Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post - 9/11 Fifth Anniversary: Discuss Our Leaders' Versions of What They Did That Morning

roachboy · 09-11-2006, 08:06 AM

i want to explain my suspicion about this direction of thinking concerning the wtc attacks.
(suspicion in the sense of distance from...)

personal aside:
in the period immediately after 9/11/2001 i was focussed mostly on video loops and their role in structuring television coverage on the one hand and the emerging (simple-minded) narrative of cause/explanation on the other.

i remember very clearly walking through the student union at penn that afternoon and watching students gathered around huge television screens watching the loop over and over, saucer eyed as the university's therapy teams wandered about like some bizarre psychological swat operation.

it was surreal.

since then, i have been primarily interested in the narrative constructed to provide some sense of closure---and the function of repetition (of the loops within the loops, if you like) within that--in other words, the ideological fallout of the trade center in particular.

back to the matter at hand:
i have not kept particular track of problems concerning the actions of the political class as human beings on 9/11/2001 itself. maybe because i did not follow the same logic as other folks: i do not expect the state to protect me and so did not make any particular linkage between 9/11/2001 and the actions of politicians--or to their ex post facto statements about their actions. it did not seem terribly germaine.

the other reason is that i have assumed the scenario i asked about above--that the entire organization that planned the attacks was on the planes.

if that is true, then it follows that there really is nothing that could have been done to stop any of it.

further, if anything like that scenario was in fact the case, all of the subsequent "security" hysteria has been worthless in that no amount of it would enable the prevention of an attack--if that attack was mounted by a new group--or one constituted for a particular action. linking 9/11/2001 to already-extant groups seemed to me little more than a therapeutic exercise. whence the inane focus on bin laden.

given my assumption about the attack (which was easy enough to generate--if you were going to undertake such an action, how would you do it? it's a pretty straightforward question, really---thinking about it is instructive...) much of the thinking i see other folk pursuing seems to me built around a teleological fallacy--one which is central to the dominant narrative--a fallacy that refigures the past in the image of the present (in this case an event) and attributes false significance to that past.

this is why i haven't paid particular attention to the questions raised by the 9/11/2001 investigations: i cannot tell, and would not be able to tell, if by looking into this area i would find myself running in logical loops created by the teleological fallacy. i cannot--and would not--be able to tell whether my interpretation of particular actions or statements about action were being shaped by a prior assumption that these much be meaningful that has more to do with the logic i would import into the situation than with the situation.
in a similar way, as one viewing the videoloops and interacting with students who lost friends and relatives at the wtc in the days that followed 9/11/2001, i do not understand myself as being wholly outside the effects of something on the order of a collective trauma.

so i would also be unable to sort out my personal psychological investments that were being shaped by a teleological fallacy.

in a similar way, i cannot work out in many of the posts above what is going on at this level.

i do not doubt that others have asked questions on this order to themselves (maybe clearer versions of them, who knows)--so i wonder how they navigated them and what relation they see obtaining between these circuits of investment and what they find and why they find it in the actions of the bush people and subesequent statements about those actions.

i am curious about how folk have managed this problem

09-11-2006, 08:06 AM	#27 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	i want to explain my suspicion about this direction of thinking concerning the wtc attacks. (suspicion in the sense of distance from...) personal aside: in the period immediately after 9/11/2001 i was focussed mostly on video loops and their role in structuring television coverage on the one hand and the emerging (simple-minded) narrative of cause/explanation on the other. i remember very clearly walking through the student union at penn that afternoon and watching students gathered around huge television screens watching the loop over and over, saucer eyed as the university's therapy teams wandered about like some bizarre psychological swat operation. it was surreal. since then, i have been primarily interested in the narrative constructed to provide some sense of closure---and the function of repetition (of the loops within the loops, if you like) within that--in other words, the ideological fallout of the trade center in particular. back to the matter at hand: i have not kept particular track of problems concerning the actions of the political class as human beings on 9/11/2001 itself. maybe because i did not follow the same logic as other folks: i do not expect the state to protect me and so did not make any particular linkage between 9/11/2001 and the actions of politicians--or to their ex post facto statements about their actions. it did not seem terribly germaine. the other reason is that i have assumed the scenario i asked about above--that the entire organization that planned the attacks was on the planes. if that is true, then it follows that there really is nothing that could have been done to stop any of it. further, if anything like that scenario was in fact the case, all of the subsequent "security" hysteria has been worthless in that no amount of it would enable the prevention of an attack--if that attack was mounted by a new group--or one constituted for a particular action. linking 9/11/2001 to already-extant groups seemed to me little more than a therapeutic exercise. whence the inane focus on bin laden. given my assumption about the attack (which was easy enough to generate--if you were going to undertake such an action, how would you do it? it's a pretty straightforward question, really---thinking about it is instructive...) much of the thinking i see other folk pursuing seems to me built around a teleological fallacy--one which is central to the dominant narrative--a fallacy that refigures the past in the image of the present (in this case an event) and attributes false significance to that past. this is why i haven't paid particular attention to the questions raised by the 9/11/2001 investigations: i cannot tell, and would not be able to tell, if by looking into this area i would find myself running in logical loops created by the teleological fallacy. i cannot--and would not--be able to tell whether my interpretation of particular actions or statements about action were being shaped by a prior assumption that these much be meaningful that has more to do with the logic i would import into the situation than with the situation. in a similar way, as one viewing the videoloops and interacting with students who lost friends and relatives at the wtc in the days that followed 9/11/2001, i do not understand myself as being wholly outside the effects of something on the order of a collective trauma. so i would also be unable to sort out my personal psychological investments that were being shaped by a teleological fallacy. in a similar way, i cannot work out in many of the posts above what is going on at this level. i do not doubt that others have asked questions on this order to themselves (maybe clearer versions of them, who knows)--so i wonder how they navigated them and what relation they see obtaining between these circuits of investment and what they find and why they find it in the actions of the bush people and subesequent statements about those actions. i am curious about how folk have managed this problem __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite