You have probably heard of the quote from Voltaire:
"If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him"
There are books worth of inferences and implications from just that simple line with it's subtext worded carefully to avoid problems with the author's well being. And with the religious right influencing things these days and the vileness seeping out all over in the election you wonder how much further we have to go to where Voltaire's little tease won't be so controversial.
But in a way he was wrong or partially wrong about people and their motivations. Since his time we have had Darwin and more modern understanding of our primate roots, plus recent understanding of brain structure, emotions and fear response I think his quote could be rephrased as:
"If bogeymen did not exist, it would be necessary to invent them"
And invent him we do over and over again in many guises. Quite apart from the need for God, the widespread need for a Bogeyman extends all through history and even today these fears infest our politics. McCain and Palin personified it recently and many others have not only kept the bogeymen alive and well in America but inflamed it even more of late.
We have all seen repeated evidence of fear as a force in the world and the forms it is taking in the US since the inauguration seem inexplicable if not hard to understand. We all have a pretty good idea of how human nature and right-wing politicians and media work together in the fear matrix but it bears yet another attempt to explore it. Freud and the pioneers of modern psychology focused quite a bit on fears and anxieties that their patients had and for good reason since it seemed to be linked with much of what was interfering with their ability to lead a normal life.
Fear can be stronger than love or hate
Why is the bogeyman more to the point with us higher primates than God? An odd source for deep thinking...Charles Manson, (repeating some notions he picked up from another cult) is quoted by Vincent Bugliosi in "Helter Skelter" (paraphrasing) it is not a question of love or hate being stronger since FEAR was stronger than either. And he may have been onto something; the primitive inner core of our brains seems to have a default self-preservation program that kicks into overdrive for various reasons. What serves us well to escape predators or vie for dominance can also be a self destructive mechanism. A fear-filled uncertain childhood, lack of love or a chance to understand the world in a more rational way that lets a person move on from childhood nightmares and fear of the unknown can be linked to this response to our detriment. Child soldiers in parts of Africa and elsewhere with harrowing violent unstable lives are marked by what they experienced for life and many are unable to lead normal lives as adults. That is an extreme example and yet though haunted by it in ways we can barely imagine many are able to assemble a new world view and coping mechanisms that help keep fear from ruling their lives. For the rest perhaps the best that we can hope for them is survival and a bearable life.
In the beginning was fear.
From our dimmest roots hiding in a tree from predators or crouching around a fire and listening to the noises in the dark and populating the seen and unseen world with dangers limited only by their ability to imagine; and in time as bands of roaming people encountered each other, bonds and friendships alternated with disputes and anger and fear. Murders and competition and the development of traditional enemies and demonizing the evil "other" came along with it. Most of the time people everywhere got along and the times of conflict came about more often whenever times of plenty gave way to times of want. Imagine the repeating mythic story of an Edenic place and time where people were peaceful and lived reasonably well without seeing outsiders. Their ability to fight or defend themselves as group was forgotten and when strangers inevitably appeared who did not have such a peaceful outlook. Fear and destruction reentered the history of such a people and if they survived the mark of it remained with them for generations at least. But even as civilizations were built up and populations grew, not everyone was a cheerful innocent or the opposite, most have to have been like us and ran the gamut of outlook and sanity. But every era has a varying zeitgeist and differing balance of fear and peace, sanity and craziness.
But in all times, easy-going people who trust the world and the people in it find their trust can be betrayed if they end up in a dangerous place with fear-filled people. Most of the time their very nature is a protection and staying positive and trusting wins them friendship or at least are not harmed but sometimes they are not so fortunate. It is pretty much the Christ-like figure and teaching, soft answer turneth away wrath, turn the other cheek defusing the fear and confusion in others. And it works in Gandhian and MLK non-violence but only if those who are challenged to stop being fear driven are still reachable. Those who have been fear marked beyond redemption will be unmoved and fatally dangerous.
The list of countless nameless innocents destroyed after venturing into unperceived danger must be as old as mankind. Myths and histories populated with people and incidents range from Abel to Arawaks and become more and more documented. From children destroyed by monsters to adults who never learned to fear just enough, we have more and more documented stories and news of such tragedies. Popular culture and infotainment gives a nod to our human sense of outrage and wish to defend the undefended with missing white girl stories. And socially aware progressives are more aware of ones linked to intolerance and fear that may not be as widely known.
Two examples from the 20th century:
Emmet Till, Raised in Illinois visiting relatives in Mississippi at age 14
...did nothing but whistle at a white woman. "He loved pranks, he loved fun, he loved jokes... in Mississippi, people didn't think the same jokes were funny
Till had been beaten and his eye had been gouged out, before he was shot through the head and thrown into the Tallahatchie River with a 75-pound cotton gin fan tied to his neck with barbed wire. His body was in the river for three days before it was discovered and retrieved by two fishermen.
Amy Biehl American born exchange student who previously worked with Native American women and then was
an Anti-Apartheid activist in South Africa. She studied at the University of the Western Cape in Cape Town as a scholar in the Fulbright Program.
When 26-year-old Biehl drove a friend home to the township of Guguletu, outside Cape Town, on August 25, 1993, a black mob pelted her car with stones and smashed its windows while shouting racial epithets. Biehl was struck in the head with a brick, then dragged from her car. She was surrounded as she tried to escape and was stoned and stabbed to death.
Their tragic, pointless, violent and wholly unjust murders are just the tip of a world size iceberg of similar victims and fear infected killers who were defending themselves from projections of inner dwelling bogeymen. There are countless others who are accidental victims of the unreasoning fears of others. A woman who was on a walk for peace in Turkey, raped and murdered, A man documenting abuse in the West bank or was it Gaza, shot for no apparent reason by Israeli troops whose fears seem to have led them to unofficially expand their list of justifiable targets. Idealistic Freedom riders murdered by Southerners whose ignorant fears fed hate and an unreasoning belief that they had to do what they did to "defend" and perpetuate their fear sodden society. So many more in every country in every year all through history and before where the overarching fears are given a name and identified with a convenient "Other". And communal sharing of the fear and the defense makes it self sustaining and abiding.
"Fear is the mindkiller"
as it was said in Frank Herbert's "Dune" and it is can also be a society killer and a civilization killer too when we develop complex bogeyman to go with it. At times there have obviously been very good, solid reasons to fear for the immediate safety of you and your loved ones and community as well as longer term realistic fears but I am not talking about reasonable fear of real things and occurences. I am talking about long held and festering fears that warp people's understanding of the world and people around them: Fear of the unknown other, the imagined invader, fear of the unworthy who may take something from you, fear of so many baseless things that in the right person at the right time, especially with co-enablers encouraging them, will end up in violence, injury and death sometimes to others with similar nightmares in their heads, but all too often just someone who seems to fit the target that the fear junkie-victim needs to fight. Fears released with too much alcohol or emboldened by mob thinking and directed at a symbolic enemy in the person of an unlucky passerby.
So why do so many people have these fears and why so often do innocents suffer at the hands of people with misplaced self defense delusions?
Fear can be a drug, even an addiction
Violence and fear seem to be self perpetuating and every generation has the fear marked and wounded of preceding ones passing on the heritage in some way. And it is not hard considering how many people are mentally receptive to becoming a fear victim and even a fear addict. Those who have been in combat or experienced other horrific things seem less likely to enjoy horror movies. It's almost as if those who have not felt enough actual fear enjoy artificial "safe" fear as a substitute. As children we enjoy chasing and running and a thrill of harmless fear... but not those whose lives are already filled with fear, known or unknown. And for adults, and especially much older adults who perhaps tune into Fox or talk radio to have their formless fears named for them and given a focus it is like a quick nicotine fix or a crack rush. Anger and fear ramped up and given a quick fix of justification and solidarity... followed by the same challenge and soothe pattern all day and every day. Inflame fear, ease fear just a little, justify and misinform, name the "Enemy" name the good guys, make the made up danger just that much more imminent and scary and every word is clung to for guidance and resolution. Fear grooming and milking has become a tried and true ratings formula with certain arms of the media... But like all successful or enduring aspect of human social patterns it is at least partly based on elements of our genetics.
Fear underlies most of people's destructive acts and beliefs
We have many inbuilt survival programs including fear which is a very powerful one. Fight or flight instincts are very ancient and deep-rooted in all animals on earth. And in Humans at least, if that instinct is over-stimulated and set at a high level in infancy and childhood it may be set for life and intrude on everything a person does and thinks. it will be reinterpreted and relabeled and integrated with religion or myths or identities and politics and enemies but it will still be there underneath. And in acting out all the defense mechanisms that emerge they guarantee that more babies and children will inhabit a world with more fear and its fallout. In adulthood it will be denied. A grown man usually avoids admitting to themselves or others that they have boyhood fears governing them. And in Adulthood, traumatic events that trigger Post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) will have worse effects if the person is already a victim of fear. The severity of PTSD may have a genetic component as well. Some people then could be at risk from birth for having a fear dominated life.
A preliminary study found that mutations in a stress-related gene interact with child abuse to increase the risk of PTSD in adults.......
There is evidence that susceptibility to PTSD is hereditary. For twin pairs exposed to combat in Vietnam, having a monozygotic (identical) twin with PTSD was associated with an increased risk of the co-twin having PTSD compared to twins that were dizygotic (non-identical twins).[19]
Recently, it has been found that several single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in FK506 binding protein 5 (FKBP5) interact with childhood trauma to predict severity of adult PTSD.[20] These findings suggest that individuals with these SNPs who are abused as children are more susceptible to PTSD as adults.
They suffer from fear. Fear that shouldn't be there. Fear that lurks in the back of their world view. The fear is there and to be free of it or to diminish it drives everything else in their lives.
Fear of loss of identity by those who are unsure of their own and who have only a tenuous support for what they have. It may be the guns they need to defend themselves or the religion that comforts them and supplies people who tell them what to think and do and by extension the political leaders and media exploiters who tap into the same wellsprings of fear responses.
Have you experienced a form of PTSD or believe you have seen it at work in family or friend or a total stranger? It seems to color everything they do and all their plans. The defense comes first before all and reactions to the unexpected seem to spring from it. And we can all be victims of fear.
Fear in my life and my Family
I am fortunate in that either my childhood was not particularly fear filled and that I may not be predisposed to PTSD one way or the other or am just lucky. That said, as an infant, I had a carer in a 3rd world country who may have given me a subconscious fear of impending pain or being hit. My mother walking in during a bath when the woman was dunking me under the water and making me choke and cry. She defended her actions saying "Good for baby, make baby strong" Who knows what else could have happened when my mother was not around even with good intentions? For most of my life there has been a subconscious expectation of unexpected unpleasantness. It seems to tinge my world so much in a subtle pervasive way that I was unaware of it for many years but it seems to add additional tension that needs not to be there. But again I have no idea of where it may have come from but the helpless dunking that I have no memory of seems to fit. My next younger brother was much more relaxed and carefree... (he spent his babyhood in Sweden...)
My oldest son was a very placid and relaxed content baby until an acute abdominal problem that was mis-diagnosed led eventually to surgery for a suspected intussusception. So at 5 months he suddenly experienced 3 days of screaming agony weight loss diarrhea from the mouth and passing out from exhaustion... and the doctors said it was just a bad dose of gastroenteritis. And then after the surgery he had to save his life, nurses who obviously were taught and believed that babies do not feel or remember pain the way that older children and adults feel and remember it added to his suffereing. (this was in Los Angeles in the early 80's) I have to tell you that the casual and uncaring un-gentle way they changed his diapers with him having a huge abdominal incision and not enough pain medication let to a total change in his take on the world. We made sure that we changed his diapers from then on but it was already too late. He resisted every diaper change vigorously after that until he was potty trained. He was obviously motivated to avoid the excruciating pain of those nightmare days from then on. And he was way less trusting and much more suspicious and even hyper after that, like a minor version of a torture victim never knowing when the next set of agonies will begin and for how long. His siblings never went through what he did and not surprisingly were much more even keeled. I am glad to say he came out of his childhood and teen years and has been very happy as an adult. But along the way he had a catastrophic injury to his right leg at @ age 7 with severe blood and tissue loss (bone and nerve also) which was repaired and after much pain, skin grafts and surgery left him with most of the function and structure of his leg intact. It took a lot of time for him to come to terms with everything through his teen years and early adulthood. I talked with him about what happened as an infant and he could see that his siblings had a different take on the world. I hope that added to and helped him on his own quest to be himself. I can only begin to imagine what a much more fear and pain filled infancy and childhood with inadequate love and comfort can do to someone.
PTSD from one traffic accident
I have an in-law who spent a childhood being belittled and driven by his father and who found some some escape and enjoyment in driving things fast, whether self-built go carts and motorbikes and later building up and restoring and driving cars the sportier the better. He drove fast, tailgated, overtook abruptly but always insisted that he was a very good driver and did not take unnecessary risks... I recall any drive with him being a white knuckle experience. His later life seemed to be one where he trusted only himself and when things did not work out in an area he pulled up stakes and moved on possibly leaving behind unpleasant memories. And much of that was an incident which cured him of his previous driving habits but made other things worse.
One life changing event for him was on a 2 lane road in Wisconsin at night where a possible drunk driver crossed the center line and ran him off the road into a ditch. He says only his fast reflexes saved him from a head on collision but his car was "totaled". After that his entire approach to driving changed completely and 2 lane roads in a car in which he was a passenger became a fear-laced trial of endurance and focused vigilance. Or at least that is how he was on a visit to us more than a decade ago.
He came to visit us in Ireland once and seemed very interested in whether the roads from the airport were divided or 2 lane. On the way he repeatedly asked me to slow down (I was doing he limit or less) watched all the traffic intently. I suggested a drive to the west of Ireland... which was very scenic. "A Road TRIP"? He immediately asked for a map of the entire route and had to be talked into the idea of going at all. We traveled in a 7-seater station wagon with him buckled into the center passenger seat in the middle of the car and I drove much slower than usual to keep him from being too uncomfortable. During the whole trip he sat forward scanning the traffic and the road ahead as if I was driving way over the limit in a third world country known for an intolerable level of road mayhem. We would mention the nice scenery out the side windows, and rural Ireland has plenty of nice views etc... but we might as well have been in a tunnel as far as he was concerned. And this is a guy who like the outdoors and nature etc. Fear changed his entire life in many ways. If this was a person who had one accident I can only imagine what living with a person with really bad PTSD might be like. And in an odd way helped me understand a little better the mindset of a fear dominated person.
Kill the Rat
I look to isolated incidents in my own life to try and see where fear got out of control. I keep returning to one that happened early winter morning when as a paperboy getting ready to go out on my route I encountered what I thought was a huge rat in the shed under the back porch. Maybe having just gotten up coupled with my ignorance about rats let my fear get the upper hand. I grabbed a shovel and hit it. It keeled over and I thought I had killed it. I gingerly wrapped it in newspaper and put it in the bottom of an empty garbage can. I went out on my route and later I took off the lid and there it was alive staring at me. I had a desperate feeling of being in the presence of an elemental threat that was more powerful than I realized. I then did things I am ashamed of that hurt it and tortured it till it died. It made sense in my frame of mind. Only later did I learn that it was just a possum. And what made me feel even worse than just stupid was that as a child I had not only read all the Pogo possum comics published in book form I kind of identified with the character (nothing like a real possum but...) If someone asked me what animal my "Totemic spirit guide" was, I would have immediately answered an opossum. So out of fearful ignorance I had essentially killed my spirit guide.... (I do not actually subscribe to this but respect the general concept) It still bothers me that it suffered just because I was afraid. I wonder what people who gun down an innocent person just out of uncontrolled misplaced fear must feel like.
Fear as entertainment
We do like some excitement in our lives and roller coasters, movies with violence and moralistic good over evil escapism all seem to fill a need. A video game that allows us to conquer a faceless enemy; to vanquish the cause of the fear is very satisfying to many but not if it has already been part of their lives. Some soldiers avoid war movies A) because some are nothing like the real thing and they scoff at them and B) those that are too much like the real thing and they have already seen enough in person. Similarly in the 1930's depression people wanted lighthearted escapism not even more grim reality.
But alternately have you ever heard someone say that a particular film was not that scary in almost a bragging manner? At least some of them are people who need to deny their own capacity or ability to fear. They will not suspend disbelief and allow themselves to feel the fear that others allow themselves to. They deny the fear inside themselves. If they had too much fear already in their lives they may be on the way to being a bully and fear-monger as a way to cope with their own fear. If others become more afraid than this fear victim who maybe has become a fear maker themselves or they are selling a set of fears in a defined way that they control and profit from all the better for them. They do not escape the fear they just achieve a elaborate set of coping mechanisms much like that of Joe Stalin or Adolf Hitler.
How to get to a more fear free world?
(besides buying out FOX, and not voting for Neocons which almost goes without saying?)
One of FDR's 4 freedoms was "freedom from fear", and that implies freedom from our bogeymen. What if anything can help the fear ruled in our midst. More Fox? Definitely not. Stoking up the nameless dread that dwells in so many is a form of abuse. Beck, Hannity, Rush, O'Reilly, Savage, Coulter and so many more are no better than emotional drug pushers. They peddle fear and fear relief massage almost as a form of legal drug. If fear is a God, they are the high priests of that deity.
The fearful may always be with us and sometimes we may number among them. But there are times when they aren't as numerous or have as much influence. Less war, crime and deprivation all help fear to recede. But even then there are still huge numbers of people with quiescent or latent fears that can and will poison the world around them whether there is reason to or not.
In the end only a bit of awareness, education and science plus time for the human race to grow up a bit more could be the only hope for dealing with our baseless fears. (that is if we can also avoid wrecking the world even more in the meantime). If people know that they are prone to PTSD responses more than others and understand how and why that works plus there may be medical ways to define and treat excessive fear. The Freudian focus on Angst (German word for fear) and our neuroses and the later reliance on all manner of chemical aids in reducing stress and worry all helped a bit but has not yet changed us to the point where we understand and can mitigate needless, groundless fears as a species to the point where the really fearful do not teach us, govern us and imperil us and no longer need to take medications to blunt the worst of their anxieties. Forcing more people to see the world through their fear glasses just makes it all worse for everyone. And the response by the unreasonably fearful is to lash out in unreasonable ways. The Bush years were all about that. From religious nuts to political fear panderers to violent paranoids on the street we are all potential victims of the fear that is out there. I for one refuse to reward their efforts by becoming one of the fearful.
The Bogeyman is us....
To paraphrase Pogo Possum (Walt Kelly) We have met the enemy Bogeyman and he is us... If we can un-invent and or banish the bogeyman lurking in so many people's lives we will have gone a long way to a better world but hopefully without going too far in the other direction. I started this with a quote from Voltaire and after reading other quotes of his it can be seen that he was not without his own bogeymen. The church, religion in general and blind optimists along with corrupt governments and even Jews and Africans seem to have bothered him. But he also said
What is tolerance? It is the consequence of humanity. We are all formed of frailty and error; let us pardon reciprocally each other's folly — that is the first law of nature.
Voltaire
and so seems to have left room for himself to learn where he was wrong and if more of the fear filled could take that to heart they might not embody their bogeyman in certain minorities or people different from them at the very least.
Voltaire also invented the satirical Pollyanna-ish Dr. Pangloss in "Candide" who opined that ours was the best of all possible worlds. As Voltaire ridiculed this Leibnizian shallow world-view he was also aware of the danger of those who had little regard for life or our world and that getting free of both extremes was our best hope. Sadder but wiser and without any bogymen hovering in the background... Maybe they really can be de-invented eventually, but for now we are still busy inventing them all over the planet in place of the real dangers we face.
...or as FDR might have said in other words, "the only thing we have to fear is fear the bogeyman himself..." (implying that since the bogeyman is not real... if we get rid of the bogeymen we create, we get rid of a lot of our problems)