This is a four part essay written around 2005 by a former self associated with Nation of Todd. Please pay special attention to footnote 2, as it will add context to some of our future essays on identity and politics.
Part I
We’ll begin with this question: Did September 11th change everything?
We realize that the idea of posing this as a question and not simply a declarative statement will be to most Americans an alien, if not abhorrent, proposition. However, we feel that the conditions under which this transformation was made, that is, from question to statement, have never been investigated to our satisfaction. Of course, the idea that 9/11 has made it necessary as citizens to change our perspective of the world can’t be understated. What makes us uncomfortable about the idea as a symbol, even a kind of psycho-active, is not that it has an effect on the population’s sensibilities, but that it has obvious utility as an unclarified supposition, and has in fact been used countless times as a rhetorical device and the tonic of fear-mongers.
Admittedly America was shocked by the attack, and had every reason to be outraged, (we don’t wish to give the impression that our criticism in anyway excuses the barbaric activity of mass murders) but we believe that the essential surprise of the attack was more a function of a kind of American global apathy (for in fact at the time terrorism had been a problem and concern for more than thirty years) than, as the pundits would have us believe, an unprovoked attack on the American way of life.1
For people with any sense of the world, and more specifically the Middle East, the attack would have seemed the inevitable outcome of an American foreign policy that is both lop-sided and opportunistic. Of course, to annunciate this detail in a post-September eleventh environment, especially immediately after the attack, would have been anathema to a country spellbound by its own reflection. Talk about an upheaval of mind and self-identity - there we may have seen a significant change, one worthy of the kind of millenary symbol that 9/11 has become. Instead, America got reassurances, it was told essentially to fasten the blinders on more tightly, and to stop its ears.
Listen to us, they were told, the world has changed, but it’s not your fault. You are innocent. You are the victim.
Now, whether or not we have sympathy for these sentiments, at least where they apply to the average citizen, should in no way obstruct our recognition that, in the main, culpability can not be entirely denied. If it is true that the American public provides their government (for, by and of the people) the mandate to conduct foreign policy, and to do so on their behalf, then it follows that the resultant benefits or detriments of this policy are at the very least provisionally tied to the decisions of the American public. The misconduct of a democratically elected government is therefore, in a real sense, the misconduct of its electorate.
Of course, the idea that the government engaged in misconduct is in itself a controversial issue. We shouldn’t forget for a second that many Americans would support their government’s decisions no matter how base or heinous they may appear, and would continue to loudly defend the doctrines and principles of this country even when it has become abundantly clear that the policies being undertaken no longer resemble the promises this country and its people had originally set out to proclaim.
Being a democracy, we realize, entails that we must exercise a certain amount of tolerance when confronting these types of blind, jingoistic attitudes. It also implies that a certain amount of absolution can be claimed by those of us who did not aid or abet the political rise of one set of international criminals or the other.
As foreign policy has become an administrative prerogative (a power that, we feel, is too sensitive and important to be handed over carte blanc to a single branch of government), we must, to be faithful to logic, place the blame for its mishandling on the President and his immediate advisors. This is not to say, however, that we find sole fault in the current Administration. The degree to which they contributed to the attack is a matter of historical consideration, and one that, for the moment, we wish to excuse ourselves from.
What we would like to focus on here is simply the present use of political and mythical language as it pertains to the aforementioned change brought on by 9/11, and all the subsequent manifestations this change has taken with regard to unity and the American We.2
Of course we realize that these two conditions go hand in hand. The American public is taught insularity, and encouraged in all manners of nearsighted behavior in order to make it possible for the government (and its corporate benefactors) to conduct its shady dealings beyond this country’s boarders. As a consequence, intentional or not, because this activity takes place outside of the public’s perception (the national news media doesn’t tend to focus too heavily on international affairs unless it is to cheerlead for the military, report casualties, or do some type of peripheral advertisement for one of its parent company’s foreign holdings), the government enjoys the flexibility and control over how this activity will be seen and understood.
By now you will have noticed that this discourse is being conducted under the guise of a plurality. Therefore, we believe, it is essential to make a few cursory remarks about this condition so there will be no confusion between the we we employ and the We which will occupy the heart of our criticism. Semantically these two we’s do not differ in any significant way. They are both divisive terms, used as a means of separating the real from the merely perceived, or erroneous. As a philosophical device the we is employed to signify the speaker’s connection with, or immersion in the primordial truths of the species. This can both be humanistic, or metaphysical in nature. As a National syntax the We is employed on more a tribal level, as a signification of empathy and allegiance with one particular group or subset of the human race. In both cases an I has been re-designated to perform an abstract function. And one is asked to trust that this abstraction is being handled faithfully – to trust that careful attention has been given to how the we is being applied to the group of individuals who are the recipients of all its various connotations. Attitudes on how well this is being performed will invariably differ depending on who is asked - on whether or not one falls inside or outside of the set of beliefs, demographic or clan that is being represented, whether or not one is part of the real which the we is meant to describe.
Irregardless of this rating, we must recognize that the we is a fundamentalist proposition, something requiring stricture and nostalgia in order to push the prerogatives of the I into this abstract (and static) category of we. The we requires faith, and seeks ultimately to reach a state of absolute closure – to give a final definition of humankind, truth, God, or some other unequivocal universal.
We are toolmakers. We are God’s children. Whether scientist or spiritualist the we remains a static question and article of faith; a process of conversion.
For our part we would like to think that we’ve taken the we in a different direction, that we have treated it not so much as an abstract representation of the other, but as a recombination of the individual, the person or singularity that finds itself in the midst of a pre-existent context, a pre-defined and ever-changing reality. Our we is not a static point, but representative of porosity, of the, if not infinite, then, countless openings into the self. We do not propose our thoughts as the subject matter of future statuary. We recognize and accept that our we is ephemeral, mortal, and in constant flux. Yes, the artifact remains and this is unfortunate, but we are not begging for any type of preservation, nor are we trying to circumscribe some kind of common, or even individual, identity. The we for us is a matter of anonymity and diffusion. It does not, however, seek simply to destroy, to nullify. We’ve heard that objection before and would like to say only this; creation and destruction are in a symbiotic relationship. Neither should be neglected. And we’ve taken pains to try not to choose sides.
Our national identity is a different matter altogether. This is more a political convenience than a reflection of any chauvinistic aspirations. We simply choose to re-constitute ourselves in the image of a nation for the purpose of proclaiming our human sovereignty. This of course will at first sound paradoxical, but we would ask that you consider the relative significance a nation is given in comparison to an individual human being. And consider too that a nation supposedly derives its strength from the individuals who comprise it, but that this does not necessarily deter it from devaluing the individual’s contribution, nor does it keep it from trampling on its citizens rights when its own interests are at stake (i.e. Japanese internment). Therefore, in order to elevate our own political standing, we have chosen to open our dialogue with the rest of the world, this community of nations, on equal footing.