An Examination of the Motives behind Fear Mongering
I’ve been tripping out lately on all the fear-mongering and paranoia that has been percolating up on the internet and elsewhere. It’s easy enough to disprove a lot of the whacked out nonsense you hear, but ultimately it had me asking the question: Why?
Why are there people out there who are hell-bent on spreading fear and generating an climate of distrust and paranoia? Well I think some people probably do it just for kicks, for the ego stroke, for the challenge of writing a story that becomes accepted by a segment of the population. I’m a writer of fiction myself. I’ve made false documentaries; I’ve published phony news stories. My work is generally tongue in cheek and, even if the falsities are not detected, more of a goof than a nefarious tool of chaos. But still, I can understand the mentality of the creator of fiction who gets their rocks off by spreading falsehoods. It’s fun and satisfying to write a piece that is constructed well enough to be believable.
But there is a more pragmatic motive behind some of the misleading information out there: loyalty. If you monger in fear, and paint yourself as the shining ray of truth in a sea of lies, and if you do it well enough, you will eventually attract an audience of people who trust you, and only you.
This loyalty can be used for a variety of different ends. If you are the host of a radio program that purports to tell its audience the truth behind conspiracies and weird phenomenon, that loyalty manifests itself into an audience that boosts your ratings, and allows you to sell advertising to your sponsors.
If you are a self-proclaimed health guru who exposes to your audience the schemes and cynicism behind modern health care, you can use the loyalty of your audience to sell health supplements and books.
If you are a government, you can use fear of insidious enemies lurking in the shadows to foster loyalty to a police state, all in the name of “security.”
The problem with loyalty is that it comes at the expense of freedom. You trade your free will when you pledge your allegiance to a figure or cause. You lost your rights when you give into fear. Not just your government guaranteed rights, but your ingrained human rights – your right to be in harmony, to be at peace, to be happy. Fear destroys those rights.
The truth will set you free – because the truth is the truth. It is not disputable, it only is. Seek the truth and you need pledge no other fealty.
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