Americans Sense a "New Normal" After 9/11 - Gallup
 

This article needs to be read in full for complete understanding, especially since there are several graphs.

Americans Sense a "New Normal" After 9/11
Most say U.S., their lives, still not back to normal

by Lydia Saad
GALLUP NEWS SERVICE

PRINCETON, NJ -- Americans' current perceptions of the effect the 9/11 attacks have had on the United States and on themselves, personally, are similar to what these perceptions were on the first anniversary of the attacks. Even four years after the attacks, an Aug. 28-30 CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll finds most Americans feeling that neither the country nor their own lives have fully returned to normal since terrorists killed nearly 3,000 people on Sept. 11, 2001.

While these evaluations haven't changed since 2002, Americans appear a bit more pessimistic now than they were then about the likelihood that normalcy will ever be fully restored to the country or to their own lives. Nearly two-thirds now say the country will never completely return to normal, while close to half say the same for themselves.

Evaluations of Current Conditions Since 9/11

When asked to evaluate how the country is faring since 9/11, a slim majority of Americans (54%) say the United States is not back to normal, while 42% believe it is "somewhat" back to normal. Thus, 96% of Americans perceive that the country remains changed by the event. Only a scant few (4%) say things are "completely back to normal." These attitudes -- collected before the full scale of the Hurricane Katrina disaster was known -- are virtually identical to previous measures in 2002 and 2003.
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I've been thinking about this a lot since first reading it yesterday. It's a very difficult question to answer because it's difficult to define normal. On that horrible day 4 years ago, I thought that the world had truly changed forever. I thought our lives would be forever changed in big ways. In a few ways, this is true, but I have to admit, it isn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. I thought there would be a lot of attacks on our soil and that they'd be frequent. There was so much talk of attacks on nuclear plants (I have my iodine pills), water plants, financial centers, etc. I thought that I'd walk around feeling unsafe forever.

That said, it feels more normal than I thought it would. We have a new normal. Airport security is a pain in the butt now (we thought it was bad then though!). When we had the huge blackout in '03, the first thing everybody thought was that it was terrorism and we never would've thought that first. We are at war in Afghanistan and Iraq, so that's definitely new. While I was alive during Vietnam, I was very young. The Persian Gulf War was so quick and decisive that it didn't feel like a war. I think we're just starting to feel like a country at war now, with resources getting more scant and everybody knowing more and more people who have lost their lives over there. Being at war isn't normal though, not for us.

So, my own life is far more normal than I thought it would ever be again on that awful morning. But, our country has changed in many ways, forever. It really is a "new normal" that we've adjusted to.

Dee

Life won't be normal until Silver Spoons is shown on television again.

-Rudey

That's what I got out of it, too. I've changed - we've ALL changed - in little and big ways, but it's part of the process. I can remember thinking that night that America has lost its naivetee, and realizing that we ALL lost a large measure of it.

But it's not half as bad as we originally thought, is it?

I actually talked about this with some politically minded co-workers today to work my way though what I felt and thought. We also agreed that we have become desensitized to it. Watching the memorials and the replays of the footage on Sunday was like watching a movie in an objective fashion, not the extremely emotional experience that we shared back on that day. We also agreed that we are feeling desensitized to the Katrina disaster as well. It does not bring the same level of emotion that it brought a week ago.

That makes me wonder.. is our 24/7 coverage of these things making us less empathetic in the long run?

ETA: That day, I went to the snack shop in our building during the afternoon and saw a newspaper from that morning that was announcing Michael Jordan's retirement (or return?). I remember thinking "That paper was written when the world was still normal"

I think we have become desensitized to catastrophe. We were also talking about it at work - one thought was that it began when Viet Nam was daily televised.

I had to take a step back to realize that, had I not had a connection to each of the 9/11 attacks (lived in the shadow of the WTC; interviewed a Fairfax county fireman days before the Pentagon was attacked, then saw him on tv; and of course, Somerset is so close), would I have been so emotionally disturbed by it to this day? If my cousin was not volunteering in the Gulf, would Katrina have meant much more than a terrible hurricane?

We have the news on at work all day (unless I'm by myself). There's really a limit to how much you can listen to it before it becomes yet another "show" - and how I hate saying that!