March 31, 2005
-
OUR STATE OF FEAR
I just got through reading Michael Crichton's latest: STATE OF FEAR.
While the major thrust of this novel is debunking the politically hyped assertions about the impending environmental collapse because of global warming and other miss use of natural resources, its subtext about the dynamics of our crisis-ridden society is very interesting.
Crichton suggests that our society uses fear to keep its citizens loyal and submissive. He points out how in the late nineties, as the cold war ended, suddenly ecology and the environment replaced it as the cause for alarm. For about ten years, until Sept. 11 2001, the environmental doom-sayers held center stage, maintaining the sort of crisis mentality our society has become used to and the world's politicians have learned to exploit. As they have seen themselves supplanted by the Fear of Terrorists they have become more and more aggressive in attempting to maintain their place in the sun.
Crichton's comments about our fear-driven society are interesting and thought provoking.
Looking at social change through this lens leads you to consider how politicians have been encouraging and manipulating us by using our fear of terrorists to gain an ever tighter control over us and make America over in their image: "A Right-wing Christian Fortress Amerika" much like the bad dreams of the protestors of the sixties and seventies.
If Crichton is right, politically the only way to win is to go is negative- because that enhances our fear. Bush used it deftly and very successfully.
