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Until recently, I kind of thought of it as the event the shook us and showed us that we (as a nation) are not safe no matter how powerful we think we are. I think that for a lot of Americans, 9/11 reminded us of our own mortality. Those people at work in the WTC and in the surrounding areas, on the planes, and in DC were just going about their business when they were killed. I think we have such a strong reaction to a large tragedy like that, because it reminds us how senseless and random it all is. Some people might be able to say "this happened because this country did x", but most of us just thought it was senseless. Some wanted revenge, and we sort of tried to get our revenge, and it didn't really work out, and some people gathered in peace to pray for those lost. Some even gathered to pray for those oppressed by the Taliban and other oppressive regimes. For the most part, though, we were just confused and angry. As a nation, what have we concluded? Seemingly that Islam is a violent, dangerous religion. That we need to crush our opponents? I'm not really sure. However, I think the real lesson of this is that fanaticism leads to painful, tragic things, and that we should not only disapprove of Islamic fanatics, but also of our own fanaticism. It's something very counter to our instinctual reaction, which is to fight fire with fire, but I think that now, more than ever before, we need tolerance and to truly understand that fanaticism of all types--conservative, religious, liberal, patriotic--leads to hate, and that hate ultimately leads to tragedy.
Until recently, I kind of thought of it as the event the shook us and showed us that we (as a nation) are not safe no matter how powerful we think we are. I think that for a lot of Americans, 9/11 reminded us of our own mortality. Those people at work in the WTC and in the surrounding areas, on the planes, and in DC were just going about their business when they were killed. I think we have such a strong reaction to a large tragedy like that, because it reminds us how senseless and random it all is. Some people might be able to say "this happened because this country did x", but most of us just thought it was senseless. Some wanted revenge, and we sort of tried to get our revenge, and it didn't really work out, and some people gathered in peace to pray for those lost. Some even gathered to pray for those oppressed by the Taliban and other oppressive regimes. For the most part, though, we were just confused and angry. As a nation, what have we concluded? Seemingly that Islam is a violent, dangerous religion. That we need to crush our opponents? I'm not really sure. However, I think the real lesson of this is that fanaticism leads to painful, tragic things, and that we should not only disapprove of Islamic fanatics, but also of our own fanaticism. It's something very counter to our instinctual reaction, which is to fight fire with fire, but I think that now, more than ever before, we need tolerance and to truly understand that fanaticism of all types--conservative, religious, liberal, patriotic--leads to hate, and that hate ultimately leads to tragedy.
