In this video we will examine how fear can be used as a tool to manipulate others, and how those in positions of power, past and present, have effectively used fear to control certain aspects of society.
Humans, especially since the Industrial Revolution, have become increasingly protected from the dangers that our ancestors faced in relation to the natural world. Some of these fears have arisen in response to real threats, but many have been in response to things imagined.
Individuals looking to take advantage of, and manipulate others, have long realized the power of fear. When one is gripped by fear of a threat, real or imagined, their rational and higher cognitive capacities shut down, making them easily manipulable by anyone that promises safety from the threat. Ruling classes for thousands of years have understood the power of intentionally invoking fear in their subjects as a means of social control. Henri Frankfort, in his book the Intellectual Adventure of Ancient Man, noted that between and BC a fear psychosis spread through Ancient Egypt, precipitated by the invasion of foreign rebels hungry for power and conquest.
Initially this fear psychosis was justified by a real threat, yet even when these foreigners were successfully driven far away from Egypt, the ruling powers sought to artificially maintain fear among the population — realizing that a fearful population is easier to control than a fearless one.
And there were forces in Egypt which kept alive this fear psychosis in order to maintain the unified purpose of Egypt. The artificial construction and maintenance of fear in a population by a ruling class has remained pervasive from the time of Ancient Egypt up until the modern day.
While this is a normal human response, it can feel like your amygdala is in overdrive. In the face of fear, you might turn to different behavioral patterns than normal like loading up on toilet paper , Murray says. The way to combat this is to "pull ourselves more into the rational brain," she says. Do that by noticing when you feel nervous or scared, and remind yourself of rational facts you know are true: for example, " There will be enough food.
Seeing other people panic-shopping will make you want to do the same, L. A simple gut check can go a long way if you're not sure if you're being irrational or just following suit.
Shopping in particular is an activity that people tend to turn to when they want to feel in control. By trusting them, we would not die like a great-grandfather who died eating that plant. This way we accumulated knowledge. Tribalism has been an inherent part of the human history. There has always been competition between groups of humans in different ways and with different faces, from brutal wartime nationalism to a strong loyalty to a football team.
Evidence from cultural neuroscience shows that our brains even respond differently at an unconscious level simply to the view of faces from other races or cultures. At a tribal level, people are more emotional and consequently less logical: Fans of both teams pray for their team to win, hoping God will take sides in a game.
On the other hand, we regress to tribalism when afraid. This is an evolutionary advantage that would lead to the group cohesion and help us fight the other tribes to survive. Tribalism is the biological loophole that many politicians have banked on for a long time: tapping into our fears and tribal instincts. The typical pattern is to give the other humans a different label than us, and say they are going to harm us or our resources, and to turn the other group into a concept.
It does not have to necessarily be race or nationality, which are used very often. It can be any real or imaginary difference: liberals, conservatives, Middle Easterners, white men, the right, the left, Muslims, Jews, Christians, Sikhs. This is an evolutionary advantage that would lead to the group cohesion and help us fight the other tribes to survive. Tribalism is the biological loophole that many politicians have banked on for a long time: tapping into our fears and tribal instincts.
The typical pattern is to give the other humans a different label than us, and say they are going to harm us or our resources, and to turn the other group into a concept. It does not have to necessarily be race or nationality, which are used very often. It can be any real or imaginary difference: liberals, conservatives, Middle Easterners, white men, the right, the left, Muslims, Jews, Christians, Sikhs. The list goes on and on. When you look through the scope, you just see a red dot, not a human.
This human tendency is meat to the politicians who want to exploit fear: If you grew up only around people who look like you, only listened to one media outlet and heard from the old uncle that those who look or think differently hate you and are dangerous, the inherent fear and hatred toward those unseen people is an understandable but flawed result.
Because if we spend time with others, talk to them and eat with them, we will learn that they are like us: humans with all the strengths and weaknesses that we possess. Some are strong, some are weak, some are funny, some are dumb, some are nice and some not too nice.
We humans have different functions in the brain, and fear oftentimes bypasses logic. There are several reasons.
One is that logic is slow; fear is fast.
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