Don Delillo

"IT wasn't like her to use this term - "the state" - in the ironclad context of supreme public power. This was not her vocabulary." How many times have we all heard such similar sentiments dressed in the concerns of a different conflict? The way we speak so unfalteringly of "the Bush administration" or "terrorists" as if we had some knowledge beyond that of the 5 o'clock news and the ignorant opinions of great uncles and the like.
But Delillo's essay allows us to explore the tricky game of political memory in a more poetic fashion. In the context of 911, the essay shows how it's easy to become swayed by a person (the museum man)or a cause when there is strong emotion attached to the situation. For example, the man in Delillo's essay says, "See how easy. NOw you. Start with the shoes, first one, then the other." This may be a stretch but I interpret this line to be synonymous with how a people can become intoxicated with unreasonable ideas about a place or people. It's easy for it to happen. You just (as the man said), start with one misinterpretation and then step follows step until one's trapped in a bathroom of misinformation.