We all reach a point when we are so stressed we think our world is spiraling out of control. It’s a terrifying feeling that is something akin to skydiving and not having your parachute open. Fear and anxiety can ruin a day, week, month, year or even a lifetime. More often than not, we pull through and move forward. However, what happens when the anxiety is affecting sizable portions of the world?
Yes, we live in challenging times filled with political and social strife and a world that sometimes feels like it’s on the brink of falling off a cliff. Instead of spiraling further down the rabbit hole, perhaps it’s time for us to take a collective deep breath, deal with the world’s challenges and calm down.
The fearmongering is on full display right now, and it appears to be working. In a heated re-election campaign, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu used fiery and fearful rhetoric to convince voters that the best person to lead Israel is someone who is prepared to confront Iran, possibly embroiling another Middle Eastern country in war. Stateside, controversial Texas Sen. Ted Cruz told a 3-year-old the world is on fire because scaring the living daylights out of a toddler is the best course of action for a potential presidential contender.
Spreading fear and paranoia is nothing new for political leaders. It’s a tactic that’s been used for centuries, but its renewal should scare us all. We live in uncertain times. Yes, the economy is on the mend, and with each passing month the economic news seems relatively strong. However, with the Islamic State group wreaking havoc in Syria and Iraq, Israel beating the war drums with Iran, a lack of action on climate change and complete paralysis in Congress, we seem like a world without direction, spiraling out of control. We are the skydiver careening toward the ground without a parachute.
We are doomed.
Except, we’re not. When we succumb to fear we let those who instill the fear win. Yes, Netanyahu’s campaign of fear led to another term as prime minister, and Ted Cruz can continue to provide toddlers with nightmares, but we can overcome the nonsense that threatens to paralyze civil society and lead us down a path of irrational decisions with dire consequences.
We can prevent war with Iran. We can stave off the worst of climate change. We can end the Islamic State group’s reign of terror. We can end congressional gridlock in the U.S. How do we surpass such incredible challenges?
We remain determined, strong and unwilling to cower to those who use fear as a weapon, wielding it like a loaded gun. We must demand that our leaders act sensibly, rationally and avoid spreading the same disease of fear and panic used by dictators and despotic rulers throughout human history. We cannot and should not follow our leaders blindly into additional overseas conflicts, with no end game, costing us immeasurable amounts of blood and money in the process. The nonsense instigated by 47 Republican senators sending a letter to Iran promising to stonewall diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Iran should not be tolerated. We are better than that.
Young people across the U.S. have never known a time when our country was not involved in an armed conflict of some kind. We must deal with threats to our nation, but if you think the greatest threat to the safety of the U.S. is Iran or the Islamic State group and not climate change, then you are ignoring what’s happening in Miami Beach and the scientists who estimate California has only one year of water left.
If we fall prey to the fearmongering of leaders here and abroad and ignore the real challenges we face, then sadly, the doom-and-gloom predictions of those leaders may come true, but it will not be from the same threats. We don’t need prattling fearmongers. We need men and women who take action to better the world, not destroy it.
You know, leaders.
Joel Mendelson is a second-year UF graduate student in political campaigning. His column appears on Fridays.
[A version of this story ran on page 6 on 3/20/2015 under the headline “Fearmongering hinders problem-solving”]
