Fearing the worst, hoping for the best

The argument goes the same way every time: I, trying hard to sound rational, announce a new mandate for the safety of the family--ranging anywhere from "no more Dolphins games" to "buy a boat and be ready to sail out of Florida"--while my father dismisses any possibility that we could ever come to direct harm.

We'll never resolve it because our perspectives are deadlocked opposites. For me, the worst case scenario is like a mangled car wreck on the side of the highway that I can't look away from; my father, on the other hand, stares straight ahead at the road--better for him not to even acknowledge the smoking rubble, because if it happened to them that means it could happen to him. Is it age, generational difference or something else that accounts for this frustrating gap between paranoia and stubborn, obdurate blindness?

Maybe its easier for me to conjecture wildly, being separated from my country by an ocean. There was nothing but my imagination for cold comfort when I logged on in Amsterdam one night to see that, between a visit to Duke and subsequent death in South Florida, the first anthrax victim had both my home bases covered. My insomnia has raged in result, and when I do sleep I always have this nightmare: I am trapped, along with all my friends and family, in a solid river of cars stretching straight down Alligator Alley--one of the only two roads out of that swampy death trap called Florida. There is no sound save for the dull thudding of rotted cattle carcasses which drop from the sky onto the sea of metal and glass.

I sometimes think that if al-Qaida has even half of my sick powers of imagination, we're all in a lot more trouble than we expect. It doesn't require funding or training camps to chip away at the thin glue of security that holds Western society together--if there's a will, there are no limit to the ways. I imagine how any man armed only with a makeshift turban and a harmless aerosol can would bring fear-crazed chaos to 70,000 football fans amidst hundreds of live cameras. I imagine how a computer hack in the wee morning hours could bring a major city to its knees by shutting off power, water and communications, and then kick it while its down with even a few small, well-placed explosions. If I can imagine all this out of fear for my country, just think of the monstrous brainchildren to be borne of anyone with the infinitely more potent inspiration of hate.

Dad didn't like my last column, in which I imagined the steps it would take to bring us to a police state. He said, rather disingenuously, that it was Otoo apocalyptic;' he wasn't alone, either. But self-censorship in the media is potentially even more damaging to the flow of information than sensationalism--and it happens more than you'd suspect, probably to sources that you read every day. Better that life-or-death issues get raised in tones of near-hysteria than never raised at all. Us alarmists may bark or foam at the mouth, but this country cannot afford any longer to pass blindly by its own weak spots just because it makes us uncomfortable to confront them directly.

If we are indeed at war--and I hesitate to use such a crude and misleading label for our current situation--then it is not the air strikes on the Taliban that should be holding our attention, for they are only one piranha amidst the school of angry fish. It is the (considerably high) risk posed by a mass gathering like Super Bowl that we have to discuss and come to terms with. It is the distinction between liberty and convenience that we have to establish.

Ah, but how is it possible to have a "healthy amount" of fear? The slope that leads down from caution to paranoia and into the dark pit of schizophrenia is steep and slick. Despite the scenarios I imagined above, the worst damage that we will sustain will be self-inflicted, as our fragile resolve gradually crumbles out from underneath us. There is no enemy to vanquish; this struggle will be fought in our own minds. It will be fought in the cultural consciousness of the media, as it waffles wildly between the spirit-deadening extremes of hyper-sensitive censorship and exploitative fear-mongering. It will be fought in our own subconscious, as any unattended bag will scatter people as would a ticking bomb and any swarthy man will come to be seen as a threat.

Our country is being given a test of character and morale. To paraphrase the unlikely source of Liz Phair, they play us like a pit bull in a basement. So we lock our doors at night and imagine the worst case scenario, if only so that we're not caught off guard again. But don't let fear dominate our daily (and nightly) lives, or we'll all end up nerve-frayed insomniacs like myself. Temper our hatred with peace.