The Argument For Arguing

By NANCY GIBBS

On Sept. 11 our new world was a small town with a huge Main Street where everyone suddenly knew everyone else, wore the same colors, felt like kin. It's hard to imagine we could have huddled comfortably in such close quarters for very long.

A country founded by rebels and settled by refugees is a happily untidy place, slow to conform, quick to adjust. Another week passes, another adjustment: first came permission to laugh again, make fun of the President, shop; now comes the license to argue again--the "music of democracy," one House member mused last week. It was almost a relief to watch lawmakers who used to loathe one another make common cause in their loathing of John Ashcroft's antiterrorism bill. Did anyone actually mourn the death of bipartisanship? It was a bloodless phantom anyway: all lawmakers love their country and would do anything to defend it, and that includes doing their jobs, which is to disagree over how best to do this. Scholars argue over whether it is their job to try to understand the enemies' motives, or whether the effort reeks of apology and appeasement. New Yorkers argue over whether to rebuild the Twin Towers and whether to let Rudy be Mayor for Life. Minnesotans argue whether it's appropriate for state workers to strike during wartime.

The public arm wrestling is oddly consoling. No one argued about much of anything on Sept. 11; we were truly united, in shock and grief, and lingered there a while, finding safety in numbers. But it was disturbing to watch censors enforce intellectual curfews and hear of fights over the proper way to display an American flag. If people feel safe enough to argue in public again, maybe things really are moving back to normal.

It was getting awkward, holding hands all the time. We each move through all this rubble at our own pace, and it's not fair to hold others back or drag them along faster than their balance allows. People confess that they have stopped returning phone calls from longtime friends who have lost their footing. The conversation is getting too raw between those who believe the world has changed forever and those who may agree but still want to move on. You're wallowing in misery. No, you're in denial. But I can't sleep. I don't want to talk about it anymore. A Chicago psychotherapist goes to church in search of calm and respite. "I had to listen to 100 different versions of how horrendous an event this was," he says. "I didn't want to hear any more pain, to have more emotions thrown at me. The pastor felt that he needed to talk about whether people are being too patriotic and too gung-ho. That's fine. But that was not what I went there for."

It's healthy to argue, vent your anger, the experts say, but there is so much of it, especially in the city with a gash in the ground where our skyscrapers used to be. In lower Manhattan they vacuum and wipe, go to work, go to a funeral, then come home, vacuum and wipe, scream at the community-board meeting about the filth in the air--How much asbestos is there anyway?--and the absence of school buses. After the first few weeks of quiet, the city's crisis hotlines are blistered with calls and there are no beds available in the psychiatric wards. A man arrives at the armory where families of the missing gather and offers to help resurrect the dead. "Suddenly every night is a full moon," a Bellevue psychiatrist says. The downtown folks are frustrated that they still don't have phones and that people uptown are getting pedicures done as though nothing has changed. "She's trying to isolate herself," says a downtown refugee of her uptown sister-in-law. "She doesn't want to accept reality at all." Meanwhile some uptown people feel brave for not having sold their condos and decamped for Vermont. Others have.

It's safe to argue again, perhaps, but the soul-shaking argument is the one we are having with ourselves. Is all this making me stronger or just making me a wreck? Am I doing enough to protect my children? What about that woman who threw her kids in the car and drove to Florida and is not coming back? Is it weakness, or arrogance, to even think this way? Or wisdom? "You could get hit by a bus," we remind ourselves, and then in the next breath, "God helps those who help themselves." So do we move to Wyoming or not?

Argument cuts into comfort and bruises our pride, but it's also the way we get smarter, and humbler. This is a time that calls for as much humility as courage: when the territory is unknown it's better not to pretend you know where you are going. Better to listen to advice, argue with passion, even with ourselves and our worst instincts. Our better angels need weapons too, and argument makes them sharper, and every time we fight the urge to panic and help someone else regain his balance, we may better arm ourselves for whatever these next days bring.