I've had a thought bubble up to the surface of my mind several times recently in connection to a wide variety of topics: where's the why? Any good detective (or frequent watcher of Law and Order) knows that when there is a crime, or a suspected crime, a central part of the investigation is looking for a motive. The "why". Its occurred to me that this critical piece of analytical thought is completely missing from the public and political dialogue from 9/11 to Occupy Wall St. I don't think its an accident though, I think its a symptom of a polarized and radical way of thinking that is pervasive (but more on this later).
At the wake of 9/11, the United States was shaken to the core. People were scared, equally as much of the prospect of another attach as of the shattered notion we have of US invincibility. Many conversations happened in the public sphere: homeland security, airports, terrorism, extremism, anti-Muslin sentiments, Al-queda, Taliban, Iraq, Afghanistan, war, weapons of mass destruction, etc. One conversation that I never heard was: "why?" I don't want it to be implied that if we could find a good reason than the action would be justified - I don't believe that at all. But even an unjustifiable actor has a motivation. To do what those men did - hijack planes and fly them into buildings - was not 'easy'. It was not a random, thoughtless act of violence. Whether we agree with them or not, human beings almost have justifications for the actions.
But its not even the answer that I'm in search of - its the question. Where was this conversation? Why did we declare war in retaliation before ever discussing why the action took place? We had a knee jerk reaction of 'lets go to war and get them back'. In a 7 year old boy or a pack of wolves this would be understandable but I expect better of adult humans, even moreso of Americans - purveyors of democracy, rule of law and reason all over the world.
One answer given was simply: "They are Muslims and the Koran told them to kill themselves as part of this war on America and the West. The Koran even offers them 72 virgins in 'heaven' - thats why they did it. They are crazy, radical, thoughtless terrorist monsters". But this brings me back to something I mentioned above: the absence of a thorough investigation into 'why' this crime happened against us is a symptom of a larger problem. We've ceased seeing people as our equals - whether it is America vs Muslims or Blue State vs Red State. We've lost the ability to put ourselves in someone else's shoes and try to think like them. We can no longer imagine what it is to think differently than we already do - its a failure of imagination. We boil everything down to: "anyone who thinks differently than I do is a lunatic (or a terrorist) and its not worth trying to consider their motivations".
The connection to Occupy Wall Street is this: so many of the conversations in the main stream media are knee jerk reactions. They look different, we are scared. I heard one of them use the words socialism and anarchy, thats crazy talk. Look at the police in riot gear, this must be a riot. How expensive is it going to be to pay all these cops overtime? Look - they are trampling on the flowers!
And, yes people have asked 'why are you here?' but only really to get a quick answer and move on to 'when will you leave?'
This is a bit of rambler, I apologize. I'm just trying to narrow down what it is exactly that we are missing in American public dialogue. Part of it is the inquisitive 'why' but I guess it really boils down to a deeper, more complex understanding of the issues.
Arg, I'd rate my own blog post a C+ at best.
Thanks for reading.
- Mark
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