Misanthrope's Corner - America tries to adjust to the war against terrorism - Brief Article

National Review, Nov 5, 2001

Should we, can we, ever laugh again? This is the question of the hour, but at the risk of sounding unpatriotic I must admit that I already have-out loud, in fact.

What led up to it was the 653rd discussion of anti-Arab profiling I was watching. Unable to stand any more earnest tributes to color-blind diversity, I turned off the TV and went to the library in search of escapist fare. Needing something to take the pluribus out of the unum, I chose a biography of George V, the present queen's grandfather, who was beset by inept physicians. The worst was Lord Dawson, who is said to have treated a patient for jaundice for six weeks before discovering he was Chinese.

After I wiped up the coffee and changed my clothes it was time to turn on the TV again to see if something new had happened while I was escaping. One of the ubiquitous stress mavens was saying, "I worry most about the ones who haven't started processing the event," and recited the symptoms we should all look for: "irritability, distrust, pessimism, and withdrawal." Since her checklist describes my natural state, I have no way of telling if I'm stressed, but she needn't worry about my willingness to "process events." I call it thinking, and I get paid for it.

The most satisfying thought I've had is that Rudolph Giuliani has rescued us from our adolescent definition of popularity and given us a new appreciation of the individual who "wears well." Abrasive, truculent, aloof, impatient, and blunt, Giuliani was for years a walking compendium of all the traits Americans try to conceal or stamp out to ensure that nobody, anywhere, ever feels "threatened" by us. To this end, we have adopted the fixed smiles and galumphing friendliness of the simpleminded, and taken pains to deny the existence of dark moods with the state-of-the-art boast, "What you see is what you get," which is nothing more than shallowness redefined, another way of saying that if you tap a popular American, all you will get is an echo.

We have painted ourselves into a corner in an everlasting high school of the spirit, but now Giuliani has shown us that what you get is not always what you see. As an amazed America watched, this tense, unappealing man took on the grace of a courtier, the subtlety of a cardinal, the finesse of a diplomat, and the gentle wisdom of Mr. Chips.

It's too soon to tell whether we will retain the lesson-we usually don't-but at the moment, thanks to Giuliani, complexity is in and it's cool to be deep.

The news that fighter pilots will be given authority to shoot down hijacked commercial jets was received with grim acceptance, but the public's stoicism won't last. Americans have heard too much about "human error," as it's politely called. From the doctor who cuts off the wrong leg, to the pharmacist who fills the wrong prescription, to the Marine pilot who accidentally severed the cable on the Italian ski lift, we inhabit the Age of Oops and everybody knows it. Moreover, we have seen so many insane military men in movies that we will soon start imagining some Great Santini is up there just waiting to open fire on us. Finally, there's the little matter of our new, improved, kinder 'n' gentler military. If the order is ever given, I doubt that today's fighter pilots could bring themselves to do it-all that sensitivity training would come home to roost.

I never travel but I do breathe, so I have considered the threat of bio-chem warfare and come to the following conclusions.

If I were young I'd be scared, but as it is, I find the idea liberating. I'd rather go out now in a dramatic epidemic, a la my beloved medieval England, than live on to die by degrees in a nursing home. It would free me from my dread of encroaching frailty, loss of independence, cheerful nurses urging me to play bingo, and lumpenpsychologists without a shred of insight who have the temerity to assume they can "counsel" a writer. Equally intolerable is the thought of standing in line for inoculations amid hysterical throngs of Great American Moms all screaming "Jason!" I was vaccinated for smallpox and diphtheria before starting school, but, lucky me, it's worn off by now.

Speaking of phartlings, I was surprised to read that a security checker at L.A. International actually searched a baby and its stroller. She must have remembered the scene in GWTW (the book, not the movie) when a Yankee cavalry unit appears at Tara, and Scarlett hides her money in Melanie's baby's diaper. It's ingenious; babies are a good hiding place and we are emotionally incapable of persevering in the practice of searching them. They also offer even deadlier possibilities to terrorists who have psyched us out. I would not be surprised if they stole a baby, infected it with a contagious disease, and abandoned it in a crowded public place, knowing full well that Americans who come upon a lost baby will cluster around it, get close to its face, and take deep breaths to give them the wind they need to raise repeated choruses of "Awwwww."

President Bush's plea to get back to normal has been crowned with success. The idiocies have begun: