All -
Here is my response to a posting of the image in the same online
forum that went through the Nostradamus thing I mentioned earlier:
==============================
Coincidence, of course. What else could it be?
Somewhere I have a nice collection of these, in the form of a booklet handed
out on a street corner at a local university about 20 years ago by a
well-meaning but not-quite-right local character. It's full of b&w photos of
clouds, smoke clouds, the sun, tree leaves, flames etc., in which he found
faces, mostly of Satan. There are a few fairly clear ones in the first few
photos, including several that are at least as clear as this one at the WTC.
Then he starts really stretching, including some where I never did see what
he was trying to point out. It steadily gets more and more ridiculous,
moving to a full disk image of the sun with something like thirty little
arrows pointing to places where he sees faces, devils, angels, and (believe
it or not) cats. Needless to say, by that point he'd lost track of the point
he was trying to make in the running commentary.
Anyway, this need to see faces in random patterns is widespread, and
probably a basic part of our cognitive mechanisms. Remember that very young
infants need this ability, and develop it to a surprising degree, coming to
prefer facially-oriented patterns almost immediately after birth, and
recognizing their mother's face from a group of similar ones not long after
that.
When you look at that photograph and see a face, you're seeing into your own
perceptual mechanisms.
(incidentally, *I* see a lion. But then, I was raised by wolves <grin>)
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Like another poster here, I've considered that this event may be too
significant and emotional for us to treat as just another "teachable moment"
(and incidentally, my institution's faculty had that discussion en masse at
our faculty meetings last Friday). On the other hand, sometimes the
discussion comes to us, and we have a responsibility to respond in a way
that applies our backgrounds.
I've been interested in perceptions of our responsibility as faculty
and as psychology faculty. We seem to be seen as responsible for only two
things: preventing racist attacks on people of Middle Eastern descent and of
the Islamic faith, and helping with coping/stress management/"the healing
process"* (particularly wrt children, but also wrt our students, and adults
in general). Those things are important, but in my opinion, they form a very
narrow view of our responsibilities and of what we have to offer. For
example, I think that the pressing response event right now is our
collective reaction to the reopening of the stock market tomorrow. Because
Americans were galvanized more than they were panicked on Wednesday, we
didn't have a run on gasoline or bank savings. In my opinion, we have at
least as much responsibility to help with this kind of "normalizing" as we
do with the racism and coping issues. I'd say the same thing for our
knowledge of how to/how not to maintain our resolve (to an appropriate
degree, of course).
* See Lance Morrow's article in the special edition of Time for a response
to this notion, at
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,174641,00.html
Paul Smith
Alverno College
Milwaukee
