"What 9/11 Taught Me About Human Nature."
The article is all over the place, but nonetheless interesting. I wrote about something similar the other day with respect to terrorism/facebook/etc:
Mohammed Atta surely didn't think slamming a plane into one of the Twin Towers was going to make Bush go down on his knees before Osama Bin Laden. What he knew was that being part of Bin Laden's network gave his life meaning.
There's some of that kind of sentiment in all of us. Independent thought will always be the exception, regardless of levels of education. It fascinates me, frustrates me and scares me all at the same time--but it no longer surprises me. It's why 9/11 no longer perplexes me. With modern technology, it was only a matter of time, and its like will happen here again.
It's true. The tribal member in all of us is a scary beast. It is easy to forget, but this is in our biology, in our brain, instincts, and mind. You see it sporting events - playing or watching - you see it in international relations, in domestic political debates, in competitive business, or games. It is everywhere and unchangeable. We cannot undo the way our minds evolved. It is there inside everyone. And with the exponential growth of technology it is only a matter of time before larger and more heinous attacks of the tribal sort occur again.
On another note -
More indicative to me were two American academic colleagues who sincerely believed that we should not invade Afghanistan, and that our response to attack should be pacifism.
Their sense seemed to be that America owes the world passivity in the face of attack because of our power, as well as our less honorable moments on the world scene. This struck me as a deeply sophisticated position. Yet I couldn't help wondering whether they or like-minded people would be able to wangle that magisterial brand of mental equipoise as they cradled their mother's corpse in the smoking ruins of an Amtrak bombing.
With perhaps insufficient faith, I suspected not--the primum mobile, one sensed, was the comfort of a higher wisdom rather than pure A-to-B logic.
Strange as this may sound, I had a similar thought right after 9/11. What if our response had been pacifism? Was it that once-in-a-lifetime moment where America could demonstrate an ability to "let-go" of an incredible grievance and thereby give the world an opportunity to do the same? Could the Arabs have their pride back for a moment and graciously "forgive" the Jews and the West and everyone all around the world decide to move forward?
If my 31 year old self heard my 23 year old self propose this theory I would laugh in my face. And then I would calmly retell the tale of the scorpion and the frog:
The story is about a scorpion asking a frog to carry him across a river. The frog is afraid of being stung, but the scorpion reassures him that if it stung the frog, the frog would sink and the scorpion would drown as well. The frog then agrees; nevertheless, in mid-river, the scorpion stings him, dooming the two of them. When asked why, the scorpion explains, "I'm a scorpion; it's my nature."
When I was 23, I thought most humans were the frog and the tale was meant as a warning about trusting bad people. Now...I think most humans are the scorpion, a tragic species trapped by our own base instincts.
12 comments:
I like your scorpion/frog analogy.
Also re: the sad ignobility of human nature in response to tragedy, I think that few feelings are greater motivators than the desire for revenge.
i agree revenge is a great motivator. but i don't see revenge as ignoble. in fact, one could argue revenge is what causes people to be moral creatures.
why do you not steal from me? because then i'll steal back from you or cut your hand off.
it would be foolish to think al queda would consider things square if we did not respond to 9/11. it is a proven fact (on the playground or anywhere) that inaction or pacifism and capitulation encourages more, not less, aggression. it's all tit-for-tat up until the day we die. whether we like it or not. any temporary reprieve from it is a blessing.
Revenge certainly has its place. And can result in good things. But just because the effects are positive, that doesn't necessarilly give the cause some sort of nobility. I also think the example you suggest - not hurting someone in order to avoid being hurt yourself - is more of a rational decision than a moral decision. Sure, the end result is the same regardless of the train of thought that leads to it. But I don't think that the desire not to experience retribution causes people to be moral creatures - it just causes their actions to be the same as those that would be made by moral creatures.
But then again, I strongly believe that people should be judged by their actions, so maybe the reason for one's actions doesn't matter in the long run as much as the actions themselves.
I don't know what the best response to 9/11 could have been. However, I never understood the leap in logic that people made that somehow made Americans feel that attacking Iraq was a suitable reaction to having been attacked by a group based in Afghanistan. Our targets were not the same people who had targeted us. That's not really tit for tat.
Vondy, you haven't done your homework on Iraq, which is disappointing. There were a lot of issues, but strategically speaking, two major points to grasp:
1. The issue of WMDs falling into terrorist hands.
2. Dealing with the root causes of islamic terrorism vs. merely dealing with immediate instrument (al queda)
#1 was Dick Cheney's baby. Basically, after 9/11, America needed to re-evaluate how tough we would be on rogue states developing WMDs because of the possibility of those WMDs falling into terrorist hands. 9/11 proved terrorists were willing and able to pull off mass casualty attacks within america. to take further measures to defend against wmd attacks is a pretty logical response. Saddam - by a) having been close to developing WMDs in the past b) having supported Islamic terrorist groups in the past and c) refusing UN weapons inspectors was the obvious number one asshole on the list. Not to mention, we were in a low level war with him already since the gulf war 1 truce.
#2 was Bush's baby. he took the "War on Terror" position that this wasn't simply about the US vs. Al Queda, but actually a wider issue with a host of Islamic Fundamentalist groups who exploited Arab grievance to their advantage. I suppose it is possible to see Al Queda as an aberrant group and the only one to focus upon - that they were distinct from Hamas and Hezbollah and the Taliban. But I don't think that it's true. Once you look at the bigger picture, you begin to grasp that Islamic Terrorism and Autocratic middle eastern regimes are interwoven and interdependent on one another. In any case, the case for getting rid of saddam extends from this POV. And i understand one can view the WOT as a wider war and still disagree going into Iraq...but your point is that the two are totally disconnected. That, I think, is wrong-headed...and Al Queda is not an aberrant group, but merely the most vicious strain of the islamicist war against america.
sort of similar logic to the issue of declaring war on hitler's germany after we were attacked by japan. you could make your same argument against fighting nazi germany and trying to finish the war against japan first.
obviously, not exactly the same...but still
No, I understand those rationales. But we're talking in a context of revenge here, and I think Americans in general had misconceptions that by attacking Iraq, we were getting direct retaliation for what happened on 9/11. Certainly in my hometown, there was/is generally no understanding of the distinctions that exist between members of Al Qaeda and Iraqis. My sense is that a lot of the popular support that existed for the war came from this idea that we were getting revenge on the people who hurt us in 2001. That's not what was going on. I don't know that there would have been so much support for the war if the public hadn't been allowed to equate one group with the other.
Or maybe there would have been, because we were so scared, and so desperate to get revenge upon anybody, even if it was a connect-the-dots game to find a target?
Either way, I'm not convinced that the desire for revenge validates your/the administration's points #1 and #2. I don't have any statistics to back this up, but I don't think that the general consensus was that points #1 and #2 gave us license to start a war prior to 9/11. But once we wanted revenge so badly, suddenly they did. I understand that something horrific happened, and that made people feel the weight of these issues perhaps more than they had previously. I just don't know if that's a good enough reason.
well, i certainly agree 9/11 changed the calculus of thinking about islamic terror and the middle east. you can call that revenge or simply common sense.
and i can't speak for any idiot from your hometown who can't see the distinction between al queda and regular iraqis. but if anyone is that stupid, why wouldn't they just support carpet bombing the entire middle east, especially saudi arabia? in any case, it's not like we went into iraq red-hot with revenge. we didn't go into iraq until march 2003, a year and a half after 9/11. we went through the UN with an initial resolution (a call for a second resolution failed), we went through congress and got a good deal of support from both sides of the aisle. many people disagreed with the idea, i understand that, but certainly over 50% of the us population supported the war initially, so whether that was for good reasons or ill informed reasons...well isn't that the story of all war and a problem with democracy in general?
i can really only speak for myself - and i didn't initially think invading iraq made any sense. but after i read a lot about the issue, changed my mind. it wasn't about revenge. i do recognize it was a bet and i came down 60/40 in support of the war.
your point seems to be - people are stupid - and therefore consented to something unwise. i would argue the folks you speak of understood in their gut how 9/11 and iraq were not unrelated...that 9/11 was the result of not just this one crazy-ass group. sure, they are inelegant and unable to express themselves and can't make nuanced arguments. they aren't foreign policy wonks.
but your point is basically people are too stupid to have their own opinions. king george thought this as well, and he lost the american revolution, so too bad for him and you.
put more succinctly - i do not think invading iraq was primarily about revenge.
Succinctly - I think that the desire for revenge was one of the big motivating forces behind what support there was for the war.
Also, it's pretty offensive for you to suggest that I think people are too dumb to have their own opinions when I'm pretty sure you know for a fact how upset I get when people just subscribe to whatever views are propogated by their political/religious/social/familiar groups instead of thinking things through for themselves. That's not at all my point. That's just a random insult you're throwing out.
no, no, it wasn't a random insult, it was based on this line:
"Certainly in my hometown, there was/is generally no understanding of the distinctions that exist between members of Al Qaeda and Iraqis."
that to me suggested you thought people were dumb enough to think iraq was behind 9/11 and is why they supported the war.
maybe i misunderstood your point.
I guess I misunderstand your conclusion - I DO believe that some people thought that Iraq was behind 9/11 and that was why they supported the war. But that doesn't mean I think people are too dumb to have their own opinions. On the contrary, I wish people would think for themselves on a more regular basis instead of just buying into whatever is being spouted at them by their government/pastors/parents/friends. I'm pretty sure that's at least one thing we agree about!
no...i think everyone should just agree with me...but in the absence of that, thinking for themselves is the next best option.
i know not a single person who on the record said for fact iraq was behind 9/11. i know a lot of people who say that's what other people think. in fact, i've heard a lot more people suggest 9/11 was an inside job by the us govt than iraq did 9/11. but that's because i live in retarded liberal land vs. retarded conservative land.
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