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Perception is reality, or as Henry David Thoreau put it, “it's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see.” That old saw was put in stark relief this week, thanks to the good folks over at Slate. Yesterday on that site, David Plotz wondered aloud about a picture showing five people chatting away on the waterfront in Brooklyn while New York City literally burned in the background behind them on 9/11(click the link above to see it). The picture was taken by photographer Thomas Hoepker and is just now being published.

Plotz took issue with the photo because of something New York Times columnist Frank Rich wrote about it last weekend. Here’s what Rich said:

Mr. Hoepker found his subjects troubling. ''They were totally relaxed like any normal afternoon,'' he told Mr. Friend. ''It's possible they lost people and cared, but they were not stirred by it.'' The photographer withheld the picture from publication because ''we didn't need to see that, then.'' He feared ''it would stir the wrong emotions.'' But ''over time, with perspective,'' he discovered, ''it grew in importance.''

Seen from the perspective of 9/11's fifth anniversary, Mr. Hoepker's photo is prescient as well as important -- a snapshot of history soon to come. What he caught was this: Traumatic as the attack on America was, 9/11 would recede quickly for many. This is a country that likes to move on, and fast. The young people in Mr. Hoepker's photo aren't necessarily callous. They're just American. In the five years since the attacks, the ability of Americans to dust themselves off and keep going explains both what's gone right and what's gone wrong on our path to the divided and dispirited state the nation finds itself in today.

In turn, Plotz asked:

But wait! Look at the photograph. Do you agree with Rich's account of it? Do these look like five New Yorkers who are "enjoying the radiant late-summer sun and chatting away"? Who have "move[d] on"? Who—in Rich's malicious, backhanded swipe—"aren't necessarily callous"? They don't to me.

Keep reading to find out who's interpretation is right.

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