from
The New Yorker
Susan
Sontag
The
disconnect between last Tuesday's monstrous dose of reality and
the self-righteous drivel and outright deceptions being peddled
by public figures and TV commentators is startling, depressing.
The voices licensed to follow the event seem to have joined together
in a campaign to infantilize the public. Where is the acknowledgment
that this was not a "cowardly" attack on "civilization" or "liberty"
or "humanity" or "the free world" but an attack on the world's
self-proclaimed superpower, undertaken as a consequence of specific
American alliances and actions? How many citizens are aware of
the ongoing American bombing of Iraq? And if the word "cowardly"
is to be used, it might be more aptly applied to those who kill
from beyond the range of retaliation, high in the sky, than to
those willing to die themselves in order to kill others. In the
matter of courage (a morally neutral virtue): whatever may be
said of the perpetrators of Tuesday's slaughter, they were not
cowards.
Our
leaders are bent on convincing us that everything is O.K. America
is not afraid. Our spirit is unbroken, although this was a day
that will live in infamy and America is now at war. But everything
is not O.K. And this was not Pearl Harbor. We have a robotic President
who assures us that America still stands tall. A wide spectrum
of public figures, in and out of office, who are strongly opposed
to the policies being pursued abroad by this Administration apparently
feel free to say nothing more than that they stand united behind
President Bush. A lot of thinking needs to be done, and perhaps
is being done in Washington and elsewhere, about the ineptitude
of American intelligence and counter-intelligence, about options
available to American foreign policy, particularly in the Middle
East, and about what constitutes a smart program of military defense.
But the public is not being asked to bear much of the burden of
reality. The unanimously applauded, self-congratulatory bromides
of a Soviet Party Congress seemed contemptible. The unanimity
of the sanctimonious, reality-concealing rhetoric spouted by American
officials and media commentators in recent days seems, well, unworthy
of a mature democracy.
Those
in public office have let us know that they consider their task
to be a manipulative one: confidence-building and grief management.
Politics, the politics of a democracyÑwhich entails disagreement,
which promotes candorÑhas been replaced by psychotherapy. Let's
by all means grieve together. But let's not be stupid together.
A few shreds of historical awareness might help us understand
what has just happened, and what may continue to happen. "Our
country is strong," we are told again and again. I for one don't
find this entirely consoling. Who doubts that America is strong?
But that's not all America has to be.
Susan
Sontag
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