Let me be clear at the outset. I am not saying that fear is "bad," or "wrong," or uncalled for. In fact, I would subscribe to the idea that if fear weren't an important and useful thing, we --and our many cousins in the animal world-- wouldn't be wired to experience it. We've got fear in our experiential repertoire because it enhances our chances for survival.
In a dangerous world --which is what we're in now, and what the world of our ancestors was however far back you want to go-- it is adaptive to experience in the face of danger the kind of feelings that motivate one to get away from or otherwise eliminate the source of the threat.
That's what fear is.
And I would go further to say that, with respect to fear, a person or a subculture can experience too little fear as well as too much fear. When Hitler came to power in 1933, Winston Churchill perceived that under him Germany constituted an important threat to Great Britain and tried to raise the alarm among his countrymen. At that time, the ethos in Britain was far more dovish than hawkish, and more into avoiding fear than into magnifying it. Britain and the world paid a high price for their being TOO LITTLE governed by fear when Churchill sounded his warning.
But for the most part, I do not believe that to be the case in America today.
I do believe that on the left and among anti-Bushite forces generally, there is a tendency --characteristic generally perhaps of progressive, dovish groups generally-- to deny or minimize the importance of some genuine threats from the world around us (from terrorists, for example, or from a nuclear-armed Iran).
But the greatest problem in America today hardly comes from such minimization of threat.
Rather, the crisis of our times comes from the evil Bushite forces that have already inflicted on America (and the wider world) so much damage.
And the support for that Bushite regime has come not from progressives who may err in the direction of being too little governed by fear but by a wholly different component of the American culture. The parts of America who support these evil forces are precisely those whose worldview is permeated by fear.
And hence for this moment in American history, it is useful to look at fear as a problem, and thus perhaps also at the amelioration of fear as a part of the solution. That's what I'll be trying to do, albeit in an abbreviated fashion, in this "Fear Factor" series.
Andrew Bard Schmookler's website www.nonesoblind.org is devoted to understanding the roots of America's present moral crisis and the means by which the urgent challenge of this dangerous moment can be met. Dr. Schmookler is also the author of such books as The Parable of the Tribes: The Problem of Power in Social Evolution (SUNY Press) and Debating the Good Society: A Quest to Bridge America's Moral Divide (M.I.T. Press). He also conducts regular talk-radio conversations in both red and blue states.
You can't discuss authoritarians raising public fears without discussing the concept of fear mongering in a wider historical context.
Winston Churchill may have been correct in raising fears about Nazi Germany, but Joseph McCarthy was not correct in his attempts to stir up fears of communism infiltrating every fabric of American life.
In general, public fear mongering has primarily negative consequences. Even now, any attempt to raise fears about terrorism in the United States ignores the fact that most people will not die unnecessarily from terrorist attacks. You will more likely get eaten by a shark or hit by lightning.
Public fear mongering is most often used to bolster bad government policies.
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John R Moffett (82 articles, 17 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 646 comments)
on Monday, April 9, 2007 at 1:51:48 PM
This Administration has poisoned the water for all of us with their lies and manipulation. No longer is there dialogue, but just many long tedious monologues of nations to themselves.
In the nuclear age, everything has changed. With two rather small and weak bombs, we killed around a quarter of a million Japanese in a matter of minutes. Those bombs were real and the people incinerated were just as real. Can you imagine what one nuclear bomb set off in one of our cities would do?
We must give the Devil his due. Vice President Cheney knew exactly what to do in order to raise the American people's greatest fear which would be a nuclear bomb detonated in NYC or LA. It is a deadly game we play in the modern agora. We never realized how safe we were with the USSR as our only real enemy with only China in our periphery vision.
The Bush Administration refused to see that the only counter weight to Iran was the Saddam Hussein regime in Baghdad. We removed that counter weight and now we face not only soon to be nuclear Iran, but an Iraq which will be a poor check on their domination of the whole Mediterranean world. The Bush Administration has opened Pandora's Box without thinking very clearly about why they were opening it or what would happen once they did.
I have very little hope that nuclear war will not take place in the Mediterranean world within the next decade. We are not going to give up our nuclear weapons and neither are any other present day nuclear powers. It is only a matter of time before nuclear head ICBMs spread throughout Asia and Africa. Once the first bomb is detonated, there will be no stopping the hundreds to follow them. If we do not fear what we or others can do with just the push of a button, we are the most foolish generation yet to be born.
In this T.S. Eliott was completely wrong: we will not go out with a whimper, but in a bang.
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pratliff94 (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 969 comments)
on Monday, April 9, 2007 at 9:47:45 PM
Your excellent point is also a good corrective to the idea, suggested in the comment above, that we're in greater danger of being killed by sharks (or bees, or lightning). Yes, the level of fear developed in the US since 9/11 has been pathological and unconstructive. But the existence of weapons of mass destruction take the potential dangers of terrorism far beyond the dynamite of an earlier era (like in Conrad's SECRET AGENT), or even the recent era of IRA terrorism in Great Britain.
It is not good for people to have their thinking shaped ONLY by the world as it has been-- and that is true whether the issue is the destructive potential of terrorism or climate change (another thing earlier eras did not have to worry about).
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Andrew Bard Schmookler (314 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 146 comments)
on Tuesday, April 10, 2007 at 4:48:32 PM
Fear... in religion for a millennim in politics catching up.
The fear that many feel is a fear that has been used against people for a millennium. It worked for Despots and Deacons, Popes and Politicians. If they can't scare you with terror talk, well they'll put the fear of God in you. works every time and until people know, really know that the powerful can be so only if we let them.
I have fear and I am a liberal, if that's important, but it isn't from the bogy man on the other side of the ocean it is from the evil that prevails in the white house. Now I know we always say Bush is evil yes he is, his ignorance is what makes him most dangerous, but that same ignorance and arrogance is what makes him so manageable by the controllers behind the scenes make no mistake he is not the leader just the pawn the jokester, Cheney, Rove, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld they run things and have for 20 years, that's how long they have wanted to go to Iraq.
It amazes me how much people are willingly led to believe every scurrilous lie that comes from Bush, Cheney, Rove, (the departed Rumy) and Rice! "The great masses of the people will more easily fall victims to a big lie than to a small one" Adolf Hitler The neo-con republicans used this very effectively, frighteningly so.
When you do an overview of what the Nazis did early on in Germany the same tactics are used now today in America. I'm not talking about how it progressed to the slaughter of 6 million human beings. It doesn't have to take that specific route to be dangerous. Although if left unchecked it will, this time Muslims, women, gays, after all what's in a name, when fear and power is present.
It is the same psychology of Freud that the Nazis used. It has nothing to do with education, this country proves that. We are an educated culture but FEAR has nothing to do with how much education you have. Perhaps the education is the culprit it deny's our instinct our intuition and those of us who still have some 'gut' instinct left know the danger these people pose. It isn't the entire republican party, but it might as well be the ones who don't actively partake assist with their silence, as did nations in dealing with Hitler.
They quietly place people in position to undermine our nation so when the time is ready they will act (like the hiring of Pat Robertson law grads) and we will be living in an Orweillian society. Just read him and Huxley and you will know what is coming. The democrats or anyone else will be hard pressed to fight this with intelligence, you can't fight FEAR with smarts alone. But when you argue facts with the lock stepping little soldiers I find they go ballistic. Like you short circuited them.
So are there any out there in power who are willing to say look "the emperor isn't wearing any clothes". It is hard to criticize these people for if they aren't killed in an airline crash, they will be smeared, attacked socially and lose their jobs (see what they did to Max Cleland) a perfect example.
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Bam M. (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 26 comments)
on Tuesday, April 10, 2007 at 1:16:10 PM
Your linking of the Nazi techniques to the Rovian techniques of the BUsh regime is right on.
But please spare poor Freud the blame. The Nazi techniques had nothing to do with psychoanalysis.
And BTW, Goebb els would detest your making such a link: the Nazis tried to stamp out Freudian ideas, along with many other intellectual strain-- rejecting it as "Jewish thought"!
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Andrew Bard Schmookler (314 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 146 comments)
on Tuesday, April 10, 2007 at 4:52:22 PM
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