On fear

and OtherLoathingTM

Photo by Olesya Yemets on Unsplash

If I may, I’d like to share some observations from three decades of living in a very conservative place, at different phases of my life - child, teen, young adult, middle-aged parent. These insights that have shaped how I understand the mechanics of fear and belonging in America (and elsewhere).

No one wakes up in the morning and makes an idle decision to hate. Hate doesn’t emerge from a vacuum or from simple malice. Instead, it’s rooted in fear, and fear itself is rooted in ignorance, not ignorance in the pejorative sense, but in its most literal meaning: the state of simply not knowing.

This distinction matters because it shifts how we think about addressing division. As a people, as humans, we have to confront our fears because, as eminent psychologist C.G. Jung understood, what we refuse to face will control us and may ultimately destroy us, whether individually or collectively.

The only real antidote to ignorance is exposure and experience, and ideally, seeking encounters that lead, gradually, to relative confidence and calm. But here’s the paradox I’ve repeatedly witnessed: for so many people, fear itself keeps them bound to one place, one opinion, one narrow channel of information. The state of not-knowing doesn’t lead to curiosity. It transforms into a persistent and deep anxiety that in turn calcifies into defensive postures.

Years of living in a landlocked state largely unaffected by outside influences showed me the vicious cycle of cultural insulation (little “c” culture—the everyday rhythms and assumptions of community life). The mechanism is brutally simple: the more you fear, the more you protect yourself and those oft-touted Loved Ones.

The more you protect, the less you’re exposed to difference or challenge. When ignorance (not-knowing) persists and non-exposure becomes a way of life, it generates further fear, which demands (you guessed it) further insulation.

I watched this cycle repeat across families, churches, entire towns. People who had never left the state, never encountered someone whose life or opinions contradicted their assumptions, never had their worldview tested by lived experience rather than media caricature. The irony was striking: these communities saw themselves as islands of tradition in a hostile world, convinced they were under constant siege from coastal elites, from immigrants, terrorists, liberals, Arabs, people of color, Muslims, from Hollywood, from Washington, even from some nameless “them.”

After decades in the reddest state, I understood what they were saying, but I could never bring myself to repeat them or agree with them. I was fluent in RedState but refused to speak it because I didn’t believe it. My experiences had proven otherwise. I had tested my theory over and over again and found the world an instructive and often welcoming place. I was willing to be surprised. I was willing to feel the fear and do it anyway. It’s only life, that’s all.

I found the world an instructive and often welcoming place

But in red state reality, the twin shackles of fear and ignorance bound people to their fearful futures far more effectively than any external force ever could. It’s a brutal and violent self-made reality, though the violence is often invisible. What is the right response to the violence of stunted possibility, of children taught to fear before they’re taught to wonder, of potential relationships and understanding sacrificed on the altar of safety.

The tragedy is that you’ll likely never convince the fearful otherwise. Entrenched fear creates its own epistemology, its own way of knowing (or of refusing to know). Every piece of contradictory evidence becomes proof of conspiracy. Every invitation to expansion becomes a threat to identity. The walls grow higher while the residents insist they’re only building what’s necessary for survival.

I don’t write these words with contempt but I understand if it reads that way. What I feel most is sadness. A deep, deep sadness. Sadness for what could be, for the communities that might exist if fear weren’t the organizing principle of so much of our common life.

How can we respond to fear? How can we let it go? What are the drawbacks to clinging to our fear? What is the proper antidote to fear?

Guess.