The perils of existential angst
Saying the world is going to hell in a handbasket can make it more so
“It’s the end of the world as we know it . . .and I feel fine.”
– R.E.M. (1987)
There’s an old joke about how economists have successfully predicted nine of the past five recessions.
Political pundits have predicted the imminent collapse of some fundamental element of society or nature so many times in my life that I’ve lost track. And yet, here we are, still muddling along rather nicely, by any world historical standard. (The big exception is our environment . . . and even some of that — especially air pollution — is much better than when I was a kid.)
The cries of “End Times” are reaching a crescendo again . . . and they’re making far too many people act crazy or curl into a fetal ball.
That’s almost always a net negative for the type of social change we work for at The Public Interest Network.
Don’t get me wrong. There’s plenty to be deathly scared of these days.
In Yemen and Ukraine, the world as people knew it has in fact come to an end. Lives will be lost or radically altered as a result of recent Supreme Court decisions. And the thought of the climate-changed world my daughter may inherit: it’s enough to make the most stoic person suffer anxiety attacks.
The question, as always, is what to do about it.
There’s a strong temptation to “embrace the politics of fear,” to try to scare the hell out of people in order to get them to protest, to organize, to vote. I’ve battled that impulse since the very first days I took social change activism seriously.
Ramping up the volume often works, especially in the short run. Ask Donald Trump, who has convinced tens of millions of evangelical Christians that he — someone who, in normal times, they would decry as the Beast of Babylon — is the only thing standing between them and the victory of a Satanic cabal intent on creating American carnage.
And evoking fear does more to inspire Americans to reach for their credit card than any other emotion or fact . . .
Until it doesn’t.
Until it destroys your credibility, just like history’s numerous Chicken Littles who had no explanation for why the sky didn’t fall on the predicted day.
Until it alienates most of the persuadables, the ones whose support you need to win, but who — when faced with existential danger — are more prone to flee than fight.
Until it eats up your soul, as you toss out Golden Rule principles to justify an end that is forever just out of your grasp, because — you tell yourself — the emergency is so great that it’s OK to hang the vice-president or burn down the neighborhood.
More than doomsayers, the world needs clear-eyed people who offer a plausible path to progress — even if it’s of the “two steps forward, one step back” variety; who pick up the pieces after the bomb-throwers have had their day.
As Rudyard Kipling’s poem says:
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream — and not make dreams your master;
If you can think — and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools . . .
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings — nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it . . .”
