On Tuesday, November 13, 2001, Chyra King and Patricia Morris:

Subject: Re: Dominant Discourse

Hi, Jeanne. It is Chyra King and Patricia Morris. We are e-mailing you in regards to us interalizing what the term dominant discourse means. Dominant discourse is ideas floating around that everyone knows about. An example would be the tragic events that occurred on September 11TH and how the media and the President and everyone was pointing a finger at Bin Laden, and saying it was him and the Taliban, and thus causing the discrimination and hate crimes against anyone resembling a person from the Middle East, thus shaping a whole new way of life for Americans.

Are we on the right track?
Chyra and Patricia

On Monday, December 17, 2001, jeanne responded:

Wow! That's got to be the longest sentence I've read in quite a while. But yes, you're on the right track. Let's see if we can tighten things up a bit, though.

Yes, the media and the President did help to shape the dominant discourse that blamed bin Laden and Al Quaeda. They set the original messages in play. But another factor we need to consider is the "fight or flight" tendency, the tendency to fight back when attacked or to run for protection. The heroic fire fighters and policeman took the "fight" alternative, and set about to do something to make things better, to rescue people, to minimize the harm and danger.

Those of us who were not present, and not able to help, experienced that natural tendency to fight back very early in the incident. I remember thinking "Where is he, bin Laden? Just give me a gun, and point me in the right direction." Many of us expressed such feelings. The President's identification of bin Laden as the one against whom we should turn our anger, gave us a focus. Those of us with an instinct to fight at that point wanted to fight. Those with an instinct to take flight were speechless, in shock. These are normal reactions to crises such as this.

Kyra, who had to pack up the offices of a couple of those killed on the planes stayed in that "fight" stage longer than I did. Primarily because the grief kept coming back as she continued to deal with their lives. The desire for revenge, particularly over an unthinkable atrocity, is normal. Even if we believe basically in peace. As Hal Pepinsy reminds us in his Peacemaking Primer, the anger needs to come out, so we can begin discourse and healing.

Another contributing factor to the dominant discourse approval of war and retaliation is nation-state patriotism. Immediately all sites were draped with flags, with most of us pledging allegiance in our nation's time of suffering. It is also normal that any group, when attacked by "outsiders" will regroup and strenghten its solidarity in order to protect itself.

And then we tended not to brook disagreement. In time of crisis it is important to mobilize reparative activities. That requires our overlooking our differences and disagreements to work together against the external problem, in this case, a destroyed Twin Towers together with nearly 5000 killed. Whenever someone deviates from group dominant discourse and/or normative expectations, the group turns its attention to those who deviate and tries to persuade the deviates. If and when persuasion fails, the group rejects the deviates. This happened very early on in the dominant discourse response to the September 11 attacks. Those who began to reconsider the costs of war and of killing innocents, and to wonder what the US had done to garner such hatred in the Middle East, were considered unpatriotic.

Remember Bush's famous: "You're either with us or you're against us." No, war and peace are exceedingly complex issues. I am not limited to one of two extreme positions. But we do need every creative mind in the country turned to feasible alternatives to killing.

Maybe I could compare dominant discourse to taking the country's temperature on all these complex facets of how we feel about the attacks of September 11. Perhaps no one of these factors would have created such an aggressive hostile attitude on its own. But in combination, we have seen some pretty ugly reactions. There have been hate crimes, including the killing of innocent Middle Easterners. There have been suspension of our civil liberties that frighten many of us, for once suspended, for whatever reason, they are more easily lost. There is mistrust of our fellow citizens and visitors. There is fear.

I would like to repeat once more that there is no easy solution to any of this. The mistrust, fear, and chaos are precisely what terrorism seeks to produce. The only effective counter to any of knee jerk fight or flight responses that I have found is the humility of recognition that I cannot "know" all the answers, that I must listen in good faith to all the perspectives that seek to present validity claims, and that I will try to respect the validity claims of "Others." That won't make the substantive issues go away. Substantive issues are real world problems. Psychoanalysis and interpersonal relations and mutual respect won't solve the problems of oil resources, of world markets, of nation rebuilding, of compensation for unjust takings. But psychoanalysis and interpersonal relations and mutual respect might lead us to the discourse table at which the judicial system may resolve the substantive issues in peace.