Sept. 11 Effects, Non-effects
Planning for this year's fifth anniversary of the terrorist attacks, we tossed around ideas for a staff project regarding that event.
Our viewpoints could not have been more different.
Thinking about the fifth anniversary as far back as a year ago, I envisioned a project on how, other than extra airport hassles, life today isn't much different than pre-Sept. 11. Then Wallach, a New Yorker, recently proposed doing the opposite, a project about how drastically different life is today.
I cited my examples, and he cited his.
Unable to reach a middle ground, I decided to take it to our online readers.
On June 30, I posted the poll asking: This year marks the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. How much has Sept. 11 and the ensuing nationwide changes affected your life?
The poll ran June 30-July 7 and garnered more than 300 responses.
The choices were:
- Drastically
- Somewhat
- A little at first, but life is almost back to normal
- Not much at all
I was certain that the third choice would be the most popular. I was wrong, sort of, and Wallach was right, kind of.
http://sitemanager.zwire.com/site/PollAnswer.cfm?brd=2287&pag=460&poll_id=23453
The responses were almost evenly split, with Wallach's choice - "Somewhat" - getting the most votes at 32.4 percent. "Not much at all" came in second, with 23.5 percent. My response - "A little at first ... " - gathered 22.5 percent, while "Drastically" gathered the lowest number of votes, at 21.3 percent.
Considering the relatively even split in voting, Sept. 11 evidently has affected - or not affected - people in myriad ways. So that's our project: How much has life changed/not changed in Sept. 11's aftermath?
posted by Brian Pearson at 1:52 PM
1 Comments:
I think the distinction between 'somewhat' and 'a little at first, but life is almost back to normal' is somewhat fuzzy and dependent on how globally the person is thinking. That may have skewed your results a bit.
When I factor in the actions taken by the government which infringe on our rights (e.g., secret wiretapping), then 'somewhat' becomes my response. If I solely look at how I live my daily life and my reactions to my day-to-day experiences, then I end up choosing 'a little at first, but life is almost back to normal'.
I will have to admit that I've adapted to taking my shoes off and letting a stranger gaze at the contents of my baggage whenever I travel by plane. There's a little twinge in the back of my mind as I go through the ritual which says "This isn't right!!". However, it falls under the 'almost back to normal' category because I've managed to incorporate it into what's normal when flying for the current age.
My guess is that you two aren't as far apart in your understanding of how Sept 11 has affected us as you think you are. It's more an issue of how you're defining the effects.
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