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very little has been done with images of 9/11 that is not a political attack
there are about a thousand people knee-deep in their own cognitive dissonance here screaming at Talia but the answer is that 9/11 has been a cornerstone of American civic religion since approximately 9/12
for those unfamiliar with the concept, American civil religion refers to the thing where Americans are indoctrinated from a young age into treating the flag like a religious idol, the constitution + declaration of independence as religious texts, etc
the way Americans think of the "founding fathers" as sort of elevated demigods (and the backlash that results from pointing out historical details like the fact that many of them owned slaves and/or were rapists) is a component of this
rituals like the pledge of allegiance, the national anthem at sporting events, letting members of the military off the plane first, etc are all aspects of American civic religion
anyway the civic religion is a big part of why it's incredibly easy to manipulate Americans by accusing people of disrespecting the troops or being unpatriotic; both the vague ideas of "the troops" and "patriotism" are treated as sacred values
and when i say that the idea of "the troops" is vague i'm referring to the fact that people can engage in all the rituals of standing for the national anthem, etc, and can demonize people who don't, and still feel comfortable supporting politicians who won't fund the VA
most of the popular strains of Christianity make room for the civic religion, though there are always a handful of groups who identify stuff like the pledge of allegiance as idol worship
but one of the reasons that Muslims are so feared/hated is that Islam is seen as incompatible with the American civic religion-- this is one of the reasons why screaming about "sharia law" is such a successful tactic. (this is not as big a reason as plain ol' racism, though.)
this isn't limited to Muslim people, you see it used against Jewish people and even occasionally Catholics too
anyway 9/11 has been a fucking godsend to the civic religion, which is why political figures have replaced any actual memorial to the people who actually died with this mushy "sacred" nonsense and shit about respecting troops and cops
co-opting deaths to use for the civic religion isn't unique to the "never forget 9/11" phenomenon; look at the memory of Martin Luther King Jr. in the popular imagination vs. anything he actually stood for
anyway doing the civic religion publicly and loudly while never acknowledging its religious-ish nature is something both Democrats and Republicans do; it's basically a requirement to be a politician
there's a long tradition of conservatives accusing anyone less conservative of them of demonstrating inadequate Loyalty To America, which among politicians is always responded to by Loudly Demonstrating They Are Loyal
asking the question of what America has done to earn that loyalty and whether loyalty to America is actually a virtue is verboten
anyway the wikipedia article on American civic religion is an ok place to start to read more about this stuff en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_…
this concept is pretty unfamiliar to a lot of people because there's a vested interest in having it be treated with the gravity of religion without the implicit variety of choices that people get when they pick an actual religion
people from countries that don't do this so much often find it really cult-like and creepy
and yeah, the civic religion goes hand in hand with white supremacy, xenophobia, homophobia, transphobia, etc
i'm not sure when the idea of the nuclear family got so cemented into the public imagination and/or was co-opted by civic religion but it's absolutely a part of it now
civic religion also positions capitalism/social darwinism/greed as a virtue and is a big part of why bashing communism and accusing people of being socialists has been a valid political strategy for so long
that's just the secular version of the prosperity gospel, though
i'm really excited about how many people have had this as their introduction to the concept of civic religion!! it's a really useful framework for thinking about these things, or it has been for me
most Americans are functionally illiterate in sociology, which makes sense given how much thinking about it makes you question things like "is Marx actually the devil" which a lot of people in power have a vested interest in you not doing. but it makes thinking hard
concepts like civic religion, commodity fetishism, social constructs, etc all make it a lot easier to think about why society is the way it is without having to rethink all the work people have already done
it's kind of a bummer because i feel like many edgy teenagers have had the thought, "do you ever think about how the pledge of allegiance is idol worship" without being like, hello, you are not wrong, here is a framework for that
anyway we have been making a lot of ground on informally educating people on concepts like white supremacy, microaggressions, institutional misogyny, rape culture, etc. in the past decade or so about talking incessantly about them online
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