Daniel Harris describes this coping mechanism the "kitschification of Sep. 11." Harris's main argument is that we stopped asking critical questions about the actual reasons of why 9/11 happened. Instead, he says, we resorted to mythologizing history, viewing ourselves as the absolute good and depicting the enemy as the absolute evil whose actions could never be explained with reason. I think, Harris is pretty harsh in his scathing criticism of our response to 9/11. But looking back at what happened and the consequences of government response, I think, his criticism is justified. The only point where I disagree with him is in his suggestion that we turned our commemoration of 9/11 into a national euphoria and became "excited." I do not remember any sense of excitement over the tragedy though Harris might have been more alert than me.

Reading William Hart's article was also eye-opening. It gave me a different...
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