I guess we said we’d never forget. But the consensus around grief, around memorial, around observance — that fragile fiction faded by the time the smell dissipated. We didn’t get around to deciding what it was, exactly, that we were Never Forgetting.
And so, we ended up with this legacy. There are ritualized remembrances, largely led by those who weren’t there, those who mostly hate the values that New York City embodies. The sharpest memories are of the goals of those who masterminded the attacks. It’s easy enough to remember what they wanted, since they accomplished all their objectives and we live in the world they sought to create. The empire has been permanently diminished. Never Forget.