The COVID-19 pandemic has provoked a number of societal responses, perhaps none more prominent than fear. Dozens of examples could be provided. Some fear that ending mask mandates will lead to another surge of the virus; others fear that the longer we require young people to be masked, the greater the developmental delays in behavior, speech, and so on. Some fear that controversial podcaster Joe Rogan is a threat to public health; others fear that attempts to “cancel” Rogan represent the end of “free speech.” No matter where one stands on these issues, the common denominator is fear. The English word “fear” is derived from the Proto-Germanic term feraz, which has connotations of “sudden danger” and even “ambush.” The one who is fearful manifests physiological and psychological changes, which can vary in severity. A person hiking in the Rocky Mountains may have a general, almost subconscious fear of encountering a grizzly bear, but this fear will rapidly intensify if she comes across bear tracks and hears a rustling in the trees ahead. Fear, then, is a basic survival instinct and, as such, serves to benefit human beings. The question is: what is an acceptable level of fear? At what point does one’s awareness of “sudden danger” morph into something that itself is dangerous? Philosophers doubtless have paid too little attention to fear. Perhaps theologians have done better, albeit in a way that, at first glance, only tangentially relates to the current cultural milieu. After all, the “fear of the Lord” (Prov. 1:7, Prov. 8:13, Prov. 9:10, etc.) is not the issue facing contemporary secular society; it is the constant fear (justified or not) produced by the endless streams of media now available to people. As Kierkegaard puts it in an 1837 journal entry, “All sin begins with fear (just as fear of a sickness is a disposition toward it).”
From a draft version of Kierkegaard’s The Concept of Anxiety (1844): “Often enough, talk is heard about particular governments in Europe that are in fear of restless elements. I prefer to say that the entire present generation is a tyrant who lives in fear of one restless element: the thought of eternity. This thought is always suppressed; nevertheless, it is still impossible not to be in contact with it: a person will think it, and he does not dare to think it.”
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Thanks, Chris. First I'll just mention that I did read "The Concept of Anxiety," the Hong translation, while I was working as an ESL teacher in Slovakia, and I have to say that of all the SK works I've attempted - that one is devilishly difficult! I remember sometimes reading and reading passages and even reading some out loud to my roommate and feeling clueless. That aside, something about fear to mention: when I read "Works of Love" chapter by chapter with a friend in the first year of the pandemic, we worked hard to understand why SK puts so much emphasis on the verse in 1 Peter, "Love hides the multiplicity of sins," and it seems to me that it relates to what you are writing about here. That whereas fear, fear of the finite, fear of the threatening contigency, fear multiplies fear, that love by contrast, and love that abides in the eternal "'covers" fear and multiples love. Something like this.