some fears

In case I haven't provided it, you can see a photo gallery of pictures that I post on a fairly regular basis at:

http://gallery.mac.com/doingphilosophy#gallery

Today I snowshoed across the road from the house on a ridge that leads to some views of the Sandwich Range in the White Mountains.   Then upon returning to the house I made my first venture out onto the beaver pond/meadow that's on the east side of our property.   The picture above shows my shadow (sun setting in the west).  I'm about to cross from what I know is ground, onto a marshy margin that separates a deep part of the ponf that never freezes over (to the right of my shadow).  On the left is the marshy area that surrounds the pond.  I pretty much stick close to the marsh grass figuring "how deep can it be there?"   And that is one way I deal with the essential fear one should have when crossing areas of ice....especially for the first time of the winter and when you haven't kept track of the weather in detail (coldness/rain etc).

The fear of falling through the ice certainly has a profound effect on my behavior.  Yet, I would say I don't "fear" going on the ice.  That is due to the behavior I've effected.   Thus, when something unexpected does happen (a very loud crack?   a snowshoe goes through the ice?  (both have happened) the response is I would estimate,  beyond fear.  It's a reaction without fear.   Now if I went into freezing water....I think the dynamic would change and I'd begin to actually have the emotional components of something commonly identified as  "fear".

I think Rich Abel's observation is a "keeper".   Very insightful....lest we think that it's only "fear" that leader's use.  More comfortably, they pander to our assumptions and thus don't have to mess with the more negative dimensions of seeming to make people fear what they are saying.

However, we've distinguished previously, "fear" that results from physical violence of various kinds.   Consideration of oliticians around the world would supply many examples of this.

In the USA, in general (although in USA history there are many cases of the government using physical violence against the population) physical violence is less prevalent.  What is present is psychological fear....say in the 1980's I think there was a deliberate program of "demonizing" people who were poor or of color by the Reagan administration.   And since then this has continued as part of our political life....sometimes called "raising the negatives" about your political opponent.   This is nothing but creating a certain kind of fear that people vaguely perceive.   Or sometimes it is used in a less direct way....causing people to fear losing benefits or protections offered under the law.

The recent shootings in Arizona certainly lower the threshold for many people in experiencing fear in a variety of ways.

And then there are those of us who in an opposite way can be said to fear the level of violence as entertainment  in USA culture, coupled with the ideology of "one should be able to carry a gun".

Any effort to dominate politically raises the level of "fear" in those being dominated.  This seems inescapable to me.

So even in a rather placid democracy....forms of something that can be called "fear" are woven into the web of culture.  In this way they become "accepted".   But, I think the ideal of democratic life and shared experiences counsels that exactly the opposite should be the case.   Transactions between people (transactions are the main medium of change and transformation) are no longer guided by this kind of ideal.   And this makes me fear a slippery slope of increasing  fear....fear of losing a tactible sense of democratic transaction and leadership.

Many people have, through various aspects of our culture, come to feel that they should be more in "control" of things than is humanely reasonable.  So people get angry when the weather doesn't cooperate for example.  Once one has been weaned on the notion of control and prediction....the result of being disappointed at the lack of it is often experienced as  "fear".  Fear of losing control.  Of course it's control that people never really had.   Many people from abroad have noticed this feature of American culture....but largely it's something that people here don't see unless they have honest and transparent transactions with people from outside the culture....

It is also of interest how "fear" is transferred.  My wife has "fear" about me going out into the mountains alone and snowshoeing.  She's been after me to get a GPS tracker and I've resisted.   At first I had to deliberately counteract letting her transfer her fear to me....so that through empathy I would become "fearful" when there was not reason for it.   This is a fascinating dynamic.

These are some random thoughts that came to mind today while I was snowshoeing....

Allan