Terror Management Theory

Once upon a time there was a social scientist named Ernest Becker, who developed a theory regarding why people fight each other. He said it occurs because we all realize we’re going to die eventually, and we’re none too happy about that. So we do whatever we can to prolong our lives, denying the inevitability of death, and this effort becomes the basis of human aggression. Well, whatever. His book on the subject (Denial of Death) garnered a Pulitzer Prize, so someone was impressed with his ideas.  
 

Anyway, part of the outcome of his thesis, as I understand it, is Terror Management Theory, which seems to say that, if you can scare the hell out of people, you can control them.  (Think of Vice President Dick Cheney warning us about the next terrorist attack or Senator Joseph McCarthy, and J. Edgar Hoover, warning us to watch out for the commies under the bed.) Enter stage left, Chicken Little, who runs around screaming that the sky is falling in. (“Watch out for that cloud!”)

There’s a little bit of TMT going on in Pacific. 

The latest chant is “We have to recall Cy Sun to save the city!”

Well, maybe. But this raises three questions: 

1. How will his recall meet the demands of the city’s insurer in time to keep the city insured?
2.  Is the city worth saving?
3. What would it be like without the City of Pacific? It might not be as bad as some people would be led to believe.

Instead of getting everyone panicking and scrambling to remove Cy Sun, maybe they should spend some of their energy doing two things:

 

1. Totally ignoring the mayor
2.  Developing an end game to prepare for a smooth death.

There was a question in the 60’s during the Vietnam War that seemed kind of goofy at the time. It went like this: What would happen if there was a war and nobody came? I mean, if we didn’t send our boys to bomb and kill and be killed, those Vietnamese would be right on our doorsteps, right?  Sounds pretty silly, doesn’t it? That was a war we didn’t need to fight. We got snookered into it, and now some Americans take tours in the land of our “conquerors.” 

So, what would Cy Sun be doing if no-one was trying to lynch him? What would motivate him if he wasn’t kept busy by all his enemies? This is really a serious question: How would he spend his time?

I don’t live in Pacific any more. I have very little skin in the game. But I’ve watched Pacific for more than 30 years, and I’ve tracked pieces of the city’s history a lot farther back.  Lots in the city originally were sold by a swindler. I understand it was a bootleg area during Prohibition. In the 1950s, as I’ve said below, there was a scandal about misuse of public property and it changed a lot of city council faces. In the 1970s the police chief first assaulted a school teacher and then, some months afterward, he assaulted a couple men waiting for an aid car. That second assault led to the possibility that the city could go out of business as a result of the million dollar claim that resulted. This possibility was publicly stated by City Councilman John Petersen, who lived along Ellingson Road right where teenagers are now asking if you want fries with that burger.

 Pacific doesn’t seem to be able to shake its bad vibes, and the effect is that good people stay out of government,  and drunks, fools, the mentally ill, self-serving cynics and their ilk have been preventing intelligent deliberation for the last 12 years. 

Who needs that?

The fear that the city may go out of existence has become a notion that’s starting to be talked about a little more rationally. The recall site carries comments on this subject  by City Councilman Josh Putnam, who barely hung on to his seat in the last election, when challenged by an individual who showed no clear qualifications for the position. If that wasn’t a wake-up call, it should have been.

Why not form a citizens committee and begin discussions with Auburn about taking possession of the city park, the community center, the public safety building, and the city hall functions?  Auburn might actually want  this windfall. There are people still on the payroll who could aid in the transition and probably gain better employment, if the negotiations went well. Auburn would probably need to hire some quality rank and file police officers to serve the area, and we have a few to provide. One of them is clearly first cabin. I think, if he had been police chief, we wouldn't be in this mess. (I'm not the brightest bulb in the chandelier, but I know a good man when I meet one.)

Cy Sun isn’t the only person who can speak with Auburn. And maybe if a sound plan emerged, the city council could find a way to buy time for an orderly disincorporation. I suspect the insurance company would benefit by facilitating a soft landing.

This committee to recall Cy Sun implies it is spending its effort to keep the city intact, which is the same as saying we want more of the behavior that has cropped up in Pacific throughout its life and especially during the past 10 years, and which led to Mr. Sun’s election. Meanwhile, the recall committee hasn’t shown any evidence that a bucolic little community of people who like each other and have fun together ever  existed.  We imagine it exists. And there seem to be memories that such a Pacific existed at one time, but it hasn’t been my experience for at least a dozen years, with a few notable exceptions. This recall fight won’t be the factor in restoring any sense of community. Anybody who believes that is delusional.

There have been claims that costs would go up and services go down if the city ceases to exist as a result of loss of insurance, but so far all these are just claims. They rest on the assumption that Auburn couldn’t possibly be as efficient as Pacific in providing these services. 

Yeah, right.  Pacific is the shining example of efficiency. I just took a drive through a cul-de-sac  that is connected with Tacoma Boulevard. Some houses in that cul-de-sac have been occupied for a year, but the street work still isn’t finished. Pipes and manholes jut up waiting for an unsuspecting tire to run over them. Is that an example of good governance? (See photo, below).

Manhole cover juts above unfinished street

Although there are some very good staff working for the city – and this really is true, in my opinion—you  can’t believe a city has been well run if the chief executive officer is misusing a credit card, the council can’t stop him, and the police botch an inquiry into his conduct. A well run city would have sought to prevent that second flood a few years back.

In nuclear war, military doctrine is to leave the enemy’s command structure intact, because you want to have someone on the other side who can recognize when the war is over and it’s time to stop fighting. That’s what we call the “end game,”  or, perhaps, Plan B.

Assume the worst: Pacific will cease to exist by Jan 1, 2013, and perhaps much sooner. The community needs to start preparing right now for that possibility, because there’s a really good chance it’s going to happen. If it does, landlords, homeowners, business operators and renters in the geographical area known as Pacific should have a Plan B in place and the people to carry it out.

My recommendation: Presume the death of the city. Develop a body of residents with “the right stuff” to form a prototype Pacific Community Council that can be in place when it’s time for this area to be annexed to Auburn. Don’t include in this new organization anyone who shares in the responsibility for the death of Pacific. And don’t invest any more energy in fighting Cy Sun.

 I’m dead serious. The time to start is now. Do it, or it will be done for you.