September 11 Did Not Occur

Can anyone in the world today say that the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington did not take place? One author sensationalized the horror of what happened and the necessity for clarity after the incident. Jean Baudrillard stated that the Gulf War did not take place in his book with the same title. He goes further to say that it was a virtual war, which occurred on screens and computers. Some illusions may be confirmed, but what happened on September 11 brought the West to its senses. This time, the events did not take place virtually on screens, but in plain view of every U.S. citizen. On that day, the British Philosophical Magazine stated that postmodern philosophy had died after the events of September 11. There are those who lionize the theory that the Gulf War did not occur because they are thousands of miles away, only seeing it on the screens where planes bomb sites without troops on the ground. But in their celebration of postmodernism, they were shocked to find their own homes under the influence of the real world’s power, truth and perceptibility, thus making virtual reality seems fragile and illusory. Therefore, proponents and disciples of postmodernism had announced at the death of modernity that there would be a series of “deaths”: the death of the author, ideology, poetry and philosophy. The announcement declared the end of philosophies and major theories that tried to encompass everything or answer all questions, as well as the rise of systems of thought like those of Kant, Hegel and Marx, who promoted the idea of fragmentation. They claim that the world is composed of scattered fragments that are not absolute or final. All things were relative, and relativity confirmed that some of the major philosophies were subject to scrutiny. So when Marx was asked about his aphorism, he responded, “Doubt everything.”

But advocates of postmodernism took the idea to ridiculous extremes, as they placed all ideas upon equal footing so that there were no major questions to consider. The world was absurd and insane to the point that it was futile to look for meaning. But those who preached the death of modernity inadvertently established the foundation that was able to declare the death of postmodernism as well. So they can now no longer mock the bloody reality that brings death into their own house like those with the luxury of not placing their hands into the flame of life.

The West’s affairs may continue, but perhaps this debate has reawakened some of us who stand on the edge of postmodernism, too. We have forgotten that our society rebounded a bit after modernism. Our ambitions are humble; we expect to recover little more than the ideas and occupied territories that we lost.