the only thing to fear is fear

Maybe I just never noticed it before. But it certainly seems like more and more people are decorating their houses – lawns for Halloween. Not that I begrudge acceptance of the pagan New Year, bastardized by Christianity, and exploited by chocolate manufacturers and slutty costume sellers. 

I just don’t like cobwebs. They aren’t scary. No. It just makes your lawn look untidy. For six summers I’ve cringed when I pointed at the windows of Beauport and realized I also pointed out the need for dusting. Or… in the summer I run through them at 6 in the morning. It’s a nuisance – indeed a kind of icky nuisance, but not scary.

Well… that’s most of Halloween, isn’t it? The decorations and candy and costumes are so diluted by mass production that I don’t really find them all that creepy. Campy certainly. Some are artistic, but really… the cheese factor is overwhelming.

Now… I have quite a few friends who adore Halloween. And my mother always came home early to decorate the yard before trick or treaters came. Nothing fancy. She didn’t have much of a budget, but she would hang old bed sheets on our porch, or when we moved, in the tangled woods of our front yard. Get a clear glimpse in the daylight and you would know they were just torn sheets. But at night, especially the unlit road upon which we lived, catch a sudden movement in the breeze, it could startle you.

Okay. Still cheesy.

But what is it about cheesy horror that delights our senses so much? Isn’t it really just a silly show to divert us from our real fears? 

The president was criticized last week for saying that people are scared. Really? Is that offensive? We can say people are angry, but suggest that anger comes from fear and it’s controversial? Maybe that hurts to hear because it’s true.

But I’m not going to point fingers. I’m scared. I am nervous about the election. But, well, it’s Democracy. It will work itself out. Won’t it? Except… except we have people telling blatant lies about Muslim conspiracies to build a mosque and dance on the remains of Ground Zero, inspiring people to attack Muslims, hurl hateful comments, and burn buildings. We have a law in one state allowing people to be pulled over on suspicion of illegal immigration. We have so much blatant racism and homophobia and violent talk over the airwaves and no one is yelling stop. Isn’t it crazy for a candidate to recommend a second amendment solution if she doesn’t get her way? We tell ourselves it can’t be real… and yet week after week there is another outrageous comment.

Is it because we give it credence by repeating and reacting? By firing news commentators for saying the wrong thing? By jumping on bandwagons and deciding not to see the people on the other side, but to vilify their ideas simply because they look through a different lens.

Roosevelt saw this in the Great Depression, when the world was rising up in intolerance everywhere, including here. He told us that there is nothing to fear but fear itself. 

But fear is invisible. You can’t put it on your lawn and make it comical like a skeleton. Fear creeps and crawls until it boils. Then it becomes visible in the most horrific way, and not one you can throw in with the leaves on November 1.