Surviving the Unabomber
- 6 years ago
The terrorist attack David Gelernter experienced in 1993 left his body injured, but his mind unfazed.
Question: How has
surviving the Unabomber attack changed your life?
David Gelernter:
Zero. It was my responsibility—I
think it would be anybody's who had been attacked in a particularly
cowardly
and despicable fashion—to go on.
If I had said "This attack had changed me in the following 10
ways"... I'm
not interested in being changed by criminals, murderers, and terrorists. I'm interested in being whoever I was
destined to be as a member of my family and my community and that's what
I've
been doing. It slowed me down,
presented physical challenges, but it didn't change my worldview, or the
sort
of broader sense... Worldview in the
sense—there's a tremendously useful German word used in philosophy:
weltanschauung. Worldview meaning
not just looking around, but how to make sense of things, how I put it
together
in a coherent way. So, my
worldview is the same.
Question: Has being the
victim of an attack changed your feelings about terrorism?
David Gelernter:
I'm not a victim. I never was,
never will be. Victimhood is
something you choose, or something you reject. I
and so many others have done before me and are doing
today, they rejected, hate the tendency of society to glorify victimhood
and to
speak of oppression and victimhood and persecution as some soft of badge
of
honor, or something of that sort.
I'm not a victim.
On terrorism, on the other hand, I guess it's fair
to say
that I had a close-up personal look at terrorism. I
don't think my views have changed any. The fact
is, any member of the American
Jewish community has relatives who lived through the Holocaust, and who
has more
important, has relatives or close friends in Israel, who were either
attacked
themselves or whose family has experienced terrorist attack because
terrorism
goes back many centuries, but has always been a weapon of choice of
Jew-haters
and Israel-haters... So, the tragic
fact is that the reality of terrorism is fundamental cowardliness, is
fundamental anti-human character.
I think it's familiar to everybody... I'd should say not just in
the
American Jewish community, the fact is that America is unique in its
sympathy
for Israel. Europe certainly
doesn't feel this way, Asia doesn't feel this way. This
is not a feeling only of American Jews. In fact,
in many cases, the Christian
community has been—has shown itself as much more interested in Israel's
fate
and well-being than the Jewish community, which has its own political
axes to
grind. I think America in general
has felt close to, in some ways, because the states are so similar—there
is no
nation in the world set up by people with bibles in their back pockets
as a New
Israel, there's no nation that has been set up on that basis aside from
the
United States and Israel. So,
there's always been the sympathy, and growing up one has the feeling,
one had a
feeling in this country, I mean back in the 1960s and '70s, that
terrorist
attacks on Israel were hitting close to home. It
was impossible not to be aware of the nature of
terrorism, the threat of terrorism.
It's something that I've always lived with, tragically, as has
everybody
who has felt close to Israel.Recorded on April 1, 2010.
Question: How has
surviving the Unabomber attack changed your life?
David Gelernter:
Zero. It was my responsibility—I
think it would be anybody's who had been attacked in a particularly
cowardly
and despicable fashion—to go on.
If I had said "This attack had changed me in the following 10
ways"... I'm
not interested in being changed by criminals, murderers, and terrorists. I'm interested in being whoever I was
destined to be as a member of my family and my community and that's what
I've
been doing. It slowed me down,
presented physical challenges, but it didn't change my worldview, or the
sort
of broader sense... Worldview in the
sense—there's a tremendously useful German word used in philosophy:
weltanschauung. Worldview meaning
not just looking around, but how to make sense of things, how I put it
together
in a coherent way. So, my
worldview is the same.
Question: Has being the
victim of an attack changed your feelings about terrorism?
David Gelernter:
I'm not a victim. I never was,
never will be. Victimhood is
something you choose, or something you reject. I
and so many others have done before me and are doing
today, they rejected, hate the tendency of society to glorify victimhood
and to
speak of oppression and victimhood and persecution as some soft of badge
of
honor, or something of that sort.
I'm not a victim.
On terrorism, on the other hand, I guess it's fair
to say
that I had a close-up personal look at terrorism. I
don't think my views have changed any. The fact
is, any member of the American
Jewish community has relatives who lived through the Holocaust, and who
has more
important, has relatives or close friends in Israel, who were either
attacked
themselves or whose family has experienced terrorist attack because
terrorism
goes back many centuries, but has always been a weapon of choice of
Jew-haters
and Israel-haters... So, the tragic
fact is that the reality of terrorism is fundamental cowardliness, is
fundamental anti-human character.
I think it's familiar to everybody... I'd should say not just in
the
American Jewish community, the fact is that America is unique in its
sympathy
for Israel. Europe certainly
doesn't feel this way, Asia doesn't feel this way. This
is not a feeling only of American Jews. In fact,
in many cases, the Christian
community has been—has shown itself as much more interested in Israel's
fate
and well-being than the Jewish community, which has its own political
axes to
grind. I think America in general
has felt close to, in some ways, because the states are so similar—there
is no
nation in the world set up by people with bibles in their back pockets
as a New
Israel, there's no nation that has been set up on that basis aside from
the
United States and Israel. So,
there's always been the sympathy, and growing up one has the feeling,
one had a
feeling in this country, I mean back in the 1960s and '70s, that
terrorist
attacks on Israel were hitting close to home. It
was impossible not to be aware of the nature of
terrorism, the threat of terrorism.
It's something that I've always lived with, tragically, as has
everybody
who has felt close to Israel.Recorded on April 1, 2010.