What matters

Abstract

Within academic as well as political circles, summoning the events of September 11 has emerged as a common rhetorical device for signaling some deep-seated shift in direction or purpose. In a moment I will myself succumb to the temptation to allegorize the attack. However, my experience of the calamity in New York began in a more prosaic manner. From the proximate yet soft haven of a hotel room in midtown en route from somewhere else to elsewhere, I witnessed the sublime collapse of the twin towers, as did most others, on television. The days to follow offered autumnal weather of such splendor that Central Park at its finest could scarce occupy my consciousness at the same time as did the sickening cloud of smoke to the south and the scream of F-16s incessantly circling Manhattan. At first the event felt like local news: buildings attacked in this town, tunnels and bridges closed to this island, subways and restaurants closed here. It took me a good while — really until I regained distance from New York days later, taking an improvised flight to Chicago from which the view of the Sears Tower suddenly took on the frightening prospect of catastrophic possibility — that I began to sense the national scope of the tragedy and its emerging role as a political and moral watershed.