Stay Safe or Stay Free

Which do you Want?

How often during the recent pandemic festivities have you been told “stay safe”? How often has someone replied “stay free” or “stay brave”, or even better, “stay brave, stay free?” Why not? People were quite fearful at the time, so it would seem to be vital to remind others as well as oneself of the importance of not succumbing to fear. I encourage all to respond to “ stay safe” with “ stay brave, stay free”. What makes it so important? Acting and speaking as though you are not afraid will actually make you less so, and saying “stay brave, stay free” may help the other person retain his courage. The words themselves remind us that being fearful is part of the road to serfdom. Also, a fearful people may not speak the truth when confronted with the lies of the powerful.

From the science fiction novel Dune by Frank Herbert:

“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.”
― Frank Herbert, Dune

The English cultural critic Theodore Dalrymple (Anthony Malcolm Daniels, Dalrymple being a pen name) had this to say about the current infection of political correctness, with which we are currently saddled.

“Political correctness is communist propaganda writ small. In my study of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, not to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is in some small way to become evil oneself. One's standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control. I think if you examine political correctness, it has the same effect and is intended to.”
― Theodore Dalrymple

A quote from your author: “If you take the cowardly path you become cowardly. If you take the courageous path you become courageous.”

At one time this type of thinking was considered positive, but people who think that way are hard to control, so I think there has been an attempt to make the world as a whole more fearful. The messages everywhere are “we will make you safer”, the implication being that it's best to put safety considerations above all else. Despite what we are told, you can indeed be to careful.

The world we live in is inherently unsafe and it is up to us to learn to deal with it. Mystics might maintain that it's not a bug, it's a feature.

The Powers That Be who are in power want to maintain their power, and fear is and has always been a useful tool for that purpose. These days the talk is always about safety, never about freedom. Does your local political candidate promise to eliminate laws or work to decrease the power of government? I didn't think so.

Like anything else, a bias for freedom over safety can be nurtured. The first thing is simply recognizing that it's an issue at all; people just go along and their emotions are their emotions. What is not stressed very much in American culture is the need to learn to control ones emotions, and fear is just one element. Controlling ones emotions gives one a certain amount of freedom from coercion and the tyranny of circumstance.

In his autobiographical book Will, G. Gordon Liddy talks about how, as a child and young man, he went on a self improvement campaign to make himself less fearful and to increase his willpower. (Many of you may have a negative view of Liddy. If so, I maintain that his description of his campaign is nevertheless of first importance. Don't throw the baby out with the bath water.) He would intentionally put himself in positions where he would have to face his fears, as well as having to increase his will power. He believed willpower to be the most significant aspect of an individual’s personality, and it allowed for the exercise of courage.

https://www.amazon.com/Will-Autobiography-G-Gordon-Liddy/dp/0312880146/ref=sr_1_3

Fear is contagious, courage is contagious. If you act unafraid those around you will respond with less fear, and vise versa. It's one of the bricks of leadership.

A problem arises in that fear will drive people to do things that they would not otherwise, and possibly violate their own codes of conduct. If you want people to victimize other people on your behalf you might try to instill fear, fear of yourself or fear of those you want to mistreat. The less fearful you are the harder it is to control you. I know these are platitudes, but they should be said at this point.

During the twentieth century the world experienced mass governmental killings of civilians in various countries. How did they get people to do the killing? O course they were told that they were doing good, fighting whatever their governments claimed were monstrous evil, but I think fear was a large contributor. It's not reasonable to suppose you would have had the fearlessness required to just say you wouldn't do it, especially since someone else would, and they might go after your family after they shot you. (I don't claim for myself any such super human degree of courage.) Still, if you imagine that people had had such courage the regimes would simply have been unable to proceed.

Fear generally is used a means of control, and not only by governments. Every organization from the local organized crime groups to possibly your boss uses it. Therefore, a way to increase the freedom all of us wish to maintain is to try to increase ones personal courage.

"What would things been like (in the Soviet Union) if during periods of mass arrests people had not simply sat there, paling with terror at every bang on the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but understood they had nothing to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people?" ~ Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

How can we be less fearful? As I said you can work to be less fearful by recognizing it as an important faculty. Act less fearful and you will be. Associate with people of a courageous mindset, even do the Liddy thing of intentionally doing things that require courage. Also, friends and family imbue one with courage just by their support, both by their courage being contaigious and by the backup they provide. Love of course gives people courage. Do not give counsel to your fears. And, if anyone says “stay safe”, respond with “stay free”.

Making a habit of being honest even when you would rather not is one way to maintain courage. The repetition of doing so when you would rather not will have an effect.

Learning skill with weapons along with military training is useful. Much of military training is aimed at learning to keep your cool under stress (hence the screaming sergeants), which will pay off throughout your life. Weapons give one confidence in the case of confronting evil, or just dangerous wild animals. It turns a subject into a citizen. Similarly for martial arts.

And last but not least, belief in a higher power is paramount. Without it people become weak and fearful, maybe that's why it's under attack. Along with it comes the certainty that life is not just haphazard, and there is a purpose.

Quotes from Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, courtesy of AZ Quotes

https://www.azquotes.com/author/13869-Aleksandr_Solzhenitsyn

"If I were asked today to formulate as concisely as possible what was the main cause of the ruinous revolution that swallowed up some 60 million of our people, I could not put it more accurately than to repeat: 'Men had forgotten God; that is why all this has happened.'" ~ Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

"The strength or weakness of a society depends more on the level of its spiritual life than on its level of industrialization. Neither a market economy nor even general abundance constitutes the crowning achievement of human life. If a nation's spiritual energies have been exhausted, it will not be saved from collapse by the most perfect government structure or by any industrial development. A tree with a rotten core cannot stand." ~ Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

"The simple step of a courageous individual is not to take part in the lie. "One word of truth outweighs the world." ~ Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

So, if someone says to you “stay safe”, please respond with “stay brave, stay free”.