A Justice Site
Mirror Sites:
CSUDH - Habermas - UWP
Caliifornia State University, Dominguez Hills
University of Wisconsin, Parkside
Created: September 28, 2001
Latest Update: September 29, 2001
jeannecurran@habermas.org
takata@uwp.edu
On Friday, September 28, 2001, Pat wrote:
According to the L.A. Times of 9/28 this picture couldn't possibly be accurate, and it lists several reason why. Well I know, as we all know, that the media can defintely lie. So has the media suggesting that the picture is not accurate believable or does it lie. Michelle and Chris suggested that with all of the technology available that picture could have been altered. Thank you again for challenging us. lnp PatOn Saturday, September 29, 2001, jeanne responded:
You know that I'm proud of you all for questioning. I had meant to put this file up right after posting the picture, but, needless to say, I just didn't get to it. The current Issue usually takes on a life of its own on Fridays.I moved the picture, not because of its authenticity or inauthenticity, as the case may be, but because Eiko Yamazaki's artwork arrived. I have moved the One Second Before photo to the Art and the Imaginary Section of the Current Issue.
When I received the image, my first reaction was to turn on the TV, sure that this would be on the news, if in fact the camera had been discovered in the rubble of the WTC. I understood that it could have been located after the New York Times had been already printed for the West Coast Edition, but the existence of such a photograph could not have been ignored. No news. Hoax.
Because it was Friday and the Current Issue was going up, I couldn't go out and hunt for information. Apparently you located some, Pat, in the LA Times. Tell me where, exactly, so I don't have to hunt for it.
But hoaxes on the Internet are common. That was always a possibility. Yet, I didn't hesitate to upload the photograph immediately to the Current Issue. Why? And, Pat, you called that well, too. Media communication is hard to verify. We're a large country, lots of people, and many of us don't know how to determine the veracity of the information we hear and see. So, one motivation was to challenge authority of all kinds. But that was a secondary motivation.
My primary motivation was that the photo was breathtaking. It touched me deeply. The plane, so close, so terrible. The tourist. The harbor. And the knowledge that there had to be another human, standing in the viewer's position, taking in the horror that I grasped so intuitively for the first time. Someone, in that mass of victims, might really have seen a picture very like that I was staring at. And that is the role of art. To expand the imaginary to take in what is beyond comprehension, beyond imagination.
Yes, of course, as Arnold continued to point out, no such lookout points would have a low balustrade that would permit suicide jumps. Maps could tell whether the geography was appropriate to the WTC. Michelle and Chris are right about the technology being available to alter photos. And there have been many cruel hoaxes staged at the scene of devastation in New York.
The method of distribution of the photo, e-mail, leads most of us to think of "hoax" immediately. But I would like us to think more deeply about whether art that manages to give us different and unlikely perspectives should not be encouraged if it is distributed honestly as art, not as the real thing. Gale, when she sent the e-mail, said "I will never forget that photo." Nor will I, Gale. Visual literacy deserves more than being bandied about as a hoax.
love and peace, jeanne
On Monday, October 1, 2001, Cheryl Spear wrote:
Subject: Plane approaching WTCJeanne, I find it extremely offensive that anyone could print such a thing. Does the person behind this email have no sense of respect for those who actually lost their lives on that horrific day? I am so saddened to see that it has only taken a few short weeks for people to continue on with the pathetic urban legends that many in this country thrive on. Wake up America! This is reality, not some joke. Thousands of people died and tens of thousands more are desperately trying to heal the wound that September 11, 2001 has left upon them.
On Monday, October 1, 2001, jeanne responded:
Thank you, Cheryl, for dealing with the photo emotionally. Several of you have written, but largely to inform me that the photo is a hoax, as though that ends the story. It doesn't.
You make a good point, Cheryl, with respect to the enormity of the event itself. "This is reality, not some joke." The underlying presumption we operate with when we feel anger over the hoax is that he/she who perpetrated the hoax does not appreciate the tragedy of that reality. I.e. the perpetrator expresses some reaction other than our normative expectation. You, Cheryl, have expressed the normative reaction: at a tragic time like this, when people are suffering, that joker is callously running a scam.
Are there viable reactions that some may feel, other than those that fit our normative expectationsof sorrow and horror at the death of so many innocents? I can think of several.
- Those who have been engaged in a struggle for power with the US might see this as "us" versus the "U.S." and "we" just scored a point against the "U.S." In an adversarial society that erupts into riots at soccer games, one could presume that "the spirit of winning" might be one of the life space areas of reaction.
- Those who have been in the midst of recent battle and who have seen their friends and loved ones lose their lives may have their own need for revenge looming large in another life space area of reaction.
- Those who are beginning to understand at a deep level the costs of empire and domination, in joining with those who fought colonization for so long, may find reinforcement for their need to reverse that domination at all costs. That may loom large in another life space area of reaction.
Words about the attack are powerful, but they could not take me there. A poem such as Shinsaku Fujikawa's Three Ravens from the Sky could. His imagery transports me there, and lets me feel what it must have been like. Such is the value of poetry and art. It helps me to grasp that which my mind consciously rejects as too horrible.
And there is generally a softness, a balance in the poem or art that can take us close to that which overwhelms and frightens us, and in the facing of the fear, there is the beginning of healing and normalcy. In the infamous faked photo, there is no such softening. The photo is sharp and clear as the day. The plane bears down. For me, that clarity adds to the sense of doom. My reaction was to catch my breath in horror, as I might have done had I really been there. And in that moment I shared their terrible fear.
We'll talk about how this photo challenges dominant discourse and whether that is appropriate. More soon. . . . jeanne
On Monday, October 1, 2001, a Theory Class group wrote:
Lakisha , Kasie, Tiffany, Angelique , and Sheila wrote: This I feel is totally insensitive to the many families that lost their loved ones or that had family members injured in the attack on the US. For someone to claim that there had been someone standing at the top of the World Trade Center and not been able to hear or feel the vibration of a jumbo jet that close, and to continue to complete the taking of a photo of a plane that was clearly in view of the phot taker was egregious. Not to mention his or her friend posing. Let's also keep in mind that the observation deck did not open until 10:00am. This accident or misfortune happened at the ind of summer, not in the dead of winter, judging by the looks of the tourist in the photo. This is photo manipulation at its worst.On Monday, October 1, 2001, jeanne responded:
That's a good and coherent argument that you've written. I haven't yet found the time to put up some of the arguments that MANBC and the LA Times had up. It's been a kind of busy weekend.I'm pleased at your reluctance to accept the authority of the photo just because it's there. Can I count on you to question authority as thoroughly even when the subject is less disturbing? That's the whole point of critical thinking, not to dismiss your mind just because authority tells you to.
But I would like to go past the simple good manners of sensitivity to horror. I agree that that would be an awful photo to display to those who had a friend or relative at the site. But are there not people who are reacting to this catastrophe by admonishing us that we "deserved it?" I think that's an oversimplification, and I use it just to define the audience to whom am I am referring. People who are angry and frustrated over exploitation and domination and colonialism and empire do not see the United States as a blameless victim. Citizens who were horribly attacked by inhuman violence, yes, but the government which has pursued a foreign policy resulting in colonialism and exploitation, no.
These arguments are on two very different levels:
- The interpersonal, human level.
- The foreign policy and self-serving nation-state interest.
There are many other levels we should consider:
- The social justice of very unequal distributive justice of the world's resources.
- The concept of "knowingness" and the meaning of "truth" and the rights and duties those concepts entail.
- The meaning of community and interdependence.
This list is not meant to be exhaustive. Neither, unfortunately, do I have "the" answers as to how we should proceed. ButI'd like us to remember that these are heavy issues we're dealing with.
If I could appeal to an audience of people focussed on the foreign policy aspects, and they were primarily concerned with the US actions that have led to such violent rage, what if I could use that photo, and get them to consider in good faith what it felt like to be the one holding that camera?
Look for example at the Afghan refugee family shown in the New York Times on Sunday, September 30, 2001. For me, pictures such as this make the "enemy" real, a real person, just like you and me, and on that level, I have a better understanding of what it means to kill, what it means to "go to war."
Notice the perjorative labels by which we name the "enemy." This objectifies the person, turns him or her into a "thing." As Gordon Fellman reminds us in Rambo and the Dalai Lama, we have to work hard at learning empathy, an understanding that the Other is human, too.
Certainly the terrorists lacked empathy. But so, too, do we when we turn in our terror agains all Arabs, all Jews, all of any group. Undoubtedly those who perpetrated the photo hoax were somewhat less than caring, and probably had some sort of scam in mind. But that doesn't mean that the lesson of the power of the visual should escape us.
love and peace, jeanne
On Wednesday, October 3, 2001, Kevin Gabbey, UWP, wrote:
from kevin gabbey: Susan,I Recently read about the plane hoax on Dearhabermas. My feeling is that if someone is passing the photo off as real then that is being very disrespectful to the victims and families. On the other hand when I saw the photo I was overwhelmed with many emotions. I felt the same way that I feel every time I see video of the plane crashing into the WTC. But this time I have a totally different perspective. For the first time I have a small idea of how the people in the WTC felt. This photo gave me a totally different perspective on what happened and as long as it is declared as art and nothing else it can give us all a little more perspective.
Kevin,
Criminology