Fear
photo credit: ag2r

I was listening to NPR this morning on the way to work and they were discussing the use of fear as a political tactic. The story was not what I would consider fair and balance as they asserted that only those who oppose health care reform are making use of the tactic, but one of the people being interviewed about why fear is such an effective tool in blocking legislation stated that fear has the effect of causing us to focus on the problem and divert our energies to addressing the cause of our fear. Of course the implication is that we stop being rational when we are motivated by fear.

As I thought about that it really irked me that they paint people as nothing more than animals – it’s all biology. The truth is that while we are prone to act less than rationally when we are consumed by fear we also have a heightened capacity to think clearly in many high-pressure situations. The key to thinking clearly is that we must not let the fear overwhelm us – let the adrenaline enhance our senses without letting go of our capacity to look at the evidence and make deliberate choices.

I admit that fear is an effective tool in public debate and that it rarely produces optimal results (in politics or any other situation) but it is important for us to recognize that fear is a tool used by parties on opposing sides of many issues and that it may not be an act of irrationality that when the people of the United States have focused on the issue of health care reform multiple times in the last century they have always come tot he conclusion that the reform they were being sold was not all it was cracked up to be.