Stoicism and a healthy indifference is also severely lost on our internal policies as well. Taking a look at recent American airport security measures: it is as if the authorities main intention is merely to remind us of the exact items and processes used to attack us on that one specific September morning. Well, except this time around every single traveler is a suspect.
While I have to believe that those actually behind the scenes protecting America from future attacks are doing a decent job of being efficient and proactive, the face we show to world is a lot less stoic resolve, and a lot more fear and- shall I say- terror.
Beyond the intangible policies and attitudes of Americans, the prime weakness in our reaction to terrorism can be found in our fetish for overly designed and contrived monuments. New York City is embarking on a project to "rebuild" the World Trade Center area in a fashion that is everything but stoic determination. In 2001, a group of terrorists decided to, amongst many other things, permanently change the skyline of America's largest city. For some reason, our reaction was to go with their redesign plan, merely employing our architects to add that Disney touch everyone seems to desire.
Now, design critiques are subjective, and not the main point here. The new buildings in New York will be beautiful to some, ugly to others. However, the underlying attitude and message is the important piece. Would not the most resolute reaction have been to simply rebuild the twin towers- of course using the most modern structural and security processes- in the same slab-by-slab image as the ones the terrorists knocked down?
Sure, stoicism is not generally exciting. Stoicism doesn't make for good television, nor does it inspire an outpouring of emotional patriotism. What it does do, however, is to prevent a culture from remaining rattled and affected forever- lingering on past pain for decades.
You see, gushing displays and lingering pain are the definition of terrorism's goal. The weapons used by terrorists are not car bombs and hijacked planes- rather, it's the intangible terror. The real casualties of terrorist attacks are not the unfortunate passengers on a bombed train- the casualties are our resilience and stoicism.
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Learning from the British Stoic Reaction
Article comments
1 - bhw
The British may have been stoic in reaction to the bombings, but they were a bunch of drooling, snivelling wussies when Princess Di bought the farm.
2 - Phillip Winn
The sad part is how wussy folks in the USA were about a princess we don't even recognize in any official capacity.
My wife is at least Canadian, so I cut her some slack. Had she tried to buy flowers or something though, I'd have held an intervention.
3 - SFC Ski
"gushing displays and lingering pain are the definition of terrorism's goal."
I'll grant the lingering pain part, but terrorist's primarily use terror to cow and intimidate the populace, not to strengthen the people's resolve or cause them to wave flags.
The Brits have been admirable in the aftermath of the bombings, and their characteristic stoicism is something to emulate in the face of terror.