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Fear: the root of prejudice, blame, contempt, hatred, hysteria, phobia & paranoia

colorful fish

When we fear something, we tend not to take initiative to explore it, right? I find it notable how shocked people can be about some presumptions that have been quite normal in other cultures, such as prejudices and hatred and contempt and belligerence.

Consider that it is actually rather simple. If I was 2 years old and terrified of big dogs, would I be eager to go pet one? When I fear something, I tend to resist exploring it, right?
Werewolf little red riding hood

Werewolf little red riding hood (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

We could be at the zoo and looking at the pretty fish in the aquarium near the entrance and everything is going really great until we get near the den of the wolves. Wolves look a lot like big dogs to me. I do not even want to look at them from a distance. Eventually, my parents realize that it is best to just move on to the big cat section.

However, by then, I have already been put on edge by the mere thought of going to see the wolves. Anyway, what were my parents trying to do? Don’t they know the stories about wolves, like the Three Little Pigs and Little Red Riding Hood?
Red Riding Hood by George Frederic Watts

Red Riding Hood by George Frederic Watts (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Now that I am thinking about wolves and big dogs, even a sudden noise can make me upset. I see a little girl that reminds me a little bit of Little Red Riding Hood. She is walking toward the den of wolves. Should I warn her? Doesn’t she realize the danger she is in? How can she be so naive?
baboon

I keep quiet and keep walking. Then we pass near some kind of weird monster that I have never seen. It is a little bit like the Incredible Hulk except brown and hairy. My dad says that it is an ape. I can see for myself that it is clearly a werewolf. I announce to my parents that I hate the zoo and that I do not want to even see a picture of that wolfman, which they keep insisting is an ape called a baboon.

 baboon

The next day, I go to a class. The teacher is concerned about my prejudice against wolves in particular and monsters in general. I interrupt class with violent outbursts about how some little girl at the zoo does not even really matter to me because she wore red and everyone knows that is a stupid thing to do. I say that I do not want to talk about it, then take 4 minutes to explain why I do not want to talk about it. The teacher then recommends that we go visit the authorities about getting some prescription drugs to cure my attention deficit disorder.

Now, the story that I just described may not have happened exactly like that. However, fear and distress not only can lead to prejudice, but to hysteria about the prejudices of other people.
How can innocent children be afraid of a harmless monster trapped in a cage at the zoo? Because the children are simply terrified. They do not need to talk about it and they do not need drugs, though talking about it can trigger more terror and drugs can impair the functioning of their nervous system so as to repress their agitated adrenalin panics.
baboon
How can people be terrified with arachnophobia (which is another word for the fear of having hundreds of spiders crawl all over you while you are sleeping)? Because some people find that terrifying, disgusting, frightening, repulsive, and, in some cases, extremely funny, like when you frighten your uncle with a fake plastic spider and you believe that your uncle really believed that it was a real spider, whether or not he actually knew that it is was the same fake spider that you used to try to scare him four minutes ago.
spider
How can people be terrified of a family member? Because they are terrified (and perhaps ashamed).
How can people be terrified with sexuality or homophobia? Because they are terrified (and perhaps ashamed).
How can people be terrified about abortion? Because they are terrified (and perhaps ashamed).
How can people be terrified of war? Because they are terrified (and perhaps ashamed).
How can be people be terrified about epidemics or famines or pollution or global warming or toxic foods and medicines? Because they are terrified (and perhaps ashamed).
How can people be terrified of a particular group of people that they expect may soon launch a war against them or commit crimes to their detriment? Because they are terrified.
Little Red Riding Hood, Iraq version

Little Red Riding Hood, Iraq version (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

What if the group of people are the local mafia or a foreign drug cartel or communist assassin spies from a foreign country? Then that is the trigger of the terrified hatred.
What if the feared people have unusual skin color or facial features? Then that is the trigger of the terrified hatred. That form of phobia may be called racism.
What if the feared people live in a particular part of town or belong to a particular political group? Then that is the trigger of the terrified hatred.
What if the feared people own a dog or even breed dogs and there is a phobia of big dogs? Then that is the trigger of the terrified hatred.
Every phobia is hysterical. Every hysteria is phobic.
What if the feared people are real estate investors and the government is giving huge tax breaks to them and a huge rescue program to redistribute wealth toward those investors in particular? Well, if someone is fearfully jealous and fearfully belligerent, then it may not take much to trigger fearful hatred.
What if an industry is getting billions of dollars of government contracts and your industry is shrinking due to government cutbacks? Then there may be a frightened hatred of the oil companies or the banks or the weapons manufacturers or the pharmaceutical industry, depending on which one of those industries you personally are most invested in or least invested in.
What if one religious group led by about 829 “insiders” concentrates the control of an enormous amount of wealth in to a tiny 109-acre section of a city within a small country and for hundreds of years ritually installs its authorized agents as local governors or monarchs or over-seers (bishops) throughout it’s patriarchal empire? Then there may be a frightened hatred of the Vatican.
Vatican City
vatican city flag
Flag of Vatican City, or Vatican City State
In Italian, officially “Stato della Città del Vaticano,” is a landlocked sovereign city-state whose territory consists of a walled enclave within the city of Rome, Italy. Wikipedia
Population: 829 (2010)
Area: 109 acres (44 ha)
Currency: Euro
Government: Elective monarchy, Theocracy, Absolute monarchy
Official language: Latin, Italian
So, what I find interesting yet quite simple is that what people fear, they do not actively explore. What people fear most, they may even intensely resist exploring. What people do not explore, they do not learn. What people do not learn, they do not master.
The cultivation of fear is the instrument of the directors of horror films. The cultivation of fear is the instrument of dictators and warlords and monarchs and pirates and empires. The cultivation of fear sells crucifixes and fences and motorcycle helmets and burglar alarms and gas masks and guns and pre-emptive invasions. If not for fear of tax audits and other unfavorable consequences, how many people would hire a tax specialist?
Plea bargains are all coerced. Terms of surrender are all coerced. Treaty contracts are all coerced.
Coercion is at the root of an enormous range of human interaction. Further, the fear of even approaching the topic of coercion may prevent people from… even approaching the topic of coercion!
The fear of fear itself may become something of a religion: the paranoia and hysteria that dismisses all conspiracy theories except the ones presented by the spokespeople of the great empire of coercion. “Be a good boy or else Santa Claus will not love you anymore. Be a good employee or else you will be fired. Say the words of a good American or else you will be shunned and even accused of mental illness. Say the words of a good Christian or else you will be accused of witchcraft or tortured in our Holy Inquisition.”
English: Santa Claus with a little girl Espera...

English: Santa Claus with a little girl Esperanto: Patro Kristnasko kaj malgranda knabino Suomi: Joulupukki ja pieni tyttö (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Of course, we all know that it is only our enemies who use such horrifying methods. Our enemies accuse us of such things, too, but that only proves that they are deceitful, which is of course the absolute worst thing to be, which is why we admit that our country has the most transparent spies and military of any country in human history, with a gloriously perfect record and getting better all the time- well, to the extent that we admit having any spies or military at all, which I can neither confirm nor deny due to the gag order.
However, let’s talk about our enemies and their accusations which border on fundamentalist Santa-like mythology. They are extremely deceptive and antagonistic and untrustworthy, daring to accuse us of conspiracy: baiting them in to invading a country only so that we can then go in an defend that country from our enemies who have unjustly invaded (allegedly using technology and funding that we provided- which is ridiculous as well as impossible as well as a very mean thing to say).
We are liberators, not imperialist conquerors. We are so heroic and generous that we have been liberating some of our colonies for over 100 years. The appreciation of our colonial subjects is well-established by their extremely generous donations of natural resources and human resources, as well as lending us money and borrowing money from us and so on. Their patriotic citizens happily work to satisfy our consumers at rates as high as $15 per day.
un soldiers
If not for the 99% of humanity that earns less than $34,000 per year, how many people around here would be earning pensions and disability benefits of over $34,000 per year? We need to spend more money on extending the lives of our least productive citizens and less money paying $15 an hour to foreigners to make useless fake spiders. America first! In fact, Arizona first! In fact, my zip code is the best and all of you people who live elsewhere just do not understand how much money you should be sending to us for us to help you get in to heaven and things like that. Your taxes are overdue and if we have to invade all of Asia to collect what you people rightfully owe us, then that is exactly what we are going to hire the heroic young men of Europe and Africa to do on our behalf.
un military police
Our enemies (and unfortunately many of the noble savages of our colonies) are racist, arachnophobic haters of endangered species such as wolves (as well as wolfmen). Some of them are even anti-semitic Semites (which would include any Semitic individual or group, such as the Arabs or Hebrews, who bears antagonism or at least fear toward some or all members of another Semitic group, whether that happens to be their wife or those strange people who live across the river or just what).
military police
I hate people who are hateful and prejudiced. I hate people who prioritize or discriminate based on generalizations. I hate everyone including myself, mostly because I am so hateful and ironic and sarcastic and hilarious, which makes everyone including me very jealous.
However, I do not hold it against me that I am Bio-Phobic and Anti-Biotic. Instead, I blame it on my parents, who were human and thus forced me to be a human as well by sheer genetic compulsion, arrogantly failing to ask my permission first. Also, there was that one time that they negligently took me to the zoo.
Actually, no, I think it was that one stupid little girl who is to blame. She was supposed to get scared of the wolfman so that I could rescue her heroically. That was a total disaster. Let’s not even talk about that. If you are open to it though, I would like to take about four minutes now to explain to you why I do not wish to talk about that, especially not to someone like you….
scared cat
flag vatican
wolf
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This entry was posted on June 11, 2012 at 6:49 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

2 Responses to “Fear: the root of prejudice, blame, contempt, hatred, hysteria, phobia & paranoia”

  1. Ben Naga Says:
    June 12, 2012 at 8:37 am | Reply

    Thanks for the pingback. 🙂

  2. reprindle Says:
    June 12, 2012 at 2:09 pm | Reply

    Great pictures.

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