Sickness Unto Death

Philip Amerson                                                                      May 1, 2025

Sickness Unto Death

Hope, when joined with mutual respect, becomes the oxygen supply for the lungs of a healthy democracy. In these troubled times, 19th Century Danish Philosopher Søren Kierkegaard offers perspective, a challenge, and a way beyond suffocating despair. In his classic “Sickness Unto Death,” this Christian theologian speaks of despair as a sin. Despair is, he suggests, a sin even worse than death. The reader is counseled to find the small pathways ahead, to persist, even when tempted to be captured in the clutches of fear and doubt – even when tempted to be held hostage to despair.  While anxiety may be unavoidable; Kierkegaard argues life calls us to continue forward, step by step, with whatever small light available.

Fear and disrespect are endemic in our nation. There is a tariff on HOPE. Many national and state officials are intent on destroying our “Commons” – the institutional trust established over the past two centuries. They act in ways to paralyze, to control, to tie us in contemporary knots of despair. Normality, civility, and decency are submerged in autocratic surges washing across our society. This deluge is intended to overwhelm, to control, to undermine.  Such a “flooding the zone” strategy comes ceaselessly at us and from many tributaries: threats to the funding and governance of our universities: ending humanitarian aid to the poorest in our world; closing of scientific research necessary for public health; attacks on the judiciary and law firms; the deconstruction of a free and independent press; pressures on elected officials that leave one U.S. Senator saying “we are all afraid”; and, at base, there is the undoing of the personal constitutional rights for ordinary citizens and anxious refugees. These all coincide with what can be identified as practiced strategies from an autocratic playbook, one that has been tested and proven effective in other nations.

Alongside this national deluge of intolerance, the Indiana Legislature ended its recent session passing bills that can only be understood as a war on health care, on public education and on the poor. Indiana Senate Bill 289 was adopted as an “anti-DEI measure.” Touted as “bringing balance” to the teaching of history, civics and the social sciences, it instead is designed to censor, punish, place a chilling effect over public school districts or university curricula. It is a threat to any who dare depart from the ‘official truth’ presumed by those in power. It is an effort deny the tragic realities of racial, economic, religious, and sexual discrimination in our past and to end discussion of systemic economic disparities that continue.  Limits to funding Medicaid and public health resources will have devastating consequences on the poor in the state, delaying and denying needed care.

Persons without shelter in Indiana can now be placed in jail and/or face a $500 fine for “camping on the streets”! To add insult to injury, the final draft of the state’s budget contained a Trojan Horse, with the insertion, without public input, calling for “productivity reviews” of university faculty. It also included dramatically altered board governance structures for Indiana University giving the governor power to select all university board members.

Apart from such legislation, other efforts to upend the truth and distort reality are astonishing. Indiana Lieutenant Governor, Micah Beckwith, posted a recent video celebrating what he misleadingly calls a “great compromise” made at the 1787 Constitutional Convention. Beckwith asserts the decision to count persons held as slaves as 3/5ths human (as property) was “a great move forward that led to the abolishment of slavery.” He turns history on its head, ignores the resulting decades of abuse, lynchings, and systemic discrimination. He quite literally whitewashes the dehumanization of slavery, the segregation that followed with Jim Crowe laws, mortgage redlining and the enduring systemic discrimination. Beckwith attempts to tell us that “what is up is down and what is true is false.” He ignores the tragic reality of more than a million men killed or severely wounded in the bloody U. S. Civil War and undercuts the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the constitution passed to assure the rights for all and designed to undergird equality. 

A good friend recently said, “For the first time in my adult life, I am embarrassed to be a Hoosier and related to Indiana University.”  Referring to the deluge of discriminatory initiatives taken by the governor and state legislature, he was also noting, with sadness, a compliant university administration, that has over and again failed to support academic freedom or stand against the bigotry of supercharged bullies. My friend spoke his sadness over the growing and blatant displays of racism and intolerance. Even so, despite such recent efforts, my friend said he was not giving up or dropping out.

Yes, these are unsettling times. The drift – make that the flood – toward intolerance, deception, and fascism is upon us.  We dare not hide or take cover in some false cocoon of isolation, thinking we can somehow choose to avoid the sin of despair.

During the recent Little 500 Weekend in Bloomington horrible, racist posts were placed on social media. They spoke of “the smell of welfare” and “turning Bloomington’s Kirkwood Avenue into Atlanta.”  There was more racist language, much worse than this, designed to encourage bigotry and foster white nationalism. These days such social media posts are likely generated by bots, foreign and domestic. They are designed to inflame passions and make false claims about marginalized others and are intentionally framed to spread fear and do harm.

Those of us who have the privileges accompanying “safe” racial identities, or our education, or other accidents of history dare not give in to despair.  As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. put it "We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny." King was not simply suggesting all our histories and futures are connected and interdependent; he is also saying the struggles for civil rights for everyone must not end.  There continues to be work that needs to be done and injustices to be addressed.

Kirkegaard’s insights 175 years ago still ring true: despair that immobilizes is worse than death. Anxiety is a human given, but despair is a sin. Eleanor Roosevelt proposed "No one can make you feel inferior without your consent." Social scientists W. I. and Dorothy Thomas offered that “What we perceive to be real becomes real in its consequences.”  How then shall we act?

Kirkegaard’s “Instead of Death” is based on the story of Lazarus as told in the eleventh chapter of the Gospel of John. On hearing the news of Lazarus’ passing, Jesus responds, “This sickness will not end in death.” Those captured in despair, will miss the potential for life. We have the power to choose how we react to horrible news, to deadly external influences.  Despair is a loss of perspective, a loss of agency, of self-worth.  It is a loss of hope.

What now are our choices?  What then can we do?  We begin by repudiating the climate of fear.  We can act and not be washed away in the fascist flood.  We can make a difference. 

Here are three areas to explore:

• When you see something, say something. An African American friend tells of being disrespected while shopping. In checking out, a clerk used clearly disrespectful and demeaning language. To my friend’s surprise, another customer, nearby, overhearing the exchange, gently but firmly in a quiet and clear voice said, “We are all better than this.” Later, in the parking lot, the surprising voice offered support and friendship. We can welcome difference.  Maybe it is as simple as responding to a frown with a smile. A phone call, a visit that may help another. We can thank others for what they do. Ask how you might help. Encourage a teacher, a coach, a nurse, a therapist. Express appreciation to those who serve as police officers, fire fighters, local government officials.  Support public radio and television now are under attack.
• Reach out, make a new friend, and/or make a difference somewhere. Loneliness and fear are often the source of distrust and misunderstanding. This is a time to find ways to support the good work of programs like Exodus Immigration Refugee, NAACP, the Human Rights Commission. Host a dinner or picnic where persons from diverse backgrounds are welcomed and introduced. Perhaps make a new friend and together support our public schools in new ways, perhaps as a tutor or in support of a teacher. In Bloomington there are ways to support the healthcare for those with few resources through groups like HealthNet or by offering gratitude to our After-Hours Ambassadors working with the Community and Family Resource Department. We can write the university president asking why her administration does not better respond to attacks on academic freedom or to racist tweets that damage the sense of wellbeing among our students and other residents. Ask the president why the university doesn’t join in efforts provide more for low-income housing, while it is the university driving up enrollments contributes to housing shortage and expense? Ask your banker, pastor, corporate leader how they might contribute to a more diverse racially community?  For some of us, who have the opportunity and occasion, we need to encourage broad representation from marginalized populations on boards and as candidates for leadership positions.
• Do one thing daily to challenge bigotry and discrimination. Yes, I am going to say it – call or write your congressional or state representative challenging them to act against the flood of disinformation and intimidation. This is basic.  Write a letter to the editor.  Some days it may be as simple as being a friend to someone you know or a stranger you meet.

No need to be a crusader – some have that calling.  Others of us can do just one thing a day. Every day we can chose action and not fall into the sin of despair.