When Samuel became old, he made his sons judges over Israel. The name of his firstborn son was Joel, and the name of his second was Abijah; they were judges in Beer-sheba. Yet his sons did not follow in his ways but turned aside after gain; they took bribes and perverted justice. Then all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah and said to him, “You are old, and your sons do not follow in your ways; appoint for us, then, a king to govern us, like other nations” (1 Sam 8:1-5, NRSV).
Before Samuel, judgeship in Israel was a non-hereditary position. Samuel, however, passed his mantle of leadership to his two sons. Prompted by disillusion with Samuel’s heirs and a protracted history of political instability and uncertainty during the period of judges, Israel’s elders demanded a king. After all, impromptu charismatic leaders had previously saved the nation mobilized by ethnic loyalty and religious identity when it was in peril from devastating invasions and oppressions. With this in mind, the tribal leaders decided they needed a permanent and structured institution of leadership: kingship and a king to govern them, “like other nations.” God’s response was a warning about monarchic rule: It would be a fundamental transformation both politically and economically. The new regime would reorder power relations and install new economics of power (1 Sam 8:10-18). One imagines that the elders who readily accepted these terms did not truly comprehend the new reality they would have to learn to live in.
Israel’s demand for a king offers us a glimpse of psycho-political dynamics. Long experience with instability and uncertainty caused them to expect the worst possible future. They were preoccupied with survival anxiety and nebulous fears of war, terrorism, infrastructural destruction, epidemics, economic instability, societal deterioration, and death. They then mobilized their fear of individual and collective destruction toward a belief that a centralized government could provide the security they longed for—suggesting that fear is an effective instrument of subjectivization. Their impulse to compare themselves with other nations indicates that their vision of progress was grounded in catastrophe. According to political theorists, this is also a common feature of modern politics. Modernity harbors a vision of progress that interprets the past as catastrophes and crises to overcome and never repeat. An incessant striving for “the new” renders the status quo and anything that is not new as catastrophe.
Classical political thinkers such as Thomas Hobbes, Carl Schmitt, and Michel Foucault argued that the politicization of fear and insecurity in the face of mass violence is an effective mobilizer of power, governance, and control. The Hobbesian conception of the state of nature shows that anxiety is an integral part of the human condition, while fear is linked with concrete threats that challenge ontological security. Underlying the highly sophisticated rationalization, operationalization, and specification of security is the enduring effectiveness of fear and prevalence of fear-based appeals. As Foucault described through his notion of “governmentality,” states do not seek to vanquish fear. Rather, governmental agencies continually produce and reproduce fear for management, enhancement, and supervision of the social body. Fear is temporarily assuaged by security mechanisms and commodification of security, justifying conditions of sovereign exception that are increasingly normalized in world politics.
Political scientists today corroborate the inextricable relationship between fear and security. Empirically and theoretically, fear underpins fundamental assumptions and positions in international relations. The pursuit of security serves as the organizing logic in today’s politics and policy decisions. In fact, political scientists argue that fear is not just an expedient political tool, but has become the de facto essence, the very impetus and reason, of modern politics. Security studies stress that the world currently faces unprecedented insecurity—social and economic unrest, food insecurity, environmental challenges, and violent conflicts—caused, in terrible irony, by the unbridled pursuit of security. When fear becomes the energetic principle of politics, politics of insecurity and exceptionalism proliferate and liberal democracy is threatened. Mechanisms to manage irrational and contagious fears overwhelm a discourse about controlling terror and insecurity.
The rise of the Israelite monarchy is a story about the emergence of a new technique of government and governance. The account in 1 Sam 8 provides insight into key notions such as power, government, and (in)security, and how the art of government forms and transforms society. It describes the principal rationalities and programs of government; these are contingent upon existential fear and the impulse to manage future catastrophes. They come at the cost of surrendering one’s body and the value of one’s labor, and even the bodies of subsequent generations. Militaristic and survivalist priorities saturate the reconfiguration of political power and order. Surrendering their freedom, agency, capacity for resistance, and vision of the future, this ethnic and religious confederacy transfers responsibility for crisis management onto a monarchic ruler, expecting in exchange safety and security “like other nations.” Yet as the story unfolds, the installation of centralized power and knowledge—through the institution of kingship—will operate on the production and reproduction of crisis upon crisis and insecurity upon insecurity.
A proliferation of fear of biblical proportions and anxiety for an unknown future will have real-life consequences in real-life decisions and actions, with incalculable ramifications. Before caving into the maelstrom of fear and anxiety, let us each pause for a moment, prayerfully probe and reorient our assumptions of insecurity, limit, and uncertainty in our daily life. At a collective level, we can guide, shape, and elevate our societal discourse and policy actions with firm theological, spiritual, and psychological foundations.
Kyong-Jin Lee is associate professor of Old Testament studies