I was in college when 9/11 happened. A pretty shocking day all around but I had one experience that has stuck with me ever since. Just anecdotal and probably means nothing... but later in the day I went with a friend of mine into town to pick up some t-shirts for a school event. We were talking about it all when my friend said:
"It's kinda weird but, I actually want the death toll to be higher"
For context, to this day my friend is one of the most ethical, good-hearted people I know. He's also fairly non-political and definitely isn't a "death to America" type. What he was telling me was a confession. He knew he wasn't supposed to think like that, but his brain couldn't help it.
And when I think back to the day it happened and shortly after when the death toll numbers were flying around... I feel like a lot of people felt like this but wouldn't dream of verbalizing it. I think A LOT of Americans wanted to see a huge death toll and ultimately were a bit disappointed at the final numbers.
What this says about Americans if true... I don't know. Maybe nothing. But it seems meaningful to me somehow and I've never quite parsed out what that meaning is.
Maybe it’s a distance thing?
Maybe it’s some crazy threshold we have inside of us before we can feel we lived through something horrible?
I get it, in a small, awful way. Maybe it’s like “if there were more, we’d care forever?”
Or it’s just an intrusive thought.
Not that 3,000 deaths seem to matter to Americans today.
Depends on the cause. If 3000 Americans were to die because of a muslim terrorist attack, they'd matter - even if it would be during the covid-crisis.