HNN Poll: Did It Change Us?
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Charles Krauthammer, in the Weekly Standard:
WE DIDN'T CHANGE after all. Things changed, yes. Flags waved. A president emerged. The economy slid. The enemy scattered. Politics cooled. The allies rallied. The allies chafed. Politics returned.But we didn't change. We thought we would. After the shock of the bolt from the blue, it was said that we would never be the same. That it was the end of irony. That the pose of knowing detachment with which we went to bed September 10 was gone for good.
Not so. Before the first year was out, it was back, all of it. Irony. Triviality. Vulgarity. Frivolousness. Whimsy. Farce. All the things no healthy society can live without.
We returned to normality. No, not the"new normality," that state of suspended apprehension that followed the first weeks of shock and fear. The new normality dissipated into the ether with amazing speed. During its brief few months of existence, it seemed reasonable to deputize the postman and the milkman and the cable guy to snoop around your house looking for suspicious characters. Today that TIPS program seems slightly loony, as it should to true normality.
True normality. Can you doubt it is back when the culture king of 2002 is Ozzy Osbourne, now locked with Anna Nicole Smith in a race to the cultural bottom? It's all back: reality TV, Geraldo on the scene,"Sex and the City," and every sequel known to man:"Austin Powers,""Stuart Little,""Men in Black," and Yoda, flying no less.