Fear Will Tear Us Apart
“Fear will keep the local systems in line, fear of this battle station.” -Grand Moff Tarkin
Why are we so afraid? Fear is a natural response to outward stress and it is genetically hard coded into our personas the same way that flying is a part of a bird’s. We are designed to feel fear and respond to it, and for all of human history it has served us well.
But now, today, our collective, societal panic is causing us to fear things that are nebulous and existential. To put it plainly, we’re making bad decisions a lot right now based on a primordial feeling of dread.
A lot of liberal Americans fear Donald Trump, plainly and simply. They not only fear that he is incapable of running the country, they also fear that he will figure it out.
Conservatives fear a loss of identity. They fear that too many differently motivated and thinking people are taking over the institutions of this country and replacing them. Some fear a loss of moral center, a shifting away from traditional values. They fear being called bad people for living their lives.
Most American’s fear terrorism. We fear a repeat of 9/11. We fear airports and large crowds. We look side eyed at each other, we occasionally call for blood.
We give up a lot for the illusion of safety.
All of these fears are on some level irrational. Terrorism causes us to feel a fear that is remote but is made immediate and imminent in our minds — so much so that it causes us to ignore reality.
Broken down, fear of Donald Trump is fear of the unknown. He is unpredictable and erratic. His policies are broad and he is openly secretive about his agenda. His advisers are a round robin of fringe characters with uncertain views that often deal in innuendo to skirt around being nailed to their beliefs.
Loss of identity is also a fear of the unknown. Everybody can recognize that the country is changing, but is this change a bug or a feature of our constitution? What happens when we no longer trust in our own identity as Americans?
Each side feels so trapped by the other that we, in addition to feeling fear, also feel helpless. So we turn, in that destructive and also most human way, to a leader or idea to save us. Trumpism, progressive-ism, patriotism, nationalism, fundamentalism, these are all chicken-little responses to a sky we have been convinced is falling. The fear is not necessarily unfounded, but while we run around in a panic we fail to take any obvious measures that might actually help us.
Our problems are exacerbated by the counter-intuitive need to be calm in stressful times so that we can actually evaluate what our options are and what threats are real.
Fear is not a constructive place for rational thought. It suppresses any inclinations toward compassion and understanding. Like the Biblical Tower of Babel, fear can cause us to speak different languages and lose a common understanding. I’m saying this in the least blasphemous way possible, but in our best times we are capable of building a great tower — in this case a great nation. But divided, society collapses and what could have been a high point for humanity becomes an unfinished construction project — a reminder of what could have been.
Maybe that is the destiny of America, to collapse from within and go from a growing kaleidoscope society into a diaspora of tribes. I hope that isn’t the case, but if i’m honest, this is the thing I fear most.
