Last night I was thinking about fear. I wasn't particularly afraid of anything and I don't know what caused this particular subject to pop into my head.
It caused me to think about the state of fear that is being stirred up by western governments. Obviously the US government is the worst offender but the UK government, and others, are guilty as well. It caused me to think about the state of fear that I experienced as a child, about what is different today and what relatively is unchanged.
It is a facet of modern life that the childhood of each generation has at least one specific experience of real or manufactured fear that defines, in part, their experience of childhood, adolescence and young adulthood. Innocence dies young these days.
I was too young for the fear of the fifties. The John Birch society fear. The Commie behind every door fear. The fluoride in water is poison fear. The Joe McCarthy fear.
I do have fairly strong memories of the fear of nuclear annihilation that was about in the early 60s. I was in the second grade during the Cuban missile crisis in 1962. I remember the bomb drills. (They taught us to hide under the desk.) I remember the black and yellow signs directing you to the fallout shelter (aka the basement). I remember the air raid siren they used to test about once every three months. I remember someone (a parent, a teacher) explaining this by telling me that there were people called Russians who wanted to destroy us. No explanation of who the Russians were. (I remember being confused because I couldn't find Russia on my globe. No one bothered to explain the relationship between the country called the USSR and the place called Russia.) No one ever explained why these Russians wanted to kill us, why they wanted to destroy our country or our way of life. I knew they looked different than we did (largely in the form of unusual hats) and they lived where it was always cold. They had un-American names. They were not like us.
My elementary school was in the Pennsylvania countryside. It was an old red brick pile built early in the 1900s perched on the edge of a village that was slowly dying. There was a nineteenth century church with a crumbling graveyard down the road. Next door there were sheds that housed the big yellow school buses. Next to that was the volunteer fire house that housed the air raid signal that would inform us we were about to become radioactive dust. In the spring time you could hear the cows lowing in the fields and smell the shit.
I couldn't understand what there was about the countryside that made someone far away want to destroy it. Why would they want to incinerate the church, the graveyard, the yellow buses, the fire house, the school, the cows? I haven't thought about any of this for many a year. Even in my radical years I don't recollect this influencing me consciously. Certainly these early experiences affected me in ways I am unable to define. They will have, in some small or large way, altered the fabric of my life.
Today there are children that are learning a new fear. A fear of "terror". A fear of fear. Who are they taught to fear? The word is terrorist. The (usually) unspoken definition conjures up wild eyed, brown skinned men with extravagant beards and un-American names. They worship a different and a savage god. They want to kill us. They want to destroy our way of life. They are jealous of our success and our wealth. They are not civilised. They are not Americans. They are not British. They are not like us.
The differences between the experience of today's children and that of those of my generation are several.
The most prominent of these is this. When I was young there WAS an enemy with the power to destroy us, and along with us, the world. There were times when it seeming possible, even likely, that the horrible weapons we and they had developed might be unleashed. 1962 may have been the closest the world came. How it would have started and who would have been responsible is uncertain but it could have been us or them.
There is no enemy with that power today. Yes there are too many nuclear states but at the moment then are none that would seem like to start a war with the US. (The likelihood of nuclear war between some of these other nations is higher.) The enemy that our children are being taught to fear DOES NOT HAVE the capacity to wreak total destruction on the western world. It is highly unlikely that they will ever have that power. They do possess the tools and the will to kill some of us, thousands at a time. They have exercised this power already and will again.
So why are the young of today (and everyone else for that matter) being encouraged to cultivate this fear? Fear leads to hate. Hate leads to violence. Violence leads to fear.
There is no doubt that the world is more dangerous now than it has been for some time. Wariness, vigilance and caution is called for. Fear is not. I suspect that there are multiple motivations for encouraging this mindset among government, politicians and "leaders". The reaction to fear can take many forms. Most of these responses make us more complaint. They make us easier to manipulate. They make us more likely to trust and believe. They make us sheep.
We have to resist those who tell us to be afraid. We have to fight back against those who respond to the fear that is encouraged in them by their "leader". We have to say "enough" when they see a terrorist in every Asian man. We have to say "I will not" when they tell us that we must allow the abuse of a few (meaning thousands) who are different from us. We have to be stronger than our governments wish us to be. We need to stand up and not be cowed. We need to exercise the freedom that wish to take from us.
We need to explain to the young the difference between vigilance and fear and why it is important. We need to explain to them that there are indeed men and women in the world who are dangerous and against whom we much be on our guard. We need to explain to them that they cannot be identified by the colour of their skin, by their names, by their religion or their passport. We need to explain to them that that to change the world, to make it safer and better, will require as many changes in our (the west's) behaviour and attitudes as in the behaviour and attitudes of others. That is how the war on terror will be won.
There is a time that we must stand up for what is good and right about the countries in which we live or that goodness and rightness will be lost. That time is now.
It caused me to think about the state of fear that is being stirred up by western governments. Obviously the US government is the worst offender but the UK government, and others, are guilty as well. It caused me to think about the state of fear that I experienced as a child, about what is different today and what relatively is unchanged.
It is a facet of modern life that the childhood of each generation has at least one specific experience of real or manufactured fear that defines, in part, their experience of childhood, adolescence and young adulthood. Innocence dies young these days.
I was too young for the fear of the fifties. The John Birch society fear. The Commie behind every door fear. The fluoride in water is poison fear. The Joe McCarthy fear.
I do have fairly strong memories of the fear of nuclear annihilation that was about in the early 60s. I was in the second grade during the Cuban missile crisis in 1962. I remember the bomb drills. (They taught us to hide under the desk.) I remember the black and yellow signs directing you to the fallout shelter (aka the basement). I remember the air raid siren they used to test about once every three months. I remember someone (a parent, a teacher) explaining this by telling me that there were people called Russians who wanted to destroy us. No explanation of who the Russians were. (I remember being confused because I couldn't find Russia on my globe. No one bothered to explain the relationship between the country called the USSR and the place called Russia.) No one ever explained why these Russians wanted to kill us, why they wanted to destroy our country or our way of life. I knew they looked different than we did (largely in the form of unusual hats) and they lived where it was always cold. They had un-American names. They were not like us.
My elementary school was in the Pennsylvania countryside. It was an old red brick pile built early in the 1900s perched on the edge of a village that was slowly dying. There was a nineteenth century church with a crumbling graveyard down the road. Next door there were sheds that housed the big yellow school buses. Next to that was the volunteer fire house that housed the air raid signal that would inform us we were about to become radioactive dust. In the spring time you could hear the cows lowing in the fields and smell the shit.
I couldn't understand what there was about the countryside that made someone far away want to destroy it. Why would they want to incinerate the church, the graveyard, the yellow buses, the fire house, the school, the cows? I haven't thought about any of this for many a year. Even in my radical years I don't recollect this influencing me consciously. Certainly these early experiences affected me in ways I am unable to define. They will have, in some small or large way, altered the fabric of my life.
Today there are children that are learning a new fear. A fear of "terror". A fear of fear. Who are they taught to fear? The word is terrorist. The (usually) unspoken definition conjures up wild eyed, brown skinned men with extravagant beards and un-American names. They worship a different and a savage god. They want to kill us. They want to destroy our way of life. They are jealous of our success and our wealth. They are not civilised. They are not Americans. They are not British. They are not like us.
The differences between the experience of today's children and that of those of my generation are several.
The most prominent of these is this. When I was young there WAS an enemy with the power to destroy us, and along with us, the world. There were times when it seeming possible, even likely, that the horrible weapons we and they had developed might be unleashed. 1962 may have been the closest the world came. How it would have started and who would have been responsible is uncertain but it could have been us or them.
There is no enemy with that power today. Yes there are too many nuclear states but at the moment then are none that would seem like to start a war with the US. (The likelihood of nuclear war between some of these other nations is higher.) The enemy that our children are being taught to fear DOES NOT HAVE the capacity to wreak total destruction on the western world. It is highly unlikely that they will ever have that power. They do possess the tools and the will to kill some of us, thousands at a time. They have exercised this power already and will again.
So why are the young of today (and everyone else for that matter) being encouraged to cultivate this fear? Fear leads to hate. Hate leads to violence. Violence leads to fear.
There is no doubt that the world is more dangerous now than it has been for some time. Wariness, vigilance and caution is called for. Fear is not. I suspect that there are multiple motivations for encouraging this mindset among government, politicians and "leaders". The reaction to fear can take many forms. Most of these responses make us more complaint. They make us easier to manipulate. They make us more likely to trust and believe. They make us sheep.
We have to resist those who tell us to be afraid. We have to fight back against those who respond to the fear that is encouraged in them by their "leader". We have to say "enough" when they see a terrorist in every Asian man. We have to say "I will not" when they tell us that we must allow the abuse of a few (meaning thousands) who are different from us. We have to be stronger than our governments wish us to be. We need to stand up and not be cowed. We need to exercise the freedom that wish to take from us.
We need to explain to the young the difference between vigilance and fear and why it is important. We need to explain to them that there are indeed men and women in the world who are dangerous and against whom we much be on our guard. We need to explain to them that they cannot be identified by the colour of their skin, by their names, by their religion or their passport. We need to explain to them that that to change the world, to make it safer and better, will require as many changes in our (the west's) behaviour and attitudes as in the behaviour and attitudes of others. That is how the war on terror will be won.
There is a time that we must stand up for what is good and right about the countries in which we live or that goodness and rightness will be lost. That time is now.
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