In a long ago time and place, a solar eclipse was thought to be a dragon swallowing the Sun. A passing comet, lightning strike, flood, or drought was interpreted as a sign of some powerful entity’s unhappiness with the local population.
Over time, various civilizations invented narratives to explain the passage of the seasons, the movement of celestial bodies, and other natural phenomena. Having the words to describe what happened helped our ancestors deal with the fear they felt over things they did not understand.
In a long ago time and place, a solar eclipse was thought to be a dragon swallowing the Sun. A passing comet, lightning strike, flood, or drought was interpreted as a sign of some powerful entity’s unhappiness with the local population.
Over time, various civilizations invented narratives to explain the passage of the seasons, the movement of celestial bodies, and other natural phenomena. Having the words to describe what happened helped our ancestors deal with the fear they felt over things they did not understand.
Death, being a common part of life, was a rich source of dread and description. Witness the many different traditions of peoples and religions rationalizing why and what happens after we die.
Halloween is part of our collective grappling with the end of earthly life and the existence of a thereafter. The ghost and ghoul costumes, jack-o'-lanterns, and other trimmings of the eerie occasion hearken back to early attempts to appease the spirits of those who had gone before.
Nowadays, Halloween is just another major retail holiday; in 2010, Americans spent $6 billion on frightful goo-gahs and knickknacks, marking the date in trivial fashion, devoid of any contemplation of mortality.
How much more civilized our neighbor Mexico seems. The Day of the Dead sees altars built to honor the deceased covered in marigolds as well as favorite foods and possessions of the departed. That day’s sweets, too, seem more meaningful; sugar skulls symbolize the ultimate, bony fate of all who exchange them.
How our culture deals with fear was on my mind while reading a New York Times Magazine interview with novelist and essayist Marilynne Robinson. She suggested that fear has become a prominent feature of modern life.
“…Fear is an excuse,” she said. “… People can call on it under the slightest provocations…Fear has, in this moment, a respectability I've never seen in my life.”
I could not help but think fear is what keeps us from doing any number of the things we should. How many of us would do something for those we encounter living on the street if we were not afraid of them? How much more would we give to those in need if we did not worry about our own impoverishment?
Fear has authored Stand Your Ground laws. Being afraid is why unarmed suspects are shot by police and why bullets are unleashed through doors as a desperate voice pleads for help on some darkened front porch. The dread of losing our social standing or standard of living blinds us to acting in the common good as well as recognizing our shared humanity in every stranger. We embrace fear; it helps justify turning away from other people and denying their dignity.
Scariest of all, we allow politicians to run campaigns of fear, with promises of protection from that which frightens us – immigrants, terrorists, unemployment, societal change, etc. Next week, as local, state, and national leaders are elected, fear will have a strong turnout at the voting booth.
There is more horror in that than anything Halloween can bring.
Pat Grimes, a former South Bay resident, writes from Ypsilanti, Mich. He can be reached at pgwriter@inbox.com
