Recalling September 11th
I was busy this weekend, so I didn't peruse the blogworld's marking of 9/11/+3 until yesterday. The post that really stood out to me was this one from Matt Yglesias.
Don Rumsfeld wrote a while back that we not only don't know if we're succeeding in the war on terrorism, we don't even have metrics of success. And he was right. We get jammed up in a conversation about whether the [War on Terror] is "really" a war, and don't talk about the fact that whatever it is (I think "war" is a serviceable term) we don't really know who it's directed against. We don't know what we're trying to do, we don't know if we're succeeding at doing it, and we have barely any idea how we're going to figure it out. We're in the midst of an impassioned political campaign in which I — like many others — have become, somewhat against or wills and intentions, a fairly active (albeit fairly unimportant) participant. But whoever wins will still be faced with the reality that ignorance — public, official, and elite — is massive. Confusion is still as widespread as it was on 9-12-01 but back then we at least felt confused. Like Socrates we knew, to some extent at least, what we did not know. Now the worst are filled with passionate intensity. The ratio of unknown unknowns to known unknowns is frighteningly high.
I don't have the stomach for tearful reminisces this year, or the self-congratulatory nod towards to American values, or the reaffirmation of the nationalism that has since been put to ugly political use. And honestly, I don't even feel the need to work up indignation at the Bush administration and its supporters who attempt to claim 9/11 as their own. That's what I like about the post linked above; it's honest.