Dean's Column
by Dean Samuel H. Preston

Seeing through the Smoke and Ruin

Familiar routines came to a halt on September 11 as we listened to newscasters and eyewitnesses struggle to find words that might impart sense to the televised images that gripped us.

"Beyond comprehension," one commentator called it. "Beyond our worst imaginings," reached another, "like one more circle of Dante's hell." Ash-covered Wall Street executives streaming away from the cloud of dust and documents that boiled up from the collapsed World Trade Center reminded some observers of Roman patricians fleeing Vesuvius. Normalcy itself seemed to shudder and fall with the twin towers.

Like the rest of the nation, Penn's campus community was profoundly shaken by these terrible events. In light of the university's teaching and research mission, many of us asked: How should we respond to a catastrophe of this magnitude? How can we achieve a satisfactory understanding of what had taken place in New York, Washington, and Shanksville, PA?

Drawing on some of our finest scholars with expertise in fields relevant to these atrocities, the School of Arts and Sciences convened a symposium, Responding to Terrorism, just two days after the attacks. "We thought," explained President Judith Rodin, CW'66, who moderated the colloquium, "that it would be useful to bring some of the collective wisdom of the faculty to bear on the critically important events of the week." Students, faculty, and staff—still in shock but hungry for perspective—filled Irvine Auditorium and listened to analysis, context, criticism, warnings, policy and security recommendations, and even words of inspiration.

With scholars proficient in military history, ethnic conflict, and Middle Eastern culture and politics, the School of Arts and Sciences found itself well situated to illuminate many facets of this complex and historic event. "We must all think," urged visiting political science professor Brendan O'Leary, "and not be driven by our immediate collective passions." The other panelists included Ian Lustick and Robert Vitalis, also from political science, historian Arthur Waldron, and Seth Kreimer from the law school.

"The function of professional intellectuals in a free society," observed Lustick, "is to stand with that society and yet also, always—even when it is uncomfortable—to apply critical faculties to popular notions." Panelists talked about the broad international context, what may have motivated the terrorists, past American foreign policy initiatives and how they may have been related to the attacks, and what America's response ought to be.

Naturally, the faculty panelists didn't always agree. Most stated their points strongly, and vigorously argued their positions. John Leo, whose column in U.S. News & World Report criticized the response on American campuses for its tepidness and moral relativism, would have been surprised. Irvine Auditorium was utterly silent as our faculty spoke, and the audience responded with loud and sustained applause and thoughtful questions.

The symposium, I believe, was cathartic for many in the Penn community who only two days earlier had witnessed the murder of thousands. But our intention, and that of faculty who generously offered the benefit of their expertise and their insight, was not primarily therapeutic.

Seventeenth-century rationalist philosopher Benedict Spinoza once wrote: "I have labored carefully, with regard to human affairs, not to mock, not to weep, not to become indignant, but to understand." Our purpose in convening Responding to Terrorism is akin to Spinoza's labors: to demonstrate that thorough understanding and careful analysis—the core elements of a great university—can light the way out of ignorance, suspicion, and fanaticism.

"Be normal," O'Leary cautioned. "Don't close universities—make them places where people talk and argue about these questions." It is the hallmark of what we do as teachers and as scholars in the School of Arts and Sciences. We must do it in normal times and with redoubled dedication in times of crisis.

Faculty presentations for the symposium on Responding to Terrorism can be found on the SAS website.