The Giant Goes Back to Sleep

This has put to words some of the dread that has risen within me after 9/11.

My dread is born in the resilience of America--our ability to overcome obstacles and push forward. It is a trait that means that America has overcome its past to move to the future. But do overcome because we have become more determined? Or do we overcome because we have forgotten?

Until the next atrocity like the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon is committed, I fear that our tendency is to lapse into complacency. Preferring, instead, to concern ourselves with the latest box office flop, our reality shows or (my particular weakness) our sports teams.

I do not think that there is anything wrong with such things in moderation. Indeed, they are fine diversions from the business of everyday living. The question that arises: Are our diversions the drugs that stupefy us against the pain that is everyday living? Reality TV does not show the reality of our perilous times. There is no Survivor: Iraq and we do not see island participants pitted against Islamic fundamentalists or suicide bombers.

Paranoia is not a mark of a great nation, but neither is ignorance.