fear mongering

Even though the Bush administration is now history, its fear-mongering tactics are alive and well. Pushed by none other than Mr. Cheney himself, who takes every opportunity to remind Americans how well the Republicans really did before the Obama landslide rolled over them. Not surprisingly, Mr. Cheney's fear-mongering works as well as it did before. It seems people never learn.

Mr. Cheney is not alone. The health care industry is also reviving their old fear-mongering tactics. Harry and Louise are back to let us know how the government is going to prevent us from accessing our preferred doctor, how we are going to be added to endless waiting lists, and how the bureaucrats are going to make health care decisions for us. Wait a minute? Isn't that already happening? Isn't that what every respectable HMO excels at?

Of course, no amount of reality can remove irrational fears. We all think there were no major terrorist attacks after 9/11. So we are eager to believe that whatever the Bush administration did must be responsible for that. It never occurred to us that terrorists do not have the resources to mount repeated frontal attacks of this magnitude on the same target. Especially not when the element of surprise is lacking. Terrorists did attack the West after 9/11, both in London and Madrid, but in our book, that does not really count.

One cannot help but noticing that fear works very well in America. During the cold war, Americans were more on edge about the Russians invading Western Europe than Western Europeans were. And there are plenty of other examples too.

One reason fear works so well in America is because people are very isolated. They are often displaced, i.e. far removed from the friends and family they grew up with. They are living among strangers, people they hardly know, and people they cannot really count on. Furthermore, they are exposed to a constant barrage of commercials and "breaking news" stories that remove all context, all critical thinking and all common-sense averaging.

Americans are also kept on edge by uncertainty. Most of us have no job security, no health security, none of the basic securities that people in other advanced societies enjoy and that make them less vulnerable to turmoil and less likely to be swayed by ads.

All that is not good, but I suspect some people think it is just the way they like it. It is good for business. People who are on edge spend more and they spend more often. They use more resources, they pursue more paths. They make better consumers.

endless war

George Orwell understood that oppressive governments need wars to keep their populace under control. Wars focus the mind like nothing else. And wars also bring the specter of fear, another great means of crowd control. Fear has been applied with great success in America lately. Ever since 9/11 brought real fear into the hearts and minds of East Coast residents -the effect on the West coast was much less pronounced- our government has done whatever it can to make sure these feelings are kept alive. So effective and enticing is the fear mongering that presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton grabbed it from the Republican playbook and used it in her now famous 3 am ad.

The same 3 am ad that alarm companies use on a regular basis to convince home owners to plunk down hard earned cash, and subscribe to never-ending, but hopelessly unproductive monitoring services. Never mind that most burglaries happen during the day time. People are afraid of the dark, and nowhere more so it seems than in America. That must be one reason why everyone feels so compelled to leave their lights on all the time.

Recent studies have shown that fear works. It works even when our conscious mind dismisses it. Or when we make fun of it. It works because it is of primary importance in survival. Humans are a fairly weak species. Nearly every other species is faster and stronger than we are. A small chimp can easily outdo the most buffed up, steroid pumped body builder. And not by some tiny amount. Chimps routinely generate four to five times as much force as Mr. Universe. And they do it without breaking a sweat. As many drunken college students find out even birds like ducks, geese, or swans can be serious adversaries. A deer can kill an adult human in a heart beat. And so many dogs have been killing people lately that we are all aware of the pitbull factor. Yes, we have reason to be fearful out there.

Unfortunately, the only defense against fear-inducing advertising is to limit your exposure. I know that you will say, it doesn't affect me, I can see through it, I ignore it. I think it is funny. But brain studies show what Madison Avenue knows to be true. It does affect you and very powerfully so. The White House knows too. In these times of economic uncertainty, high gas prices, and a dying American dream, nothing better than to engage in a bit of war dance to keep that brain occupied and focused.

First there was Al Qaeda, then Afghanistan and finally Iraq. Unfortunately, none of these turned out the way we wanted them too. We let Al Quada get away and then the "battle" turned into an endless search for a tall man with a beard wearing a robe. There are plenty of fearful images out there, but a soft-spoken, tall and skinny bearded fellow is not one of them. Even if we know he is very dangerous. This type of rational thinking does nothing to the fear centers in our brain. Neither do beat up, grimy looking fellows like the "9/11 mastermind." They are less scary than good-looking Ted Bundy. What we need here is some good direct and subconscious stimuli. Like the 3 am ad.

Ditto for Afghanistan. It turned out to be a dusty, backward, stone-age patch that nobody cares about. No photo-ops here either. Iraq was fine as long as we had Saddam and some feigned resistance, but once we got rid of him, and nothing changed what more is there to do? The place turned into an endless rioting quagmire. The images on TV look like LA after the Rodney King trial, except a bit more bloody. Poor neighborhoods with burned out cars and foreign looking natives. How is the mighty American military ever going to score here? Not even the machine gun fire can dispel the image of inner city. Neither can John McCain walking around in a bullet proof vest in a place that looks every bit like South Central LA. Shopping?

Desperate for images, we tried Syria and North Korea. North Korea had the "bomb," except it proved to be a dud. It is a poor country and we all know it. Poor countries are the last thing on earth for us to fear. Nothing here either I am afraid. Furthermore, Kim Jung Il is too aloof to be scary to us. He looks so passe, like the Soviet Union in the last century.

Syria also eluded us. Assad is too much of a cold fish to arouse much enthusiasm and Damascus looks too much like the friendly souk where you buy peppers and henna. But Iran is a godsend. Ahmenidjad is a natural enemy. He taunts us, he laughs at us. He displays all the attributes Madison avenue needs to make a successful enemy. And he is endorsed by the Israelis who are also looking for serious distractions. Our friend Olmert too is quite desperate for diversions.

Unfortunately the Europeans are yawning. They can't be roused. Their stance on Iraq proved correct and now they are smug. And that is why our beloved President is out there rallying the troops. Forget about the mortgage crisis, the sluggish economy, the high gas prices. Let's get our European friends to help us out a bit here. We need to unite against a common enemy. We need a coalition of the willing. The willing to pay that is. Because we are bit cash strapped at the moment. So if you have the cash, we have the fear. Let the games begin.

irrational fear

Fear is a very powerful emotion and one that affects everyone, even if they don't want to acknowledge it. Fear is an important driver of human behavior and it is blatantly obvious everywhere. Marketers and politicians exploit it constantly. However, pointing that out is fraught with danger and people often react violently to insinuations or claims that fear drives their behavior. Acknowledging fear is displaying weakness. It is largely a taboo subject.

Fear is a primary driver in suburban development. People move to suburbia because they fear violence and crime. They also fear others who are not like them. Suburbs are often segregated in many ways. Many "require" overt signs of group identity such as manicured lawns. These are cleverly disguised as "rules" and enforced by home-owner associations. Fear lurks behind racism, gay bashing, and other xenophobic behaviors and attitudes. When combined with suppressed anger it is often expressed as deep hatred.

Fear also drives the search for a "good education," and a rather violent reaction to "illegal immigration." It is not so much education -in the sense of learning- that people are after, but conformity and social ranking. The citizens who want a good education may not want the school to teach subversive ideas such as evolution for example. Never mind reality.

The same applies to immigration policies. People fear the poor, especially the poor from different ethnicities. Because they are out to get us, to steal from us. But we don't mind if they clean our house, or tend to our garden. We don't even mind if they watch our kids. As long as they have limited rights and are under control.

Fear is used extensively in politics. After 9-11 it has become very fashionable and very effective to use fear to implement all kinds of unpopular policies. But it is not just limited to merely unpopular. Many rules and laws have been pushed through that people would normally strongly object to. Basic constitutional protections such as habeas corpus that are at the core of a free society have been abolished or rendered ineffective. It is surprising to see how quickly people surrender their personal freedoms in exchange for a vague promise of security.

Fear is also part and parcel of military recruitment. Be all that you can be, delivers the message that you can overcome your fears. You can take action and be strong. This is underscored by the use of music and images of powerful machines and technological gadgetry. The trend has also spilled over into civilian life. There are more military style vehicles on the road now. And even "regular" vehicles have seen an increase in the aggressiveness component. Beefier looks, larger headlights, and more pronounced radiator grilles that look like fangs or teeth. Young people have embraced this phenomenon and military style boots, camouflage, tattoos, and body piercings are more common.

But fear marketing is also invading the home. And it is not just long term favorites like surveillance items and weaponry. Fear is entering the household with novel products that aim to kill invisible germs. It all started rather innocently with disinfectant wipes and cleaning products. Then came clothing, bedding and carpeting with stitched in silver and copper. Anti-bacterials and anti-infectives were added to soaps and deodorants. And now it has moved to major appliances such as steamers, dishwashers, laundry machines, vacuum cleaners and the like.

Most of this fear is irrational. Terrorism kills very few people. The US is in no danger of being overrun or overthrown. No world power has ever met its inevitable demise that way. They usually fall apart from within. Most foreigners are people just like us. They like to get ahead in life, live in peace, and get a good future for their children. The vast majority of people are honest and display a fair amount of altruism. Random violent crime is rather rare, even in big cities. And the military is there to convince smaller countries to give us free or highly discounted access to their goodies such as oil and minerals. Even Alan Greenspan knew that the Iraq war was largely about oil. We don't intervene in other regions -such as Africa- unless they have goodies we want. We certainly prefer a trustworthy puppet dictator over the "wrong democracy." We don't want elections where the "wrong" parties win. But all of that is rather trivial really.

What is not so trivial is our war with parasites such as bacteria and viruses. That is rather fundamental. And our misunderstandings here have serious consequences. The over-use of antibiotics is already creating huge problems. The new rage to disinfect everything can only add fuel to fire. People don't realize that we have a pact with the parasites. We often tolerate and even encourage "good" bacteria to inhabit our bodies. This is not without risk and when we are ill or immune suppressed the friendlies may kill us. But our pact is far better than the alternative. And more realistic too. The good ones keep the bad ones from growing. They deprive them of resources.

This is a far better strategy than attempting the impossible goal of sterilizing everything. Not only is sterilizing prohibitively expensive, it doesn't work. As in all of life, it is often better to strike a deal with the enemy than to sink in a never ending quagmire.

mental gymnastics

The brain is an active problem solving device. It works by creating models of the world and running internal simulations. Non-technical folks often call these "what if" scenarios. But simulation is not limited to such explicit exercises. It is a continuous and ever present condition. If you doubt the reality of this statement, consider the everyday act of telling jokes. When listening to a joke, the audience immediately starts simulating the situation being depicted. To get the joke one not only has to follow along, but is imperative that one jumps ahead and simulates- "imagines"- potential outcomes. Because the punch line of the joke is achieved by suddenly switching direction leading to an unexpected and "funny" outcome. In some cases the same can be achieved by relying on double entendres or other language tricks that lead to incorrect models that collapse, thereby creating a funny situation.

Because the brain is constantly active while the subject is alive, it will go ahead and create problems to solve when none exist. If you carefully observe human behavior you will notice that much time is spent creating problems that can later be solved. This is not just limited to story telling, sudoku, and cross word puzzles. Humans actively create problems for themselves that they then try to solve. Politicians often achieve great status by first creating problems and then attempting to solve them. In some cases the problem may take the form of another human or super human entity.

The process is well illustrated in the Italian movie Desert of the Tartars. In it, a group of soldiers are despatched to a remote outpost at the edge of the desert. Faced with nothing to do, no enemies, no threats, and no possibility of threats, the soldiers quickly go on to create a formidable and evasive enemy.

To do so they rely on another innate ability. The ability to fill out incomplete information. This too is a characteristic of brains and a very useful one that confers great survival benefits. It too is exploited in entertainment, most often in suspense and horror movies. Here we see transient blurry images or hear vague sounds that are incomplete, meaning it is hard to identify the source. However, given the context we quickly interpret these images and see or hear dangerous animals, killers, aliens, or other monsters.

All of it is driven along by our tendency to link events together even if no such link exists in the outside world. It is called spurious associations and humans are experts at this. Much of the work in science is to debunk these misleading connections. It is to take a step back and double check our internal simulations with reality. Reality-checks are grossly underutilized and as a result of this tendency, we spend much of our time solving non-existing problems. But let's go back to the story.

We associate the sounds and the images and complete a picture of the threat. And once that process is finalized we endow the threat with human characteristics, i.e. we start perceiving it as a person or a human-like entity. The entity then has to be humored, appeased, destroyed, or otherwise controlled. To do so, we often perform actions that have little or no consequence. But we insist on rigidly adhering to these lest the world order be upset and dire repercussions ensue.

And so the soldiers, having created an invisible enemy based on vague sightings of dust flying around, and spurious night time sounds, now have a goal in life. They start preparing and training to face their enemy. They conduct raids to find and confront the enemy. And any spurious scrap or mark they see on these raids only serves to reinforce the idea of an enemy that is elusive, but ready to attack.

A somewhat similar tack is followed in Picnic at Hanging Rock and in the more recent movie, The Blair Witch Project.

Because humans are social animals, these types of misinterpretations quickly create a following. Especially when the person who is the source of the misunderstanding is a good story teller or an otherwise charismatic individual. Often the followers need even less evidence to become believers. Many are eager to find additional "proof" to shed their newcomer status and become insiders. They will quickly copy the rituals needed to control "the entity." Social acceptance and peer pressure play an important role here. Once a critical mass is reached, those individuals who question the beliefs will be excluded from group benefits and ostracized. They may be physically expelled from the community in some situations.

It will now become dangerous to challenge the basic premises. Anyone trying to go against the current will nudged into the right direction. If that should fail, sanctions will become increasingly harsh and violent. Humans will not shy away from killing those who threaten their world view. Or deny them access to vital supplies. Or attempt to eradicate them altogether. These tendencies will be greatly exaggerated when resources are limited or ecological disaster is near.