Fear Shapes America’s History (and Future)
I like to think that studying History is earning an understanding that big things don’t just happen. World changing events, good or bad, are always a combination of timing, circumstance, and (occasionally) remarkable effort. Caught up in the complexities of our own tumultuous times, we don’t often have the desire to invest in comprehending the tumult of previous generations. But comparing the present situation to our past has been, for me, the most soothing antidote to the anxiety brought on by this election season.
History offers the comfort of a complete picture, and some sense of a result that can be analyzed. You can hover over the situation, watch in slow motion and rewind to witness all the complex causes and effects. Retrospect allows you to assign value to forces that may have been invisible to the people experiencing them at the time.
After long looks at the past, I’ve noticed that historic events are judged most consistently on the role that one force was allowed to play in their unfolding. It’s a force that stamps most of our country’s historic events in one way or another. That force is fear.
When fear has taken over in the past, it’s lead to some of our nation’s most shameful moments: Salem Witch Trials (fear of female independence and a loss of puritan values), 1741 NYC Massacres (fear of slave uprising), Irish discrimination (fear of Catholic/Papal overthrow), Japanese Internment (fear of sabotage), Anti-Miscegenation Laws (fear of corrupting racial purity), Vietnam War and McCarthyism (fear of the spread of communism).
In each of those cases, people’s rights to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” were irrevocably breached by a fear-stricken majority. In each of those cases voices of reason that could have prevented the tragedy were silenced by being labeled “weak.” Opposition was seen as not putting “us” first — or “our safety” first. And at worst, opposition was seen as collaboration with “the enemy,” which was grounds for accusation, and recategorizing a person from “us” to “them.”
By contrast, our proudest moments as a country are very often tied to an extension of rights and freedoms: Emancipation, Women’s suffrage, The 1964 Civil Rights Act, Loving vs VA.
It’s easy to forget that in each of those proud moments a very loud voice of opposition (and fear) existed:
Emancipation would lead to a flood of freedmen to the north, who would compete with white men for the low wage jobs (a fear that contributed to the New York Draft Riots of 1863). Even some Southerners thought it would further divide the nation and weaken the Union (as seen in this confederate soldier’s letter).
Women’s suffrage risked spoiling femininity and females’ unfamiliarity with politics could put the whole system at risk (as seen in propaganda of the time).
The Civil Rights Act’s end to segregation would bring about a violent clash of the races, especially in the South, and infringe on the personal (and, some claimed, religious) freedom of business owners, by forcing them to conduct their business in ways they saw as immoral. It was also spun as a drastic overstep of the federal government, trampling states’ rights. (All expressed in this George Wallace speech.)
Allowing interracial marriage was a slippery slope that would lead to all types of sexual deviance, not to mention corrupting the institution of marriage and unknown health risks. (Congressional Record, 62d. Congr., 3d. Sess., December 11, 1912, pp. 502–503)
It manifests in different arguments, but in each of these cases there was an underlying fear that these changes would fundamentally alter the American way of life — that “we” would lose our identity, “we” would be giving our country away.
The present fear of terrorism is very similar to the brands of fear that foreshadowed some of America’s darkest moments. It manifests as anger and is directed toward a certain type of person, an “other,” that embodies the threat. And who is threatened? As we’ve seen in history, we’ve begun to construct a narrower concept of “us,” a slimming definition of “true America” that needs defending.
I believe the fear in 2016 has reached a point that puts us at yet another important crossroads in history. We might succumb to our fears and deprive some people of their dignity in a misguided attempt to feel safe. Or we will stand by our principles despite our fears and enforce the basic rights due to every human being.
(My next post discusses how a certain Presidential candidate is using, and possibly manipulating, this fear.)
