George Bush and I share very little in common. Yet one experience we may both claim lies within our chosen field of undergraduate study: history. Now, I did not attend Yale. In fact, I believe I was only kept out of that school as a result of a conspiracy between biased liberal professors and privileged minorities hell-bent on taking on all of the admission spots. That and shitty grades. But I digress.
In any event, it’s dismaying to realize what a short historical memory the president seems to possess, at least publicly. Listen to him and you would think that September 11 attacks were the biggest events in American history. Not only that, but these events have shed light on the “unique threat” (read: greatest threat ever) that the country has ever faced. Balderdash.
In a NYT op-ed, history professor Joseph Ellis calls bullshit (politely) on the idea that Sept 11 is somehow the defining moment/greatest threat ever in U.S. history. He correctly points out that this day was small potatoes compared to other, actually harrowing events:
Here is my version of the top tier: the War for Independence, where defeat meant no United States of America; the War of 1812, when the national capital was burned to the ground; the Civil War, which threatened the survival of the Union; World War II, which represented a totalitarian threat to democracy and capitalism; the cold war, most specifically the Cuban missile crisis of 1962, which made nuclear annihilation a distinct possibility.
Sept. 11 does not rise to that level of threat because, while it places lives and lifestyles at risk, it does not threaten the survival of the American republic, even though the terrorists would like us to believe so.
Quite so. I am tempted to write that a little perspective is in order, but that’s not true. Rather, a lot of perspective, call it a history lesson if you’d like, is in order. Ellis wants to “invite a serious debate about whether Sept. 11 deserves the historical significance it has achieved.” So would I. Unfortunately, we’re a long way off from such a debate and I fear we may never get it so long as the president and his coterie of militants insist on whipping up fear and resentment. To them, these feelings will always be infinitely more useful than any sort of honest analysis.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/28/opinion/28ellis.html?incamp=article_popular_5