The Fear Factor
Sermon by Steve Edington
October 24, 2004
I have to reach back a half century now to remember my grade school days, which means that far more has gone out of my head than has stayed in. But there are some memories that remain especially vivid. The fire alarm bell would sound its gongs in a particular sequence and the teacher would say, in all solemnity, "That's the signal for an air raid drill." We knew what to do - little 7 or 8 or 9 years olds that we were - which was to walk out of the room in single file, line up against a hallway wall, kneel down on the floor, and curl ourselves up into little balls with our hands folded up over our heads. I also remember that the hall lights were turned out, so we were doing this in the dark. We had to stay that way until the Principal had walked through the whole school to check to see if the drill had been properly carried out; and then another series of gongs would go off which was our signal to get back up and go back to our classrooms and resume our so-called "normal activities."
In our grade school minds this was a rather strange thing to do. We understood fire drills, where we had to go outside. We knew what fire was. We knew that a good sized fire could burn down the school - which was not an altogether bad thing in our grade school minds so long as we weren't in the building. Fire drills were kind of cool actually. We got to go outdoors, and there was always the possibility that this was the real deal, and if the building really was on fire we'd get to go home for the rest of the day. We couldn't see much further beyond that as to what the consequences of not having a school to go to would actually be. But, of course, we were just little kids who were bored with school and anything that got us out of there for awhile was OK with us.
But the air raid drills were something else. We figured they had to be important. Outside of our homes the most immediate and visible authority figures in our lives were our teachers and the Principal. If they said we had to scrunch our little bodies up against a cinder block wall in a darkened hallway then there had to be a reason for it. So we were told we had to do these drills because of these people (well, they were people of a sort anyway, but not really people like us) called Russians. These Russians were more often called Communists. These Russian Communists were bad, evil people - bad and evil mainly because they didn't believe in God, which was about the most bad and evil thing one could say about a person.
For the first several years of my life, in fact, I thought the phrase "Godlesscommunist" was all one word since I never heard one piece of that term invoked without the other being linked to it. These Godlesscommunists, who lived in this far off country called Russia, had these atomic - or maybe it was hydrogen - bombs they wanted to drop on us, and kill us all off, so they could turn America into another Godlesscommunist country just like their own. And that was why we had to curl up against a wall in a darkened school hallway. Why doing that made us any less vulnerable, or any more safe, should an atomic or hydrogen bomb have been dropped on St. Albans, West Virginia was never really explained, and we never asked. I just remember that the spectre of fear that hung over those air raid drills was in marked contrast to the almost festive spirit that a fire drill brought out. The latter held out the prospect of liberation from school work and our teachers and the Principal; the former meant we all could die.
Truth to tell, we didn't do air raid drills very often; maybe once a year. Our teachers, and even the Principal, were quite benevolent folk actually, who, I have every belief, weren't into deliberately scaring little kids. They had their orders from the School Board - or wherever - and were just carrying them out. But infrequent as they were, the impact of the air raid drills was still indelible and long lasting. If there was a reassuring counterpoint to the air raid drills, however, it was going to church on Sunday, as practically everyone in my neighborhood did, and hearing that we were under the protection of God. In my Sunday School classes we sang, "Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so." And while it was never said in so many words - words that I can recall, anyway - there was the implication given nonetheless that Jesus, if not God, was somehow an American. Or at least Jesus would have been an American had there been an America in his day. So what we had was the spectre of Godlesscommunist bombs being dropped on us on the one hand, being offset with the idea of a God who especially favored our country on the other, and wouldn't let such a thing happened to us. He wouldn't let such a thing happen, that is, so long as we believed in Him and obeyed his Word. The way to offset the fear of Communism, then, was to be as God fearing a person as one could be.
Until more recent months and years, these kinds of memories had been boxed up and stashed way back somewhere in the cluttered attic of my mind to the point that I'd almost forgotten they were even there. A lot of other stuff has happened in the ensuing fifty years or so after all. But something, make that some things, are taking them out of their boxes and bringing them back; and bringing them back rather vividly. Maybe its because the phrase "Islamicterrorist" has become a one-word term in our cultural lingo, not at all unlike that of Godlesscommunist. Maybe its because, as the lead article in last Sunday's New York Times Magazine (October 17, 2004) well illustrated, we have a President who truly believes, as he seeks to do battle with "Islamicterrorism," that his every action, tactic, and maneuver is indicative of his doing the work, and will, of God. For the record, I think it is primarily a good thing that those who lead this nation - at any level of leadership - be persons of faith. It is when that faith leads to a largely unreflective and uncritical certainty as to how they exercise their leadership that I get a little, well, fearful. I'm also getting a little ahead of myself. My pre-election sermon is next Sunday. I want to stick, as best as can, to the topic of fear this morning and how it plays out in both our personal and civic lives.
It was just a little over three years ago that we had our vulnerability horribly exposed, in a way we could scarcely imagine. If we did not know so already we were made aware that there are persons and powers in this world who really do hate us, and who will act on that hatred with whatever means they have at their disposal. They may have their reasons for their feelings towards us - some of them more substantive and reality based than others - but they strike at us with what they see as the Divinely sanctioned and absolute moral correctness of their deeds. This is indeed fearful. The question, it seems to me then, is how does one - on both the personal and societal level - deal the reality of fear without being defined by it.
Those of you who have been listening to me offer my sermons up here over the years are probably thinking, "Okay, now here's where he says 'In order to get a better perspective on this issue let's take a couple of steps back and get a running start at it.'" Alright, just so you won't be disappointed or second guessed, in order to get a better perspective on this issue let's take a couple of steps back and get a running start at it.
Fear, in and of itself, is not a bad thing. Possessing the capacity to know and experience fear is almost as essential to our survival as eating, drinking, and breathing. Back when I was learning to fear communist bombs, I was also learning to be afraid, if you will, of cars going down a busy street: Don't walk out in front of them. Or of strangers who might wish to do me harm: Don't talk to them or go off with them. Or of things that could hurt me: Don't play with sharp knives or with fire, for instance. Anyone who has ever raised a child will tell you that one of the most scary times in that process is when the developing child does not know enough to be afraid of certain things he or she would do well to be afraid of. One of the many balancing acts of child rearing is wanting one's offspring to have a trusting attitude towards his or her world, and to feel safe and accepted and at home in that world, while also learning how to avoid, or confront if need be, all that is harmful - or even deadly - out there.
It was over 25 years ago that Dr. Willard Gaylin, a psychiatrist and medical ethicist, published a little book called Feelings that remains a part of my personal canon of truth. In this work Gaylin points out how many of the feelings and attitudes we generally regard as negative - fear, anger, guilt, shame, and the like - also have a positive dimension, and can serve a positive purpose when it comes to our physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual survival and well being.
It was their capacity for fear and anxiety that served to warn our earliest human ancestors that they were in danger. If an early homo-sapiens type felt no fear at the approach of a lion, tiger, or bear, say, then he or she was not long for this world; and we, most likely, would have never shown up somewhere on down the evolutionary chain. I think it is a sound contention on the part of a number of social scientists and anthropologists that our early human ancestors organized themselves into families, then tribes, and socialities, cultures, and eventually civilizations largely on the basis of an underlying anxiety over how well they felt they could survive, strictly on their own, in a world they often felt mystified and overwhelmed by.
Along with that process, when our early ancestors also became aware of how much harm human beings could inflict upon one another - in at least as deadly a manner as lions, tigers, and bears - this was another factor that led to their forming tribes, cultures, nations, and civilizations. Part of what was going on in that process was human beings banding together for protection against the shadow side of humanity itself. It probably went like this: We, in and amongst ourselves here, will band ourselves together so we can guarantee the safety of one another against whatever "they" might be up to out there. And while that process was inevitable, from an evolutionary perspective, it has given us situations, time and again in the course of human history, where what might be called a rational level of anxiety or concern or even fear within a given society can very quickly and easily move to the level of hatred and mistrust, and to an irrational fear of anyone or group of persons who look, act, think, or believe differently from the perceived norm. This, in fact, is the paradox of fear that we human beings have had to live with throughout our history: The paradox that fear both protects us and dehumanizes us; that it brings out both our best and our worst as human beings.
Now bring that paradox back to the era in which I began this sermon. Yes, there really was a Soviet Union, with Russian as its largest component country. Yes, it was driven and ruled by an ideology called Communism that was largely antithetical, if not hostile, to the values and precepts of western liberal democracies. And yes this communist ruled Soviet Union did have the capacity to destroy us just as we had the capacity to destroy it. And yes this was a force in the world that we rightly needed to confront with prudent national defense measures and by our vigorous competition in the world market place of ideas as to how nations should best govern and care for themselves.
Our response to this quite rational cause for anxiety, however, was, in large measure, to capitulate to an irrational and destructive form of fear called McCarthyism. And Joseph McCarthy alone could not have done what he did had there not been a climate of fear accessible and available to him. So, in the name of defeating communism (a worthy objective in and of itself) jobs were lost, careers were ruined, reputations of decent loyal Americans were savaged, and a couple of hapless spies named Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were sent to their deaths, all in the name of somehow making us feel safer and less fearful. And little kids cowered in the darkened hallways of their schools. Undergirding it all was a self-glorifying kind of religiosity that supposedly lent a Divine sanction to all of these endeavors. The fact that Senator McCarthy himself went down in disgrace and dishonor in 1954 did not diminish, all that much, the arua of fear itself.
That aura was still strong enough, as we moved into the 1960s, to cause us to send, again in the name of protecting ourselves against Communism, nearly 60,000 Americans to their deaths in a poor and far off country, one smaller in size than many of the states in our nation, called Vietnam. This country's actual threat to us was anything but demonstrated. But there was an enemy we feared and we had to go and fight that enemy - somewhere... anywhere. The names of those near 60,000 Americans are now etched on a black granite wall, which not all that far from the very halls of power where the decisions were made that sent them to their deaths. The very fact that the meaning and legacy of that war has been a hot and divisive issue in this current Presidential campaign means, among other things, that those seeds of fear that were sown over 50 years ago continue to yield a caustically bitter fruit that we still taste to this present day.
Speaking of the present day, here we are. I can only point to a few things now that I'll be expanding upon next Sunday. As noted and strongly acknowledge earlier, there are persons and forces in the world who are repulsed by our values and our way of life, who in fact hate them and us to the point of wanting to destroy us as a people and a nation. While they do not have the means to actually do that, they have inflicted enough pain and shock and death upon us to make us quite fearful. Fear of terrorism itself is not irrational, anymore than combating terrorism is irrational. Where we go, and where we have gone, with such fear is another matter, however. Once again we've gone to war, fighting an enemy country whose threat to us has been anything but demonstrated. But there was an enemy we feared and we had to go fight that enemy - somewhere... anywhere. And once again, God has become an American.
This fear is costing us on the homefront as well. A year and a half ago Mark Jurkowitz, the media editor for the Boston Globe wrote a piece for the Globe Magazine titled "The Death of Dissent." Here's just a few lines from it: "A number of factors have virtually silenced America's culture of dissent. One central element is a tidal wave of public opinion, forged by both anger and fear, supporting the goals of defeating terrorism... The Administration has used that mandate to convey a message that dissent is, if not downright un-American, at least dangerous... The policy questions raised by the war on terrorism require a public debate. The big question is will we get one."
While there have been some changes in the national climate since Mr. Jurkowitz wrote those words, his essential point and question remain valid. While the two major candidates for President have their marked and meaningful differences on how to deal with both terrorism in general and the Iraqi war in particular, this campaign itself, sadly enough, has not given us the kind of debate that Jurkowitz called for. That "tidal wave of public opinion, forged by both anger an fear..." to which he refers continues to roll, and the candidates - each in his own way - ride that wave. But at some point in the very near future a conversation is going to have to take place and this question is going to have to be seriously dealt with: How do we as a nation come to truly understand our image, our role, and our right and meaningful place in the community of nations - given our status, given our power, and given the ways in which we live out - or fail to live out-the values and ideals we profess. For all the volume of words that have been spoken over the past several months, I've heard precious little directed to that issue. I don't expect that conversation to take place over the next week. But at least one question to take to the polls with you is who do you think is best equipped to foster and engender that kind of conversation once the next Presidential Inaugural has taken place this coming January. I'll pick up on this, as well as a few other, threads next Sunday.
And as I prepare that sermon I'll be bearing in mind some words by our Unitarian Universalist Association's President, Rev. William Sinkford, in a Pastoral Letter he recently published on the UUA Website. I'll also close with them for today:
"Dear Friends, as Americans there is more that unites us than divides us, and there can be but one common destiny for this nation. So let us stand purposefully on the side of love. The message of fear has been trumpeted throughout this election season. The message of love is quieter, but it is the antidote to that fear. Let us do what we can to make this quieter message heard. And let us all do our part to bless and make whole a country wounded by partisan conflict and weary of division."
Stephen D. Edington
October 24, 2004
Copyright © 2004 by the Unitarian-Universalist Church of Nashua NH. All rights reserved.
