![]() ![]() It allows Americans to comfort themselves that whatever transgressions may occur during these periods are both aberrational and temporary. ![]() Like any national myth, this one serves an important purpose in American life. It imagines a sudden and violent storm, when the Ship of State is tempest-toss’d by buffeting gales of savage hatred, until such time as the seas finally calm and the country begins the long, difficult journey back to more familiar waters. After the attacks of September 11, it became popular to describe what was thought of as the typical American response to war: the nation is thrown off course at the onset of a military emergency but gradually steers back to a peacetime norm once the threat recedes. It is the great myth of deviation and redemption. ![]()
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