As we are approaching the tenth anniversary of September 11, we are also hearing and reading lots about what happened, the consequences, what changed. Like so many Americans I have some memories of the day, though I have only seen glimpses of the actual events. Frankly, I avoided watching the repeated showings of the tapes. I've read some novels that have those events in the forefront of the plot or in the background. Most commentators agree that the definitive book is yet to be written.
Among my most vivid memories is something my son, then 9 years old, said as the USA began to bomb in retaliation. "At school they tell us that if someone is mad at you, you should try to find out why." That statement came back to me several times last year as AmCon students talked about Tocqueville and their sense of America's place in the world and then again when Clara made that stunning statement, "I have no memory of the United States before 9/11."
What seems most important to me as we approach this anniversary can be derived from those two statements which each point us to the fundamental question: Who do we think we are? What kind of people, that is what kind of nation, are we? This is not merely a question about our role in geo-politics and the world economy; it is also a question of character and virtues.
This teaser about That Used to Be Us by Thomas L. Friedman and Michael Mandelbaum suggests that they address this question. Of course, they are a generation older than my son and his classmates, so they have a mid-20th century formative experience fueled by an expanding national morale and an expectation of progress, even if chastened by social unrest and assassinations. (We remember the day JFK was shot as our parents remember Pearl Harbor and our children 9/11.) The sub-title hints that there is both honesty and hope in the book: "How America Fell Behind in the World It Invented and How We Can Come Back." Doesn't that evoke our discussions about the American dream?
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