Dec. 10th: Fear Itself

This past Saturday was the anniversary of “a date that will live in infamy.” 72 years ago, Pearl Harbor was attacked, launching the country into a war that, to that point, we had avoided.

Now, as we reflect on the events of December 7^th, 1941, I can’t help but remember another famous statement by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, this time one eight years earlier on his inauguration for his first term as president. He boldly stated that “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” This came at a time when living in America was a potentially terrifying notion. The Great Depression raged and a country in need of some courage was able to put their fear at bay by the words of their newly elected president.

American culture today is not that different. Our society is based almost entirely on fear. We go through every day in a perpetual state of discomfort and unease.

We fear what we do not know. Between homophobia, Islamaphobia, and even our fear of foreign cultures, we are trained to be scared of people who are different from ourselves.

We fear that, simply by their existence, organizations such as the Traditionalist Youth movement will become the norm. It doesn’t matter that their opinions and ideals are a tiny minority, the fact that they exist terrifies us.

We also fear being judged. An inordinate amount of time is spent worrying about what others think of us. We worry that we will be shamed, analyzed, critiqued, laughed at. We don’t want others to judge us, therefore we start campaigns against slut-shaming, gay bashing, and all other forms of criticism. While none of those things are acceptable in the society in which we live, they receive far too much of our attention, because of our constant fear that they will become our tags.

The result of these campaigns, though, is not less fear: it is more. We become afraid to say anything for fear that someone will be offended. We lose ownership of our own actions because we are so afraid of the ways that our behavior will be received by others.

The bottom line is that we all will be judged. We all will be put in situations that make us uncomfortable, force us to interact with different ideas and different kinds of people. Rather than retreating, then, and avoiding these situations, we have the opportunity to reflect on what makes us scared and actually do something about it.

During the Great Depression, fear was an incredibly real and contagious notion. That same concept of fear is no less real today. The difference is that the thing we fear most is ourselves. We are afraid to be who we are because we are worried that others will not take it well .We are afraid that, if we are who we are ,someone else, some “other,” will step in and attempt to take our identity away.

So what can we do? How can we avoid the crippling fear that permeates our lives? The answer comes in the form of information. We are most afraid when we are at our most ignorant. By learning about others and learning about ourselves, we can be less susceptible to the fear that has become culturally normal.

The fear in the aftermath of the Great Depression and World War II was followed by an era of great American growth and learning. America can learn just as significantly today from the fears and strength of our past.