Part of this idea of “strong” means to be unafraid—unafraid to stand up for what is right, to defend oneself and others, and so on. But I am afraid of a lot of things. And so are you. Being afraid isn’t weak; at the most basic biological level, it’s being alive and wanting to stay that way. Like pain, fear is information about the world that guides you to pursue some behaviors and avoid others. Working out and anything else that’s challenging involves enduring physical discomfort, but pain is also your body warning you of its physical limits. If I don’t listen to my body, I will hurt myself, and in middle-age I don’t heal as quickly as I used to, meaning I have to gauge the “right amount” of pain during exercise. Too little, and I’m not challenging myself. Too much, and I’m going to risk injury and will not be able to work out at all, perhaps for weeks.
Similarly, the trick with fear is to make sure that fears are proportional to the actual risk posed by some hazard…

if you could pick any time in the whole history of the human species in which to live, and you didn’t know who your parents would be, how much wealth or privilege you would be born into, what your race or gender or sexual orientation would be, when would you choose? The only rational choice, in my view, would be now…

I don’t teach people to make the world into what I would want it to be. My job, as I see it, is to draw some general conclusions about what social movements are, and how social change works, by looking at how others have done it, how they are trying to do it now, and what can be learned from their successes and failures. Some of the things I have learned from this point of view are not just or moral or uplifting. Many are uncomfortable, amoral, and cynical…

In the fall of 2020, I finally got the chance to teach a course on Religion and Politics from a sociological perspective. Here’s a bit about how and why. Edited and updated.