In class this week we talked a lot about the Redemptive Curve, identified by Dan McAdams as the definitive American story model. This graph begins with a fairly well off person whose life falls to decadence only to swing into a meteoric rise landing them in a better position than they began in. I was thinking of that when I found this opinion column on the New York Times website. The article's author, Tom Sorell, criticizes the natural human response of "returning to normal" after suffering a tragedy. Sorell focuses on 9/11 and its aftermath. Sorell states that he believes that after 9/11, and any emergency for that matter, that it is imperative to avoid the urge to try to simply return everything to normal to show resiliency. Rather, he argues, we should look to change our way of thinking and living to better our lives. To me this represented the crucial moment in the Redemptive Curve, an event so extreme that it causes the protagonist to realize he/she has hit rock bottom and needs the begin the climb back up.
Naturally the question that follows is this: did America make a change for the better or simply return to normal after 9/11? In my opinion the answer is simple. The Patriot Act, an unnecessary war, and discrimination against Muslims in the US all followed the attack that day. In my mind, the attacks on the World Trade Center didn't mark a turning point for the US, in fact they may have accelerated this country's decline. And almost 10 years after 9/11, I have to ask: if that didn't stop it what will?
I think it is interesting how the question you ask is "did America make a change for the better or simply return to normal after 9/11?", when I would argue America made a change for the worse. At first it united the country against terrorism, but later on its come to separate the United States. The Patriot act brought many questions of human rights, and arguably separated the two major parties, Republicans and Democrats even more. Now our country is in a much worse place as a whole than before the attacks of 9/11.
ReplyDeleteOf course, the answer to the question is that the United States is worse off after 9/11. It isn't really a question. Before 9/11, supposedly there were no terror threats from outside groups. After, we are constantly under the threat of an outside attack. What I absolutely do not agree with is the reasoning by Trevor. If you are telling me that the two major parties were united before 9/11 occurred, that just is not true. If anything, 9/11 united the opposing parties and all Americans to stop terrorism. And while the Patriot Act may have brought up some questions about human rights, it has brought necessary changes to the government's ability to prevent terrorism. Such changes include reinforcing illegal immigration and increasing law enforcement. While I do agree that 9/11 has changed the U.S. negatively, the government has done its best to make better of the situation.
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