Fear

Cross-posted from my LiveJournal for comment here:

What do we fear?

Collectively, as Americans living in the United States, what do we fear? In the 30s, it was an invasion from Mars (thanks, Orson!) in the 40s: Nazis and the Axis powers. The 50s was the grand fear of The Bomb along with our own ignorance of our place in the universe as our general understanding was expanded, and the 60s gave us Communism and the threat of nuclear war. What was the fear in the 70s? Equal rights for women? Women's empowerment? Radicalism?

The 80s taught us to fear poverty, for greed is good. We were so afraid of being poor that we decided to tread upon everyone who didn't have money to keep them down, and the classes separated. In the 90s, the average American was probably more afraid of our own government than anything else. Sure there were carbombs in Ireland, the Middle East and elsewhere along with a petty, poorly-executed attack on the World Trade Center but those pale in comparison to the shootings at Ruby Ridge and the debacle with the Branch Davidians. Private citizens were gunned down by the American government on American soil. Add to that the persecution of the President for having extra-marital sex, and I bet most of the nation was terrified at some level of the government if they gave it any thought.

This decade (the Naughties?) has taught us that greed is not so good, that the poor aren't just camping, that the classes are more divided than ever, there's still a nuclear threat and Communism doesn't last forever. It's also taught us that women shouldn't strive, that non-whites are still to be feared and that our government doesn't want to change. We won't ever elect the smartest person in the room to the highest office in the land because we can't have politics interfering with our sports and reality entertainments.

I guess we don't fear the invasion of our planet from outer space any more because we've ruined our own home. Why would anyone else want it in the condition we've left it?

So what is there to fear? Loss of personal liberty? We're perfectly willing to give that up, with our representative government passing things like the Patriot Act. Mother Nature? Hurricanes, tsunamis, earthquakes, tornadoes and the like have always done major damage, but the problem isn't the events themselves, it's the response to them that's the issue. No, what we have to fear is our own inadequacies. We have to step up, each of us, on our own and take responsibility for our actions. If we don't, then nothing will change and there's certain comfort in that.

But if we do, if we face the fear of failure, of repercussions for acts in our name, then we can be proud Americans again. Then we'll be able to face anything that comes, whether from outside our country or even outside our world.

The only thing we have to fear, as is said over and over again, is fear itself.