Ten years ago, in the aftermath of the terrible attack on the Twin Towers, I wrote this essay. It was hard to see then how our lives would be changed by that event, but I felt then, and feel now, that the solution to savagery is the free flow of truth.
(Written September 12, 2001 early in the morning)
Dear Fellow Readers:
It is three o’clock in the morning. I trust that many of you are also awake, reliving in your minds the events of this week, images that put our nightmares to shame. In the midst of our horror and anger we feel a terrible curiosity about this enemy that has shattered our peace and security. Who are these terrible people and why won’t they leave us alone? Colin Powell has described these atrocities as “an attack on civilization.” Yet our attackers, though ruthless barbarians, are also well funded, well trained and well educated. “We have a thinking enemy,” he said today.
What is the “civilization” that is under attack here? How can one be educated without becoming civilized? It all depends, I contend, on what and how you read. The science fiction thriller, Fahrenheit 451, imagines our people overcome by despots who destroy our books. (451 degrees Fahrenheit is the temperature at which paper burns). In response, a small band of rebels memorizes the great books and passes them on, by rote, to their children. There is a moving scene in the movie where an old man, dying, recites the lines of a Dickens novel to an eager young boy, who is memorizing them as fast as he can. Literature is represented as a force that can help save civilization.
Is this true? Will Dickens, Austen and Thoreau somehow protect us from evil? Can Shakespeare stand against suicide bombers? The canon of Western literature revolves around a common theme: the worth of the individual. From Plato to the Bible, from Goethe to the latest Grisham novel, the underlying assumption of both great and popular literature is that every person has intrinsic value, every individual has a story, and every story is worth telling. Our dreams, our ambitions, even our mistakes are important.
We are more than cogs in a great machine; each of us is a complete machine, marvelous in construction. “What a piece of work is man,” said Shakespeare. This sentiment, this “self-evident” idea that all individuals have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, is reaffirmed a thousand ways every time you pick up a good book. It is possible to study a flight manual or learn to use a gun or speak a foreign tongue and still be a heartless barbarian. It is harder to be so when you are allowed the free flow of ideas contained in great literature. It is for this reason that the first act of Facism is always to burn the books. If we would defend civilization, we must be civilized. We must have at our ready command the ideas and ideals upon which our civilization is founded. We must read.
This is not a religious war; this is a war of ideas. Osama bin Laden is not a religious man, though he may blasphemously claim some religious foundation for his acts. Today an expert on the Middle East was asked what the Koran teaches about suicide bombings, and he assured us that all the official interpreters of the scripture agree that such acts are forbidden as a species of self-murder. He continued, “Osama bin Laden is not a learned man, but it is he who interprets the word of God for his followers. They take his words as truth.” There is no such thing as a religious fanatic – it is an oxymoron – for as soon as fanaticism takes over religion dies. (The fanatic, I once heard, can be defined as a man who doubles his speed when he has lost his direction.) These zealots have no foundation other than hate. To overcome them we must think and act on a higher plane.
All over the world today, thinking men and women stood up to support our nation and the ideals upon which it was founded. Civilization will triumph. We may be comforted as well to know that, though sleep has eluded many of us, we are not alone tonight. Jane Austen is here, and Mark Twain, and Dickens and Shakespeare and Socrates. Thomas Jefferson, Henry James and Charlotte Bronte are stirring. The great thinkers and writers of the last two millennia are abroad tonight, inspiring those we depend upon to lead us in this crisis. We have the security, not only of our faith, but also of the founding ideas that made our civilization great. We stand on principle and also on precept. It was never more important that we understand who we are and what we think. Tomorrow will be a time for prayer, for mourning, for any service we may render. Tonight is a time to read.
