how much of the remembrance mania (or, if you prefer, 9/11 porn) is due to the fact that we have named the event after the date that it occurred?
i can think about the 7th day of december without thinking of pearl harbor. maybe that's a generational thing as the japanese attack happened long before i was born. but as long as we are calling the 9/11 event as either "september 11th" or "9/11", it's going to be impossible for any tangential reference to that square on the calendar without evoking the tragic event. it fetishizes a date, a date that we are going to have to live through every year for the rest of our lives.
in an alternative universe, where what happened on 9/11 is now called something like "the second world trade center attack" or "WTC-2", maybe people could actually forget the date. or is that unlikely too? i don't know. it is a little odd that went with the date when we collectively decided on a name. i wonder what other effects that has on our psyche.
i can think about the 7th day of december without thinking of pearl harbor. maybe that's a generational thing as the japanese attack happened long before i was born. but as long as we are calling the 9/11 event as either "september 11th" or "9/11", it's going to be impossible for any tangential reference to that square on the calendar without evoking the tragic event. it fetishizes a date, a date that we are going to have to live through every year for the rest of our lives.
in an alternative universe, where what happened on 9/11 is now called something like "the second world trade center attack" or "WTC-2", maybe people could actually forget the date. or is that unlikely too? i don't know. it is a little odd that went with the date when we collectively decided on a name. i wonder what other effects that has on our psyche.
