Desiring "9/11"

The US desired September 11th.

I don't mean that the US desired the specific attacks and losses. But, the US did desire the shock, the horror, the rupture. It may be more accurate then to say that the US desires "9/11" meaning that the series of events and articulation of meanings captured by the term "9/11" are an object of intense US desire.

I say this because were it not the case that the US desires "9/11" the Bush administration would not have been able to mobilize a very specific set of meanings and emotions in accordance with the term. I say this because were it not the case that the US desires "9/11" journalists, in print and on television, would not continue to sacralize the term, speaking in hushed voices, in awe with continued shock before the horrors of the day. I say this because were it not the case that the US desires "9/11" we would not continue to have feature films ("United 93" and Oliver Stone's upcoming "World Trade Center") about it.

So, what does the US desire when it desires "9/11"?

Simplicity, meaning, and righteousness.

The events of September 11th, 2001 were complicated. They were complicated in terms of the position of the United States in the global arena, by Europe's past decades in dealing with terrorism, by US policies in Afghanistan and the middle east, by the details of the design of the World Trade Center, by the plans of response, and myriad other matters. Despite these complications, "9/11" locks in a simple set of meanings: good/evil.

With this simple binary in place, the US knows who it is and what it stands for. Rather than having to deal with and acknowledge the complexities of economic globalization, the environmental crises facing the entire world, the extremes of religious nationalism and mafioso capitalism facing every country, the US could find its bearings with a very simple moral compass. This moral compass the right and the left. The right can be on the side of its Christian God, civilization, and Israel. The left can be against militarism and religious fundamentalism. The right can avoid facing up to the split within its ranks between neoliberal economics and social conservatives who would want to restrict market forces in areas of entertainment and information. The left can avoid dealing with political divisions around race, the economy, the environment, and development. It can avoid the hard questions of formulating alternatives to the neoliberal economic project that is rapidly moving the world into never before imagined extremes of privilege and poverty.

"9/11" fulfills the desire for righteousness. For some, embracing the status of the US as a victim of terrorist violence justifies renewed efforts in self-defense: never again. For others, hatred of militarism makes our work so much more satisfying than it was in those trivial and trivializing days of cultural studies. Now we really are political. Now we are doing something important. In fact, we on the left can embrace the identity of a victim in ways we could barely imagine under identity politics. Given the assualt on the academy, we are all victims now.

"9/11" is an object of American desire. It's not surprising, then, that filling desires for simplicity, meaning, and righteousness makes us all feel a little uneasy, guilty. As Lacan teaches, guilt alerts us to the fact that we have given way on our desire, we have failed to keep it open, we have filled it or are filling it. We are all, left and right, uneasy about the exploitation of September 11th--uneasy because we know we rely on it, we enjoy it. We really hate it when the other side exploits "9/11": they are getting more mileage out of it than we are.

Breaking out of the trap of "9/11" will require shedding (traversing) our fantastic investments in simplicity, meaning, and righteousness. All of them. Even the accusation that the other side remains invested in them. We can't treat--or condone the treatment of--"9/11" as something sacred, as a key turning point or event.

"9/11" is a fantastic object of US desire. We have to give it up.

Comments

[s0metim3s]

Jodi, I think perhaps it's the steps between - as you put it - "ideology and hegemony" and the construal of the US as an entity which "desires" that might require more emphasis so that the latter is not presented (or read) as unconditioned. And perhaps here too is where the divisions that unfold within those steps might also be emphasised, as that which is not shared.

[Gabriel Sanchez]

Man, and the academic left wonders why the unwashed masses won't get on board with their amoral rhetoric...

I say this because were it not the case that the US desires "9/11" the Bush administration would not have been able to mobilize a very specific set of meanings and emotions in accordance with the term.

This statement is patently stupid unless you can show that the Bush Administration wanted to do this in advance of 9/11 and hence "desired" for something that tragic to occur. It would be like saying I desired to get hit by a car because maybe just maybe it ended up being advantageous for me (e.g., big court settlement, lots of sympathy from friends and family, etc.). Of course, if the advantage is uncertain or if, perhaps, I value bodily integrity over, say, sympathy and money, that thesis would erode pretty quickly. In this case, you would have to show convincingly that Bush & Co. have no legitimate concern with safety or the lives lost, but rather sat around waitin for the first shit storm to hit so they could solidify their power position. Sure, that's great malarky for conspiracy theorists to wade in, but as a matter of expressing reality, it's suspect.

Simplicity, meaning, and righteousness.

...and the U.S. didn't possibly have those things before 9/11? Assuming I play your game here, I could just easily point to the last 200 years and claim the last two points especially have never disappeared from the American "experience" or "ideology". As for "simplicity", only a simpleton would see 9/11 as simple or even the response to it that way. But then again, you and most of the "cultured despisers" are so abstracted from the facts that to even engage in a meaningful critique would require a mountainous hike out of the valley of self-blinding declarations.

Rather than having to deal with and acknowledge the complexities of economic globalization, the environmental crises facing the entire world, the extremes of religious nationalism and mafioso capitalism facing every country, the US could find its bearings with a very simple moral compass.

Except it hasn't worked that way and never has worked that way. I'm sure you sleep easier at night thinking the government is run by a bunch of retarded monkies, but the shifts in policy planning and reaction to terrorism have hardly been "simplistic" or lacking in adequate calculations over the "complexity" of the world sphere. It seems to me that you're failure (and the failure of so many who share your views) is that you don't actually bother to engage the issue; you don't see any reason to actually understand what the U.S. policy is towards terrorism. Your concern is with rhetoric--the politics of the matter at its most unremarkable level. That sort of talking hardly penetrates to those who have to actually deal with these issues, whether its in the Department of Homeland Security or even in international efforts such as the PSI or even INTERPOL. But, setting that all aside, the real point is that you can't prove your assertions. They're as empty as even the worst possible Bush speech to "rally the masses." It's the same genre; if one is so pathetic, so too is the other. I can't imagine why you feel exempt from the same labels you toss out.

Breaking out of the trap of "9/11" will require shedding (traversing) our fantastic investments in simplicity, meaning, and righteousness. All of them. Even the accusation that the other side remains invested in them. We can't treat--or condone the treatment of--"9/11" as something sacred, as a key turning point or event.

Except that it is a key turning point and event. True, global terrorism and, more limitedly, Islamic terrorism, existed prior to 9/11. It's not a "new issue." What is new is that the U.S. is involved in combating it in an unprecedented manner. One can rightly criticize the Bush Administration for making this into a "new thing", but that's politics. What doesn't disappaear and what will not disappear in the foreseeable future is that there are organizations out there with murderous intent who sit far outside "traditional" classifications of hostile actors. When one couples that with the fact we live in a world where rapid increases in technology allow for these groups to have great movement, communication, and access to the means to engage in catastrophic violence, the situation should strike the intelligent observer as new (even if 9/11 in and of itself didn't start it).

This sort of righteous indignation is so empty that no one acquainted with the facts ought to entertain it as anything more than the crazed indictment of a mind warped by the empty platitudes of the left. Given how empirically unverifiable it is, combined with the suspect leaps on logic, I'm not sure what is being displayed here except that the only righteous simpletons are the opponents of the Bush Administration.

Is this what passes for theory these days? Is this an example of leftist criticism? If so, I feel confident in continuing to ignore it even as I have grave misgivings over certain moves made by the current administration. When words no longer express reality, but rather the warped vision of what needs to be so that their head hits the pillow a little lighter at night, they become the movers and shakers of ideology. Why that seems like the best means to combat another alleged ideology is quite beyond me. But, I do take solace in the fact that the latter hasn't completely exited the reasonable, even if it may be equally bereft of a sustainable moral.

[CR]

In this case, you would have to show convincingly that Bush & Co. have no legitimate concern with safety or the lives lost, but rather sat around waitin for the first shit storm to hit so they could solidify their power position

Um.............. Iraq.

Have you looked at Dick Clarke's book? How the warpath to Iraq was born literally hours after the attack, over the objections of those who wondered why a nation with zero linkage with Al Qaeda (not too mention a diametrically opposed ideological directionality) would be the place to start this war on terror...

the shifts in policy planning and reaction to terrorism have hardly been "simplistic" or lacking in adequate calculations over the "complexity" of the world sphere.

Well, it depends which way you look at it. I'll admit that Rove and company were amazingly canny and cunning when it came to selling a war that was, for all intents and purposes, a complete and utter non-sequitur. Complex, yes...