It has been said that cultures, like people, have a sense of life — a kind of emotional undercurrent generated by a society’s view of its people, their principal values and their place in the world — which acts as a recurring theme of a particular age.
Today in America, we are living in the Age of Fear.
Fear is everywhere — we are awash in it: We fear our government. We fear our leaders. We fear crime and violence. We fear inflation and climate change, illegal immigration and fentanyl. We fear misinformation, disinformation, indoctrination and censorship. We fear wokeness, cancel culture, CRT and DEI. … We fear fear itself.
The result: Fear is suffocating us in worry, anxiety, panic and dread — and contributing to the spiritual and moral disintegration of our national fiber.
As Joseph Epstein, former editor of the American Scholar, observes, “The U.S. feels sadly leaderless” — a sentiment that “has contributed greatly to the deflating sense of hopelessness that seems to have swept over the country.” Daniel Henninger of The Wall Street Journal speaks of our “unhappy nation” and “a very sour public mood,” where “The country’s culture, the stuff of daily life is negative.”
Ninety years ago during a similar time of moral crisis and social disorder, Franklin Roosevelt spoke of a “nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.”
For many, it seems America has been in the throes of a dystopian tyranny, where amid a climate of fear and revolt, law-abiding and innocent citizens are suppressed and treated as criminals and enemies — and this chaos is used to subvert the law in the furtherance of a more oppressive autocracy.
Keep America at war with itself.
This militant, emotional bureaucracy has systematically taken over most major universities, the majority of newspapers and broadcast stations, and has deeply insinuated itself into our boardrooms and halls of power. It stridently legislates for the camera and is intent on weakening us and drowning us in a beauty pageant of hypocrisy where violence and contempt are glorified and used as acceptable political tools.
Increasingly, we find ourselves in a post-truth world where justice loses to politics and morality is abandoned to the parading mob. Here, words and facts lose their meaning and relevancy, and the falsehoods of our leaders and public officials go unchallenged and without consequence.
We are made to feel broken so they can feel needed.
Tragically, one product of fear is tribalism, which represses individual expression and encourages us to seek out an identifying group or tribe for guidance and protection, where we can align our lives with “shared” truths, rituals, symbols, history and language — often to make claims for special recognition and exclusive rights. In return for this refuge, tribalism demands loyalty to its brethren and fealty to a tribal leader, who tells us what to think and how to live our lives.
As British commentator and former editor of The New Republic, Andrew Sullivan has remarked, “One of the great attractions of tribalism is that you don’t actually have to think very much. All you need to know on any given subject is which side you’re on.” Such a divided world reduces everything to an us/them, oppressor/oppressed mentality, where the wagons are circled and the only commandment is: tribe first, individual last.
Fueled by fear, many aspects of American tribalism center on the premise that the most important components of a person’s worth are race, ethnicity, gender and sexual identity — or, with luck, a glorious intersectionality of these expressions. Genetics, ancestry, body chemistry and other immutable characteristics have become common denominators in judging a man’s character, actions and choices — leading to the only acceptable and correct societal question: “Who are you?” Identity over reason.
Sullivan issues a warning: “Tribalism is not a static force. It feeds on itself. It appeals on a gut level and evokes emotions that are not easily controlled and usually spiral toward real conflict.”
Is it any wonder we are witness to the greatest resurgence in antisemitism since the Holocaust, not to mention reinvigorated vilifications of Christians here and abroad. Nor can we escape the insistent tribal calls for restorative justice, reparations, defunding the police, redistribution of wealth and reimaging government — all given standing by activist judges and bankrolled district attorneys, and enforced by wannabe “revolutionaries,” tribes the likes of Antifa, Black Lives Matter, Proud Boys, The New Black Panther Party, Oath Keepers, et others.
Sadly, as our fears grow, our leaders cast a blind eye to the unhappiness and suffering they have caused. America is hurting and they don’t seem to care. We are treated like adolescents and told to settle for less, lower our expectations, reduce our standard of living, and feel shame for desiring an American lifestyle and worldview. Aiming too high is immoral and racist and violates the high-minded socialist contract elites demand we sign.
As Brazilian writer Paulo Coelho has written, “If you want to control someone, all you have to do is to make them feel afraid.” But a social model powered by fear cannot last. At some point it collides with reality and collapses in its inevitable invitation to anarchy. If we are to survive, we need a sense of life dedicated to the pursuit of reason, freedom, truth, individualism and achievement. Once on this path, we must never forget morality can apply only to those who have a choice.
America has been living in fear for too long.
Russell Paul La Valle is an opinion writer whose work has appeared in The Washington Post, The New York Times, New York Daily News, Newsday, The Village Voice, The Daily Caller, and many other publications.