Don’t be manipulated by fear
The nation was in the throes of the Great Depression.
It was 1933 and voters had just overwhelmingly elected Franklin Delano Roosevelt as their president. As he addressed the nation during his inaugural speech, he tried to soothe shattered nerves.
“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself,” he counseled during his 20-minute inaugural address.
FDR was wise in understanding that the most powerful motivator, even though it is also the most damaging, is fear. It can trigger the fight or flight adrenaline rush that has helped humankind survive; it can force us to behave in ways we are not accustomed; it can freeze us, locking up our brains and bodies in a spasm of terror and confusion.
Sleazy marketing types have used it to get us to buy all sorts of things, from antibacterial soaps and lotions to guns.
Scumbag politicians have used it to induce a faux patriotism and a means to keep the rabble in line.
They did that during Vietnam with their ridiculous domino theory about how the fall of one small Asian country would result in the world succumbing to communism.
They did that during the Gulf War, when every time there as a dicey issue the Cheney-Bush administration — let’s be honest, it was Dick Cheney, not George W. Bush, who ran the show — would ratchet up the so-called terror alert levels to change our focus and instill fears that another 9/11 attack was imminent.
And now we see fear as the propagator of racism and hatred aimed at shoring up the efforts of the Xenophobe-in-Chief to homogenize the American culture by making it a dull, white, lockstep army of soldier ants who are growing ever willing to remove the brilliantly rich palette that was once the United States with a blank, lifeless canvas.
After all, this is the president who suggested that he would rather have more immigrants from Norway than from what he described as “shithole countries.” Though not described in such scatological terms, the United States is not looked upon favorably across the globe as more and more countries are issuing travel advisories and warnings to citizens who plan to visit here because of the abundance of guns and violence.
We’ve been raised on fear, shaped by fear, brainwashed by fear.
That’s why we continue to work on building the biggest, most powerful bombs, why we arm our local police as heavily as our military, why we are cowed into voting strictly along partisan lines, why we bend to the fealty of supporting a narcissistic madman who is clearly delusional and builds our fears on a foundation of deceit, generated by his own deep-seated fears of inadequacy and irrelevance.
Even the most cogent minds can be shaken by these gross manipulations, planting the seeds of doubt and confusion. Clearer heads and a bit of introspection usually help erase such tremors.
The problem is that it takes quite some time to generate palpable opposition to the bullies who employ fear. It doesn’t, however, take long for the fears to segregate us into the disparate camps that have become America, yet we are all victims: those who buy into the lies and those who stand up to them.
Those who join the club, mostly because of a lack of intellect or courage, hide in the safety of their numbers. They simply hold firm to a position that requires little thought or courage, because when you are a member of the flock, the odds are that you will be plenty safe as long as you stick with the others, particularly if you work your way into the thick of it.
They will accept damn near anything. I have heard discussion by the more paranoid among them talking about how Gilroy and El Paso and Dayton were so-called “false flags.” They offered no explanation, implying only that you are a special kind of stupid if you don’t understand that there is some kind of worldwide conspiracy with millions of players whose only goal is to undermine their fragile existence.
I hate to burst their bubble, but nobody really cares that much about those folks other than to use them to attain their own desires.
Meanwhile, the nonbelievers who challenge the thugs find false safety in wrapping themselves in the truth. Even though they may be right, even though they may be righteous, they are fodder for the snipers.
You will notice that those who try to control us through fear almost always do so with raised voices, as if shouting underscores the importance of what they have to say.
It is an intimidating ploy, an attempt at establishing emotional tyranny.
What it really means, however, is that the person doing the shouting has emotional instability issues. They use these unhealthy outbursts as their primary coping mechanism. They use it as a means to gain control, just like playing on a person’s fears.
And it works among a certain peer group, as we have seen by the president’s most ardent supporters. They don’t seek reason, they don’t participate in discussion or engage for the sake of intellectual stimulation. Instead, they resort to rude behavior: name-calling, intimidation, lies, inciting others to acts of violence they are too cowardly to commit.
It reflects a general disrespect for others, an unwillingness to acknowledge the worth of another, a caustic disregard for another’s well-being.
The thing is you can easily see through the intimidation, dispel the fears, and overcome the anxiety of louder voices by simply being better informed.
Read something. Believe it or not, the truth is out there. You may have to search a bit, but it is there.
Be judicious. Don’t just flatly accept everything shoveled your way, whether in the realm of politics, religion, or culture. There is a lot of fiction out there floating around as fact. Don’t take the bait — or in many instances these days, the clickbait.
Be suspicious of everybody and everything. Trust is OK to a certain extent, but verify. As we were taught in journalism school, if your mother says she loves you, get a second source. An exaggeration, of course, but a memorable lesson.
Be courageous. We all want to hang with the cool kids, be part of the clique, run with the pack. But the cool kids, the clique, and the pack aren’t always right. In fact, more often than not they get it pretty mixed up.
To stand up and challenge them means risking a certain chance of being ostracized.
But if we are willing to compromise ourselves just to be part of the gang, we don’t have enough backbone to stand up to the false fears being flung our way.
Peace.
The viewpoints expressed above are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of The Independent.
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