Fear Grows for Growing Fears
"…the politics of fear subdues and suppresses the energy and dignity of ordinary citizens, making us too apprehensive to object as basic freedoms are whittled away in pursuit of some hopeless mirage of perfect security." -- Joyce McMillan, The Scotsman. (excellent article here)
Okay. It's time to tackle Fear head on. Let us grab it by the nuts and see what happens when we start twisting.
Here's the question. Are we scared because we are told to be scared, or have we so much to fear now that a thousand scaremongering headlines can scarcely do it justice?
No…that is too simplistic. The reality is that fear as a descriptive concept has mutated in recent years into a real being, with massive drool-laden fangs and an unwordly snarl. Whether we have more to fear now is irrelevant; the real question lies in the nature of the Fear beast itself, now that it is beginning to bite.
Frank Furedi argues in this article that the use of fear as a political weapon is hardly a new phenomenon; communism, nuclear war, immigration…all have been used in the last sixty years to promote a culture of fear. But he adds that, unlike today, "they were not preoccupied with fear as a problem in an abstract sense."
We have become comfortable with fear and being afraid. It is the 21st century way of defining ourselves against the rest of the world. Whereas once we used to worry about our own tangible problems, afraid of something awful happening to our families or running out of money to pay the bills, we are now afraid of the entire world and life itself. This twisted hunger is fed by our climate – not only through the dripping down of politics through the media prism, but through the fact that fear is an efficient tool for anyone who wants to get things done. The world and his dog now uses the war on terror as a reason for doing almost anything – usually to promote their own causes or goods. And it works.
"In the same way that very few people a few years ago could have predicted that Saddam Hussein would be overthrown in Iraq, his statues dragged down by jubilant braying mobs, who would ever have predicted the toppling of Cosmopolitan as Britain’s number one women’s monthly?" -- Periodical Publishers’ Association conference. (quote via Private Eye)
As times goes on, business models become refined and human behaviour is understood to a greater and greater degree. So if fear is shown to work as a marketing tool, they ramp it up to 11. Let us take an example…switch on the television in the daytime and pay attention to the advertisements. Tick off the terror…life insurance plays on the fear of dying, "no win no fee" lawyers play on the fear of not getting your fair share… Indeed, all adverts will make you believe that without their product you will be cast aside like the useless bastard you are, that you will be fat, unfashionable and unpopular if you do not spend, spend, spend.
And we are happy with this, because it is crucial to our modern way of thinking. It is how fashion works, marketing works, politics works…even entertainment. We navigate through waters of fear in our lives without complaint, and see those who protest as somehow old-fashioned and soft. There are many, many subjects we read about and hear about that, no matter what the present focus, if you slice open their bellies you will find Fear lurking inside with its claws buried deep into their intestines, hearts and brains. Over the years it has become fully assimilated into these subjects. Crime is therefore "rampant" and could be coming to a "street near you". Drugs could be in the hands of "your child, right now!" Terrorism is something that could happen to "anyone, anywhere at anytime." We begin to take the threat as read, and begin to see Fear, and its counterpart the Victim, everywhere. (related essay in PDF format here)
This suggests that emotion is becoming the biggest currency on the block, and in an supposed age of reason this is a worrying trend, especially when this emotion is manipulated politically into a permanent state of negativity.
"…[The government] is not only failing to combat, but actively promoting, a culture in which the core social democratic values of social solidarity and compassion cannot hope to flourish; and in which only reactionary forms of politics, based on fear, prejudice and suspicion, are likely to thrive." -- Joyce McMillan.
So our communities fall apart. We used to have our villains, and we would band together against this threat. Now our villains are intangible and float around in the air. We cannot put a pistol to their heads. So we retreat into our homes and pick up the Daily Mail and our eyes spin like washing machine drums as we are bombarded with worse case scenarios. Most people lift their opinions from a single media source and if that source can only frame news in the context of how it will fuck up your life, the pitch of its voice rising as hysteria grows and sales rise, then we will react in one of two ways. We can either hide behind the sofa or pick up the nearest crowbar and start taking fevered swings at thin air.
Ah, but does fear really split us up in this way? Fear can be a unifying force. We have seen this in action in the USA where the majority of the country came together to tremble behind Bush as he promised to righteously destroy an enemy that he took great pains to define. And it is the scared voter who is most receptive to these dark suggestions.
"It's absolutely essential that eight weeks from today, on Nov. 2, we make the right choice, because if we make the wrong choice then the danger is that we'll get hit again and we'll be hit in a way that will be a devastating from the standpoint of the United States." – Dick Cheney.
A worrying quote indeed. Cheney is a vicious creature and his mastery of Fear is impeccable. His kind of politician is thriving in the modern climate and the level of his power should be setting alarm bells off in every mind across the country. But when we are afraid of the Big Bad Something, we would rather unleash the lesser of the two evils. It hardly matters if we stand together or stand alone. Fear is a beast of many talents and is infinitely adaptable.
Indeed, and whatever kind of a beast Fear is, it roams all ours streets and is attacking everything it comes near. We are aware of our vulnerabilities like never before whilst people sit and laugh as they make money from our collective panics. Instead of a free and creative society we find ourselves bonding over common fears. We relinquish control over our own lives in the ineffective pursuit of security. We are all horribly compliant in all this. And that really is something of which we should be afraid.
Okay. It's time to tackle Fear head on. Let us grab it by the nuts and see what happens when we start twisting.
Here's the question. Are we scared because we are told to be scared, or have we so much to fear now that a thousand scaremongering headlines can scarcely do it justice?
No…that is too simplistic. The reality is that fear as a descriptive concept has mutated in recent years into a real being, with massive drool-laden fangs and an unwordly snarl. Whether we have more to fear now is irrelevant; the real question lies in the nature of the Fear beast itself, now that it is beginning to bite.
Frank Furedi argues in this article that the use of fear as a political weapon is hardly a new phenomenon; communism, nuclear war, immigration…all have been used in the last sixty years to promote a culture of fear. But he adds that, unlike today, "they were not preoccupied with fear as a problem in an abstract sense."
We have become comfortable with fear and being afraid. It is the 21st century way of defining ourselves against the rest of the world. Whereas once we used to worry about our own tangible problems, afraid of something awful happening to our families or running out of money to pay the bills, we are now afraid of the entire world and life itself. This twisted hunger is fed by our climate – not only through the dripping down of politics through the media prism, but through the fact that fear is an efficient tool for anyone who wants to get things done. The world and his dog now uses the war on terror as a reason for doing almost anything – usually to promote their own causes or goods. And it works.
"In the same way that very few people a few years ago could have predicted that Saddam Hussein would be overthrown in Iraq, his statues dragged down by jubilant braying mobs, who would ever have predicted the toppling of Cosmopolitan as Britain’s number one women’s monthly?" -- Periodical Publishers’ Association conference. (quote via Private Eye)
As times goes on, business models become refined and human behaviour is understood to a greater and greater degree. So if fear is shown to work as a marketing tool, they ramp it up to 11. Let us take an example…switch on the television in the daytime and pay attention to the advertisements. Tick off the terror…life insurance plays on the fear of dying, "no win no fee" lawyers play on the fear of not getting your fair share… Indeed, all adverts will make you believe that without their product you will be cast aside like the useless bastard you are, that you will be fat, unfashionable and unpopular if you do not spend, spend, spend.
And we are happy with this, because it is crucial to our modern way of thinking. It is how fashion works, marketing works, politics works…even entertainment. We navigate through waters of fear in our lives without complaint, and see those who protest as somehow old-fashioned and soft. There are many, many subjects we read about and hear about that, no matter what the present focus, if you slice open their bellies you will find Fear lurking inside with its claws buried deep into their intestines, hearts and brains. Over the years it has become fully assimilated into these subjects. Crime is therefore "rampant" and could be coming to a "street near you". Drugs could be in the hands of "your child, right now!" Terrorism is something that could happen to "anyone, anywhere at anytime." We begin to take the threat as read, and begin to see Fear, and its counterpart the Victim, everywhere. (related essay in PDF format here)
This suggests that emotion is becoming the biggest currency on the block, and in an supposed age of reason this is a worrying trend, especially when this emotion is manipulated politically into a permanent state of negativity.
"…[The government] is not only failing to combat, but actively promoting, a culture in which the core social democratic values of social solidarity and compassion cannot hope to flourish; and in which only reactionary forms of politics, based on fear, prejudice and suspicion, are likely to thrive." -- Joyce McMillan.
So our communities fall apart. We used to have our villains, and we would band together against this threat. Now our villains are intangible and float around in the air. We cannot put a pistol to their heads. So we retreat into our homes and pick up the Daily Mail and our eyes spin like washing machine drums as we are bombarded with worse case scenarios. Most people lift their opinions from a single media source and if that source can only frame news in the context of how it will fuck up your life, the pitch of its voice rising as hysteria grows and sales rise, then we will react in one of two ways. We can either hide behind the sofa or pick up the nearest crowbar and start taking fevered swings at thin air.
Ah, but does fear really split us up in this way? Fear can be a unifying force. We have seen this in action in the USA where the majority of the country came together to tremble behind Bush as he promised to righteously destroy an enemy that he took great pains to define. And it is the scared voter who is most receptive to these dark suggestions.
"It's absolutely essential that eight weeks from today, on Nov. 2, we make the right choice, because if we make the wrong choice then the danger is that we'll get hit again and we'll be hit in a way that will be a devastating from the standpoint of the United States." – Dick Cheney.
A worrying quote indeed. Cheney is a vicious creature and his mastery of Fear is impeccable. His kind of politician is thriving in the modern climate and the level of his power should be setting alarm bells off in every mind across the country. But when we are afraid of the Big Bad Something, we would rather unleash the lesser of the two evils. It hardly matters if we stand together or stand alone. Fear is a beast of many talents and is infinitely adaptable.
Indeed, and whatever kind of a beast Fear is, it roams all ours streets and is attacking everything it comes near. We are aware of our vulnerabilities like never before whilst people sit and laugh as they make money from our collective panics. Instead of a free and creative society we find ourselves bonding over common fears. We relinquish control over our own lives in the ineffective pursuit of security. We are all horribly compliant in all this. And that really is something of which we should be afraid.
posted by Jamie at 12:09 PM
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