Photos: http://img.slate.com/media/1/123125/123050/2133481/2148159/060912_CB_911pic.jpg[...]
In the years since I stood on my rooftop in Brooklyn watching the World Trade Center towers burn so apocalyptically , I have spent at least a part of every day wrestling with a host of existential questions. I can't help it - almost obsessively I churn thoughts over and over in my head, trying to understand the psychological contours of this cruel new world. The questions largely boil down to the following: Where has the world's faith in America gone? Where is the American Dream headed?
In the immediate aftermath of September 11, an outpouring of genuine, if temporary, solidarity from countries and peoples across the globe swathed America in an aura of magnificent victimhood. We, the most powerful country on earth, had been blindsided by the ruthless, ingenious, and barbaric enemy, two of our greatest cities violated. They were, we felt, no less than our due, no more than our merit. In the days after the trade center collapsed, even the Parisian daily Le Monde, not known for its pro-Yankee sentimentality, informed its readers, in an echo of John F. Kennedy's famous "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech, that "we are all Americans now".
[...]
In the years since I stood on my rooftop in Brooklyn watching the World Trade Center towers burn so apocalyptically , I have spent at least a part of every day wrestling with a host of existential questions. I can't help it - almost obsessively I churn thoughts over and over in my head, trying to understand the psychological contours of this cruel new world. The questions largely boil down to the following: Where has the world's faith in America gone? Where is the American Dream headed?
In the immediate aftermath of September 11, an outpouring of genuine, if temporary, solidarity from countries and peoples across the globe swathed America in an aura of magnificent victimhood. We, the most powerful country on earth, had been blindsided by the ruthless, ingenious, and barbaric enemy, two of our greatest cities violated. They were, we felt, no less than our due, no more than our merit. In the days after the trade center collapsed, even the Parisian daily Le Monde, not known for its pro-Yankee sentimentality, informed its readers, in an echo of John F. Kennedy's famous "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech, that "we are all Americans now".
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Walking Up from the American Dream - Sasha Abramsky
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