How Should We Remember 9/11?

“You ever have that feeling where you’re not sure if you’re awake or still dreaming?”

Neo–The Matrix

It happened eight years ago today and just about every reporter and web scribbler had a sentimental anniversary piece ready to go to commemorate the day our whole world changed.

I’m not going to recount the details of what took place. I’m not going to remind you how evil exists in this world or even how heroism emerges in the face of that darkness. I’m not here to pay tribute to the American spirit, and I certainly won’t offer up hollow platitudes. I’m not going political either. I won’t reexamine the Bush legacy in this the first anniversary of 9/11 under a new Commander-In-Chief. I’m not going to attempt to get you angry or sad or sentimental, and I won’t even tell you to hold your kids a little tighter tonight.

I’m not going to tell you that we need to remember. In my world, as a historian who gets paid to remember for a living, that’s a given. I will ask how should we remember?

A Slate.Com article by Jack Shafer two days ago preempted the anniversary coverage we knew we’d all see  and hear today. Shafer took a pessimistic slant against this sort of coverage. He’s correct that many of these pieces are put together lazily and quickly as easy ratings grabbers. His article is what it is, but the fundamental question in the end becomes how much reminding do we need?

I believe the answer to that question is a matter of perspective. Those who lost loved ones in the attacks live with the memory of what happened every day. Many people, including young adults now in college, have virtually no recollection of the day.

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Stripped down, history is a combination of memory and recollection. Sometimes our memories fail. Sometimes we don’t want to remember the truth. Sometimes we lie because, after all, the heart is deceitfully wicked. We’re real good at coming up with better versions of our lives for folks who don’t know any better. We tell different versions of the same event than others who were there. We manipulate the facts and do what we can to put ourselves in the best light. All this before we get to the part where our personal beliefs shade our vision and our political leanings tempt integrity.

I know these things about human nature as I watch months and years melt from calendars and the anniversary number of my lifetime’s defining event climb towards double digits. I know that the myth often trumps reality, yet how does that apply to what took place in 2001?

Images and sounds replayed over and over don’t lie. No one can deny an event so well documented. That’s why General Dwight Eisenhower ordered available troops to tour Hitler’s concentration camps. One day, he said, people will claim that this (the Holocaust) never happened. In his time, he understood human nature.  He was right.

Just like the December attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, Americans are in no hurry to forget what happened in New York, Pennsylvania, and Washington D.C. See, we all look at the same event but with so many different interpretations. That’s why I say it’s a matter of perspective. One person says “that’s terrible,” another says “that’s crazy,” and still another says “my husband was in that building.” Some said we were doomed, others said we would prevail, and still more said America deserved it. Just a few days ago, someone on this blog posted a reply to an article written in May that maybe we deserve another similar attack!