Every generation experiences a loss of innocence. It changes life for an entire cohort of the population. It affects every individual; each person's life is touched and changed. One's prospects change, one's expectations and even the course of one's life. The national character adjusts, and each individual's along with it. It is an event that shakes basic mythology which helps us define ourselves; which challenges how we define ourselves, and forces us to reexamine our priorities and purpose.
Loss of innocence is a recurring theme in early American literature, a favorite focus for Hawthorne, Thoreau, Poe and a dozen others. I believe this is true because America is a nation of innocence -- it was founded and constructed as something "NEW" in an old world weary of war, tyranny and strife. America has always, and still does, represent hope, new beginnings and the promise of the future. But every generation has at least one experience that reminds it life is penultimate, that heaven has not and will not arrive on earth, even in America.
The sack Washington by the British, the Mexican War, the Civil War, the panic of 1876. World War I, the Depression, Pearl Harbor, the death of FDR, Viet Nam. All of these things served as a loss of innocence for some. My Dad's generation of teens experienced the crash of '29 which aborted their planned futures, and which they had to struggle to overcome. For my mother's, it was Pearl Harbor. Both remembered the death of FDR, but it was the two earlier events that changed their lives, brought them together and formed a different future than either expected.
My sister's generation had theirs in the assassination of JFK; the young president whose hand she shook and cast her first vote for. For others, it was the killing of Bobbie Kennedy, or Martin Luther King Jr. And for some it was the TET offensive in 1968, which proved the US was losing in Viet Nam. I know, it was tactically a victory for the US, but a strategic victory for the North/Viet Cong alliance. Despite the fact that our soldiers fought well and won the battle, our country was left dispirited, fragmented and disillusioned.
My generation has all of those assassinations, plus TET, plus Chicago 1968, plus Watergate, plus, well you get the idea. I'm not sure my generation (b. 1953) was ever really innocent. Maybe until we were nine; certainly a period of innocence far shorter than many before us. Ours has been a time not only drenched in violence, but drenched in the reporting of it, the instant experience transmitted throughout the world.
The Haymarket riot of 1886 affected a lot of people, but it only affected the nation days later when details were finally printed in newspapers. Our events are immediately share. Immediately experienced; immediately dissected, analyzed and plumbed for meaning.
And yet, some 'loss of innocence' events are more significant than others; they change the trajectory of history more, change the lives of individuals more profoundly, affect national character more visibly, in a more lasting way. Of all the events of the past hundred years, 9/11 appears to be as large in its consequences as 1929 and Pearl Harbor. It has changed the national character in ways most of us would agree are bad.
America has learned to sanction torture, to falsely believe the tools of tyranny -- surveillance, kidnapping by the government, arbitrary imprisonment, loss of fundamental rights -- can be used to protect "freedom". We have much less freedom than we did on Sept 8 of 2001. We live with fear now, and hope is disdained. We are openly told that the future is bleak, and not to think it will get any better. And for far too many, this is true.
America, the land of the brave and free, has tutored its citizens to cower in fear; to avoid the foolishness of claiming rights before the government. Instead of asking for sacrifice to support the battle against our external enemies, we engaged in an orgy of over consumption that left us deeply in debt and economically devastated. We have used our military like a sledgehammer, swinging at those whom we hate and fear, whether they have played a role in the attack or not.
Americans instinctively did what they do best. They drew together as communities, supporting and comforting one another. But our government, having adopted the tactics of tyranny, began adopting its trappings as well. Political fragmentation, paralysis, extremism.
We'll never know what America could have been like without 9/11. But we know that, because of it, we are a nation at peril -- from ourselves. We continue to surrender essential liberty for the promise of a bit more safety, a deal with the devil that never turns out well.
As individuals, the economic consequences of 9/11 have ruined lives, left families destitute and paralyzed the economy. There will be no return to normalcy, at least as we understood it prior to this singular event. Having opened the door to the erosion of rights, it will be difficult to close it again. Having gorged ourselves in a binge designed to help us forget, we will long remember, and suffer the hangover of debt. And having exercised our military and economic power in destructive and unpredictable ways, we have lost the trust of the world. Only if we find a way to hope again, to look to the future instead of the past, to believe our founding documents when they say that only a free country can prosper, then will be begin to chart a way out of the funk that 9/11 cast us into.
We need to redefine the American Dream. We need to believe again in the idea of America; the idea that we control our destiny, and that human dignity and freedom are the way to build a society that is good for all. We need to find a way to reaffirm our commitment to "inalienable truths" that are self-evident: government is our creation, it is us, and it is incumbent on government to respect the dignity and freedom of each individual. We need to reclaim our belief in ourselves, that we are not just god's creatures, but the stewards of our heritage. We need to find a way to hope again, a way to embrace change, to be our own heroes, and to banish fear.
It's going to be a long, hard road. We should start to work.
