The Zong

One of the saddest eventualities of the infamous day that we mark on this Tuesday actually manifested itself for me personally a little over a week ago, as I attended a party where a great deal of beer and other recreational substances were consumed. At some point late in the evening/early in the morning, I found myself to be an antisocialite, choosing not to fraternize with the surging crowd but instead to sit in one of the bedrooms and wax socio-political with two of my closest and most unapologetically intellectual friends, Joe Alterio and Molly Soudant. It should not shock you to learn that this is not the first time we’ve done this, and while many of the subjects we’ve discussed over the years have been weighty, I suppose they were mostly light enough to feel satisfying in the back room at a party. How many of the world’s problems did we solve only to lose our salvation to the abyss of drunken disremembrance?

And so I think it’s maybe a sad thing that, all things considered, September 11th has become a back-room party conversation subject. I can say that the subject itself was and usually is given appropriate respect whenever myself or any of my friends commit to discussing it, and fair insight was given into the symptoms that beguile our generation and our democracy. I’m truly lucky to have so many intelligent, thoughtful friends to converse with in such lofty language with such reverence for the Great Idea, whatever it happens to be this week.

Anyhow, that night we spoke about what has happened to this generation since it was handed its big, terrible test 6 years ago, and for a short while I felt pride in the audacity of our anger. We remembered the towers falling and saying, almost in unison, that everything was going to be different from then on, that this terrible event would galvanize our generation into a vehicle for change. After remembering these things, I said without any intended hyperbole that I have never been so wrong about anything before in my entire life.

It occurs to me that perhaps this is America’s definition of Victory; being able to carry on without changing anything at all means the terrorists can go get fucked. It would be an admirable trait if it wasn’t simply the lazy, brain-dead masses of my generation masquerading as martyrs.

Every year at this time, probably for the rest of my life, this day will be full of ceremony and empty rhetoric. It’s a somber occasion perfect for selling advertising on the major media outlets, and at the end of the day we can turn on Seinfeld reruns and feel like we’re doing just fine as long as we “Never Forget.” Never mind that the man who is responsible for the attacks is alive and well and still making commercials for Al Qaeda, and that we re-elected a president who fucked up his capture in Tora Bora and then invaded the wrong country. As long as we Never Fucking Forget what happened, then I guess it really doesn’t matter what we do.

And who am I to stand and accuse my generation of inaction? After 9-11, I didn’t enlist in the Armed Forces or become a fireman or run for office. I donated some blood and then made a habit of getting drunk and yelling a lot about the Patriot Act at strangers in bars. Now I write a blog, and I appreciate your readership, but these days, blogs are definitely like assholes. I mean, as much as I want to blame all the poor, ignorant morons who voted for Bush once or twice, I certainly can’t shift the blame off of my own shoulders; whatever it is I tried to do as a member of a generation of strong, young adults when the World Trade Center collapsed simply wasn’t enough, and the direction in which this country has turned or failed to turn is the responsibility of its people. They are a people who don’t like to vote, love tax cuts, and are too fucking lazy to change anything if it means reading more than a few sentences or thinking more than a few months into the future.

And so we mark 9-11 as we always will: with a body count, some speeches about how the world was somehow changed on that day, and a solemn promise that we will not forget the innocent people who died. Intellectuals will bark at one another and write nasty blogs about all the closeted gay republicans, and will presumably go to parties where they’ll discuss the horror of it all while having drinks. At the same time, America will watch whatever is on television, living in enough fear to be controlled, but not fearful enough to change the channel.

- M.G.