I’m sitting here. 9/11, as we say it in the U.S. I’ve trouble dealing with my thoughts on the matter.
They are complex, and easily attacked.
That doesn’t mean they are wrong. Far from it.
This poem, by Tennyson (I thought Yeats — laugh at me for being a cultural ignoramus) is apt.
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends, 'T is not too late to seek a newer world.
He uses punctuation almost as grossly and badly, though reluctantly accurately, as I do. Yet he writes magnificently.
At moments of dark thought like this, I’m impelled to think of other poesy.
Yeats, of course.
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Did you know that Falcons are, by definition, female? Tiercels are the male of the species. And two-thirds the size. Fascinating.
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all convictions, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
‘Mere anarchy’. Who but Yeats — an Irishman to be sure — would have such a view. “Mere Anarchy”, good grief.
Fear not. Your host has not gotten all flaky. But there’s a nihilistic refrain that consumes much of what we feel about 9/11 — on all sides. I worry it’s a refrain that shall prevail…
That said, yeah, smite the evil-doers, and to heck with you if you think that’s wrong.
I’ll try and return to more thinking, and less poesy, and, even, less poetry.
A bientot.
-wolfe
You sound sad wolfe. Your poetic tribute is very moving. The past cannot be undone, perhaps that’s where the nihilism comes in. People trying to understand it or justify it by perceiving it as fated? Meant to be? And maybe they are right? But then, that leaves the residue of guilt, a feeling that maybe the country deserved it to happen to them? That it was somehow necessary? What cultural changes this has wrought in the US and internationally are huge. There must be, there has got to be, some positive in all of this. You need to find it. Everyone needs to find it.
I was three thousand miles away on that day. I did feel the shock all the way over here. These things had happened all over the world in many places. But it had never happened here. In the country where I live. The place that was supposed to be safe. I never once in my life ever thought to be afraid such an attack could happen here. I think this is the shock that hit most Americans, most of the world, for that matter. But I didn’t feel it like you did, wolfe. I wasn’t close to it. I wasn’t almost in the building that was leveled. I’ve never even seen that building.
I can only relate in this sense. I’ve always known that children are sometimes sexually molested. Anyone who doesn’t know this is just not paying attention. But when I was taking care of a little five-year-old girl and after a time was told by her mother that the girl’s father had molested her when she was eight months old, it hit me. For real. I’d never been that close before. And it took some serious soul searching (and prozac) to get through that without hanging on to the new feeling that was now living inside of me that all men are bent on destruction.
I’ve been close to many things. My father was in the Vietnam war and I didn’t even know a war was going on! I lived in Japan as a small child and saw on TV the riots that go on every year on the anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima. I’ve been swimming with sharks! The list goes on. It’s not a contest. I know there’s nothing to say in times like these. Everything sounds trite. But to steal some lyrics, when you’ve been through hell on your knees and come face to face with the devil, you know in spite of it all ~ it does get better.
Yes, sorry for sounding so melancholy. It is perhaps my nature at this time of year though. Perhaps it’s my nature period! Maybe I should have been born a Russian…
Seriously though, no, the USA emphatically did not ‘deserve’ this. We’ve been asshats, but mostly to Canada and South America/Caribbean. Rest of the world, we’ve worked hard to liberate people. We’ve been naive, but generally not nasty. Even Vietnam, one of our dumbest miscalculations, was not out of nastiness.
So please be careful what you say on those grounds, Female.
@Teri Meh. You pressed a magic button. Child abuse. (No, it doesn’t work twice).
Read below, but please don’t limit abuse to ’sexual molestation’. Physical and psychological molestation of children is very real as well. If you harshly beat a young child every day, and tell him (or her) that if he tells anyone about the beatings that the “Childrens Aid Society” will come for him/her and seize him… that’s pretty bad too.
Sexual molestation of children is … it leaves me speechless. It’s horrific. Physical abuse of children is also pretty bad.
I can see why men might mess with a 16-year-old, thinking she was 18 or 21. OK. (And for that reason, I actually like faint crows-feet on my dates! — women are masters (mistresses I guess) of makeup).
But 8 months old? Hang ‘em bloody high. Let the buzzards eat ‘em.
Honor to your father’s service.
-wolfe
Many types of abuse exist. None of them should be taken lightly.
Seriously though, no, the USA emphatically did not ‘deserve’ this. We’ve been asshats, but mostly to Canada and South America/Caribbean. Rest of the world, we’ve worked hard to liberate people. We’ve been naive, but generally not nasty. Even Vietnam, one of our dumbest miscalculations, was not out of nastiness.
Of course, I didn’t mean they deserved it. No one deserved to suffer that.
What I meant is that the accepting/moving on either has to ënvolve an acceptance of the fact that other people can be evil, or, that other people can be driven to evil deeds. The first would involve a loss of innocence and positivity because one would have to now believe in bad/evil men.
The second would involve a sense of shame in being possibly culpable in contributing to the actions of the bad men. Rightly or wrong, with or without knowledge of being so culpable. Leading to a belief that to be attacked so viciously, one must have bought it upon oneself and so deserved it (again, rightly or wrongly, but of course, wrongly, I don’t think anyone deserves that).
You may think this view is outrageously naive and simply reflective of my own world view. Perhaps it is. Of course evil men exist, just look at child abuser’s, as Teri suggests.
I guess what I find interesting is which of the simplied ways I have described of dealing with the process of moving on, would involve forgiveness? Both or one, or none?
Is forgiveness possible or desirable?
Asshats. lol.