February 20, 2003

• SECURITY

  
  
  
  
  

  I love it when my readers provide openings for rants or remind me of some favorite topic on which I’ve not yet blogged. shabbychic wrote this comment to my blog from earlier today, about the donut shop that was quarantined after being visted by some Philly cops who had been sprayed with cologne at the airport: “Terrorists attacks have left us wondering if there is such a thing as safety, but are our reasons rational enough to do assume so quickly? I don’t have an answer to this so I am asking you, SuSu.” Fear is never rational.  Even when… no! Especially when the danger is real, fear is the worst possible response.  Ever since the late 1960s, this has been my personal response to fear: Bene Gesserit Litany Against Fear I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain. Dune © 1965, 1984, Frank Herbert Published by Putnam Pub Group ISBN: 0399128964 Although my avoidance of fear includes the fear-of-fear, I still like this quote from President Franklin Roosevelt: The only thing we have to fear is fear itself – nameless, unreasoning, unjustified, terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. - FDR – First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1933 In Conversations with God, Neale Donald Walsch was inspired to write that all actions proceed from one of two “sponsoring thoughts”:  fear or love.  Like all absolute and dualistic notions, this one surely resonates with that majority of us who are programmed to dualism.  Although I perceive a broad relativistic continuum between those poles, I’m in basic agreement with the concept, and I prefer to act from love, myself, whenever I can keep my wits sufficiently about me to do so. Safety, like everything in this universe that we can perceive, is relative.  Here on the edge of the wilderness I’m safer from some dangers than are those of you who live in cities.  There are also dangers here that are not found in cities.  One of the attractions of life out here, for me, is the relative absence of “security”. “Security” is a joke, a sick, ironic, unfunny joke.  The word has been co-opted by cops, pols, and their ilk, given a new meaning to cover the people and procedures that are supposed to make the populace feel safe.  It is hard to evaluate their effectiveness at actually providing safety.  My observations suggest to me that either those in power are total idiots, or they are cynically throwing up illusions of safety to pacify a restive and frightened populace. In Merriam-Webster Online I found this: Main Entry: 1se·cure Pronunciation: si-’kyur Function: adjective Inflected Form(s): se·cur·er; -est Etymology: Latin securus safe, secure, from se without + cura care — more at SUICIDE Date: circa 1533 1 a archaic : unwisely free from fear or distrust : OVERCONFIDENT b : easy in mind : CONFIDENT c : assured in opinion or expectation : having no doubt Note that the very first entry is the archaic usage, “overconfident”.  In Elizabethan times and earlier, “secure” was a synonym for “foolish”.  In my paper dictionary, Webster’s Seventh New Collegiate, under “secure”, it says, “See more at ‘idiot’.” Our politicians would have us believe that security is a reality, an actual state of safety.  Don’t be fooled.  Security is a feeling, an illusion.  As they rob us of our time and resources, as they erode our constitutional freedoms in the name of security, they are not making us safe.  To the extent that they make any of us feel safe in the presence of real peril, they rob us of the alertness that might prepare us to deal with an actual danger. Insecurity is a neurotic state; it is irrational.  Alertness to danger is not the same as fear or insecurity.  If you understand that danger exists, that pain is part of mortal life and death its natural destination, and you refuse to let that knowledge spoil your enjoyment of the present moment, you are well on your way to liberating yourself from fear.  Freeing yourself from the oppression of the security forces will be somewhat more difficult. While researching this piece, I found a webpage of quotes on fear.  Below are some of my favorites: “War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.” - John Stuart Mill “Anyone who clings to the historically untrue — and — thoroughly immoral doctrine that violence never solves anything I would advise to conjure up the ghosts of Napoleon Bonaparte and the Duke of Wellington and let them debate it. The ghost of Hitler would referee. Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor; and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst. Breeds that forget this basic truth have always paid for it with their lives and their freedoms.” - Robert Heinlein “Most people live dejectedly in worldly joys or sorrows. They sit on the sidelines and do not join in the dance. The knights of infinity are dancers and possess elevation. They rise up and fall down again, and this is no mean pastime, nor unpleasant to behold.” - Søren Kierkegaard, “Fear and Trembling”

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