There are two kinds of fear. Phobic fear draws us away from what we fear. Counter-phobic fear, which looks a lot like anger, compels us to attack and destroy what we’re afraid of. Fear generates mental positions called beliefs. These are a corset for the spiritually incurious.
Our institutions are distinctively perpendicular, top down, Babelesque and male. They’re modernity’s dinosaurs, owing their existence to fear of the feminine. And it’s an entirely counter-phobic fear—paranoid, aggressive, ritualized and conforming. Challenged on their dysfunction, they say they’ll change the culture. Sure. When fish ride bicycles.
Counter-phobic fear—fear that looks like anger but isn’t—needs enemies to rationalize its own existence. When enemies are needed, enemies are everywhere. Sometimes a whole country is our enemy. Nation-scaled enemies goose our economies. It costs US$3 million to build a Patriot Missile.
Men's Work 