Fear is the Product
A Warning from Erich Fromm
“Strength is a deterrent, and fear is the product.” –“Minifesto” of the Tesla Cybertruck bomber
“Modern man still is anxious and tempted to surrender his freedom to dictators of all kinds” –Erich Fromm
The rise of the tech oligarchs and their deliberate spreading of misinformation has made fertile ground for radicalization and indoctrination into extreme right-wing (fascist) thought among the populace. In an effort to protect their profligate wealth, the tech gurus have unthrottled their platforms to allow the most insane voices to be amplified.
Today’s announcement by META that they will allow unmoderated political content on their platforms is a death knell for sanity and for liberal democracy across the globe. Twitter has already been turned into another 4chan or Telegram, Signal, GETTR…they are all the same. These are platforms that cater to the violent alt-right fascists that see political violence as the only means to achieve their goals.
The bulk of this misinformation comes directly from the Kremlin. Talking heads such as Tucker Carlson, Tim Pool, Dave Rubin, and Benny Johnson are being paid by Russia to promote divisive, far-right content. The content is not just insane conspiracy theories and lies, it is centered on “fear.” Fear is the number one weapon of authoritarians and terrorists. Look at Putin, he knows exactly what he is doing.
“Like many of us, I have worried about the rising tide of rightwing populism, nationalism and polarisation across the world. Within just a few years, we’ve witnessed the election of Donald Trump in the US, the Brexit decision in the UK, the rise of Matteo Salvini in Italy, Victor Orbán in Hungary, the Freedom party in Austria and the Law and Justice party in Poland. The world’s largest democracy, India, is menaced by a newly virulent nationalism and xenophobia.” -- Authoritarian leaders thrive on fear. We need to help people feel safe. Michele Gelfand: The Guardian
In Erich Fromm’s, Escape From Freedom, he outlines this age-old dilemma with mankind. E.g., surrender to being a cog in a democracy (but never truly ‘free’). Or total surrender to a dictator who promises to make your life ideal. ”Great/MAGA.”
Here we are, a century removed from the world’s worst dictators and the exact same scenarios are playing out before our eyes. Fromm’s famous document outlines the societal problems facing humans in their struggle for liberal democracies versus autocratic regimes that promise the world. Authoritarian leaders thrive on fear.
“The frightened individual seeks for somebody or something to tie his self to; he cannot bear to be his own individual self any longer, and he tries frantically to get rid of it and to feel security again by the elimination of this burden: the self.” ― Erich Fromm, Escape from Freedom
The Unburdening of the Self
Radicalization is performed by appealing to the individual who is not willing to look at their own life. The person who goes inward and plumbs the soul depth of their being is not prone to conspiracy and disinformation.
A healthy individual may have spent years doing this work, or they may have very little inner work to do to achieve a state of self-knowledge.
Look at how many people are still convinced that the Covid pandemic was fabricated as a means of control over society…while the actual pandemic was the social media platforms unleashing mountains of misinformation that people consumed En masse. The fabrication was the information. The reality is millions of people died. That is data.
It does not take many “alternative facts” to radicalize even the most kind-hearted person. The average Joe or Jane that goes to work each day can easily fall prey to conspiracy and within a relatively short amount of time can be regurgitating Russian propaganda verbatim.
I recently spent time with a woman who I know to be an intelligent person, whom I previously thought had some “range.” During the conversation, she mentioned that she listens to Tucker Carlson’s podcast and then proceeds to rattle off one insane conspiracy after the other. She was not quoting facts, just emotional chum that she had consumed. I left feeling quite sad. Someone I previously felt was centered was off kilter…dramatically. She has been radicalized. I tried to inject facts, but her bubble is a force-field that denies all reality.
I don’t think she will be blowing up any car bombs soon, but who knows? What is the progression from deep emotional attachment to lies and propaganda and an act of violence? We saw this unfold on 6 January 2021 with thousands of people who were fed lies took their fractured emotional state to the highest degree.
The Traumatic Consciousness
“The study of trauma shows that you cannot “knock sense” into people by talking to them. Trauma is not an issue of cognition. It’s an issue of disordered biological systems.” -- Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, MD: The Body Keeps The Score
PTSD/CPTSD is a debilitating condition. The illusion of “control” is always just out of grasp. The depression, the panic attacks, the dissociation have their own life force and can come out of nowhere, without warning.
How many of us are walking wounded? There are eight billion of us and it is safe to say that not a single human gets out of this unscathed. For some of us, it’s just a scratch. For others, it is a lifetime of trauma that, unresolved, can manifest in truly ugly ways.
The lack of sane voices today and the sheer level of capitulation by the MSM and corporate structures mirror the movements of the early 20th century. At every level we see the power structures failing to follow Timothy Snyder’s first rule: “Do not obey in advance.”
“When Fascism came into power, most people were unprepared, both theoretically and practically. They were unable to believe that man could exhibit such propensities for evil, such lust for power, such disregard for the rights of the weak, or such yearning for submission. Only a few had been aware of the rumbling of the volcano preceding the outbreak.” ― Erich Fromm, Escape from Freedom
Meaning: Enlightenment
“Enlightenment, a European intellectual movement of the 17th and 18th centuries in which ideas concerning God, reason, nature, and humanity were synthesized into a worldview that gained wide assent in the West and that instigated revolutionary developments in art, philosophy, and politics.” --Britannica
I recently wrote a post and talked about Dr. Wayne Dyer’s documentary: The Shift. In the piece, the “Shift” is defined as “A Shift Toward Meaning.”
We could argue that social media and misinformation has given birth to an anti-Enlightenment Age. The rise of anti-intellectualism, the rejection of reason and the rise of Christian Nationalism have squelched creativity and art and has caused this atomized culture where information can be consumed in micro bites and the majority of it is toxic.
Fromm argues that humans need “Meaning.” This is the same argument Dyer makes in The Shift. It is the basis of Viktor Frankl’s arguments as a prerequisite of mental health.
“Man’s search for meaning may arouse inner tension rather than inner equilibrium. However, precisely such tension is an indispensable prerequisite of mental health.” --Viktor Frankl: Man’s Search For Meaning
“Man does not suffer so much from poverty today as he suffers from the fact that he has become a cog in a large machine, an automaton, that his life has become empty and lost its meaning.” ― Erich Fromm, Escape from Freedom
This is especially true with the younger generations today and more specifically with men/males.
TikTok is not a place to find meaning. Meaning can be found in service to others. This is why many have advocated for some type of Civil Service for young people. A recent report by USA Facts outlined the level of volunteer involvement by Americans by state. Utah wins on both formal in informal volunteers.
Two years of Civil Service would introduce younger generations to service and would add meaning to their lives and may even give birth to a new Enlightenment and help move us away from the current seduction of fascism.
“Service is a powerful tool for spiritual growth, as it allows us to connect with ourselves and the world around us.” --12 Ways of Service and Spiritual Enlightenment
I love the Civil Service for young people idea. The stats by state kind of killed it for me, though.