Fear and Outrage

How insignificant be my fraughtness in light of the ghastlinesses people face in other parts of the world, in other states of our union, in other more beleaguered communities. Compared to Ukraine’s battles, Israel’s new state of war, or even the three-ring clown act formerly called the U.S. House of Representatives, my personal concerns are trivial at best. And yet, here I am, a person like all other persons, grappling with the immediacies of my own existence as we all do and grateful beyond articulation that mine do not include active combat on the street in front of my house, frantic calls for emergency medical intervention, or the “come’s the dawn!” reality that my refusal to work-and-play-well-with-others is disrupting hundreds of millions of lives.

Other than taking to the streets to express my exasperation (physically non-possible in my case) my best option is exactly what it’s always been: vote. Back when I lived in Chicago, we used to quip, “Vote early and often,” a dark joke that’s hopefully been put to bed considering the debunked election-fraud accusations of the last three years. But “Power to the People” has always been about the right to vote. Were I someone other than who I am and have never been, I’d hit the streets and the interstate highways to register new voters, spreading the gospel of the common good, human decency, communal responsibility, and, dare I say it, tolerance and good will for all. That I don’t and never have reeks not of complacency, but of spoons.

The arrogance of the able-bodied is staggering. Yes, maybe we'd like to be able to get places quickly, and carry things in both hands, but only because we have to keep up with the rest of you. We would rather just be like us and have that be all right. - Barbara Kingsolver, Pulitzer Prize winning novelist

 So I talk about issues with friends and acquaintances who hold opposing views. I monetarily support like-minded people and causes. And I vote every chance I have. What I don’t do—what I’ve non-been able to do since Nixon all-but-admitted his Watergate complicity, making me stomp around the house yelling, “What the…?!”—is get outraged.

For some reason, I picture Mary Cooper from Young Sheldon whenever the word Outrage comes up these days. Not that there aren’t plenty of other fuming folk on the screen and in the news every day; rather, that her fictional character seems confined to a two-emotion range: Fear and Outrage.

Fear is unquestionably the most powerful, readily available weapon in the world. Parents instill it in their children. Teachers play on it to exact conformity, as do businesses and medical personnel (“Mobilize anxiety to ensure compliance”) and every other type of business, corporation, government agency, etcetera and so forth and scooby dooby do. Politicians brandish Fear like flaming swords, while Religious Hierarchies—whoa! They flaunt it with sublimely insouciant, almost comic-book-esq superiority. Far more primal than its alleged counterpoint, Love, Fear accompanies us out of the womb and into the great beyond.

But the really great thing about Fear is its many and varied manifestations. Conjoined with Insecurity, it empowers Arrogance. Inflamed, shows off as Intolerance or Justified Resentment (not to be confused with Righteous Indignation) on its downward trajectory to Unavoidable Aggression. Fear is the sludgy bottom of look-what-you-made-me-do Violence.

And it’s so versatile! Fear begets shame, which begets terror, which begets defensiveness, which naturally implodes as Outrage, a self-righteous state that all but demands license for coercion, cruelty, and, of course, control, i.e., power—the ultimate doom merchant. And so okay, all that’s pretty obvious, right? Just human nature, the typical course of going from lover to critic, supporter to adversary, peace to war. But putting aside the media nightmares, over which ninety-nine-point-nine percent of the global populus have minimal to zero influence, let’s look-see at Outrage’s magnificent distractive impact.

Think about it. Fear can only go so far. Human to human, we sympathize with Fear. We waft our arm around the fearful with support groups and books and mantras and programs and drugs, legal and non. Face your fear. Release your shame. But by all means, don’t get defensive! That would flip all our kindheartedness from “oh, you poor thing,” to “you have to modify your language, your conduct, your attitudes.” When feel-the-fear-but-do-it-anyway runs aground at now-you’ve-gone-over-the-line, we’re talking hard-core behavior modification therapy, aren’t we? Fear and Shame aren’t our fault, but Defensiveness—that’s a character flaw.

And if’n we don’t get our act together… if we don’t figure out how to get back in line, play by the rules, live up to everyone else’s expectations, we’re legal prey for whichever fearmonger gets to us first. No matter our political, religious, ethnic or other alliances or “identities.” Our chosen media and affiliations are forever standing by to drop kick one more on-the-far-edge-of-Defensiveness soul into Outrage. See the scoreboard light up! Whata game! Atrocities are too distant for the average Joe or Jane to sustain, but Outrage—that’s what keeps the meaningless ping-pong ball in play! Every volley feeds one side or the other’s scorn and disgust. Outrage makes headlines, headlines expand and escalate more Outrage, and voilà! Game, set, match to the fearmongers—spectacle costs paid for by We, the People, aka the eternal losers.

Here's how it works: Let’s say Young Mother A, is groomed from toddlerhood to fear the wrath of her family, her community, her religious leadership, and her god. Shames into believing she has no intellectual agency, she’s thus enjoined to defend whatever “truth” her leaders/elders dictate. When they inflame her Fear/Shame/Defensiveness with cherry-picked images or verbiage from a book—any book, regardless of its history or benign content—what choice has she but to become “concerned”? At that point, it takes naught but the slightest media coverage, the smallest resistance to her legitimate worries to punt defensive concern into Outrage… her Outrage into activism… her activism into take-it-to-the-street book banninga or burnings.

Enter Young Mother B, groomed—we’re ALL groomed one way or another—to Fear the first young mother. Accepting without doubt that she must protect her family, her community, her very way of life from all that YMA believes and advocates, she’s enjoined to defend the “truth” dictated by her beliefs, background, and education. In other words, YMA and YMB may have different perspectives and motives, but Good Golly, Miss Molly, they have the exact same agenda. Like YMA, YMB is so primed for the fight that all it takes is her opponent’s Outrage > activism > book banning to flip her own concern and defensiveness into Outrage… take-it-to-the-street counter protests… and headline-grabbing lawsuits.

Watch the ball, children. See how it’s batted back and forth? Pay no attention to that gold-plated tower behind the curtain.

We’re being played, boys and girls. Go ahead and swap out book banning for abortion, LGBTQ marriage, transgender-affirming care, gun control, gerrymandering, or even the 2020 election results—doesn’t matter the issue. They’re all made-up causes, every single one of them, all the better to divide-and-conquer those of us stuck with the bill, the carnage clean-up, the thoughts and prayers faithfully sent our way. The more Outrage political/religious fearmongers can foment, the stronger their power base.

No matter our belief system, our ideals, whatever truths we hold to be self-evident or dear, I promise you the contest isn’t being waged between conservative and liberal, straight and LGBTQ, or even Black and White. The make-believe battle between Outrage and Outrage merely establishes a political/religious excuse to step in and usurp control. Think about Russia and Ukraine. Hamas and Israel. Gaetz and McCarthy. It’s the same, all the same. So keep watching the ball go back and forth, my fellow humanoids. Look at the headlines, listen to the atrocity reports. And whatever you do, for god’s sake pay ignore those bedmates behind the red curtain.

It’s not much of a leap even for a dumbasfuck like me to suss out where the Top Secret information that let Hamas overwhelm Israel’s defenses originated… nor the route it took to get from the third-most-powerful-nation’s strongest asset (living at a simultaneously over-and-under valued non-residence golf club in the world’s-most-powerful-nation’s tail), to their handler in Eastern Europe/Northern Asia, who conveyed it to a middle-eastern power trafficker, who traded it for we’ll-probably-never-know-what.

All while We, the People, are distracted by the ping-pong book bannings and LGBTQ rights and gun control and women’s autonomy and school shootings and Washington clowns. All outrageous, to be sure, because Outrage makes headlines.

Am I the only one who thinks it's time We, the People, called our puppet masters’ bluff?