It’s Time to Heal America’s Fear Infection

Twenty years ago, devastating spikes of fear were driven into America’s body politic. The pain of the September 11th attacks was immediate and acute. It caused us to curl up around the points of impact, and brought us together. We were united in our anguish, disbelief, and anger. Our political and military leaders assured us the perpetrators would be brought to justice.

We tried many methods to remove this two-decade-old fear buried deep in our nation’s soul. We built memorials and made tearful tribute to our dead. We sent soldiers and drones and bombs to Afghanistan, and made excuses to invade Iraq. We captured suspected terrorists, then subverted our own foundational laws—not to mention any claim to moral superiority—to imprison and torture them.

But no matter what we tried, there were still pieces of the spikes lodged deep within our society. Over the years, these remnants began to fester inside of us. The initial burst of unity we felt in 2001 could not be sustained under the influence of a growing poison: our chronic fear.

One Nation, Under Trauma

Each of us has been touched in some way by the ever-spreading infection. In the years since 9/11, we have all suffered, to some degree, from a kind of collective PTSD. This lingering, unaddressed mass trauma has exhausted us. It has worn us down into widespread cynicism toward our government, non-Americans, and even each other.

We have ignored the creeping influence of our shared sorrow, paranoia, and uncertainty to our detriment. We haven’t taken time to step back from our global crusade against terrorism to reflect on—and hopefully heal—our own lingering terror. That’s why the desperate unity we found at the beginning of this century has been replaced by rampant division.

Our unexamined and unconfronted fear has kept us on a downward spiral of infighting. Instead of acknowledging the poison and purging it together, we’ve doubled-down on our self-isolating mythology of bravado, pointing fingers at each other and weaving conspiracy theories. We desperately need to address the truth: we’re still hurt and scared. Until we do, the infection will continue to warp our worldview like a raging fever.

So many of us can remember exactly where we were on September 11th. The events of that day are burned indelibly into our minds. Unfortunately, the future will never have such clarity. It’s up to us to create what’s to come for our nation. There are still people around the world who look to us for inspiration. Even those who hold us in low regard are waiting to see what we will do—and become—in the coming years.

Our national pain may never completely subside, and that’s normal in the face of the massive wound we suffered. But we can’t continue to let the pain transform into bitterness. We must let go of our collective anger. It’s only making us sicker.

I Pledge Allegiance to Our Common Humanity

I’m so tired of the fighting. Aren’t you?

Maybe, like me, you’re tired of watching us bicker over the social constructs of politics and religion. We’re tired of the navel-gazing over pop culture minutia, the backstabbing and mockery we spread across every form of media, and all the petty blame games we endlessly play. It’s all just a distraction. It’s communal procrastination.

If we want to finally escape the fear we still feel because of 9/11, we need to stop ignoring it. We need to remember the unity that is the true legacy of that fateful September morning. If we really want to honor those who lost their lives in the flames of that terrible day, we can stop stalling and finally confront our fear. We can acknowledge the mistakes we’ve made since 2001, and vow to do better. We can focus on the best in us, and carry that into the years yet to come.

No, this is not some cliched, shallow cry for world peace. It’s a call for all of us to wake the hell up. This is an utterly pragmatic matter of survival, and maybe a chance for us to thrive. No one is coming to magically reform the human race. No deus ex machina is on the way to save us from ourselves. It’s up to us. All we’ve got is each other. It has only ever been us. We are our only damnation or salvation.

I don’t believe our continued existence is an accident of history or dumb luck, and I don’t think you do either. Each of us is proof of what we can achieve when we cooperate with each other. September 11th brought out the worst and best of us. Let’s make a commitment to the latter.

Let’s be more than Americans from now on, and pledge allegiance to our common humanity. The only way we’ve ever transcended our fear is together. Our future has always depended on it.