The Path of Least Resistance (Part I)

It’s part of the human condition and instinct to fear that which is new to us or that which we do not understand. It’s perfectly natural and has served us well as a species through thousands of years of evolution. In some cases, fear is still warranted as a first impression/reaction and that which causes fear is not always unreasonable. This is the exception, not the rule. More often than not what we fear as a knee-jerk reaction is unworthy of the serious and taxing condition that is fear. Additionally, we are often coerced or conditioned to fear that which is not worthy of fear, or is only worth paying a tinge of fear to.

There was a brief respite from these tendencies during the scientific revolution, but unfortunately it wasn’t for everyone and wasn’t for very long. The remedy to almost all fears that are exaggerated, irrational, or simply made up is science. Not even scientific proofs or thought processes necessarily but let’s just say calm, collected, reasonable, rational thought. Interest, curiosity, observation, awe – these are what allay fears. Protection is what we are taught to combat fear with, but to protect oneself from what one fears does nothing to rid oneself of said fear.

You can refuse to swim in the ocean, but you’ll still fear being eaten by a shark.
You can drive every time you travel, but you won’t rid yourself of your fear of flying.
You can sleep with the lights on, but you’ll only further your fear of the dark.

These are a couple of tame examples of irrational fears. That does not mean they are without basis in reality, but that they are exaggerated. Every summer we read stories or hear on television about ‘waves of shark attacks’, when in fact the number of shark attacks per year per location is highly predictable and extremely low relative to the number of people that swim in the ocean during the course of a year. It’s just a low-brow, morbidly captivating, easy story to run with.

Similar situation with plane crashes. To hear the national media tell it, you’d think one out of every ten flights ends in a fiery inferno. It’s certainly newsworthy when a plane crashes, but it has the unfortunate side effect of making people skeptical of the fact that plane travel is the safest by far. The next time you read about a plane crash think for a moment about how many successful flights there have been that day alone, let alone since the last plane crash. It’s common to remember the hits and forget the misses, but still illogical.

This type of fear - which is selective, forced, and used purposefully is the most prevalent and the most despicable. Most governments rely on a status quo of a certain amount of fear among the populace so as to avoid loss of power or worse. They’re co-opting a person’s natural inclination towards fear. How many questions can or will a citizen ask if they’re scared out of their wits? Whether they’re scared of being attacked, by terrorists or criminals, or they’re just scared of every race other than their own, it doesn’t matter to those in power. Just as long as you’re scared. We’re much easier to control and abuse when we’re scared. We’re also much easier to exploit for monetary gain, and that’s where the national media comes in. Fears-of-the-day are accentuated at the whim of governments and the media for a litany of reasons with as many motives, and many aren’t without basis is reality, but it’s left up to the average person to distinguish between what’s worth fearing and what’s not. And unfortunately it’s quite clear to me that the average person is not up to that task. What color is the current ‘terrorist activity/attack threat level’? And what purpose, other than to keep us pumped full of a healthy dose of fear - rational or irrational, does this serve exactly? What is the average person supposed to do differently on a ‘yellow’ threat level day than an ‘orange’ exactly? “Honey, be sure to watch the brown people extra close, the government says they’re more likely to terrorize us today!” It’s a croc of shit, disinformation for the purpose of distraction. It’s just easier to be blankly scared than to be concerned and informed.

To be continued . . .