Fear and its denial lie at the heart of all unravelling

 “At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reaches us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of free men we will live forever or die by suicide.” (Abraham Lincoln)

In a speech (quoted above) to the Young Men’s Lyceum of Springfield Illinois, January 12, 1838, entitled ‘The Perpetuation of Our Political Institutions’, Lincoln warned that mobs of people who disrespected U.S. laws and courts could destroy the United States. He went on to say the Constitution and rule of law in the United States are ‘the political religion of our nation.’ He continued, “whenever the vicious portion of our population shall be permitted to gather in bands of hundreds and thousands, and burn churches, ravage and rob provision stores, throw printing presses into rivers, shoot editors, and hang and burn obnoxious persons at pleasure and with impunity, depend upon it, this government cannot last. By such things the feelings of the best citizens will become more or less alienated from it, and thus it will be left without friends, or with too few, and those few too weak to make the friendship effectual…..Is it unreasonable, then to expect that some man possessed of the loftiest genius, coupled with ambition sufficient to push it to its utmost stretch, will at some time spring up among us? And when such a one does, it will require the people to be united with each other, attached to the government and laws, generally intelligent, to successfully frustrate his designs. Distinction will be his paramount object, and although he would willingly perhaps more so, acquire it by good as harm; yet, that opportunity being past, and nothing left to be done in the way of building up, he would set boldly to the task of pulling down. (from abrahamlincolnonline.org)

Little did this scribe know, before this morning, (October 12, 2022) that in the United States, yesterday, October 11, 2022, was “Face your Fears Day. And like most other days of singular commemoration and reflection, the day passes like a token on checkers, from the playing field, with perhaps a mere glance.

It is often said that nothing knew is ever written or spoken; only the style, the vernacular, and the ethos/context in which it is repeated changes. Surely, Lincoln’s wisdom, insight and indeed what we today might call “clairvoyance” bears revisiting in this ‘fall’ of 2022, when the very notion of a “fall” as in an epic “fall” from grace, of the kind that once highly regarded and respected individuals experience as a life tragedy, faces what was once the most powerful and most revered nation on earth.

Juxtaposed by Lincoln, we find James Hillman, twentieth century psychology revisionist, writing about fear from a different, non-institutional perspective:
“fear like love, can become a call into consciousness; one meets the unconscious, the unknown, the numinous and uncontrollably by keeping in touch with fear, which elevates the blind instinctual panic of the sheep into the knowing, cunning, fearful awe of the shepherd.”…And “The soul of our civilization depends upon the civilization of our soul. The imagination of our culture calls for a culture of the imagination.”

Writing in The Atlantic, January 11, 2021, Ibram X. Kendi, in a piece entitled, “Denial is the Heartbeat of America, writes this:

To say that the attack on the U.S. Capitol is not who we are is to say that this is not part of us, not part of our politics, not part of our history. And to say that this is not part of America, American politics, and American history is a bald-faced denial. But the denial is normal. In the aftermath of catastrophes, when have Americans commonly admitted who we are? The heartbeat of America is denial. It is historic, this denial. Every American generation denies. America is establishing the freest democracy in the world, said the white people who secured their freedom during the 1770’s and 890’s. America is the greatest democracy on Earth, said the property owners voting in the early 19^th century. America is the beacon of democracy in world history, said the non-incarcerated people who have voted throughout U.S. history in almost every state. American is the utmost democracy of the face of the Earth, said the primarily older and better-off and able-bodied people who are the likeliest to vote in the 21^st century. America is the best democracy around, said the American people when it was harder for Black and Nati8ve and Latino people to vote in the 2020 election. At every point in the history of American tyranny, the honest recorders heart the sounds of Denial. Today is no different….White terror is as American as the Stars and Stripes. But when this is denied, it is no wonder that the events at the Capitol are read as shocking and un-American…..I’ve been arguing that the heartbeat of racism is denial. There is the regular structural denial that racial inequity is caused by racist policy. And whenever an American engages in a racist act and someone points it out, the inevitably response is the sound of that denial: I’m not racist. It can’t be, I was being racist, but I’m going to try to be anti-racist. It is always I’m not racist. No wonder the racists never stop….To overcome Trumpism, the American people must stop denying that Trumpism is outside America. Trump is the heartbeat of American denial in its clearest form. He is America shirtless and exposed, like Childish Gambino in the video. Trump is not different from those elected officials saying, “This s not who we are.” He denies. They deny. The difference is the extremism of Trump’s denial. While Americans say, “I am not racist,” Trump says, “I am the least racist person there is anywhere in the world.” While Americans commonly say to those Trump supporters who attacked the Capitol, “You’re not us,” Trump says, “You’re very special.” Two groups of Americans are feeding, and feeding on, American denial. There are Americans like Trump who nonviolently-and like his supporters, violently—rage, and engage in the carnage at the U.S. Capitol in complete denial of the election results. And there are the Americans who, during and after the carnage say, “This is not who we are,” in complete denial that the rioters are part of America. The white domestic terrorist who denies his own criminality and the American Politian who denies that the terrorist is part of us both remain in the foreground of the American media, of American politics—taking up all our care and concern. Meanwhile, in the background, the violence is placed on red cloths as the victims of the carnage are carelessly dragged out of sight and mind—as Eddie S. Glaude Jr. powerfully says, “This is us!”

While Lincoln forecast an individual supported and sustained by supporters and enabled by a weakened attention and care, Kendi/Glaude point to a societal pattern, through twenty-first century eyes, that articulates both the deep and intimate dependence on denial as the root of racism, terrorism and what this scribe is calling the unravelling of the core institutions as well as, and more importantly, the collective will and collective care and concern that must undergird the trust that is the authentic and indisputable foundational value of any institution, nation, community, and family.

“The greatest democracy on earth” evokes sad memories and horrid visions of “this is the one and only true religion” on signs hanging over denominational seminaries. It is not only the hubris that is encased in such phrases and convictions but the denial of the fullness of the truth of the value of all religious attempts to approximate some kind of relationship with God, whomever and however that deity is conceived, perceived, worshipped and followed.

Neither Lincoln nor Glaude (nor Kendi) would fall into the category of those who seek to persist in the cultural modality of denial. However, the machine that trots out messages in support of denial, evasion, circumlocution, dissembling, and hubristic proselyting and propaganda, in America and elsewhere, has considerable historic roots and production facilities in America. Hence, it is no surprise that the denial and the lies and the hubris and the manipulation that is currently also flowing from the Kremlin, as if it has been conceptualized to mock the same kind of approach and an attitude and modality that is evident in the United States, cannot be considered either surprising or defensible.

Regardless of the mountain of evidence that is researched, curated and distributed about white Christian nationalism’s bigoted war on Jews, and the evidence of conspiracy and seditionist attempts against the government, all of which is true, verifiable and reliable, the penchant, even addiction, to denial has to ‘trump’ the more granular narratives of the racist abuse of power. Only if and when the nation succumbs to its knees, to the full truth of its own drowning in denial, both as escape and also as political aggression and power-brokering, will the issues of trust begin to surface.

In dysfunctional families, while there is anger, and there are arguments, and there are often individual human tragic weaknesses, it is the underlying “secrecy” and denial that lingers like an unconscious and malignant tumor in the psyche of those individuals who either remain in or separate from those families. And the need for denial and secrecy is most necessary for those whose control needs and insecurities and even neuroses and/or psychoses are the dominant psychic energy in the family fabric.

Recently, the notion of National Intelligence as protection for a nation engaged in serious and potentially tragic encounters with enemies was the focus in this space. It would seem to follow that the degree of fear and insecurity, and the fear of being weak and vulnerable, and the dominating need to defend against such fears, lie at the heart of the conception and the design and construction of such a monumental edifice as the National Intelligence institution.

How cam, for instance, a nation (and this is not exclusive to the U.S.) drum into its children that fear is the greatest enemy in their pursuit of their dreams, aspirations and life goals, when that fear is the guiding principle for the denial, and the obfuscations and the mis-leading attitudes, behaviours and intellectual rationalizations of those charged with the leadership and mentorship of the nation?

The paradox, the irony and the indefensibility of that juxtaposition is both glaring and disheartening. Thumping the nation’s chest with the biggest, the brightest, the best and the loudest messages, while continuing to deny the underbelly of the unconscious of the nation, is not only a recipe for national disaster; it is a model of cultural mis-leadership and seduction for individuals, especially young men and women whose full grasp of the hollowness of the land will only become fully recognized and grasped much later in life.

Churches too, have a role in this drama of denial, in that they are renowned for having turned a blind eye to their own culpability, life and family destruction, exclusion, brow-beating, mind-bending and denial of their own obsessive-compulsive need for absolute dominance, control…and all of it in the name of a deity whose need is clearly not congruent with the ecclesial perfection that has been baked into the cake of Christianity.

Hubris and humility, while perhaps opposite sides of the same psychic coin, are, in most cases, mutually exclusive. And the need for the one too often eradicates the pursuit of the other. In a nation, this spells catastrophe; in an organization, short-term success will only precede ultimate demise. In a family, of even a church, the high-handed, self-righteousness of any dogmatic theology that abuses men and women and children, is both obvious and inexcusable.

And these patterns, while obvious, need more than the sunlight disinfectant of disclosure; they require the transformative shared acknowledgement that we are all intimately embedded in their energies. And those energies spell eventual doom, as they must.

Only if and when denial is faced by individuals, by groups, and by institutions, (and this process can only proceed slowly and incrementally, lest we retreat in even more fear), can we look forward to a sunrise of open, fearless and hopeful encounters with others and whatever the world offers us to address.