Destructive Division: Fear and Xenophobia
Fear. It is one of the most natural feelings of the human condition. Without exception, every person has felt it at one point or another in their lifetime. Even those of us who pretend they have not felt it because they want to give the perception as being tough have felt it; and probably more often than others.
It’s definitely not an emotion that we seek out but it can serve a purpose. However, it can also hold us back.
In my first article on destructive division, we discussed why this is a crisis and things we can do to combat it. Here I would like to break down how this crisis is occurring. I want to try to understand what kind of role fear has on the social division in our society.
According to Verywell Mind, an online mental health resource and editorial, “Fear is a natural, powerful, and primitive human emotion. It involves a universal biochemical response as well as a high individual emotional response. Fear alerts us to the presence of danger or the threat of harm, whether that danger is physical or psychological.”*
When one typically thinks about what causes a fear response in the body or mind one thinks about a situation in a cliché scary movie. We are either getting chased by a mad clown killer on the loose in your quiet, safe town or you are the unsuspecting victim of a supernatural occurrence after moving into a new home.
Although I too initially think of these scenarios when thinking about a fear inducing situation, I want to talk about a situation which causes fear in some people in a more everyday situation. One in which many do not realize they have a fear response to, and why they are having this fear response.
As we learned through the definition of fear by Verywell Mind, fear is natural, powerful, and primitive. This means that fear has the ability to have a large amount of control over us when we experience it. However, it also denotes that humans developed this emotional response during a primary level of evolution.
Fear can manifest from real or imagined dangers. Imagined dangers can be seen in the case of the psychological survival technique of the Social Identity Theory, or the “Us vs Them Theory.” Like I have described in my other article on destructive division, this theory was developed by psychologists John Turner and Henri Tajfel. In this theory, one develops two social groups in their mind. The first being the one you identify with because they share a similar quality to you whether that be physical, mental, social, psychological, ethnic background, or anything else you can think of. The other group is the one you don’t identify with because they do not share this quality with you. This creates the “Us vs Them” dichotomy. As I shared in the other article on this topic, many times this theory can be used in situations that aren’t harmful in any way like in situations of supporting a specific sports team as opposed to another. However, when one starts to identify with some sort of psychological mentality, then it could be dangerous.
This is because if one truly believes in this “Us vs Them” mentality, they could perceive a threat from the opposing group. This perception of a threat could lead one to fear the other group. This fear may cause phobias if they identify and do not understand the opposing group. Or they may have misinformation about the opposing group.
I speculate that this kind of fear derives from fear of the unknown which can create misconceptions. This is very prominent in today’s culture. This fear is known as xenophobia and is far too prevalent in society. In today’s society, xenophobia has become known as a fear or hatred of strangers or people from other countries.
There are two prevailing types of xenophobia. The first is cultural xenophobia which is the rejection of traditions, objects, symbols, or language that are attributed to a particular group or nationality. The second is immigrant xenophobia which is the rejection of a person or group of people who are not native of the ingroup or the ingroup’s society. Immigrant xenophobia can lead to violence and genocide. The second is the type that has become more prominent recently in the United States and around the world. These types of xenophobia can be seen through racism and prejudices.
Fear isn’t inherently bad in itself because it is foremost an emotion to protect us, but when it turns into hatred this is it when it has a possibility of becoming dangerous. More and more, we hear of people becoming okay with the fact that they hold hatred for people that they consider to be foreign to them and have never met before. Some people are even proud of this hatred. This is not only sad, but is alarming. Most unfortunately, the most extreme cases of xenophobia have turned fatal.
Although not deemed as a mental health disorder, many mental health professionals believe that xenophobia should be considered a mental health problem and be treated as such.
We are not only seeing this xenophobia occur in the United States, but around the world. Along with many other dangers that the world is facing at present, xenophobia is on the top of the list. I implore you to not turn a blind eye when you see cases of it when you turn on the television or if you see instances of it in your own life.
Although I have suggested ideas on how to combat destructive division in my previous article on the issue, I find it imperative to express some ideas here, too.
First and foremost, please be cognizant and aware of your own feeling towards people who you perceive to be in a different group than one you identify with. If you find yourself fearing them for no other reason than you do not know who they are or enough about them, please try to reverse this fear in some way.
Try your best not to fear the unknown or people you do not understand. Know that if you are receiving information about a certain group of people from an disreputable source, then at the very least consider this information as possibly being misinformed.
Learn about prejudice and implicit bias. You may learn that you hold implicit biases for certain groups of people. This is the first step of trying to undo these biases or prejudices that you may hold in your heart.
I don’t believe that our society has had a deserving discussion of the true issue that is xenophobia. The first step at trying to reverse this in our society is by realizing that we have a xenophobia problem that is dangerous and already fatal. It is up to us to try our best to make sure this does not continue. We need to take action before it is too late.
*Fritscher, L. (n.d.). The Psychology Behind Fear. Retrieved October 23, 2020, from https://www.verywellmind.com/the-psychology-of-fear-2671696
Further Resources:
https://www.verywellmind.com/the-psychology-of-fear-2671696#:~:text=Fear%20is%20a%20natural%2C%20powerful,danger%20is%20physical%20or%20psychological.
https://www.verywellmind.com/xenophobia-fear-of-strangers-2671881
