Irrespective of the political chicanery afoot here, I find this whole concept of 9/11 relics to be perverse, self-indulgent, and more than a little silly, especially for 21st century denizens of the most sophisticated city on the planet. We Americans went off the deep end with the grief, pseudo-religiosity and outright exploitation of human suffering in the months following 9/11. Because of our self-indulgent grief, we were manipulated into two (count em, TWO!) unjustified wars. Now, heres the thing. I dont have any difficulty with the concept of the sacred. However, sacred applies to memories, ideas, relationships or other ephemeral -- some might say ethereal -- concepts. The detritus of wrecked buildings cannot and is not sacred. A relic of the WTC, held in personal possession for the sake of veneration, is just as idolatrous, and about as valuable, as a piece of the True Cross or a feather from Gabriels wing. It is Medievalism in its most pernicious form. We need to learn how to channel our collective grief into more productive, more affirmative and more healing ways. Superstition, pettiness, shallowness and Medievalism will only leave us vulnerable to exploitation or wrong judgement. People die. They always have. Everything we most miss about them involves the animation of their interaction with us. To invest those qualities into a piece of steel or a sliver of bone is to reduce something as big as the Universe into something as small, and as trivial, as a childs marble. When I became a man, I put away childish things.
Posted on: Thu, 13 Mar 2014 04:16:24 +0000
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