Many people I run into on the street who read my weekly musings on this blog ask me why I focus so much on politics and current events when the masthead of my website says I look at things from a small-town perspective. My response is always that the premise is that I write about my passions, what interests me, what interests other people and share it with the world. This is what I am about as a journalist. They usually nod in understanding and walk away, promising they will read the next post.
In his First Inaugural Address, Franklin Delano Roosevelt made the statement that we "have nothing to fear but fear itself." At the time of his inauguration, we were a nation on the brink of collapse - economically, socially and politically - as the Great Depression shuttered the economy and a war raged around the globe. A lot like the world we live in today.
The past few months in America have been a crash course for all of us in the ways fear can be used - and misused. The sudden appearance of a new and lethal virus - which, after initial declines, is reemerging as a major threat - has been a global test of everyone's nerves. Fear is the brain's best tool for keeping us safe from harm. It helps us learn to avoid danger, or to escape it when avoidance is impossible.
Fear is a fast learner, which is why, beginning in March, many of us found ourselves newly avoiding doorknobs and handrails, giving unmasked strangers in stores a wide berth, and reeling away from the sound of coughing. If you have adopted these habits, your fear has served you well.
I wonder if we have fully grasped how fear pervades our society and sets the emotional tone for our politics. When historians define this era, they may well see it above all else as a time defined by fear.
The era began on September 11, 2001, a moment when a nation that had once seemed invulnerable suddenly felt tremendously unsafe. In the years since, the shootings have been a series of bloody strikes out of the blue.
It has been an era when politicians rise by stoking fear. Donald Trump declared an “American carnage” and made it to the White House by warning of an immigrant crime wave that does not exist.
We in the media have contributed too. Everybody is a broadcast journalist now, competing for ratings and page views. The sure way to win is to ratchet up the crisis atmosphere. All news is Breaking News!
We get to the point where the fear itself begins to take control. Fear generates fear. Everybody feels besieged - power is somehow elsewhere, with the malevolent forces who are somewhere out there, who will stop at nothing.
Fear puts a dark filter over everything. The fearful person is unable to hear good news, while any possible threat looms large. Fear runs ahead of the facts and inflames the imagination. Fear makes everything amorphous. The inevitable reaction is overreaction.
Fear stokes anger, which then stokes more fear. Anger is the child of fear. Fear induces herding behavior. Fear revives ideology. They say that perfect love casts out fear. And maybe there is at least one presidential candidate who will perform the role Franklin Roosevelt performed 86 years ago - identify fear as its own independent force and confront it with hope and optimism.
But fear is not a discerning learner. It is prone to overgeneralize - to respond to things that only loosely resemble real threats. Avoidance of unmasked shoppers can blur into terror of unmasked neighbors gardening. Healthy avoidance of doorknobs can leave you up all night wondering whether you forgot to sanitize your credit card after swiping it. These unhelpful manifestations of fear occur because, while fear is good at gauging the severity of threats, it is terrible at gauging their probability. It can make the idea of contracting a fatal illness from a passing cyclist seem far more likely than it actually is. When fear spirals to the point where unavoidable dangers are perceived to lurk everywhere, disabling anxiety can result.
There are various ways to prevent these outcomes. One is to squelch fear by denying the threat - continuing to party or dine or worship with unmasked others, contagion be damned. I do not recommend this strategy. Denial may look like courage, but it is not. One reason is that contagions are a unique type of threat - quite different from, say, attacking dogs. If you fail to avoid a dog and it bites you, only you get hurt. But, if you fail to avoid a virus and it infects you, you now become the threat, a vector capable of spreading harm to others. This makes risking infection not simply a personal choice, but a moral one - and is why, in cultures around the world, practices for avoiding contamination carry strong moral implications.
As basic distancing behaviors become routine, the fear that drove us to adopt them will recede. Fear gets bored easily, leading to habituation. If you do not feel constant fear around pools and cars, it is not because you are reckless: it is because you have learned to swim and use seat belts to manage the threats they pose. We can come to manage the virus and threats the same way.
Two ingredients are required. The first is good information. Keep abreast of scientifically vetted recommendations from World Health Organization and other reliable sources. Yes, these recommendations change sometimes, especially as states that have reopened begin to close again because infection rates have once again increased, but this is because scientists are gathering and analyzing data and updating their knowledge at unprecedented rates. We now know that, for example, most Coronavirus transmission takes place in crowded outdoor spaces, particularly when people are forcefully expelling breath by coughing, sneezing or singing.
The second ingredient is (sensible) exposure to the threat. The more we venture back into the world, the more mundane mask-wearing, hand-sanitizing and social distancing will seem. Those who work in jobs deemed essential have already learned this. For the rest of us, it will be helpful to keep in mind as states and towns call an end to lockdowns and begin opening up schools and workplaces, forcing us to risk some degree of exposure - an inevitable outcome. The virus is here to stay, and effective treatments or vaccines may be years away. Complete avoidance of risk will not be possible.
This is where courage comes in to play. True courage is not denial of risk: it is mastery of fear when risk must be judiciously confronted to serve a higher (usually unselfish) goal. It is courage that sends firefighters into fires and nurses into sick bays. Courage requires focusing on others, rather than on yourself, and is, as a bonus, among the best ways to manage fear and enhance well-being more generally.
Great leaders use these facts to reduce both fear and risk, literally encouraging (bringing courage to) those they lead through exhortations to be mindful of the welfare of others, and, critically, through provisions of tools and support to manage risk judiciously. America has not benefited from great national leadership during this pandemic. We have endured denials of risk, confusing information and inadequate tools, with tragic consequences: needless deaths, shamefully inequitable outcomes for minority communities and widespread fear and anxiety. But we need not succumb to fear. Instead, we should harness it to minimize transmission while making judicious efforts to serve higher goals - educating our children, reducing inequities, and doing what we can to support local businesses and each other - to avoid compounding the tragedy.
Fear comes in the night. But eventually you have to wake up in the morning, get out of bed and get stuff done.
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