The Plague of Fear

A significant problem with historians and social studies teachers is that we keep drawing parallels. Mankind is remarkably more prone to making the same mistake twice [or sometimes more often] than coming up with a solution that is truly novel. The trial and error process seems to be the preferred method of learning, instead of creative reflection and innovation. Today the world faces an economic crisis not seen for almost seven decades, i.e. the lifespan of most people alive today. There are many causes for the economic decline; it derives from a constellation of economic forces and deliberate venality and corruption. Looking to the future is an imperative if the world is to retain hope for a recovery from the devastating consequences of such wayward behaviors. Looking to the past may provide some ideas for corrective measures or at least provider advice regarding mistakes to avoid repeating.

During the Dark Ages, the Bubonic Plague or “Black Death” swept across the Mediterranean Sea areas and ultimately killed nearly half the population of the Byzantine Empire and Europe. The terrible disease unapologetically laid waste to one of the more advanced civilizations the world had seen. Beyond the horror of the disease itself, the Plague had far reaching social and political consequences. The fear of interacting with other people amplified the impact of the debilitating physical damage to society. Simply put, people learned to live with a low level mass hysteria and paranoia that inhibited social interaction.

Obviously, when communication and interaction with other people slows on a mass scale, the commerce dependent upon such interactions also slows and economic activity in general declines. History tells us that the greatest advances in science, technology and the arts have occurred in societies that fostered open communication and social interaction. The open exchange of information and ideas has generated the Pax Romana, the Golden Age of Islam, the Glory of Timbuktu, the European Renaissance and subsequent creative surges. In contrast, the Dark Ages, the Inquisition, the Third Reich, the Joseph McCarthy “Red Scare” campaign and other eras that emphasized distrust, sanctioned persecution and that fed upon social isolation and alienation have been steps backward.

What then can such history lessons teach us about the current status of civilization? Which model have we been trending toward, and what has the effect of that trend brought us? While not nearly as severe as the examples cited, it is reasonable to suggest that the general blanket of fear and alienation that has covered the globe is taking society in the direction of isolationism and distrust resembling the repressive regimes. The resulting impact would not likely to be salutary and current troubles may not be entirely coincidental.

The attack on the World Trade Center was a tragic event that shook the consciousness of the world and caused profound changes in the world outlook many US citizens held. Yet for all its destructive force, it was only an incident. It was not something that could have been characterized as a sustained invasion or revolutionary rebellion. The attack was a criminal and cowardly terrorist act, but it was the reaction to that attack that has shaped the global psychological war we find ourselves in today. The Bush opportunistic decision to concoct a conspiracy of Iraqi involvement to justify an illegitimate war of choice for purposes of regime change turned an isolated criminal act into a global “war on terror.” There have been other terrorist attacks that have not yielded such expansive and attenuated reactions.

With the call for and mass marketing of the “war on terror” the character of society in the United States has changed dramatically. Like the sense of fear and distrust that arose from the Black Death, each one of us and each of our neighbors have been infected with a sense of suspicion and distrust. Every person is presumed “suspect” unless and until he or she can prove that no terrorist or terrorist sympathizer beliefs are harbored. People that we would heretofore have felt no serious impulse to fear are now initially suspect. We might even cast suspicion on people that we thought we knew. We are constantly bombarded by messages that advise us not to accept anything from a “stranger” and to keep watch for any “suspicious activities” by anyone we encounter.

Immediate and obvious effects such as the extensive delays in transportation and subsequent restriction of free travel are caused by “security procedures” intended to ferret out potential terrorists within our midst. The presumptive mindset is that there must be a terrorist lurking somewhere close by. This collective mindset can have an incremental and cumulative impact that is not obvious when we focus on individual interactions. Much like individual cars entering a major freeway, the specific event is not seemingly significant, yet the cumulative effect can stall traffic and immobilize a city.

Similarly, the cautionary messages we hear constantly along with sensationalistic headlines about events of actual and “suspected” terrorism tend to inhibit free speech and communication in an aggregate way. Less travel because of the inconveniences of security procedures and latent fear of interaction with “strangers” in an environment that we now consider “unsafe” can retard the exchange of communication and ideas. We constantly hear warnings in airports and train stations that even joking about the issue of security or criticism of “security” procedures can lead to arrest. This indoctrination can have a dampening effect upon open communication and free speech. When free speech, exchange of ideas and the ability to express critical thought are suppressed, the potential for creative advances is reduced.

This “plague of fear” is an insidious problem that has been injected into the psyche of society. The cure for the condition is more complex and troublesome than the initiation of the malady. How does one effectively tell people to stop being afraid? Pandora’s Box, once opened, is not easily reclosed and the evils unleashed cannot be put back into the box. Even the message to stop being afraid, when combined with the suspicious attitude fostered by the climate of fear, is likely to be viewed with suspicion and distrust. Are they just trying to lull us into a false sense of complacency? Or there might be a lack of confidence in the security officials and agencies. After all, if the World Trade Center attack was an intelligence and law enforcement failure, why believe that these same officials are now more competent?

Yet if the direction of society is to be turned round, a way must be found to change this negativistic “groupthink” that has been cultivated. Some catalyst of hope and confidence in the basic positive traits of humanity has to be found and unleashed to counter the isolationism and distrust. Unfortunately, the fear and the related threat are not entirely psychological, thought the psychological component is the major debilitating factor. By demonizing certain groups unfairly as a result of stereotyping, enemies have been created that may well not have existed in the past. Persons who may have felt antipathy toward the US government and possibly its citizens, but only in the sense of disposition, may have been driven to action by insults, outrages and persecution generated by the Bush declaration of a crusade against “terror” which has morphed into a code for Islam. There is a psychological truism that treating a person as an enemy can provoke the person to behave like an enemy in response.

So the resolution will have to combine methods of dispelling fear and a cessation of unjustified provocation that tends to create the forces we fear. We need to abandon groundless fears, and stop creating the enemies that provide grounds for legitimate fear. It took considerable time for the general public to let go of the cycle of fear connected with the Cold War. The current cancerous Plague of Fear will be more difficult to eliminate. Given the deleterious effects of this conditioned thinking on society and the economy, the greatest thing we really have to fear is NOT finding a solution to the problem.