Another September 11th has come and gone. Twenty of them now since the first, and we’re still afraid. Maybe even more afraid.
Of terrorists, of global warming, of war, of the stock market, of Covid.
We’re even afraid of domestic terrorism — after the unimaginable happened and our own fellow countrymen and women attacked our nation’s Capitol Building on January 6.
Twenty years ago, in the aftermath of September 11, such treason would have been unthinkable.
But we’re in a radically different world now. Stripped of the quaint and wishful notion that we are a united nation.
Twenty years on, and now, mostly, we’re simply afraid of each other.
Fearful and fueled with hate. That’s what we’ve become. That’s how much we’ve devolved over 20 short years.
Fear. How can we let it be more powerful in our lives than love? Than the unity we all felt on that horrifying day in 2001 — how can that have evaporated so easily? How could we have let that spirit of togetherness — what seemed like love for one another — slip so far from our fingertips that it now feels permanently beyond our grasp?
In the days that followed September 11th, everyone in America seemed willing to go out on a limb for love.
Willing to call family members from whom they’d been estranged. Willing to tell themselves they’d never again send their children to bed without looking them directly in their eyes and saying “I love you more than the sun and the earth and the moon.”
Willing to invite a stranger to dine with them or willing to smile a greeting to the person who passed by on the street. Willing to be the first to say “I’m sorry.” Willing to sign up to put their own lives at risk as a valued and much-needed member of our nation’s armed forces.
Twenty years later? Not so much. In fact, pretty much not at all.
We’re back to our old ways except at a level we couldn’t have imagined.
Families are fragmented by petty arguments and politics — sometimes even fragmented simply by education and geodemography. Marriages are still destroyed by laziness. People are still twisting their faces in angry grimaces at the elders who move too slowly in front of them. Friends still haggle over who “started it,” and who should apologize first. And relationships and communities are being torn apart by the polarization around the simple acts of getting a vaccine or wearing a mask for safety.
Twenty years ago, everyone said that those planes crashing into buildings and fields, those families decimated, those lives lost, the soul-rattling horror of what our fellow Americans experienced as their planes plummeted toward death — everyone said all that would teach the rest of us the lesson of a lifetime:
That we must not wait until we are confronted with death to say what was left unsaid. That life is to be lived and people are to be loved. That kindness and respect must be the currency of all interaction. That reason and compassion for others must be the natural and overriding order of the day. Now, not later. Everyday, not some days.
The lessons of September 11th were many, but it seems we’ve unlearned most of them.
We have deteriorated and degraded our collective soul. Our response to the pandemic has stripped any illusions of who and what we are as a people.
What remains is a disgrace. We’re fighting each other now.
We may not be hijacking planes and slamming them into buildings, but we’re killing each other just the same. In vastly larger numbers and for no other reason than shameful, self-important ego.
Millions of Americans, who likely self-describe as patriots and citizens, wouldn’t set aside their own wants and comfort to get the vaccine to save or protect the life of a fellow American. They won’t even wear a mask to help save the lives of others.
Would those people have been likely to rush into the Twin Towers on September 11 to save the lives of others? I don’t know what they would have done then, but I think I can pretty accurately guess what they’d do now, in their current mindset of hostility and disinterest in the lives of others: there isn’t a chance in hell they would.
What a tragic loss of meaning. Did those lives lost and the other many lives sacrificed to save others — did that all mean nothing?
Looking around at our country now, it certainly seems that it did … that it does … mean nothing to a large swath of the nation we have become.
On that devastating day 20 years ago, scores of brave Americans risked their lives to save others. Some by leading others out of the buildings, many by running into the very buildings that were collapsing, probably so many untold stories of heroism expressed by one terrified individual who put his or her life second to the life of someone else facing the same terror.
That’s patriotism. That’s compassion. That’s bravery. Putting the life of your fellow American above your own. It’s a lesson we once didn’t even have to be taught.
Now, it’s a lesson unlearned and perhaps never to return.
If you like the message of this essay and would like to share it with others, just click the button below and all the options for sharing pop up. Easy-peasy! (And it helps me reach new readers — so thanks!)
Enjoying THINK as a free subscriber? I invite you to become a supporting subscriber for $5 a month or $30 a year.
Feeling generous? Consider a gift subscription for a friend that you think might enjoy THINK!
Great piece, MC. Hopefully it won’t take another attack on America for us to come together again.
MC
It is sad to see where we are as a country right now. The 9-11 aftermath was an amazing example of American patriotism. Our country overcame differences to rise above pettiness to watch out for each other and rebuild NYC in a spectacular fashion. It was awe-inspiring despite the tragedy and the feelings of being violated on our own soil.
For all of us, we remember where we were when the towers came down - much like when JFK was assassinated for those of us who were around and were witnesses to that tragic event. I have two strong and often conflicted feelings when September 11th comes around.
First, my birthday is on September 10th and for the last 20 years, I have had a hard time reconciling these two events so close together - one of joy and one of deep sadness and even anger.
Second, 9-11 became very personal for me in an unexpected way. I was on a business trip in Germany on September 10, 2001, and flew out of Frankfort on the morning of Tuesday, September 11th, happy to be coming home to NY and JFK airport. It was during the middle part of that flight that the pilot calmly informed us that U.S. airspace was closed and we would be landing in Gander, Newfoundland. Shortly, we learned that over 40 747's had landed at the same airport with nearly 7,000 people. I was there for 5 days before U.S. airspace re-opened and I was able to fly into JFK that Saturday night. I will never forget crossing the Whitestone Bridge after midnight seeing smoke still belching forth out of what was the location of the twin towers. Needless to say, it was surreal.
Each year at this time, I feel grateful that my experience was nothing like those related to those who lost loved ones. I was fortunate. And, I have learned to celebrate my birthday as an independent event which has been a blessing.
MC - I agree, that as a country, we have sunk to a nadir point of dysfunction. I sometimes worry that we will sink as a country, not because of a foreign attack or something like that, but that we will rot and decay from the inside out. How insidious and sad would that be?
I do conclude each time (and pull myself out of a personal tailspin) by one of the fundamental beliefs I hold sacred, which is the belief that love will conquer evil. I have faith even though the path is not clear that we will rise above this bullshit. I do pray for that every day.