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Have you grown weary of 9/11?

Bronx posted on Sep 03, 2007 | views: 297 | Tags: national mourning, when crying should stop, forget, 9/11, Katrina and 9/11, personal tragedy, remembering disasters
I haven't. In fact, I was just reminded yesterday that six years had actually gone by since then! Could the 9/11 tag have made it easier to remember - like everyone thinks of the 7/11 store down the road in an emergency?

Some people are suggesting that the memory of the 9/11 phenomenon should be toned down a bit, especially because, over the years, most people have gradually forgotten equally landmark tragedies - like  Louisiana's Katrina disaster and:

[....As the ragged nature of life pushes on, it is natural that the national fixation on an ominous event becomes ruptured and its anniversary starts to wear out. Once-indelible dates no longer even incite curiosity. On Feb. 15, how many turn backward to the sinking of the battleship Maine in 1898?

Few Americans give much thought anymore on Dec. 7 that Pearl Harbor was attacked in 1941 (the date to live in infamy). Similar subdued attention is paid to other scarring tragedies: the Kennedy assassination (Nov. 22, 1963), Kent State (May 4, 1970), the Oklahoma City bombing (April 19, 1995).

Generations, of course, turn over. Few are alive anymore who can recall June 15, 1904, when 1,021 people died in the burning of the steamer General Slocum, the deadliest New York City disaster until Sept. 11, 2001. Also, the weight of new wrenching events crowds the national memory. Already since Sept. 11, there have been Katrina and Virginia Tech. And people have their own more circumscribed agonies....]


What do you think? Have you grown weary of remembering disasters?

Is it better for the grieving families to be left to bear their loss or should the government continue to make such tragedies a public day of mourning?

Should the crying ever stop? I just need your opinions - I am not making any inherent statements of mine by posing the questions above, BTW.




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Comments

  • pickersplock said on Sep 03, 2007....
    I won't forget.
    We live about 2 1/2 hours from NYC.
    My husband's brother worked near the trade center and was just getting off of the subway, when the first tower fell.  His shoulder was dislocated while running from the chaos.
    One of my good friends lived over a Brooklyn firehouse and knew most of the guys there.  None of them returned that day.
    And I won't forget all the helicopters flying overhead here, the school lock down,
    I won't forget any of it.
  • SeanRenaud said on Sep 03, 2007....
    I don't think we really have a choice, unless it becomes a national holiday that we get to take off from work and school then I think that the fact is that we will naturally forget in another decade or so.
  • Bronx said on Sep 03, 2007....
    pickers: oh, I'm so sorry about your personal exposure to it all.

    Sadly, the article mentions the fact that once those who remember such tragic incidents strongly pass away, the memory of it all tends to fade over time as new events take over.

    Later generations tend to forget the past, unless they read about it somehow or somewhere.
  • Bronx said on Sep 03, 2007....
    Sean: hi...yes, the memory fades after a while - until a similar or related incident jolts our memory back to the original event.
  • silverwhisper said on Sep 03, 2007....
    i think we should stop marking them formally. i think memorials and the like deleteriously impact our ability to heal. indeed, it's for that reason that i will never post a blog entry about that day.

    ed
  • Bronx said on Sep 04, 2007....
    SW: wow....that's quite a definite resolution.....IMHO, i think I agree with you - the sadness in the past should not overshadow the joy in the present.

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