Material damage can be quickly repaired, and the Olympic organizers were the picture of efficiency in this regard as they did not miss a beat in getting Centennial Park up and running again. No, beyond the immediate threat to personal security and public safety, the more lasting effect of the Olympic bombing and of such terrorist attacks in general, is the manner in which they influence our perceptions of violence in society. In the various newspaper reports about the bombing it is interesting to observe how a note of resignation pervades the reactions to the bombing. In the face of this act of terror, people resigned themselves to the occurrence of violence in public. What is more, many of the reactions indicated a belief that such events like the bombing are to be expected a place like the Centennial Olympic Park simply because it is a public space.
Individuals begin to perceive violence as a natural element of being together in the public sphere.
As Marxists have always been quick to point out, one of the functions of ideology is to declare certain social relationships the result of natural forces and thus to be beyond the scope of human control. In the case of the public sphere, occurrences like the Olympic bombing have contributed to an ideology of violence in which interacting with people in public, an activity which after all forms the basic fabric of the public sphere, is declared to be inherently dangerous. The result is to short-circuit those public contacts that the left would like to improve in its struggle to facilitate a more inclusive politics of recognition. If people fear each other, if they see each other as a source of danger, they cannot be expected to establish relationships of trust and respect, not to mention solidarity, that are the necessary prerequisites for successful public communication and a viable public sphere. What is more, by declaring the public sphere to be a naturally hostile place, the ideology of violence undermines the quest of the left to improve the public sphere through an increase in distributive and productive justice.