Gauging the National Mood As New Realities Sink In

The all-too-literal dust of Sept. 11 hadn't settled before the media declared that life had been utterly changed. Popular opinion said so, too. Polling that evening, Ipsos-Reid found 74 percent of respondents calling the attack "a turning point that will fundamentally change things forever," versus 21 percent expecting "a return to normal." In the weeks since then, though, many Americans have felt the gravitational pull of normality. In a CBS News/New York Times survey fielded Sept. 20-23, two-thirds said the nation was ready to return to business as usual. As familiar routines reassert themselves, we can think more carefully about just what will change and what won't as a result of that morning's events. People are scared, but less so than right after the attacks. A Fox News/Opinion Dynamics survey conducted Sept. 19-20 found just 11 percent of adults "very worried" that a terrorist attack might take place where they live or work, versus 24 percent simply "worried," 31 percent "not very worried" and 33 percent "not worried at all." Asked to pick the safest country to live in right now, 51 percent chose the U.S. Australia/ New Zealand and Canada were distant runners-up (7 percent). It's not as if people are Pollyannaish, though: 78 percent of the CBS/Times respondents think it likely there will be another terrorist attack on the U.S. "within the next few months."The declining importance of men was a popular theme of the past decade. Whether as breadwinners or procreators, men were deemed inessential against a backdrop of growing female self-sufficiency. That's going to change for a while. Even in the modern military, combat remains men's work. So, mostly, does the conduct of foreign policy. As events direct our attention more toward Nightline and less toward Oprah in the months ahead, men will cease to be the gender that time forgot.We have nothing to fear but recession itself. Consumer confidence was wavering even before Sept. 11, but it's now in full retreat. In a Conference Board survey, 47 percent of respondents said they expect the U.S. to fall into recession as a result of the attacks. In the CBS/Times poll, 63 percent said the recession already has begun. Still, consumers are resisting austerity. The Conference Board found 89 percent saying they don't plan to postpone big purchases. Fifty-eight percent of respondents to a Newsweek poll thought we face only a "brief recession" in the aftermath of Sept. 11. Even amid news of massive layoffs by the airlines, Gallup found just 13 percent of working adults saying they're very likely or fairly likely to be laid off—up a single percentage point from April.A possible motto for this war: "Millions for defense, but not if it imperils my federal check." When the Los Angeles Times asked people if they'd "support funding intelligence operations at a higher level even if it meant reduced government benefits," 52 percent said "no" and 36 percent answered "yes."While the news pages of magazines and daily papers talk of war, back-of-the-book sections have been consumed by debate on whether the "age of irony" has suddenly ended. In Time, Roger Rosenblatt denounced the ironists' central subtext—"that nothing was to be believed in or taken seriously"—for its now-obvious falsity. Others simply suggested ironic detachment had become unwelcome to America's grim audiences. Representing the opposite camp, the Chicago Tribune's Steve Johnson argued that irony, properly understood, is one of the things we need these days—that true irony, "like everything else, has meaning again." In predicting shifts in popular taste, some commentators have looked to the example of the home front in past wars. But our new war doesn't have a home front, remote from battle; we're all in the line of fire now. And if folks on the home front have traditionally been gung-ho, those in the trenches are notoriously profane and black-humored. Thus, far from sanitizing pop culture, this war could further coarsen it.

Brand Marketing

Gauging the National Mood As New Realities Sink In

Mark Dolliver

About

Subscriptions

Events

Publications

WORK SMARTER - LEARN, GROW AND BE INSPIRED.

Subscribe today!

Mark Dolliver