THE MONARCHY OF FEAR

I recently had the chance to see Martha Nussbaum speak on her new book, The Monarchy of Fear, and learn that she is widely acclaimed as a prolific author, philosopher and advocate for the arts, humanities and human rights. As she divulges, her heroes include Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, Mohandas Gandhi, a few thoughtful Greek philosophers and various contemporary psychologists including women, who are mostly absent from the former categories. All have fought non-violently against fear, violence and bigotry, obviously in many cases at great personal cost.

I have always been a believer in the biological, developmental and evolutionary notion that ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny in a myriad subtle and varied ways. Put another way we reap what we sow. If we teach our children well (nurture good ontogeny), and avoid undue fear, repression and bigotry, they will grow to contribute to the evolution (phylogeny) of a society where such destructive forces are less likely to rear their ugly heads. Speaking of ugly heads Nussbaum takes us back to Homer, and the heyday of Greek philosophy to remind us of the dangers of unrestrained fear and anger (the latter being the first word in the Iliad) and also the "child of fear" as Nussbaum and others have put it.

The Greeks had a visceral sense of the ugliness of anger in their sense of the 'Furies,' repulsive, horrifying, disgusting creatures belonging says Apollo "in some barbarian tyranny where cruelty reigns." They "make animal noises, moaning and whining." All this is portrayed in 'Oresteia,' the famous tragedy of Aeschylus (458 BCE) which "explores the curse of retribution" arising from "unbridled resentment." The Greeks dealt with these dark forces in two ways. First by Athena's "recognition that the legal system must incorporate… [one might say 'tame']… and honour retributive passions." The second way is more transformative, and needs to do more than putting the Furies in a cage. Athens must be "liberated from the scourge of vindictive anger." Lucretius, for example, "says that all political anger is only an outgrowth of fear." The transformative element came in the efforts the Greeks, and later the Romans, made in a "cultural struggle" against what they saw as anger's destructive power and the danger it posed to "democratic institutions" which require "forward-looking" justice.

What does all this cultural history (phylogeny) and powerful, emotional passion [mythology?] have to do with ontogeny? [My question]. It surely deals with the parallel development of "infantile helplessness and its adult cousin the fear of death." The young child is in a sense a "monarch" with "no way of surviving except by making slaves of others." The infant lives in a purely or predominantly emotional world in which the external universe is so often an uncontrolled and uncontrollable source of potential fear, only mitigated by the constant reassurances of adults who know how to bring 'just' order to the child's world by knowing what's good to help balance the democratic order: i.e., both for the developing child and the developed adult.

Thinking in terms of Jean Gebser's consciousness structures (especially the magic, mythical and mental-rational) discussed in his seminal The Ever Present Origin, and elaborated by Ken Wilber and others, we are reminded, that even in a modern world, "thought" to be infused with "thoughtful" rationality, ever present consciousness structures, ostensibly characteristic of a former, historical or 'other' phylogenetic "structure" can "erupt" unpredictably. Such eruptions give the rational, "progressive" mind the sense of retrograde steps, taking us back in time to a world where more uncontrolled, petulant, infantile, primitive or "furious" consciousness structures prevailed. Such rational perceptions may be understandable to like minds but perhaps not to all other consciousness structure eruptions.

Having pointed out that there is nothing much new under the sun, as Apollo no doubt noticed, the connection between fear and Nussbaum's subtitle reference to "our political crisis" is rather obvious, but none the less timely and necessary. It is entirely in keeping with another much-reported book, Fear, by celebrated Watergate journalist Bob Woodward. But to point the finger at fear-mongers is a form of lesser, and avoidable fear mongering, especially if something transformative and "forward-looking" does not follow.

Nussbaum avoids, as best one can, naming and pointing fingers at others who are fear-mongering and not thinking forwardly. As transformative examples she cites King, Mandela and Gandhi, but especially King, as an American who railed against prejudice and injustice as crisis-generating, socio-political problems, but in the end dreamed with a forward-looking vision of a transformed world where black and white children could live as brothers and sisters. His vision was passionate, hopeful, based on the best of Christian principles, and untainted by calls for violence retribution. One may pay a stiff price for such forward-looking vision.

The book's ontogeny follows a similar trajectory, dealing first with fear and anger and their infantile psychological roots, then with [adolescent?] fear-driven disgust and exclusion, then [secular-materialist?] envy, sexism and misogyny, but at last we end with a [wisdom?] chapter on "love, hope and vision." Nussbaum asks what are the "basic human entitlements…that all humans must have… if …society…is to count as even minimally just." [These rights may of course change as our social consciousness evolves]. Since "entitlements" is a controversial word, especially in the USA, where it can imply some sort of un-earned, financial, material or status reward, Nussbaum uses the term "capability," implying, I think, that these are rights we are capable of providing all citizens, perhaps not without some reform and enlightened education, so as to avail ourselves of a just and capable society. [I am not quite sure why the term rights would not suffice].

Her list of 10 'capabilities' [rights?] begins with "Life," "Bodily Health" and "Bodily Integrity" (meaning freedom of movement, safe from violent assault), followed by "Senses, Imagination and thought," "Emotions," "Practical Reason" and "Affiliation," all freedom of choice capabilities, and, lastly, "Other Species," "Play" and "Control over one's Environment." This seems rather a mixed bag of capabilities, for the average citizen to recall as an intellectual check list, but Nussbaum explains her focus is "on capabilities rather than actual functioning because the theory gives great importance to choice." She argues that these capabilities provide "a good basis for constitutional principles" and as an activist philosopher it is perhaps natural for her to incline towards constitutional "theory." She admits "many Americans right now don't agree with my view, which they will see as resembling European-style social democracy." [America may be in the throes of proving there are worse fates]! She then suggests "all Americans… [need] … to figure out what they really do think about such matters, prior to entering a contentious political debate." Fair point, but no doubt too little too late for some segments of the population, at least 'right now.'

Nussbaum ends with a call for "National Service" which she sees as "imperative" to address the political crisis and the "problem that Americans lack a sense of the common good" and are unable to think "outside their economic or racial group." I think she may mean "too many," not all, Americans. She makes it clear that this would be "civil service" and, perhaps controversially, suggests a German model, Zivildienst, an alternative to military service, which ended in 2011. Here again Nussbaum is no doubt well aware her proposals are controversial. But perhaps tough times call for stern measures, and Americans surely resonated deeply with JFK's "ask not what your country can do for you" speech. As Apollo shines a perennial light on America's political crisis, Nussbaum is asking, again, what Plato and Socrates asked long ago: what makes for a civil society where individuals are just and forward-looking in how they examine themselves and their fellow citizens? I sometimes ruminate on the phrase "just right." It is indeed a delicate balance.