Fear
Fear. Merriam Webster dictionary defines the noun fear as “an unpleasant often strong emotion caused by anticipation or awareness of danger”. Fear as a verb is “to be afraid of: expect with alarm”. The American Psychological Association defines it as “a basic, intense emotion aroused by the detection of imminent threat, involving an immediate alarm reaction that mobilizes the organism by triggering a set of physiological changes. These include rapid heartbeat, redirection of blood flow away from the periphery toward the gut, tensing of the muscles, and a general mobilization of the organism to take action”.
Fear of contracting a virus such as COVID, which over 177,000 Americans have died from, can be healthy. It causes us to take precautions to protect ourselves and others. Although left unchecked and bombarding yourself with information from social media, it can take a toll on your mental health. Fear can be healthy. It is programmed into your nervous system, and gives you the survival instincts you need to keep yourself safe from danger.
Dr. Karl Albrecht’s "Practical Intelligence: the Art and Science of Common Sense." (New York: Wiley, 2007) defines five types of fear: Extinction, Mutilation, Loss of Autonomy, Separation, and Ego-death. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/brainsnacks/201203/the-only-5-fears-we-all-share
Extinction—the fear of annihilation, of ceasing to exist. This is a more fundamental way to express it than just "fear of death." The idea of no longer being arouses a primary existential anxiety in all normal humans. Consider that panicky feeling you get when you look over the edge of a high building.
Mutilation—the fear of losing any part of our precious bodily structure; the thought of having our body's boundaries invaded, or of losing the integrity of any organ, body part, or natural function. Anxiety about animals, such as bugs, spiders, snakes, and other creepy things arises from fear of mutilation.
Loss of Autonomy—the fear of being immobilized, paralyzed, restricted, enveloped, overwhelmed, entrapped, imprisoned, smothered, or otherwise controlled by circumstances beyond our control. In physical form, it's commonly known as claustrophobia, but it also extends to our social interactions and relationships.
Separation—the fear of abandonment, rejection, and loss of connectedness; of becoming a non-person—not wanted, respected, or valued by anyone else. The "silent treatment," when imposed by a group, can have a devastating effect on its target.
Ego-death—the fear of humiliation, shame, or any other mechanism of profound self-disapproval that threatens the loss of integrity of the self; the fear of the shattering or disintegration of one's constructed sense of lovability, capability, and worthiness.
We can all understand those types of fear. Most of us have experienced at least one or two. There is another fear that is unhealthy. It comes from politicians and plays on the five fears in different ways. That type of fear is Political Fear Mongering. Wikipedia gives a great historical example of political fear mongering. The Daisy television commercial, an oft-referenced advertisement used during Lyndon B. Johnson's 1964 presidential run. It begins with a little girl standing in a meadow with chirping birds, picking the petals of a daisy while counting each petal slowly. When she reaches "9", an ominous-sounding male voice is then heard counting down a missile launch, and as the girl's eyes turn toward something she sees in the sky, the camera zooms in until her pupil fills the screen, blacking it out. When the countdown reaches zero, the blackness is replaced by the flash and mushroom cloud of a nuclear explosion.
As the firestorm rages, a voice-over from president Johnson states, "These are the stakes! To make a world in which all of God's children can live, or to go into the dark. We must either love each other, or we must die". Another voice-over then says, "Vote for President Johnson on November 3. The stakes are too high for you to stay home". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fearmongering
The father-daughter science duo Sara E. Gorman and Jack M. Gorman dive into this at length in their book, Denying to the Grave: Why We Ignore the Facts That Will Save Us. In a new interview with The Atlantic’s Olga Khazan, the Gormans laid out how mongering fear exploits the very structure of the brain. Believing political claims like that of President Donald Trump’s may not be logical, but it’s certainly neurological, they explain.
“There are good data showing that the first thing that you hear makes the biggest impression — and that if it’s heard under emotional circumstances, that it’s always associated with that emotion,” Jack Gorman said. “If the first thing you hear about a topic is something that’s associated with fear, that will often suppress the rational part of the brain. It will be placed into long-term memory by this more primitive part of the brain, and it turns out to be very, very difficult to dislodge that.” Fear mongering is a very powerful political tool.. https://www.thecut.com/2016/10/neuroscience-of-fearmongering-is-a-powerful-political-tool.html
Here are just a few common fears that politicians love to use on middle class, white America.
Fear the immigrants! They will take your jobs and you will lose your way of life.
Fear Black and Brown people! They are violent criminals, gang members, and drug addicts.
Fear Muslims! They are trying to take over America and change this from a Christian nation and kill all Christians.
Fear LGBTQ people, they are pedophiles and will prey on your children and make them gay.
Fear feminism, they want to destroy marriage and kill babies through abortion.
The bottom line of all is fear. Fear of others, fear of loss, fear of change.
This is nothing new. Instead of fear, look at it as propaganda. Propaganda is defined as “information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view”. Fear is a key to propaganda. According to the American Historical Association, propaganda is nothing new. Although the word itself came into common use in this country as late as 1914, when World War I began. Propaganda was used to stir up patriotism during WWII. “Buy war bonds”, “Support the war effort” and others were used to boost the morale of Americans and stop rumors and criticisms of the war. It was even made into movies and cartoons, and used to influence modern day advertising.
In modern day, radio, television, and now social media have all given propaganda a way to spread quickly and effectively. All political leaders use some form of propaganda, but like Hitler, Mussolini, and Tojo some use propaganda to spread their messages of fear. https://www.historians.org/about-aha-and-membership/aha-history-and-archives/gi-roundtable-series/pamphlets/em-2-what-is-propaganda-(1944)/the-story-of-propaganda
The Republican National Convention of 2020 is using fear effectively on it’s base. At first glance with the volume off, you might think that the RNC speakers are diverse. Different backgrounds, different ethnic groups seem to be on display. Turn the volume on, and you get the same messages of fear. Instead of an enemy on a far away land, the enemy is other Americans. Your neighbors, family members, co-workers. Liberals! Socialists! They want to take away the police department! We will have criminals running our cities and no police to stop them! They want to take away your guns and end your second amendment rights! They want to allow abortions in the 9th month and kill babies! They want to take God out of the Pledge of Allegiance! They want to close all churches! You get the idea. One particular group is telling America that any potential COVID-19 vaccine will contain microchips to track us. Some believe that COVID-19 was manufactured just to hurt Donald Trump’s re-election chances. It is “us against them”. So much so that Americans are threatening to kill other Americans just because they’re liberal. They want to start a second Civil War, forgetting that the first one didn’t end up so well.
Those who consider themselves to be liberal, roll their eyes. They know it isn’t true. They don’t believe in any of those things. Some are flat out lies. However, the speakers have already tapped into the primal fear of their base. Taking away your rights. Allowing “others” to take over.
Extinction—the fear of annihilation, of ceasing to exist. White people will no longer be the majority.
Loss of Autonomy-controlled by circumstances beyond our control. Socialism will take over.
Separation—from what we are comfortable with, our rights and privileges, way of life.
Ego-death—the fear of humiliation, shame, or any other mechanism of profound self-disapproval that threatens the loss of integrity of the self. White people, in particular white men, will lose integrity, control, and respect.
Black RNC speakers are talking about the “criminal rioters and protestors”. Speakers such as Nikki Hayley claim that racism doesn’t exist in America, even though she, as the daughter of immigrants, changed her name from Nimrata Randhawa to Nikki. Sounds more American which would mean less racism directed toward her. A couple, who have been charged with felonies for pointing guns at peaceful Black Lives Matter protesters in St Louis, spoke about “lawlessness” and the fear of Democrats “abolishing the suburbs”. President Trump himself in ads, talks about Democrats dismantling police forces resulting in lawlessness and lack of 911 response under a potential President Biden, while he shows terrifying film from what is happening….under his own administration.
Of course, Republicans are charging Democrats with fear mongering during the DNC. Perhaps they did. On the other hand, many of us have lived with fear since January 2017. Fear for our children’s and grandchildren’s futures while environmental restrictions are being lifted in national parks so drilling can begin. Watching people in Puerto Rico suffer while this administration refused to send assistance. Young people, in the US legally under DACA, sent back to countries they never knew. Children separated from their parents at the border and put in detention centers. Some died, many were abused, some have been lost in the system, all will be forever scarred. I am the wife of an immigrant. He is white and from the UK, but I watched in terror as immigrants were sent back to their home countries for violations as small as a DUI. Watching, knowing that before I met my husband, he lost his license due to DUIs. Would he be sent back to a country he hasn’t lived in for 20 years? We saw the fear in LGBTQ friends who had rights taken away under this administration. We watched a president tell police departments to “rough them up” in a speech, as Black men and women were dying at the hands of police officers. We have seen this president make fun of people with disabilities, disrespect women, heard him say he “grabs them by the pussy”, all while so-called Christians look past it. The same Christians who claimed Barack Obama, a decent, once married man with two children, wasn’t a Christian. We heard Donald Trump say he would “drain the swamp” as we watched in fear as he placed people in positions who were against the very departments they were in charge of. We watched seven people in this administration be arrested and criminally charged. Again, fear is healthy when it is real.
I believe the real problem is lack of critical thinking. Americans have lost the ability to think clearly and rationally. We have become so caught up in the cult of personality, that we can’t think straight. Do you REALLY think a virus vaccine would contain a microchip to track you? Why would “they” do that when you are already being willingly tracked through that cute little iPhone containing GPS in your pocket? Do you REALLY believe that Democrats want to turn America into a socialist country? What would the benefit be? Why would we want to abolish the suburbs or rural areas? Do you REALLY believe that we want NO police officers in this country or free all prisoners? Why would we want that? Would you actually shoot me just because I believe Black Lives Matter? Do you REALLY think we are ok with killing a 9 month old fetus that could survive on its own? If you can CRITICALLY think, none of these things would make sense. Yet, here we are. Fear, along with a healthy dose of ignorance and a sprinkle of reality television has brought us here. United we stand. Divided we fall. Is that what we want? Is it what we want for this country? We are better than this. Reject the fear.