This morning a CBS news station out of Birmingham, Alabama featured commentary from sociologist Stephen Parker on the impact of 9/11 today. Parker’s commentary was part of a larger piece titled ‘9-11: Looking Ahead’ that featured interviews with other academics.

The station reports:

Sociologist Stephen Parker says that the mindset of the American People has changed in the years since. Now many Americans have lost a sense of security that comes when the only knowledge of such terrible acts of violence comes from newscasters reporting such hatred occurring anywhere else but on American soil. “When you look at the recognition of terrorism throughout Europe for much of the last 25 to 30 years, we shouldn’t have been surprised.”

Parker’s remarks were supplemented by comments from historian Jim Day:

Dr. Jim Day is the Dean of History at the University of Montevallo. He says looking ahead the United States will struggle with international relations because of its post 9-11 strategy. “I think we’ve compromised our position on a global scale and I think we’re going to have to do some repair work as we move on into the 21st century and get farther away from that cataclysmic event of 9-11.”

Day and his colleagues believe it will be extremely difficult to mend those relations. That job will fall to a new generation of American leaders who will need to be more proactive to succeed. And that’s something Sociologist Stephen Parker fears may not happen. “People on college campuses are unaffected by it. It doesn’t affect them in that way.”

Watch the video of the interviews with Parker and Day.