Swallowing More Than We Chew

America is now fearful enough to make blessing counters seem almost obsolete. There is the fear of global warming, the fear of Al-Qaeda, the fear of the growing deficit, the fear of unemployment, the fear of inflation, the fear of deflation, the fear of rising taxes, and the fear of fear itself. There is, in fact, enough fear out there to make a fear-monger blush.
The latest news polls indicate that the American public, in increasing numbers, fears the President of the United States is a Muslim, even though he has insisted he is a Christian over and over again. Well, they don’t exactly fear it: they want to make him a Muslim so they can loathe him. It’s not as if we have to invent fears in this fearful age in order to keep the fear index uncomfortably high. There are enough fact-based fears to keep us rational folks busy as it is. But there is something contagious about fear: the more we fear, the more it seems to spread. When FDR proclaimed: “The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself” he was stating as absolute truth our tendency to exaggerate. Most of our fears are unfounded or at least much greater than reality would suggest.
Fear is the most effective self-fulfilling prophecy humankind has ever adopted. We have a greater capacity for fear than almost anything else. Once fear gets going, it is hard to control it. It is like a hot air balloon on a windy day. When it takes off, you have no idea where it will land.
One such fear being fanned by certain believers is the fear of national debt. Thanks to the Bush tax policies, the Iraq War, the War in Afghanistan, the bank bailouts, the government takeover of GM, the stimulus package, and the Great Recession, the American national debt is now measured in trillions of dollars, not just billions. For those with valuable assets, the debt is the greater fear. For those who are unemployed, the lack of available jobs is the greater fear. To the environmentalist, global warming and continued degradation of the environment are the greatest fears. Since we cannot seem to agree what the greatest fear is, perhaps what we need is a national fear inventory or poll to assess what our fear priorities really are and begin addressing them accordingly. Otherwise, we will remain in a paralyzed state of generalized fear with no prospects of working our way toward some degree of fear reduction. I realize a state of national serenity is a utopian dream, but efforts toward fear reduction are the practical steps we can take as a country, once we have identified our fear priorities.
America has always been a faith-based nation. Not only is it still highly religious in nature, it puts faith in the beliefs of various economic philosophers who offer contradictory solutions to man’s economic problems. Some American economists insist that Keynes is the guy to follow while others worship Adam Smith. Whatever economic philosopher you align with, their theories are simply beliefs wrung through the uncertain wringer of rational thought and assume an uncertain understanding of human nature. If human behavior were predictable and rational, we would not have the need for philosophers, who, along with scientists, give us the best available tools for understanding ourselves and our world. And yet, we are a far cry from fully understanding human nature any time soon.
Our inclination to put faith in something is our national propensity. Our faith, in turn, sets the stage for an outbreak of fear. Rather than doing the hard work of honing rational tools, we rely on faith and fear to govern our lives. They are two of the most primitive and irrational behavior modes that trace their roots back not only to the cave but to the species that gave birth to us. We would rather throw our hat into the ring of perceived purity and perfection than do the hard rational work of incremental progress. Scientists do the latter; faith-healers do the former.
Right now one issue America is grappling with, and one driven in some circles by irrational fear, is the building of a Muslim cultural center near Ground Zero in New York City. Rather than dealing with the fact that Al Qaeda does not represent mainstream Islam any more than the Ku Klux Klan represents mainstream Christianity, some Americans find it easier to demonize the entirety of a world religion and thereby play into the hands of Osama Bin Laden rather than do the relatively easy task of separating extremist elements from the otherwise benign elements of the mainstream faith. But no: those who put all their eggs in one basket will gladly do the same for others.
On the other hand, one could argue that all religions represent an irrational response to life’s vicissitudes and therefore should be avoided in favor of a more rational approach. But a ban on religion would be as successful as the War on Drugs or Prohibition. Taboo has never served as a deterrent but rather as a magnet. People need to choose to be rational, not forced.
Smart people diversify their investment portfolios. They would be wise to do the same with their beliefs and ideas. Rather than latch on to the next fad, the next faith or fear monger, the next fabulous offer, or the next fib sold as fact, maybe we ought to start educating ourselves using the best available information gleaned by the use of rational tools rather than continue to backslide further down the evolutionary track through lazy and listless reliance on faith and fear. That starts with broadening our sources of information beyond those which give us false comfort and exercising the tools that a lot of hard work exercised by previous generations has honed and made available to our brains.
One of the greatest epidemics of our time is physical obesity. Reason would dictate that getting fat is a bad idea. Our lives are shortened, our health is compromised, and our health care costs are rising as a result of this epidemic. No reasonable person would choose to be obese. I would contend that we are also suffering from an obesity of mind. We are becoming a nation of fat-heads, full of false certainty and empty thoughts, just as our bodies are full of fast food and empty calories. The next generation of children will be at even greater risk of suffering from both physical and mental obesity. We need to start exercising our whole beings, not just our bodies, and start feeding ourselves with truly wholesome food as well as truly wholesome food for thought. A diet of faith and fear is just another form of fast food. In more ways than one, we are what and how we eat.