Fear and Hope

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about fear and hope.

At the risk of dividing the entire human race into only two types of people, humans seem to be driven primarily by either fear or hope.

Those who are driven by fear focus mostly on security and protection; on resisting change. They tend to start with the assumption that other people are to be feared, especially people not like them. Or people who may actually be like them, but don’t look like them. They favor arming people with guns, even though – news flash – more guns per capita correlates with more deaths by gun violence. They want to keep immigrants out of the country, even though our country as we know it was built by immigrants.

People driven by fear accuse those driven by hope of being naive. Which at some point becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, since more fear often leads to more conflict.

People driven by fear tend to view relationships, and life, as a zero-sum game. One person gains while another person loses, or one group gains while another group loses. The notion that everyone could win- or lose- at the same time- doesn’t seem to occur to them.

Those driven by hope focus heavily on inclusion and on equality of opportunity. They embrace change, and usually view change as inevitable. They accuse those driven by fear of being closed-minded. They sometimes gloss-over the challenges that those who live in fear experience or, in the currently popular phrase, “the rigged system.” Hope is one thing, but in my lifetime, it’s gotten harder and harder for many Americans to break into the middle class. Just check out the data on income inequality if you don’t believe this (Inequality.org).

At least in America, the political and cultural gap between those driven by fear and those driven by hope seems to be getting wider every day. Those driven by fear and those driven by hope don’t seem to agree on much; but the one thing that everyone seems to agree on is that Americans are more polarized, culturally and politically, than ever.

The only thing that we seem to agree is that we are divided. Fewer and fewer Americans hold a mix of traditionally conservative and traditionally liberal views at the same time; instead, we align with our tribes, listen to the media that supports our previously-held views, and proceed onward as if we had a monopoly on the truth.

I know that this will brand me as old, but I still like to read actual paper newspapers. A few days ago, along with my coffee I bought both the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. The barista looked at the New York Times as I scanned it and said “Oh, I see you’re reading all the news that’s NOT fit to print.” Even the simplest thing, buying a cup of coffee and reading the newspaper, is no longer immune from the politics of division. Maybe I really do need to learn how to do that mobile-order thing.

There are many signs of our division, and it’s certainly not just about politics. I grew up with the belief that, quite simply, if you worked hard and applied yourself you could be financially successful. Of course, then again, I grew up white and middle-class and in the middle of America in the 20^thcentury. Today, according to a recent Pew Research Study, Republicans and Democrats are more divided that ever on the question of whether or not our economic system is fair. The majority of Republicans believe it is and the significant majority of Democrats believe that our system is unfairly rigged. Pew Research, Economic Fairness, 10 4 18

Neither side has a monopoly on the truth. This seemingly-obvious statement is no longer so obvious.

We need security, but we also need openness to innovation. We need to recognize that the world can be a dark place, but we also need to recognize that it’s a small place – a place where in end we must co-exist with others unlike ourselves. Where perhaps we can even learn the most from those who are not “like us.” Hatred is much harder to hold onto when you actually know a real-life person who on the surface embodies what you resist – but in fact when you get to know them they are very much like you.

To be perfectly clear, I come down on the side of hope. And I hope that doesn’t immediately assign me to one particular tribe or another. I loved the Winston Churchill movie last year, Darkest Hour, because it was really a story about how one man’s hope can change the world. Those coming down on the side of hope always run the risk of being called unrealistic, or much worse, but Churchill was deeply realistic. That’s why he worked so hard to get America into the war. It seems like a good idea right now to also point out that it was Churchill who said, “You can always count on Americans to do the right thing – after they’ve tried everything else.”

I believe hope rather than fear is the more practical option. It is hope that drives progress, innovation, and even mutual collaboration among people who don’t inherently get along.

Fear tends to paralyze us, whereas hope gets us out of bed in the morning (well, in my case, maybe hope combined with coffee). The Roman stoic Marcus Aurelius had it right in my view when he said, “It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.” It is hope that gets us started.

This is not to deny the existence of fear, mine included. Heck, I’m the guy who still thinks he is going to die every time he gets a cold. And that’s just the beginning of my fears.

There have been times, especially lately, when I’ve wondered if our divisions are truly at a level where we are witnessing The End of America. But, then again, there are and always have been parts of America that need to end. We are a great country but, quite clearly, we are not-great-enough.  I believe we need to do the work to turn our fears into hopes, and not in an unrealistic way. I don’t know where that work will end; I only know that we have much work to do and there is no end in sight.

Perhaps I do know where to begin, though. We begin by learning better how to listen to each other, by trying to understand better all the fears hidden behind all the bravado. By putting down our phones for a few minutes.

By focusing less on what we say, and more on what we can learn and hear.