When fear is relentless, several things happen to us: We lose judgment, we become insensate, our startle response is either grossly diminished or harshly exaggerated, we are stuck in arousal, we can't recognize safety signals (the cues that tell us when we don't have to be scared anymore), we're always on guard or conversely we're fearless when we shouldn't be and because of our numbness engage in stunts of increasing risk, we are unable to sleep and walk through our days with a sense of impending doom. We become irrational. We lose conscious control of our responses. We startle easily and simultaneously lose a necessary and rational responsiveness.
For a country at war, these symptoms do not bode well.
Characteristics of Good Soldiers and Citizens
If I were building an army (abroad or at home, professional or civilian militia), I would look for certain qualities in my servicemen and women. I would want them neither terrified nor inured, neither overly zealous (sic: murderous) nor bored. I would be horrified if I were a commander and had to stand before a battalion of men and women whose eyes were glazed over and whose expressions revealed minds that had gone dark.
Rather, I would look to recruit individuals who could think clearly and quickly, who were motivated more by honor and courage than benumbed fearlessness or thrill-seeking. I would not be averse to seeing some fear. All good soldiers and their commanders are sometimes afraid. But they do what must be done, because it must be, not because it's an antidote to feeling or another ride in their own personal amusement park. No rational general wants an army of psychopaths or zombies.
When I think of a true army, I think of the potpourri that was Tolkein's band of warriors, all courageous and committed, all honest and honorable, at times afraid but not fearful, emboldened by their belief in their mission but not mad or indiscriminate, merciful not meek, compassionate but never yielding, and always emotionally present for themselves and for one another.
We are civilians, true, but we are soldiers of a slightly more refined sort. And we are fighting battles on fields right here at home. The requirements are not all that different. We need to be alert, to think clearly, to see threats where threats exist and respond appropriately (which does not always mean being "nice ) rather than imagining threats that don't exist or seeing even the mundane and neutral as dangerous. We cannot do this if we are fed a daily diet of consumer-driven viral fear by the media.
People who are afraid tend to go blank. We all know this to be true. We have either experienced it or seen it in the footage of 9/11 or the Oklahoma City bombing in which people walked around blank-faced, shocked, not knowing what to do with their bodies or their minds until the hand of a medic or rescue worker reached around theirs and pulled them to safety, until they heard the words "follow me spoken by someone they could trust.
The irony in this culture of idol-smashers and rebels is that what is most necessary in crisis is for us to have an authority to follow, to have bonafide leadership, people whom we can count on to say what is TRUE, not confuse us with politically advantageous spin.
Part of that authority now is the media. We don't meet the commanders and, in fact, we rarely hear from them except in orchestrated press conferences. There are no more midnight criers, their capes flapping in the icy wind as they ride through town.
Whether it's tragic or comic, our new leaders, our new midnight criers are our newscasters. Whether they like it or not, there is a certain responsibility that comes with that position. Unfortunately it makes me nostalgic for the days of Walter Cronkite and the sound of his steady basso calling us to our seats, "Hear now the news. What I wouldn't give for that simplicity and that trust.
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