Not for nearly a quarter century (that long?) has a structural collapse shocked me so. Then it was those two towers poking the clouds, hit by planes. Yesterday it was a bridge across Baltimore Bay, hit by a cargo ship. I’d often visited both. Both were fixtures of the horizon and imagination, I-beams in fortress America, permanent one thought, imperturbable, and bang, they vanished with the lives they bore. Workers and motorists were leading their ordinary lives at a yawning hour, half-awake, and bang, half an imprecation perhaps – “What the – ?!” – and farewell. Terrorism, in one case, inadvertence, apparently, in the other, though for mourners what’s the difference? Mighty America had failed to safeguard its citizens. In either instance, it could have been us.
Americans take our safety for granted. Who’s more potent than we? Who spends more to protect themselves? Who has more know-how, technology, redundant vigilance? Airports have made pleasure travel an oxymoron we’re so vigilant. “Stay safe” is a valediction new to our moment.
This surfeit of security obscures our vulnerability. In some ways we’re safer than ever, in others less. Driving into Manhattan, I gasp at the new super-skinny skyscrapers transforming the skyline into an asparagus patch. Engineers swear to the solidity of these swaying stalks, but who doubts, sooner or later, they’ll snap. And then what? Who’ll shield the pedestrians on the street from stuff and bodies hurtling down?
Physically, we’re more dependent than ever. I can hardly fix anything in our house except a paragraph. Our serene seclusion is perforated by helpers, corporeal and imperceptible. Our alarm system which we don’t want but must have (saith our insurer) keeps pestering us with false beeps. My information, communication, and vocation are housed in a metal box controlled by whom? Entertainment debouches from another box. We poke buttons prayerfully. Americans yammer for freedom: I wouldn’t know how to be free – and wouldn’t like it. Only in my mind (and perhaps not even there).
A delusion of independence encourages discourtesy. Neighbors we depend on we address respectfully, but who needs to be cordial to a cog! We excoriate clerks, politicians, and helpless help desks as if they weren’t human. For assistance, we rely on systems, not relationships. Humanity is less and less nice. Are we headed right?
A shocking collapse recalls our mutual dependence. It should teach us kindness, only it doesn’t. Instead we look to systems to avenge us, as to a thuggish senior. Hurt, we want to hurt back – with lawsuits, insults. No one blames bad luck anymore. Anything bad that happens is someone else’s fault. Our temper is wary, edgy, surly. We’re on guard. “Stay safe!”
It sometimes seems the complexity of modernity has outgrown our ability to cope. Our helplessness infantilizes and riles us. Whatever happened to self-reliance? Does anybody enjoy victimhood?
Only a second flood will return civilization to reliable simplicity. Many a gated community may pretend to the collegiality of olden times but that’s baloney and they know it. We are all infinitely dependent, as restrained as Gulliver in Lilliput by a thousand threads. The moral trick – duty, some might argue – is to protect our equanimity despite our incapacity: to be glad and gracious where we are, not rapacious for where we’re not. Accept our need for one another, celebrate it as a gift, don’t decry it as a grievance. We are all in this together, this game of life. The sorrows of one are the sorrows of all, likewise the joys. Shit happens – always – with more to come. Let us not harangue but hug one another in our dread.