Last week a friend from England, on a visit to NYC, was saddened by the need to go through layers of security and airport-style scanners to get into several major tourist attractions around the city. It wasn’t the inconvenience, she explained — it was quite literally sadness.
“Your culture used to be the freest culture in the world,” she explained over dinner. “Now look at what they have done to you. Everywhere you are fearful. In a way the terrorists have won — they have robbed you of one of your greatest cultural qualities.”
Of course she had a point. On the other hand, I was having dinner with another friend this evening, after we had gone together to a thought provoking talk about the need for greater openness in government, and he raised another interesting point.
Although it has come at a very high price, he pointed out that people in the U.S. are, in general, far more aware of the world outside our borders than we used to be, far more engaged with the politics and culture of other places, and far more likely to think through the difficult thought: “Hey, not everybody thinks we’re the good guys.”
Although we may be a sadder people than we were fifteen years ago, we have also perhaps become a wiser people.