| ashu |
Posted
on 25-Oct-01 03:39 PM
'Inhale and exhale," advises Gary Stollak, professor of psychology at Michigan State University, "and hold each other's hands."
Meanwhile, the University of California at Los Angeles has created 50 new undergraduate courses since September 11 to "explore the scope of issues emerging from the terrorist attacks".
These new courses include Navigating between Blithesome Optimism and Cultural Despair, Women's Participation in Political Violence and the Zen-like Understanding the Unthinkable and the Incomprehensible.
What Americans do best is domesticate things. That is what is happening here. An unprecedented assault on mainland America is being turned into sentimental psychobabble, an occasion for nationwide counselling or politically correct pseudo-courses. Daft as these things are, they are like tea and crumpets to the Americans - they exude the cosy glow of home.
But, this time, it doesn't work. Something huge is missing. These mandarins of calm and counselling sound as desperate and misguided as those people who have been buying gas masks, bio-hazard suits and anti-anxiety drugs. Beneath their words is the fear that everything they have thought or taught for the past 12 years is now meaningless.
Read the rest at:
http://www.sunday-times.co.uk/news/pages/sti/2001/10/21/stiusausa02003.html
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