2 thoughts on “New Updike essay appears in Modern Philology”

1. One of the best critiques of any Updike piece, ever. Professor Herman deserves our plaudits. I read “Terrorist” in 2011, so by then a lot of the flag-waving responses to 9/11 had become a bit more sober with the passage of time and our waking up to the prevarications of war. By then many more observers were also declaring, like Jacques Derrida, “what is terrible about ‘September 11,’ what remains ‘ infinite’ in this wound, is that we do not know what it is and so do not know how to describe, identify, or even name it.” To this day we would do well to doubt anyone who says they know what 9/11 was, as no credible investigation has ever been made of what happened that day. Not the FBI, not the news media, no one with the objectivity nor the investigative tools to do the job. Virtually all of the physical evidence was destroyed with dispatch, unlike what would be required to process a crime scene. We don’t even know the basic facts. There are thousands of significant contradictions in the official story as issued by the special commission. Whether any of this influenced Updike may be beside the point, but he indeed bravely took on the false patriotic delusions under which the country was, and continues to be veiled.

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2. I’m all for casting a critical eye toward “false patriotic delusions,” especially if those delusions lead to something as rotton and wasteful as our occupation of Iraq. That said, the idea that we don’t know what happened on 9-11 (and what it means) is ridiculous. It was a terrorist attack by radical Jihadist Muslims (who do not represent all Muslims, obviously). It was a horrific and murderous crime that cannot be justified by any sane, decent, thinking human being. How we respond to such a attack is another matter.

   And, for the record, we actually did land on the moon. It was not faked in a CIA-run movie studio.

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