Guarding My Fear

Lucinda Garthwaite, ILI Director

Lest anyone doubt the existence of fiercely intentional efforts to undermine social justice, just read Nicholas Confessore’s article  in this week’s New York Times, “‘America Is Under Attack’: Inside the Anti-D.E.I Crusade.”

That title is a little misleading; the crusade in question is about far more than just Diversity, Equity and Inclusion initiatives. Confessore reviewed over 5000 emails between organizers of what one of them characterized, specifically, as a movement against social justice, illustrating the efforts of think-tank fellows and very wealthy funders to manipulate politicians and regular folks to believe and advance their point of view.

That point of view is that “America is under attack by a leftist revolution disguised as a plea for justice . . . the goal: to produce swarms of anti-American zealots.” It is a view that powerful people who support social justice support “the suicide of their own country and civilization.”

In the context of the so-called great divide that plagues the U.S., many might respond with calls for mutual respect, seeking a middle ground between inevitable differences in a democracy. 

But these organizers are uninterested in differences or mutuality. With stated intention, they seek to pull the fear-strings of regular folks, without much respect for the regular folks. One organizer describes strategies that foreground the danger of teaching the truth of racism in history, as “smoke or boob-bait for the bubbas.” That is not respect; it’s cynicism.

Theirs is an effort based shamelessly on bigotry. One organizer asserts that “Our sexual culture will not heal until ‘faggot’ replaces ‘bigot’ as the slur of choice.” and calls policies of imprisoning gay people “wholesome.” Another referred to people of color working as nannies in New York as “the low IQ third world.” Still another wrote of Black colleagues as “pets.”

I’m grateful to Confessore for bringing this movement to light (Hooray for freedom of the press!) and for revealing the years-long strategy of a self-chosen, wealthy and well-paid few behind the policies and punishments now making headlines. 

Some friends and colleagues who read this piece felt deflated and upset. Not me. I’m grateful this movement, and the wealthy funders and well-paid academics behind it, have been brought to light. That strengthens my will and resources to resist. More importantly, for me, it reminds me to guard my fear.

The movement against social justice, evidenced at least by the emails in Confessore’s piece, knows it cannot prevail simply by convincing everyday people that the wealthy leaders and academics have the answer. So, they rely on fear.

Historian David Motadel writes that authoritarianism “plays with…fears, offering simple solutions, scapegoats and a strong hand” in the face of complex, social challenges. That drives people to give up their freedoms, paving the way for power wielded with absolute authority reinforced with repression, and with threatened and actual violence. 

Some have argued such tactics only come from the co-called political right, but of course there are many conservative thinkers and actors who would and do decry authoritarianism. Besides, history offers examples of “simple solutions and a strong hand” born of both progressive and conservative perspectives.  And a recent review of twelve different studies by a group of social psychologists in the US and Netherlands concludes that attitudes, inclinations, and actions reflecting what they call left-wing authoritarianism are very much alive in the present-day.

Regardless of where they come from, it’s tempting to impose righteous solutions in the face of very frightening social and global dynamics. It’s easy to slip into simple certainty in the face of complex uncertainty. It’s easy to want to respond to apparent and real existential threats to cultures, human rights, and lives with repression and even violence.

But that will never lead to a world where more people thrive in ever more peace. It might lead to a world where some people do, but that won’t last long, and the cycle will start up again. “There is no straight road towards freedom,” David Matadel writes. “We should always remember how fragile our open societies are. We are in a permanent struggle to defend them.”

I join that struggle in the ways I can and am suited for: learning, writing, teaching; voting, and joining collective action when I can. But the struggle is also in me,  because of course I will be afraid, and I am as vulnerable to acting from fear as anyone is.  Fear can cloud my thinking, drive me to certainty, even to violent impulse. Those are powerful tools in hands of those whose goal is not more people—more of all people—thriving in ever more peace.

That’s why I need to guard my fear. Sometimes, that’s all I can do.  And—reminded as I am this week  of how easily fear drives repression— I believe that, sometimes, guarding my fear is enough.