Summary: Being both fearful and forgetful makes us an easily ruled people. Easily aroused to panic, yet amnesic once the news shifts to a new threat – so that we never learn from experience. What a pitiful state for a once-great people. But we can regain our courage. It takes only the will to do so. Cowardice is a choice. {From the archives, updated and revised.}
“Cowardice, alone of all the vices, is purely painful – horrible to anticipate, horrible to feel, horrible to remember.”
— An insight from a demon (they know us well), from C. S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters(1959).
In the 1960s we worried that overpopulation would destroy the world (not underpopulation will wreck the economy). In the 1970s we worried that pollution would destroy the world (e.g., Los Angeles by 2017). Three decades ago we trembled in fear at accounts of Satanic Ritual Abuse and the millions of missing children in America. Obamacare will create “death panels.” Every few years since 1984 we wet our pants in fear of Iran’s nukes. Every few years from 1984 to 2019 we worry that terrorists with electromagnetic pulse weapons will send America back to the stone age. Hyperinflation often lurks under our beds. In 2014 & 2015 we feared the coming “Super” “Monster” “Godzilla” El Nino. In 2015 we panicked about Ebola (see John B. Judis’ article in The New Republic: “Ebola and ISIS Are Making American Voters Go Crazy. Here’s How Irrational Fears Shape Elections.“ ISIS is as serious a threat as the Nazis. And we are running out of oil!
In the 1950s we saw Ruskies Ruskies Ruskies everywhere. Sixties years later many worry about Ruskies Ruskies Ruskies everywhere (look at Twitter, with prominent people blaming Putin for a bizarrely large range of things).
Now we have the campus rape epidemic (1 in 5 coeds raped!), mass shootings, ten thousand species going extinct every year! We are five to ten years from disaster (we’ll never make it to 2017). And of course, every day we are terrified of terrorism.
Most of these (not all) are real threats. But our reactions are grossly disproportionate to the danger, and our emotional reactions make a rational response impossible. These publicity campaigns do not just happen. They require the support of powerful special interests, and usually work to their benefit. Why do our elites choose to guide us using our fears? The answer is obvious and disturbing. How do you describe a people who live in fear of so many things – real, exaggerated, or imaginary?
We have become cowards. Easily panicked sheep. I first noticed this in a 2009 discussion about terrorism at the end of which Chet Richards gave a typically incisive summary.
“If XXX is correct, and I’m not saying that he’s wrong, then we are doomed. When any attack that inflicts a few hundred casualties can bring our country down, then it’s just a matter of time until somebody does it.”
I took Chet’s conclusion and rephrased it.
“If XXXX is right that Americans are easily panicked cowards, then we are finished. It’s just a matter of time until we crash, and rightly so.”
In 2010 I wrote about the terrorism hysteria, oddly still continuing nine years after 9/11: Today’s fear-mongering (they think we’re cowards, but I’m sure they’re wrong). On 10 August 2014, Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC, member of the Armed Services Committee) spoke on Fox News (transcript here). He convinced me that I was wrong, and that we are cowards.
“When I look at the map that the General Keane described, I think of the United States. I think of an American city in flames because of the terrorist ability to operate in Syria and Iraq.”
In September 2014, Michael Krieger said the plain truth at Liberty Blitzkrieg: “The American Public: A Tough Soldier or a Chicken Hawk Cowering in a Cubicle? Some Thoughts on ISIS Intervention.“
“You gotta love the American public sometimes. For a mass of people so easily terrified by guys in caves …{the} public talks with such armchair bravado when it comes to launching bombs from drones and sending other people’s children to die. Makes you wonder though, which one is it? Is the American public actually the tough guy soldier it pretends to be when cheering overseas military interventions, or is it really a scared, propagandized, coward hiding in one of our nation’s endless cubicle rows?
“Unfortunately, based on recent opinion polls demonstrating approval for military action against ISIS, it appears to be the latter. The former is merely a front put on by that terrified, economically insecure, silently suffering automaton. I really wish this weren’t the case.”
What has happened to us?
“Nothing is terrible except fear itself.”
— Francis Bacon in De Augmentis Scientiarum, Book II – Fortitudo (1623).
Ever more frequently, America becomes terrified by a threat. Then suddenly the threat is gone, replaced by new ones about which we’re just as irrationally frightened. All peoples have an occasional mania; they take many different forms. But in modern America, their magnitude and frequency make our politics dysfunctional. Best of all from our leaders’ perspective, we forget the previous ones – and their failure to appear – to eagerly believe the new ones.
This happens because our elites see our weakness. While we run screaming in terror at each new phantom, our elites quietly build a New America on the ruins of the old. A new America that is better suited to the desires of our elites. Political conflict has become factions of our elites arguing about the details of the new regime. We have become ideal peons. Pleasant peasants. This evolution from citizens into sheep occurred slowly.
“… the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.”
— The demon Screwtape describes the easy road to Hell in C. S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters.
A comment posted at Physics Today describes the absurdity of our situation, as people of the most powerful nation in history are so easily manipulated. Hat tip to Steve Harris.
“When a popular foolishness arises in society one may weep for Reason, or laugh at absurdity. Few take notice of the former, and the proponents of the absurdity are greatly offended by the latter.
“It is clearly embarrassing to be exposed on the wrong side of Reality, and to have your favourite phantom hazard deflated. Consider crop circles. Even after the perpetrators confessed and demonstrated how they created them, true believers refused the explanation and vilified both the sceptics and the self-exposed pranksters.
“Phantom hazards are popular with the fundamentally pusillanimous for the ‘threat’ can be confronted with the (perhaps sub-conscious) realization that there is no physical harm for the believer, but provides a cause of great moral superiority – and not infrequently, a generous income. Politically, phantom hazards are an ideal tool for manipulating a trusting population. The threat is what the proponents construe it to be, it will never physically materialize, and victory can be declared at any time it loses its persuasive ability and attendant revenue.
“The true danger lies in real damage done to society through misapplication of effort and funds, and the theft of personal freedom …”
We have no excuse for these panic attacks. A combination of common sense and consulting the relevant experts would repel these fear barrages. While occasionally wrong, the track record of our experts is excellent. But journalists report their words quietly, with greater emphasis to activists, promoters, and doomsters. But we need not be fooled. We can read and listen carefully, sifting the dross from the valuable metal on which we can build our opinions. It’s not that the experts are always right, but that they are a reliable anchor for our personal opinions.
There are even better solutions, ways to again become strong
“I count him braver who overcomes his fears than him who overcomes his enemies.”
— Attributed to Aristotle.
This might be the core problem in America – since a nation is the expression of its people’s character. I see no hope for America until we develop courage and vision. Ways to do so are prominent in my posts about Reforming America: Steps to a New Politics. The good news is that the first step is the easiest. The rest of the road to political reform looks steeper and rougher, long and dark. But history shows that a change of spirit can occur almost instantaneously in a people. That’s how revolutions erupt (albeit not always wisely). That’s how religious revivals begin (again, not always wisely).
Redemption is a core capability iun each of us. It should come easily for American because we have so many examples from our past. We’re a people united by a desire to become better. We have taken a holiday, and can resume the journey at any time. We need only look in the mirror, decide we don’t like what we see, and resolve to do better.
“Choice. The problem is choice.”
— Neo in The Matrix Reloaded.
For More Information
Ideas! For shopping ideas, see my recommended books and films at Amazon.
If you liked this post, like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. See all posts about the fear epidemic afflicting America. Especially see these about the coming dooms:
- Requiem for fear. Let’s learn from failed predictions to have confidence in ourselves & our future.
- America suffers from the Crisis Crisis, making us weak.
- So many of our hit films show dystopias. This shows how we’ve changed.
- We love scary stories. The reason why reveals a secret about America.
- America’s New Year’s Resolution: see the future without fear!
We can become greater
The first step is to look in the mirror and see what we are – and what we can become.
