Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to conservatism.
Taking some notes from Cinema.
We all heard the quote if we like Star Wars, a slightly younger Yoda lectures the young Anakin on the dangers of over attachment and how fear will lead you to the dark side. The Dark side being as we know a simplification of selfish and destructive behavior.
Nonetheless it is worth repeating, the Empire is an analogy to Fascism, and Nazism specifically. It is not just the uniforms, actions and overall vibe but even the color of the blasters used in space warfare. Grab some color footage of WWII vehicular combat and you will see that the German tracers were green and allied tracers were red. It boggles the mind to think that there are conservatives around that think they are the good guys in that particular piece of Science Fiction.
People rarely see themselves as the villain, even when their victims are screaming at them to stop. Granted, selective hearing and selective attention was turned into an art form by these people.
Back to the tile of this one, yes Yoda was right: fear does lead to Anger. There is no shortage of people online angry or just hateful toward things they fear. And it is as everyone and their mother has pointed out on the other side of the intelectual argument: a function of ignorance. Willful or imposed. Ignorance Master Yoda, leads to fear, write that down on your fictional Jedi Books. The fear of the unknown is ironically very well known, and has been a staple in human horribleness for as many millennia as we have been wandering this little ball of stones and gas throughout the universe. Gaze down a dark scary cave at night in a forest and not knowing if there is something in there ready to pounce will remind you of what I mean. So the ignorance of, for a small example, how free healthcare actually works will enact a fear response on the individual: communism! Breadlines!
Another example is the rights of people that do not fall into what they were led to believe was the only choices to be made, be it in gender or sexuality. Choice: the most basic principle of the most basic right that Americans glued to their identity is conveniently forgotten: there is no freedom without choice and there is no choice without freedom.
Look, we are not Jedis, we are not rebels fighting a Space Wizard with a lazer sword (Sith lord with a light saber, I know don’t at me), but we are fighting a battle against an enemy that is very seductive. Learning about the other takes energy and is an active endeavor and hate, well hate is easy. Hate is the path of least resistance when your worldview is fear.
You don’t have to agree with everyone, just take a chance. Life is a zero sum game, at least give your neighbors the benefit of the doubt, and please stop fucking obsessing about bathrooms. And, don’t get me started on the fear and hate of Libraries and Librarians. By the grace of everything that might be sacred in this universe of ours, it should be a huge red flag that your people, your political affiliation, your influencers hate a place where you can learn whatever you would like and, for free. One of the greatest inventions to lift people from ignorance that allows access to the collective history and knowledge and culture is now an opponent. It is like the sick raging against the medicine.
So to close it up with some more Star Wars, I am hoping for more poignant episodes of Andor: “Fight (Fuck) the Empire”. Maybe then some of these willfully ignorant bastards will understand that they are helping and cheering for the wrong side.
We have to save ourselves, there are no Jedi in sight.