RISK- BY SYDNEY WILLIAMS
Risk is confrontation with fear. Seventy years ago, my wife, as a young girl, would put on her roller skates and, with her older brother, sail down paths in New York’s Central Park. They went unaccompanied. At the same time, on a rocky farm in southern New Hampshire, I would get on my horse, along with a brother and/or sister, and gallop off along trails through the woods, also unaccompanied by an adult. Any concern our parents may have had, they kept to themselves. They loved us as much as we love our children. We were told to be careful; we respected their advice. Nevertheless, we took risks.
Immigrants, from the early 17th Century to today’s migrants, did and do take risks. The earliest immigrants had no idea what they would find when they set sail across an unmapped sea, yet they were willing to take a chance that a better and freer life could be had than the one left behind. Social media, communications and government largesse have mitigated those risks, but emigration is still a leap into the unknown.
Success is impossible without risk. Entrepreneurs take risks, as do writers, musicians and artists. However, in all societies, risk-taking is never ubiquitous. Success comes to the talented and the aspirant – and those willing to take risks. The result is a society unequal in outcomes, but a fair one. What makes for a fair society are equal opportunities and the willingness to take risks, to grab the ladder’s rungs and make one’s way up, step by step. Consider the obstacles overcome by Americans like Abraham Lincoln and Clarence Thomas. At birth, neither had material advantage. Both were born in rural poverty. What they had was diligence, a desire for self-improvement and a willingness to take risks. They both recognized that victimhood was not the answer. While they were endowed with aspiration, dedication and intellectual talent, they knew they had to take risks and work harder than their peers.
Risks associated with COVID-19 have caused businesses to shutter and jobs to be lost. Yet the risk of COVID-19 is not unitary. The risk of serious illness or death varies depending on age and comorbidities. When we avoid the risk of infection, we risk financial and mental health well-being. Fear of contacting the disease has caused authorities to re-think the opening schools, as they balance the risk of the virus spreading against the risk of limited learning, social isolation and unemployed parents. In Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal, John Hasnas, an ethics professor at Georgetown wrote about his decision to return to the classroom this fall: “There is no alternative to learning to live with the risk of infection as generations before us lived with similar dangers. COVID-19 is part of life.” COVID-19 does represent a risk, but we must either live with it or hide from it.
Risk and opportunity are ever-present. My youth preceded the concept of “helicoptering” parents. Hand-held electronic devices have now replaced daydreams we once lived. Identity politics have swept the nation, dividing people into myriad categories, including victims and oppressors. But in the world when I grew up, being a victim was unacceptable. In school, bullies picked on the vulnerable. That happened to me until one day I took a risk and fought back. Being a “victim” removes the opportunity for improving one’s self. We should take chances and challenge the status quo. Eleanor Roosevelt once told us: “Do one thing every day that scares you.” Mark Zuckerberg said, “The biggest risk is not taking any risk.”
A diminution of risk is fueled by a culture of fear, a concept used by tyrannical types to achieve and hold power, whether in sports, business the military or government. It was a tactic used by Nazis to gain support for a regime that few dared confront. In college, academic risk expands one’s mind. The provision of safe spaces by universities attenuates risk in that it spares students hearing or reading “harmful” words. As a consequence, students learn less and universities have become more authoritarian and less diverse, as have media and entertainment businesses.
General George Patton spoke of “calculated risks,” where the odds of success are measured, but where consequences can be deadly. Risk, definitionally, is risky. On March 23, 1775 Patrick Henry spoke at St. John’s Church in Richmond, Virginia, ending with his most famous words: “Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!” A little more than a year later, fifty-six men signed the Declaration of Independence. The document ends “…we mutually pledge to each other our lives our fortunes and our sacred honor.” The United States would never have been born without the willingness of those men to take risks, which would have cost them their lives and their fortunes had the Revolution failed. Today, are we willing to assume the same risks to assure that liberty survives?
The question is more than rhetorical. Risk is more than a child galloping his horse down New Hampshire’s dirt roads or roller skating through Central Park without one’s parents. Free speech today is threatened by fear of reprisal. The stakes in speaking out against the superciliousness of the politically correct have never been higher. It should not be so. Speaking one’s mind should not involve risk. The arrogance of the Left has birthed a conformity of intolerance, as can be seen on university campuses, in corporate boardrooms, in federal bureaucracies and within the newsrooms of our nation’s radio, television and newspapers. Liberty depends on the willingness of people to speak and write freely, even when doing so involves personal risk.
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