Why Are Poopy-heads So Afraid All the Time?

You see it everywhere: in the media, in bars, in prayer groups, at rallies. It crosses all races, political orientations, genders, perceived intelligences, and more. What is it? Fear. Not just the fear of ohmygod I’m being chased by an angry grizzly bear (we’ll think of that as a rational fear); but the fear that someone who is not like us might actually be at least as worthy as I am and take away my “specialness” (we’ll think of that as poopy-head fear).

OK. By now y’all know that I subscribe to a very simple and yet very powerful philosophy: Be good to others; try to not be afraid. In many ways that can be elaborated by two simple truths: Rational fear = good, Poopy-head fear ≠ good.

Often the ones who bluster the most are the ones who are the most afraid. They use bombast to mask their sphincter clenching. In American media today, this is most easily seen by self-important white males trying to maintain the illusion that they are divinely blessed. They act as if they are god’s gift to reason and morality.

Poopy-headed poppycock. [In the interest of full disclosure, among my myriad demographic classifications is white male – CJ]

First off, they aren’t even a majority. Crunching the numbers gives 32.4-36.8% of the population in the US is white male. About a third and dwindling (projected to fall to 22.3% by 2050). What we can see in the media and hear in out in the real world is that they are afraid. VERY afraid.

The core of the fear is that they will lose what they have because deep down they understand that their power is based on a house of cards built with smoke and mirrors. Just about any argument they give about some others who aren’t like them, say group X, devolved into a statement that X is fine just so long as “they know their place”, i.e. understand that we are better than they.

We’ve seen through history and see it today. “Uppity”. “Homosexual”. “Ignorant”. “Godless”. “Communist”. “Redneck”. “Liberal”. “Brainwashed”. Sound familiar? What’s the common theme? That some other group must be vilified, must be diminished, so that we are clearly superior and worthy to maintain our stewardship.

What’s sad is that this happens everywhere. Sure, it might not be “white males” doing it in a particular place, but you can rest assured that some group (curiously male most of the time) will be doing the same thing.

When I see stories about “hate groups” on the rise, whether they be neo-nazis, or klan, or whatever supremacists, all I see is poopy-head fear. I sort of wish we’d label them more correctly. They don’t hate, they fear. They fear not being special…like their mommies and daddies always told them they were…or perhaps told them they weren’t.

Of course, white males aren’t the only poopy-heads around. There are more than enough pretty much everywhere. Why? Because it’s just so darned hard trying to not be afraid of stuff that isn’t close and familiar. I have my own fears. I try to keep them in check, but they are still there.

See, that’s the thing with poopy-head fear. It’s just so darned easy to let it hold sway. It’s very animal kingdom, where that which is other is avoided for fear of destroying the group or dying. Perhaps this is an area where social evolution is still lagging behind millions of years of surviving via fear.

The thing about humans, though, and the shining light that always gives me hope, is that we are so very good at overcoming our fears. We were afraid of the dark…we husbanded light. We were afraid of starvation, we learned how to grow food. We were afraid of nature, we built towns and cities. At this point, though, we are afraid of ourselves and we haven’t yet figured out on a large scale that the single best way to work through that fear is simply not to have it.

Many very wise people through the millennia have said basically what I’ve said here: be good to others; try to not be afraid. Billions of people claim to subscribe to the various flavors of this tenet, and yet they are unable to practice it. They can’t let go of the fears that keeps them warm at night. Sure, the fears might shift over time, but the net percentage seems to be a constant, which saddens me.

In prosperous times, the level of fear drops in one place while in another, where the balance of prosperity has tipped to the debit side, fear increases. In those inprosperous locales, voices rise about how group Y is responsible for all of our ills. From that, we get unrest. Tensions grow. Sometimes, apparently through no fault of anyone (or perhaps in spite of it), prosperity returns and allows everyone to relax until the next cycle. Other times, things get much worse. Violence ensues. Sometimes it’s perpetrated on individuals, sometimes it blossoms to regional or global conflagrations.

And it’s all due to simple, poopy-headed fear.

I don’t really have a new solution. It’s there. It’s been there but people don’t want to follow it. All I can ask is whether you consider yourself a paragon or poopy-head, or something somewhere in between, that if you ever feel your anger rise or find yourself shrinking from circumstance, just remember Be good to others; try to not be afraid. If you listen to those words, it helps.