I couldn’t sleep this morning – still depressed and anxious about the move coming up. Not that I’m not looking forward to it, but saying good-bye just sucks, as Amy would say. So, I picked-up on the article in the July/August edition of The Atlantic Monthly, a great magazine by-the-way, American Ground: Unbuilding the World Trade Center. This is supposed to be an incredible article - at least that is what the NPR reviewer said.
The author, William Langewiesche, had immediate access to the site and just finished a paragraph talking about his experiences oversees being in the midst of failing societies and how this reminded him of those experiences and sites, except for one added element – the uniquely American character of the whole unfolding event.
Many people talk about the uniqueness of the American psyche, a unique culture that expresses itself in both good and bad ways. This is one of the examples of an American cultural psyche at its best.
One paragraph in particular sums up this understanding: “But you could never confuse New York with a back corner of the world, and the ruins did not actually look like a war zone either. There was sadness to the site, to be sure, and anger, but there was none of the emptiness – the ghostly quality of abandonment – that lurks in the aftermath of battle. In fact, quite the opposite quality materialized here: within hours of the collapse, as the rescuers rushed in and resources were marshaled, the disaster was smothered in an exuberant and distinctly American embrace. Despite the apocalyptic nature of the scene, the response was unhesitant and almost childishly optimistic: it was simply understood that you would find survivors, and then that you would find the dead, and that this would help their families to get on with their lives, and that your resources were unlimited, and that you would work night and day to clean up the mess, and that this would allow the world’s greatest city to rebuild quickly, and maybe even to make itself into something better then before. From the first hours these assumptions were never far away.” (p47)
I think, for various reasons, Americans are still, over all, “unhesitant and almost childishly optimistic” in a good way. There are plenty of detractors who condemn the many things Americans get wrong, but for the most part there is a unique quality of the American cultural experience that continues to give us an optimism, an unhesitant desire to help those in need, a belief that we can do anything. Again, this sense can get us into all kinds of trouble, yet the world looks at America and sees something different and to many something unique and positive.
I thought Langewiesche’s paragraph summed-up just a part of the American experience.
comments? e-mail me
The author, William Langewiesche, had immediate access to the site and just finished a paragraph talking about his experiences oversees being in the midst of failing societies and how this reminded him of those experiences and sites, except for one added element – the uniquely American character of the whole unfolding event.
Many people talk about the uniqueness of the American psyche, a unique culture that expresses itself in both good and bad ways. This is one of the examples of an American cultural psyche at its best.
One paragraph in particular sums up this understanding: “But you could never confuse New York with a back corner of the world, and the ruins did not actually look like a war zone either. There was sadness to the site, to be sure, and anger, but there was none of the emptiness – the ghostly quality of abandonment – that lurks in the aftermath of battle. In fact, quite the opposite quality materialized here: within hours of the collapse, as the rescuers rushed in and resources were marshaled, the disaster was smothered in an exuberant and distinctly American embrace. Despite the apocalyptic nature of the scene, the response was unhesitant and almost childishly optimistic: it was simply understood that you would find survivors, and then that you would find the dead, and that this would help their families to get on with their lives, and that your resources were unlimited, and that you would work night and day to clean up the mess, and that this would allow the world’s greatest city to rebuild quickly, and maybe even to make itself into something better then before. From the first hours these assumptions were never far away.” (p47)
I think, for various reasons, Americans are still, over all, “unhesitant and almost childishly optimistic” in a good way. There are plenty of detractors who condemn the many things Americans get wrong, but for the most part there is a unique quality of the American cultural experience that continues to give us an optimism, an unhesitant desire to help those in need, a belief that we can do anything. Again, this sense can get us into all kinds of trouble, yet the world looks at America and sees something different and to many something unique and positive.
I thought Langewiesche’s paragraph summed-up just a part of the American experience.
comments? e-mail me
