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I think part of why it feels so non-impactful to you is because 9/11 truly set off a chain of events that has led to the situation we're in, including the many tragedies you mention in your comment. Of course 9/11 doesn't exist in a vacuum, and it itself is just a one part of a much more complex web of actions and decisions, but the fact remains that for most common people 9/11 was an absolute tipping point after which nothing is the same. The sort of horrors you're talking about in the world in the wake of 9/11 just weren't the same kind of reality in the world before, at least not with the same intents and reactions thereto. You're right to think it's strange the way people react to and hold 9/11 because you're never experienced the world before it. And to be clear, I am not saying the world was perfect before or that there weren't horrors before, because their were, but 9/11 became a catalyst for so much reactionary evil and overreach and horror that it simply is non-comparable to what came before.

important note: this entire comment and perspective implies an enormous Western post-colonial bias. People in different parts of the world had and have an enormously different reality especially in regards to this event and I will not pretend to be able to speak to their experience.