What America Lost Because of the Atttacks on September 11, 2001 and What We Gained – PJ Media– pjmedia.com
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EXCERPT:
It’s tempting for us amateur observers of life and history to put events like September 11, 2001, in nice, neat, little boxes. It helps us understand momentous events and deal with the trauma.
The 9/11 mythology that has been nurtured, cared for, and augmented over the last 25 years hardly resembles the raw, searing pain we felt on that day and in the immediate aftermath of the attacks. We have sanitized it, drawn the emotion from it as we might draw poison from a snakebite, until what’s left is banal and boring.
The “Falling Man” is still comfortably anonymous. Ultimately, photographer Richard Drew and many historians view “The Falling Man” less as a single named individual and more as an “Unknown Soldier” representing the tragic fate of the thousands of people who died trapped in the towers that morning.
The much-debated (and much-maligned) 9/11 memorial is perhaps the most unsatisfactory manifestation of a national tragedy we have. The winning design, Reflecting Absence, was overly stark, abstract, and somber. No American flags, no religious symbols. Critics called it “hyperindividualized” rather than unifying.
Others found the memorial moving and appropriate. The museum’s historical orientation video and exhibits faced criticism from civil rights organizations and scholars who argued that the terminology used failed to sufficiently differentiate general Islam from extremist violent jihadism. I saw the orientation video, and aside from the narration not outright claiming that “THIS IS NOT ISLAM,” it told the story of the attacks as straightforwardly as possible.
