America; 9/11/2001. 

    On that 21^st century “…day that shall live in infamy,” at 1:30 p.m., I was to teach my 200 student section of Introduction to Psychology. By that time of that day, all air travel had been halted, both towers had collapsed, and no civilians knew for sure the whereabouts of the President of the United States.

     Rather than go through with my scheduled lecture on “Research Methods In Psychology,” I opened the class with John Donne’s “No man is an island.” Then I said to my students, let’s talk about what has happened in our world today. Some students revealed that they had family in New York City who they had been trying to, but could not reach. From there the discussion in the class period was somber, angry, fearful and sometimes bizarre.   

    One exchange between students was intense. “I think we should nuke ‘em,” a student yelled out. 

      It was the case that in that class, five or six of the students, who often came to class in uniform, were in the U.S. Marine Corps ROTC. When the “…let’s nuke ‘em” exclamation was yelled out, immediately one of the young Marines threw up his hand and without waiting for my acknowledgement turned in the direction of that voice and said,

  “…nuke who? You don’t know what you’re talking about! Who do we aim nuclear weapons at; were we attacked by another country today! That’s just silly!”

     It was a blistering exchange and critique. Yet all of the complexity of the mood in the room was captured by the students’ who said:

    “I don’t understand how the world works anymore.”

    “I don’t feel safe anymore.”

     Osama Bin Laden’s attack of America on 9/1/01 did not change everything.  What that terrorist attack did do was jolt us into paying attention to the many social changes that were already going on around us; change in the racial mix and rules, change in gender roles and rules, change in the ways we can communicate with each other, and change in our international relationships. With that jolt, and sudden new awareness, came anxiety; neo-diversity anxiety.

     Osama Bin Laden’s death will not eliminate that anxiety. But his death at our hands can serve to help we Americans be less vulnerable to that anxiety. My hope is that we manage this moment of emotional release. That we recognize that Osama Bin Laden was only one of the things that has been haunting us, and that the other changes are not to be feared; that we cannot “…nuke ‘em.” If we can use our emotional release in that way, we will become less vulnerable to the charlatans who try to use our anxieties to keep us fearful so that they can manipulate us to accomplish their selfish goals.

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