A Time of Fear

Fear is not a new thing in America. Its level has risen and fallen over the generations.

The Cold War between nuclear powers put some real fear into the American people. It wasn’t overwhelming, but it wasn’t nothing either, with kids ducking and covering in practice for a potential nuclear attack, just as we did fire drills.

More recently, 9/11 suddenly jerked the American people from a reasonably comfortable moment into the kind of “terror” that terrorism is about.

So we’ve been there before.

But, when it comes to the fear of this moment, there’s something troublingly different.

Before, we were a mostly unified society vulnerable to forces out there, enemies in a hostile world. We as the United States were mostly intact, a people committed to at least some shared values.

This time, we have become BROKEN at a fundamental level. We have become — for one another — the enemy. And the fear, for people on my side of that break, concerns the SPIRIT of the society itself.

The fear is that all that’s good will be destroyed — and that we as a nation are becoming the kind of nation we’ve always called “Evil.”

Regularly these days, the people around me are expressing the fear — pointedly or even offhandedly — that there’s nothing destructive that we can safely assume would not be done by the leader, the party, the political force that are at the helm of the nation right now. Having witnessed now so vigorous an assault on so many values that have defined America as an important entity in the world — the Rule of Law, the telling of Truth, the dedication to the common good, basic decency — a large portion of the American people now lives in fear that all that may be lost.

But on top of that, this moment also gives us other powerful reasons for fear.

What’s happening with the climate is already pretty scary, and it is quite possible that it will get much, much worse.

And now add to that AI, with some of the people who know the most about this powerful new technology ringing alarm bells loudly to warn us of dangers they foresee.

“These are the times that try men’s souls,” as Thomas Paine said in another frightening time in American history.

I didn’t expect to live in times like these. Growing up in postwar America, I extrapolated from what I saw around me to expect that over time things would be improving. I never expected to live in a time when, on so many fronts, things would be getting damaged. I have often told myself, “Nobody promised us a Rose Garden,” but part of me feels I WAS promised a Rose Garden. [parag] But I’ve been learning: history breaks promises all the time.

No one promised me that I would always live in “the land of the free.” I just assumed it. And it has been a struggle for me to accept that I’d live to see a force of Fascism strong enough to seriously threaten the continuation of American democracy.

So the challenge of living in A Time of Fear is not just what these dangers may do to our world. It is also what our fear of them may do to us.

Fear is a natural response to danger. But fear can also take possession of us. It can poison our lives and disable us from being who we need to be.

Which brings us to courage.

Courage comes from coeur, the French word for “heart.” And the challenge, as I see it, is whether we can find the heart to put fear in its place.

Courage doesn’t require that we stop being afraid. It requires that we not become faint-hearted in the face of danger. That we remain wholeheartedly ourselves. The fear remains, but courage prevents the fear from ruling us.

When FDR famously said, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself,” that wasn’t really true. America had plenty to fear—the Depression was real, and fascism was gathering strength in the world.

But fear itself was indeed one of the things to fear, because it could make Americans less capable of rising to the challenge of those frightening times.

The same is true for us.

The dangers we face are real. In these times, our souls are indeed being tried. Will history find us guilty of allowing fear to disable us from taking the actions we need to take to protect the values that need protecting? Or will we find the courage to meet the challenge of these trying times?