Moments of definition: Is 9/11 this generation's Pearl Harbor?
| Saturday, Dec 06 2008 07:45 PM
Last Updated Friday, Mar 27 2009 01:57 PM
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Fifty years from now, historians will undoubtedly look back on the events of Sept. 11, 2001, as a pivotal moment in the grand narrative of American history. They may well equate 9/11 with another defining moment -- that of Pearl Harbor.
The attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, bear a striking number of similarities to the atrocities of that cowardly act of 1941. Both attacks contained the element of surprise. Retrospectively, both days were the consequence of a growing threat that went unrecognized. Most importantly, both attacks challenged the universalism of a western political tradition that believes in a culture of natural rights, equal justice and the rule of law.
When thinking about future history books, it is interesting to ask this question: Just as historians often pinpoint Pearl Harbor as a defining day in the history of 20th-century America, what will these historians isolate as the impacts of 9/11 on the nation we became in the 21st century?
Will they say that 9/11 rekindled the patriotic fervor of a nation that had grown cynical and entitled on the excesses of its own successes? Will 9/11 be viewed as analogous to the other national crises that served to revitalize and strengthen the U.S. in the wake of a national calamity?
The Revolutionary War empowered the U.S. to break free from the corrupt monarchical systems of the Old World in order to forge a new scheme of political life. Lincoln asserted that the Civil War was an event of national atonement, cleansing the American soul of its greatest moral blemish.
FDR reminded Americans in his third inaugural address -- just a year before Pearl Harbor -- that although fascist totalitarianism was ascendant, it was liberal democracy that would ultimately triumph in the contests of both armies and ideas because democracy alone "enlists the full force of men's enlightened will."
Or, will 9/11 be viewed as the day America unknowingly began a descent from its peak of global dominance? Will this day be remembered as the beginning of the end of the American Century? Good Americans can disagree about the wisdom of our response to the attacks of 9/11. But unlike World War II, in which virtually all the able-bodied men went to war, women went to work in factories and Americans were asked to ration their basic commodities, few Americans were asked to sacrifice in the wake of 9/11.
We financed two ensuing wars through record levels of borrowing. No draft was instituted. Congress abrogated its responsibility to declare war by granting two open-ended war resolutions. And while World War II was preceded by a decade of economic hardship, one wonders if the extraordinary wealth created in the decade prior to 9/11 sapped our capacity for genuine sacrifice.
Historians might wonder if the legendary individualism of Americans simply morphed into a cloaked selfishness in which rights trumped responsibilities as the hallmark of American civic identity.
Here is what I hope the historians note about the students who now sit in my classroom: In the wake of 9/11, a movement of national renewal emerged with the realization that in a democracy we get the government and the leaders we deserve. Cynicism and apathy lost their civic appeal as America awakened to the fact that lofty societal goals can never be achieved by a dispassionate and diffident electorate.
Americans began to realize that real sacrifice sits at the cradle of genuine achievement. Health care and income security for the elderly, a safety net for the poor, large investments in new energy technologies, a world-class education system and a robust military force to preserve security at home and abroad bore a hefty price tag.
But it was paid for by one of the greatest generations in U.S. history that stopped taking the blessings of freedom for granted.
My students have never known an America that was not free, wealthy and dominant. But they cannot assume that Bismark was right and that "God takes care of fools, drunks, and the United States of America."
We must learn that a glorious national past is only prologue, not a guarantee of a successful future.
Jeremy Adams is a government teacher at Bakersfield High and an adjunct lecturer in CSUB's political science department.
