Facing Our Fear.(aftermath, September 11th, 2001)(Brief Article)

We just concluded a decade in which the most prominent sitcom, "Seinfeld," was a show about nothing. There was a magazine called George, which ran probing interviews on things like what Madonna would do if she were president. We had an impeachment process that swallowed up two years of public debate with questions like what the definition of "is" is. You could be forgiven for concluding that America was not an entirely serious country. Imagine how it must have looked to the Islamic extremists leading the hard life in Afghan terrorist camps.

But it's all over now. A country that has basically ignored foreign affairs since the cold war ended has discovered that foreign affairs has not ignored it. Now suddenly people are ransacking their brains to see if they opened any envelopes with mysterious white powder over the past two weeks. Now upscalers who once spent hours agonizing over which Moen faucet would go with their copper farmhouse kitchen sink are suddenly worried about whether the water coming out of the pipes has been poisoned. People who longed for Prada bags are suddenly spooked by unattended bags at the airport. America, the sweet land of liberty, is getting a crash course in fear.

What we're learning is that fear has no shape. Some people talk about building safe rooms in the basement and stocking up on antibiotics and gas masks. Others regard all these precautions as useless, or even hysterical overreactions. Most people, meanwhile, are afraid and not afraid at the same time. Daniel Creson, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Texas Medical School and a veteran of many disaster- relief efforts, describes a two-track response to terror. The daylight rational part of the brain is full of reassurance, but the deeper instinctual part is not so sure. Even when we are outwardly calm we are inwardly anxious.

In Israel, where this atmosphere is the normal state, people try to impose order on their situation. They strategize: this road usually gets hit in the mornings, so I'll feel safe driving here in the afternoon. The rules are bogus but they make people feel better. Experts in the U.S., too, say it is important to do something to minimize the amount of randomness in your life. "Eat meals at a normal hour," says Mitchell Jeffrey, president of the International Critical Incident Stress Foundation. "We need structure."

But there is one essential fact that should help us get a handle on things. What happened Sept. 11 was no act of nature, like an earthquake or a storm. It was perpetrated by men who get up in the morning, who have weaknesses, who can be beaten. We are not passive victims of forces larger than we can control. We don't just have fears; we have enemies. ...