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 mericans
who toil in the comedy industry have pointed out that they're very
much adrift these days, and the slightest review of their post-911
work proves them right. It's hard to be consistently funny in the
best of times, and these days no one feels like joking around. While
gallows humor pleasingly mocks death, once death is in the room
the comedy ends. Irony — the first refuge of the exhausted
joke writer, television wise guy, and the would-be sophisticate
— is far too frivolous for these times.
Because more
attacks are expected, one can reasonably assume that our enemies,
while not destroying the American spirit, have gravely wounded our
sense of humor. Fortunately, there are other forms of entertaining
public discourse. One can spend hours being shocked, amazed, and
amused by pronouncements on What This All Means. To no surprise,
these explanations tend to reflect personal biases. The smoke that
continues to rise from the New York rubble is not only the shadow
of an act of war, but also an ink blot subject to diverse interpretations.
Two of the
nation's premier clowns, the Reverends Robertson and Falwell, have
not let down their audiences. As is well known, both are under the
impression that God was inspired to lift His protective shield because
of issues with the ACLU, organized homosexuality, and the abortion
industry. Meanwhile, other clerics tell us, Satan rang up the hijackers
(in Satan's inscrutable way) and sent them on their way. The only
way innocents could have escaped this Celestial event, it seems,
was to have called in sick or missed the bus.
After receiving
a spirited lashing, Robertson and Falwell attempted to beat a cowardly
retreat via the usual routes: Quotes were allegedly taken out of
context; Robertson didn't really understand what was being said
at the time, etc. The portly Falwell might have enjoyed better success
with the Twinkie defense, while Robertson could have got off by
merely pleading insanity. Yet the fact is, both seem to favor Old
Testament lessons in which Divine displeasure resulted in the unleashing
of enemies. Had Dim and Jerry been on Jesus's staff, one imagines
they would have argued that the poor adulteress be permitted to
perish beneath a hail of stones.
It is hard
to know the mind of God, one feels safe in saying, though most Americans,
including deeply religious ones (a rapidly expanding category) assume
He takes no part in the mass extermination of innocent people. Why
allow this to happen? Only the childish in faith expect God to stick
His finger in the barrels of unrighteous guns or deploy heart attacks
against hijackers. Of course, some of us have been listening to
the children so long we started believing them.
Other commentators
see far different messages in the smoke. Virginia Postrel, who bills
herself as a Dynamist, has offered her public views on the nature
of the heroes aboard Flight 93. Their willingness to apparently
crash the plane, she says, was based on characteristics easily divined:
"The entire passenger rebellion challenges every assumption
of the neoconservative view of American decadence. First, it happened.
Regular guys on business trips overpowered hijackers and saved their
fellow Americans from a fourth disastrous hit. And not only were
these men of action technology executives — and a high-tech
p.r. guy! — but Bingham was gay." Summing up, Postrel
tells us these brave men were "The kind of leaders nourished
by an entrepreneurial economy in which merit is more important than
hierarchy or background. Not obedient Organization Men."
No doubt due
to deadline pressures, or perhaps due to a distaste for religious
belief, Postrel seems to have overlooked the apparent fact that
Todd Beaman, who appears to have lead the rebellion, likely found
far more inspiration for his heroism in Christianity than his professional
affiliation. As has now been revealed, Beaman attended Wheaton College,
a Christian school whose temperament was not long ago reflected
in a debate over changing the school's team name from the Crusaders
to the Prayer Warriors. During a phone conversation with an operator
prior to ordering his compatriots to "Let's roll" against
the hijackers, he asked her to recite with him Psalm 23. Apparently,
it never crossed his mind to recite from Atlas Shrugged.
A somewhat similar view was offered by Claudia Rosett, the excellent
Wall Street Journal columnist, who explained that Americans
have responded so nobly to this disaster because we are tied to
each other in a great materialistic matrix. "Americans are
no more intrinsically virtuous than Russians, or Arabs, or Chinese
or any other group on the planet," she explained. "What
does make us different is that we enjoy a system of free markets
and democracy in which almost everyone — to get ahead —
has incentives to contribute to the common good. Even the most selfish
and bigoted among us stand to profit by supplying something that
others value. We grow up bathed in evidence that even people we
don't like may have much to offer that we prize. And, especially
in times of trouble, this makes it a lot easier to love each other."
One imagines
that all those dead firemen and cops were motivated by more powerful
forces; indeed, dispatches from Manhattan are very short on passages
about survivors seeking guidance and comfort in the writings of
Adam Smith. Instead, they're immersed in Holy Writ — and perhaps
wondering why God allows his ground crew to include clowns. Must
have something to do with tolerance, though that's only a very biased
guess.
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