AmericaHypothesis: Fear, instead of Hope, is not only the primary political motivation behind the Right, it is also the main ingredient behind the division of American society that has been there since the beginning.
Though uttered a time long ago in a far away galaxy, the words resound with truth. “Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate and hate leads to suffering.” The consequence of fear is death, perhaps not a literal death, but a death of mind and emotion, which for we humans is almost as devastating. Since the proposition of the United States is to promote “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” it is quite dangerous that a great portion of our cultural psychology, our motivation behind our actions, our justification for the effect of those actions, is based on Fear. In suggesting this topic in a previous blog, it occurred to me that fear is not merely a component of normal, everyday human life, but in a more specific sense, Fear, capitalized to distinguish from its normative usage, is the root of the American divide – a divide that has always been here and thrives in a Trumpian environment. The historical meaning and basis of Fear has been the root of a conservative current of American politics and life, and will continue unabated unless overcome by the only force (see what I did there?) capable of defeating it, a force that has been primary in the perpetuation of Liberal values, and just like Fear, Hope has been there from the beginning.
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Fear Destroyed Him |
We like to think that the Founding of the United States was, as suggested by Richard Price, the eminent 18thcentury political economist, a universal moment of hope for all of humanity. Price wrote, in his Observations on the Nature of Civil Liberty in 1776, as the war in the colonies was beginning, that American Independence would establish a “plan of government and a growing power that shall astonish the world under which every subject of human inquiry shall be free for discussion; and the friends of liberty in every quarter of the globe shall find a safe retreat from civil and spiritual tyranny.” Since his words were printed before Independence was realized this is quite a hopeful statement and, certainly, was an inspiration for the Founders as they proceeded towards “We the People.” Hope. Hope abounded in minds and hearts of those yearning to breathe free, but it was not the only emotional basis on which they had come to act, acted and would further choose actions. No, of their birthright for this new nation the Founding generation had already inherited another emotion that proved every bit as formative, Fear.
In this sense, I am not talking about the fear that many scholars have written about as to how late colonial and British politics was informed in the 18thcentury by the idea that Liberty was always endangered by Power. They feared that. We fear that still. But the abstract nature of concepts like power and liberty cannot by themselves create the basis for how people choose their ideas, words and actions in everyday life. No, for this they they need a tangible, touchable, sensible form from which to derive a greater emotional basis – they need real Fear.
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| We Fear what we don't know, like a frog at the bottom of a well |
So what was that Fear great enough to spoil such a hopeful beginning? It was a congeries of little fears wrapped together in a red, white and blue bow, some fears as old as humanity and some of recent vintage. Humans have always feared losing what they have – whether resources, land, custom or liberty, and no doubt the Founders feared losing all of these to a justly pissed off mother country who had just saved their colonial asses from the French (for British justification see the previous blog series “Finding the Founders, parts I-X). Coupled with that, but unrelated to the British variable, was the typical human fear of the other. While that fear of the other is also primordial in human terms, the colonial “other” was made through a more recently historical occurrence, the slave trade and slavery. This “other,” feared by the Founders, was the slave that many of them kept, abused, exploited and lived right there among them. Constant vigilance was needed, not only to protect what they had from the British, but to protect themselves from their inside outsider slave. But while racism and white supremacy, developed to soothe the savage breast of the “free” in a society with slaves, is a large part of the conservative movement in the newly minted America (as it is today) it is not Fear of itself. It needs the constant lust, avarice and just plain meanness of the desire to keep what is yours, of the obsession to fulfill a 5 year olds cry of “that’s mine, not yours,” – it needs the will to power.
Unlimited Power – to keep and to keep away.
The Great Fear is born.
So obsessed by Fear were especially the southern Founders that many became Anti-Federalists against the ratification of the Constitution. Recently, the New York Times, published an article by Roger Williams University law professor, Carl Bogus, that the 2ndAmendment was meant solely for slave owners to have a militia to keep down their slaves. Bogus (if that really is his name) apparently did not know that this hypothesis had been developed by other historians, most notably, Gary Wills, decades ago. So the originality, and need for publication, was rather bogus. But I’ll do Gary one further. The whole Bill of Rights, that we so proudly celebrate is a function of protecting slavery – all of them I-X with #2 just being the most obvious display of the slave owners fecal intent – that intent? To make sure the Federal Government could not take their slaves. And the architect? Jefferson.
But that one will deserve its own AmericaHypothesis.
Back to Fear.
Even before the Constitution of 1787 all of the southern states had resolutions for considering how to get rid of slavery and to establish their new states on the hopeful proposition of the Revolutionary promise. Debate and resolution was slowed by Fear. How to part with “property” without devastating economic consequence? How to “free” slaves without allowing Africans freedom (“you’ll be cool with going back to Africa, right,” they asked)? And then came another Revolution in America – oh, not in America America, but in Haiti.
Slaves led by Toussaint L’Ouverture revolted, freed themselves and established a Republic based on life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness – without slavery. Haiti got freedom right, but white southern slave owning legislators could not. They wanted their property and the wanted power, and their Fear could not allow them to see the consequences of slavery – revolt – and so they did the opposite of what reason might suggest. Instead of freeing their slaves and avoiding potential rebellion, as would be rational, instead they made sure that slavery would not end, that “states” would keep their rights slaves, and they made the institution of slavery all the more wicked and abusive through trying to insure the power of the planter class against any opponent. And when that opponent rose from a northern aggressor, they committed treason and went to war they fought for their rights and heritage.
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| A New Hope: Toussaint L'Ouverture |
The whole basis of the State’s Rights Philosophy of Thomas Jefferson, the leader of the Anti-Constitution party, was to protect slavery from the Federal Government ever attempting to end slavery. And that is reason to fear, but real Fear came with the consequences of that war and realized when slavery was abolished.
In the states that vote Republican now, and before the Civil Rights movement voted Democrat, slavery was legal. The loss of slavery in a large part of that (white) population meant Fear. A loss of property, a loss of identity, a loss of superiority … and they knew it. So they fought back. At first designing “Black Codes” that secured the sanctity of the white race by denying basic rights to Americans of African descent. When the Federal Government, who had just thumped them in the Civil War, changed the nature and tenor of Reconstruction – and did away with things like the Black Codes – to produce the hope of equality and the protection of rights. Fear won out for these former traitors and they denied the path that Hope could bring in favor of their Fear. They rebelled.
The insurgency was led by terrorists like the Ku Klux Klan, who fought for dignity, civility and chivalry of a bygone era. They fought for Fear.
And the terrorists used fear to rape and murder those who supported Hope, those who supported America, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, as it ought to be. Hope fought back, but not for long because in the North the will to reconstruct the South was wavering, and not as most of us were taught did Reconstruction end, with a back room deal regarding the election of 1876, but because Fear came to the North as well.
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| The Force Awakens |
Next time on AmericaHypothesis, how the North succumbed to Fear, what it means to be a Racist society, why Fear leads some of us and what can be done about it.
