After having let the shock of the attack settle, there is one word that describes my feeling at this point in time; mad.
I'm simply very mad about hearing what happened in France. I'm extremely mad about how many innocents he killed. I'm also extremely mad how far the truck got before being stopped. When I first heard about the attack I thought he might have gotten several hundred feet, maybe a thousand, but to hear he went over a mile before being stopped? It made me very mad.
After reflecting on this reaction, I asked myself, was I this mad after the 9/11 attack? I mean if I am this mad about 84 deaths, surely I was more mad about 3000 deaths right? The answer is no, I was not this mad after the 9/11 attack. Rather, I was simply supremely sad. Back then, I recall feeling very little or no anger over the death of 3000 innocents, just extreme sadness.
Now how could I feel so differently in these 2 situations? I can only think of 2 things:
1. My age. I was only 12 during the 9/11 attack. In my eyes, a 12 year old has very little potential for anger. Children have very little understanding of the evil in the world and simply understand sadness. I really didn't have the potential to feel mad, just sad. If 9/11 had happened when I was an adult, I would have surely felt a great deal of anger. I would have surely been in favor of war for justice while back then I did not.
2. The personal level of the attack. Unlike this recent attack, the 9/11 tragedy was quite impersonal. The majority of the victims died from the collapse or from burning alive when trapped in the upper floors. The culprits had no interaction with those they killed. In the Paris attack, the man physically hit or ran over all of his victims and saw them at the moment of their death. This is much more personal and, in my opinion, makes the attack feel more close to home and personal.
TL
R:
The tragedy in Paris resulted in about 1/40th of the deaths of 9/11, but I thought these killings were very personal and caused a level of anger that surprised me. I was much younger on 9/11 so my reaction to the death of 3000 was much different. If I was an adult during 9/11 I would surely have felt a great deal of anger and would have been in favor of war. Back then, I only felt sadness.
Did anyone else have reactions that surprised them? How did your reaction to this attack vary from your reaction to 9/11?
I'm simply very mad about hearing what happened in France. I'm extremely mad about how many innocents he killed. I'm also extremely mad how far the truck got before being stopped. When I first heard about the attack I thought he might have gotten several hundred feet, maybe a thousand, but to hear he went over a mile before being stopped? It made me very mad.
After reflecting on this reaction, I asked myself, was I this mad after the 9/11 attack? I mean if I am this mad about 84 deaths, surely I was more mad about 3000 deaths right? The answer is no, I was not this mad after the 9/11 attack. Rather, I was simply supremely sad. Back then, I recall feeling very little or no anger over the death of 3000 innocents, just extreme sadness.
Now how could I feel so differently in these 2 situations? I can only think of 2 things:
1. My age. I was only 12 during the 9/11 attack. In my eyes, a 12 year old has very little potential for anger. Children have very little understanding of the evil in the world and simply understand sadness. I really didn't have the potential to feel mad, just sad. If 9/11 had happened when I was an adult, I would have surely felt a great deal of anger. I would have surely been in favor of war for justice while back then I did not.
2. The personal level of the attack. Unlike this recent attack, the 9/11 tragedy was quite impersonal. The majority of the victims died from the collapse or from burning alive when trapped in the upper floors. The culprits had no interaction with those they killed. In the Paris attack, the man physically hit or ran over all of his victims and saw them at the moment of their death. This is much more personal and, in my opinion, makes the attack feel more close to home and personal.
TL
R:The tragedy in Paris resulted in about 1/40th of the deaths of 9/11, but I thought these killings were very personal and caused a level of anger that surprised me. I was much younger on 9/11 so my reaction to the death of 3000 was much different. If I was an adult during 9/11 I would surely have felt a great deal of anger and would have been in favor of war. Back then, I only felt sadness.
Did anyone else have reactions that surprised them? How did your reaction to this attack vary from your reaction to 9/11?
