Posted on 09/09/2002 2:26:06 AM PDT by kattracks
Sociologist Amitai Etzioni sees one thing missing in all the polling data on American attitudes in the aftermath of Sept. 11 - anger.Last week, Etzioni's Communitarian Network issued the report "American Society in the Age of Terrorism," an analysis of post-Sept. 11 polling. Unsurprisingly, the report finds more interest in family, spirituality and volunteerism and more trust in government, though "all these effects have begun to recede, and are predicted to decline further if no new attacks occur."
But "there can be little doubt that, by and large, the American people were decidedly low-key in their expressions of anger at those who attacked us" - a very unusual response to a mass slaughter, Etzioni says.
Why so little anger?
"It looks as though Alan Wolfe was right," Etzioni said. His reference is to Boston College sociologist Alan Wolfe, who wrote in his books "One Nation, After All" (1997) and "Moral Freedom" (2001) that nonjudgmentalism is not just an ethic confined to the media and other elites, it has become normal middle-class morality. He found that Americans are morally tentative and very reluctant to criticize others.
This makes the nation far more tolerant, but also constructs a laissez-faire morality - a presumption that even destructive acts deserve understanding rather than judgment.
The good side of this new ethic is that the nation refused to scapegoat Muslim-Americans for the Sept. 11 attacks. The bad side is that to avoid anger and judgment, a normal emotional response was diverted into an orgy of self-examination, much of it revolving around the notion that the U.S. somehow invited or deserved the attacks.
There is also a downside in the nation's overwhelmingly positive treatment of Muslim-Americans. Perhaps out of guilt over treatment of Japanese-Americans during World War II, the U.S. and its media have framed attitudes almost wholly in terms of hypertolerance and bias, rarely in terms of what allegiance a minority owes the rest of the nation in time of peril.
The Associated Press reported last week that violence against Muslim-Americans seems to have slowed to a trickle. But it was never more than a trickle in the first place.
The same is true of nonviolent acts of bias. The New Jersey Law Journal calmly analyzed the evidence in June and concluded that anti-Muslim acts are notably rare and statistically insignificant. It quoted an anti-discrimination lawyer saying that in terms of anti-Muslim bias, "basically we're not seeing anything."
Our elite press is ever alert to sniff out bias, but issues of allegiance and obligation get much less play. Some American mosques and Muslim schools are indeed troublesome places. The first plot to topple the World Trade Center was hatched at a Jersey City mosque. Does the nation have a right to expect that Muslim-Americans will report any such activity they happen to observe? Or that they will refrain from supporting foundations that subsidize terrorism?
We need a serious discussion about loyalty and assimilation. What we are likely to get, though, is yet another massive cloud of hands-off nonjudgmentalism.
But any resistance or reaction is "too much" from the invaders' point of view.
They prefer to keep their ideological and physical weapons factories humming deep inside our society unhindered.
Hence the constant stream of complaints.
If I can tell you're a muslim, you better keep your distance.
And no, I don't mean if I imagine you're a muslim. I mean if you are an "in your face" muslim in my country, you better be prepared for a hostile reception from me.
Thus, it's no surprise that some people are frightened into silence. Surely expressing anger might cause them to lose their jobs or to be sue and lose their saving since even minor coments cause an uproar. Think Johnny Rocker. He was set up as an example.
As for me, I'm angry at the terrorists. At others also. I even hate greedy people who keep filing trivial lawsuits.
Just for comparison sake, look at the reaction to Pearl Harbor compared to the WTC reaction. I really dispair for our future.
This is sickening. The federal government's open-door policy allowed terrorists to wander freely within our country and murder thousands resulting in the people having MORE trust in government? Airport security in the United States has turned to frisking little old ladies in wheelchairs and the people have MORE trust in government?
Absolutely! Damn the government schools to hell.
I said it then and I'll say it again: it will take two or more 9/11's to shake off this moral malaise.
My reaction now is "Nuke Mecca, Medina, Baghdad, Riyadh, Cairo, and use daisy cutters on Gaza, the West Bank, and Paris." Or better yet, build a wall encircling everything from Algeria to India, running just under Turkey (they're on probation) and then fill it with water.
Spoken like a true Scorpio!
should self-preservation be one of their priorities (oh please, let it not be so :-),
this would be a good area for the appeasers and rag-lovers to avoid this week.
solid red, and very pro 2A (not to mention Louisville Slugger) territory.
'course, the pussies never have spent much time out this way, dammit ... 
That is, the commemorations, the school programs, the 'interfaith services' in most Freepers' hometowns over there, the nonstop TV programming, that we will all witness across the US and in Embassies around the world, will be devoid of one important factor (or reference to it).
THAT THERE WAS AND IS AN ENEMY.
The fact there was an enemy in the first place brought all of this ENEMY still is that we risk another attack, maybe in a fashion we would never imagine in our worst nightmare.
The American people have been psychologically de-balled. When you have no common thought against the ENEMY and a unified feeling of hatred at them and their attacks with an equally strong thirsty resolve to totally destroy them, you will NEVER win the war.
This is very discouraging but for sure it is very prevalent in the US now, even just one year shy of the attacks. The psyche of America has changed.
Thank you Oprah Winfrey.
It looks like it would take a "9-11" disaster on American soil once every six months or so, because the time frame for America to have rememberance, outrage, resolve and hatred for the enemy, steeped in common sense in an atmosphere where the liberal PC crap-pushers have to keep their sniveling mouths shut for fear of a backlash.....last(ed) only about SIX MONTHS.
In our churches, our schools, our government and society in general, we have forgotten the source of morality (God). Instead, we have become afraid to challenge those who wish to define it for us, based on good-sounding, but ultimately absurdist ideas (such a tolerance for anything and everything, multiculturalism, pan-sexuality). In addition, even those who are 'religious' are now so uneducated about God's morality that we don't even understand the wisdom of it. We have become moral shadows of our former selves - and our society shows us this every day. Most people do not know what they believe anymore on moral principles, or why they do believe what they do. And when they do, they are afraid to stand up for what they believe in.
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