Fear is a basic human emotion, a product of millions of years of evolutionary biology. And yet the Christian message calls us to conquer fear. “Be not afraid”, Pope John Paul II proclaimed in his inaugural homily and he carried that message to every corner of the world during the twenty-six years of his pontificate. And yet, the politics, society, and culture of the United States for the past six years have been utterly dominated by fear.
Veteran New Republic columnist John Judis recently penned an illimunating essay on this topic, discussing the work of three political psychologists: Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg, and Tom Pyszczynski. Their work centers on the role that fear of mortality plays in how people interact with the world. In particular, they show that the thought of mortality can trigger a range of emotions, from “disdain for other races, religions, and nations, to a preference for charismatic over pragmatic leaders, to a heightened attraction to traditional mores.” Before 9/11, various experiments concluded that groups presented with images of mortality tended to be far more supportive of the United States than control groups. But it was only in the wake of 9/11 that the full impact of their research became evident.
They quickly realized that reminders of that terrible day in 2001 stimulated unconscious mortality thoughts to a heightened degree. Numerous experiments confirmed their initial hunch. One case involved a sample of 131 Rutgers undergraduates in 2004, hardly a hotbed of Bush supporters. There were two groups– one was given “mortality exercises” (basically, they were asked to describe the emotions they felt on 9/11, and to recall that day), and the other was a control group. At the end, they were asked for their voting preferences. The control group backed Kerry by a margin of 4-1, hardly a surprising result given the location. But the other group backed Bush by 2-1. Fear, above all else, accounted for his victory in 2004.
If Solomon, Greenberg, and Pyszczynski are right, then so many of the wrong turns in this country over the past six years can largely be accounted for by fear. For sure, the Bush administration played its cards perfectly with the staged terror alerts, the strategic release of the Bin Laden video, and the ur-argument that a Democratic victory would cause the demons of 9/11 to return. The research shows that heightened mortality thoughts are also associated with hostility toward other races, religions, and nations. Just look at the disdain for countries like France and Germany, supposedly allies. Just look at the alarmist rhetoric of “islamofacism”, the ridiculously simplistic approach to the world, and the notion that Muslims are the enemy. Look at the Iraq war, and the conveniently-overlooked tissue of lies and simplifications surrounding its initiation. Look at the crushing of all dissent. And look at the rise of anti-immigrant passions that spiked in the wake of the 9/11 boom of fear. Startlingly, Judis also argues that the decline in support for abortion is also a product of fear, a flight to traditional values, rather than a broader appreciation for the gospel of life. Sadly, I fear he may be correct.
The strength of this reaction came from the unique nature of what happened on that day in 2001. Put simply, Americans were not accustomed terrorism on their own soil, and over-reacted widely. Fear is not rational. Those who actually faced the threat of terrorism on a daily basis, the inhabitants of New York City and the District of Columbia, chose Kerry by wide margins. Fear resonated in the out-of-the-way places that would never really face terrorism. The United Kingdom, accustomed to years of IRA terrorism, did not let fear overcome common sense. It correctly saw that terrorism could only be dealt with through the ordinary criminal justice system. To put it bluntly, they did not bomb west Belfast or declare a war on “Catholic fascism”. They also realized, at the end of the day, they had to address the factors that fostered terrorism. Instead, the Bush administration did the opposite, letting the architect of 9/11 escape its clutches, and then diverting its resources into the nonsensically-entitled “global war on terror”, giving Bin Laden an unprecedented propaganda victory, and fanning the flames of future terrorism. Not only did it make a mess of the world, but it made the United States itself an increasingly uncomfortable place to live. All the result of a country seduced by fear. The real message it needed was a different one. It was a message of “be not afraid”.
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