9/11

It seems - a few Facebook notices aside - we have stopped stopping to commemorate that day.

That's not to say that there isn't still some residual fear and policy remaining.

The NSA programs exist because of 9/11.  The US's inability to make a clear moral case in Syria is undermined by torture and Guantanamo.  Drones continue to patrol the skies over Yemen and Afghanistan, launching a brave and terrifying new form of warfare.

To the degree that "nostalgia" exists for that day, it exists because for a few months there, we felt intrinsically bound to one another in grief and anger and resolve.

And all that's gone now.

All that we are left with is the lingering echoes of some of the madness and fear we embraced in the years after 9/11.  Embracing those fears instead of the better angels of our nature.