I'm half way through this piece and am reading it in conjunction with David Foster Wallace's essay "The View from Mrs. Thompson's" (from Consider the Lobster . In these short works the authors monitor their reaction and that of their communities to 9/11. It's a good juxtaposition and goes a long way toward illustrating how good authors make the experience of their own lives accessible to readers and use their stories to say something significant about the broader human experience.

Didion lives in New York and is a

'We had seen, most importantly, the insistent use of September 11 to justify the reconception of America's correct role in the world as one of initiating and waging perpetual war.'

Joan Didion's 2003 essay makes the compelling case that the 9/11 tragedy was and has been used by the US government to neutralise resistance to a pre-existing right-wing agenda of 'further tax cuts, the necessity for Artic drilling, the systematic elimination of regulatory and union protections, even the funding for the missile shield.'

In support of this, the official narrative became one of 'moral clarity', rejecting any notion of post-modern relativism. Thus, at the same time as claiming that the attack on the US and her allies was provoked by a hatred of the West's freedoms (of speech, thought, democracy etc.), the official narrative also encouraged the curtailing of those freedoms in unequivocal support for a united, patriotic position, where any criticism of US culture and policy is derided as unpatriotic.

This essay was written in 2003, two years or so after the 9/11 attacks. It's relevance today in September 2017 is stark.

In the last day or so President Trump made his maiden speech to the annual UN General Assembly. “We meet at a time of immense promise and great peril,” Trump said in his address to the more than 150 international delegations. “It is up to us whether we will lift the world to new heights or let it fall into a valley of disrepair.”

Making direct reference to North Korea's nuclear ambitions Trump stated that “The United States has great strength and patience, but if it is forced to defend itself or its allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea,” Trump said, before calling Kim Jong Un by a nickname he gave the dictator on Twitter over the weekend. “Rocket Man is on a suicide mission for himself.” (Quotes taken from the Washington Post).

Didion's essay reminds us that Trump's chilling rhetoric echoes that following 9/11 when 'the Department of Defense was talking as early as June about unloosing, for the first time since 1945, high-yield nuclear weapons.'

In the final analysis Didion exposes the fundamental flaw in the 'moral clarity' argument. At times of greatest risk true morality is located in an open and inclusive exploration of the issues in a way that welcomes challenge and dissent.

Fixed ideas are the problem, not the solution.

Read for my Modernism and Postmodernism class. I had to lead discussion for this book, so I got very well acquainted with it. That said, I really liked it. The ideas presented were well thought out and expressed, and I resonated with a lot of her ideas around the nature of discussion in America post-9/11. Very enjoyable, 4 stars

9/11

  
[Young people relax during their lunch break along the East River while a huge plume of smoke rises from Lower Manhattan after the attack on the World Trade Center. Brooklyn, New York, USA. September 11, 2001. © Thomas Hoepker / Magnum Photos

Sempre interessante da leggere, ma che vergognosa operazione commerciale quella del Saggiatore, che ad hoc, viste le imminenti celebrazioni per i vent'anni dagli attacchi terroristici alle Twin Towers, rispolvera tre articoli scritti da Joan Didion nel 2003, li impagina a colonne di quotidiano, ne riesce a ricavare una cinquantina di striminzite pagine, e li vende sotto forma di esile (molto esile) libro.
Sarebbe stato bello leggere le considerazioni sui vent'anni da allora e su come in questi venti anni gli USA abbiano affrontato ed elaborato il trauma collettivo - soprattutto visti i tempi, che ci portano nuovamente ad affrontarne uno - ma queste sono considerazioni ed elaborazioni ferme a poco meno di vent'anni fa.

A very thought provoking read, and although it was written almost 20 years ago, the intervening time gives us even greater insight into the American psyche. I wish Joan Didion would write an essay on this year, election, pandemic and all.

Didion's monograph is as prescient now as it was then. She stands as a beacon against the illegality of America's invasion of Iraq and this essay acts as a testament against the nation's fallacious thinking.

Sinossi editoriale
L’11 settembre 2001 Joan Didion vide, come tutti in tutto il mondo, un video che non avrebbe mai creduto di vedere. Passò la giornata in stato di shock, poi decise di andare a casa di amici. L’invito era per una festa, ma si trasformò in una scusa per non stare da sola, per assorbire insieme agli altri la tragedia delle due torri del World Trade Center di New York – agili e verticali come i due 1 dell’11, simmetriche come le colonne che si specchiano nelle pagine di un libro – distrutte dagli aerei in picchiata. In Idee fisse Joan Didion racconta la sua reazione personale al trauma collettivo e analizza la risposta dell’America, la narrazione monolitica che ne è scaturita – le «idee fisse» della guerra al terrorismo – e che a ben guardare propugnava una precisa agenda politica: nazionalismo, imperialismo, interesse economico. Attraverso gli occhi di Joan Didion vediamo i minuti in cui il futuro si è materializzato davanti a noi. Attraverso la sua voce viviamo l’evento storico che più ha segnato il nostro tempo. Attraverso la sua penna sgretoliamo le certezze che ci hanno spacciato da vent’anni a questa parte. Joan Didion ancora una volta frantuma monoliti, ovvero compie il gesto che ogni scrittore dovrebbe, che tutti noi dovremmo compiere ogni giorno della nostra vita.

Le “Idee fisse” sono quelle murate nella testa delle persone, quelle che non si cambiano per nulla al mondo. Quelle preconcette, che partono da un punto fingendo di avere un obiettivo è magari ne nascondono altri mille sotto sotto, segreti, indicibili, subdoli.
Sono quelle che hanno fatto sì che un singolo evento (che ha concentrato in una singola immagine un secolo di complicati accordi e disaccordi) invece di esser preso come momento necessario per rileggere, esplorare e approfondire la storia e le decisioni politiche prese di un paese intero, sia stato invece ridotto al sentimentale, reso meno leggibile, polarizzato nei possibili punti di vista e quindi, alla fine, svuotato del suo significato.
Sono idee a volte studiate a tavolino, a volte che nascono spontaneamente nella mente di una nazione sconvolta da un fatto e da immagini così atroci (quelle di due torri gemelle che si accasciano su se stesse con migliaia di persone all’interno).
Nessuno nega la barbarie di questi fatti, tantomeno Didion. Ma non si tira neanche indietro dal porre l’accento sul potere incredibile della narrazione che all’epoca ha saputo coprire ad arte tutti i ragionamenti e le riflessioni complesse sulla questione, imponendo un focus incredibile sulla distinzione tra buoni e cattivi, tra eroi patrioti e terroristi. Perché se metti in dubbio la guerra al terrorismo, vuol per forza dire che stai dalla parte dei terroristi. Punto. Così funzionava, ha funzionato e continua tutt’oggi in parte a funzionare il ragionamento di una grandissima parte della classe politica americana di fronte a qualsiasi argomento tocchi le varie crisi mediorientali e la celebre “lotta al terrorismo” internazionale.
Un libro di “pensieri sparsi” che, seppur breve, risulta alla fine decisamente complesso (per non dire difficile).
Da rileggere più e più volte, possibilmente con altri libri/risorse alla mano.

Didion is on point, but occasionally overly expansive and opinionated. She reports, but also reveals her opinion on America since 9/11. Worth reading. Short and to the point.

This is a great run of thoughts and criticisms formed following 9.11 and the reactionary years. While focusing mainly on the process of eliminating debate and discussion following the terrorist attacks, Didion outlines several contradictions in policy, practice, and PR that also help to explain how the US got (completely off-topic?) into the current mess in Iraq.

She writes,
"We have come in this country to tolerate many such fixed opinions, or national pieties, each with its own baffles of invective and counterinvective, of euphemism and downright misstatement, its own screen that slides into place whenever actual discussion threatens to surface. We have for example allowed American biological research to fall behind that in countries where stem cell programs are not confused with 'cloning' and 'abortion on demand,' countries in other words where rationality is not held hostage to the posturing of the political process."

It is partly the spin of what Didion calls 'fixed ideas' that have effectively thrown the proverbial sand in the eyes of many Americans who would otherwise think and behave rationally and/or critically.

Very thought-provoking and worth the few minutes it takes to read.

This his short discussion of the birth of the tendency towards “fixed ideas,” (unchallengeable opinions) in US politics following 9/11 provides some historical context for unpacking and understanding our modern political climate. It made for a thoughtful read this July 4th morning.

A unique entry in the "why do they hate us?" file of post-9/11 literature, this very brief volume (44 pages! with the fattest margins you've ever seen!) is focused inward. Instead of reflecting on foreign policy leading up to 9/11, this essay is a meditation on how the tragedy was used to build new rhetorical boundaries to help those in power achieve the same old goals. Didion describes how, at a moment in history when all past assumptions were up for grabs, the establishment - led by Bush/Cheney - took advantage, in the classic shock therapy style, so they could neutralize criticism and carry out the agenda they had before 9/11 happened.