The Flames or the Garden: A Discussion on Towers
I am both dazzled and dizzied by heights. I enjoy the thrill of hiking up, pushing myself, but I wouldn’t wander where the ibex roams. I believe in the human spirit and in the material expression of its splendor, within reason. The Egyptian and Incan pyramids, the great European cathedrals, the ancient temples of the east: these are all treasures that testify to man’s endurance, vision, and capability. In the modern era, the skyscraper has been the de facto edifice of wonder, yet its powerful upward trajectory offers a shaky sort of symbolism.
The skyscraper is a tower, a symbol that offers nothing short of mixed messages on the physical level. It reaches high and speaks volumes for a civilization’s education, affluence, and culture. Towers also suggest the power of vision, the upper hand if you will. They are edifices of commerce and defense, of glory and hubris. As exhilarating as towers are, they also topple, sometimes by virtue of their own weight and other times by the gravity of arms. For the individual, the fall of towers represent the destruction of ego, the chaos of a life shattering event. In the collective imagination, the fall of towers correlates to the fall of kingdoms, empires, and entire civilizations. The tumbling of their stones, the high brought low, reads like a divine statement: heaven casts man back down to earth.
For these reasons, on September 11th, 2001, terrorists turned the twin towers into flaming death traps, their tumultuous fall a thing of nightmares. That was the point. Muslim extremists believed that bringing Hell on earth to their enemies, the infidels who do not follow their strict interpretation of the Koran, was justified, a sacred duty. This act was not simply an act of physical terrorism. It was an act of psychic warfare, and I mean this in the sense of harming the collective psyche. For a long while, many people lived in immense fear, but the resilience of the west stood strong in the face of catastrophe. The unrecognized effect is how divided we would become in this country over the perspective and acts of those lands that support terrorism.
These days, many people haphazardly support terrorist affiliated governments and groups without realizing it, albeit some people do know they are supporting such people. They offer their support thinking they are taking the side of the little guy, the oppressed. To the people of the west, where diversity is a virtue and human rights the highest good, it’s all too easy to assume the best, to believe the rhetoric of victimhood, and to ignore fundamentalist Islam’s extreme violence and oppression. After all, to a casual glance, the smoke has cleared on our continent. However, the real war, for a long while, has been one of ideology, one of propaganda, of making the tower fall philosophically. It has been a veiled thing, one dependent on powerful alliances and subtle means.
In the west, as a people, we have shown greater resilience than to let falling towers destroy us, but the ideological discord is real and only increases by the day. With weak border security and a growing culture of antagonism toward the principles of liberty from which this country was founded, it seems as if black seeds have been sown, especially as terrorist Hammas enjoys such popular support despite violent kidnappings, the use of hospitals for their operations, and other atrocities occurring at their hands for which they place the blame on, and take no responsibility for, the legitimate state of Israel. Meanwhile, the chess pieces of those who hate the United States and those who believe in liberty move across the globe, with some hostile factors traveling close to our home.
I wonder what type of Pearl Harbor nightmare might occur for people to snap out of it and see that terrorist powers hate them and their values. How much death must fall upon innocent citizens before it becomes obvious that as a people we have neglected the security of our borders? I dread to find out how many people could end up experiencing unforeseen pain and oppression before they recognize that destabilizing our own society in support of extremists is a bad idea.
Such worries, one might argue, are the stuff of scare tactics and intolerance, but one might counter that such thoughts are practical realities playing out before our eyes. We are lucky for each and every day disaster does not fall upon us, and it is up to us to work together to safeguard our constitution, culture, and country without being distracted by the persistent and excessive straw-man arguments that frame our biggest worries to be how offended we make each other or how imperfect some of our ancestors might have been. Newsflash: all of the human civilizations in the world have been imperfect. We must face forward together rather than backwards and at odds. The real issue is that as countrymen, we must stand together.
I began this piece thinking simply of how towers can be improved, but kairos called upon me to speak up. Nevertheless, let us think not only of safeguarding our towers, but doing them better. The towers of my imagination break from the standard skyscraper’s dreary utilitarianism. The bare lines of deconstructionist aesthetics is just another variation of Brutalist architecture, most diminishing to the human spirit, and the majority of skyscrapers offer that interpretation of progress. When the symbols of our collective unconscious start to drain us, it’s time for a change. Perhaps we can build up cultural joy by reviving the most beautiful of our historical styles. I’d also like to see more hybrid towers, towers that are gardens unto themselves and which collect sunshine in their own panels, both more humanistic expressions of achievement. If you’ve joined me here in this idyllic vision, I petition you to work toward a reality where towers are not symbols of heartless corporatism or characterless forces of power, for whatever towers may one day topple, the ones that were contrary to the human spirit will only contribute to our own social cynicism while the ones that uplifted us all will forever remind us why we love our country.
