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Americans are saturated with fear, which is why we are so competitive. We believe in material scarcity and this drives our excessively competitive behavior. Frances Moore Lappe and Jeffrey Perkins, in their perceptive May/June Utne article "The Two Sides of Fear," explain the dire happenings this attitude produces:
"A first step toward freedom is to crack one driver of our fear: the myth of scarcity. The belief that there's never enough to go around keeps us on a competitive treadmill, afraid to listen to our own hearts. If we see ourselves as isolated egos competing against other egos, we can't seriously discuss a future that's good for all. Democracy itself becomes suspect in a culture that assumes that greedy egoists will always turn the democratic process to their own selfish ends. This shrunken view of our nature, pushed into high gear since the greed-is-good 1980s, is destructive in 2 ways. It denies both our innate gifts for problem solving and our need for connection."
Fear, greed, selfishness and competition run together. They are destroying our democracy a little at a time. In business, accentuated self-interest leads to scams and frauds and Enrons. In political affairs, it leads to an administration scaring us to death with constant talk of war and with vague warnings of possible terrorist attacks. In social affairs, it leads to crime, violence and the reduction of civil liberties. In religious affairs, it pits one religion against another thus feeding intolerance. The result of this pervasive fear is a distressed people unable "to pursue happiness."
It's OK to have fear. It's natural. But we must learn to channel it better. The better way is through cooperation rather than competition. We all need to be connected to other people. Democracy is based on the idea of cooperation. Isn't it implied in the phrase "everyone's vote counts"? Cooperation is a basic virtue in all religions. Cooperation pays even in business. At least we need not be so destructively competitive as some American companies now are.
Fear drove America into war with Iraq. Fear enabled the enactment of the Patriot Act, which deprives people of civil rights. Fear caused us to torture prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and in Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
To prevent fear from exacerbating antagonistic and competitive influences, let's try a little cooperation. Cooperation will funnel fear into a more peaceful democracy and into a more peaceful world.
