There are a ton of flags on the lawn at Pepperdine up in Malibu overlooking the sea. As you might expect, each flag represents a person who died on September 11, 2001, ten years ago. You can't help but be moved by this, yet there's also a part of me that resists the sentiment, finds something cloying and melodramatic about the notions of patriotism and heroism, and the intense nostalgia that our culture attaches to the events that occurred that day. Why is that? Am I just horribly jaded or afraid of my own emotions? Or is it more that I'm disconcerted by the fact that our culture is disproportionately obsessed with one tragic moment, while virtually ignoring the things that may have caused it, or the fact that we somehow avoided allowing such a shocking, potentially pivotal moment to have any real effect on how we live our daily lives? Or all of the above?
Saturday, September 10, 2011
humanity
There are a ton of flags on the lawn at Pepperdine up in Malibu overlooking the sea. As you might expect, each flag represents a person who died on September 11, 2001, ten years ago. You can't help but be moved by this, yet there's also a part of me that resists the sentiment, finds something cloying and melodramatic about the notions of patriotism and heroism, and the intense nostalgia that our culture attaches to the events that occurred that day. Why is that? Am I just horribly jaded or afraid of my own emotions? Or is it more that I'm disconcerted by the fact that our culture is disproportionately obsessed with one tragic moment, while virtually ignoring the things that may have caused it, or the fact that we somehow avoided allowing such a shocking, potentially pivotal moment to have any real effect on how we live our daily lives? Or all of the above?
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In my opinion, it's the middle part. I find the whole thing, the fixation, really, really morbid.
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