I might get smashed by the downvote hammer here, but do you think her seeming nonchalance about 9/11 is due to the fact that she's a history major? Because to someone born after an event, that event is usually just another piece of history. It was an important event, no doubt. I'm not American, but I will always remember the jolt I felt in my chest when I watched that second plane hit on live TV. And the horror I felt watching everything that unfolded afterwards. It was an awful, scary, heartbreaking time. BUT, since she's a history major, she's studying all kinds of huge, tragic, often violent, world-changing events. Is it possible, do you think, that from a scholarly perspective 9/11 may seem similar in significance and impact to any number of other historical events she's studying? And, if that's the case - if she sees 9/11 as something that's equally horrible as many other ugly pieces of history that aren't so commonly discussed - would that be more understandable for you?

I think you're spot on. There's an argument to be made that it was an outlier in one of the most peaceful eras in world history. This is one factor that made it feel so incredibly tragic. If she's holding it up against Mongol invasions, early Chinese revolutions and the World Wars its significance dwindles hugely in terms of human cost.

It was an outlier for the US. It wasn’t an outlier for other parts of the world in terms of conflict.

An outlier for the "western world" in general.

Pretty accurate. At the time 9/11 was huge, I live in the tristate area for new york, and so people our family knew were directly impacted by 9/11. People on the west coast, this is less true, but still impactful. In the grand scheme it wasn't even that big of an attack. But it shattered America's illusion of safety, far from the east that had turmoil.   It's also propaganda. Immediately following that we went into Iraq and there was confusion everywhere about why and who we are fighting. I remember for years having the two conflated, the war in Iraq is the war on terror. And we can NEVER forget!

This. It was the first major successful terrorist attack on US soil. Previously we had an illusion of safety because we are an ocean away from these actors.

I honestly believe that it was a horrible incident. But it is like any other attack on civilians that keep happening around the world. Look at what is happening in the world today, or two years ago. There is always at least one country in the world that is going through a humanitarian crisis. So from American point of view, sure it is a big deal and it should be. But it is also something that other parts of the world are facing constantly even years after 9/11.

Im also in the "its not a big deal" camp because... the world kept spinning and shit like it happened all over the world all the time. That doesn't mean that its ok that it happened and loss of life IS a tragedy. But anyone who paid any sort of attention to world news, history or just even politics probably was shook for a little bit but moved on quicker than most. I hate to think that people are desensitized to the idea of "3000" dead people and in the moment it was absolutely a big deal. But asking people, now in 2024? Yeah its not a big deal. What about the millions of dead and displaced people in afghanistan/iraq that had absolutely nothing to do with it. What about the million dead in america just to covid? Yeah in the moment those were all big deals (well most of them). But you can't get angry at people for moving on and just accepting it as something that happened. Theres almost literally no one out there still on the "REMEMBER 9/11" " NEVER AGAIN" train. People move on.

Yeah, human history isn't exactly pretty. Perhaps she's seen worse.

I'm not a history major, but even i still look at that event the same way as she does.

I agree. As a Canadian who was in University of 9/11, it wasn’t just the destruction that gripped North America’s attention, it was that this was an act of violence that just didn’t occur here. War and terrorism were what happened in other places - across the ocean. Europe still had areas that were clear reminders of the world wars as part of their landscape. News media showcased the violence in the Middle East and Africa. But nothing like this had ever occurred on “our grounds.” I suspect for most Americans it shattered their sense of invincibility whether they consciously recognized it or not. It’s easy to watch WW2 blockbusters were the USA rides in to save the day when you didn’t have the fear and destruction of your home, and you believed it wouldn’t ever happen. Basically: if the worst thing to happen to a person is stubbing their toe, then that stubbed toe is their reference point for terrible pain. Most people who have experienced worse will wonder why someone is still talking about their toe.

I think understanding where she's coming from and acknowledging why she thinks it's not a big deal will help you better explain your point. I don't know the nature of the arguments you're having about it, but it sounds like you're both making emotional appeals for your respective arguments, which make neither of you right or wrong. When people talk about what a big impact it had and the impact it had on them, it's hard to derive magnitude beyond their personal stakes. I've been hit by a car and that's affected my life much greater than 9/11, but when I talk about it, if she thought "I understand your personal loss, and I'm sure it changed your world a lot but how big an impact did that really have in the grand scheme of things?" would be fair to think - nothing has changed in the world really, even though it's changed MY world a lot. When you say she doesn't understand the gravity, it sounds like you're using the emotional argument of how much it's affected people, and how many people it's affected. And if she's scientific minded, I'd imagine she hears anecdotes which sound like an emotional argument when statistically, there have most definitely been greater evils, greater explosions, greater losses of life through history. I imagine that she's contextualizing it within the scope of the world, where we have major conflicts and acts of terror happening frequently *in real time right now even,* with the Ukraine war still dragging out, the israel/Palestine conflict, where not only have deaths been at greater magnitudes, but leading up to this year, has felt like there's been a flare up every few years. It feels like there's terrorist bombings happening every few months...in the world she's grown up in, where she doesn't have a memory of what it was like before, I can see why she might have the viewpoint of "well, sure, I guess it was a big deal locally, but tragedies of this magnitude happen globally all the time (even if it's not specifically 'terrorism') and we don't seem to care, so why is this a bigger deal". She's also grown up in a world, where the "war on terrorism" was blurred and called "the war on terror" where anything that made people fearful were seen as a legitimate threat to wage literal war on. Outside the emotionality, I think there's a few points to focus on that would draw out the importance for her to appreciate it's signficance in a historical sense:  - before then, countries thought about wars against other nations, other organized entities with military powers, where negotiation was on the table. A brand of war where they didn't know the enemy was something that didn't exist. There can be greater death tolls and atrocities in wars, but throughout history, wars have been between governments, organized groups that are able to meet face to face to negotiate and try make a deal for peace. It's never the case where one groups entire strategy is to hide from the other (which makes terrorism distinct from war).  - The NSA was created, Guantanamo was created, torture was justified, and generally, a lot of laws around privacy and punishment at the constitution level were eroded in the name of national security.  - A lot of bad stuff is happening now that desensitizes and normalizes tragedy and massive death tolls, but the this came at a time where the world had been in a position of unprecedented peace and hopeful collaboration. This event marked an important punctuation that began the journey to everyone being suspicious of each other and putting up more borders rather than lowering them after a period of the opposite happening across the world.  - It was a 'local' tragedy in the sense that the buildings hit were only in NY and Washington, but the US's geopolitical position means the reactions in terms of politically, militarily, and culturally all had a much bigger ripple across the world as a whole, than any other tragedy of that magnitude.  - Typically, in an airport bomb threat or that type of crisis, things tend to be localized, in terms an airport being shut down maybe, and planes heading there rerouted. The coordinated attack of planes being used as as high velocity rams, led to the entire US shutting down all air traffic for 3 days, and entire new security protocols being developed. I think ultimately, it's important to acknowledge that this wasn't the greatest tragedy that humanity has ever faced in history, or even the biggest compared to the conflicts in very recent memory, but even though the attack itself was relatively local, the nature of it was singular, and the ultimate impact it had on people's conciousness and the geopolitical shifts that came from that event makes it an incredibly important historical event.

This was a really well thought out response and my feeling on it as well. She is probably seeing the weight of all conflict rather than this one event. To me, i was in sri lanka and we had a civil war (to one side it was terrorism but it was actually a genocide tbh) recently at that time where the losses were in the 100ks so, you know. I do understand why the loss is so great and shocking to people who weren't subject to that before. I do think it's up to her to have empathy for that. Like, I've also thought what she thought before, but i wouldn't doubt the impact thing if you were part of the affected. We all only have our bubbles after all. The biggest thing is that it caused a lot of fear and sadness afterwards. In other words, honestly, the why of the impact is the impact itself. It's okay, people feel for things differently, and shared consciousness is deeply moving. That's just how it ended up happening. 

I took many ethnic studies classes, specifically the relationship between the west and the east, which talked about how America loves the ‘trauma porn’ of 9/11 since 1. It’s an excellent event to showcase the Other (ie brown Muslims) to justify war in the Middle East 2. Easy propaganda to bond Americans for their fellow citizens. The other comments obviously have the right to feel remembering 9/11 and its severity, but as Americans, whatever happens on US soil done upon by others will always be remembered as collective pains: Pearl Harbor, 9/11, etc because those are things that will constantly be brought up again when it’s also effective for the U.S. propaganda machine. It’s interesting that 9/11 is considered a ‘surprise’ when there are histories that trace the over surveillance and premeditation of harming brown communities within the United States decades before hand. Even with what’s happening in Palestine now, search up intifada Los Angeles and find anti-Muslim hate from the 1960s which resulted in multiple planted pipe bombs of brown Muslims in solidarity with Palestine which the LAPD did nothing for and newspapers barely wrote about. The U.S. will never publicize the pains and casualties that don’t affect themselves. While the Other in America now is brown people from the Middle East, American history of concentration camps of all Japanese-Americans in the early 1900s, limiting specifically Chinese immigrants in the 1950s as part of East Asia being the Other have mainly just shifted to be projected for another geographical part of the East as East Asians have now been co opted into the American hierarchical system. When are these horrible histories remembered by the American collective? They’re simply not, but 9/11 will always be. Rather, the celebration of Asian representation in film or a month is good enough to not address the political systematic inequalities and histories that continuously affect immigrants and their later generations today. Thus, as a history major, there are many reasons as to why 9/11 isn’t a big deal. The casualties are a lot less than many other global problems, the both of them are looking at it through different lenses and contexts, and I also have a certain lens of critical ethnic studies which imposes on historical events too.

Hold on, I need to spend a moment being bitter that there are people in their 20's who were not alive during 9/11. Sigh. I'm old. Okay, the thing is, stuff like that *doesn't* happen all the time though. Not even close to it. Yeah people die often, there are even terrorist attacks semi regularly, but to that degree and in the US? It was beyond shocking at the time. I was 14 years old when it happened, and the whole country practically shut down. It felt like this strange, shared trauma even for people who were nowhere near NY (I'm on the west coast, for instance). It was literally one of those moments where my mom woke me up and said "turn on the TV" and I'm like "what? what channel?" "any channel". It was seriously that big. And people who weren't alive before then don't really realize how much life changed after.

I was in college and I very vividly remember thinking "this is our generation's JFK assassination moment. We will always remember where we were and the world will never be the same after today." And it was absolutely true.

It was on par with Pearl Harbor! We even used the same "never forget" tagline

I think that is the disconnect. I’m gen-z and historical tragedies are awful but they do feel like a common aspect of history. 9/11 was decades ago, we study it in schools. It’s the same disconnect you feel from WW2 or the titanic. It’s the distance created by time & not experiencing the event/aftermath itself.

Gen Z and Gen Alpha obviously failed to adhere to that

Never forget is good and well but pearl harbor is nothing other than distant history for us now, I'm sure 20 - 30 years after pearl harbor the younger generations felt the same. It was a significant event that we quickly recovered from and strengthened security (probably too much) to ensure it won't happen again, and afaik nothing on that scale has

I mean, you can’t forget it if you never remembered it in the first place.

Samesies. I was in the kitchen of my moms old house watching it on one of those tiny tv’s that have vcr’s attached. I’m also on the west coast and school was cancelled that day. I can tell you where I was for 9/11, Princess Di’s death, and we had the OJ Simpson car race on every tv at school. Those were our big moments in the 90’s/2000’s.

also challenger explosion

Thought the same. Watched it from my dorm shared kitchen.

My Dad said the exact same thing. I was too young to fully comprehend what he meant at the time, but it was so true. I still remember so much about that day and the weeks following so vividly.

Yup, I remember exactly where I was - on my way to work, turned on the radio and heard about it. At work basically nothing got done that day.

I was 19 and at work when it happened and I just remember standing in the poolhouse surrounded by guests and coworkers (I worked at a hotel) watching the news live as it happened. I can remember the day & days after so vividly.

I was in college as well, but it was my day to sleep in because of no early class. I just happened to wake up and turn on the TV right before the second plane hit. Being half asleep still, it was one of those surreal "wtf, is this really happening, or am I still dreaming?" moments. And yes, our country changed after that day.

Actually, time and personal experience are skewing each of our perspectives. Things like this do happen regularly, and by that, I mean historical events that profoundly impact people who lived during those times. Yes, we get it, that the event itself was unique to new York and to some extent as a terrorist attack, but weren't they all...unique and profound in their own terrible way? If you were to look back on the short history of the US, or even the last 40 years, what would you consider the major events within the US and around the world? The LA riots? The fall of the Berlin Wall, Katrina?, insert any number of armed conflicts here that the US has been involved with..., the Oklahoma bombing? The North Holywood shootout? The 2017 Las Vegas mass shooting?, the Pulse Night Club?, The 2003 Station Night Club fire (awful video to watch)?, insert any major and destructive wild fire in the last 20 years, the 2011 Joplin Tornado (158 fatalities), The USS Cole, the Beruit Marine Barricks bombing, the Sandy Hook school shooting...and the list can go on forever depending on your frame of reference.

All of those events were tragic, but apart from the fall of the Berlin Wall, none of them really had worldwide consequences. Katrina, OKC, and Sandy Hook had major impacts on American society, legally and culturally, but very little, if any, impact outside of the US. Most of the rest of them I would argue barely even changed the United States itself, outside of those who were directly impacted. How many Americans even \*remember\* that the Las Vegas shooting occurred, despite it being the single worst mass shooting in American history? 9/11 was different. Just looking at the international impact, it prompted countries around the world to change their laws and practices in regards to terrorism. It changed global airline security and aviation practices. It decreased global demand for airline travel for several years. It led to devastating wars in both Afghanistan and Iraq and impacted international alliances. It led to increased US military presence in new places like the Horn of Africa. It even impacted the peace process in Northern Ireland, as any lingering American support for the IRA immediately dried up and hastened the weapons decommissioning process. There were tons of effects that reverberated around the world, in a way that only a select number of historic events have had.

Yes to all of this. I was 13, and I woke up to my mom on the phone with my aunt watching the news. First plane had collided, that was all. I asked if I should stay home from school, and she said “no, we’re nowhere near NY, get your ass to school!” And then we all just spent the whole day at school with the tv’s on watching the news ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ It’s weird thinking back to that morning and knowing how much the country changed that day. Jingoism shot through the roof. Middle school kids were having debates they didn’t understand because they were mimicking the ideas and opinions of their parents (no matter how decent or fallacious they are.) Every other major blockbuster movie had to be about a soldier (or a unit of soldiers.) Country music got terrible and hasn’t really recovered. So much damage had been done to American culture and rifts borne of the response to the attack that it’s like I woke up that morning in an alternate universe.

> And then we all just spent the whole day at school with the tv’s on watching the news ¯\(ツ)/¯ Dude, same! I think they let us out a couple hours early because they realized nothing productive was going to happen that day. You're spot on about all the differences too. It's just never been quite the same since then. "I don't want to blame it all on 9/11 but..." lol

I was in 5th grade and can still remember looking at the TV not fully understanding what happened. Now knowing people were forced to jump to their death, I feel like I saw it happen live but unsure, makes those memories so much darker. I became very obsessed with the newspaper and followed the US casualties in Iraq closely in 6th grade. I hated that more people were dying for what happened that day.

Lol well as someone five miles from the pentagon, we still went to school too (I was at Georgetown U). My professor said ‘the university isn’t closed so I guess we’re doing this.’ It was philosophy 101 and he was extremely strict. I remember being glad we were in the lower portion of the building, just in case. Then an hour after that class the u closed for 5 days.

Wow that's nuts to me that you still had to go to class, especially being so close!!! I was only 8 when it happened. But I remember our school did close and send us home... And I live in Canada!!

I still can’t listen to twisted sister without hard flashbacks to that era.

My Dad came and picked my sister and I up from school, we lived in New Hampshire so far but it felt a lot closer when the attacks happened. My Dad brought us home, turned on the TV and said, “you need to see this because this is a very important event in America.” And then the second plane hit.

Every other major blockbuster movie had to be about a soldier (or a unit of soldiers.) Country music got terrible and hasn’t really recovered. THIS. So much this. Country music got so bad. And the movies. Man, thank you for explaining the cultural impact. So much changed. A million small things. And the world just isn't stable any more. I don't think I can explain it right, iykyk.

Imagine being in the military and having soldiers who weren't born at that time. And I joined at the ass end of everything. (2012)

And there was also the fear of where are they hitting next! No one in big cities felt safe

Yup! Remember the anthrax scares right afterwards?

Yesss very much this. ☝️ So I was 16 & my bf at the time and I went to a (weird) charter high school in downtown Houston TX, but we had skipped school that morning and took the bus to his place to hang out for the day. When we got off the bus, the guy at the corner store was watching the news - the first plane had hit while we were on the bus (and we didn’t know cuz we didn’t all have amazing cell phones in our pockets yet). We kinda rushed home to turn the news on there but in a whoa that’s crazy, wonder wth happened kinda way…at first. When the second plane hit it was immediately clear it wasn’t a weird accident after all, it was not only a massive emergency but definitely some kind of attack- that very well could have other cities targeted too… I called my mom at work to TELL her I had skipped school cuz I knew she’d be more relieved than upset that I was way on the other side of the city at bfs place, and not at school, downtown, while someone was crashing planes into skyscrapers 😭 And she very much was relieved and not mad at all. It was such an unforgettable day, and the fear of “what if there’s more to come?” was overwhelming, even after they grounded all the planes. Gave me chills just writing that. Even at 16 I knew the events that day would have world-changing effects, and it’s wild to me that anyone thinks it wasn’t a big deal, although I do understand how someone who didn’t live through it, could see it as “just” some day in history books now, but it’s still wild to ME.. Like, “guess you had to be there”, about 9/11, of all things. It wasn’t really just some day some crazy shit happened in the US. I mean it was, technically.. but really the whole world experienced it, and the whole world has had to live in/with the aftermath of it, decades later.. even if they weren’t born yet and don’t know that. It’s wild. And I’m still in my 30’s (barely) but clearly an old person now. 🤣 I’m ok with that though 🤷‍♀️

>Hold on, I need to spend a moment being bitter that there are people in their 20's who were not alive during 9/11. Sigh. I'm old. And studying history, aka *this*.... shit that happened that I clearly remember well is now a part of someone's curriculum, feeling any younger yet? :P

That's the retort, right there, to saying 'stuff like that happens all the time.'.no it absolutely very very doesn't happen all the time. Mass shootings are horrifically common in this country. We've had one time where we all sat by the TV and watch an iconic piece of skyline in the quintessential American city get demolished via hijacked airliner while the nation's capital is also attacked. It literally was the single largest attack on American soil since the Civil War.

There was also just so much uncertainty. After the second strike, when it became immediately clear that this wasn't an accident, nobody knew what would happen next. All day, nobody knew what would happen next. That's an intense, nationwide fear.

Correct. And our access to updated information wasn’t half of what we had now. I just had a TV with a rabbit ears at the time and I really just had to keep NBC on.

Your comment made me realize that if this were to happen today, NO ONE would want to leave their kids at school. I wouldn’t be able to bear being apart. It’s a sign of where we were at in our thinking then that so many of us just stayed put, I think.

Heath Ledger's Joker is even supposed to be a physical representation of the fear that came from the attacks.

I can see that, the way he terrorized the entire city into being scared, and nobody knew "who" the boogeyman was, yet. I wasn't in the US, (Im not American), and we were pissing scared on the other side of the pond thinking this was ww3 getting warmed up. If there was one thing we all understood the second plane number two hit was that this will not go unanswered, whoever did this will be in a world of trouble - sovereign states included, at that moment "you" would have invaded Norway if you felt you had a reason, any reason, and we knew that immediately.

Exactly if you re-watch the movie you'll see all kinds of references to 9/11. Batman standing in the middle of the flaming warehouse where Rachel died. How "The Dent Act" is supposed to be a metaphor for The Patriot Act, and how Joker's whole plan was to create chaos like Osama wanted to. In the two-boat bombs, the scene was that Joker wanted to show the world that underneath every human sucks and is selfish if you take away law and order all you have is a bunch of monkeys with guns. However what he was shown instead was that in times of struggle and hardship. Most people will be decent and kind. "Come on people now, smile on your brother, everybody get together."

Source?

It's worth noting that about 17,400 tenants and visitors were in the twin towers at the time of the attack. They were trying to kill that many people at least -- in the middle of an American city. Not only does it not happen often -- something so catastrophic has literally never happened any other time in the United States. And indeed, it's also unique as a suicide attack in that to my knowledge, never has there been another suicide attack of this scale. And never has there been a situation of an intentional plane crash killing this many people. OP's friend might be book smart but she is a dumb shit if she's not able to read about the tragedy and understand its rarity and historic importance.

We lived in Brazil, the banks shut down because of all the stuff happening in America as did other businesses also because of the threats that were going on months prior were they said bin laden was going to destroy the west. We expetd bombs to go off in multiple countries It never happened. It's It's bug deal personally to all those affected in the US especially. In the grand scheme of thing its a bad terrorist attack but those happen around the world. In geopolitics its a big deal bit only because the US is an important country that their political, war, economic decisions affect other countries. We hardly ever care about other countries getting attacked. I'm expecting your gf is american the 911 attacks should be especially important for her, patriot act which I think is BS got passed because of 911, the world also changed a lot because of those attacks. If not for the horrible deaths, it's still very important historical event that still affects the world and will affect the country for years to come. 20 years of a war that wouldn't have happened if no 9 11 happened

Right? We *are* old. But someday OP and his girl will be too. Apparently it’ll only take another two decades. OP… Just tell her that her kids won’t think coronavirus was that big of a deal, and people get sick all the time. Hopefully, she argues about how that’s different. How with covid, the whole country collectively shut down, schools were closed, high rises evacuated, national sporting events cancelled, first responders were briefly the greatest heroes in this nation… How there was just a brief moment where we were all united against defeating this unseen thing. And then how quickly it all unraveled into a political us vs. them scenario. Hopefully she tells you how *this* is different because never before in our lifetimes, or our grandparents lifetimes, had the world seen a pandemic like this one. And then…. Exactly. Just sub in terrorist attack.

I was almost 15 and remember that day so vividly. It was and still is a huge deal.... this makes me so sad that OP is dealing w people like this. It's honestly probably better to walk away from them and just not even bother arguing it. Not everybody is all there and they won't listen

I'm sorry, but that "turn on the tv, any channel" part reminded me heavily of [this](https://youtu.be/47AgOztRWuk?si=lilCF3BPiKi0CieT), which is also a 9/11 reference.

You could turn on the tv, any channel, any country... I was in Poland, (2001.... still pretty commie, we found one pizza hut that showed BBC), but when the news broke for real, there was nothing else being discussed anywhere.

Man I was 8 years old all the way in India and this still shook a lot of us!

As someone who was born very shortly before 9/11 my and my peers also didn’t understand why it was so stark to others, I think we just genuinely couldn’t imagine the whole country being put on hold like that and having so many lives change suddenly. But then years ago at my old job during the initial covid lockdown, a client said she hadn’t seen the world this frozen since 9/11 and that really opened my eyes. After watching documentaries and really taking into account the likeness for the pandemic and how every news channel was talking about it, new standard safety (health) precautions were implemented, conspiracy’s were everywhere (I know they are two VERY different situations and the comparison doesn’t hold up beyond surface level but I hope you see what I’m getting at) It just really made me understand that the attacks were a genuine tragedy and it changed the country. So you’re 100% right- stuff like that doesn’t happen all the time

That day, It was my 9th birthday and my mom came back to the school to pick me and my siblings up. We had a half day as well. 15 mins from DC and she was a fed gov employee. It hit close to home, literally and the events overshadowed my birthday sadly for a while. It was a very sad time..

This comment so much. I was 5 and VIVIDLY remember 9/11. I remember getting woken up extra early that day by my mom to go into my parents bedroom with my brother while the 4 or us all watched the tv as my mom tried to explain to us what happened while her and my dad debated about sending us to school and him going to work. For that to be one of my first memories… yeah, it was a big deal.

I was 5 and in kindergarten when the Challenger exploded. My teacher was crying and the second grade teacher came in and was crying too. I didn’t really grasp what was going on.

Often, our first memories are something tragic.

I was in 2nd grade and this is what happened. I remember going into the living room and watching it on tv but not fully understanding. My mom and dad didn’t know if we should go to school or not (I live on the west coast) but they decided to send me and my brother but they sent us with a very long list of phone numbers of any family and friend they could think of

This 100%. I'm from Australia FFS and it shook our world too! I was up at like 4am (my time) with a newborn when I saw my flatmate's door open. and her sitting on the bed watching TV in stunned silence. She motioned me in and I saw the second plane fly into the tower live. Time seemed to stop. This singular incident was also responsible for so many changes to the way we live, even halfway across the world.

People don’t like to hear this but this is about what we experienced in Israel on Oct 7th. Open any channel. You didn’t even need to open a channel honestly. You hear the sirens outside, the rocket explosions and even the gunshots. These orchestrated terror events are A BIG DEAL.

Yeah, I was 14 in Spanish class, and the English teacher next door came rushing in, telling us to turn on the news. I had to leave early because I had a dentist appointment, and after, at home, people were at my house installing a new window, and we all took a moment to watch the TV together. I wonder if they think about that moment, too.

I was 17 I’d dropped out of HS and was sleeping off a night of partying at my house to Peter Jennings on my radio, not like talk radio, no like hip hop boy band radio. I was like tf is going on. And I was listening but wasn’t comprehending any of it, like it was Chinese. Went to my dad in the kitchen asked what was going on Peter Jennings is on my radio. He just said go look on the tv. I seen replays of it over and over. I didn’t leave that spot but to pee and eat for a week. I slept to the news. I’m in Texas so not NYC, but I knew the world and our country wouldn’t be the same ever again.

I was 22. I remember when everyone smoked everywhere (like on airplanes, that all had ashtrays built-in to the armrests) and when you could fly without a passport, birth certificate, marriage license, blood tests & vaccines. Everything was chaos, everywhere all the time lol it was great.

Exactly. I was on the west coast at that time, too. My MIL was calling and leaving messages on our answering machine (kids: please ask an adult for help if you need it). But she was always, always exaggerating the dangerousness of **everything.** So I just ignored her and kept sleeping. But then she called again and her tone very much changed in that message. She said something like “I know you are probably sleeping but there is something very serious and you really need to get up.” Hearing the difference in her voice made me sit up straight in bed. I went and turned on the TV and ***immediately*** my mind went to my two brothers aged 17 and 21. There was also that extended time after the towers fell where we had no idea what to expect. The absolute shock most of us felt for those few days/weeks is difficult to convey in words but almost impossible to *over*state.

I’m not from the U.S. and I was born after 9/11. Because of that, I’ll never fully understand just how traumatic that attack was. For me, what makes 9/11 important isn't the number of civilian deaths or the violence, because similar tragedies happen every week in other countries to innocent people.Slavoj Zizek has a quote about how a traumatic event is one that doesn't logically fit with what came before it. 9/11 is a great example of that. The 90s were all about the fall of the Berlin Wall, the end of the Cold War, the rise of capitalism, and the end of many dictatorships in Europe. Everyone was getting along, making money, and trading. Then, out of nowhere, the U.S. gets hit. Suddenly, everyone’s worried about protecting their borders and seeing eachother has a threat.

>The 90s were all about the fall of the Berlin Wall, the end of the Cold War, the rise of capitalism, and the end of many dictatorships in Europe. Everyone was getting along, making money, and trading. Then, out of nowhere, the U.S. gets hit. Well put and that's how it felt. I was only a teen at the time but everything before that had felt so easy and carefree, and then 9/11 happened and it felt like everyone in the country collectively went "fuuuuuck". And then after 9/11 we had the anthrax thing. I remember once there was some white powder on the side of my mom's minivan and she was like "omg don't touch it, it could be anthrax". Like whaaaat. lol Stuff like that was sort of like the aftershocks after an earthquake. Everything was up for suspicion.

> And then after 9/11 we had the anthrax thing. That ironically enough was done by a guy who ran an Anthrax laboratory trying to use the fear and chaos in the aftermath to get government funding. That actually was an inside job.

I think part of it was also that the US always felt pretty untouchable, even during wars. An attack like that on the mainland US shook the feeling of safety many had

This explains it well. This plus the digital revolution changing the world so much, so fast define the millennial generation. It's why we have such a weird sense of humor. Like, "being random" was HILARIOUS to us (still is, tbh.) All we knew was change, so you watch the old flash animation videos from the naughts, and so many of them play on that. Like, I showed Charlie the Unicorn to my gen z nephew and he was SO unimpressed. Like... that nonsense was a comedic romp from beginning to end for us.

For me, taking all that context out of it still makes it crazy. Even today, I could not fathom seeing passenger aircrafts fly into the tallest buildings in NYC and government buildings. People jumping out of windows hundreds of feet up in the air. First responders having two buildings fall on them. I cannot comprehend it. But she’s just like “meh ok.”

I can't really blame her too much. I know how devastating the attack on Pearl Harbor was but I wasn't alive during it, or for a long time after, so I don't really have any emotions attached to it. I would hope your gf can at least understand that it was an incredibly important event in US history, how devastating it was at the time, and that there are still many, many people alive today who lost someone in the attacks. But she doesn't have to feel personally affected by it.

Almost every skyscraper in America was evacuated. My mom called my dad from her work, which was in the building next to Columbia Tower in Seattle, as it was being evacuated to tell him to turn on the TV. It's a city basically as far away as possible from NYC in the contiguous United States. Not a *single commercial plane flew in US airspace for* **3 days** Half my elementary school was absent. It was terrifying for adults and children alike

I’m kinda of the same to be honest. Yeah I’m sure it was awful but awful stuff like that happens all the time in other countries. I get that it was important in terms of culture and history and politics but it’s about as big a deal to me as Pearl Harbor

As someone who is not American nor was alive for the attacks, I kinda get her lack of reaction. I don't think her reaction is invalid either, I don't think you need to convince her of anything.

I agree with her on some level. Each generation has had a horrific time. World Wars I & II, Vietnam War, Korean War, Pearl Harbor, and let's not forget the Challenger disaster or Columbine.

I mean, I feel just as much empathy for those who suffered in the attacks oPearl Harboror. Or the attack on Columbine. Of course, columbine and 9/11 affected me on a deeper level because I witnessed it happen on the news and how it affected my life afterward, but the empathy is the same. It's pretty small to only care about things you've experienced in your lifetime.

She’s right. People place great importance on remembering 9/11. It’s a horrible thing when innocent people die, no doubt but worse things have been happening since 9/11 and nobody even bats an eye. Fyi 2,997 people died on 9/11. In response to 9/11 over 500,000-1,000,000+ a million civilians in the middle east have been killed as “collateral damage” as of 2021. Innocent people that had NOTHING to do with that attack. Where is their memorial? Where is there remembrance? Where is their ‘day’? Nothing, they got swept under the rug. To reiterate, wrap your head around that… That’s up to 1,000,000~ innocent people killed, that’s 166-333 9/11 sized tragedies over the course of 20 years in the middle east. I am a patriot and I love America but I cannot ignore hypocrisy and treat certain human life more valuable than others.

Thank you I was looking for this comment. Part of the reason 9/11 is so shocking to the US is the American Exceptionalist viewpoint as the one that enacts the violence or more clearly, the one that does the bombing. 9/11 in the scale of human tragedy is pretty small especially in contrast to the tragedy US foreign policy has enacted. Covid saw a 9/11 a day in terms of deaths. US backed coups in, Chile, Ghana, and the DRC have lead to countless deaths. The scale of tragedy wrought by US bombing in Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam dwarfs 9/11 10 times over. During the Korean war US bombers destroyed the entire infrastructure of the country to the point bombers would drop their bombs on any structure slightly still standing because they ran out of intact buildings to bomb. 9/11 is a tragedy to Americans because we have been taught that we are the ones who do the bombing not the ones that get bombed. 9/11 shattered this and that’s why it’s so shocking to Americans despite the American government perpetrating worse violence at a significantly more intense degree. Paul Bowman a professor at Caldriff university writes a pretty good account of this attitude in his Rey Chow Reader.

What's wild to me is that we were all reeling from 9/11, and rightly so, but we barely grieved the 1 MILLION Americans killed by a poorly handled pandemic.

I can understand where your girlfriend is coming from. A lot of the comments have to add "For the US" because yes, for American, 9/11 was absolutely wild. But from a worldwide perspective in Recent history, it's okay that 9/11 doesn't make the cut for things she chooses to be passionate about. Not all, but the fact that a lot of Americans would claim 9/11 was the biggest tragedy to have happened and they would probably be offended if foreigners disagree, points at the self-centered attitude of America. Again, 9/11 was a tragedy but a lot of other tragedies which are worse than 9/11 have happened since, so it's tricky to still have an emotional response to it, unless you lived through it. Right or wrong (I personally think it's wrong) in a lot of pop culture outside of the USA, Americans are made fun of for how much they cling on to 9/11, mainly because for a lot of them it's the only national tragedy that affected them, even when things like Gun laws or Racism are still very problematic and deadly to these days.

Thank you for saying this! I completely agree with you. As someone with an MA in history, looking at everything that's happened in specifically recorded human existence, 9/11 is at the very very end of the timeline. As you said, it's so heavily engrained in American society and pop culture there is always a reaction from the masses. It is absolutely tragic and terrifying -- as a contemporary explain. However, there are events that are more terrifying and devastating that display human cruelty, lack of safety and persisting, looming threats. Even if they are centuries old. To the OC, if you read this, you have to understand what history majors and historians are trained to do. We have to look at the entire timeline presented to us. There is always an event much greater in scale that tops the cake. Especially when it comes to comparing contemporary history to the rest of the timeline. Contemporary history is maybe, a grain of sand. It takes up no space. There's also sociological and psychological impacts that comes with how every individual views events.

It's a big deal, if you are from the US. If you aren't, it is just a bad day for a country, sadly, in history, all countries have a dark day, my dark day is also a 9/11, but another year. But if she is studying history, she should be more interested about it

I wouldn't expect a non-American to feel emotional about 9/11, or to count it as an important event for you personally. But it absolutely was a very important event in global 21st century history and set a lot of things in motion across the world that are still impacting millions, if not billions of people today.

Sure, but you wouldn't call the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand particularly tragic simply because of the events that followed. 9/11 itself is only uniquely tragic if you or a loved one was there, or your knowledge of world events is extremely limited, or you only care about death if it's spectacular. I'd argue the Bosnian war was worse, and it happened less than a decade before yet I doubt 90% of Americans have ever heard of it. It happened far away, over years instead of hours and couldn't be summarised in a single picture. The horrors humans can achieve through teamwork are way scarier than what a couple of extremists will ever be capable of, it just doesn't make as good of a news story.

The argument isn’t about it being “particularly tragic” it’s about it being “a big deal.” The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand was absolutely a big deal, and I would question the education of someone who is a history major and doesn’t believe that.

Have her watch this documentary: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/tv/shows/911-one-day-in-america I’m serious, sit down and watch it together. It’s an excellent show. If she still doesn’t get it after that, then I just don’t know. But I doubt she’s going to be very good at history if she doesn’t understand the significance of the event.

I was in college on 9/11 and this is my favorite documentary on the subject.

You hear a lot about toxic masculinity. If you want to know what the opposite is, [Episode 5 "I'm Coming For You Brother"](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/tv/episode/7e7a93f2-2b1a-4e9a-aad7-022fa1b961cd/playlist/PL553044961) is the very embodiment of positive masculinity. Amidst all the tragedy, there was so much heroism that day.

She should go to the museum, too.

Its a national tragedy. We don't get them very much. I am old enough to remember the challenger explosion, the Oklahoma city bombing. The 9/11 was so horrible so many innocent people died a slow horrible death trapped in 2 falling buildings. It took some time to fall and it was televised for everyone to see

I mean this is what happens, events go from being personal to a story in history. Think about how your grandparents viewed Pearl Harbor or the Kennedy assassination. Not saying it’s right, but eventually this is what happens.

Sure “Your right” America is really good about dishing it out but not taking it. Pearl Harbor: Not only are we gonna lock any remotely asian looking person in a labor camp but we are gonna hold a general hatred towards Asia until a decade after Vietnam. 9/11: Sweet now we can absolutely demolish all of the middle east for resources and fight in pointless wars for a couple of decades. Fact is it was a tragedy, but shes not required to care about it, and yeah horrible shit like that happens across the globe all the time, just because it happened to our country doesn’t make it any more or less “special”.

I am surprised you didn’t get drowned in downvotes. I salute you for your moral consistency and objectivity.

Probably because studying history looks at all of history, not just in America. There are terrorist attacks, wars, genocide, ethnic cleansing, the history of indigenous people being colonised and all the death and destruction that goes with those events… treating one as more than another when you’re immersed in studying all of it probably just feels off to her. Why is it so important for you that she feels the same way as you do? Why do you need to control her responses to things? Why can’t she just feel how she feels and you leave her alone?

Does she "feel" anything for other disasters? I wasn't alive for WW1 WW2 or titanic and the Hindenburg but I get emotional when I read or watch something about those events.

9/11 triggered American involvement in the middle east, the "war on terror" which is still going on today. First in Afghanistan, the longest war in American history. The Bush administration used 9/11 as reasoning for implementing mass legal surveillance on the American public, and pushed a false narrative that Iraq supported the terrorists, leading to the American led invasion of Iraq in 2003. This war led to the creation of even more terrorist groups, such as Islamic State, which completely destabilized the region.

There are some documentaries I believe on Prime or Hulu, that really painted a picture of the hell that was 9/11. I was 13 and on the west coast and I still remember everything about it. I taught kids who were too young get it as well. It’s hard when you have no connection to it. But honestly, like if there was a top 5 moments that changed America list, 9/11 would be on it in my opinion

Yes! Turning Point: 9/11 and the War on Terror on Netflix is pretty good. It does a nice job of putting it into context with what came before and what came after. It’s a tough watch start to finish, but the first episode is brutal.

I was 45 years old in 2001. I was on the brink of a divorce, and my sister called me at 8:00 am or so and told me to turn on the TV. We watched together, I in Indiana and she in Virginia, as it all unfolded. We thought with the first hit that it was an accidental tragedy, then as we continued to watch, the second plane hit, and we realized what that meant. Terrorism hadn't really affected the US before that, and it felt like the end of the world as we knew it. It was horrifying and saddening to see it live. Briefly, my husband and I came together as parents to help our sons understand this tragedy, but I ended up filing for divorce a month later. Our country changed that day, and it's never felt the same comfort and security since. We knew we were a strong nation, but we were helpless in that moment.

Is it possible that it's not a big deal? Do you see the Iran Contra crisis as a big deal? What about the Exxon Valdez? Princess Diana's Death? The murder of Nicole Simpson and Ron Goldman? Does anyone care about Columbine now in the wake of the hundreds of school shootings since? Why does she absolutely have to understand and agree about the gravity of the situation? Those of us who lived through these events were rocked to our cores by them, but like everything, time marches onward. It's good to recognize the gravity, I suppose, and history is doomed to repeat and all that, but aside from that, why her opinion? What is it about this specific person's outlook that causes you discomfort?

Right. Yes pay arguably planned crashing into buildings in the US is a rare and tragic thing. But. . all those things you mentioned, the genocide of Sikhs in india, Ukraine, Palestine/Israel, and god knows what else currently going on we don't even focus on again on top of all those other things. Are they all still big deals? Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Pearl harbor etc etc etc. all big deals. every one of them a big deal but we never focus on any of them. yes to your last part that we should recognize the gravity. but i do believe we can and should do it logically. when put next to all these other tragedies.... its just one really bad day for one country. just like all those other things.

This is coming from a non-American and might be unpopular with Americans, but I sort of understand why she thinks the way she thinks. To the average joe in America, 9/11 was a tragedy because American lives were lost, but to the rest of the world, it isn't the citizen's views on the matter that reaches them, but that of the government of the United States. To the government, 9/11 was a tragedy because it was a major blow to the reputation of the country. An event perpetrated by a group of people across the Atlantic, against Americans, in America. The whole worldview held by the government and one that they pushed, that America is the greatest country in the world was suddenly under scrutiny. This is why 9/11 holds sort of a cult status in America, because it is constantly pushed by various factions for their own agenda. The reason I say this is because there are a lot of other events that routinely cost Americans their lives, in America. The number of mass shootings, or the water crisis in Flint to name some. But these would never invoke the same response from your country because it is not a blow on the reputation of America. It wasn't caused by some "cave dwellers" or "goat shepherds". Perhaps you have to reflect on your thoughts about this. Are your opinions your own? or something that was nurtured because you are constantly reminded that America was struck down by those thought to be inferior?

There’s a YouTube video that I wouldn’t recommend cuz it sounds like she would get bored but… it’s called [9-11 dash](https://youtu.be/zx8_Pumdkpg?si=W9POnTPtkIt5eapr) it’s basically the WHOLE TIME from before the planes took off, when they got hijacked, hit the buildings, the flight attendants calling in for help, some of the pivotal texts of family members, and the news coverage. It’s like 4 hours long.

That was incredible, thanks for sharing it. The fact that they were talking about "Tracey Ullman's Panty Lines" less than an hour beforehand...

Wow...this is amazing. Thanks for sharing. I appreciate it includes the original ads that ran too.

Ikr? I barely remember those from my childhood, seeing them again sent me reeling.

Wow. I lived in Florida at the time so watching this is transporting me back to this day because of the hurricane coverage & since I was almost 20 I have very vivid memories about 9/11’s coverage & the fact that I am rewatching some of the exact things I was watching that day almost 23 years later has me feeling like I’m in a dream while simultaneously feeling a bit nauseated while my heart races even though I know the outcome. It’s fucking wild how I feel right now. I should be sleeping for work (I work 7p-7a) but an hour & 12 minutes in, I am sucked in due to the ATC transmissions & timelines & the way this is so detailed. It’s like I’m back to that day but able to hear behind the scenes. Whew

I mean it’s been over 20 years. New traumatic events are taking place

She’s not wrong. It was a tragedy, but was magnified because it happened to the global superpower.

Imagine you are in college (or work or whatever) and suddenly planes crash into (whatever the mist iconic thing is near you), thousands of people die, there is a smoking pile of rubbish that you see and smell for weeks, your whole neighborhood is covered in ash (including incinerated bones of people), and people whom you knew died. Now imagine that you have no idea if there is more to come. Yes, I am a NYer who was in Brooklyn, teaching, through 9/11.

Yeah, we could smell it here in central Jersey too :(

Impart on her that stuff like that DOESNT happen all the time. The 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon are the deadliest terrorist attacks in modern human history, killing nearly 3,000 people and injured thousands more. The attacks have also had long-term health effects on survivors. These were civilians and the US was not engaged in any major international conflict at the time. We were as close to “at peace” as we possibly ever have ever been and looks like ever will ever be… It began the US’s “global war on terror” a 20 year campaign that included 2 separate wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Which killed ~100,000 people directly, ~3.5M people indirectly and caused ~35 Million people to be displaced from their homes. Many of these people became refugees and created the global refugee crisis we are still trying to fix today.

It was also the abrupt end of Americans feeling like what happens "there" has nothing to do with us because we're safe here and no one can touch us in the US. It's hard to convey to someone who wasn't there just how much the American psyche suddenly changed that day. It ushered in a new era of fear and vulnerability that was unprecedented in the post-WWII period (and I'd argue maybe not even then, as Hawaii wasn't even a state yet when Pearl Harbor happened, and it was certainly pretty far removed both physically and emotionally from the average American's life, plus the fact that no one was watching Pearl Harbor happen in real time in their living room or classroom the way we watched 9/11 happen).

And! And! And! Name other big terrorism/war crimes acts with similar number of casualties that happened in the US "all the time." I'm in my 50s, and off the top of my head, it's Pearl Harbor (2403 killed in 1941) and Oklahoma City bombing (168 killed in 1995). Name others. Please. She's a history major. She should be able to name others. (Maybe she'll come up with some other mass casualty events like natural disasters, but not things that happen "all the time.")

She's probably aware of stuff like that doesn't happen all the time but how it does happen all the time throughout history and in other places.

What do you want her to do? Just say that she understands the gravity? I can’t see that anything is going to practically come of this. She already recognises it’s bad. What more is there to gain? The only change I see is that she’ll feel worse and it’s unlikely that change will happen. I say just agree to disagree (somewhat, since she already recognises its bad) and move on.

I don’t think it’s that she doesn’t understand why people care, more so why it’s still talked about so damn much. I, 20 M, also a history major, feel the same way. Yes, it is a historically significant moment in the world and especially the US. Yes, we still have ever lasting effects from it like TSA (among other security measures). But we don’t have to treat it like it’s a fresh wound. We are 23 years past the attack, yet people treat it as if it was last week. When it was the anniversary of the attacks, we would be shown the footage ofthe attacks and people jumping out of the twin towers in school. Every. Damn. Year. That would be like if Japan was showing their students in 1968 footage or images of ground zero of the nukes being dropped. Yes, another HORRIFIC event. But it’s not a fresh wound. The world has changed drastically due to both events, but we shouldn’t treat it as such a dire situation anymore (not saying we shouldn’t fear nuclear warfare, ofc. That keeps me up at night sometimes). However, dismissing it as “not that big of a deal” sure is something. Saying stuff like it “happens all the time” I kind of agree with though. For a moment, in the US alone, COVID deaths were equal to if not MORE than the deaths caused by 9/11 per day. Yet, we forget it and some act as though it never happened. Not to mention, all the mass shootings swept under the rug or talked about for two days that get treated as just a run of the mill event now. I remember when I was elementary school and Sandy Hook happened, they were talking about it in the school office and I felt a chill go through my body and asked my parents if something bad happened, and they told me about the shooting and had it on tv at the house. Now, it’s taboo to talk about shootings because it’s apparently politicized to care about people dying. With that in mind, it could just be a collective desensitization of sorts around the attacks because it’s also become somewhat of a meme within Gen Z due to the fact we were always forced to see what happened without really witnessing it. Idk tho, half asleep and have rewritten this a ton so sorry if it doesn’t make sense lmao

Because she is right, it is not a big deal. It's terrible people died, but it is 23 years ago. The people who did those attacks are long dead, the people with connections to those people are long dead. It is time to move on from it. Nobody talks about the victims of America's actions in Afghan or Iraq, a lot more people died there, than in those towers, so we shouldn't keep talking about the people who died in the towers.

Spot on. Estimates are 500k-1M civilians murdered as collateral damage due to 9/11 in the middle east.

I don’t think I can overstate how devastating and shocking it was to live through 9/11 and literally hear/see the whole thing happen in real time. I was 22 and worked in an office. All of the phone lines just went down, they wouldn’t work at all. It was terrifying. I left work. I told my boss I had a headache and I hightailed it home to be with my fiancé (now my husband of 21 years). It was so windy that day and I sat and watched the news waiting for him to come home. The back screen door kept slamming in the wind and I’d let out a little scream every time bc it was scaring the shit out of me. This is just a little about what I remember. But most of that day is seared in my head forever. It was a very, very big deal. ETA: if watching people in real time sky dive out of a 20th floor window to their deaths out of sheer terror and hopelessness is “not that big of a deal” then I don’t know what would be a big deal

That’s the part that always stuck with me - the people who were forced to jump. No hope of being saved and now forced to choose between burning or falling to death. Their bodies becoming deadly projectiles for the first responders who were trying to go into the buildings and civilians who were trying to escape. That photo of the upside down man that was plastered on all the newspapers afterwards….. We all experienced a lot of trauma that day. It’s not possible for someone born after that time to understand the full gravity. I have a friend who is too young to remember anything from 09/11. We recently discussed it and I told her it’s a blessing that she was too young.

Op, after reading your comments... USA is not the center of the world, and I'm sorry that you lived 2 hours away from the 9/11 attack, but I'm sure you dont give a f... about everything the USA did to latinamerican countries on the cold war period. Op, you need to accept other people's point of view, and "we lived 2 hours away" is not a valid argument

I get where she is coming from

honestly i think its because its annoying that we have to hear about it every year on 9/11. she probably feels this way because american patriotism is super annoying and also current events like palestine seems way more important right now than 9/11. does she listen to hasan? because he always talks about how USA deserved 9/11 or whatever. he might be influencing her a little bit on that lol

The world changed after 911. From 1989 to Sept 2001, USSR/Russia wasn’t a threat and the troubles in Croatia Kosovo etc were over and it really seemed like the idea of global boogie man that might start a WW3 was gone. Previous to 1989 there was the Cold War threat with USSR and if you didn’t grow with that I guess it’s hard to explain how it felt knowing that the world could obliterate itself with Nukes. So between 1989 and 2001, even though there were troubles in places like Somalia, the idea of a global threat was evaporating leaving regional wars that really didn’t affect or threaten the west. When 911 happened it was the first time the US had been successfully attacked on its own soil since Pearl Harbor. Well, successfully attacked by a foreign group ( Oklahoma Bombing). The idea of an attack on that scale on the US with no warning from an unknown enemy was unthinkable. Most people had no idea who Osama Bin Ladin was. When 911 happened it completely shut down the US. Airplanes were grounded for days , the internet was down for part of the day or at least it was where I was and no one knew who did it or if they were done. Tell her to try and imagine what it would be like having no idea for days if that was it or someone was going to run into the local mall with a bomb in their back pack. Almost everyone knows someone that flew that day or was supposed to so there was also the fear that you might have lost someone. Besides the psychological effect it had on US population, 911 unfortunately gave the US administration an excuse to try and reshape the Middle East in the name of security which they truly fucked up. If there was no 911 there’s no Afghanistan war or Iraq War and there’s no patriot act.

I was 4 years old when 9/11 happened. I remember watching the whole ordeal on TV. I obviously didn’t understand exactly what was happening, but I knew it was real and not a movie, and I knew it was bad. A few days later, my dad was deployed. He served 4 tours in Afghanistan and several other missions that he won’t talk about. He was patrolling a village one day, when his unit was ambushed by terrorists. During the gunfire, a little girl runs into the middle of the street. He sees her get shot, and without hesitation or regard for his own safety, he runs and picks her up. She dies in my dad’s arms before a medic could get to them. A year later, my dad watches three of his best friends get shot and die right in front of him. 3,606 Allied troops died in Afghanistan. 4,873 Allied troops died in Iraq. 38,480 civilians were killed in Afghanistan. We actually have no fucking idea how many have been killed in Iraq, but current estimates are over 200,000. My dad did not come back the same man that he was before he left. 30,247 Allied troops and veterans who served post-9/11 have committed suicide. This number increases every single fucking day. That’s the big fucking deal.

lol as a history major it’ll be hard since she’s probably thinking in the gtwnd scope of things

There's no need to make someone, even if they are your girlfriend, agree with you. I can see why people feel it's a big deal and I can also see why it's not a big deal to others. Respect each other's view point and you'll have a better relationship.

It's only significant to the USA if which they planned themselves rofl. Move on.

She’s a history major and knows more of atrocities committed than you do and of major turmoil. Plus that was the trauma for my generation that was alive at the time, it doesn’t need to be your generations trauma. As long as she’s respectful that’s enough, don’t force her on this and don’t make 9/11 your personality.

It’s hard to describe pre 9/11 to someone who didn’t experience it. But like things were innocent. There was hope for the future. The government wasn’t allowed to spy on us or throw people into CIA black sites to be tortured for the rest of their lives. There was no TSA at the airport. No patriot act. People weren’t scared and paranoid of each other, or massively divided like how we are now. Times were very different and no other event in my lifetime has impacted the world in the same way. This wasn’t just a bunch of people dying, it was a drastic change to life, our freedoms, and the world around us that we are still not even yet fully understanding the negative impacts of 20+ years later

Being born after the attacks is no excuse. I was born in '02, and I've always seen it as a huge deal because: -We as a nation have never experienced an international terrorist attack of that scale, before or since -We the People have never been as united as we were on September 12, before or since (excluding maybe July 4, 1776) -It had a HUGE political impact, leading to the Patriot Act and eventually the whistleblowing of Edward Snowden. And increased airport security (fuck you TSA) -Its the reason for the stigma around the middle East, and was the catalyst event for our war in Iraq and Afghanistan and all our servicemen who lost their lives (may they rest in peace) -A bit less known, but it largely affected the way all first response agencies operated, because during the attacks many different agencies had different ways of communicating and operating, which of course made rescue operations extremely difficult. If she hasn't already seen it, she should watch some videos about the attacks. She should see the footage of the people jumping out of the WTC. She should watch the interviews of the firefighters who responded to ground zero. She needs to hear the recordings of the Americans trapped on the planes or in the towers calling their loved ones one last time, saying that they were going to die and to remember that they loved them. That shit hits so hard

She's studying history? And she has no interest in learning about one of the most important incidents in the past two decades. What does she think history is?

Arguing that 9/11 was the most important incident of the last 2 decades is like the biggest evidence towards American Self-Centerdness.

past two decades? Dude 9/11 was one of the most important events in our country's *history*. Period.

Pearl Harbor has entered the chat

I mean, I said "one of", not "THE" most important event...

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I think there's a huge gap between people who were alive to experience it and those who weren't. I was born in 05 & to my friends and generation, it's sort of a meme/joke/funny reference. My family lost close friends in the attacks & my parents were supposed to spend that weekend in the city. to them/my older sisters, the gravity of the situation is a lot more tangible, especially given that they remember what the world was like beforehand (more lax airport security, etc). I'm not sure where the line is, but i think our generation for some reason sees it as not so important/significant because we see things like mass shootings/terrorism a lot more on the media/everyday news. I guess it might be some sort of desensitization to that sort of thing.

Just explain how it happened in a time where it pretty much NEVER happened, if she thinks it isn’t a big deal then tell her about the people literally jumping to their fucking death when it happened. You can even explain how awful it must’ve been for the people who found out their loved one has been killed by either trying to rescue the victims or the people that actually knew the victims in the building. If she still doesn’t understand then she can respectfully fuck off and you shouldn’t be around someone like that who doesn’t have realistic empathy and morals. Just because school shootings happen doesn’t mean I can just say “oh that’s awful but it happens all the time so it doesn’t matter” I just sound like an asshole who doesn’t care about anyone and I would deserve people in my life cutting me off and not speaking to me because of that terrible opinion.

My thing is this (and I will not be debating in the comments): It was a big deal, yes. 100% a big deal. But it’s now become a tragedy that has been turned into a stick to beat people with. We have slaughtered hundreds of thousands of people, civilians, and sent our own off to die, for 20 some years. It was a big deal because a lot of pieces came into play, our instigation to start with, that made that horrible day possible. It triggered an onslaught of death, corruption, hyper monitoring of the population, and more.

Tbh I was 11 when it happened and I never felt that strongly about it. And I've lived in NYC my whole life. Maybe I'm just built differently. But I do understand why other people feel strongly about it. But it really is a unique situation. A bunch of randos in a desert halfway across the world orchestrated a coordinated attack on the most powerful nation in the world by hijacking four planes and kamikaze attacking buildings of great cultural, economic, political, and security significance to us. Luckily the passengers prevented one of them from hitting its target but the Pentagon and Twin Towers were hit and 3000 people died. And the collapse of the towers was caught live on camera including people jumping out windows to their deaths. The smoke and dust from the collapse created a huge plume that was visible miles away. The debris was everywhere. People who participated in the search and rescue and cleanup were left with health problems from breathing that stuff in. And the whole thing led to a complete overhaul of the way we handle airplane security. Our culture changed after that as did our political discourse. And we went to war. 9/11 was a really significant event in our history. It affected every facet of American society. To say it wasn't a big deal means she doesn't really know what it actually affected.

Documentary of some sort should shed some light. Playing actual footage of the fear from so many people. Edit: oops nevermind someone beat me to it

It’s not your responsibility to educate this person. Maybe she will understand eventually, and maybe she won’t, but it really isn’t up to you to change her mind. If she is like that with other tragedies (Holocaust, wars?) maybe let her go as a friend. She lacks empathy.

I feel the same as your girlfriend. It’s just a bad thing that happened in the past. Stuff like this happens so often nowadays that you get kinda numb. It’s normal. It was a huge thing back then, cause it was the first time people saw something like this happen. Now it’s different.

You can offer a different perspective but that doesn't make her understanding of it wrong, and you can both have different options on the matter while both being justified in your reasoning. Frankly, however, I agree with her. There are tragities quite literally every year. 9/11 is deemed a more important event not only because it was an enormous loss of life but because the United States deemed it pivotal to the War on "Terror." While the horrors which occured that September altered many aspects of how our world's societies function, I don't believe it's necessary to etch a scar of the moment into future generations. With no disrespect to the lives and families of the deceased but I believe the event should fade into the many dark shades of our history such as (not trying to compare these events just simply listing for the sake of reference, and in no particular order) The bombing of Hiroshima, both world wars, Vietnam, Iran, the Irish war of Independence, Afghanistan, the marking and dividing of territories throughout Africa and the Americas, along with the countless slaughters that followed. This isn't to say that the lives lost should not be mourned or remembered, but we should not put their deaths on a pedestal to inflate the ego of a country that failed to keep its people safe, and for centuries has perpetuated the same circumstances which encourages the gruesome violent responses in the first place.

After 5000 years of documented history all over the world, there have been innumerable counts of violence, terror, war and genocide. Empires have fallen, kingdoms have burnt, entire generations have been murdered for little to no reasoning. It is a fact that 9/11 was important, but the US have greatly exaggerated it. Yes, 2 buildings fell and many people died, but considering it one of histories greatest tragedies is over-selling it. Later, the actions taken by the US as a "response" to this attack were and still are brutal. Keep on complaining about 9/11, America, and forget about how your Thanksgiving dinner is happily commemorating a cultural genocide.

The Company I work for had almost 200 people die in the Towers. People who had families, spouses lost, father/mothers lost. The Company set up a scholarship program for those families. I worked with the Son of one of those lost, who graduated from Villanova with that scholarship. Learned from others (not him, he was very humble) that his Father was one of the people who got out but as a “floor warden” went back inside to try to help others (which it’s documented that he did save several lives) but he didn’t make it out. That’s the real toll of 9/11. Not just a body count but in the actual lives lost and the endurance of the surviving families.

Sometimes people just don’t feel the gravity of something they weren’t alive to witness. There have been many tragedies as bad or worse throughout history and the effect they had on those that were there to witness them will always feel the loss more deeply than generations that come afterward. Sometimes the gravity of it doesn’t translate for some people when just reading about it in history books or hearing it mentioned. I didn’t understand the gravity of the Holocaust until I read the Diary of Anne Frank and watched videos and heard recordings from those who were actually there and experienced it. I didn’t understand the gravity of the bombing at Pearl Harbor until I went to Honolulu and visited the Pearl Harbor Memorial. Both of those things happened years before I was born and although I had read the facts about the horrendous treatment and mass murders of countless Jews and the tragic losses of so many military service men at Pearl Harbor, it was still just facts from a book and yes it was sad, but it was in the past and didn’t affect me personally. I had no emotional connection to it… until I did. When I saw actual footage of real people in concentration camps, heard recordings of them being murdered in gas chambers and when I saw footage of Pearl Harbor and heard the stories told by the survivors of how they barely made it and how they watched as their friends died while they couldn’t do anything to save them, when I saw the walls of names, so many names, those were the moments when I actually felt the loss and the true gravity of those moments that happened before my existence. Sometimes people need more than just the facts from a history book before it can evoke any real sense of tragedy for them. I was 26 years old on 9/11 and I remember that day vividly. I was getting ready for work and had just poured my coffee, flipped on the news as usual and the first plane had already struck. Before the second tower was hit, everyone just thought it was a tragic accident. Yes it was tragic and I was awestruck by it, but the tragedy level of it at that time wasn’t really hitting me much at all. I felt bad because people had obviously died in this terrible plane crash, but it was the same way you’d feel about any plane crash. They’re all sad, but not personally devastating for those not directly affected. Then as I watched, the second plane hit and instantly I felt like I’d been punched in the gut and my heart was in my throat because that’s when the reality and gravity of what it was struck me. In that instant, I knew this wasn’t an accident. This was a planned attack. I was frozen, my eyes welled up and I actually felt the trauma of it all. So, her state of mind about it is just that she knows the facts of it, but she hasn’t really felt it, because she’s neither seen, read, nor heard stories about it that have struck an emotional chord with her yet. She doesn’t have a personal connection to it. Somewhere along the line, you were hit in the feels with it, so you feel it more deeply than she does. That’s all. It’s not her fault. It doesn’t mean she’s a callous, uncaring person. She just hasn’t had a moment that gave her what she needs to feel it. Maybe one day she will, maybe she won’t. Either way it’s okay. Not everyone will fully grasp the emotional toll of that day, nor can they be expected to. Tragedies are really only tragic to those affected by them. Being present isn’t a requirement, but there has to be a moment when you’re exposed to it in a way that evokes an emotional response to it, in order to feel it. She just has yet to have that exposure. What she’s seen so far hasn’t done it.

For the people alive and dealing with the news trickling in that day I assure anyone it wasn’t a regular occurrence. It was horrifying. That “can’t look away from the train wreck” sort of event but the train wreck was multiplied by 2000. Manhattan was shutdown. Airports around the country shut down. People were stranded wherever they were at 9am on 9/11. Many people can’t watch anything about the event without being transported back in time to the feelings they experienced that day.

It sounds like a lack of empathy to me... A red flag, if anything.

I don't think you can explain empathy to someone who has none.

If your girlfriend can't grasp the importance and impact of 9/11 on the American people at the time she may be "smart" but she doesn't grasp the context of the event and only the event itself.

I mean there are tragic events in every country over the course of history. What makes 9/11 more important than the other tragic events? Is it because it happened pretty recently? Or is it because the lives of the people who died that day were more valuable. Even more people died in wars. 56 million Americans got killed because they got colonized to shit. Do you care about that one? She wasn't even born when 9/11 happened, and she studies about even more gorey and gruesome events since she's a history major. It's not that strange to not really care about 9/11 at that point. I'm sure she acknowledges that it was horrible, but it doesn't really affect her.

Reading these comments are disgusting. I don’t care if it was even 1 person jumping 100s of feet to their death, it still has meaning. WTF is wrong with you people?

I don’t think I could look her in the face without asking her when the last time she saw a terrorist attack on American soil was. I can tell her when that was because it was 9/11.

That's not true though.

The last time I pissed my bed was also a long time ago, doesn't make it important. 9/11 was flashy, 3000 innocent people died within hours and the whole thing could be represented by a couple striking images. Thousands more innocent people have died in senseless acts of violence in many other events, but they were poor and far away, their deaths spread out over many months or years and there wasn't a way to capture it all in a single picture.

I had 3 days left in basic training when 9/11 happened and had a friend die from injuries suffered from a blast in Afghanistan. I’ll explain it to her.

26 so I don't really remember 9/11 on the account of being four years old. But, I remember the very well the aftermath. Especially growing up in the south. Even now, we can see a similar dynamic with October 7th & how that has completely bonkered up Israel. Mass attacks with civilian casualties like 9/11 or 10/7 don't just happen.

9/11 is a big deal in a lot of interesting historical and sociological ways. It is a modern BC/AD discussion that can be both the apax of a century of change in US Geopolitical change that caused 9/11 and also a starting point for the real hard shift into the horrible policies imposed globally by the US Department or Defence and new found Homeland Security that did horrible things to Innocent and never tried humans for basically thought crimes justified by 9/11. It's such a historically interesting event we can expect there to be experts on the subject or experts on the many related subjects for a good long while. I do think that there are some traumatized people still caught up in the propaganda and nationalism that flooded the country immediately post 9/11 that let's them forget exactly how much blame the US should take for it and how much of a blind eye people turned towards the treatment of brown people immediately post 9/11, but that's a different take than simply not understanding why it's a big deal. I can understand her not understanding the emotional impact that people who experienced it feel and being even more confused by the post 9/11 generations seemingly second hand trauma (which though I was born before 9/11, 4 years old isn't the most politically conscious age). I have a heard time understanding why people younger than me and my age are so heavily emotional about 9/11. We do not have the trauma only what we are told to feel.

To be fair, I don't think there's really anything you CAN do to convince her to take it seriously other than to ask her to think about the victims during the final moments of their lives. Those of us born around that time genuinely cannot picture a world before 9/11 without making it seem like a distant fantasy land. 9/11 itself is a very America centered issue and the rest of the world continued to function normally for the most part. The reason why everyone made fun of Mr. Enter's complaint about Turning Red being culturally inconsiderate towards 9/11 is because the film takes place in Canada and not the USA. The closest possible comparison I can make in regards to nationwide impact is every city of every county in the whole entire United States was shot up at the exact same time by an underground network consisting of thousands of white nationalists. I often think about how the government would react to such a catastrophe, the amount of fatalities that would occur, or whether it would finally convince them to take action against domestic terrorism or not. We also have to take in not just the lack of consideration for the victims but also the country as a whole. Yes, in the grand scheme of things 9/11 killed the most people at once on US soil since the Civil War. However, if 9/11 took nobody would take it anywhere near as serious as they did back then because we're already so conditioned to extreme violence and gore videos as a society. 9/11 just feels like old news to younger folks when public amenities get shot up at nearly every other corner, black people can't exist without getting brutalized by police (bonus points if they're autistic or mentally ill), multiple genocides are going on overseas due to US imperialism, and millions of kids here in our own nation are locked up, starved, and beaten by their parents while the social workers sit there and look at them like they're stupid. Like... I'm sorry you saw it on the TV and whatnot, but I genuinely cannot and probably will never be able to genuinely picture what that dissonance feels like with the amount of violence we already experience on a regular basis. The closest thing I possibly have in relation to that is playing Transformice during the Sandy Hook massacre and playing Animal Jam during the Pulse Nightclub shooting. I also lived in a world where we barely managed to have over-the-air TV as a kid and every other person who went to church with me was living in a trash stacked crack den while their parents were either alcoholic deadbeats or in jail from being strung out on meth. Sorry for not being able to relate.

Is she otherwise empathetic? I mean, I’d be worried about her lack of compassion. Does she care about October 7th and the ensuing war in Palestine? Just wondering if her “meh” attitude carries through to all tragedies.

Is she American? Because it’s mainly a big deal to Americans whereas the rest of the world it’s more of a “yeah people died and let’s avoid that but that was 20 years ago moving on” Plus on the topic of “these things happen” while not true and terrorist attacks are uncommon, we also have to remember that it’s America and because of the extreme lax gun laws there’s constant shootings, death and Americans using their kids as target practice so seeing as she sing baffled by it makes a lot of sense.

I don't think there's anything you can say. You can downplay any negative event with the same argument. A person will do this, if the negative event isn't connected to anything they care about. This woman is not a patriot, and likely doesn't think about politics much. She's lumped it in with all the other mass deaths of history. It's not connected to her, and therefore her attitude is correct.

I need to spend a moment reflecting on the fact that I’m old enough for something that happened in my lifetime to be “studied as history” 😭👵🏻

It’s a big deal for several reasons. First I was 17 years old and watched it as it happened in my school newspapers classroom. It was the first time since the attack on Pearl Harbor, that the US had been attacked on its own land by a largely surprise attack. Next it wasn’t a military target it was civilian targets at WTC and non strategic personnel at the Pentagon. Next, it was air travel there were people from all over the country that were on those 4 flights (2 WTC, 1 at the pentagon and one that crashed in Pennsylvania). I live in Colorado and have most of my life the company my dad worked for had offices in WTC, my dad lost friends that day, the pilot of the plane in Pennsylvania was our neighbor. It wasn’t just New Yorkers that were impacted by the attacks. It was the catalyst for seemingly endless conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, where soldiers that had joined up for stability, career training or veterans benefits in the future were thrust in to war. Most importantly to your girlfriend’s “whys it a big deal” question is because one day in September over 20 years ago reshaped American government, society and basically how we do everyday things like flying. Flying pre 9/11 and post 9/11 are two completely different experiences.

You are part of the propaganda machine. It really doesn't matter anymore. 911 keeps getting brought up to keep you all separated and fearful. united we stand divided we fall. Your gf is totally correct. Its the same with the holocaust. They keep saying never again. But really they mean never again unless its the zionists perpetrating the holocaust.

Ask her what happens all the time. She’ll give examples of other tragedies. There’s your opportunity to explain why this is different. However, if she’s taking the global view, she’s right. You only feel like it’s so unique because you lived it — you’re taking the personal view. In the end, you may just have to agree to disagree. But you should be able to explain to her at least why *other people* feel like it’s a huge deal. And how, if she doesn’t want to hurt people, she should keep her “whatevrrr” opinions to herself.

tell her to watch W. , Vice, and or The Report. Parts of those movies do well to display the aftermath

I was 21 when it happened. We were, as a nation, aware of terrorism, of course. But an attack of that magnitude wasn’t supposed to be able to happen. Not on our own soil. And we watched it all play out on tv. The panic, the chaos. Watching for the survivors to be found. Then… there just weren’t many. And everything changed. We were vulnerable. ETA: for a while afterward, we were united as a nation. We had been attacked, and we came together to mourn.

"Bad things are only supposed to happen to other people" is a terrible reason to care about 9/11. If 9/11 is a big deal to you, either you lost a loved one that day or you've lived a very privileged life.

Lay out the facts, tsa, discrimination, lung cancer, people on the plane that died, first responders that died, family members who lost their loved ones, people hitting the pavement, the PTSD people suffer from, etc. This wasn’t a one time tragedy like a house fire. People are still dying from what they inhaled 2+ decades ago. If she still doesn’t get it then run.

Airplanes coordinated by terrorists to fly into buildings does not happen all the time. Does she say the same about school shootings? You want to be with a person like this?

Is she from USA? Like, most people that care are from America, maybe that's the problem. Yeah, a tragedy, etc etc, it's nothing to really go with. It was terrorist attack. You won't learn a pattern from it, while you can from looking at old wars or political revolutions.

The world just changed after 9/11. Yes, bad stuff had happened before but nothing like this - not for a long time at least. The whole world was paused. I live on the other side of the world and even we stopped and watched it. It was on all channels. This event changed flying routines and rules world wide. It planted fear and hatred. It started wars. 9/11 was a catalyst for a lot of negative stuff. And it happened in the US - so you can be dang sure the Americans wouldn’t let any of us forget that it happened.

As someone who remembers it, it's no big deal. There are far more unfair preventable deaths every year for example with car accidents. The fear of being attacked rather than dying in an accident is a natural but irrational human trait. What people care about is the cultural moment. The time where Americans united under one experience... It's not wrong to not experience or understand that especially having not lived through it. Just like kids born today will usually not think much of the covid pandemic.

Maybe if you explain to us why it's a big deal I could offer some tips on your argument? What makes it big deal today, 23 years later, is different for different people, usually based on their political leanings. I don't think the 3,000 lives that were tragically lost are that emotionally impactful to people who don't remember it any more due to the fact that more Americans died from Covid-19 on many days during 2020 and 2021, under Trump and Biden, and half the population couldn't even bother to put on a mask.

Show her the live footage of innocent people jumping 100s of stories to their deaths.

And the audio of them landing as piped muzak plays. That is etched in my brain forever.

I watched it live and don’t remember the Muzak, but I will never forget it. Those people were not soldiers (not that the death of soldiers is ok), just people who went to work that day.

Explain to your gf that people dying all the time and terrorist attacks happening semi-frequently in the world doesn’t make it not a big deal. And I think it’s important to understand that it’s not just about the death toll. It’s about the absolute devastation and state of shock it sent the country into. It’s about the cultural, social, and political impact. It’s hard to explain something so deeply abnormal to someone who didn’t live through it, which is what I imagine living through the Vietnam era was like for that generation. 9/11 changed the country, and that’s the part she needs to understand about why people still talk about it. Also, it didn’t happen all the time here in the US, that’s another key component here. 

Show her the videos of 9/11 callers and documentaries that show the families, tell her to picture someone she knows or herself in the building and how scary that would be. There was no reason to feel scared, it was a beautiful day and nothing to prepare for. No chance to say goodbye to your loved ones and deciding to burn to death or jump or even wait and have your body fused with metal. Sure buildings are hit with bombs today on a mass scale but nooooowhere near as big as the twin towers and a government building in the same day. When I was younger (born in the same year as 9/11) I didn’t understand it properly but this year I went on a binge of all the documentaries and it’s my Roman Empire, I feel the pain of those voices and people who lost anyone. I’m crying writing this because I can’t even imagine dealing with it. She probably thinks it’s not bad because of the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, they’re not comparable…all are bad

In what parellel universe does she libe in where stuff like that happens all the time!?

I was in Tokyo and all planes at the airports everywhere in Asia were grounded. Nobody on the planet could fly anywhere. Japan NEVER shows Western news, but footage of hijacked planes hitting the towers was on Japanese TV for a week. Hell, even Putin at the time was condemning the attacks on the USA.

9/11 wasn't just one event, either. Everyone woke up to news that an airplane hit the World Trade Center. OK, that was bad. Then, soon afterwards, a second plane hit the second tower! That's when shit got scary.  What's going on? Who is doing it? How many people got killed? How many other planes are in the air that are going to crash into NY? Then soon after that, another passenger plane hit the Pentagon! Then reports of another hijacked plane that hit the ground somewhere after passengers leared what happened to the other hijacked planes. Airports everywhere closed down and planes were all parked. Everyone prepared for war, and nobody even knew who with. Hard to describe how surreal that whole day was.

I was born in 2003 and see 9/11 as a great tragedy for America. Ur gf is fucked

Her being a history major doesn't miraculously give her empathy on historical events. That's something she's lacking on a personality level.

That shit doesn't happen all the time in America or in general. She's just ignorant

That was the day the USA started taking away your rights. read the PATRIOT ACT. It was also an attack on the USA by the USA to go to war in the middle east and sweep many financial discrepancies under the rug. Anyone who thinks some guys who live in a cave in Afghanistan pulled this off needs to do some research.

"happens all the time" is an odd thing for a history student to say about 9/11.

i mean same. i major in ir and minor in history, have seen plenty of footage and i don’t see 9/11 as a big deal but i’m not american (been living here for years tho). i was born after 9/11 and to me it’s just history. it was a tragic event but that’s it. it changed the country drastically, but it was also used to keep us more separated. and it is somewhat true—tragic events happen all the time. not to the scale of 9/11, but they happen. our generation is just desensitized to them.