Fathers and sons the generations of 9/11 /

by Vayo, Lloyd Isaac.

Erin Labbie, Advisor “Fathers and Sons: The Generations of 9/11” intervenes in analyses of 9/11, globalization, and the Oedipus complex to assert the necessity of the new Oedipus complex manifested in the event. The thesis consists of five sections. Fundamentalism stands as a frame for the internal logic of Oedipal revision. As fundamentalist entities, al Qaeda and the U.S. operate with a preference for tribal organization, election, the sacred text, and a megalomaniacal insistence on singularity and repetition. The maternal homeland acts as the locus for Oedipal performance, where the military son attacks the Founding Father and permeates the maternal. Within globalization, many homelands disappear, necessitating adoption by the denationalized. When globalization does not go as planned, the U.S. solicits a victimizing event to facilitate a reformatting in a phenomenon I call aggressive victimhood. Once the maternal homeland is compromised and inhabited by the victimizing agent (al Qaeda), the maternal homeland must be reconstituted through the use of memorial iconography. However, this iconography too is inhabited, as evidenced by the Islamic motifs in the World Trade Center, making architectural efforts the inscription of al Qaeda inhabitation. To operate in the globalized world, actors must apply a cellular methodology. This allows for extreme mobility and for death without harm to the cellular community. While soliciting the victimizing event, the U.S. acts in a flawed cellular fashion, iv compromising objectivity by implicating itself in the tactics used by al Qaeda and revealing itself as a similarly pseudo-“terrorist” state. The Oedipus complex is insufficient to describe the events of September 11th. Though the maternal homeland remains stable, both the U.S. military son and the al Qaeda military son are sons and fathers. Consequently, the U.S. military son is unable to kill the father and permeate the maternal homeland, as the al Qaeda military son has invalidated the Founding Father and assumed his place. Since the al Qaeda military sonas-father is already internal to the maternal homeland in its globalized form, it is impervious to the Oedipal event, making any attempts to kill the al Qaeda military father futile. These are the terms of the new Oedipus complex. v This thesis is dedicated to all those who have died, are dying, and will continue to die as a function of U.S. foreign policy. Your deaths will not be in vain. vi