Language Earthquakes

[eredien]

I was reading rm's journal earlier today, and started thinking about something she wrote in this post. I was going to post the following as a comment in her journal, but it wouldn't fit in a comment no matter how I edited it, and I realized it would make a good standalone post. So, I thought I would post it here and also leave a link to this in her journal comments.

I am leaving comments open, but be nice to each other. I left comments open because I am hoping that people will have interesting things to say about geology and critical literary theory in relation to metaphors and language phrases as they are used in modern politics. I have no emotional energy to moderate a debate right now, and even if I had the emotional energy, I have other things to do. If you are nasty, you are going to get banned. Thank you.
--

rm wrote:
"Ground Zero" has been, since the beginning, a useful term to frame, not just what happened at the WTC as an act or war, but to frame this idea of ourselves ("The West") being at war with Islam (which we shouldn't be, and is what the terrorists are trying, successfully apparently, to trick us into), and that's not a type of useful I can support.

That made me realize something new about how language is used to empower those already in power. The idea of "Ground Zero" implies some kind of origin point--a ground--and some kind of spreading out from that origin point--if there's a zero, that implies a one, two, and three, and on. But there's no Ground 1 or 2; there's just this empty origin. Ground Zeroes happen all over the world, every day--but how many of those get named? And of those, how many get named as the central point from which everything came, but in which there is emptiness?

Just one, and it's in one of the largest, richest, most important cities in the Global North (I'm trying to ditch the concept of "The West" in order to use the different concept of "The Global North," after having read Stuffed and Starved). An incredibly privileged act: name our wounds, and name them as first--to name them as the origin of pain.

So now there's this literally empty signifier of zero, as blasted origin. Origin implies that something is supposed to be spreading out; but no one knows what is "spreading" or where it is going. But people always pour things into empty spaces; human beings are always compelled to construct meanings out of trauma.

Something foreign, unknown, terrifying, is spreading from a single point, a wound, in the Global North, and no one knows what it is...
Mosques are foreign, unknown, terrifying, and "they" want to build one on the point, the wound.
Oh my God! The terrifying spreading thing must be Islam! It must be Plan51 Park 51!
It must be...the Ground Zero Mosque! (With that one added word, appended, the empty lingustic place gets literally filled with the idea of a literal building, and one which encompasses all of the Global North's fear of The Other at that. See it?)

If you look at the op-eds, the articles, the texts of the debate, it's clear many people assume something "spread" out from a defined, empty "ground" "zero" into other grounds nearby. Those areas were never defined, named, (as the "zero" point was, had to be), so there is no structure for people to talk about anything except the "zero" point as being sacred ground. All the "correct radius in blocks" talk is actually a barely-understood struggle to retroactively name and define a "ground 1" or "2." We are having this debate--"should we define those areas? Why wouldn't we? What spread out? How far did it go?"--without recognizing that we are claiming sacred ground, and without understanding why: all because the word zero, which we have heard so much, implies that there must be a one and a two. The lack of same makes people subconsciously uneasy: zeroes need to be followed by ones; order makes sense of things that make no sense. We are trying to build order, but we appear to be unaware, or unconcerned, that we ourselves are laying foundations in the dark.

After earthquakes, geologists talk about the epicenter--the stress point, the origin--of the quake. But they also talk about aftershock areas, and zones of destruction, and seismic shadowing, wherein the ripples from one earthquake reverberate through the earth's core and are felt in the place opposite from the epicenter, on the other side of the planet. After a quake, you hear about seismic shadowing, and you suddenly understand why you have been hearing so much about tsunamis in Japan.
But saying the words "Ground Zero" invokes the idea of epicenter without mentioning the quake. As our house falls to pieces around us, we cannot know why unless we talk about the earthquake. As we count the dead that are our seismic shadow, we cannot have any understanding of why people fight halfway around the world unless we talk about the earthquake.

And we keep invoking the epicenter as the reason for the quake.
I wish they would get a geologist to advise the White House.

A serious question: would the Plan51 Park 51 project would have generated as much opposition if it did not have a number in its name? (Yes, the proposed center is/was also called the Cordoba Mosque Project, but that name people had to research, and people are presenting the meaning(s) of it in articles, and other people are debating those meanings. No one is debating "Plan51," "Park 51" which to my ear sounds almost generic--no, rather, it sounds like it was designed to sound almost generic, like the name of an upscale bar/bistro. "Ground Zero" also sounds almost generic, too.

There's some kind of seismic shadowing in people's minds, in the language; there must be.

Comments

some quicky clarifications

[rm.livejournal.com]

It's Park 51, and has only started to be called that in the press recently as the AP has ruled that it may not be referred to as "the ground-zero mosque" since that is incorrect.

Additionally, Park 51 has only became the dominant name on any level, I believe, because people reacted badly to the name Cordoba, because of a lack of comprehension about the city of Cordoba's place in the historical relationship between Islam and Christianity.

I am fascinated and think you've really, really, really have something in many of the ideas you're putting out here (I am afraid I do not sound positive enough; I am very positive), but I'm not sure the number was at all central to anyone's awareness of this thing in the initial rounds of outrage that have gone on. Someone else may have more on this. I can only report on what I see from the excessive amount of media I view for professional reasons.

Meanwhile, the controversy seems to have generated its first reported bias crime: http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/25/cabbie-attacked/

My apologies if any offense was caused by my use of The West which is the required usage in this discussion at my media-related job.

Re: some quicky clarifications

[eredien]

Thanks for correcting me on the name of the site; I have now fixed it in the blog post. I must have misread it at some point and just went from there. I suppose I should have given it yet another editorial pass.

Yes, I found out later today that the new name was actually designed to sound generic, and just reflect the street address.

I'm not sure the number was at all central to anyone's awareness of this thing in the initial rounds of outrage that have gone on.

I don't think that it is consciously in anyone's awareness, certainly; I think if it's a factor, it's more of a subconscious niggling, the tiniest of searches for order and meaning in a time and place where there seem to be so little of either. But I think it's really important to think about how people use the word zero as a literal empty signifier for a place that, for so long, was a literal empty signifier itself, and look for things to fill that hole.

There was no offense caused by your use of "The West," it's certainly still a term in common usage. I actually wrote "The West" myself at first, but it didn't feel right, and then I remembered why I'd decided to make that change for myself, personally. If you haven't read "Stuffed & Starved" I highly recommend it. Patel made a case for why the old East/West divide largely no longer makes sense on a global economic scale and backs up the idea of the Global North/South with evidence I found thought-provoking and compelling. Your mileage may vary, but I found it an idea definitely worth tossing around a bit.

Yes, the cab-driver thing is awful. Apparently the attacker was recently embedded in a marine unit in Afghanistan, doing a video documentary for art school--and also volunteered with an interfaith peace organization...this keeps getting stranger, and sadder.

[tirerim.livejournal.com]

"Ground Zero" was first used to describe the centers of the atomic blasts at Hiroshima and Nagasaki (or rather, the points directly below the centers, since they exploded in the air). In that usage, it really was the center of destruction, with zones of different effects spreading out from it, though there were never Ground One or Ground Two, simply radii measured in ordinary units (feet, miles) which defined the circles of destruction. Perhaps collective memory has faded enough now that it gets used for much smaller destructive events.

[eredien]

Thank you. I have never heard that term used to describe either Hiroshima or Nagasaki, and I've done some research about that in the past and continued to do some even last week. There's always more things to learn.

[kaypendragon.livejournal.com]

My husband ran into this issue the other day. We don't keep track of a lot of the day-to-day news and he had been trying to figure out why everyone was arguing about a mosque in Japan.

[ceruleanst.livejournal.com]

"Ground zero" was a military term that meant the point on the ground nearest an explosion, especially a nuclear explosion. This distinguished it from true zero if the explosion was in the air; "zero" is the noun and "ground" is the modifier. So even though there is no ground one and so on, it is a term of precision because when you say fifty miles away, it answers the question: from what zero?

Before 9/11/2001, this was generally understood. Weird Al Yankovic's "Christmas at Ground Zero" (1986) was a product of the Cold War, a time you may be too young to fully remember, when the Bomb was hanging over all our heads and everyone was fairly convinced that it was all going to end in a senseless global thermonuclear armageddon, and it was only a matter of when. The most casual use of the term was at the Pentagon, since it was presumed to be the prime target of any future nuclear attack. Hence the Pentagon, and more specifically the little park at the very center of the Pentagon, was known as Ground Zero to those who worked there. It has a concession stand called the Ground Zero Cafe.

But then, on the very day that the Pentagon did suffer an attack, however small, Ground Zero suddenly became the name for the WTC site. Here's why: No American alive had ever seen a real attack on American soil. But we'd been trained to imagine that if such an unthinkable thing did happen, it would be the end of the world. So when America got a taste of the kind of terror that the rest of the world endures on a routine basis, there was no sense of perspective to be had, and Manhattan instantly became THE Place where THE Worst Thing Ever happened, THE Ground Zero. Three months later, "Christmas at Ground Zero" was a headline on TV news, and a sensible one when ash was still in the air. It's a reasonable thing to say when there's just been an explosion. Nine years later, continuing to call it that is just tunnel-minded arrogance.

[eredien]

Manhattan instantly became THE Place where THE Worst Thing Ever happened,

I think between Tirerim's info about Hiroshima and Nagasaki and your comments about the End of the World happening on American soil, you've really dug deeper into what I was trying to get at: "Ground Zeroes happen all over the world, every day--but how many of those get named? ... An incredibly privileged act: name our wounds, and name them as first--to name them as the origin of pain."

Thank you.

A side note: I do remember a bit of the end of the cold war--I remember the Berlin Wall, and later the fall of the USSR--but the thing I remember earliest was my parents trotting me out so I, their four-year-old prodigy, could demonstrate to some friends of my grandparents' that I did know how to read. Somebody handed me a newspaper, and I read, and I distinctly remember asking what a bomb was, and I remember being told they'd tell me later...

Thanks for the technical info on ground vs. air explosions. That puts my musings about the idea of zero into a new context; I wonder how many other people know that fact?

[faerieboots.livejournal.com]

"It's a reasonable thing to say when there's just been an explosion. Nine years later, continuing to call it that is just tunnel-minded arrogance."

Thank you, that was exactly what I was attempting to communicate, though I think you did a better job. :)

[rabidfangurl.livejournal.com]

I think another reason the name "Ground Zero" has stuck is the lack of progress on the site. It's still basically a big hole in the ground, a gaping wound or an open grave, if you will. If there were some half-completed buildings there, the nomenclature would have probably changed to "WTC Two" or something. There would still be controversy, but the wailing and gnashing of teeth would be a bit less.

[eredien]

Roger Ebert the film critic proposed a huge park (scroll down to the bolded text), which I actually emotionally think was a splendid idea and not so splendid for urban planning purposes, but of course in lower Manhattan with property values so high, that wasn't gonna fly.

[a4yroldfaerie.livejournal.com]

I actually have a huge amount of problems with this plan, and the term Ground Zero.

In all honesty, I have skimmed this post and its comments because this is a very emotional issue for me. So if I missed something important, I apologize

To me, that location is the former WTC site.

It is also the location of the *mall* I hung out at. It was a place for businesses and shopping. The best thing for that neighborhood would be to have commerce there. The best thing for NY. The best thing for the American economy. A park of quiet contemplation not only will kill rather than revitalize, it shows a lack of understanding of the space. And there is a perfectly good (great) park a few blocks away. And quiet contemplation is not what NYers are about. Plus, I believe in celebrating life over mourning death. I did not lose anyone there, but even if I had I would suspect my mourning would be private and elsewhere. I never go to the hospitals or streets or anywhere that any of my loved ones have died to mourn them.

It shows how this has been taken on as something that means something to people that had no knowledge or care for what was there, but more that OMG someone attacked us. Which is legitimate, but should not be imposed on the city that needs to be a place for the living.

Also, as you say, the same consideration has not been given to, say, the attack in DC. Nobody felt the whole nation should have say in what happened there, and it is the capitol.

[eredien]

Thank you for adding your perspective.

I agree that the "energy" of a huge park would not be right for that space, either commercially or spiritually, but I am not clear that rebuilding a shopping area on that space is a good idea, either--it seems like a mall on that ground could not mean the same thing before and after the event. It seems like it would be good to have some part set aside for an area of reflection, and some other part set aside for commercial activity and bustling life. As I understand it, that's basically what the plan is.

I am always partial to parks as a space for quiet reflection, but that is probably one of the reasons I would make a terrible resident of New York City.

[faerieboots.livejournal.com]

This may be a bit of an aside, and I should begin by stating that this whole "Ground Zero Mosque" business is ridiculous.

But I think the reason that the term "ground zero" got applied during 9/11 is because there *were* secondary effects occurring in multiple places throughout the city, as a result of the impact of the blast at the actual crash location. If nothing else, huge sections of the city were having issues with debris inhalation and with the secondary effects created by sheer panic. Doesn't it make sense, at least at the time, to distinguish between the actual impact site and the areas experiencing secondary effects?

[eredien]

I think that at the time, and continuing to do so, it made sense. But I think that:
- the lack of formal recognition/naming of those parts of the city that experienced disaster radiating outward from that center point
- the continuing invocation of the central point as the only formally recognized/named place

Has acted to elide the damage that the rest of the city--not to mention the damage to DC and other cities--suffered, and has acted to put the focus on the center point of the damage as the only truly important place to debate about, when that simply isn't true.

What I am saying is--I think that as time has gone on, that the true size and extent of the damage in those other places is being forgotten/erased by language, and at the same time and by the same mechanism, the importance of that central point is being...overinflated.

The building they are proposing to raze, the old Burlington Coat Factory building, actually had the landing gear of one of the airplanes used in the attack fall on it, but people (by and large) aren't talking about that. They're talking about how close it should be to the site where the damage was done--and forgetting that damage was done everywhere. I think that trying to site this center on a plot of land where no damage was done is impossible--damage was done everywhere, to the hearts and minds of everyone in America, and to the idea of humanity in general, as always happens when crime and tragedy strike on such a scale; people marched with candles all over the world.

I think if people kept in mind the idea that damage was done everywhere, emotional and even physical damage (in DC and elsewhere), then a radius in blocks from the center of the damage becomes almost irrelevant, and the question instead becomes--are we going to allow healing to start, anywhere?