Fear the Fear Mongers

September 2002

Baz Luhrmann’s delightful film Strictly Ballroom teaches the lesson of the Spanish proverb vivir con miedo es como vivir en medias: “a life lived in fear is a life half lived.” The movie’s hero learns that slavish conformity to the safe, “strictly ballroom” repertoire robs dancing of its vitality. His father’s failed example teaches him that dancing only becomes worthwhile when one finds the courage to dance ones own steps.

Luhrmann’s film is popular among gay people because many of us spent years in the closet, terrified of doing anything not “strictly ballroom.” Only by shedding this fearful attitude, by dancing our own amazing steps, did we find it possible to enjoy a life fully lived. Gay people understand how destructive internalized fear can be­ and how enlivening it is to leave such fear behind.

This lesson invites us to consider, then, just how harmful fear can be in other aspects of our lives.

Reactionary politicians are always eager to create and exploit fears amongst citizens. Throughout history, witches and Jews and infidels and Communists have all served as scapegoats. Citizens made sufficiently afraid of neighbors and co-workers become paranoid, scared their actions and friendships will be misinterpreted. Private associations and relationships become suspect. Certain classes of people are required to register all their moves with the state, their presence in a community trumpeted as cause for others to worry. Totalitarian regimes can even turn family members against one another, with children spying on parents, spouses testifying against each other, all trying to prove their loyalty to a feared despot­ and betraying those they love in doing so.

And though fearful people cede their civil liberties and personal dignity, they do not get the security promised: those in power will continually manufacture more fear since frightened people are easier to control.

Fear-mongering in the United States is at an astonishing level. Even as we’re searched and scanned and questioned ever-more frequently, we are told­ literally­ to get used to living in a world of perpetual “yellow alert.” Our Attorney General seeks to compile databases of neighbors’ tips against neighbors, of those borrowing suspicious books from the library, and of men with certain skin colors and last names. Our President, pandering to scandal-sheets, convenes a summit on child abduction, never mind that more people will be killed or injured by lightening next year than children will be kidnapped by strangers with harmful intent. And newspapers and television are full of reports of predatory sex monsters who, we are told, make every visit to the mall, every campground stay, every web-surfing session a worrisome danger.

Of course, rationally-based fears have the potential to evoke necessary caution. But the current campaigns to demonize so-called pedophiles and to protect “the Homeland” against its own citizens are designed by ambitious politicians and fomented by sensationalistic press. Such efforts are not rational responses to avoidable dangers, but rather attempts to exploit anxiety for political gain and financial profit. When any such McCarthyism runs amuck, lives are ruined not by the dangers warned of, but by those leading the crusade of fear.

When parents are anxious to have their kids call home every few minutes (as reassurance they’ve not been abducted), when travelers are frightened of flying with those who speak a unrecognized language, when neighbors are ready to call the Feds to report other neighbors’ “suspicious” activities, we’re all losers. Any incremental security we gain is trivial compared to the damage done our vital familial and social relationships.

Next time a politician or tabloid tells you to be afraid of the horrible monsters living amongst us, don’t buy it. The ones you need to fear are the fear mongers themselves. Vivir con miedo es como vivir en medias….

Pasted from <http://guidemag.com/magcontent/invokemagcontent.cfm?ID=1DD5A979-8C89-4881-B8FC77E80F772571>