Civil rights icon John Lewis died a couple weeks ago and America mourns. You hear the words he uttered over the course of a remarkable life and wonder if this guy was human. Indeed, a CNN commentator likened him to a saint. Here’s a guy who had his head beaten in on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, which nearly killed him, and he spoke about not having any malice towards his oppressors. Is he for real? He truly seemed like he was from another time and place, far distant from the America of 2020. We’ve become a nation of haters and it’s destroying both the physical and mental health of this country.
Much has been written about the tribes this country has split into, solidified by cable channels that reinforce our worldviews and social media groups where we can find like-minded fellow travelers. My tribe contains Northeast liberals who worship Dr. Fauci and have a dread fear of COVID-19. My wife is immunocompromised, our parents are all over 80, and we’re scared s***less of this horrible virus. We can’t, for the lives of us (literally), understand why people cavort in crowds, hoist a brewski in a crowded bar, and party like it’s 1999, all while not wearing masks. “Selfish dumba***s”, we say in our coronavirus venting groups on Facebook. And then you have the “give me liberty or give me COVID crowd.”
I was all set to write an angry blog post and then John Lewis died. This led me to think that maybe I with my comfortable life – I never had my head bashed in for protesting on behalf of a righteous cause for starters – could for just one blog post try to understand where these other tribes are coming from rather than vent my spleen. Let’s start with what binds us all together these days: F-E-A-R. We have become an incredibly fearful country: fearful of contracting COVID, fearful of illegal immigrants, fearful of losing our jobs, fearful of climate change, fearful of vaccines, fearful of our children falling behind, etc. Some of these fears were there before the pandemic and now COVID-19 has multiplied them by a factor of I-don’t-know-what-but-a-helluva-lot. And although we say that others’ fears are irrational and ours are very rational, other people’s fears are very real to them and we should acknowledge that if we’re going to get along. Countering fears that we think are irrational with a barrage of facts doesn’t work, plain and simple. We humans pick the facts that support our views and discard the ones that don’t. So, what does work?
TRIBE 1: The anti-maskers
First, if you will, please permit me to play armchair psychologist/sociologist/political scientist with the disclaimer that I have absolutely no credentials in any of these fields save an undergraduate degree in psychology. That way if I say anything stupid, I have an out. 😊 I think fear is a strong driver of people’s beliefs and behaviors. This liberal hypothesizes that the “give me freedom or give me COVID” crowd feels that they’ve lost much control over their lives already and fear losing more. We’re talking about lost control of their economic status and their social status. With all this lost control, people in this tribe want to protect whatever control they have left which means that they don’t want the government regulating their guns or telling them to wear masks. To get the anti-maskers to wear masks now, though, all government can do is threaten them with fines for disobeying mask laws.
Longer term, though, I think we need to have a serious discussion as a nation about how we can restore hope and a sense of control to those who have little, whether it be whites in Texas or Blacks in Philadelphia. Rather than stirring up people’s darkest fears about their control being eroded further by the government or an influx of illegal immigrants as Trump has so masterfully done, we have to first acknowledge their darkest fears, understand them, and find a way to lessen them. It all starts with civil discourse combined with a host of economic development policies directed at those who’ve been left on the sidelines.
To see how to do the civil part, I recommend reading about how Black jazz musician Daryl Davis convinced many KKK members to hang up their robes for good by initiating casual conversations with them. These sometimes friendly, sometimes tense conversations with a Black individual challenged KKK members’ long-held stereotypes of Blacks. According to Davis, “You have ignorance and if you don’t cure that ignorance, that turns into fear because we fear things we don’t understand and if you don’t turn that fear, it escalates to hatred, because we hate the things that frighten us.” I tend to view dialogues between Red staters and Blue staters as Pollyanish exercises in futility but Davis’s example makes me question my assumptions.
TRIBE 2: The partiers
What about the probably larger group of Americans who aren’t anti-mask warriors and just want to have a good time with their buddies? They don’t seem to be motivated by fear and are a far more difficult group to understand than the armed protesters who took over the Michigan State House to protest Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s stay-at-home order. Is the what-me-worry crowd motivated by lack of fear of this deadly virus? Or are they fearful but it’s outweighed by the pressing need to lead a life that allows interaction with other humans besides those in their families or pods? Many of my fellow northeast liberal, Fauci followers could care less what motivates these folks and view them as selfish fools that don’t care about the elderly and other immunocomprised people among us. Inspired by John Lewis’s example, though, I’m going to take a break from disparaging the “party hearty” tribe and propose a more charitable explanation.
Maybe, just maybe, these folks are also motivated by fear although their fears are less obvious. Maybe they’re afraid of facing their mortality and the disturbing thoughts that course through their minds when they’re sitting still and doing nothing. In our nation of social media and Netflix addicts, being alone with our thoughts can be a scary experience. Let’s also remember we are a nation that looks away from the aged and spends beaucoup dollars on cosmetic surgery to preserve a youthful appearance. This very American way of thinking about mortality may be lurking behind the party crowd’s actions. (And among younger partiers, the issue may not be fear of death but a tendency not to think about it all.)
We now return to my regularly scheduled anger
Alright, I’ve tried to be understanding but I am still angry at the people who endanger the lives of the most vulnerable through their reckless behavior whether they see it that way or not. And this reckless behavior is also doing a number on people’s ability to earn a livelihood as the pandemic is being unnecessarily prolonged. I certainly think that we should understand and address people’s fears after this mess is over. But for now, we all have to wear those friggin’ masks whether we want to or not because this steadily worsening tragedy is destroying our country. And then the reality will be far worse than any of our fears. Have a nice day.
