Last night, I was sitting with my fiancé and best friend listening to Arlo Guthrie's Alice's Restaurant. After laughing at the apparent comedic factor, we began to talk about the cultural implications of the musical monologue. In telling the story of Guthrie's experience with Officer Obie and the Vietnam draft, he pointed out the hypocrisy that existed within the Armed Forces' selection process in terms of psychological and criminal history.
Now, I would be lying if I said that I don't have some amount of respect for the men and women who serve in our Armed Forces seeing as how the majority of them do it in an effort to keep our country safe from outside threat. However, what I came to realize last night is that a great deal of our participation in acts of war, in general, is based upon one huge factor... fear.
Fear is one of the most basic and animalistic emotions that drive us as human beings. Like other living things, we experience a, "fight or flight," response when confronted with something that causes us to be afraid. If you're walking through a dark alley way in the middle of the night and you see someone coming towards you, the sympathetic nervous response takes over; your pupils dilate, adrenaline is released into your blood stream causing your heart rate to increase pumping blood into your arms and legs in case you need to move quickly, and your liver empties itself of all of your extra glucose stores to provide you with the energy to deal with the stress. As a result, your body has equipped you with the means to do one of two thing, fight or run away.
Believe it or not, we as humans are faced with these small fight or flight responses all the time whether we recognize them or not. You get a large electric bill, fear. Somebody cuts you off while you have your child in the car, fear. You feel like your livelihood is being threatened, fear. As a result of this fairly constant exposure to fear, we do a number of things, such as overeat, yell at our kids, throw temper tantrums, drink heavily, compulsive shop, fall into depressions, and, most importantly, fight each other.
In analyzing instances of verbal or physical violence being acted out between two groups of people with differences varying between race, religion, sexual orientation etc. I have narrowed them all down to fear. Being afraid of each other. Come with me on this journey:
Black Man to White Man: "I am afraid that you're not going to respect me or my family. I'm afraid that you're going to deny my rights and view me as less of a person.
White Man to Black Man: "I am afraid that you're going to hurt me and put the blame of previous generations on me.
Judeo-Christian to Pagan: "I don't understand your beliefs and the ways you practice them. I am afraid that my God will be angry with me if I support the things you do.
Pagan to Judeo-Christian: "I am afraid that you will discriminate against me because of my "unorthodox" beliefs and will try to change me.
Homophobe to Homosexual: "I am afraid of what you do because it's not what I'm used to. I've not been exposed to your lifestyle, so it alarms me.
Homosexual to Homophobe: "I am afraid that you will hurt me for being who I am and not recognize the one I love and I's rights as a couple.
There are three ways to go about handling these fears and situations. First, we could take the fear response and use it to power anger, which will result in fighting and further disrespect. Secondly, we could run away, ignore the problem, learn nothing, neglect to inform others and thus perpetuate ignorance. OR (and this is the more favorable of the options) we could use this energy that fear gives us constructively. We could ask questions, answer other's queries, do research (in an unbiased fashion) and open up our minds and hearts to the thoughts, beliefs, and rights of others. Doing so would make us more capable of recognizing the fact that these people are human beings with the same goals as us (raising a family, being happy) and that, for the most part, people are not out to get you as it may feel sometimes. That being said, let's adjust our prior dialogues to incorporate an element of understanding:
Black Man to White Man: "I am afraid that you're not going to respect me or my family. I'm afraid that you're going to deny my rights and view me as less of a person.
White Man to Black Man: "I am afraid that you're going to hurt me and put the blame of previous generations on me.
Black Man to White Man: "But I don't want to hurt you, I just want to raise my children in a safe environment and make a good life for my family"
White Man to Black Man: "I don't view you or your family as less than human and, like you, I only want a safe environment for my children and family."
Open communication like this between peoples of all different groups can create constructive conversations and idea sharing. We all have our own concept for how we feel the world can be a better place, and without the restraint of fear, we would be able to discuss them and work together universally. Having a little faith and trust for our fellow man will make us more open individuals and able to ask the question, "What can we all do to fix this mess?" Once we concern ourselves with progressing as a group as opposed to individuals, we can stop this inane fear of what we don't understand in others and take a few steps closer to being a peaceful society.
No comments:
Post a Comment