Will We Ever Get Over 9/11?

Here’s an awkward question that may be urgent: Are we getting over 9.11? Will we ever? Do we want to? Is it a scar by now, or a wound still bleeding? Is it a post-traumatic-stress disorder? What is it doing to our character, our culture, our Constitution? After a monstrous attack on the American superpower, is there anything like those five stages of individual grief — some version of the famous Kubler-Ross steps: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance? We’ve been through the flags-everywhere stage, the foreign invasion response, the big build-up of surveillance and eavesdropping, interrogation, with torture – all in the name of security, but do we have a word for the fear we sense inside the new Security State? Do we have a word for the anxiety that a War on Terror can feed on itself forever? A decade and a half out, are we a different country?



We’re imagining this as an ongoing series, with conversations and podcasts to be added as we go. Have you any suggestions for people we should speak with? Writers? Historians? Critics? Your next-door neighbor?