Graduate capabilities in critical analytical and integrative thinking

¶ … violence against non-combatant populations to increase the psychological effects of warfare has been a mainstay of human aggression for millennia. As Russian revolutionist Leon Tolstoy once said: "kill one, intimidate one thousand." In the modern world, the idea of terrorism has moved from the overt spark that caused World War I to the events of September 11, 2001. Just after 9am Eastern Standard Time, most of the world watched in horror as the global media replayed the events surrounding four passenger planes that were high jacked in the United States. Two of these aircraft were flown into New York's Twin Towers, one into the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., and the final one crashed into a field in Pennsylvania. Even though the damage was confined to the physical and geographic area of the United States, the image and aftermath of the attacks were global. American conservative columnist George Will, never a master of understatement, noted that these events were "the most lethal terrorism in all of human history."

The 9/11 attacks were the most successful terrorist event in history. Besides the civilian casualties, the attack destroyed billions of dollars in property. Billions more in economic losses were caused by the slow-down in economic activity in the weeks following the attack. More important than the economic losses, and perhaps even more significant than the tragic loss of life, was the damage that the terrorists inflicted on the most important symbols of American economic and military power, and the manner in which the attacks changed the perception of not only the United States to the rest of the world, but the world looking to the United States. Indeed, this is the very crux of the images of 9/11 -- it is not simply the fact that these attacks occurred, but that humanity has come to a place in which it takes events like this to bring populations together; in both shock and awe, in trying to understand the human conception of violence.

Looking at the photographs or reviewing the footage, of the Twin Towers is highly emotional and symbolic; likely exactly the point of using them as targets. The Twin Towers represented not just New York or America, but capitalism, international business, the human spirit in almost defying gravity and using human ingenuity to build something grand. However, grand though it may have been, just like December 7, 1945 and Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, the very soul of modernity was ripped away, making individuals feel vulnerable, unsafe, and quite frankly -- terrified in a hostile world.

Whatever motives the al-Qaida sect might have had are less important than the capability of adapting to such an evil and nefarious purpose. This of course, is the great conundrum that 9/11 reminds us: we are a species capable of the most ardent dichotomies imagined. Even examining only the 20th century, we find that humans have produced some of the most beautiful works of art imaginable: the sublime works of T.S. Eliot, the controversial yet intriguing works of Aaron Copland and Igor Stravinsky, the disturbingly emotional Salvador Dali, and architectural masterpieces that dwarf anything built, and more technological advances than can be adequately chronicled here. Then, we have also had the Holocaust, Stalin's Purges, the excesses of Pol Pot and Idi Amin; vast populations starved, displaced, and several disease vectors that have wiped out significant populations. From the perspective of an extraterrestrial anthropologist, we would seem a confusing species at best; a clear dichotomy of values, morals, and actions.