9/11 Servant To The Cause

After writing on this date about 9/11 for years, I decided to stop. I had said all I had to say. Then last year, I saw something different, that the time that elapsed since 9/11 had been long enough that it was no longer about personal experience but something to be read about in history books and magazines. A generation now exists for which 9/11 is outside their lived experience. It’s a story, as Pearl Harbor was for my generation, something we knew all about but wasn’t our reality as it was my parents.

Last year, I wondered whether 9/11 would be a historical footnote or a tool. The answer is developing.

It’s unclear to me whether this Teen Vogue columnist and poli sci prof at Syracuse is saying that the terrorists are now to be seen as heroes of the Great Progressive Battle against heteropatriarchal capitalistic systems that maintain white supremacy, but it’s surely not a condemnation of terrorism.

We’ve seen a lot this of late. The Holocaust ain’t no big thing compared to what white people have done to black people, I was informed by a twitterer last week. It never occurred to me that the day would come when people on the left would rehabilitate Hitler. And now begins the “reimagination” of 9/11 as a battle in the Glorious War against heteropatriarchal capitalistic systems. Then again, a similar ahistorical delusion won a Pulitzer Prize not too long ago and has metastasized among our educational elite.

The difference today is that these ideas are not merely uttered openly, but by people with letters after their names and positions of influence, particularly over the impressionable minds of young people. Norms have not merely broken down, but become the fodder of ridicule to the insipid zealots of the new secular religion of woke. And now 9/11 has become fair game for reimagination to serve the cause of social justice.

This day was bound to come. I knew it. You did too if you thought about it. The day when whatever transitory outrage of the moment was far more important than some dusty old bit of ancient American history that wasn’t really as bad as it seemed, clearly wasn’t as important as the outrage du jour and was no longer relevant to the world of people with an eight-second attention span. Filled with education and indoctrination, but devoid of wisdom and experience.

No doubt the terrorists believed they were freedom fighters against the amoral heretics of the West, justifying their own deaths and the murder of thousands of others as a necessary evil to battle the Great Satan. That’s how zealots perceive the world and their place in it, an existential battle of good against evil. No doubt that’s how Jenn M. Jackson, Ph.D., perceives herself. No doubt that’s how a great many others do as well, fighting for their version of truth which is so critical and real that they are willing to do anything, everything, to win at all costs.

The point really isn’t this take, per se, which isn’t exactly novel, but that it’s no longer so outrageous that it would be the contribution to the narrative of the moment that someone would say it out loud, would broadcast it on social media, would have neither shame nor reluctance for thinking it and sending it out into the ether.

Is it because she’s immune from criticism because of her race or gender? Is she above reproach because she invokes the protection of non-binary persons? Is it because anyone who challenges this narrative must be a racist, misogynist or transphobe, or, as has become acceptable rhetoric, a Nazi? Surely no one wants to be labeled a racist and so they must extol the virtues of the 9/11 terrorists in fighting against heteropatriarchal capitalistic systems.

It’s not that it was hard to see this coming. I saw it, as last year’s post reflected, but hoped I was wrong, or hoped we would somehow rise above the narrative that has polluted the fragile minds of the pseudo-intellectuals who confuse strings of meaningless words for cogent thoughts in the service of critical theory.

On September 11th, 2001, radical Muslim extremists hijacked airplanes and then flew them into the twin towers, killing thousands of people and bringing down the World Trade Center. It had nothing to do with social justice. It was just terrorism.

22 thoughts on “9/11 Servant To The Cause

  1. Hal

    Hey Scott,

    It’s unclear to me if the paragraph that begins “This day was bound to come.” is you quoting someone (and if so whom you’re quoting) or was indented for some other reason.

    La Jackson’s tweet stunned me for both it’s ignorance and self righteousness. To see an attack by Islamofascists, who believe women shouldn’t be allowed to drive, allowed to vote, or even allowed to go to school… as somehow striking a blow for the disenfranchised against a “heteropatriarchal” system is beyond absurd.

    Recently, Rep. Cori Bush said, in a similarly inane utterance, on NPR (IIRC) that “Climate justice is infrastructure”. I don’t know how one should respond to such nonsensical claims.

    Perhaps I should enroll in the Humpty Dumpty School of Linguistic Gymnastics and Semantic Contortionism…

    1. Dan

      It’s puzzled me ever since 9/11 that Islam, which is diametrically opposed to everything the left claims to stand for (it is just as “homophobic” and “transphobic” as orthodox Christianity, and has a much lower view of women’s rights, for example), is somehow held out as a good thing by those same folks on the left. The only logical conclusion I’ve been able to find is that the true aims of the left are not their stated aims–IOW, they’re being dishonest.

      The events of the succeeding 20 years have done nothing to cause me to question this conclusion; they’re rather reinforced it.

      1. Miles

        You’ve missed the point by expecting rationality and consistency. They use whatever they can twist into a weapon for their goals, and when the means to achieve the ends is of no consequence, they see no problem with being irrational or inconsistent, as long as it furthers those goals.

        You, sir, are trying to be reasonable, and will therefore never understand the method to their madness.

  2. Elpey P.

    She pretends to be unaware that the hyper-patriotic, authoritarian, capitalistic, interventionist hegemony she pretends to critique is quite diverse and now has the same boogeyman that she does. Maybe she doesn’t get MSNBC.

  3. Drew Conlin

    I appreciate you sharing difficult and painful memories on Twitter.
    What disturbs me greatly is as you point out that this Jackson person is able to present this stuff….
    Is there no teacher, parent, friend , clergy, editor , mentor, anyone along the way to tell her and others how untruthful and wrong they are?

    1. Elpey P.

      The recurring irony is that it’s essentially a white nationalist viewpoint. Just change “wrangle” to “lead” and add some Lee Greenwood.

        1. Elpey P.

          Now you know why I have my armadillo on my desk instead of in my trousers.
          null
          Super highways here and there
          Pretty womens everywhere
          Brady Bunch and Smokey Bear

      1. Miles

        What are the chances you’re going to wake up tomorrow and decide to become a white nationalist? None? Less than none? Completely impossible?

        What are the chances you’re in favor of racial equality, reducing mass incarceration, equal rights for women, gays, trans? That’s why the insanity from one side matters more than the insanity from the other. You’ve not likely to have an epiphany that you hate black people, but you may very well vote for the Dem who favors similar things but with the same insane authoritarian fervor.

  4. Paleo

    The attack she is celebrating was performed by the biggest heteropatriarchs on the planet but she’s so blinded by politics and anger that she can’t see the irrationality of her position. And I’m sure she’s a huge fan of communism/socialism, an economic system that has done so much for so many that tens of millions of people tried to run away rather than live under those systems.

    WWII is much closer in time to my birth than 9/11 is to someone born today. So it’s definitely history now. And people like her have done this to the rest of history. Why would 9/11 be any different?

    1. Hunting Guy

      I knew two of the people that died in the Pentagon. I know people that lost sons in the sandbox.

      These stupid ignorant shit heads can go live in Afghanistan and see what a real heteropatriarch system looks like.

      Is that too jingoistic for them? Fuck ‘em.

      1. CLS

        As Judge Durham Bryant Jr. once opined in a Georgia courtroom,

        “You have a Constitutional right to be a dumbass.”

  5. cthulhu

    People like Jackson are fundamentally attention whores. Their currency is outrage, competing to see who can be more outrageous. That they make common cause with those who would literally behead them, given the opportunity, would be funny if it weren’t so tragic.

    On this day of all days, I’ll break a rule and provide a link:

  6. Soup Sandwich

    cthulhu hit this nail on the head. Her whole post is just part of a grift. I wouldn’t be surprised if these clowns print their twitter feed out and include it in job applications to the universities they want to work at. Maybe she wants to be invited on to a TV show to represent the crazy wing. Have strangers come up and high five her or pay for her Starbucks.

    1. Nigel Declan

      One major problem is that while regulars at the SJ Hotel can see this, her students and other impressionable youths will leave the hallowed halls of academe espousing these views without questioning them. And some of these young people, or students of others like Prof. Jackson who trade in the currency of outrage, will be the decision-makers of tomorrow, the ones charged with defending freedom for future generations.

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