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>I have a much better understanding of historical moral panics and cessions of freedoms. Whereas I used to wonder how some societies ever gave into such pressur

>I have a much better understanding of historical moral panics and cessions of freedoms. Whereas I used to wonder how some societies ever gave into such pressures, I now realize it's not that hard to persuade the average citizen into accepting such things. Me too. I've always wonders what drives people into the arms of fascists and other such overtly unpleasant belief systems and the simple answer is fear. Fear for yourself, your family, and your future will apparently cause people to abandon all sorts of supposedly cherished beliefs. This is why I think here in the UK SAGE's SPI-B group using behavioural psychology to increase the perception of personal threat as part of the anti-coronavirus measures was such a dangerous and short-sighted policy. Using fear might be a convenient way to convince people into doing what you want for a while, but fear also drives people into the welcoming arms of all kinds of nasty ideologies. That cat's out of the bag now too, I suspect using fear to "nudge" the public into doing what the government of the day wants will become a much more common feature of liberal democracies in the future now. We've done a deal with the devil and he always collects in the end.

Clubber 5y ago
>Fear for yourself, your family, and your future will apparently cause people to abandon all sorts of supposedly cherished beliefs. And we (the US) must realize we've been put under a constant state of fear by news / advertisers for the last 30+ years. We don't really even realize that we aren't in a "neutral" mental state because we've been constantly bombarded by fear mongering. The constant fear is "normal" here. It wasn't always like this. This is why the "for the children," is so effective at infringing on our rights, we are afraid for the wellbeing our kids, more so than ourselves. It's nefarious to use our fear for our children to pass controversial legislation. I mean stop to think about how evil that is. What would our country look like if we weren't being constantly being programmed to be afraid?
- BoxOfRain 5y ago
  >It's nefarious to use our fear for our children to pass controversial legislation. I mean stop to think about how evil that is. It's absolutely contemptible, yet as Western societies we spend so much time criticising our neighbours and blaming them for our problems rather than criticising the people amping up the fear on us. If I could change just one thing about society I'd introduce some sort of "immune system" against those who try and use fear to manipulate people, the correct response to fearmongering is contempt towards those responsible for it in my opinion. >What would our country look like if we weren't being constantly being programmed to be afraid? I'm not American, but here in the UK we face exactly the same issue. I think both of our countries would be unrecognisable and probably a lot better than they are today. How much avoidable inequality exists because the fear of Russian-style Bolshevism harmed moderate left-wing policies in the 20th century? How much avoidable authoritarianism would we have if the War on Terror hadn't itself become an intense source of domestic fear in the 21st? Fear is the fountain from which all tyranny and bigotry springs in my opinion. It's not just politics that would be affected, every aspect of society would be changed for the better I think. Maybe that's the form a modern Enlightenment would take, an active rejection of fear and promotion of courage and tolerance for dissent in its place.

Clubber 5y ago

>Fear for yourself, your family, and your future will apparently cause people to abandon all sorts of supposedly cherished beliefs. And we (the US) must realize we've been put under a constant state of fear by news / advertisers for the last 30+ years. We don't really even realize that we aren't in a "neutral" mental state because we've been constantly bombarded by fear mongering. The constant fear is "normal" here. It wasn't always like this. This is why the "for the children," is so effective at infringing on our rights, we are afraid for the wellbeing our kids, more so than ourselves. It's nefarious to use our fear for our children to pass controversial legislation. I mean stop to think about how evil that is. What would our country look like if we weren't being constantly being programmed to be afraid?

BoxOfRain 5y ago
>It's nefarious to use our fear for our children to pass controversial legislation. I mean stop to think about how evil that is. It's absolutely contemptible, yet as Western societies we spend so much time criticising our neighbours and blaming them for our problems rather than criticising the people amping up the fear on us. If I could change just one thing about society I'd introduce some sort of "immune system" against those who try and use fear to manipulate people, the correct response to fearmongering is contempt towards those responsible for it in my opinion. >What would our country look like if we weren't being constantly being programmed to be afraid? I'm not American, but here in the UK we face exactly the same issue. I think both of our countries would be unrecognisable and probably a lot better than they are today. How much avoidable inequality exists because the fear of Russian-style Bolshevism harmed moderate left-wing policies in the 20th century? How much avoidable authoritarianism would we have if the War on Terror hadn't itself become an intense source of domestic fear in the 21st? Fear is the fountain from which all tyranny and bigotry springs in my opinion. It's not just politics that would be affected, every aspect of society would be changed for the better I think. Maybe that's the form a modern Enlightenment would take, an active rejection of fear and promotion of courage and tolerance for dissent in its place.