Flags, Totem Bodies, and the Meanings of 9/11: A Durkheimian Tour of a September 11th Ceremony at the Flight 93 Chapel

Abstract

Some four miles as the crow flies from the site at which United 93, which was the fourth plane involved in the 9/11/2001 terrorist attack on the United States, struck ground, there sits a small chapel dedicated to the passengers and crew. The Thunder on the Mountain Chapel is considerably less well known than the Parks Department memorial a few hundred yards from the crash site, but it is, arguably at least, equally important in the cultural production of the Flight 93 myth. This article draws from Durkheim’s The Elementary Forms of Religious Life as well as other theoretical sources to look closely at the chapel. I argue that what is going on at the Chapel contributes to a totemic myth that turns the American flag into a representation of the dead national hero and then places the totem object into the beliefs and rituals of an American civil religion.