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The Power of Courage in a Culture of Fear

By Frances Moore Lappé and Jeffrey Perkins

(Op-ed submitted to The New York Times, May 2004)

"Fear is the emotional plague of our planet," French philosopher Patrick Viveret said last year. And in facing this plague, our body’s responses seem hard-wired -- freeze, flee, fight. Little wonder, then, that as terror alerts never dip below yellow Americans seek protection and acquiesce. Feeling powerless ourselves, we tend to "go along" and comply with our protectors.

In our earliest tribal settings, we humans learned that such innate fear responses served us well, and that being cast out of the tribe was particularly fearful: Banishment meant almost certain death.

So here we are Millennia later with the same biology, but living in a culture in which fear is being consciously spread. One would think we have no choice; we are programmed to keep our heads down for fear we may be cast out ourselves.

Or maybe not. Consider Specialist Joseph Darby who wrestled with the consequences of reporting the abuse in Abu Ghraib and finally spoke out, he said, because what he saw was so "morally wrong." Or Israeli justice minister Yosef Lapid who expressed empathy with an elderly woman whose home Israelis had razed in Gaza. Certainly he could predict the outcry his remarks triggered. Or Staff Sgt. Camilo Mejia who has chosen prison and condemnation by many of his fellow soldiers for refusing to return to what he calls the "immoral" war in Iraq. These men found they were not powerless, compelled to respond to their bodies’ fear alarms. Their courage to break with the tribe will no doubt generate powerful ripple effects upon millions of others.

Clearly, we humans, despite our biological heritage, can choose how we respond to fear. In fact, this may be the most important choice of our lives. We can ask ourselves, How should we respond when the entire tribe is headed over a cliff? What does fear mean in an era when our dominant tribe is melting ice caps, obliterating species, polluting the air, and fostering violence bred of humiliation and now, we know, even outright torture.

Whereas eons ago breaking with the pack meant death, perhaps today it means just the opposite -- it may be the path to life. Our evolutionary programming need not lock us in. We can learn to experience fear in a new way - not as a verdict, but as a powerful signal to act.

If we stand up to the dominant tribe’s mandates - mindless consumption, or overpowering concentrations of wealth and influence, or a war creating the very enemies it claims to destroy -- we can expect to feel fear. But if we see this fear as pure energy, it can become a powerful tool for constructive action. We can work with it.

Perhaps it’s this lesson we might learn from Joseph Darby, Yosef Lapid, and Camilo Mejia. Or from the four 9/11 Moms of New Brunswick, New Jersey. These women experienced grief and no doubt feared speaking out. But their emotion fueled their mission. Their courage made them "arguably the most effective force," according to Gail Sheehy, "around the obstacle course" the administration has used to block a transparent investigation of the World Trade Center attacks.

Cognitive scientists use the term "hypocognition" to denote a culture’s lack of a critical concept, one needed for it to thrive. Today what’s missing is the possibility of experiencing fear as pure energy, not necessarily as a cue to hide but as perhaps a signal that we’re doing something brave and important. We need not be victims of our biological programming. We can choose courage. Therein lies our power and hope for the future of this small planet.

Frances Moore Lappé and Jeffrey Perkins are the authors of You Have the Power: Choosing Courage in a Culture of Fear (Tarcher/Penguin) to be released this month.