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February
The use of fear and its relation to violence
This month we have a reflection on the use of fear
and its relation to violence by a friend and
colleague Peter Isackson. Peter is a consultant and
coach in international and intercultural
communication. A native Californian, educated at
UCLA and Oxford, living and working in Paris for
the past 30 years, he recently launched a new
company, InterSmart Communication dedicated to
furthering collaboration and communication in
international contexts with the effective
integration of networking and mobile
technology.
The pundits have stated that people voted for
Bush because they were afraid of terrorism. Now
looking at the electoral map I notice something
curious. If fear is the motivating factor why did
New York—the principal and most spectacular
target of all terror, past and future—give an
18% margin to Kerry? Do the rural denizens of
Alabama and Kansas live in fear that Bin Laden (or
perhaps Saddam Hussein's faithful followers still
believed to be responsible for 9/11) are seeking to
attack them? Obviously not, but I assume that
inspired by their faith—and by the information
supplied by Fox news, they are fascinated by the
excuse provided for "the most powerful country in
history" to:
1) demonstrate its incomparably massive and
pitiless power
2) exploit the bold personality of a politician
who's willing to use it without hesitation or
wavering.
The most comforting thing for these people,
attached to the ideal of their comfortable
unchanging world, is that it's not their power and
it's not their responsibility. They can simply vote
to leave that power in the hands of those who
obviously seem to enjoy it and go home. The power
is no longer delegated by the people to its
representatives, as the classic theory of democracy
states the case. It now belongs to those who have
appropriated it with the casual consent of the
governed (mediated by... the media). They have been
given a free reign to do what they want with
it.
Kerry himself fell into the trap by voting in
favor of unrestricted power for the president in
Iraq, sensing that that was the trend but probably
believing that it would only be used to
"compassionate" and reasonable (rather than
"rational") ends. He was a Democrat and continued
to believe in "reason", as the other half (49%) of
the U.S population apparently continues to do.
Bush, Wolfowitz, Rove and Co. are Republicans and
believed not in reason, but in the "rational": the
unrestricted scientific use of power to carefully
calculated ends. This is where the deep cynicism
becomes perceptible. The voters transfer power with
no critical analysis as an act of faith to a group
of people who in the name of faith are committed to
a form of political and economic rationalism, the
science of power.
The phenomenon of religious exclusivity and
intolerance isn't all that new. I remember as a
university student in the late 60s being accosted
by what were then called "Jesus Freaks", a spin-off
of hippydom. The scene took place at the eastern
end of the Sunset Strip in West Hollywood (Sin City
West). They shoved some of their literature into my
face and told me that I needed to find Jesus. I
replied (honestly) that I was a Catholic, thinking
that they might see a link between that and Jesus
and let me out of their grips. Out came a wild and
obviously well prepared vituperative rant about the
Whore of Babylon and the Pope as Anti-Christ. The
ranter was a young woman of no more than 20.
Religiously formulated aggression seems to have
a privileged place in U.S. culture, often boiling
invisibly below the surface like a dormant volcano
only to erupt from time to time with a variable
degree of violence. For most people, the lava has
cooled since 2001; it has been partially sublimated
into a kind of misty nationalism that hasn't
existed in Europe since the dismantling of the old
empires. But it has also led to various degrees of
reflection and analysis on the subject of culture,
politics and religion. For some, however, 9/11
clearly reactivated the volcano of religious
aggression. The touchy-feely mistiness that
affected practically everyone— the sentiment
of solidarity, national unity and collective
mourning—was merely the initial spurt of steam
caused by the slow and certain rise from below of
the hot magma. As the misty reaction gradually
dispersed to the winds, the aggressive religious
side seems to have expanded towards the surface and
is now, for the first time, fully aware of its
awesome power.
This new configuration appears to have to do
neither with sentiment, nor (in my opinion) with
faith. It's characterized by a decision on the part
of a majority of people to trust the one who is the
most aggressive, on a pragmatic rather than on a
moral level. Faith and moral values become mere
excuses. The only value that's truly important is
domination: the intent to impose one's will without
asking any questions and with minimum
accountability. Take from us what you need (so long
as it isn't in the form of taxes) and do what you
want to anyone who gets in your way (e.g. Arabs,
Muslims or Democrats). Just use your power and be
effective. Power and the use of power is the only
way we know of relieving the stress. Let it
erupt.
All this is to say that believing the election
can be explained by the fear of terrorism which
provoked a retreat into "traditional values" may be
something of a dodge. Kerry was personally afraid
of war because he had seen close up how fearful it
was. Bush was afraid of nothing because he had
lived a protected life. The voters in New York were
so afraid of terrorism they were willing to elect a
man committed to diplomacy to prevent it. The
voters from the South and rural Middle West feared
nothing for themselves, but used the notion of fear
to send a message of aggression towards those who
don't identify with their particular "values"
(i.e., anything that is culturally familiar; not
ethics, not tradition, not clearly formulated
ideals).
Roosevelt's dictum in his first inaugural should
perhaps be rewritten: "The only thing we have to
fear is the tendency to use fear itself to create
more fear".
© 2008 George
Simons
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There are no elements so diverse that they cannot
be joined in the heart of a man. - Jean
Giraudoux
George Simons
is a US specialist in intercultural and gender
communication who hangs out in Mandelieu - la
Napoule, France, as well as in Santa Cruz, CA. In
the 1980’s he was one of the founders of the
Hidden Valley Center for Men and the Cyberguys
network. He is currently the treasurer on the board
of The National Men's Resource Center™. He is
on the faculty of Management Centre Europe, where
he consults on virtual global teamwork. He has
written over a dozen books on culture and gender
including Working
Together: How to Become More Effective
in a Multicultural
Organization and
with Deborah G. Weissman, Men
& Women: Partners at
Work. (Crisp
Foundation) and is the creator of the award-winning
Diversophy® game. www.diversophy.com
or E-Mail.
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