What do Sept 12, 2001, Aug. 30, 2005, and March 12, 2011, all have in common? They are days of striking reversal. Circumstances previously viewed as perfectly normal suddenly became viewed as unsafe and alarming.
Specifically, they are the days immediately following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Hurricane Katrina’s devastation of New Orleans, and the 9.0-magnitude earthquake and nuclear disaster on the coast of Japan, respectively.
Prior to those days, the potentially violent elements lurking throughout the Muslim world, the government-constructed levees that protected New Orleans from flooding, and the sophisticated safety mechanisms implemented in Japan’s nuclear power plants were viewed as acceptable parts of the status quo.
In the wake of these disasters—never before!—the status quo gets re-evaluated, thrown out, and reassembled like my son’s Legos. An entire Department of Homeland Security is created, wars are initiated in Afghanistan and Iraq, and new airline safety procedures are implemented.
In New Orleans, new and better levees are constructed.
In Japan, Germany, New York, and throughout the world, governments suddenly back away from pursuing nuclear energy.
One day changes everything.
The question is: what is the next day that will change everything? It probably won’t be a terrorist attack involving airplanes. It probably won’t be a hurricane in New Orleans. It probably won’t be an earthquake in Japan, Germany, or New York. People are already preparing for those possibilities. The one thing that seems inevitable and guaranteed is that when the next disastrous day comes, we will not be mentally or physically prepared.
On the ten-year anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the best thing for everyone to do is to realize how little we really know about the way the world works and what the future holds.
Political leaders like to tout government action of any form as big and impressive in the face of historic life-threatening circumstances like 9/11. But, in the end, they would be better off recognizing how complicated and multitudinous the world truly is. We want to pin it down with a scientific conclusion, a report on what went wrong, or an action plan going forward. Those things are certainly good, but if that’s all you are doing then they fall short in the long run.
In a speech last Tuesday, Mayor Michael Bloomberg touted the rebirth of Lower Manhattan since the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The area in Manhattan where the Twin Towers came cataclysmically crashing down a decade ago is now thriving. The population is growing, crime is low, and business is booming. One World Trade Center and other new buildings soar to the sky. A beautiful new museum and memorial open.
“New York City has come roaring back, faster and stronger than anyone thought possible,” said Bloomberg.
I happily raise my glass to the sky, toasting the strength of America and the impotence of radical Islamic ideology.
But as Mayor Bloomberg’s speech ends, I am left wanting more. As a society, we changed on Sept. 12 in a rationally calculated way, using planning and technical skill to adapt to the new circumstances that we previously thought were impossible.
But, what else is lurking out there in the dark future that we currently think is impossible? Is there something greater that we have learned from 9/11 and that can prepare us?
At his deepest moment in the speech, Bloomberg talked of different freedoms and about learning their value: “We understood that without those freedoms there was no New York City, no United States of America, no democratic society anywhere—only tyranny and terror.”
Right. Without freedom there is no democracy and only tyranny. Anybody in a twelfth grade civics class could have constructed this idea.
A more profound lesson is that governmental and bureaucratic policies alone cannot be re-evaluated, thrown out, and reassembled in the wake of disasters like 9/11. For each and every one of us watching the devastation, our old thoughts and ideas need to be re-evaluated, thrown out, and reassembled. The change must penetrate who we are, not simply what our elected officials come up with.
To the countless orators who will speak on Sunday and to the countless masses who will listen to or read through one oration or another on Sunday, I say this: be humbled by the sublime and virtuous force that pushes humanity forward and stretches us beyond the boundaries of human and scientific perception. Call that force what you want, but have reverence for it and do not pretend to have fully beheld it.
