“Fear is the darkroom in which
negatives are developed.” So said a fortune cookie at a local
restaurant Thursday.
“Of the many factors that
make up your worldview, one is more fundamental than any other in
determining which side of the divide you gravitate toward: your
perception of how dangerous the world is. Fear is perhaps our
most primal instinct, so it’s only logical that people’s level of
fearfulness informs their outlook on life.” So write two political
scientists in Prius or Pickup. (We have both.) They say our
deep political divisions aren't over policies, but between the
“fixed” worldviews of people wary of change and suspicious of
outsiders, and the “fluid” worldviews of those comfortable with
social change and “welcoming of people who look and sound
different.”
Fear seems a major factor in our
country's current policies and actions.
Ironically, a recent Pew poll of 26
countries showed: (a) that people's greatest security concern is
climate change (which brings out the ostrich in Donald Trump and
Congressional Republicans); (b) Islamic terrorism is second; and (c)
people's most rapidly increasing fear is us. U.S. power and
policies.
Fear is essential to survival.
Alertness to danger and close observation of surroundings have saved
my life. I don't suggest we step blissfully off cliffs like the Fool
in the Tarot.
But when fear dominates someone's
mind, s/he either stays home all the time or lashes out preemptively
at others – or, less dramatically, misses out on a whole lot of
life unnecessarily.
It is no different when fear dominates
a nation. Our “fear-dominant” moments include the McCarthy Era
and the briefer “Red Scare” soon after World War I. September 11
catapulted George Bush's poll numbers from a historic low to a
historic high almost overnight. That doesn't mean we had nothing to
worry about at any of those times; but hysteria makes us jail
leftists with long names (1919-20) put patriotic citizens with
Japanese heritage into camps (1942), and blacklist people who are
guilty of no crime and pose no danger (1950's); and ban all travelers
from whole countries, including nationalities from which no terrorist
had ever attacked us.
In other countries, appeals to fear
have turned democracies into dictatorships. Hitler is just the most
famous example. Citizens of Perú,
Russia, and Venezuela all experienced that transformation. (I
strongly recommend How Democracies Die.) Frightened people
will let things slide a little, such as press freedoms, civil
liberties, and fact-based policy-making. A little snowballs into
more.
There's plenty of political room
between “an open border,” which almost no one advocates, and
treating refugees and illegal immigrants as a danger to our national
security. That's nonsense. Refugees seeking asylum are fleeing
unbearable conditions in their home countries. The U.S. shares some
responsibility for those conditions in many countries. Since the
root cause of people's flight is conditions at home, policies
ameliorating those conditions might work better than treating these
people as if they were armed invaders or terrorists. (You got a fire
down the block, do you mow down fleeing people with an AK-47 'cause
they're trespassing, or call the fire department?)
Yes, there are more of those people
right now than at earlier times; and, yes, that creates certain
administrative problems; but we are not being “invaded.” Illegal
immigration is down; and folks who enter illegally seeking
work aren't attacking us.
My fortune cookie fortune read, “Greet
each morning with curiosity and hope.”
-30-
[The above column appeared this morning, Sunday, 17 February 2019, in the Las Cruces Sun-News, as well as on the newspaper's website and on KRWG's website KRWG's website. A spoken version airs during the week on KRWG (Wednesday and Saturday) and on KTAL, 101.5 FM -- www.lccommunityradio.org -- (Thursday).]
[Discussing fear also reminds me that about six years ago, when Keith Whelpley and I co-hosted a daily discussion show on a commercial station, we were followed by Rush Limbaugh. The folks who called us largely shared his point-of-view, so it was a lively and sometimes draining two hours. At some point the station gave us a manual on doing talk-radio. Some of it was sound advice, like going into a station break not by saying "We gotta take a break now" but "When we return from break, I'm going to ask Joe about the time he was attacked by lions and only had a knife to defend himself with." But at some length it explained, quite explicitly, that the key to being a successful talk-radio host is to convince listeners of a grave danger and that only you can deliver them from that danger. Then you got 'em.]
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