The swine flu story offers a wonderful illustration of how social mechanisms of fear operate and how they are used for political manipulation. We underestimate these simple and effective mechanisms—perhaps because we consider them natural and legitimate. Fear is not something meaningful to us; we do not distinguish it from other feelings. In other cultures, the situation is different. The Anglo-Saxons, for example, recognized the danger of fear long ago, and the tricks that can be done with it. Let us recall the famous FDR line, later attributed to Thoreau: “we have nothing to fear but fear itself.” In Western pop culture, this theme surfaces constantly—for example, Professor Lupin repeatedly tells Harry Potter that he is glad Potter fears fear itself, and not the object associated with it (Voldemort). One might argue that the “exposure” of fear and constant control over it are necessary elements of a developed society.
But now, on to the subject. Fear is the most ancient feeling, conditioned by the self-preservation instinct. Fear is a kind of mark with which a creature identifies the object threatening it. Fear, being an extremely uncomfortable state, prompts us to get rid of it—either to attack the object of our fear, or to run away, or to hide from it. This is precisely the physiological meaning of fear: it prompts us to act in order to stop feeling it, and thereby achieve a state that, from the standpoint of instincts, is safe.
This, so to speak, is the most ancient, root fear, inherited by us, probably still from our dinosaur ancestors. However, a human is still somewhat more complex than a dinosaur, which is why our fears are more diverse both in intensity and in the degree of their awareness. For our purposes, the following thesis is extremely important: fear, whatever its nature, makes us perceive its source as a priority object; it drives us, if possible, to eliminate that source. One might say that fear paralyzes. It forces us to constantly focus on ourselves at the expense of other kinds of activity.
Of course, fear is necessary for us as individuals. However, very often in human society, fear is a product of unconscious and even conscious manipulation, as a result of which we not only become victims of “fear factories,” donating our time and attention to them, but also make mistakes when we begin to act. This brief note aims to remind us of this circumstance and of the fact that we all need to learn to fear fear itself, and not its, as a rule, illusory sources.
Human society—that is, the cohabitation on one territory of a large number of people and their joint activities—became possible only thanks to overcoming fear, the fear of unfamiliar people. In tribal conditions, where everyone knows each other personally, people can fear each other, but this will be fear caused by the history of relationships between specific individuals. Fear of the unknown, fear of the stranger, forces the “tribal person” to act rather harshly with outsiders.
When, after the discovery of agriculture, people in some parts of the world became too numerous for all of them to be personally acquainted, social institutions arose, one of whose functions was the utilization of the fear of strangers. The development of these institutions can be seen in ancient traditions of hospitality and the sacred duty of the host to protect the guest—traditions irrational from the standpoint of individual practice, but rational “from the standpoint” of society.
Henceforth, strangers did not need to be feared; a familiar or unfamiliar person alike was “under the protection of the law,” and this was known to everyone.
All this, on the one hand, allowed humanity to develop rapidly; on the other, it created new sources of fear and tools for manipulating people. Entire “fear factories” appeared, and this means, first of all, the media. News does not report on all the aircraft that land safely; it reports only on those that had an accident. “Yellow” newspapers, savoring the details of murders, work exactly the same way. Experiencing fear, you will constantly watch the news and buy “yellow” newspapers in order not to lose sight of the source of fear. At the same time, you will not receive any useful information, but, guided by instincts, you will spend time and energy on “tracking” the source of discomfort. Of course, in this sphere of manipulation it is difficult to do anything—information, including the negative kind, is a necessary condition for the existence of our society. The only effective way is to understand what is happening and refuse the consumption of some especially manipulative media, primarily television.
However, another method of using fear is completely conscious. I mean the fear that politicians speculate on. All totalitarian regimes are based on fear. Communism is based on the fear of “capitalists,” Nazism on the fear of other peoples, and so on. By explaining to the “masses” with the help of “theory” who is actually guilty of their troubles, populist politicians attract attention to themselves, impose on society their platform for discussion, and, as a rule, win it. The reason is obvious—it is very difficult to dispute an aggressively imposed opinion that, say, Jews are to blame for everything. To say “Jews are not guilty” means agreeing to a discussion on imposed terms. In a situation of fear-mongering, when people are confident that some group is definitely “to blame for everything,” arguing that the group being offered to them is “not guilty” is useless.
Our story about the flu clearly demonstrates the manipulative power of fear. Politicians received obvious dividends from it. First, the flu became a top topic, which the media eagerly spin and will continue to spin completely voluntarily. Against this background, political discussion within the framework of an election campaign looks secondary. Moreover, panic gives advantages to those politicians who are in power—Tymoshenko and Yushchenko—as “defenders” from the virus and the only authorities whose opinions citizens are interested in in this situation.
The story about the flu also showed how deeply our society is permeated with fear and how dependent it is on it. Government measures—in particular, the destruction of the pharmaceutical business—which, in another country, under the same conditions, would have been subjected to the severest criticism, here find, if not support, then understanding. “Evil pharmaceutical companies,” which, according to our citizens, are certainly interested in raising prices for medicines, must be punished. Our citizens fear pharmaceutical companies more than the absence of medicines in pharmacies.
Ukrainians are very afraid of each other. Pay attention to expressions like “with our people one cannot act differently” and similar ones, with which we describe “others.” Fear means that we are incapable of interacting directly with each other, interacting horizontally, as people do in countries with a developed civil society. Fear forces us in even the most insignificant matter to rely on the state and constantly demand an increase in its intervention in our lives. We are so frightened of each other that we strive in every way to hide behind the state—which, actually, is precisely what the state is achieving.
In general, the circle closes. Either we will finally throw out the television and learn to act together with our neighbors, or our society awaits another totalitarian spasm1.
In 2015 I think a totalitarian spasm is quite possible. So far we are moving quite quickly toward ochlocracy, from which to totalitarianism is just a stone’s throw away. ↩︎