NRO Symposium

National Review Online has a symposium on the 9/11 attacks. Some excerpts:

James Lileks: If 9/11 had really changed us, there’d be a 150-story building on the site of the World Trade Center today. It would have a classical memorial in the plaza with allegorical figures representing Sorrow and Resolve, and a fountain watched over by stern stone eagles. Instead there’s a pit, and arguments over the usual muted dolorous abstraction approved by the National Association of Grief Counselors. The Empire State Building took 18 months to build. During the Depression. We could do that again, but we don’t. And we don’t seem interested in asking why.The good news? We returned to our norm: cheerful industrious self-directed Americans who think in terms of fiscal quarters, not ancient grievances, and trust in Coke and Mickey to spread our message of tolerance and prosperity. The bad news? Same as the good. Or perhaps it’s the other way around.

Mark Steyn: Anyone who’s mooched about the Muslim world for even brief amounts of time is struck by what David Pryce-Jones calls its “intellectual poverty”: It has a remarkable lack of curiosity about anything beyond its horizons. That hobbled it for centuries in its wars against the west. But our multicultural mindset is its mirror image: For isn’t the principle characteristic of “multiculturalism” its almost total lack of curiosity about other cultures? The multicultis make bliss of ignorance: You don’t need to know anything about Islam, you just have to feel warm and fluffy about it, and slap that “CO-EXIST” bumper sticker on your Subaru. If you want to know how little changed on 9/11, look at how it’s being observed in the nation’s schools.

Andrew Stuttaford: It was never going to be a day when “everything” changed. Those days don’t exist. What did change, and changed most profoundly, was Americans’ idea that they could, if they so chose, somehow keep themselves at arm’s length from the rest of the world. That’s gone — and it’s gone for good. It was an idea that hung on — just — through the Cold War, preserved by the realization that in a contest between (reasonably) rational nations, deterrence generally works. Now that comfort has gone. The latest enemy is not made up of states (or not primarily anyway) but of individuals empowered by technology and, in some cases, a religious fanaticism that leaves them immune to the usual deterrents. Throw in the ease of global travel and the stage is well set for a repeat of that terrible morning.

[HT: Instapundit ]