The Emotional Pandemic

Something has been on my mind lately that I just can’t shake. As the election comes to a peaceful close, and the virus reaches its peak, yet still remains far below early estimates of death rates — As I read the IPCC assessment on climate change risk (substantial, but nowhere near existential), and I finally overcome the fear that dropping out to pursue my career will somehow hurt me (it won’t) — As I meet more wealthy entrepreneurs, realizing they aren’t remotely evil, and meet more radical socialists, realizing they aren’t remotely evil either.

As I confront the things I’ve been told to fear, the things I’ve been told to anger over, I can’t help but feel that they aren’t worthy of my fear or anger at all. Which begs the question:

Why did I fear? Why was I angry?

The short answer is because I was told to. Someone told me "you should be afraid, you should be angry", and some part of me responded "REALLY? OK!" without my explicit consent. My subconscious was hijacked, perhaps by an evolutionary survival instinct, though the cause hardly matters — the end result was that I became a host for a negative idea, and my newfound fear and anger spread to those around me through my ideas.

In memetic theory, a meme is a unit of culture, an idea that propagates through hosts. I also think emotions can propagate the same way, hijacking ideas, which in turn hijack us. The emotion spreads. The most virulent emotional meme, which says "you should be angry, you should be afraid", hijacks nearly every cultural situation confronting us today. It leads to some of the deepest and darkest historical depravities of all time.

If you don’t believe me, here’s a long list of things that have been used as opportunities to spread anger and fear:

  • Donald Trump and the election (You should be angry at Trump for destroying the nation. You should be afraid he will become an authoritarian.)
  • Joe Biden and the election (You should be angry that Joe Biden is incompetent. You should be afraid that he secretly has dementia.)
  • Coronavirus Left (You should be afraid for your life. You should be angry that Trump isn’t doing enough, that people aren’t wearing masks, that people aren’t quarantining."
  • Coronavirus Right (You should be afraid for your rights. You should be angry that they are telling you what to do, how to live, and forcing you to wear masks)
  • School shootings (You should be afraid for your children. You should be angry that people are allowed to have guns.)
  • 2nd Amendment Rights (You should be afraid that you won’t be able to defend yourself. You should be angry that "they" are trying to take away your guns!)
  • Relationships (You should be afraid that your partner isn’t good enough. You should be angry that he/she doesn’t understand you.)
  • China (You should be afraid China will take over the world. You should be angry that the government isn’t doing anything to stop them.)
  • Racism & Crime (You should be afraid of gangsters, and criminals. You should be angry that the government isn’t doing anything about crime.)
  • Anti-racism (You should be afraid of oppressors, who will destroy you if they can. You should be angry that they have never done anything for you.)
  • Feminism (You should be afraid of men, who will assault you. You should be angry at men for not doing enough.)
  • Anti-feminism (You should be afraid of feminists trying to take away your rights. You should be angry at feminists and at everyone else who listens to them.)
  • Terrorism (You should be afraid of small terror groups in the middle-east. You should be angry that the government isn’t doing enough to stop them.)
  • Republicans (You should be afraid that Republicans will try to take over the government and take away all your rights. You should be angry that anyone could be so evil as to vote for them.)
  • Democrats (You should be afraid that Democrats will try to take over the government and take away all your rights. You should be angry that anyone could be so evil as to vote for them.)
  • Christians (You should be afraid that Christians control so many cultural institutions. You should be angry they have so much power)
  • Atheists (You should be afraid that atheists control so many academic institutions. You should be angry that they have so much power)
  • Jews (You should be afraid that Jews control so many financial institutions. You should be angry that they have so much power.)

Historically, the largest confluxes of anger and fear have led to the most horrifying and tragic events. Hitler (and the Nazis) managed to propagate anger and fear of the West into a bloody world war, and anger/fear of the Jewish into ethnic genocide. McCarthy managed to propagate anger and fear of the Communists into witch trials. America propagandized fear and anger of the Japanese to support the war efforts and imprison innocent Japanese in our own country.

Even what might seem like "positive" or "righteous" instances of fear and anger produce distinctly negative end results, because they instill fear and anger in the enemy as well. Nat Turner’s rebellion, centered on the totally justified anger against white slave owners, led to the deaths of 51 whites, many women and children. Did they deserve death? Even if your answer is yes, the fear and anger spread to the oppressors, leading to the death of 120 slaves and free blacks who weren’t involved in the rebellion. It led to new laws prohibiting education or literacy of slaves and free blacks, restricting their right to assembly, and requiring white ministers at all of their places of worship. It led to an era of politicians and writers defining slavery as a "positive good", cementing the pro-slavery stance in the south even further. It led to more fear and more anger. And as the fearful and enraged acted, it continued to spread…

You might have read the list earlier and said to yourself about some of these items: "yes, to be honest, you SHOULD be afraid of that. You SHOULD be angry about that." That’s the virus talking, don’t let it control you. Instead of focusing on the object of fear, focus on the inverse object of hope. Instead of being afraid and angry about the problem, you can recognize the problem’s existence, but feel excited and hopeful about the solution. Instead of propagating fear and anger to your friends and loved ones, propagate hope and strength.

You can think of all human history through this lens, though it’s overly simplistic. The dark eras, filled with war, death, and hatred are the eras where our collective fear and anger propagates like wildfire. Fear and anger tear us apart, pit us against each other, turn us against our own families and friends. The enlightenments, when we manage to see through the haze, when we manage to cooperate, to love, to dance, to make art, to build together — these are the eras where fear and anger have somehow slowed down. The conversations aren’t about "the enemy" anymore, they’re about "the collective", they’re about hope for a better future, or joy for a loving present.

It might seem like this post itself is encouraging you to be afraid: be afraid of the emotional virus; be angry at anyone who uses it to manipulate people or to gain power. But let’s stop that here; we don’t need to be afraid of the emotional pandemic. Instead, we can recognize the existence of a problem: people are too easily controlled by fear and anger, and these emotions spread like a virus. Then, we can spread hope for a better way forward: knowing what we’re fighting against is enough to be mindful, to rid the fear and anger of their power to hijack us.

Whenever someone (or most often, the media) tells us to be afraid (WARNING: Donald Trump IS Attempting a Coup and Democrats are Lying About Coronavirus!), we can understand their warning as merely an identification of their fear, and perhaps a problem to be solved, ridding it of the underlying emotional virus. We can either do something about the problem, or choose to do nothing about it. But becoming fearful or angry yourself is rarely the most effective way to solve a problem. Making other people angry is even worse. Don’t allow yourself to become a vector.

During the last few months, I’ve been made to be afraid, and I’m ashamed to admit that I’ve been a vector for that fear.

I read the headlines about COVID, about the President claiming the election would be rigged, about the "boogaloo boys", and an endless procession of reporters telling us "it’s worse than you think, and you should be even more afraid than you already are". The headlines triggered fear, and I’d tell my roommates, friends, family: "Have you seen the news? Things look bad, we should get prepped in case violence breaks out, in case things get worse…".

But underneath all that, what I was really saying was "you should be afraid, too."

If I could do it over, I’d have told my loved ones: "We can get through this." I would still have prepared for the worst, it pays to be cautious, but I wouldn’t have let my fear get the best of me. I wouldn’t have let my fear spread.

Footnote:
I also want to be clear that anger and fear have their place; you shouldn’t reject your emotions, they have something to tell you. Instead, I’m advising us to stop *spreading* our own anger and fear to those around us. Perhaps you can safely allow a controlled anger to motivate you, but an angry mob can’t be controlled at all, even if their anger is for a righteous cause. Don’t be a vector.