. But in other ways 9/11 seems fresh and recent–and especially so on the anniversary, when documentaries revisit the pain and open old wounds. Last night I rewatched much of “9/11,” the documentary film made by the Naudet brothers as they followed a downtown Manhattan fire company on a routine call that turned out to be adjacent to the World Trade Center on that fateful day at that fateful time. The brothers captured many startling images of 9/11, but the most horrifying thing in the movie was not visual. It was auditory: the harsh percussive sounds of the leapers hitting the pavement.
Viewing how events unfolded that day and knowing what we know now, the urge is to say: “Look out! Don’t go to work! Run away, fast! Don’t go up those stairs!” Or to think, “If only.” If only the people on the first planes had known what was in store, for example, they could have united to stop the hijackers the way those on Flight 93 did. If only the FBI and CIA had been allowed to speak to each other. If only. If only.
I recall one of the most poignant “if only’s” from a documentary I saw several years ago. A female air controller was monitoring flights that day, knowing what had happened at the WTC, helpless as the plane she was tracking (I believe it was the one that eventually hit the Pentagon) dropped and disappeared off the radar screen. She said that, ever since, she’s had a recurrent dream. In it, she’s watching that same radar screen. The “blip” of the plane is dropping again, and her heart sinks with it. But this time, instead of being helpless, she reaches into the screen with her hand and scoops the tiny plane out, rescuing all its passengers.
Magical thinking, of course. But very human. Many who were part of the rescue effort that day think they should somehow have done even more, despite the heroism they showed.
And of course we all somehow should have done more, both then and now. The problem, both then and now, is the same: figuring out what that “more” might be. Knowing how to interpret the past and the present in order to be able to foresee the future and act to forestall tragedy.
We can do that perfectly only in our dreams, and not even in all of those. But still we must try, to the best of our ability– because history, like life, can only be understood backwards (if at all). But it must be lived forwards.
“history, like life, can only be understood backwards (if at all). But it must be lived forwards”
Indeed. But it tends to repeat itself – never exactly, but sometimes with astonishing accuracy. And many things in nowaday America are so reminding of Russian history of 19 century – including terrorism and reaction of society on it. I am looking at my monitor screen as if it were time-machine illuminator. Looking with horror, because I cannot change anything, only cry warnings, which I know would be ignored.
sergey: I don’t know whether you’ve ever read this post of mine. It might interest you.
Oh, Neo, thank you very much for this comment – I never read this before. But I never could force myself to re-read this novel again – too fierce and gloomy for me. A friend of mine once told me (we were students these days, very young and naive): “Such books must be prohibited to write!”. And yes, it is full of such visceral horror of death, that amounts to contagious obsession.
Posting a comment here for the first time in far too long.
I remember well the “voices” you refer to, Neo. I spent 9/11 and the seven months following on the campus of Bard College in upstate New York, and was as stunned by the unabated stream of verbal attacks on our country coming from those around me as I was by the unimaginable horror of jihadi attacks themselves. The 2002 graduation proceedings included a missive by the college president relating his shame at being an American and associated with his country’s actions. We were only in Afghanistan back then. Sadly, that dreadful day changed only some of us.
“But the New York skyline without its two huge exclamation points no longer seems so bereft.”
Looking backwards, however, brings the absence to the forefront. In watching “Three Days of the Condor” again the other day, Redford’s sermon at the end of the movie seems hollow today, especially coming so soon after a beautiful shot of the sun between the two WTC buildings.
For me, it was very difficult to watch the scene in ‘Flight 93’ where Elizabeth Wainio said her goodbies with her mother on the cell phone. Her mother was in complete denial, saying things like “I’m with you,” “I have my arms around you,” and “I won’t let it happen.” There is a prevelant perception, especially in the spiritual / metaphysical community that if you just believe hard enough, that you can alter reality. This shows that some reality cannot be altered by any amount of belief.
It’s ironic that Persian poet, Omar Khayyam wrote,
The Moving Finger writes; and having writ,
Moves on; nor all your Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it.
After experiencing a series of tragedies including 9/11, I decided that tragedy presents us with an opportunity to make positive change. Dr. Sanity has written much about denial lately. I think I’m ready to integrate the reality of those crises, and put together and prioritize a long to-do list of things to do to recover from and move forward from that tragedy.
Neo: Have you ever done a post on the difference between hostile and instrumental aggression? Because I just had a brief chat with a Brazilian friend on the topic of 9/11, and I was thinking about the difference between the two with respect to terrorism, the cheering of some people on 9/11, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, etc. And I’m betting you’re better educated on the subject than me, as I’ve only had two college courses – first year general psychology and third year social psychology – for GE requirements (though I actually enjoyed social psychology a lot).
Instapundit, today, likened contemporary Islamic terrorism to the Ghost Dance Movement of the Western Native Americans and linked to a post by Andrew Sullivan on
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http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2006/09/cia_5000_terror.html
The CIA honcho has informed the spooks that over 5,000 terrorists have been killed or captured since 9/11. I would think the number is considerably higher than that, given the 1500+ that were killed at Fallujah alone and there is no telling how many were killed at Tora Bora, Afghanistan. Given the ordnance that was dumped there, an accurate count was probably about impossible, but clearly they had massed there by the hundreds and few made it out.
That is an interesting comparison made with the Ghost Dance and the jihadists. The former had their ghost shirts which would protect them from bullets, the latter has the grace of allah. Allah was to protect them when they massed at Tora Bora and Fallujah. We saw the same mentality at play during the invasion when trucks and vans would rush at tanks and armored columns. Allah was to give victory to a toyota against an Abhrams tank. The Ghost Dance was to bring the buffalo back and the traditional ways, the jihadist creed is to implement the will of allah and shariah law. Both had prescribed rituals to enact their belief. Both are born out of desperation. Most plains Indians did not participate though were sympathetic to the movement, just as most muslims do not participate in active jihad but are sympathetic to jihadists.
LGF and others are reporting a big fish al qaidah boss was taken alive on 9/11/06 in Afghanistan. Let him cry Hamdan when Afghani interrogators apply hot irons to his balls. “Welcome to the real war on terrorism, baby” they will tell him. Do you suppose some wag with the black Ops boys will send a picture of it to Justice Roberts with those words as the caption? One can speculate, one can surmise, one can hope but one can Never Forget.
the New York skyline without its two huge exclamation points no longer seems so bereft
Yes, it does. Now instead of two exclamation points, there are two scars in the sky.
Weston LaBarre wrote about millenarian movements in his “Ghost Dance”.
All of his examples happened as a culture was about to die.
I wonder if that’s self-selection. What if a millenarian movement doesn’t presage the death of a culture? Does that make it not a millenarian movement?
Is there a way to tell the difference beforehand between a millenarian movement which is the flaring of the candle before it goes out and the start of a movement which will prevail?
Realy successful revivialist movements (like Reformation, Renaissance and Enlightment) had nothing to do with millenarianism and perceived themselves not as an end of old era, but rather as a beginning of a new one. Psychologically, this is quite another story.
I’ll buy that, Sergey. But how do you distinguish them from the outside?
Seems that waiting for something to blow itself out–which may well require severe action as the Ghost Dance did–is different from being prepared for something that will have some structure and substance to it.
Hitler’s Germany may have been the end of something, but before it was the end, the people involved thought it was the beginning of something.
In fact, you can’t start something without at least by default ending something.
So, how do you tell the difference from the outside before the end?
Millenniarism is not simply death cult, it is manifestation of collective will of death, collective societal sucide. But death cult symbolism is important part of it. Remember Nazi SS emblem of scull and bones? As Freud explained, Tanatos, or Will to Death, in its struggle with Will to Life is generally suppressed and seek circuitous ways to manifest itself under disguise of something else, and at mass culture level it is often “revival” claim. But as with all other suppressed instincts, it’s symbolism reveals it’s true aim.
Mass consciousness is inevitably mythological, that is why psychoanalysis is needed to cut trough its surface layers to understand real dynamics and underlying forces. It is not stricly scientific method, of course, but very revealing. And, alas, we have no better method to dissect it.
There are three critical factors that determine the difference between movements that create, and movements that only destroy.
1. Movements that create are very explicit about what circumstances under which their beliefs could be proven false. Movements that destroy refuse to even consider the possibility that they could ever be in the wrong.
2. Movements that create maintain an awareness that everything, including themselves, will change over time. Movements that destroy seek to arrest all change, making promises of eternal stability and the like.
3. Movements that create allow all to choose whether to join the movement or not. Movements that destroy view those who choose not to join as sub-human.
Tatterdemalian: I agree. Indeed, your points also coincide with differences between normality and psychosis: it includes rationality and lack of it, modesty and arrogance, self-restraint and irrational agressive reactions to any objection.
An almost forgotten book by an unrepentant British Communist, Eric Hobsbawm, Primitive Rebels provides an excellent taxonomy of, among others, millennarial and messianic movments. Years ago I used it as a primary source in a paper on messianic political movements in the Old and New Worlds.
There seems to be an intimate connection between harsh physical environments and these movements. There is still a great deal to be learned from studying the arcs of these movements.
Millenarian movements include cargo cults, whose leaders sometimes insist that the Cargo will not come until the people’s faith is demonstrated by destroying their seed corn or some other method of insuring their future. Only when the usual future they have learned to plan for and manage is beyond hope will Cargo come.
Anyway, as to skulls and symbology. When I was in the Army, certain Airborne battalions had unofficial tee shirts sporting winged skulls and the motto “Death from Above” or something like. Death was the subject, but it wasn’t their deaths they were talking about, nor, I suspect was their own deaths the meaning of the SS Death’s Head symbol. Nor the pirates’ skull&crossbones.
So I feel I can go back to Hitler’s Germany and suggest they didn’t look like a millenarian movement. And millenarian movements, while possibly devastating in the short run, can be waited out.
Tatter, I believe, suggested other ways of knowing the difference and it certainly would apply to fundamental Islam.
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