The Moment of Truth

Historical analogies are a ticklish business, especially when they are proposed while a fine, cruel dust still blankets the desolation of Lower Manhattan. So I will not compare the events of last Tuesday to Pearl Harbor, or to the sinking of the Lusitania, or the assassination of Franz Ferdinand in Sarejevo, or any of the other terrible “turning points” in the long and bloody 20th century.

Perhaps this will be remembered, as many pundits are already proclaiming, as the end of the “post-Cold War era,” and the true beginning of the 21st century. Perhaps decades hence, our generation will look back wistfully on those gilded days before the September Massacre, just as those who survived the First World War nostalgically recalled the vanished era before Europe plunged into blood and darkness. Perhaps I will come to regard my own 2001 summer—spent, like the summers of so many Harvard students, amid the topless towers and teeming streets of Manhattan Island—as a fleeting glimpse of a golden age, a vision of Babylon before the judgment of the Lord came upon it.

Perhaps. But for now, at least, we cannot say that this is a turning point, because we do not know what we are turning toward. All that we can say is that it is a moment of truth, a moment when certain things become clear, when the illusions and prejudices that cloud our gazes lift ever-so-briefly, to reveal the reality beyond.

This is a moment of truth, first and foremost, for the United States of America, awakened suddenly from a comfortable slumber. Since the end of the Cold War or before, we have wrapped ourselves in dreams—of peace without struggle, of power without sacrifice, of victory without cost. We have heaped up wealth and lived in meretricious splendor, while our politicians squabble over imaginary “lockboxes” and our popular culture dredges the gutter for lowest-common-denominator fare. And we have fought our wars from a distance, dropping bombs from 30,000 feet and lobbing missiles across continents, while at home we have occupied ourselves with endless, FX-laden tales of the “greatest generation,” those stalwart heroes of an earlier time, when wars were fought by men and not by cruise missiles.

But now the boom is gone, the dot-coms are shuttered, the Age of Clinton has come to an end, and the time has come again to decide what kind of nation we will be. Will we be the America that our enemies—the bin Ladens and Iranian mullahs, the fascist despots of Beijing and the tinpot tyrants of the Third World—enjoy painting us as, the champion of depravity and crass materialism, of corporate bottom lines and gaudy, hyper-capitalist excess, the America whose culture drowns in a sea of sadism and sensuality? Or will we be the America of our own fondest dreams, the champion of liberty at home and abroad, the nation whose commercial zeal is tempered by faith, hope and charity? The choice, for better or worse, is ours to make.

This is also, needless to say, a moment of truth for President George W. Bush, the Man from Midland, elected by the barest of electoral margins and held in contempt by so many (especially here at Harvard). His presidency now will be judged not on budget surpluses or prescription drug benefits, but on his response to this sudden trial by fire. Bush has suddenly become a wartime president—and this is a war, make no mistake, one that began when America first stretched out its hand to support the state of Israel, and has continued through Lebanon in the 1980s, the World Trade Center in 1993, our African embassies in 1998 and the USS Cole last year.

It will continue until the terrorist threat is crushed, or until the bin Ladens and Husseins and Assads succeed in driving us from the Muslim world and remaking the vastness and variety of Islamic civilization in their own dark image. In this light, whether Bush wins re-election is ultimately immaterial—victorious leaders from Churchill to Bush the Elder have been turned out of office by the fickle popular will. Before the bar of history, he will be judged on whether he wins the war that has been so suddenly and shockingly given to him, and to us.

And yes, although we may not realize it yet, this is a moment of truth for Harvard University as well, and for its oh-so-sophisticated student body. For 30 years now, since the Vietnam War drove ROTC from campus and made love of country seem unfashionable and out of date in fair Cambridge, Harvard students have maintained a fashionable, post-patriotic pose that regards national pride with suspicion or outright disgust. The Harvard-spawned ruling class, fanning out across New York and Washington and Hollywood each year, often seems to disdain the people and the nation that it aspires to govern.

For now, at least, with the taste of blood and ashes still strong, Harvard’s usual mix of one-world pacifism and knee-jerk anti-American sentiment seems muted. But already the whispers have begun, in dining halls and chat groups and classrooms, wherever our jaded, over-privileged meritocrats can quietly express their disdain for the simple, easily manipulated sentiments of the common man. If you listen closely, you can hear them—all those flags make me uncomfortable ... this is just an excuse for the Republicans to build up the military ... it’s tragedy, sure, but not a war ... I wish everyone would just calm down ...

And worst of all, here and there—well, you know, I hate to say it, but we kind of had it coming.

To those people, those preening “free thinkers” and earnest, self-congratulatory “humanitarians,” one can only ask if there is any limit to their smug, mindless detachment from the life of their country, and from the natural feelings of their fellow men.

If you cannot feel patriotism now, then you can never feel patriotism.

If you are disgusted by the flag now, then you should never hold one.

And if you do not feel a burning desire to visit a terrible justice on those responsible—not just on the foot soldiers, but on the men whose words made such an act thinkable, and whose power made it possible—well, then you do not believe in justice at all.

Ross G. Douthat ’02 is a history and literature concentrator in Quincy House.