{"id":2883,"date":"2002-09-12T08:41:42","date_gmt":"2002-09-12T08:41:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/staging.armedliberal.com\/?p=281"},"modified":"2002-09-12T08:41:42","modified_gmt":"2002-09-12T08:41:42","slug":"what-bad-philosophy-looks-like","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/?p=2883","title":{"rendered":"WHAT BAD PHILOSOPHY LOOKS LIKE"},"content":{"rendered":"

From the controversial Salon piece, \u0094Forbidden thoughts about 9-11: Readers respond\u0094<\/a>:<\/p>\n

When the towers started collapsing and all chaos broke loose, I felt actual excitement. Here was an event that broke banality. Finally, here was something meaningful.<\/b> I had grown so tired of the meaningless fluff our continent had become so enamored with. Here was an issue of raw emotions. I was glad that this was happening to snap people back into reality, to snap them back to mortality. My last sinful thought was that of genocide — lets just send nuclear missiles to all of the Middle East and let it be done once and for all.
\n– Name withheld
\nI played the part, of course; I expressed the mandatory shock, outrage and sadness while watching events unfold with co-workers. I was, in outward appearence, the very picture of solemnity and sympathy. Inside, though, I was excited. I got the same weird sense of roller-coaster joy I do when a hurricane comes up the coast or a blizzard shuts down the city. In the chaos of the initial reports, I found myself disappointed to find out that some of the early reports of additional targets being hit were erroneous.
\nAs the second tower collapsed, I found myself with a terrible sense of satisfaction. It was almost like, somewhere deep in the parts of my soul that don’t see the sun, I was rooting for the event to be even bigger — for it to cut so deeply through the banality of daily life, that things would never be the same. I suspect I am not alone.<\/b> Whether it’s shark attacks, wars, school shootings or child abductions, something in human nature gives people a sick thrill in such horrific voyeurism. That’s what drives the infotainment industry we like to call the nightly news. In the Civil War, spectators went out to watch the battle.
\nUntil fairly recently, watching public executions was regular entertainment for the masses. Few have the guts to admit it publicly, but we’re all monsters.
\n— Michael Middleton
\nFor nearly every single day since Sept. 11, 2001, I’ve been saying, “When’s the other shoe going to drop?” The dirty secret that I’ve never revealed to anyone is that there’s a part of me that actually wants it to drop.<\/b> Rationally, not really — I’ve got family and friends who would be in serious danger if something happened in our major cities.
\nBut the little devil on my shoulder keeps saying, “Come on already, let’s get this fucking apocalypse OVER WITH.” I mean, there are times when I’d almost feel relieved if something happened — it would be better than this awful waiting accompanied by an overwhelming sense of looming doom.
\n— Female writer, living in Texas<\/p>\n

…emphasis added<\/b><\/I><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So what do you think the odds are that this yearning to \u0093break through the banality\u0094 has anything to do with the Romantic urge<\/a> for the ultimate self-affirming, all-consuming moment? That orgasmic instant of annihilation when the will to power overcomes the humble stones of the world around us? And if you lived in squalor, felt oppressed, were told every day that the hated oppressor was the reason for your misery, would this underlying repugnance of the world as it is be a fertile medium of the kind of memes that make strapping on a Semtex belt seem like the absolutely right thing to do?
\nI\u0092m suddenly finding myself becoming a fan of banality.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From the controversial Salon piece, \u0094Forbidden thoughts about 9-11: Readers respond\u0094: When the towers started collapsing and all chaos broke loose, I felt actual excitement. Here was an event that broke banality. Finally, here was something meaningful. I had grown so tired of the meaningless fluff our continent had become so enamored with. Here was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2883"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2883"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2883\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}