Their Job Is To Spread Fear

The English physicist Freeman Dyson, one of the great minds of our time, gave an interview at Yale a few years back about his (skeptical) views on anthropogenic global warming. In that interview, he elucidated his belief that those in the climate community who have been warning of the perils of global warming are sincere in their beliefs but suffer from internal biases. He also observes that

the whole livelihood of all these people depends on people being scared

and

they do in a way have a tremendous vested interest in the problem being taken more seriously than it is,

and notes that this isn’t a phenomenon limited only to climate science.

Fear is a powerful motivator. It’s in our DNA to react strongly to threats, real or perceived, and oftentimes to overreact. Imagine a caveman, looking out over a savanna. A blade of grass twitches. It is very probably the wind or a field mouse, but it might, just might, be a lion waiting to eat him. If he dismisses it as “probably nothing,” he’ll be right the vast majority of the time. But, if he reacts, if he considers that a lion stalking him is what’s making the blade of grass twitch, and he turns tail to flee, his survival chances are slightly better than those of his caveman friend who ignores it. Over thousands of years, the instinct gets reinforced, and we end up wired to focus on threats and negatives.

Many people use this basic element of human nature to advance agendas that don’t stand up to reason, logic and critical thinking. Whether in a passing encounter or as part of a concerted effort, playing on our tendency to react with passion to perceived threats is a time-tested tactic. It works especially well when the declared threat is vague or sinister or ill-defined or hard to comprehend or hard to verify. The last, especially, is fertile ground for manipulative fear-mongers, both forward-looking and as justification for past actions. The actions taken by Bush and Obama around the time of the financial crisis of half a decade ago are often defended with “if they didn’t act, things would have been much worse.” Vague, catastrophic in scope, hard-to-impossible to disprove, and involving such enormous complexity that only a tiny fraction of the populace is equipped to even understand the issue, the financial crisis is a perfect place for fear-mongers to ply their craft. Even if you choose to challenge the assertion, you will find that the entire flavor of the debate has been changed. You’re now on the defensive, you have to prove a negative, and you find yourself in the position of defending inaction over action.

Our surviving caveman had a predilection to act rather than not act. Nowadays, people who perceive a problem or a threat think immediately about taking action, rather than assessing whether acting would be better than not acting. Action is itself extolled over inaction, even if the action generates negative results. “Well, at least I tried” is an excuse that we are likely to grant credence to, even if that which was tried was ill-advised from the get-go, or if a bit of contemplation would have strongly favored inaction. Woe be unto him, as well, who argued for inaction and, through a fluke or bad luck or improbable circumstances, turned out to be wrong. It’s very easy to say “you should have done something” even if doing nothing was the logical and sane option.

We even do it to ourselves, with the help of fear mongers. Eat this or take that or do this or drink that, we are told, if you want to be “healthy.” Implying, of course, that if you don’t you miss out on the opportunity to do something positive for yourself and put yourself at risk of being “unhealthy.” Entire industries owe their existence to people’s susceptibility to fear-mongering.

There is the converse, of course, the paralysis that sets upon some when a threat is perceived. This, too, can be exploited by others. A key difference is the purpose of the exploitation. A goon in a bar or a mugger on the street who will intimidate you into inaction seeks an immediate and short-term gain, whereas those who promulgate fear in order to prompt action seek a ceding of longer-term power, authority and money to their control. Global warming (excuse me, climate changeÉ. excuse me, climate disruption) is an existential threat, government must be granted enormous power to fight it, and that power must be granted decades before its deleterious effects start to become apparent. You have doubts? The price of inaction is catastrophic! Apocalyptic! If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem (and, either incredibly ignorant or in the pockets of evil polluters). No one wants to be thought of as being in the pockets of evil polluters, even if they’re not.

Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel recently declared ISIS, the group that’s been rampaging through northern Iraq, as “beyond anything we’ve seen.” Meanwhile, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff stated that ISIS isn’t a direct threat and counseled against air strikes in Syria. Who do you think will get more play? How likely is it that bombs will drop and missiles will fly? In a case of calling for action vs calling for restraint, many will reflexively lean toward action, even if action is sometimes bizarre. Senator John McCain is now counseling for cooperation with Iran to combat ISIS. Didn’t the hawks recently want to bomb Iran into oblivion to end her nuclear program?

Consider a researcher working on global warming. There’s research money that pays his salary. There are journals and conferences where his research is presented. There is his professional reputation. All are subject to intense pressure to support the “scary” conclusions. Who’d continue to pay him if he concluded there was much ado about nothing? Would papers that said everything was overblown be well received by the others who depend on AGW funding for their livelihoods?

The local news is chock-full of fear-mongering. We’ve all heard the news teasers that sound like “Is your refrigerator trying to kill you? Story at 11!” Even if you know the gag, a small part of you will be tempted to find out what they’re talking about. Every major tornado nowadays seems to get national coverage, especially if it offers up juicy photo opportunities of flattened houses, yet we don’t seem to get any news on the big picture, especially the fact that the frequency of major tornadoes has been on the decline since the early 1980s. Every tropical storm gets press, even if the forecasters know it’s never going to come within a thousand miles of land.

Fear sells. Fear works. Fear aims at our lizard brains, our primitive instincts, the hard-wiring that over millennia gave our ancestors a better chance at propagating the species than their brethren had. Too much fear mongering without actual payoff can, however, dampen or burn out our fear response. Too much sky-is-falling doomsaying and people stop responding. Then, when there truly is something to fear, people might not act in their best interests.

Rationality and calm are the proper bulwarks against the fear-mongers. While it’s not always prudent to stop and assess (if someone yells “Gun!” you know I’m hitting the floor), most fear-mongering for personal gain isn’t so immediate. The Chicken Littles know that they have to try to rush others into response before they’ve had a chance to think, so don’t let them. Don’t buy into the fear, at least not before you’ve had a chance to look past the histrionics. If there really is something to fear, you’ll still have time to act.