Pedagogy, Film, and the Responsibility of Intellectuals: A Response

The events of September 11, 2001, brought home to American citizens the horrible reality of a fanatical terrorist act that abruptly shattered the United States's isolation, if not indifference, to events that connected the country to the rest of the world. But such events did more than alter the United States's much-touted exceptionalism; it also provided the nation's citizenry with a new vocabulary for linking global crises to the most pressing problems we face in our everyday lives. Matters of security provided the heuristic link connecting global concerns with domestic events as the war on terrorism abroad directly fed the militarization of daily life at home. As public space is increasingly cordoned off, put under surveillance, and policed through the ongoing appeal to security and safety, war has become a metaphor for engaging all aspects of daily life. There is the war on drugs, on crime, on terrorists, and on illegal immigrants. Massive investment in the military, approximately 3. 5 billion a month to maintain troops in Iraq, reflects a shift in national priorities as investments in social provisions and public goods, such as health care, education, and public services, wither away or dry up altogether.