The idea of what "could have been" is something that sticks with me, and probably many people, as a huge missed opportunity. Instead we repudiated our values with our actions and plastered over the difference with wall-to-wall media and sporting events, anthems, and Marvel movies, leaving us benumbed and divided: from each other, the rest of the world, and from the (tenuous) version of America that used to be ourselves - “the American experiment" that really only existed for a brief period from about 1937 to 1970.

As I wandered the streets past the Disney-fied WTC memorial site last night (hooting frat boys, dirt bikes ripping down West St), I saw a young man with an American flag t-shirt and another with a cocktail in his hand have a chance meeting while both staring at the "Tribute in Light" in the sky. The younger man was only 6 on 9/11, the older one was 25. A generation apart. They both had equally personal, equally valid recollections of the pain and confusion they felt on that day, seen from a distance of age, time, and comraderie. They both loudly expostulated that they were "Real New Yawkers" and implied that 9/11 had represented a grievous offront to something deeply personal to them, their identity, and how they saw themselves vis a vis the rest of America (and to the rest of the world). It was a movie scene, a script, something we've all seen a thousand times, and when they agreed that America was the best country on earth I wanted to both roll my eyes and clap, leave the theater and go home to bed. The marketing machine that is American culture quite literally keeps the lights on, brings us together, and gives us something, however hollow and soulless, to drunkenly slur at one another next to the security barricades. It's real, and it's ours.

♦️♦️♦️

Read the full blog post: https://medium.com/@millejoh/9-11-thoughts-5bafa6deab61