It’s Time to Refuse Fear
On a Force More Powerful Than Fear
Fear has a way of lingering. At a recent dinner party, a couple reflected on a conversation about fear in their support group. One couple in the group was afraid of their special-needs son contracting COVID because of health problems that precluded a vaccine. Another couple was afraid of government overreach, and a third had a general concern of fear outstripping faith. Three aspects of fear in a small circle of friends, but the theme was the same: Fear is an insidious infection. Many of us slid into ineffective patterns during the last year, and we won’t simply slide out them without intentional habits. This was the point of a recent sermon I heard on life after COVID.* How do we slow the spread of fear? This is an urgent question each of us faces right now.
It starts with assessing the landscape of fear around us. Two aspects of fear stand out to me. These are fears about our own lives and fears we harbor toward others. Future uncertainty in our own lives—as in a life disrupter—propels our minds to speed down dark trails and magnify worst-case scenarios. Think about how your brain receives shocking news. This is also true for those we are in relationship with, like the fearful outcomes we jump to when they fall on hard times. We want the best for them, but our minds naturally speed to negative outcomes. It’s the same for strangers and groups we think are misinformed and mistaken. We envision bleak consequences that reinforce our fears. Fear darkens and dries out the landscape.
Societal fear is a particularly destructive force. The word phobia, a psychiatric term referring to a range of anxiety disorders, is now applied to social tensions. The Oxford English Dictionary has 139 entries ending in phobia; not all of them refer to physical symptoms or mental disorders but to a general idea of prejudice and antipathy. Slapping on the label of phobia—trans, xeno, homo, Islamo, etc.—easily sweeps away groups of people we dislike, like a steel wire brush forcefully getting rid of debris and encrusted gunk. The stiffer and more plentiful the wires, the more effective the job.
The perverse relish we feel from labeling our opponents temporarily affirms our choice of the wire brush. It’s is so satisfying, like a pressure washer! Last year Rick applied a pressure washer to our Spanish tile roof. There he was, one step away from slipping off the roof with a precision water gun in his hand and a smile on his face. Years of accumulated moss and dirt disappeared instantly. He felt powerful and productive. Like the power washer and the steel brush, labeling our opponents as phobic seems so powerful, but is it?
The problem is that the dirt comes back, but the more serious consequences are the scratches and harm the brush creates. Or is that perhaps the point of the steel brush? Metaphorical steel brushes used to be a last resort after less forceful measures proved ineffective. Now it seems they are a first line of attack. In politics the phobic label is used to control people and stoke tribalism. An article on the politics of fear by a professor of psychiatry at Wayne State University offers a compelling analysis:
“The typical pattern is to give the other humans a different label than us, and say they are going to harm us or our resources, and to turn the other group into a concept. When building tribal boundaries between ‘us’ and ‘them,’ some politicians have managed very well to create virtual groups of people that do not communicate and hate without even knowing each other. To win us, politicians, sometimes with the media’s help, do their best to keep us separated, to keep the real or imaginary ‘others’ just a ‘concept.’ Because if we spend time with others, talk to them and eat with them, we will learn that they are like us: humans with all the strengths and weaknesses that we possess.”
Additionally, fear bypasses logic because logic is slow, but fear is fast. Politicians and the media use fear to get around logic, which ends with aggression toward others. That’s how we become tools for their agendas. They exaggerate our differences and wedge us apart.
Have you noticed that we get along far better in the real world where we interact face-to-face with diverse people than in the virtual world created by politicians and the media? Why? Perhaps it’s because the people we encounter aren’t just concepts, but people like us. While this seems obvious, it conveys a profound key for social cohesion. When life is reduced to politics, people are reduced to concepts and pressed into ideological camps. Labels, epithets, and straw-manning characterize how we deal with “the other.” We’re just where politicians want us to be, ready to do their bidding. Do we really want to be dictated to by manipulating bureaucrats?
So, how do we decrease fear and tribalism? Refuse and replace is a strategy I’m considering. Refuse the fear. Fear is natural, and it takes over. What I need is a barricade to slow its speed of travel down dark paths. Faith imposes such a barrier, mobilizing a love that resists the urge to be harsh. “Love your enemies” is the hallmark imperative of Christian belief. This is a high calling—a divine impetus—in our politicized culture, a barrier against dehumanizing our enemies. As my fearful brain calms, I am under logic’s sway. Logic reminds me that I don’t really know what’s going to happen in the future and that I can stop my race toward the worst-case outcome and look at where I am right now, to both the good and the bad.
It’s not enough to refuse fear; fear needs to be replaced, even cast out, with something better. As the Apostle John clarifies, “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love” (I John 4:18 ESV). Fear is constricting but love is expansive.
Self-care and caring for others help me replace fear. In the previous post on gardening as a metaphor for happiness,** I focused on the role of self-care in dissolving my fear and anxiety. I also talked about limiting my news consumption and replacing it with a garden show before bed. Self-care activities vary from person to person, but they are ultimately done to better care for others. Caring for others means not turning them into a concept or a group too different or distant from us. Does someone—a person or a group—come to mind? What does it mean practically to move out of your comfort zone and welcome a stranger? This is scary—even risky—but it is the start of something new, a healthy habit to close the wedge and see the other face-to-face.
Replacing fear looks different for everyone, but one thing is the same: Each of us decides we ourselves and the people around us are too valuable to be targets of fear. Paintbrushes replace wire brushes; variety and beauty replace scratches and harm.
This is a good infection that spreads more rapidly than the bad one. Let’s speed up the spread!
Source Cited:
Javanbakht, Arash. “The Politics of Fear: How Fear Goes Tribal, Allowing us to be Manipulated,” The Conversation, January 11, 2019, https://theconversation.com/the-politics-of-fear-how-fear-goes-tribal-allowing-us-to-be-manipulated-109626.)
Links:
*
https://calvarywestlake.org/sermons/neverstuck/
**