{"id":1255,"date":"2011-09-06T20:23:48","date_gmt":"2011-09-06T20:23:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/community\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/?p=1255"},"modified":"2015-03-13T15:04:03","modified_gmt":"2015-03-13T21:04:03","slug":"how-to-write-about-911","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/2011\/09\/how-to-write-about-911\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Write About 9\/11"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

From a writer\u2019s point of view, the only good thing about the tenth anniversary of the attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center is that it\u2019s no harder a subject than the ninth anniversary, or for that matter, the fifth. As long as 9\/11 remains within living memory, it should beggar the imagination. It\u2019s awful, it\u2019s epochal. Despite bin Laden\u2019s death, it still feels unavenged. All sorts of ccontroversies, from crackpot theories on whodunnit, to analyses of what should have been done in response, are inseparably built into the subject.<\/p>\n

For those reasons, I have only the greatest respect for anyone game enough to take it on. To honor them as a group \u2014 the hundredth responders, you might say \u2014 I\u2019ve prepared a sampler platter that, hopefully, should satisfy all tastes.<\/p>\n

1. Approach No. 1: \u201cLet\u2019s Keep This in Perspective\u201d:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Writing for Front Page Magazine, <\/em>David J. Rothkop calls 9\/11 \u201can easy event to overestimate.\u201d<\/strong><\/a> In support of that point, he lists ten events \u2014 some of which are actually more like trends \u2014 that ought to dwarf it in the national consciousness.<\/p>\n

He makes good points, but he misses one, too. Most of the events he proposes as replacements contribute, somehow or other, to the downgrading of America \u2014 either its place in the world or the quality of the future its citizens can expect. The 9\/11 attacks were what first put those possibilities on the table. In a word, they set the mood for everything that followed.<\/p>\n

2. Approach No. 2: \u201cWe\u2019ve Really Gone off the Rails\u201d:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Salon\u2019s<\/em> Glenn Greenwald is no happier about the prosecution of the Global War on Terror<\/strong><\/a> than he\u2019s ever been. Between targeted assassinations, extraordinary renditions, etc., our country\u2019s leadership is at risk of developing an \u201camoral God complex.\u201d Whatever the merit of its central thesis, Greenwald\u2019s piece is a high-energy screed. If the Geneva Convention set limits on adjectives, he\u2019d be sharing a cell with half a dozen Cetniks.<\/p>\n

Approach No. 3: Nostalgia for National Unity:<\/strong><\/p>\n

In high-flown style, Town Hall\u2019s<\/em> Susan Brown recalls fondly<\/strong><\/a> how, for about five minutes after the attacks, we all did manage to get along:<\/p>\n

Time seemed to stop for most Americans who found themselves caught up in grief. Nevertheless, the sun continued to rise and fall, and the seasons changed. We bandaged our wounds the best we could, and were forced to move forward, although it seemed inappropriate. Ten years-removed, and amidst wars on three fronts, war-weary Americans have fallen into a regimen of \u201cnormalcy\u201d and have adapted to a necessary post-9\/11 mentality.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Approach No. 4: \u201cWas It All Worth It?\u201d:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Like Greenwald, the Times\u2019<\/em> Ross Douthat recognizes that the War on Terror has become an open-ended proposition.<\/strong><\/a> Although the two are coming fom very different places, ideologically, speaking, they reach some similar conclusions. While conceding that America\u2019s managed to strengthen her situation vis-a-vis Al Quaeda, Douthat points out that her overall strategic position has weakened.<\/p>\n

Some of this weakening was inevitable: Our extraordinary post-cold-war dominance couldn\u2019t last forever, and the rise of rival powers is a phenomenon to be managed rather than resisted. But our post-9\/11 attempts to transform the Muslim world have cost trillions of dollars and thousands of lives, and won us \u2014 well, what? A liberated Iraq that\u2019s more in Iran\u2019s sphere of influence than ours, an Afghan war in which American casualties keep rising, an Arab Spring that threatens to encircle Israel with enemies, a Middle East where our list of reliable allies grows thin \u2026 <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Approach No. 5: The 9\/11 Writing Roundup: <\/strong><\/p>\n

In Slate,<\/em> Christopher Hitchens does essentially what I\u2019m doing, only much better.<\/strong><\/a> He reviews the dozens thought-bozes people have constructed to contain the horror. Hitchens, being Hitchens, thinks they\u2019re all wrong.<\/p>\n

Approach No. 6: The Personal Angle:<\/strong><\/p>\n

This week\u2019s America Magazine<\/em> features the story of Patty Fallone,<\/strong><\/a> a 9\/11 widow who raised four children by herself. (And they are all grown; time flies.) She seems to be a woman whose faith is as deep as it is unostentatious: <\/p>\n

For the 8-year-old, it worked. But for Patty, this choice, between dark and light, good or evil, was rooted not in a Hollywood blockbuster but a deeply rooted theology. \u201cThe whole point is we have free will,\u201d she said. \u201cGod clearly allows people to do what people choose to do. If he stepped in every time a mistake was going to happen, then that\u2019s not free will. It\u2019s the same attitude for raising kids: You want to raise happy, independent, self-sufficient adults. You don\u2019t want to just have an older version of who they were at 12.\u201d <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I have only one gripe with the author: he describes Roosevelt Island as \u201ca thin, two-mile-long strip of land between Manhattan and Queens.\u201d That\u2019s technically true, but I\u2019ve always thought of t as \u201cthat place you take the 59th Street tram to.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From a writer\u2019s point of view, the only good thing about the tenth anniversary of the attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center is that it\u2019s no harder a subject than the ninth anniversary, or for that matter, the fifth. As long as 9\/11 remains within living memory, it should beggar the imagination. It\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":192,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nHow to Write About 9\/11<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"From a writer's point of view, the only good thing about the tenth anniversary of the attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center is that it's no\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/2011\/09\/how-to-write-about-911\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How to Write About 9\/11\" 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