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The
Morality of Fear (Jan/Feb 2005)
It
starts with the most basic of inevitabilities, the realization
that after you are born every day is one step closer to the grave.
Without the information that you are intrinsically entwined with
the rest of reality, it is easy to grow frightened. When you are
tricked into thinking that your ego is more than an illusionary
mental construct to stimulate survival, contemplating its demise
makes it easy to panic. Your heart rate quickens, and you reach
for your star-spangled safety blanket of childhood myth.
It worked for
your parents, it can work for you.
Take a deep
breath, and pretend that you can escape your enigmatic end through
the comforts of conforming to some preordained standard of obedience.
Choose the archaic literature most to your liking, and follow
the scrupulous scriptures deemed relevant by the established authority.
Disregard the need to feed the hungry, heal the sick, and give
shelter. Ignore the spiritually progressive principals of love,
understanding, and peace. Throw all that treat your enemy as yourself
stuff out the window, it doesn't matter. What matters is that
you never admit you're wrong. What matters is that you don't ask
any questions.
With the divine
on your side, you pursue the rights of a chosen race, attempting
to secure the picturesque black and white version of the traditional
nuclear family. Warm and cozy, safe in suburban gated communities,
chewing a highly censored, strictly regimented diet of mantras
for the masses, digested one sound bite at a time.
Outside your
carefully constructed shell of spin, you see the world falling
apart through the window of your television. Airplane crashes
are threatening your pursuit for happiness and you are unable
to understand the motives of those responsible. Your family is
at stake, your fragile façade is under attack. Your muscles
tense. You must mobilize. Forget forgiveness; what matters is
that you are good and they are evil.
Sheltered, and
afraid of sexuality, you find verses to support your oppression
and discrimination of those whose behavior is deemed abnormal.
Women are starting to realize that they are more than gestation
carriers for a man's holy seed, and it's got you petrified. Your
heart is now thumping wildly in your chest. You've got the government
racially profiling away thousands of suspected enemy combatants
at home, while the military ethnically cleanses them abroad. It's
us or them.
The cluster
bombs and casualties go uncounted, and the carnage is only a digital
broadcast. Martyrdom to raise the ratings, self-sacrifice to boost
the morale. America has become one big suicide bomb, ticking away
towards its own annihilation. Blood rushes to your head, and you
begin to tremble.
Disconnecting
further from reality, you view the approaching collapse conversely
as a glorious rapture. A final triumph in your righteous attempt
to purify the planet. An end to your quest for permanent safety.
The delusion is complete; you've begun to call your fear morality.
You've become a "values voter."
-Jason M Glover
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