Thursday, September 12, 2002

My September 11th Forbidden Thought Generally, my September 11th forbidden thoughts fall into the "catastrophe as art" heresy - that is, viewing the events aesthetically rather than according to the approved "hero and victim" human narrative. I didn't see the attacks as a big-budget summer special effects blockbuster, or as some kind of abstract expressionist performance, however. What I appreciated was the way they married rivetting spectacle with potent, primal, mythic symbolism.    Perhaps we are driven to focus on the human element because the symbolic dimensions of the attack are still too terrible to contemplate. Using commercial airlines as instruments of death, the terrorists struck and utterly destroyed the imposing pair of towers that embodied our commercial vitality – towers that dangled at the base of the long, thick, well-developed strip of Manhattan island. Likewise, they plunged a flaming sword into the deep, convoluted recesses of America’s most private building, where our military plans are born and incubated.   In the culture that begat the terrorists, that traffics in a currency of shame, honor and humiliation, can a greater symbolic triumph possibly be imagined? Could Joseph Campbell have imagined a more apt "king replacement" myth than this awful and very public image of rape and castration?   I know it's wrong to give the terrorists so much credit. I'm a good American, I love New York (a city I called home for four of the best years of my life), I symptathize with the familes of the victims, and I hate the viscious bastards who did this attrocious deed. But I can't help but admire how well they did their terrible work. 2:48:31 PM    Emphasize This! []

A Post-History Lesson   On June 28, 1914, Archduke Ferdinand was assassinated in Sarajevo, setting off a chain of events that began World War I. If our 21st century media were covering this event, we’d be treated to Ashleigh Banfield’s sensitive interview with the grieving widow, a stirring tribute to the fallen nobleman, and a few soundbites from citizens of Sarajevo upset that their city was chosen as the site of this abhorrent act of terrorism. And, of course, they would never show us the tape of the actual bomb that exploded – that would be too upsetting. After all, the assassination was above all else, a human tragedy.   More to come on this subject later.   10:10:57 AM    Emphasize This! []