Philosophy

Terrorism is a very vague yet concrete word. It is a term describing any hostile act detrimental to the public which aims at debilitating concepts and outlook of normal people. Anyone exposed to any acts of terrorism will never look at  the world the same way again.

The terrorist attack on September 11, 2001 is the concrete manifestation of such vague word. It solidifies the concept of fear and anxiety that goes with the term Terrorism.  The article  talks about the irrational fear that the 911 attack brought about to the lives of the Americans. The author argued that the intense reaction of fear among Americans is irrational.  The word irrational is the negated form of the term  rational which means coherent , sane or grounded  on valid reasons. So ,to say irrational means any actions, decisions or views expressed in baseless or even thoughtless manner created by mere illusions.  Irrational fears is a persistent fear that is excessive and unreasonable cued by the presence or anticipation of a specific object or situation ( DSM-IV (TR) Criteria,2000).  The American fear is not baseless at all, more so, not irrational. American fear is a result of an awakening that the worlds foremost nation is not at all omnipotent. For the longest time, the United States of America has been looked upon by the world as the foremost country of power, intelligence and security. No nation had ever attacked the US in its own soil. Then on that very day of September 11, 2001, the US was infiltrated with terrorist at the very heart of the nation, shaking every Americans  security bubble. The attack shattered the whole concept of safety and security . It is a wake up call that everybody is vulnerable to terrorism.

Intentionally or unintentionally, the  attack was aimed towards the public who are the most vulnerable. Thus, the previous concept of precaution now becomes an obsessive fear of any forthcoming terrorist attacks for most Americans. The previously considered exaggerated security measures now becomes a standard procedure causing panic to the majority of the Americans. Authorities issued heightened alerts everywhere and everybody   is never innocent anymore.  So to speak of the reaction of the attack as mere irrational fear is not seeing the rationale of the attack. The September 11 attack is not about killing  a number of people , it is about paradigm shift. It is attacking  the mindset of all nations that not even America is spared of any acts of terrorism.

The second argument that the author presented  that to a greater extent Americans unwittingly cooperated the terrorists in achieving the goal of spreading fear and disrupting lives .

Any events that is rare and tragically monumental creates outcry from the public which eventually gains media attention. It is a story that America do not want to forget. In a way, such public concern increases the  fear volume  more and more. The power of media zoom in the images of destruction and  loss. It exposed the failures of security , systems and  procedures. The attack created  questioning minds amongst majority of the Americans   towards the government and its measures and countermeasures. It exposes the loopholes in the systems and the more the public sees these images of the attack the more they fear that indeed the system could not protect them. It is a paranoia created by stories compounded over disappointments and fear. The worst kind of fear is when you realize that any person or a group of people could do hostile acts in random due to extreme hate and no law in the land could ever stop it.

To prove that the Americans became instruments of fear dissemination is a hard fact to prove nor a hard  assumption to refute. The story of September 11 tragedy is not a scare propaganda rather, it is a story  of noble sacrifice that no one should ever forget.