"Just because we can say anything, does that mean we must say everything?"

You guys are not going to freaking believe who wrote that line in the WSJ a couple of weeks ago (hint: think 9/11 as performance art) - she's apparently a student at Yale Law School now:

http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110009805

 

She wrote a pretty good book "Prozac Nation". What's her other claim to fame? I don't get the 9/11 reference.

 

Oh, supposedly the reason the movie never saw theatrical release was because she made a comment after 9/11 about how she felt like it was some kind of strange performance art taking place, nothing real, and that she didn't feel anything, etc., etc., etc. Of course a bunch of conservative commentators flipped out about it - I mean, if you know her style to begin with, you understand that she's just being brutally honest about how it could be numbing. She called the buildings collapsing "beautiful." So of course the Hannitys of the world ran with that one. Clearly she was contrasting the ugliness of what happened with hos captivating it was to actually look at. But God forbid someone is honest about that and doesn't just say the correct patriotic thing.

Anyway ... I like "Prozac Nation" a lot, too. But just seemed kind of ironic for her to be lecturing people about saying "everything." Of course I pulled the quote out of contest.

 

We're all hypocrites on some level, and we should all be allowed to grow into different people than who we were when we said something true to us almost six years ago.

 

Oh, I meant that it was ironic she would say this quote because she has made a mint writing tell-all memoirs, not that it was hypocritical because of the 9/11 thing.

 

As an author...



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I agree. But isn't it incumbant upon those who have grown and matured to comment on the past as they adjust their current thinking? Or is it that she merely applies her philosphy to those cause in which she agrees and damns those who feel otherwise?

 

Absolutely. Anyone who doesn't appreciate the artistic beauty of 9/11 is a wingnut loser.

Would "the joyous juxtaposition of large wet snowflakes and bullets flying through the crisp Blacksburg morning" work too?

Even if you can justify comments like that six ways from Sunday, perhaps you'd be best to be considerate of how they can be taken. Even if that means lowering yourself to the mouthbreathers who don't get you.