The Appearance of the Other in the Attacks of September 11

© David Lichtenstein, Ph.D., February 2002

The attacks of last September opened a space for the other which has yet to be repaired. In addition to mourning the tragic loss of life, the challenge of that otherness demands extraordinary psychic work.

Many of us, watching the attack from the streets of New York, worked hard to grasp its meaning even as it was taking place. That people were intentionally responsible only became clear when the second plane hit. Before that it was a common impression that we were witnessing a tragic accident. So radical a sense of otherness, of an incomprehensible difference, would be attached to conscious intent, that many first rejected that possibility. "No one in his right mind could possibly do a thing like that!" Akin to the not-I, a sense of not-We emerges, that is, not we civilized, rational human beings. We (human beings) don't do things like this. It is other than human, inhuman, to act this way. Of course it was an intentional attack by rational people, although even now this seems too strange to be true. Religious trances and notions of evil cultic devotion are proposed as explanations for incomprehensible actions. The work of otherness confronts us still. Psychoanalysts, if they can help at all, can encourage and foster a certain working through of this otherness. A coming to terms with human acts that are tragic and criminal but nevertheless, still human. My writing here is meant to be a contribution to that effort.


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