Fear: Shared Distortions, Shared Problems
Dealing well with our past, means we can live without the insulation
I’m finding myself increasingly interested in how “hindsight”, and our relationship to it, can act as an insulator to what’s actually happening. The good old days, for example, are context dependent even if we don’t pay attention to context. In this way, the “good old days” are merely personal fantasies that we errantly see as universal. They’re not universal.
In 1956, suburban US, for example, one might have seen this time show up as a great time to be alive for those whose lived contexts mapped to some kind of definition of “great”. But this is contingent on externalities like being straight, white, and male, OR the claimant lived in an environment where straight, white, males served as shields to what was really going on in a much broader context. With this shield in place, and the lived experience continually protected from institutional and in-your-face racism, sexism, homophobia, McCarthyism, etc., a person could claim those days to be good, and because they were seven decades ago: old. For the majority of people both domestically and globally, this time was most definitely not good. To this end, the appeal of a “simpler time” depends on a person’s ability to live in a partial reality, oriented around a mythological series of lies so that they can hide behind a shield of fantasy that has replaced whatever they might feel has insulated them from fear in the past.
It’s not lost on me how this may sound, but I believe it’s a part of what has led the US and other liberal democracies to support authoritarians as their leaders; people who tap into fear and clearly articulate a difference between an “Us” and a “Them”: a time-honored shield that serves both dictatorial impulses and a shared ignorance.
To this end, none of our life situations are ever mirrored by anyone, or any group. They might align contextually with others as abstractions, but they aren’t the same. I, for example, grew up in the San Francisco ‘burbs in the 1970s. So did thousands of others. But our lived experiences, aside from what shared TV and Radio could homogenize for us, were NOT the same. Every person, every family, every situation was, and is, different.
I noticed a semblance of this during a conversation decades ago with a much older and wiser neighbor once asked me, if I’d trade places with any of my friends’, where I’d assume their homes as well as their home lives in exchange for the one I had. I replied, “No,” with a sudden force that surprised me. Maybe it was a case of “the devil, I knew,” but my family lacked the kind of devilishness that one might have expected. Certainly, there were difficulties, but I had it pretty good, and I knew it. I was loved, fed, and enjoyed a pretty good life as my skinned knees and poison oak rashes gave way to flipping meat at Oscar’s Hamburgers, swim and water polo practice, and then borrowing the car to go on dates. Almost sounds like 1956.
Even as I progressed through my teen years, I couldn’t imagine trading places with any of my peers, who, by the way, also had it pretty good. I liked what I had, the way I had it. I also knew that I was lucky and did nothing to influence my good fortune. Had been born into another situation, my luck might not have shined very bright at all. I knew guys, for example, that came from Oakland on the BART train each day during the summer in order to play on my waterpolo team. I, on the other hand, got a ride to practice from someone who drove a car they were given and thought my version of this cadence was normal, when it wasn’t normal. It wasn’t until I lived as an exchange student (yet more privilege) in a foreign land, I began to realize the extent my good fortune.
It took a while for this realization to morph into appreciation. Teens are supposed to have a degree of anger, and ignorance embedded into their coping mechanization. In this way, I was no exception. But I also recognized a felt-sense of appreciation even if I never articulated it.
I’m still appreciative, the 80s were good to me. But what I can’t do, especially now, is lament how things have changed for the worse since then. The data, on base, simply doesn’t bare this out. There has not been a worsening. In fact, things have, in general, gotten a great deal better. We wouldn’t know this if we were left to ingest the media feeds on our social networks or listen to the rage and inaccuracies on our radios and televisions. Both of these mediums only survive by getting their viewers and listeners to buy in to fear narratives so that they can be shields. I know this in part because of my brief work in television news, where after I’d written a story, Tony the news director, would say things like, “…make this more important to the viewer, kid. If it doesn’t hit the audience emotionally, we’ll lose them.”
Emotion versus rationality. Emotion wins because it’s far more participatory. It included our rational minds as the sources of any emotional disturbance. The Latin root for emotion, in fact, is emovere which means “disturbance”. A disturbance, by definition is a distortion in an otherwise steady state. Not that this is wrong, but to live by emotion and it’s capacity to throw any of us off our game, will keep us from aligning, or reflecting, the healthy reality those in our midst deserve.
To be clear, emotions aren’t bad. Nor are they good. They are seductive and, because of this, a predation on them as well as their expression can have real costs. For that matter, one could make the same argument about how seductive rationality can be. The problem arises when we can’t mitigate our states, be they emotional OR rational. Although we might look at someone who is overbalanced in their rationality to be far less threatening than someone looking for the juice that emotional responses offer, the lack of balance can be truly problematic, only offering half of an otherwise whole participant in the life and death process we all share. Same for the other side: a person whipped around by emotions, is someone who can not truly meet life with fullness since they are always trying to prevent getting lost in their feelings; especially the feelings that can overwhelm the balance that rationalism can offer.
My point here is that living from our emotional life is a volatile, destructive, and self-centered celebration of distortion that points to a contagious fear and immaturity. I know this sounds harsh, but it’s not as harsh as the reactivity (rather than the responsiveness) of any one of us who can’t balance their emotional distortions and their nostalgic relationships with Reality. Ironically, the inaccurate projections of truth from others on the world upsets these individuals and merely exacerbates their blindness. In this blindness the big danger is that, anecdotal information can become plural and collectivized. When this happens, the plural of “anecdote” becomes data for those ensconced in this shared ignorance, and, as we’ve seen historically, there is nothing more dangerous than ignorance in action.
Our distortions of what’s actually going on, are problems we all end up sharing. When, on the other hand, our thoughts and feelings are grounded honestly in an authentic context, we all benefit.
“But I can’t control my emotional responses,” he says.
How’s that working out for you, sir? Aren’t you tired of being whipped around like a teenager. Maybe you could toughen up a bit. Maturity comes at a significant cost and those of us recognizing our mortality, without being consumed by it, know this truth. Those of us who can’t get on the other side of this hump thinking others either do, or should, mirror our responses to life have helped to poison the way we might otherwise connect with each other. Of course, relationships involve two parties, but the bigger among us need to take the lead and be brave rather than angry. Anger, in every case is simply a mask that Fear-of-loss wears. Bravery is unmasked, and often walks into the arena without a shield, because it summons clarity and confidence.
Again, it’s not that we’d want to trade places with those we disagree with, but we should at least endeavor to see their point of view and how contagious our distortions of them can be. Nor is our past shared except in the most superficial of ways. Knowing this, we can deal well with what’s come before and with what awaits us.