A long time friend, with whom I have lost contact for the last two years, provides the basis, as a single case, for a general rule about making inferences and drawing conclusions, whether in a person or a nation.

This is a man, not quite ten years younger than I, who is highly intelligent. He was graduated with a PhD in Social Work from a major university. Over his occupational career, he has held many high level positions in the human services sector. He is a life-long liberal in politics, a well-published author, a good father of two intelligent, successful, healthy, happy girls, and a good husband with a highly intelligent wife who also has had a successful professional career. He is an avid reader in a wide range of subjects, takes the New York Times, listens to NPR, watches serious educational and political programs on TV, has a wide range of friends and acquaintances from different races, life styles, socio-economic statuses, and different professions and occupations. He is the kind of person who digs deeply into the literature on an issue but also wants to go and see the real thing for himself, if at all possible. In other words, he is a classic, good, caring, intelligent, liberal activist.

I give these details about his life so as to make an important point about making inferences and drawing conclusions. An incident occurred during our relationship that helps make this point clear. The incident was the 9-11 attack. We had several occasions to talk after the 9-11 tragedy. One very popular topic at the time concerned trying to divine the reason or reasons for the attack. I used the word divine as a synonym for discover, determine, or infer because no one in the government or the media or anyone else at the time seemed to have access to any empirical, firsthand, experience or observations or access to anyone who was a credible witness or expert who could provide an understandable, reasonable, verifiable, thorough explanation. We were all left to our own predilections to try to divine an adequate explanation.

My friend's explanation for why we were attacked was immediate and simple, yet doggedly persistent over the following years. He felt that he was not merely making an intelligent guess, nor was he jumping to conclusions, rather, he 'knew' (that the reason was) that 'they' were jealous of us. Now this is an extremely sweeping generalization using a specific category of explanation, namely, a psychological explanation. He was unshakably certain that this was the answer is spite of having none of the bases for making inferences and drawing conclusions that he was well trained for and well accustomed to. I was quite taken aback by how adamant he was while at the same time abandoning his, usually, disciplined approach to investigation and problem solving. He brooked no disagreement and tolerated no debate on the issue. Not that he was hostile or impolite about it. He simply was certain and confirmed in the correctness of his explanation and that this was not ‘just’ his opinion.

Consider the contrast in this portrait I have drawn of my friend along side his granite-like conclusion that was standing on such a flimsy, almost liquid foundation. To me, this was a conclusion which, with the slightest objective examination, would make it sink like a naïve and silly child's attempt to float a piece of rock as though it were a boat.

Why did he abandon the use of logic, empirical observation, scientific studies of Middle Eastern nations and cultures, reliable eye-witness experts, the study of history and rationally researched historical and cultural records to find possible precursor conditions that might provide plausible explanations? Why did he resort to 'divining' an explanation based on nothing more than a feeling, his feeling?

Of course, he was not alone in this epistemological error. It seemed to me at the time that this was a prevalent notion, a very commonly, but not universally, shared belief by officials and the media commentators. In other words, our culture, by and large, seemed prone to emotionally jump to the conclusion that we were attacked because 'they hated us because they were jealous of us'.

Does this emotional, baseless, jump to the 'jealousy' conclusion 'en mass' tell us something about our culture and our nation? Could this be a clue signifying that there is something about our culture that is an active part of the dynamic between 'us and them'? Are we like the person who has a blatant personality trait that is obvious to everyone but themselves? Have we lost the early twentieth century psychologist Cooley's 'Looking Glass' that goes with his theory of the 'Looking Glass Self'? Robert Burns', the 18th century Scottish poet, famous saying seems to apply here, "Oh wod someone the gifty gee us to see oursilves as ithers see us!"

Do you see what I sense is possibly a critical aspect of the dynamic between 'us and them' that could also provide a clue as to why there might be such a dangerous clash of cultures here? Do you see what I sense may be one crucial clue that could lead to mature, disciplined, objectively based explanations for the 9-11 attack?

Are we, as a people, in need of applying the admonitions of Jesus and Socrates "Know thyself!" and Kierkegaard "The unexamined life is not worth living!" to America?