Fear

Fear is a feeling or an emotion. When a person has fear, they are afraid or scared. A person who fears something does not want it to happen.
The fear response comes from sensing danger and leads to the fight-or-flight response. In extreme cases of fear (horror and terror) there may be a freeze response or paralysis.

Although the amount of warfare and deaths by human hands are reducing globally, you won’t get that message watching TV or reading the online news.
On the contrary, the media outlets have an agenda. Their goal is to appeal to your fears by inflating extreme cases and making them seem normal and commonplace.
If they didn’t do that, their viewership would plummet.

Society was always controlled by invisible threats or enemies: dangerous demons or viruses, dangerous enemies or terrorists in faraway countries…

Fear industry

… must write about it here

Quotes

Fear kills the fragile soul.

Fear always springs from ignorance.
– Ralph Waldo Emerson, American lecturer, poet, and essayist (1803-1882)

People shouldn’t be afraid of their government. Governments should be afraid of their people.
– Alan Moore, V for Vendetta

“Fear is the mind-killer”
I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.
– Frank Herbert, Dune

He who fears he shall suffer, already suffers what he fears.
– Michel de Montaigne, The Complete Essays

Our fears don’t stop death, they stop life.
– Rickson Gracie

There are more things… likely to frighten us than there are to crush us; we suffer more often in imagination than in reality.
– Seneca, Letters from a Stoic

Fear is not in the habit of speaking truth.
– Publius Cornelius Tacitus

A fear of weakness only strengthens weakness.
– Criss Jami, Salomé: In every inch in every mile

Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.
– Yoda, Star Wars Episode I The Phantom Menace, 1999

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
– H. L. Mencken

There no longer seems to be anything that is really secure… We seem to be obsessed with every conceivable danger… Fear has become a basic characteristic of our entire culture.
– Lars Svendsen, A Philosophy of Fear

You have to understand, most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inert, so hopelessly dependent on the system that they will fight to protect it.
– Morpheus, Matrix

“No one was ever fired for buying IBM” (stay within the accepted zone of safety and comfort)

Work begins when the fear of doing nothing at all finally trumps the terror of doing it badly.

Articles

Fear and Social Control

Posted November 29, 2015
https://academyofideas.com/2015/11/fear-and-social-control
Fear is one of the most powerful human emotions. While highly useful in situations where threat of immediate harm exists, it is the most debilitating and dangerous of emotions when present unnecessarily
Humans, especially since the Industrial Revolution, have become increasingly protected from the dangers that our ancestors faced in relation to the natural world. But as mankind’s fear of nature and the elements has fallen, in its place many other fears have come to fill the void. Some of these fears have arisen in response to real threats, but many have been in response to things imagined.
Repetition is also a well-known and prevalent propaganda technique used to solidify falsehoods and perpetuate fear in the public consciousness.
By repeating specific phrases and warnings, and displaying particular symbols and images over and over through various mediums, those in power are able to paralyze entire populations with a fear psychosis.

Fear psychosis and the cult of safety - Why are people so afraid?

Posted April 2, 2022
https://academyofideas.com/2022/04/fear-psychosis-and-the-cult-of-safety
Today we live longer than ever before. Our chance of dying from war, natural disaster, pandemics, or starvation are at levels our ancestors could only have dreamed of. But given all this security we are more fearful than ever before. From all corners of society there are warnings of potential dangers and imminent disaster.
Life is unpredictable and the world is littered with dangers and threats to both our security and well-being, and so fearing is not unique to modern society. However, in some of the most flourishing civilizations of the past, fear was counterbalanced by hope and by an optimistic belief in the human potential. During the Renaissance and Enlightenment the idea that individuals and communities, through bold and creative action, could ward off dangers and shape the uncertain future, flourished. In Ancient Greece and Rome, courage was held in high regard and so individuals were proactive in the face of risks and daring in the presence of the unknown. "Fortune favours the brave”, according to the Latin proverb.
What is more, the meaning of risk has taken on a largely negative connotation. Up until the latter half of the 20th century, it was common sense that many risks are worth taking.
Instead of being celebrated, today the risk-taker is often castigated as foolish, selfish, and a danger to both himself and others. This negative perception of risk-taking is driven by worst-case thinking.