Today is the sixth anniversary of 9/11.
It was a Tuesday, as it is today, and–I suppose that like most Americans–I can remember exactly where I was and what I was doing the moment I learned that an attack was underway. I am still proud of having had the presence of mind to go online and rent my wife a car so she could drive home from Albany, NY (her flight had been rerouted away from LaGuardia that morning), and I can still recall how surreal it felt to have such a horrific event occur on such a gorgeous, blue sky day.
In the six years since, I–along with everyone else in this country–have lived through an anthrax scare, the creation of the TSA, the Patriot Act, unwarranted wire taps of domestic conversations, escalating security threat levels at the airports, the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, and wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, among other things. I have seen concrete planters and barriers go up around the Sears Tower, Chicago’s federal buildings, and other high-interest targets. I have seen Water Tower Place close its prized under-building drive through. I have visited New York and DC, and seen increased police presence seemingly everywhere. I visited the Mall in our nation’s capital and witnessed a veritable concrete wall bifurcating the fields on which I had entertained my girlfriend years earlier with lopsided cartwheels.
I have heard newscasts about threats, public service announcements about “readiness plans,” and I have watched news stories about the progress of wars designed to keep me safe.
I have seen enough.
I’m done with the bad news. I’m rejecting the culture of fear around me. I’m removing the layer of cowardice that has so surreptitiously settled around my shoulders.
Psychologists often talk about heuristics–little mental shortcuts we all use to simplify complex thinking to let us do it quickly. A stereotype is a form of heuristic. The pros and cons of using stereotypes are oft debated: on the one hand, they can keep a person out of trouble when in unfamiliar territory; on the other, they can lead to discrimination. Such pro/con trade-offs are not surprising when one looks at stereotypes as shortcuts; nearly all short-cuts require some form of risk/reward trade-off. Other heuristics carry different risk/reward equations, including the one that we all used six years ago and continue to use today in relation to 9/11. It’s a mental short-cut that systematically makes people turn their attention away from ever-present dangers, and toward more sensational disasters. This little mental trick is what helps us get up every morning and get in our cars without succumbing to paralyzing fear; that let’s us cross the street, eat food from unknown sources, and talk to strangers. It’s well known by psychologists, it drives politicians, and it is exploited by news channels and marketers.
And if we don’t wise up, it’ll be the death of us.
We need to realize that our way of thinking is a short-cut, and like stereotyping, has a cost. The price we pay for not fearing our cars is our acute tendency to overreact to sensational events. 9/11 was certainly sensational. I think it’s safe to say, after creating a cabinet level post to monitor safety and two inconclusive wars abroad, that we overreacted.
After six years, it’s time to admit that the short-cut isn’t helping anymore. It’s time to get back to a way of thinking that’s more complete. It’s time to start using our heads once more.
