‘Success’ after 9-11 was measured not by what each American had to change, but rather how little one had to change anything at all.  We saw this in George W. Bush’s call for Americans to ‘be American’ again by ‘going shopping’, that is, to go back to doing the kind of things that Americans enjoy doing in everyday life.  After 9/11, Americans were told that our ‘American lifestyle’ and our government policies towards the world had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks; it was just that they ‘hated our way of life’, our ‘American principles’, and to alter them, or even reconsider them, was a sign of frailty, that is, that the enemy was getting into our heads.  9/11, for me, symbolizes how backward Americans can be at times, how change, progression, reflection and introspection are perceived as weaknesses and not strengths.