Why the 9/11 Museum Gift Shop Offends Us -- Science of Us: Philip Tetlock, a psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania, has offered a useful vocabulary for understanding these issues. He distinguishes between three kinds of exchanges. First are routine trade-offs, in which one swaps one “secular” value or entity for another — by, say, paying money (the most secular good we have) for an iPad or some other commodity. Second are tragic trade-offs, in which “sacred” or irreplaceable entities are weighed against each other — national security or citizen privacy? Sophie’s older child or her younger one? Then you have taboo trade-offs, in which a secular value is paired with a sacred one. People tend to throw prostitution into this category, which is why it incites such fierce debate.
What people see in the 9/11 gift shop is a taboo trade-off. On one side of the exchange is cash, and on the other is not just a mug or a hoodie but something much larger.
These items stand in for all the suffering they commemorate. The equation is quite simple: “They’re making money off my dead son,” one man told the Washington Post.
Trump Warns of Economic Disaster if Court Strikes Down Tariffs
-
The president has crowed about the billions of dollars collected so far
from tariffs. That money could be at risk if the White House loses the
legal battle.
47 minutes ago
