The Innocence Gap --- In this session we learn that: “We are studying the gap between what is said and unsaid.’ We appreciate, at the conclusion of our study, that the whole content of this course could be contained under the heading 'gaps'.

A ‘gap’ in language is equivalent to a vacuum in nature. Aristotle coined the phrase “nature abhors a vacuum.” Some of the reported findings following 11 September 2001 confirm that human nature also abhors a gap and will fill it with a pre-determined reality rather than the evidence which it is incapable of understanding.

The 911 news reports include this narrative: “The most telling part of September 11, 2001, was the interval between the first plane crash at the World Trade Center, at 8:46 a.m., and the second, at 9:03. In those 17 minutes, the nation’s sheer innocence was on display.”

I apply these thoughts to this visceral example. It speaks volumes about our human nature, not in our words but in our behavior and actions. We learned during the course that language is action; and we understand the truism that actions speak louder than words. Therefore, consider this time gap between the first plane crashing into the Twin Tower and the 17-minute gap to the second plan crashing into the second Tower.

By 8:40 a.m. the aftermath of the first crash was live on the nation’s televisions. Though horrified, many Americans who saw those images still went on about their morning. They filled the gap between what the news reports said and showed and what they believed to be reality.

In New York, the commuter-ferry captain Peter Johansen recalled how, afterward, he docked at the Wall Street Terminal and every single one of his passengers got off and walked into Lower Manhattan, even as papers and debris rained down from the damaged North Tower.

Contrary to what they could see and hear many Americans did not adjust to the new reality but walked into the “innocence gap” of a devastated downtown Manhattan. In another sense, there was no gap, time stood still for America; and during that hiatus a new narrative erupted into the culture with a new frame to explain a disturbing reality.

Source author: John D. Hipsley jhipsley@igc.org