Words Are Deeds:
Ruminations on the World Trade Center Attack

September 14, 2001

My son Jamie is a writer; to remind himself of his commitment to writing, he has a tattoo on his arm consisting of Chinese ideograms that say, "Words are deeds." I've been thinking a lot about the ramifications of the World Trade Center attack for the past few days, and for some reason, Jamie's tattoo came to mind. It's a famous quotation, but I couldn't remember its origin -- so I googled it a few moments ago. (Since we're talking about words here, note the popular American tendency to turn nouns like "google" into verbs). I found dozens of entries for "words and deeds" and "words into deeds," but at first, the only thing close to Jamie's tattoo that I could find was a line from Shakespeare's Henry VIII: "It is a kind of good deed to say well; and yet words are not deeds." Eventually, I discovered that it was Ludwig Wittgenstein who provided the material for Jamie's tattoo (in Philosophical Investigations, section 546); and Mr. Wittgenstein was also the one who observed, "I don't know why we are here, but I'm pretty sure that it is not in order to enjoy ourselves."

With respect for Shakespeare, I agree with Wittgenstein: words are deeds, at least in the sense that they conjure up strong images and impressions, and create attitudes and opinions, if not overt action. In the wake of the WTC ... ummm, what word suffices here? tragedy? crisis? disaster? devastation? ... I'm particularly concerned about the word "terrorist," and also a little concerned about the frequent use of the word "cowardly" by pundits and politicians. As part of the aftermath of WTC, we need to think carefully about the vocabulary we use, for our words will lead to actions.

The word "cowardly" has the following definition in my Microsoft Word online dictionary:

cow·ard·ly adj
1. caused by a lack of courage, or lacking courage
2. showing meanness or cruelty to those who are weaker and fear of those who are equal or stronger

I don't think anyone would disagree that the hijackers displayed great cruelty and meanness to the hundreds of innocent passengers aboard the four doomed airplanes, not to mention the thousands of innocent men, women, and children in the WTC towers, and the civilian workers in the Pentagon offices. Whether or not those hijackers showed a lack of courage in the planning and execution of their attack is perhaps more debatable. But the public officials who have been using the term "cowardly" seem to imply that the hijackers didn't "fight fair," and that they didn't "play by the rules." Unfortunately, it's our rules, not theirs, and our sense of fairness that they apparently ignored, rejected, or disregarded. Our use of the word "cowardly" implies that there are certain deeds that are off-limits, like kicking someone when they're down. But as the "deed" of the WTC attack so eloquently demonstrated, the hijackers played by a different set of rules. And if they did it once, they'll do it again; indeed, this hardly needs to be said, since they've also done it numerous times in the past.

More important than whether we call the hijackers "cowards" is the question of whether to call them "terrorists." My Microsoft Word dictionary defines the word thusly:

ter·ror·ist n
somebody who uses violence or the threat of violence, especially bombing, kidnapping, and assassination, to intimidate, often for political purposes

Obviously, we focus on the words "violence" and "bombing" and "kidnapping" in this definition; but I'm more concerned about the first word: "somebody." A terrorist is an individual, and the word "terrorists" conjures up the image of a few individuals. Indeed, 50 such individuals is the current estimate of the group that planned and executed the multiple hijackings; and the news reports present this factoid as if to emphasize how unusually large the number is -- as compared, say, to the individual suicide bombers we've been hearing about in Israel for the past few months.

But what if we described the 50 individuals, and all of their associates at home and abroad, as a "guerrilla army"? And instead of using the phrase "terrorist attack," what if we used the word "war"? Some might object that these alternative terms legitimize or glorify some individuals that they consider despicable, but that's not my objective. My objective is to use words that motivate us carry out effective and appropriate deeds; and I think that's more likely to happen if we use words like "army" and "war." It appears that President Bush has come to this conclusion without any help from me; in his comments to the press on September 13th, he announced that we (Americans) were now fighting the first war of the 21st century.

Well, if we're fighting a war, exactly who are we fighting? It's not just Osama Bin Laden; it seems to be an ephemeral network of individuals, political fanatics, and perhaps entire governments in various parts of the Middle East. Maybe it's Iraq, maybe it's Afghanistan, maybe it's someone or something else. In any case, one of the tasks facing the U.S. government is finding the right word, or words, to identify and describe those against whom we are now waging a war. Alas, our President is not known for his skills with the English language; unless he hires a team of gifted speech writers, we may have to wait until we see where the Cruise missiles are being aimed in order to know exactly who it is we're waging war against.

Suppose, for the moment, that we do have a well-identified enemy to fight, much like our parents and grandparents knew that it was Japan, and Hitler's Germany, that they were fighting. Then that the next set of questions is: Why are we fighting them? Why are they fighting us? What do they want from us? What would it take for them to leave us alone, and stop launching such terrible attacks upon our citizens? At first glance, the answer to the first question seems rather simple and straightforward: we're fighting them (whoever "them" turns out to be) because they're fighting us. They started it; we're merely responding. But it gets more difficult when we start thinking about the other questions ...

In particular, think about the last question -- much as Chamberlain and his fellow politicians pondered the question of what it would take to make Hitler go away and leave everyone in peace. They apparently thought it would suffice to give Hitler a modest little country called Czechoslovakia; it soon became apparent that that was not enough. In our case, it appears that the primary thing we Americans are being asked to give up is our support for Israel. "Give us Israel," the terrorists seem to be saying, "and we'll leave you alone." But if pressed, they would probably add one more item: "While you're at it, give up your demands for unlimited quantities of oil at whatever cheap price you feel like paying."

Arguably, the second item is what the 1991 Gulf War was all about: our insistence that access to the oil in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia should not be threatened by Saddam Hussein. Notwithstanding the eloquent political speeches about our patriotic duty to support poor little Kuwait, I think it's fair to suggest that most Americans had never heard of the country prior to the Gulf War, and would have been hard pressed to find it on a map. And whether or not it was unpatriotic and disloyal, a reasonable number of Americans did grumble that they weren't too enthusiastic about sending their sons and daughters to a strange desert land in order to fight for the continuation of profits at Exxon and Mobil. I mention this only because the same issue is facing us again: one of the reasons we've gotten tangled up in the terrorist attacks is that we're still defending Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, ten years later, and we're still bombing Iraq -- and we're doing all of that because our leaders seem to believe that it's strategically vital for us to avoid losing access to those Middle East oil fields. Anyone with sons and daughters at risk (which now includes all of us, as the WTC attackers have demonstrated!) needs to think about this fairly carefully. How many lives is a barrel of oil worth?

As for Israel ... well, the interesting thing is that the WTC attack took place in the city that is most likely to volunteer the lives of its sons and daughters to defend Israel. Support for Israel is pervasive and palpable in New York, because of its large, vibrant Jewish community; to a somewhat lesser extent, the same is also true in cities like Chicago and Boston and Los Angeles and Washington. But I'm writing these words in Taos, New Mexico -- where the vibrant, dominant culture is Native American and/or Hispanic, and Catholic. If you were to ask the typical Taos parent, "Are you ready to send your son or daughter to fight in a war to defend Israel?", I suspect that the response would be a lot less enthusiastic than in the major urban centers. I don't know whether New Mexico is at all typical of the Western U.S., or the rural/suburban part of the country -- but my friends and colleagues in New York City should keep in mind that support for Israel might not be quite as deep and passionate in other parts of the country as it is for them.

Ironically, though, none of this really matters any more; the attack on the WTC and the Pentagon made all of the philosophical discussions irrelevant. A survey on the September 13th NBC evening news reported that some 91% of the American public believe that the WTC attack was as bad as, or worse than, the attack on Pearl Harbor; and it has thus become a justification in itself for declaring war against ... well, whoever we decide to declare war against. They (whoever "they" turns out to be) killed 10,000 or 20,000 of our fellow citizens; what further justification is needed? Similarly, I doubt that the average American citizen could have provided an articulate explanation of the political disputes between Japan and the United States during the late 1930s and early 1940s; but as of December 7, 1941 it didn't matter. The words "Pearl Harbor" became the deed of World War II. And the phrase "World Trade Center" may become the deed of World War III.

Unlike World War II, this war is likely to take place -- at least partially -- in our own back yard. Our government may well decide to send missiles and planes to wreak havoc on some far-distant land, but as the events of this past week have obviously shown, the other side is not only willing, but also able, to wreak havoc upon our land. So the question we parents may well find ourselves asking ourselves is not "Am I willing to send my sons and daughters to fight in Afghanistan, in order to revenge the death of 20,000 innocent victims of the WTC attack?", but rather "Am I willing to commit myself, and my spouse, and my sons and daughters to defend my own city?"

The distinction may seem obvious and simple, but there's one aspect we really need to think about: in the former case (wreaking havoc upon a far-distant land), this new war would simply become another "television war," like the ones that we've watched in Bosnia, Israel, Rwanda, Kuwait, and (sadly) Vietnam. It's reduced down to the scale of whatever fits onto our living room television, and it's edited, compressed, sanitized and sensationalized in whatever fashion the media and the government/military spokesmen feel is appropriate. It's interrupted every few minutes by a commercial for fast cars and cold beer. And it can be turned off whenever it's boring.

Even this week, those of us outside the boundaries of Manhattan and Washington had the option of turning off the television when we could no longer stand the sight of that darkly-silhouetted Boeing 767 flying into the side of the WTC tower. We could switch back and forth between Tom Brokaw and Dan Rather to see which one offered better sound bites. The only thing lacking is the commercials; the media moguls apparently decided that the sight of the towers imploding into themselves was not the sort of thing that would make the average viewer run down to the nearest auto dealer to buy a new SUV.

Meanwhile, of course, it was an entirely different situation for the people who actually live and work in Manhattan, as well as the folks who work in the Pentagon. It's no longer a television war; it's a real war. And what we're being told, both directly and indirectly, is that it's altogether possible that the war may visit the television viewers in Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, Chicago, Boston, Omaha, St. Louis, Denver, Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and a dozen other cities -- in an equally awful, devastating way. Tighter security will help reduce the chances of this happening, and may help to reduce the consequences of whatever attacks do occur. On the other hand, it's easy to imagine even worse disasters than the WTC attack, if biological or chemical toxins are involved, or if nuclear weapons are unleashed.

I suppose that my parent's generation felt equally somber when they heard the news about Pearl Harbor; but in those days, they didn't think they had the weapons or the delivery systems capable of obliterating entire populations overnight. Now we do, and I fear that in the aftermath of the WTC attack, those weapons are about to be unleashed -- upon our enemies, but also upon us. God help us all.