Air Force One Flyover in New York

Cueball wrote:

I am totally sympathetic to the families and friends of those killed in the 9/11 event, as well as those who narrowly avoided death, and any others who experienced the event in a direct way. Where have I said I was not?

In fact I took issue with the construction of the crowd reaction as being somehow associated with some kind of mass traumatic experience of "New Yorkers" as group who jointly suffered through the event to the extent where they are expressing a kind of mass associative PTSD. When really, as for the event itself goes, most were watching from afar, video cameras out, or sitting at home watching it unfold on TV, in exactly the same manner that I did, very much like people gathering around and watching a very large and catastrophic car accident. The person who took this new footage is jogging laterally with his video camera glued to the object in the sky. There is this weird voyeuristic feeling of schadenfreund about this whole thing that leaves me cold, when in fact I know that there must be many persons experiencing very deep reactions to the event specifically because they directly experienced serious trauma and grave loss.

Now there is also the emotional claim being made on behalf of "New Yorkers" as a whole, against the suffering of those individuals who where truly changed by the event, as if their traumatic experience can truly be "shared" vicariously, I think this framing cheapens the seriousness of their trauma and their loss. I am sure that when those people are experiencing their reaction to their traumatic exeperience, they are not reflecting upon that in the context of their status as a "New Yorkers" but as that of wifes, husbands, mothers, fathers, sons daughters and friends.

New York probably doesn't enter into that equation much at all.

Many of these other "New Yorkers" who we are being told now were so traumatized by 9/11, merely set the tripod up on the balcony, switched the camera on, and then reached into the fridge for another beer.

I think I do get what you're saying here and do agree with some of your take on that part but originally when this thread started you that was not the slant. You were the first to post the You-tube video of people running in fear and then made somewhat dismissive comments about the nature of that fear. That actually seemed quite schadenfreundy to me. How did you know that the people in that video or other people weren't the wives, husbands, mothers, fathers, friends, sons and daughters of people that were directly traumatized or people that directly experienced it. I don't think you know any more then I do. The nature of the original post nor some of what came after it was oh look scared people how funny and stupid, they're all being manipulated by whatever.

So what if there were the types setting up the tripod and grabbing a beer? I'd speculate that there were also many people who saw the plane, went 'meh' and wondered what all the people around them were going panicky about as well. That doesn't somehow discount all of the other people who reacted in fear or take away from what they actual experienced in that panic. It wasn't just about numbers or somehow a comment about every single person in New York.

I also do have to comment that with what I think you're saying here in that people whether a part of the actual physical community or beyond can't experience real or 'shared' emotions or trauma in reaction to events unless they were directly affected by it (as in person). Empathy and understanding isn't necessairly regulated by physical location and space, neither does it necessarily take away or cheapen what the actual people involved felt. There is a difference in my mind of course of how that empathy is expressed but simply saying how one can emphazise or considering how events might make other people feel from their perspective isn't taking away from them.

I agree that comments on behalf of all "New Yorkers" are taking it to a different realm but I didn't see that happening here. People were responding more to those that were the ones that did have the reaction. Yes people used the phrase "New Yorkers" but if you read what was said it's clear to me that it was being used more as a generic descripter that's just easier to use instead of 'the people in New York that were scared'. I don't think anyone was actually thinking this applies to all and every single New Yorker.

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More than you I think. How about that. I will lay claim to the moral high ground, since that seems to be your tack. In fact, I will make that claim based on the fact that I am willing to examine this tragedy not in the manner of someone who sends out hallmark cards to the friends and families of the bereaved, as a matter of form, but as someone who is actually willing to consider the loss in real terms, context, cause and effect.

And what exactly is more moral about that tact? I'd actually argue that it's not a matter of one or the other. I'd argue that both are inherently moral actions and put together are even better if we're trying to quantify what's a more moral way of reacting to something.