When the Tower(s) of Babel Fell.

Well, it goes without saying what this image is. Perhaps no other image in our own time tells a more vivid account of the last decade. September 11th was a day in which the American people saw a shift in their way of life. The destruction of those buildings was also the the destruction of a severe class division within our country. It tarnished the old American way of life, ushering in changes that trickled down to all the social spheres of our society. Forever shaping the way we interact with each other.

The decade leading up to September 11th, 2001 was a sort of golden age of American capitalism. The Clinton administration saw a surplus in the booming American economy and the only valid way to measure our wealth would have been to look up at our skyscrapers. The major cities of the country were blanketed by the cloud touching towers of major imperialist wealth- but a division existed. Wall Street and its allies were a society unto itself. The top mega conglomerates and their political puppets in the Capital were living and speaking in one part of the country, while the vast middle and lower classes lived among themselves, also divided by their own ideological road blocks. Like the Tower of Babel erected in Biblical scriptures, our own consumer crazed society separated the people from communicating with a common tongue. The different social spheres spoke in their own language. September 11th changed all of this. Similar to Mikhail Bakhtin’s idea of the carnival, the terrorist attacks on our country lifted the divisions within our own national community. Bakhtin stated that "all were considered equal during carnival"(10), as was the American people on September 12th. Rich man, poor man, school teacher and stock broker, politician and postal worker all shared a common voice- one of patriotic nationalism. We stood together not only in spirit but in the way we interacted. A new vocabulary was adopted were Puerto Ricans, Irish, and Afro-Americans alike were first ‘American’ and second everything else. The heteroglossia that had kept us apart for so long was crushed, our language of freedom was a concrete opinion. Phrases like, ‘the war on terror’ and ‘national security’, were understood by all and the divisions which segregated the realm of society for a decade was toppled by the forces of a peoples pride. Bakhtin stated that, "a unitary language is not something given but is always in essence posited. And at every moment of its linguistic life it is opposed to the realities of heteroglossia"(35). And though the divisions of a heteroglossic world still permeate thru the global community, and American unity was established. We were a nation, standing together towards one common enemy, and we all spoke the same language; freedom.

Work Cited

Bakhtin, Mikail. Rabelias and His World. Trans. Helene Iswolsky. Bloomington: Indiana
University Press, 1984. Print

"Seven Major Events in Afghanistan. Timeline." Dipity - Find, Create, and Embed Interactive Timelines. Web. 27 Feb. 2011. .