Page 258 - Religion in the Media Age Media, Religion & Culture

Public religious culture post-09/11/01 247

fying when it works smoothly. That is why it is so fundamentally unset-
tling (and might so readily invoke ideas of – and defense through – civil
religion) when catastrophes seem to befall the nation and its people. Both
its provision of security and its legitimacy are under assault.
It late modernity, it seems, this theme of legitimacy is paired with ques-
tions of unity, of shared and common purpose. In an era defined by self
and self-identity, our relations and senses of empathy with other “selves”
become a prominent issue and concern. Such unity is also under siege in
events like the JFK assassination or 9/11. It becomes necessary to rebuild a
sense of commonness and unity out of a sense of disruption and loss. As
Foote points out, there is a malleability to the social practices that address
such concerns. Citing Eric Hobsbawm’s notion of “invented tradition,” he
echoes Wade Clark Roof’s invocation of the same idea, and thus allows a
linkage to ideas of religious practices that are constituted by such inven-
39
tion. The overarching project of commonness or common purpose is, as I
said, under assault in events like those described by Foote, the bombing of
the Murrah building, and, of course, the September 11 attacks.
Edward Linenthal has provided the definitive reading of the Oklahoma
City events, and he directly addresses the question of what can be salient
about events that focus on American victimization rather than American
triumph. Clearly, in both Oklahoma City and 9/11, there were attempts to
craft a narrative of triumph. As Linenthal notes, however, such attempts
rang hollow in a situation where a “traumatic vision” was more connected
with the actual experience. Instead of a narrative or tradition of “patri-
40
otic sacrifice,” Linenthal argues that a narrative of victimization actually
functions better to bind communities – and the nation – together.
Perhaps one of the greatest attractions of a nationwide bereaved
community is that it is one of the only ways Americans can imagine
themselves as one; being “together” with millions of others through
expressions of mourning bypasses or transcends the many ways in
which people are divided – by religion, by ideology, by class, by
region, by race, by gender. 41

How commemoration is done has also undergone change over time,
change that is significant to questions of the integration of media into
these processes. The Vietnam veterans’ memorial in Washington ushered in
a new set of practices of memorialization. First, it specifically memorial-
ized all of those killed, and, second (perhaps in conjunction with that level
of personalization), the practice evolved of visitors leaving memorial
objects at the wall. In her account of the meaning of the wall, Kristin Haas
notes that these objects reflect a blended mixture of secular and civic tradi-
tions of commemorating death. “Many, many people carrying things to
the wall are working to come to terms with particular losses and with their