This isn’t a rant; it is more of a plea. It is not intended to be an insult or put-down of any poster. Please take it as it is meant.
Over the past several weeks, I have typed up more responses than I can remember to various threads on these Boards concerning 9/11, bin Laden, and everything else. And, with the exception of some purely factual ones and wholly peripheral ones, I have deleted all of them before I posted. The reason is that the reaction of these boards to 9/11 has left me seriously depressed.
The reason is simple - nothing seems to have changed. The people on the X-wing of politics still have X reaction to the events, and the people on the Y-wing of politics still have Y reaction. For god’s sake, WTC and the Pentagon and Pennsylvania are not bits of data to insert into your world view. They are real, earth-shattering events that should be calling into question our preconceptions and beliefs - on both sides of the aisle.
I do not doubt that 9/11 affected most every Doper. I do not doubt that the views expressed are sincere. But things have changed, and I just don’t see that many people are really thinking about how things have changed. There just seems to be something missing.
I admit that I haven’t read every post concerning WTC. I acknowledge that there may be many posts where people have acknowledged or presented a change in perception as a result of events. If they exist, I apologize for this thread. I just had to write it.
Can you be more specific about instances that have bothered you? I understand that you are not ranting about specific posters, but I truly don’t understand what you mean, or expect.
The events of 9/11 most certainly have changed the world, but I don’t think anyone knows just how, yet. It’s certainly made me less blithely assured of my own safety and that of my family, but how should these events change my political views? What other preconceptions and beliefs should I be questioning in myself? If I thought GWB was an idiot before the attacks, should I now consider him a brilliant leader?
On the whole, I think people are coping as best they know how, trying to absorb the impact and make less raw, less enormous and painful, trying to break it down from the incomprehensible whole to the bits and pieces they can deal with. Some people only see ugliness, some see hope, some just see a big old mess and want to ignore it until they can deal with it safely. I’m going to throw out a quote here that I heard attributed to Stephen Covey:
“We do not see the world as it is, we see it as we are.”
What else can we do? What else should introspection or discussion lead to?
Like you, Sua, I’ve composed a lot of posts that I’ve never submitted.
At a personal level, some of my views have changed. I know far more about Islam than I would have bothered to find out had the events of Sept 11 not happened (thanks Muslim Guy). My views on my own nation’s immigration policies in respect of asylum seekers are being modified almost daily as I become more aware of both the conditions from which people are fleeing and the extraordinary difficulties we face in distinguishing between genuine refugees and would-be terrorists. I’m not quite so quick to accuse the US of arrogance in its foreign policy any more.
I see a lot of people on these boards more willing than ever before to listen to and try to understand viewpoints with which they passionately disagree - intuitively, we seem to sense that if we cannot achieve understanding and tolerance at an individual level in small communities such as this one, we cannot hope to achieve it on a global scale.
My opinions about some individual posters have been forever changed by what they have written since 11 Sept and that when the dust settles and the “war on terrorism” becomes just another thing we integrate into our everyday lives, I don’t lose that willingness to see things through another’s eyes.
All fair points, Beadlin, and my feelings might simply be transference of my general feelings of depression, smelling that fucking horrifying smoke every day.
But, if you want an example, look at This thread. It just feels like in that thread and similar ones, I know what the poster’s position is going to be before I read their post, based on my earlier interactions with them. I just think that something should be different. And I’m not saying that their positions are right or wrong - some people may have been “right” before WTC, so there is no reason to change at all.
I know I’m being horribly vague, and all of this might be in my head. Maybe I’m just going for catharsis - I’ve felt disconnected from here since 9/11. I dunno.
I think I know what you’re talking about. I live in Montréal, but since the events of 9/11, I have felt disconnected from reality. Not just on these boards. It almost feels like the world is holding its collective breath, waiting to see how things will play out. I don’t think I can really imagine what it must be like to have an event of this magnitude happen in your home city, to have to walk by it day after day, to smell it on the wind.
I don’t know what the plea is here. I did not post to that thread above. I know that some people swung on the politics pendulum shortly after or on 11 Sept. I also know that I’m not going to change anyone’s mind, & vice versa. But I’m still glad that these discussions can occur. I briefly became perturbed by all the email from well intended friends. I feel that I cannot discuss my feelings with some who are very dogmatic in their views. For what it’s worth.
Well, in real life I think I’ve changed anyway.
For the very first time in my life, I’ve got a flag displayed in the front window of my house. I’m wearing a little flag lapel on my jacket. I’ve got a cousin on the USS Enterprise, and I feel, for the first time, like he’s protecting me, my house, and my family in a very personal way.
I know, for a fact, because I saw those towers come down with my own two eyes, and walked a long walk with the smoke rising in my line of sight on that day, the most surreal experience I’ve ever had, that my skinny butt is on the line in this one. Because of that, I do deeply resent my more left-wing relatives (my friends tend not to be this way) who’ve been having knee-jerk antiwar and anti-Bush reactions to this thing. I mean, even my wife, probably the most apolitical and antiwar person I know, realizes we have to go in there and get these guys, because otherwise they’ll just do it again.
This time, this one, is personal. This one is for the NYFD, the NYPD, the EMTs, the passengers on that plane in PA, the workers in the Pentagon, and the ordinary people doing ordinary things who were killed on that day because of a sick maniac’s stupid idea of “Crusaders” and “Infidels”. I mean, how sickeningly pathetic can you get?
At the same time, because of all the grief from all that death, I really don’t want to see that same kind of grief visited on some innocent who had nothing to do with any of this. But we have to get Osama & the scum around him, or the cycle of death will continue.
Unfortunately, it has to be done completely, totally, and, most importantly, over and over again, until they finally get the message that for whatever they do they will be hurt far more than we will ever be, a message which unfortunately they’ve been getting in reverse over the last decade.
I also have no doubt that this will go on for the rest of my life (which may not be too long) and, even worse, the rest of my son’s life. A very depressing thought.
I’m not sure that you can really expect people to have changed politically as a result of The Bad Thing (as I have taken to referring to 9/11). It’s comforting sometimes to retreat into the familiar. Our landscapes, both physical and psychic, changed so radically in that one horrible morning that it’s likely that many people just can’t handle more changes and may be clinging to their old beliefs, just to try to make some sense of the world.
Also, I think it will take some time for the real changes to become evident–my politics may have changed somewhat, but I’m not entirely sure just how yet. I found myself this past weekend afraid to fly for the first time ever–after takeoff, the pilot banked the airplane and it freaked me out and pissed me off. Seeing National Guardsmen at the airports made my cry. I’m still not sure how I feel about our taking military action against Afghanistan–and being a veteran, that is not something I’m used to feeling.
Your interaction with the people of these boards is very different from mine, I know, so my observations might mean nothing to you. I’ve not opened many of the 9/11 threads simply because I can’t deal with it. Where I am seeing changes in myself and others is on a more subtle level, in what we value in human terms–and I know that’s another horribly vague thing, but I don’t know how else to express it. One thing I’ve noticed in myself is that sometimes my brain doesn’t work quite the way it should these days.
{{{Sua}}} Damn it, I wish there was more I could do for you.
Sorry you’re having such a crappy time with this, Sua. I don’t think it’s really fair to expect people to change their political perspective on the basis of even something as huge as September 11, however. There are a number of reasons for this. One of the coldest is that, frankly, most of us are a long ways removed from ground zero. So even if we’re more shocked, outraged, saddened, and pissed off than we’ve ever been about anything outside our personal lives, the fact is that it’s not our personal lives. I imagine that’s one hell of lot different for folks like you and manhattan and everyone else who lives with the cold reality of the attacks every day.
(That said, I am plenty shocked, outraged, saddened, and pissed off, and I think everybody else here but a couple socks, some trolls, and a handful of fucking nut cases are as well.)
Second, I think you can be pretty sure nearly all the people who participate in political discussions around here have given a whole heck of a lot of thought to their political philosophies since long before September 11. So even though we’ve all had to do a lot of thinking about this shit, it’s just not very likely that it’s going to cause major shifts in our basic philosophy. Libertarians are not going to suddenly see the light of Keynesian economics, socialists are not going to tell the people of Afghanistan to go get real jobs, Republicans are not going to abandon their wet dreams of a capital gains tax cut, and Democrats are not going to sing the praises of Katherine Harris for Congress.
Third, I think you’re wrong that nobody and nothing has changed. Check out Stoid’s thread in GD, where nearly everyone is in general agreement with Stoid. How many times have you seen that happen before September 11? Shoot, I’ve remember seeing both Stoid and Sam Stone–two of the most predictably partisan posters on the Board, IMHO–scold others of their own political persuasing for spewing partisan bullshit.
And finally, I just have to say that all of this political debate–socks, trolls, and fucking nut cases aside–is perfectly healthy and productive. September 11 lays a pretty good claim to being the most outrageous event in American history. I would be terribly disappointed if it didn’t provoke a multitude of thoughts, reactions, and ideas. 1989 wasn’t the end of history, and 2001 is not the end of politics.
'Course, I’d be even more terribly disappointed if it didn’t also provoke a multitude of cruise missiles, B-52’s, and Green Berets.
I think things have changed but in terms of the collective US conscious, it’ll take time to filter through and longer still to gauge.
The most notable difference from overseas, IMHO, has been the reversal of Bush’s Isolationist agenda i.e. his (previously) increasing disengagement from the international community. I view that as positive.
Isolationism isn’t an option in this century and I hope that’s the last glimpse we see of it.
I also see the US public’s increased interest in international affairs as positive and I’d like to hope that will continue after this crisis, especially in relation to constructive debate of Foreign Policy. But, in my opinion, that depends on the quality of information made available to the public though Government and media and, about that improving, I’m less positive.
However, constructive engagement is positive, IMHO.
I know what you mean and I agree and, of course, disagree. No reflection on you; I just tend to see far more sides of an issue than can make it easy to come to any single conclusion. Since I am accustomed to not being sure exactly how I feel and to being torn by contraditions and a desire for things to be SOME way but not entirely sure what that way should be, I might as well welcome you to my world.
Since 9/11 I have rolled my eyes at the insulting and moronic antics of peace protestors, then came on here and attempted to put their position into some perspective and defend the right of people to be against war at any costs and take special offence because I hear echoes of the same arguments I had about the Vietnam war. Yet I welcome the military actions against the Taliban–I am an Air Force brat, after all. I have become more spiritual yet am still fairly atheistic.
So, have I changed? Some, an in some ways you may never see. However, I have also found some views I held before 9/11 have grown more solid. I don’t know how you expect me to have changed my thinking. I think I know you well enough to realize you don’t really expect everybody to start thinking like you. But this isn’t going anywhere. Listen to minty green. He’s making a lot of sense.
A very wise, kind person offered me this advice: stress makes people “more so”. It flays away pretenses, highlightin existing beliefs and tendencies.
But what people are or were doesn’t dictate what they WILL be. People change. “Cowards” can learn bravery, haters can discover compassion, zealots can recognize complexities–people are infinitely fluid and NONE of us are condemned to be any one thing all our lives. Living, especially during the tough times, means learning if you have the will, brain, heart and grit to handle it.
Nothing anybody has said here should be cast in stone because PEOPLE aren’t cast in stone. For pity’s sake, why bother even trying if there isn’t room for mistakes? It’s a process. It’s messy, aggravating and frequently uncomfortable–if you’re trying. ::loud, self-mocking horse laugh::
Bad times are pitiless crucibles for change. How someone reacts right now doesn’t define who they are. Sure, maybe they react ‘more so’ right now. But it doesn’t define WHO or WHAT they are or may become.
BTW, before Stoid and Sam Stone wander through here, I just wanted to clarify that I did not mean to cause offense by saying they were “predictably partisan.” Both of them routinely articulate solid rationales for the stands they take, and I generally take both of them quite seriously.
The Thursday after 9/11 I went to my classes in a daze, and no one really mentioned what had happened until my third class, Literary Analysis. My professor opened the floor for discussion about how language shapes our perception of what had happened. I had just heard, in detail, about how some plane passengers had called their loved ones before their planes crashed. About how one man told his wife to “have a good life.” I tried to speak about how the language of the ordeal, the repetition of it, the constant images of Ground Zero being juxtaposed with symbols like our flag, gives the experiance the magnitude it deserves, and allows everyone, all over the world, to understand the hugeness of this attack. I started crying when I talked about the husband calling his wife, and I quickly got cut off by people with the following comments (paraphrased, of course, but I remember them closely):
“It’s all a media scam. They’re twisting our emotions to support the government’s desire for world domination.”
“I’ve been to Israel, I’ve seen the poverty ‘these people’ live with, and we have to take responsibility. The US is guilty, first and foremost.”
“We’re going to war whether you like it or not. Pacificism isn’t going to save lives. Pacifists like you are the reason this happened. We need to nuke ‘them’ back to the Stone Age.”
I honestly could not believe that people were saying this kind of stuff. I was so touched, so affected by this that I could not eat or sleep for three days. I cried in front of a bunch of strangers over this. Hell, I went to church. I felt changed. And it upset me that people seemed to be twisting what had happened so that it would fit into their worldview. Instead of taking in what had happened and trying to assimilate a new view or thought process or belief system about our world, I despaired that people were abusing the catastrophy to support their own opinions.
Little by little, I am seeing that change. I am seeing friends trying to understand my Palestinian friend Lamis, trying to grasp her culture and religion. I am seeing other students participating in class discussions and saying “I didn’t think about it like that. Maybe you’re right.” I am seeing people like my mom and dad who are usually clueless about world events educating themselves about the Middle East and America’s history of intervention there. I am seeing flags all over the place, yes, but that’s easy. You can always buy a flag, but now I am seeing people begin to acknowledge our historical mistakes as a country and reasonably debate our future possibilities. I am hearing fellow students from Hillel, the Muslim Student Organization and the Christian Student Fellowship talk about how similar their religions are. I am hearing a man from Brooklyn who now goes to my school telling me that “there was a long line to get into heaven that day.” I am seeing people like my friend Adrienne overcoming her extreme fear of needles to donate blood for the first time.
I don’t think the world will change overnight. But I think I can hear a little of your idealism in your OP, SuaSponte - your true desire that the world might be a little better for all of this. I feel you, because I have that same idealism. And I truly, truly believe that with time, the world will get a little better. So look for the small changes, the little signs that something different is coming. They are there, and they give me hope.
Going along with Veb’s post, there is a quote I love from Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden, about WWII:
I think it’s a matter of choosing what you will let in - deciding how strongly you will feel about something. Some people are choosing to not feel at all, to let this roll off of them, or to twist it into what they want to believe about the world and about themselves. But more people, I think, are recognizing this adversity and allowing it to affect them, allowing it to mirror their true selves and change because of what they see reflected.
Finally, I read this letter to “Time” this afternoon, and your post made me think of it. This is exactly what I mean when I say you have to decide to let yourself feel, that you must accept the magnitude of this event and allow it to change, teach, and open you:
Man, I don’t know if I can take much more of this! It’s messing with my reality!
With no offense to the people who suffered, of course, but 9/11 is shaping up to be the best thing that ever happened to me, so far as theSDMB goes! I’m practically popular! I’m downright Before ya know it, Fenris will be asking me to the prom or something…
Okay, Sua, you wanted to see an example of a change in a person. I offer you this:
And I didn’t even follow it with a joking “for a change.”
But I disagree with the “Everything has changed” statement the media are bombarding us with. The world has been changing around us for decades. We’ve been sheltered from the changes and we’re only now noticing them. Our NATO allies have been trying to tell us that for years, as have the bin Ladens of the world. How we react; how we fit those bits—or gigabytes—of data into our worldview; will tell a lot about us as individuals and as a nation. I am far from pessimistic about that. I have seen a lot of the best of humanity the past month.
I’ve been cursed or blessed with an almost appalling degree of detachment about it. I work in what was viewing distance of the towers (not unusual, you could see those suckers from a lot of vantage points) and saw the second one go down from a sidewalk vantage point, but except for a rather bad evening 24 hours later when the breeze smelled and bent me quite a bit, it didn’t alter my perceptions of the world of nations and politics or my sense of personal safety.
The biggest change in me has been a far greater tolerance for safety and security oriented administrative and procedural bullshit than I normally feel. Even a month later, I am bringing out my building pass and squelching (most) of my feelings of resentment and annoyance with an internal acknowledgement of the necessity of doing this.
I think if the Paine-Webber building was bombed and the ceiling collapsed on me and killed me, my dying thought would be “Damnit, I was so close to being finished with those field definitions, and now the changes won’t be saved!”
Nacho, consider yourself hugged. For me, the intensely human aspects are what is most heart-wrenching. For all that I saw those first two days, it’s the human contact that is stunning to me. People holding hands as they jump. Strangers holding strangers as they sob. Spouses and sons and daughters and mothers and fathers making a cell phone call on the way to certain death.
I’ve spent a lot of time on this, and doubtless will keep doing so, I cannot get some things out of my head that I saw that day. Perhaps I can’t, and have to stop trying. One of the things that I’ve thought about is what you articulated here so beautifully.
It’s humbling that technology has outstripped real time. People flying at 450 mph ( more or less) had time to make a telephone call- in the air!!!- and leave their words and dreams and thoughts for their families. It’s just agonizing to me. I’d do it in a heartbeat, I don’t know who I would call first. " Have a good life". " I want you to be happy and go on", and so on. The same technology that allowed the attacks with such awful precision is what allowed those people to make those calls.
I’ve often wondered what thoughts would run through my head if I knew I had seconds to live. Perhaps minutes? Those people got to articulate those innermost intimate thoughts.
Shame on the shallow-minded cynical peers of yours who see it as media manipulation. Those people were pure in action and need, and it will forever be a source of agony to me to know that some people have audiotapes of their loved ones’ last messages.
Sua, you can see that I’ve been jumping into a lot of the threads. Have I changed? I used to carry the pacifist banner very loudly and proudly. I still believe in non-violence, but I also wish not to lose my way of life any more than I already have. I truly believe this is just beginning, and we will in short order find out what it is like to wake up in Jerusalem every day.
Perhaps one of the most personally distressing things is that my ideals have been tested and found to be lacking in this case. How can I be a pacifist when I wish for there to be no further threat to my country? The two really don’t jive, I’m a pragmatic person. I do not believe that if I align the right collection of crystals, all will be right in the cosmos. I understand and agree with the overall war being waged in the Middle East/Asia theatre.
Violence is begatting violence, it horrifies me. It also makes me think inside, " maybe we’ll win and preserve our country". That hypocrisy is really fucking with my head these days.
Sua, my friend, perhaps things here seem so familiar because just about all of us so badly need for them to be familiar. I spend enough time ruminating over this event-= as a singular event it was bad enough, you’ll agree surely. As a Life-Altering sequence of events, it only has become worse and worse. Please, don’t be too harsh on those Dopers and friends of yours IRL who won’t allow themselves to consider how fundamental the shift really is.
I can’t stand it, but I think about it some. It is the stuff of madness.
I see a lot of change in myself personally, and I assume that other people have changed a lot too.
I’ve stopped participating in the threads about 9/11 because I’ve said my piece (for what it was worth) and it’s now seeming repetitive and too argumentative for me right now. I find my patience for people being unkind to one another (in debates, in speech, hell, even in the grocery store parking lot) is substantially diminished. A few people have taken a break from the boards for this reason. I know others (like you, Sua) have found less inclination overall to post or to engage with people.
I should also mention that there was a period about a week or so ago where I sensed that many posters who were previously disagreeing were finding a lot more common ground. That felt very good.
Despite my frustrations with the board, I find myself profoundly grateful that I have an opportunity to interact with people who are willing to talk about these events on a personal and intellectual level. And even when we’re not talking about 9/11. I remain awed that people who are so farflung across the earth get to come together, be friends, learn from each other, etc. I’ve been so lucky lately to spend quality time with some other MI Dopers, and it just moves me to know I would never have met these amazing people without SDMB!
Whoa, I’m rambling. Well, I guess the point I’m making is that people matter more to me now. Even the people who are saying things that I feel are really misguided. That is what has enabled me to stay engaged with the boards even when a part of me wants to retreat and hole up and just heal alone.
Before ya know it, Fenris will be asking me to the prom or something…
