America's Gift

There are times when words don’t come easily. In the blackest days of our history, we see events so unspeakably bad that the pursuit of objective commentary, the articulation of the reasonable position, the construction of the well-argued response all prove elusive.

September 11, 2001 was such a day.

What does one say after seeing a Boeing 767 slam into the side of 110-story building? What measured, impersonal language does one use to express the emotion one feels when a place where 50,000 people used to go to work every day collapses in a pile of rubble?

I do not know.

In the coming days, people more experienced and knowledgeable than I will speak at great length about what caused such tremendous evil to assail us, and what we must do to keep it from ever happening again. There will be assignments of blame, calls for retaliation and—God willing—swift and fierce justice. We will hear talk of bolstering national defense, we will debate how to do it, and, in the end, we will emerge stronger than before.

But I leave those discussions for tomorrow. Right now I wish to write what I felt as a single American, like any other, who watched the greatest American tragedy in decades unfold on national television.

• • •

First, allow me to back up and relate a conversation I had two months ago with a friend of mine, a Harvard student whose intelligence and integrity I deeply respect. We were studying in Beijing for the summer and, after a weekend excursion to Inner Mongolia, stood awaiting our return train from Hohot. Our conversation centered around the text of the following day’s lesson: an article from the People’s Daily, China’s main state newspaper, that criticized the social and economic structure of the United States. After venting my frustration over what I considered a highly biased piece of writing, my friend turned to me.

“You’re pretty patriotic, aren’t you?” he asked.

“Yes. I am.”

“You know, I feel almost no sense of patriotism at all.”

Pause.

“That’s right,” he continued. “When is it that Americans feel most patriotic? When we are at war. And why do we go to war? For completely selfish reasons.”

He then delivered a speech similar to one I have heard I-don’t-know-how-many-times. It is the tale of an America whose idealism is but a veneer covering more sinister motives, an America whose history is stained by acts of aggression and imperialism, an America governed by a handful of cynical men in love not with democracy but with power.

This week, against the backdrop of mass terrorism in New York and Washington, D.C., the words of my friend came back to me. They were with me as the Pentagon burned. They were with me as the twin towers fell. They were with me as I saw footage of people jumping from the World Trade Center’s upper floors when, confronted with the agony of burning alive, they opted for the most painless death possible. Through all of this awfulness the words were there, ricocheting horrifically about my mind:

I feel almost no sense of patriotism at all.

I do not think my friend would still speak those words under the present circumstances. I doubt any American would. But it frightens me that my friend, or anyone else in this land, would speak those words, ever. And it frightens me that so much death and destruction is required to unify us in defense of our nation.

The history of America is not perfect. The history of no nation is. But nothing can negate one simple truth that we must know, and feel, and express, and defend—not only in times of catastrophe, but always. That truth is this: America has done more to promote good in the world than any other nation in history.

I believe we felt this truth when we gathered in vigil at Memorial Church on Tuesday. We felt this truth every time we saw an American flag flying at half-mast. We felt this truth when our Congressional leaders suddenly forgot their party rivalries and, standing together at the Capitol, sang “God Bless America” in unison. And feel it we must, for it is this truth that the terrorists who blew apart the Manhattan skyline and gouged a scar in the Pentagon seek to destroy. They did not attack mere buildings. They did not attack individual people. They attacked, deliberately, the greatest force for freedom, democracy and prosperity that the world has ever seen.

Wherever there is the death of innocents, we shall grieve. It is proper that we grieve. But in all of our grieving, let us remember what we believe and why it is worth defending. And, by God, let us defend it. Always.

Jason L. Steorts ’01-’03, a Crimson editor, is a philosophy concentrator in Dunster House.