FAMILY TIMES
column in Dells Events
September 15, 2001
Originally I was going to write this column about Wo Zha Wa, comparing it to another community party in a tourist town I lived in, Santa Fe, that has a “fiesta” at this time of year.
Then terrorism events on the East Coast interfered with that intention, leaving me with the question of how can we all go on with our lives when such things happen?
How does one ever go on after tragedy? But go on we must. One opinion is that allowing terrorists to disrupt our lives more than is absolutely necessary gives them a greater victory than they already have. Another opinion is that we need to resume activities at our own pace, not having to “prove” anything to anybody.
The truth is there is no way to respond “correctly” to such acts as these. There is no way to show them they haven’t won, to take away what they must surely see as a victory—and what was it they wanted anyway?
We are left with many more questions than answers, and each new development brings more questions and more need to respond in some way, to find someone to blame and make them pay—rather difficult since those who were most dedicated to their cause are already dead.
We are in a new age, beyond the atom bomb, and this is a new and cunning enemy. What is there to be done? I do feel sure that those in positions of power in the United States and other countries of the world will do whatever is possible to prevent terrorism in the future and bring the perpetrators to justice.
So what is to be done here at home? We are left with what to tell our children and what to say to our friends and families. If there is any lesson that could be learned it would be this: the value we place on life and love and peace.
A few years ago there was a movement to teach moral development in the schools. Wonderful curriculum material was available when I was teaching that included creating class discussions on moral dilemmas.
The theory was that moral judgement develops in stages similar to a child’s development of reason. The very lowest stage, that of refraining from bad behavior only because one would get caught and punished, progresses upward to the next stages in which decisions are made because something is illegal, or against the rules, to the higher stages of moral decision making based on universal principles such as the sacredness of life. Children could be encouraged to progress up the ladder by hearing reasoning from someone advocating from a higher stage.
We learned the airliner, that instead of striking its’ target plunged to the ground in Pennsylvania, apparently had a man on board talking on a cell phone. News reports said he knew a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center and he put the phone down and then came back to say the men had taken a vote and had decided to try to overpower the hijackers. Did they know, I wonder, what they accomplished before they died?
The questions and discussions of the moral issues involved are valuable for all of us. If anything, we stop to think and feel and share with each other and our children what we think is right, what we know to be true.
Those heart wrenching last calls to family made by people trapped in the World Trade Center conveyed one message, “I love you.”