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Well, hopefully, we won't forget altogether because that would probably take a collapse of civilized society and a loss of historical knowledge ... Posts: 1907 | Registered: Feb 2000
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No, I'm serious. The emotional rawness of the wound will be gone for all but the relatives of the injured and dead within another year or two, I'd imagine; it will be a historical footnote, not even mentioned in speeches on that date, within a decade. It will occasionally be referenced as justification for something or other, or recognized on major anniversaries -- but will quickly become another photograph in a Life Magazine anthology. People who dwell on it -- who hang onto their FDNY figurines and flaming tower posters -- will be regarded as wacky old coots, in the same way that we regard people who try to figure out the Kennedy conspiracy or visit Graceland on the anniversary of Elvis' demise.
It was a terrible thing, but it wasn't something that's going to live forever in the forefront of our national consciousness any more than, say, the burning of the White House or the Challenger explosion.
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...Remembers the Challenger Explosion... ...Doesn't feel the same about the Columbia Explosion...
Yes, we will never be shocked the same way again. But I genuinely feel sorry for your lack of ability to feel. I remember being that way in the past. Perception is an individual thing, so I'm not saying you are wrong. But it feels to me like you are telling anyone who cares that they are wrong.
Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
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*grin* Oh, I'm perfectly capable of feeling. But in the same way that I recognize that we aren't going to mourn the thousands killed by car accidents this year forever, neither do I believe we'll actively mourn the Twin Towers for much longer.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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Do you believe it is a GOOD thing to mourn a loss -- especially one that didn't directly affect you -- forever?
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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As long as the middle east is in the forefronts of people's minds, as it has been through the war and will remain until it is over, the attack on the twin towers will service as some sort of touchstone to justify current actions and understand why people are still dying in a war, when the real reasons are unclear for most and are forever being bandied about.
As long as there is a line drawn in the sand between middle eastern culture and American culture, 9/11 will be a raw wound. I believe it differs in that respect from, say, the Challenger tragedy. But when and if things are resolved and when and if America comes out victorious in their own minds, then it will become like Pearl Harbor.
It's not unemotional to realize people will get over something. That's healthy and inevitable.
I've always found the "Never Forget!" mantra to be reactionary, unreasonable and hindering.
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Tom: Incessantly, or even as much as went on in 2002? No, of course not. But do I believe that things like Pearl Harbor and 9/11 and the Holocaust should be remembered? And when footage is shown on the History channel twenty or thirty years from now, do I believe emotion should still well up? Absolutely.
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Something happened on 9/11? But seriously, while I don't think people will ever forget what happened, I do think people will forget the details of it. Some people might even have to think back to remember who was President at the time or some might even not know it was a hijacking that caused it, just thinking some terrorist crashed a plane into the twin towers, not even thinking about where the planes were from or how it was pulled off.
Posts: 853 | Registered: Feb 2004
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I hate to say it, but he is at least a little bit right.
When I was in school no one knew when Pearl Harbor Day was, except for the teachers.
As a nation we might forget, but as individuals I don't thinbk we will, not those of us who saw it happen, or lived with the coverage.
I don't mean that I have pictures up on the wall, but I have actual pics of the buildings as they were being hit (not reproductions, actual pictures by a friend who was there) in my collection, and the pain and greif I feel when I look at them won't ever go away for me .
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I pretty much have to agree with Tom for once. Next year will be the last non-milestone major remembrance of 9/11. People will care for 5th, 10th, and 20th anniverseries but not about the years in between.
Posts: 3446 | Registered: Jul 2002
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Is it wrong that I never did have a strong emotional reaction to 9/11? That it never made me feel less secure, or very angry? I'm sorry for the people who died and the families who lost someone they love. It was a horrible tragedy. But quite frankly, the Columbia accident affected me a lot more emotionally than 9/11 did.
I'm not sure that remembering must involve the emotions. We can honor the memory of the victims without shedding tears.
Posts: 3546 | Registered: Jul 2002
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My town did a ground breaking ceremony today. They are going to build a really nice memorial. One of my friends lost his father on one of the plane crashes.
Posts: 29 | Registered: Aug 2004
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I don't know whether to embrace you or shun you for pointing out an easily-repressed and forgotten self-defense mechanism of the human psyche. Aw heck, I haven't seen you in a while and I need a hug anyway.
9/11 really has been the anticlimax of this otherwise very ordinary week, but I did catch a wonderful 3 minute piece on CNN that actually had a positive spin on our lives since 9/11. I enjoyed it very much.
quote: My town did a ground breaking ceremony today. They are going to build a really nice memorial. One of my friends lost his father on one of the plane crashes.
See, as callous as this might make me, I think this is worse than forgetting. Do we really need a concrete structure to help us remember? Do we really need a monument to terrorism?
Instead of rebuilding the Oklahoma City Building, a statuary garden was built on the site, a perpetual reminder that Tim McVeigh really did win after all. I think the worst thing we could do is, instead of building a new/bigger/stronger building at the WTC site, to turn it into a park made with 2000 named bricks.
Posts: 4089 | Registered: Apr 2003
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I think it commemorates the event that galvanized us into action. (And yes, I know the story may be more complex than that, but that's irrelevant to the meaning of the memorial.)
Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
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...for the men and women who went to work on that day and died innocently
...for the men and women who courageously fought back to prevent that fourth plane from hitting it's intended target
...for the terrorists who bravely sacrificed their own lives in the name of doing what they felt was right
...for the firemen and policemen who risked their lives to do their job and save the lives of others
...for the soldiers sent out to die as a result of this day
...for the innocent and less innocent Iraqis and Afghans who have suffered because of this day
...for all the Muslims arrested, tortured, or detained wrongly because of this day
...and for Al Qaeda, the Bush administration, and the rest of us, because we will all have to face the consequences of our decisions in the end, whatever those consequences may be, in our lives and afterlives.
What exactly does a moment of silence mean? I think it means honoring someone or something. Ceasing what you are doing to give them a moment of your thoughts and admiration/regret/honor. Though the terrorists were doubtless brave, and they were doing what they thought was right, I don't think they have any need of honor or consideration from me. Neither does Al Qaeda.
Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
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quote: I dunno. Does the USS Arizona Memorial imply that Japan won?
That's not quite the same thing. I'm saying that when a building becomes a symbol for your enemy, and you feel that destroying that building will destroy your enemy, wouldn't the best thing for the enemy to do is build it back, bigger and better, ie saying "screw you, we're more than this building"?
quote:What exactly does a moment of silence mean? I think it means honoring someone or something. Ceasing what you are doing to give them a moment of your thoughts and admiration/regret/honor.
Yes... to take pause and consider...
I think it's called se'la (sp?) in Hebrew.
Posts: 4953 | Registered: Jan 2004
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quote:I'm saying that when a building becomes a symbol for your enemy, and you feel that destroying that building will destroy your enemy, wouldn't the best thing for the enemy to do is build it back, bigger and better, ie saying "screw you, we're more than this building"?
Possibly it says we are -no- more than this building, so we have to rebuild it to prove you didn't destroy us after all.
To really say we -are- more than this building would be to do whatever was best for this country, regardless of whether it has anything to do with the building that was blown up.
Posts: 2919 | Registered: Aug 2004
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quote: Do you believe it is a GOOD thing to mourn a loss -- especially one that didn't directly affect you -- forever?
And of the people who were directly affected? Is it worng for me to want to mourn the losses I suffered? I for one will not forget, and make sure that no one in my family for generations forgets.
I'm sure there are more people here besdies myself who have need or desire to mourn on this day. Even if the damage will not last forever, it has only been three years. Why shouldn't we remember?
Posts: 1401 | Registered: Jun 2004
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quote:What exactly does a moment of silence mean? I think it means honoring someone or something. Ceasing what you are doing to give them a moment of your thoughts and admiration/regret/honor. Though the terrorists were doubtless brave, and they were doing what they thought was right, I don't think they have any need of honor or consideration from me. Neither does Al Qaeda.
I disagree. I will honor America's troops when we fight a wrong war. I will honor our leaders when they do bad things thinking they are right. Terrorists deserve no less.
Although... I'm not sure which is more worthy of honor and regret: Death by choice, or death without a choice. Both are terrible things to have to occur.
Posts: 2432 | Registered: Feb 2001
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So we don't fall back into the complacency that let it happen in the first place. So we take out terrorist threats before more terror happens because next time it might be a Nuke.
This happened in America to (mostly) Americans. If it can happen to them it can happen to me and it can happen to You.
I watched a show on HBO the other day called In Memoriam: New York City. It was mostly edited together video, both professional and amature, from that day and the next few days. One of the things that re-struck me was this destruction LOOKED like a third word hell hole, but it wasn't. It was in America. In a place I had been. The crying people... the ones holding up pictures of their loved ones... That could be me. That could be someone looking for me.
And if you lack even that foundation of empathy, Tom. You're even more hopeless than I thought.
Posts: 7085 | Registered: Apr 2001
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"So we don't fall back into the complacency that let it happen in the first place."
Ah, see, I think that if anyone is determined to hurt you, they'll find a way to hurt you regardless of how complacent you are. If they hadn't been able to use a plane, they would have used a truck full of cordite. Or a shipping compartment stuffed with rabid monkeys. Or something along that line.
It's not the terrorist act that we need to defend against; it's the creation of terrorists in the first place. And remembering 9/11 doesn't actually help us prevent the second one.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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And we can do that by spreading democracy or treating each act of terrorism as an "OMG What did we do to make these people mad!" moment.
Personally, I don't think terrorists should be rewarded for what they do. They certainly shouldn't be rewarded with a soap box. Israel tried that with Arafat and they have had unrelenting terror ever since. So you can't give them a seat at the bargining table. That only makes things worse.
What would you do to stop terror, Tom? Foreign Aid? That's been tried too.
The only thing that can be done is destroy these dictatorships. Set up democracies and in a generation these people will start knowing prosperity and they'll be too busy playing Xbox to go to jihad with anyone.
Posts: 7085 | Registered: Apr 2001
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And, to clarify, what exactly does remembering 9/11 have to do with destroying dictatorships?
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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It seems to me that if we need to be perpetually reminded of a small disaster in order to continue to justify a course of action to ourselves, we should perhaps be reconsidering that specific course of action. In other words, if eliminating Middle Eastern dictatorships is the right thing to do, it should be unnecessary to provoke righteous bloodlust in order for us to do it.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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Does 9/11 provoke righteous bloodlust within you, Tom?
How suprising. Honestly, you are the last person I think of when I think of rampaging indignation of holiness.
We won't forget 9/11-- it's like the Kennedy assassination. It has become a scar on the psyche of everyone who was old enough to appreciate the danger, panic, etc, the attacks inspired.
This doesn't justify using 9/11 for political/polemical rhetoric. 9/11 has become something more than just about the people who died, the people who did the killing, or any causes that might be involed in the dying or killing.
It isn't 9/11 the tragedy that we should keep alive, but 9/11 the triumph. Sacrifice, kindness, generosity-- these were present that day as well as pain and death. And these are the things that we should look to, not the event.
Posts: 14554 | Registered: Dec 1999
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I cannot help remembering the day, and the moment when I stood with my class and watched the planes fly into the buildings, thinking we were going to see something different. (I cannot even remember what I thought I might see.)
I remember thinking, "I want to be with my husband and my children RIGHT NOW."
I remember looking around and realizing that I was in charge of someone else's children, whom I also loved, and I was not going anywhere.
It was one of the boys' birthday, and his dad came in with pizza. He said, "Come on, let's not be sad right this minute. Let's celebrate (student's) birthday. I remember eating the pizza and thinking that this boy's every birthday would have this memory attached. (I still write him an email every 9/11)(not that there have been too many)
I remember when I got home and the kids got off the bus. I handed the bus driver a bouquet of fresh flowers, and thanked her for bringing my children home safely.
I wondered what I would have done if I were on those planes with my children. My friend said she would have held them, and told them they were going into the light.
Those are the things I remember from that day. I never had any hatred, just shock and a heart that was both full and empty.
Don't tell me I won't remember in ten years, or in fifty. I don't necessarily want to, I just will.
Posts: 10890 | Registered: May 2003
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9-11 Isn't a soapbox. It isn't speech. It's terror. To treat it as speech is to give it legitimacy.
We must make sure that their bid for attention only receives what they would concider the wrong type of attention. Bombs, not words. Their death, not their glorification.
To bargin, capitulate, attept to see it their way... This will only bring more terror. The only reward for mass murder can be the deaths of those behind it and the loss of their cause.
But I'm talking to a wall on this blog.
Posts: 7085 | Registered: Apr 2001
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But seriously, while I don't think people will ever forget what happened, I do think people will forget the details of it. Some people might even have to think back to remember who was President at the time or some might even not know it was a hijacking that caused it, just thinking some terrorist crashed a plane into the twin towers, not even thinking about where the planes were from or how it was pulled off.
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