You know.. as someone born after the event.. I feel as if I can't grasp the full magnitude of 9/11. Like. I can fully grasp the tragedy of so many lives being lost. But since I never lived in pre 9/11 times I can't grasp the idea of why it was so massive
It's impossible to explain. I was in 8th grade, so wasn't an adult when it happened, but the world changed. I live in a different world today than I did before 9/11. Things like the Patriot Act, and the amount of fear that has become ingrained in our society...I dont even know what could happen that would result in the same level of magnitude. Maybe if AI goes rogue.
The nicely dovetails into Far-Fennel-3032’s item #2 above. It was the dawn of that realization that we were not, in fact, untouchable. This fueled the fear that was used to divide us and do terrible things. Like we became more lizard brained, in a way. Idk, maybe that last bit is a stretch.
I don't think that last bit is a stretch at all. It did activate our lizard brains. People were terrified and in shock. It's so hard to explain to someone born afterwards, but there was a very distinct before/after, like suddenly we were living on another planet. It wasn't just the fears around terrorism/flying - there were anthrax scares for a while, and there constant reports on the evening news that terrorists would be targeting small towns next. In hindsight, most of that probably wasn't credible, but at the time, we were collectively in survival mode.
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u/Norway643 14h ago
You know.. as someone born after the event.. I feel as if I can't grasp the full magnitude of 9/11. Like. I can fully grasp the tragedy of so many lives being lost. But since I never lived in pre 9/11 times I can't grasp the idea of why it was so massive