Re-upping this @lawrence_wright interview, about 9/11 and related subjects, from earlier. And I've thought about it. <thread>
2. I’ve never believed in apocalyptic thinking, believing it to be an excuse for willful impotence (in a religious context, also, an excuse for lapsing into sin, but that’s another story). And yet there is no denying the power of a moment that changed so much even while...
3. ...for most Americans, in most places, changing nothing. America is a place used to peace, prosperity, & orderly government — more used to this combination of blessings, perhaps, than any place on earth. For such a country, complacency is a constant temptation.
4. The much less prosperous, indeed badly unsettled America of an earlier day reacted very differently to its own seminal moment, the attack on Pearl Harbor. It reacted overall with resolve and righteous fury. That difference is worth reflecting upon, I think.
5. That the America of 1941 existed in a different world is true. That it was fortunate to have far abler political leadership than we had in 2001, or have now, is also true. And yet...
6. America’s modern complacency — our weakness for taking peace, prosperity, and orderly free government for granted — surely fed the shock & disorientation so many Americans felt after 9/11, & in a different way after Trump’s Electoral College victory two years ago.
7. Parenthetically, we should note this shock & disorientation was far greater for some Americans, including many in our political world, than that felt during & after the Great Recession, which directly impacted many more Americans’ lives. This is worth reflecting upon as well.
8. Much changed after 9/11; much is now changing, and will continue to change, after the assault on free institutions Trump’s accession to power represents. We should, however, spare some thought to what has not changed— or, at least, has not changed enough.
9. I submit American complacency is still there, still a danger. It’s not the oblivious, confident complacency of the years between the Soviet collapse & 9/11, or the somewhat self-congratulatory complacency of the Obama years.
10. We Americans still confront current problems that could evolve into life-altering threats, without urgency or organization. We have abundant warnings, to which we do not listen. Listening would lead to action, and action requires choice.
11. Reaction is harder in real life, but perhaps easier to think about. In any event, one could plug several looming threats into our complacency: China, public health, Trumpers & their foreign friends. But the greatest, the one certain to affect all of us, is climate change.
12. Climate change will affect our lives and our future more than 9/11, and more than Trump. We know this. The whole society, led by the government, must change course to meet the threat -- to mitigate what climate change we can, and adapt to the change we cannot stop.
13. An apocalyptic moment -- a climate change 9/11 -- will mean we’re too late. We won’t have any way to repair the damage after we reach that point. And unlike 9/11 or Trump’s election, climate change tipping points will affect the whole world at the same time they land on us.
14. So complacency is what I’m thinking about on this anniversary of 9/11. We drifted into disaster in the years before that morning, not imagining something like that could happen; we compounded disaster afterward by lurching to the other extreme, and imagining little else.
15. This ought to be instructive to us now as we face a far greater danger, much more clearly defined. But it isn’t. We Americans still take our world for granted, still cling to our complacency. However much time is left to meet the looming danger, it is running out. [end]
.@threadreaderapp Please unroll this, would you?
