Fear
Fear should be distinguished from anxiety,
fear is related to the specific behaviors of escape and avoidance, whereas anxiety is the result of threats which are perceived to be uncontrollable or unavoidable
Fear can be described using different terms in relation to its varying degrees. Personal fear varies extremely in degree from mild caution to extreme phobia and paranoia. Fear is related to a number of emotional states including worry, anxiety, terror, fright, paranoia, horror, panic, persecution complex and dread.
Varieties
Fear may be a factor within a larger social network, wherein personal fears are synergetically compounded as mass hysteria.
* Paranoia is a term used to describe a psychosis of fear, described as a heightened perception of being persecuted, whether unfounded or otherwise. This degree of fear often indicates that one has changed their normal behavior in radical ways, and may have become extremely compulsive. Sometimes, the result of extreme paranoia is a phobia.
* Distrust, in the context of interpersonal fear, is sometimes explained as the inward feeling of caution, usually focused on a person; representing an unwillingness to trust in someone else. Distrust is not a lack of faith or belief in someone, but a feeling of warning towards someone or something questionable or unknown. For example, one may "distrust" a stranger who acts in a way that is perceived as "odd". Likewise, one may "distrust" the safety of a rusty old bridge across a 100-foot drop.
* Terror refers to a pronounced state of fear - which usually occurs just before the state of horror - when someone becomes overwhelmed with a sense of immediate danger. Also, it can be caused by perceiving a (possibly extreme) phobia. As a consequence, terror overwhelms the person to the point of making irrational choices and displaying atypical behavior.
Fear can also affect the subconscious and unconscious mind, most notably through nightmares.
Causes
Although fear is an innate response, objects of fear can be learned. This has been studied in psychology as fear conditioning, beginning with Watson's Little Albert experiment in 1920. In this study, an 11-month-old boy was conditioned to fear a white rat in the laboratory. In the real world, fear may also be acquired by a traumatic accident. For example, if a child falls into a well and struggles to get out, he or she may develop a fear of wells, enclosed spaces (claustrophobia) or of water (aqua phobia).
Researchers have found that certain fears (for instance, of animals and heights) are much more common than others (for instance, of flowers and clouds). They are also much easier to induce in the laboratory. This phenomenon has been called preparedness. Physiologically, the fear response is linked to activity in the amygdala of the limbic system.
The experience of fear may also be influenced by cultural trends. In the early 20th century, many people feared polio, a disease which cripples the body part it affects, leaving the body part immobilized for the rest of one's life.
Characteristics
Behavioral
In fear, one may go through various emotional stages. A good example of this is the cornered rat, which will try to run away until it is finally cornered by its predator, at which point it will become belligerent and fight back with heavy aggression until it either escapes, or is captured.
The same goes for most animals. Humans can become very intimidated by fear, causing them to go along with another's wishes without regard to their own input. They can also become equally violent and even deadly; it is an instinctive reaction caused by rising adrenaline levels, rather than a consciously thought-out decision. This is why, in many related cases, the death penalty cannot be made in a court of law.
The facial expression of fear includes the following components:
* One's eyes widen (out of anticipation for what will happen next).
* The pupils dilate (to take in more light).
* The upper lip rises.
* The brows draw together.
* Lips stretch horizontally.
Physiological
The physiological effects of fear can be better understood from the perspective of the sympathetic nervous responses (fight-or-flight), as compared to the parasympathetic response, which is a more relaxed state.
* muscles used for physical movement are tightened and primed with oxygen, in preparation for a physical fight-or-flight response.
* perspiration occurs due to blood being shunted from body's viscera to the peripheral parts of the body. Blood that is shunted from the viscera to the rest of the body will transfer, along with oxygen and nutrients, heat, prompting perspiration to cool the body.
* when the stimulus is shocking or abrupt, a common reaction is to cover (or otherwise protect) vulnerable parts of the anatomy, particularly the face and head.
* when a fear stimulus occurs unexpectedly, the victim of the fear response could possibly jump or give a small start.
* the person's heart-rate and heartbeat may quicken.
Fear is the flip-side of anger in the in-built human 'fight or flight' response. Many people feel the effects of fear on a day-to-day basis in the workplace, through the stresses of a modern working environment. This fear has a direct correlation to one's working efficiency, and has been crystallized into a chart through an ongoing linear study in Bristol. The fear-o-meter shows the range of emotions caused by the latent fear which a significant workload and impending deadline can create. While one's ability to work effectively diminishes as the level of fear increases, productivity (on the other hand) increases exponentially as the impending deadline approaches. For example, a student might fail to start an essay until the level of fear reaches 5 or above, choosing to either go out or perform menial tasks until the fear has become sufficiently heightened.
0. Satisfaction
1. Ennui
2. Despondency
3. Anxiety
4. Fear / Vexed
5. Despair / Anger
6. Apathy / Rage
7. Terror / Apoplectic
Neurobiology
The amygdala is a key brain structure in the neurobiology of fear. It is involved in the processing of negative emotions (such as fear and anger). Researchers have observed hyperactivity in the amygdala when patients who were shown threatening faces or confronted with frightening situations. Patients with a more severe social phobia showed a correlation with increased response in the amygdala.[3] Studies have also shown that subjects exposed to images of frightened faces, or faces of people from another race, exhibit increased activity in the amygdala.
The fear response generated by the amygdala can be mitigated by another brain region known as the rostra's anterior cingulate cortex, located in the frontal lobe. In a 2006 study by Columbia University, researchers observed that test subjects experienced less activity in the amygdala when they consciously perceived fearful stimuli than when they unconsciously perceived fearful stimuli. In the former case, they discovered the rostral anterior cingulate cortex activates to dampen activity in amygdala, granting the subjects a degree of emotional control.[4]
Suppression of amygdala activity can also be achieved by pathogens. Rats infected with the toxoplasmosis parasite become less fearful of cats, sometimes even seeking out their urine-marked areas. This behavior often leads to them being eaten by cats; the parasite then reproduces within the body of the cat.[5] There is evidence that the parasite concentrates itself in the amygdala of infected rats.
In religion
Fear of death
Some psychologists have addressed the hypotheses that fear of death may motivate one’s basic religious commitment, and on the other hand, may be allayed by some (but not all) religious orientations, due to the particular religion's assurances about afterlife.[6] The empirical experiments have been equivocal. According to Herman Feifel, those with religious beliefs had more fear of death than the nonreligious; Wendell M. Swenson's experiment showed otherwise and Adolph E. Christ found that there is no relation between the two.[6] According to Richard D. Kahoe and Rebecca Fox Dunn, John Hinton's finding might resolve the differing results: "The ten per cent of the subjects who were most firm in their faith and attended religious services weekly were the least afraid of dying, but those who held a loose religious faith were the most anxious, with the nonreligious being intermediate in death anxiety".[6] Furthermore, a survey made by Richard D. Kahoe and Rebecca Fox Dunn among various Christian denominations showed a positive correlation between fear of death and dogmatic adherence to the religious doctrine. Furthermore, some religious orientations were more effective than others in allaying that fear.
Moral and legal issues
Since fear diminishes freedom of action, contracts entered into through fear may be judged invalid; similarly, fear sometimes excuses one from the application of the law in a particular case. It also excuses one from the penalty attached to an act contrary to the law. The cause of fear is found in either oneself, in a natural cause (intrinsic fear) or in another person (extrinsic fear). Fear may be grave, such for instance as would influence a steadfast person, or it may be slight, such as would affect a person of weak will. In order that fear may be considered grave, certain conditions are requisite: the fear must be grave in itself, and not merely in the estimation of the fearing person; it must be based on a reasonable foundation, and the execution of the threats must be possible and inevitable. Fear, again, is either just or unjust, according to the justness or otherwise of the reasons which lead to the use of fear as a compelling force. Reverential fear is that which may exist between superiors and their subjects. Grave fear diminishes willpower, but cannot be said to totally remove it (except in some exceptional cases). Slight fear (metus levis) is not considered to even diminish the willpower; hence the legal expression "Foolish fear is not a just excuse".
Death from fear
Research conducted at the University of California, San Diego and published in the British Medical Journal, suggests that deaths attributed to heart mortality increase under psychological stress, particularly terror.[7] Otherwise healthy people have been known to be "scared to death" - that is, to suddenly die under extreme fear or emotional trauma. People of all ages have died from fright brought on by everything from earthquakes to amusement-park rides.[8][9]
While the mechanism is not fully understood, it is believed that sudden death can occur from cardiac arrhythmia brought on by a terrifying event. Although the otherwise instinctive flight-or-fight response, which prepares the body for impending danger, is countered by the parasympathetic nervous system when the danger has passed, in certain cases an excessive response can damage the heart enough to kill.. A German study has found that fear can make blood clot and increase the risk of thrombosis
Culture of fear is a term that refers to a perceived prevalence of fear and anxiety in public discourse and relationships, and how this may affect the way people interact with one another as individuals and as democratic agents. Among those who share this perception there are a variety of different claims as to the sources and consequences of the trend they seek to describe.
Constructed fear
Among those tending to argue that a Culture of Fear is being deliberately manufactured might be counted linguist Noam Chomsky, sociologist Barry Glassner, politicians such as Tony Benn, political filmmakers such as Adam Curtis and Michael Moore. Reporters such as Judith Miller are sometimes accused of being involved in the manufacture of a culture of fear. The motives offered for such a deliberate programme of scaremongering vary, but hinge on the potential for increased social control that a mistrustful and mutually fearing population might offer to those in power. In these accounts, fears are carefully and repeatedly created and fed by anyone who wishes to create fear, often through the manipulation of words, facts, news, sources or data, in order to induce certain personal behaviors, justify governmental actions or policies (at home or abroad), keep people consuming, elect demagogic politicians, or distract the public's attention from allegedly more urgent social issues like poverty, social security, unemployment, crime or pollution. Such commentators suggest that we consider a range of cultural processes as deliberate techniques for scaremongering. For example:
* Careful selection and omission of news (some relevant facts are shown and some are not);
* Distortion of statistics or numbers;
* Transformation of single events into social epidemics (Salem witch trials);
* Corruption and distortion of words or terminology according to specific goals;
* Stigmatization of minorities, especially when associated with criminal acts, degrading behaviour or immigration policies (Yellow Peril, Hispanophobia, Islamophobia, Blood Libel and AIDS, which was originally called "GRIDS" for "Gay-Related Immuno-Deficiency Syndrome");
* Oversimplification of complex and multifaceted situations;
* Causal inversion (turning a cause into an effect or vice-versa);
* Outright fabrication of events or claims.
The writer Jennie Bristow believes that the culture of fear that emerged following the 9/11 and the subsequent anthrax attacks were not so much emergent fears but rather top-down manufactured ones by politicians and reflected by an uncritical media. The fears engendered were irrational but allowed patriotism to emerge which eventually led to military adventurism in places not even connected to either 9/11 or the anthrax attacks.
The culture of fear is not a spontaneous reaction by the public to a truly dangerous world. The worldwide anthrax panic sparked by a handful of anthrax-related deaths in America shortly after 9/11 was not caused by a genuine and widespread mortal danger facing US and European citizens. Our propensity to panic about everything from child abductions to mobile phones does not come from the fact that modern life contains more risks than ever before - on the level of everyday reality, the opposite is the case. . . . The culture of fear comes from the top down. It comes from society's leaders, and their inability to lead. . . . The USA was propelled outwards and backwards, to attacking its safe-bet rogue state. In doing so, it revealed its weakness, prompting other nations to pick, parasitically, at America's weakness for their own short-term gains. These antics have been played out to the public, whose disenchantment with politics and immersion in the culture of fear makes them cynical and scared about any attempt by political leaders to exercise anything that looks like power. And the media, rumor-heavy and analysis-lite, has faithfully reflected the depth of confusion that characterizes the current times
Emergent fear
At the other end of the spectrum, a Culture of Fear is presented as a sensibility that emerges from every corner of contemporary society, spontaneously. Frank Furedi, a Professor of Sociology at the University of Kent (UK), who also founded the Revolutionary Communist Party of Great Britain, exemplifies this end of the spectrum with his books, Culture of Fear: Risk-taking and the Morality of Low Expectations (1997) and Politics of Fear: Beyond Left and Right (2005). Furedi's account locates the source of the phenomenon in what he characterizes a 'failure of historical imagination', a symptom of what he identifies as the exhaustion of 20th century systems of political meaning.
It was my experience of the 1995 contraceptive Pill panic that motivated me to write Culture of Fear. I carried out a global study of national reactions to the panic, and it quickly became clear that the differential responses were culturally informed. Some societies, like Britain and Germany, responded in a confused, panic-like fashion - while countries like France, Belgium and Hong Kong adopted a more calm and measured approach.
By Furedi's account, a universal sense of fearfulness pre-exists and underpins the expression of fears by media and politicians. While media and politicians might amplify and exploit this sensibility, their activities are not decisive in its cultural production. Furedi levels the charge at various 'anti-establishment' or 'liberal' voices that they are at least as complicit in the exploitation of fears (ecological catastrophe, for example) as the 'establishment' that is more commonly held to benefit from the culture of fear.
Political context and criticism
Former National Security Advisor's Zbigniew Brzezinski argues that the use of the term War on Terror was intended to generate a culture of fear deliberately because it "obscures reason, intensifies emotions and makes it easier for demagogic politicians to mobilize the public on behalf of the policies they want to pursue".
The writer Victor Klemperer described the Nazis' use of language to create fear in his 1947 book LTI - Lingua Tertii Imperii: The language of the Third Reich: A Philologist's notebook.. George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four describes a government that uses language to control its citizenry, using an invented language known as Newspeak.
The phrase "moral panic" has been used to describe a widespread, irrational scare brought about by a lack of scientific or general education among the public, intrinsic human biases in the assessment of risk, a lack of rational thinking, misinformation, and giving too much weight to rumor.
Fear mongering
Fear mongering (or scaremongering) is the use of fear to leverage the opinions and actions of others towards some end. The object of fear is sometimes exaggerated, and the use of fear mongering is often directed in a manner using repetition, in order to continuously reinforce the intended effects of using this tactic in a self-reinforcing manner, like a vicious circle.
Uses in politics
Fear mongering is often used in a time of war as a political tactic to frighten citizens and influence their political views. Fear mongering in the United States surfaced most prominently during the era of McCarthyism, when the nation first faced the threat of nuclear attack. Since then politicians and pundits alike have realized and utilized the powerful influential impact that fear can have on American voters. Fear of terrorism born from the September 11th attacks has been arguably exploited by incumbent politicians to maintain their control of the U.S. House of Representatives, Senate, and Executive branch of the government.
Campaign advertisements
Probably the best example in American politics is the Daisy television commercial, a famous campaign television advertisement that 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 from a nuclear explosion.
As the firestorm rages, a voice-over from 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."
Uses in popular culture
On August 16, 2006, during the check in between Jon Stewart's and Stephen Colbert's comedy shows, The Daily Show and The Colbert Report respectively, Colbert introduced a fake report on fear mongering.
fear is related to the specific behaviors of escape and avoidance, whereas anxiety is the result of threats which are perceived to be uncontrollable or unavoidable
Fear can be described using different terms in relation to its varying degrees. Personal fear varies extremely in degree from mild caution to extreme phobia and paranoia. Fear is related to a number of emotional states including worry, anxiety, terror, fright, paranoia, horror, panic, persecution complex and dread.
Varieties
Fear may be a factor within a larger social network, wherein personal fears are synergetically compounded as mass hysteria.
* Paranoia is a term used to describe a psychosis of fear, described as a heightened perception of being persecuted, whether unfounded or otherwise. This degree of fear often indicates that one has changed their normal behavior in radical ways, and may have become extremely compulsive. Sometimes, the result of extreme paranoia is a phobia.
* Distrust, in the context of interpersonal fear, is sometimes explained as the inward feeling of caution, usually focused on a person; representing an unwillingness to trust in someone else. Distrust is not a lack of faith or belief in someone, but a feeling of warning towards someone or something questionable or unknown. For example, one may "distrust" a stranger who acts in a way that is perceived as "odd". Likewise, one may "distrust" the safety of a rusty old bridge across a 100-foot drop.
* Terror refers to a pronounced state of fear - which usually occurs just before the state of horror - when someone becomes overwhelmed with a sense of immediate danger. Also, it can be caused by perceiving a (possibly extreme) phobia. As a consequence, terror overwhelms the person to the point of making irrational choices and displaying atypical behavior.
Fear can also affect the subconscious and unconscious mind, most notably through nightmares.
Causes
Although fear is an innate response, objects of fear can be learned. This has been studied in psychology as fear conditioning, beginning with Watson's Little Albert experiment in 1920. In this study, an 11-month-old boy was conditioned to fear a white rat in the laboratory. In the real world, fear may also be acquired by a traumatic accident. For example, if a child falls into a well and struggles to get out, he or she may develop a fear of wells, enclosed spaces (claustrophobia) or of water (aqua phobia).
Researchers have found that certain fears (for instance, of animals and heights) are much more common than others (for instance, of flowers and clouds). They are also much easier to induce in the laboratory. This phenomenon has been called preparedness. Physiologically, the fear response is linked to activity in the amygdala of the limbic system.
The experience of fear may also be influenced by cultural trends. In the early 20th century, many people feared polio, a disease which cripples the body part it affects, leaving the body part immobilized for the rest of one's life.
Characteristics
Behavioral
In fear, one may go through various emotional stages. A good example of this is the cornered rat, which will try to run away until it is finally cornered by its predator, at which point it will become belligerent and fight back with heavy aggression until it either escapes, or is captured.
The same goes for most animals. Humans can become very intimidated by fear, causing them to go along with another's wishes without regard to their own input. They can also become equally violent and even deadly; it is an instinctive reaction caused by rising adrenaline levels, rather than a consciously thought-out decision. This is why, in many related cases, the death penalty cannot be made in a court of law.
The facial expression of fear includes the following components:
* One's eyes widen (out of anticipation for what will happen next).
* The pupils dilate (to take in more light).
* The upper lip rises.
* The brows draw together.
* Lips stretch horizontally.
Physiological
The physiological effects of fear can be better understood from the perspective of the sympathetic nervous responses (fight-or-flight), as compared to the parasympathetic response, which is a more relaxed state.
* muscles used for physical movement are tightened and primed with oxygen, in preparation for a physical fight-or-flight response.
* perspiration occurs due to blood being shunted from body's viscera to the peripheral parts of the body. Blood that is shunted from the viscera to the rest of the body will transfer, along with oxygen and nutrients, heat, prompting perspiration to cool the body.
* when the stimulus is shocking or abrupt, a common reaction is to cover (or otherwise protect) vulnerable parts of the anatomy, particularly the face and head.
* when a fear stimulus occurs unexpectedly, the victim of the fear response could possibly jump or give a small start.
* the person's heart-rate and heartbeat may quicken.
Fear is the flip-side of anger in the in-built human 'fight or flight' response. Many people feel the effects of fear on a day-to-day basis in the workplace, through the stresses of a modern working environment. This fear has a direct correlation to one's working efficiency, and has been crystallized into a chart through an ongoing linear study in Bristol. The fear-o-meter shows the range of emotions caused by the latent fear which a significant workload and impending deadline can create. While one's ability to work effectively diminishes as the level of fear increases, productivity (on the other hand) increases exponentially as the impending deadline approaches. For example, a student might fail to start an essay until the level of fear reaches 5 or above, choosing to either go out or perform menial tasks until the fear has become sufficiently heightened.
0. Satisfaction
1. Ennui
2. Despondency
3. Anxiety
4. Fear / Vexed
5. Despair / Anger
6. Apathy / Rage
7. Terror / Apoplectic
Neurobiology
The amygdala is a key brain structure in the neurobiology of fear. It is involved in the processing of negative emotions (such as fear and anger). Researchers have observed hyperactivity in the amygdala when patients who were shown threatening faces or confronted with frightening situations. Patients with a more severe social phobia showed a correlation with increased response in the amygdala.[3] Studies have also shown that subjects exposed to images of frightened faces, or faces of people from another race, exhibit increased activity in the amygdala.
The fear response generated by the amygdala can be mitigated by another brain region known as the rostra's anterior cingulate cortex, located in the frontal lobe. In a 2006 study by Columbia University, researchers observed that test subjects experienced less activity in the amygdala when they consciously perceived fearful stimuli than when they unconsciously perceived fearful stimuli. In the former case, they discovered the rostral anterior cingulate cortex activates to dampen activity in amygdala, granting the subjects a degree of emotional control.[4]
Suppression of amygdala activity can also be achieved by pathogens. Rats infected with the toxoplasmosis parasite become less fearful of cats, sometimes even seeking out their urine-marked areas. This behavior often leads to them being eaten by cats; the parasite then reproduces within the body of the cat.[5] There is evidence that the parasite concentrates itself in the amygdala of infected rats.
In religion
Fear of death
Some psychologists have addressed the hypotheses that fear of death may motivate one’s basic religious commitment, and on the other hand, may be allayed by some (but not all) religious orientations, due to the particular religion's assurances about afterlife.[6] The empirical experiments have been equivocal. According to Herman Feifel, those with religious beliefs had more fear of death than the nonreligious; Wendell M. Swenson's experiment showed otherwise and Adolph E. Christ found that there is no relation between the two.[6] According to Richard D. Kahoe and Rebecca Fox Dunn, John Hinton's finding might resolve the differing results: "The ten per cent of the subjects who were most firm in their faith and attended religious services weekly were the least afraid of dying, but those who held a loose religious faith were the most anxious, with the nonreligious being intermediate in death anxiety".[6] Furthermore, a survey made by Richard D. Kahoe and Rebecca Fox Dunn among various Christian denominations showed a positive correlation between fear of death and dogmatic adherence to the religious doctrine. Furthermore, some religious orientations were more effective than others in allaying that fear.
Moral and legal issues
Since fear diminishes freedom of action, contracts entered into through fear may be judged invalid; similarly, fear sometimes excuses one from the application of the law in a particular case. It also excuses one from the penalty attached to an act contrary to the law. The cause of fear is found in either oneself, in a natural cause (intrinsic fear) or in another person (extrinsic fear). Fear may be grave, such for instance as would influence a steadfast person, or it may be slight, such as would affect a person of weak will. In order that fear may be considered grave, certain conditions are requisite: the fear must be grave in itself, and not merely in the estimation of the fearing person; it must be based on a reasonable foundation, and the execution of the threats must be possible and inevitable. Fear, again, is either just or unjust, according to the justness or otherwise of the reasons which lead to the use of fear as a compelling force. Reverential fear is that which may exist between superiors and their subjects. Grave fear diminishes willpower, but cannot be said to totally remove it (except in some exceptional cases). Slight fear (metus levis) is not considered to even diminish the willpower; hence the legal expression "Foolish fear is not a just excuse".
Death from fear
Research conducted at the University of California, San Diego and published in the British Medical Journal, suggests that deaths attributed to heart mortality increase under psychological stress, particularly terror.[7] Otherwise healthy people have been known to be "scared to death" - that is, to suddenly die under extreme fear or emotional trauma. People of all ages have died from fright brought on by everything from earthquakes to amusement-park rides.[8][9]
While the mechanism is not fully understood, it is believed that sudden death can occur from cardiac arrhythmia brought on by a terrifying event. Although the otherwise instinctive flight-or-fight response, which prepares the body for impending danger, is countered by the parasympathetic nervous system when the danger has passed, in certain cases an excessive response can damage the heart enough to kill.. A German study has found that fear can make blood clot and increase the risk of thrombosis
Culture of fear is a term that refers to a perceived prevalence of fear and anxiety in public discourse and relationships, and how this may affect the way people interact with one another as individuals and as democratic agents. Among those who share this perception there are a variety of different claims as to the sources and consequences of the trend they seek to describe.
Constructed fear
Among those tending to argue that a Culture of Fear is being deliberately manufactured might be counted linguist Noam Chomsky, sociologist Barry Glassner, politicians such as Tony Benn, political filmmakers such as Adam Curtis and Michael Moore. Reporters such as Judith Miller are sometimes accused of being involved in the manufacture of a culture of fear. The motives offered for such a deliberate programme of scaremongering vary, but hinge on the potential for increased social control that a mistrustful and mutually fearing population might offer to those in power. In these accounts, fears are carefully and repeatedly created and fed by anyone who wishes to create fear, often through the manipulation of words, facts, news, sources or data, in order to induce certain personal behaviors, justify governmental actions or policies (at home or abroad), keep people consuming, elect demagogic politicians, or distract the public's attention from allegedly more urgent social issues like poverty, social security, unemployment, crime or pollution. Such commentators suggest that we consider a range of cultural processes as deliberate techniques for scaremongering. For example:
* Careful selection and omission of news (some relevant facts are shown and some are not);
* Distortion of statistics or numbers;
* Transformation of single events into social epidemics (Salem witch trials);
* Corruption and distortion of words or terminology according to specific goals;
* Stigmatization of minorities, especially when associated with criminal acts, degrading behaviour or immigration policies (Yellow Peril, Hispanophobia, Islamophobia, Blood Libel and AIDS, which was originally called "GRIDS" for "Gay-Related Immuno-Deficiency Syndrome");
* Oversimplification of complex and multifaceted situations;
* Causal inversion (turning a cause into an effect or vice-versa);
* Outright fabrication of events or claims.
The writer Jennie Bristow believes that the culture of fear that emerged following the 9/11 and the subsequent anthrax attacks were not so much emergent fears but rather top-down manufactured ones by politicians and reflected by an uncritical media. The fears engendered were irrational but allowed patriotism to emerge which eventually led to military adventurism in places not even connected to either 9/11 or the anthrax attacks.
The culture of fear is not a spontaneous reaction by the public to a truly dangerous world. The worldwide anthrax panic sparked by a handful of anthrax-related deaths in America shortly after 9/11 was not caused by a genuine and widespread mortal danger facing US and European citizens. Our propensity to panic about everything from child abductions to mobile phones does not come from the fact that modern life contains more risks than ever before - on the level of everyday reality, the opposite is the case. . . . The culture of fear comes from the top down. It comes from society's leaders, and their inability to lead. . . . The USA was propelled outwards and backwards, to attacking its safe-bet rogue state. In doing so, it revealed its weakness, prompting other nations to pick, parasitically, at America's weakness for their own short-term gains. These antics have been played out to the public, whose disenchantment with politics and immersion in the culture of fear makes them cynical and scared about any attempt by political leaders to exercise anything that looks like power. And the media, rumor-heavy and analysis-lite, has faithfully reflected the depth of confusion that characterizes the current times
Emergent fear
At the other end of the spectrum, a Culture of Fear is presented as a sensibility that emerges from every corner of contemporary society, spontaneously. Frank Furedi, a Professor of Sociology at the University of Kent (UK), who also founded the Revolutionary Communist Party of Great Britain, exemplifies this end of the spectrum with his books, Culture of Fear: Risk-taking and the Morality of Low Expectations (1997) and Politics of Fear: Beyond Left and Right (2005). Furedi's account locates the source of the phenomenon in what he characterizes a 'failure of historical imagination', a symptom of what he identifies as the exhaustion of 20th century systems of political meaning.
It was my experience of the 1995 contraceptive Pill panic that motivated me to write Culture of Fear. I carried out a global study of national reactions to the panic, and it quickly became clear that the differential responses were culturally informed. Some societies, like Britain and Germany, responded in a confused, panic-like fashion - while countries like France, Belgium and Hong Kong adopted a more calm and measured approach.
By Furedi's account, a universal sense of fearfulness pre-exists and underpins the expression of fears by media and politicians. While media and politicians might amplify and exploit this sensibility, their activities are not decisive in its cultural production. Furedi levels the charge at various 'anti-establishment' or 'liberal' voices that they are at least as complicit in the exploitation of fears (ecological catastrophe, for example) as the 'establishment' that is more commonly held to benefit from the culture of fear.
Political context and criticism
Former National Security Advisor's Zbigniew Brzezinski argues that the use of the term War on Terror was intended to generate a culture of fear deliberately because it "obscures reason, intensifies emotions and makes it easier for demagogic politicians to mobilize the public on behalf of the policies they want to pursue".
The writer Victor Klemperer described the Nazis' use of language to create fear in his 1947 book LTI - Lingua Tertii Imperii: The language of the Third Reich: A Philologist's notebook.. George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four describes a government that uses language to control its citizenry, using an invented language known as Newspeak.
The phrase "moral panic" has been used to describe a widespread, irrational scare brought about by a lack of scientific or general education among the public, intrinsic human biases in the assessment of risk, a lack of rational thinking, misinformation, and giving too much weight to rumor.
Fear mongering
Fear mongering (or scaremongering) is the use of fear to leverage the opinions and actions of others towards some end. The object of fear is sometimes exaggerated, and the use of fear mongering is often directed in a manner using repetition, in order to continuously reinforce the intended effects of using this tactic in a self-reinforcing manner, like a vicious circle.
Uses in politics
Fear mongering is often used in a time of war as a political tactic to frighten citizens and influence their political views. Fear mongering in the United States surfaced most prominently during the era of McCarthyism, when the nation first faced the threat of nuclear attack. Since then politicians and pundits alike have realized and utilized the powerful influential impact that fear can have on American voters. Fear of terrorism born from the September 11th attacks has been arguably exploited by incumbent politicians to maintain their control of the U.S. House of Representatives, Senate, and Executive branch of the government.
Campaign advertisements
Probably the best example in American politics is the Daisy television commercial, a famous campaign television advertisement that 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 from a nuclear explosion.
As the firestorm rages, a voice-over from 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."
Uses in popular culture
On August 16, 2006, during the check in between Jon Stewart's and Stephen Colbert's comedy shows, The Daily Show and The Colbert Report respectively, Colbert introduced a fake report on fear mongering.
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