THE RETHORIC OF FEAR

Today against humanity is a super- rational system of

economic classification and prioritization; that are the global

markets and their laws. The average man is convinced that he

can not deviate from this determinism nor to claim control or

mitigate their will, because they are omnipotent, as

measurements and statistics show and the economists agree.

 

The invisible omnipotent power  exercises its absolute power over the individual who experiences with anxiety his own “smallness” and his inability to resist them it.

Thus a common way of thinking is formed that is no differentiated and is requiring nothing more or special of himself beyond what the media,  mass hysteria and fear of economic annihilation dictate.  

 “There is no alternative” is the phrase Thatcher often repeated with reference to economic liberalism. It can be taken as symbolic of the language of power or the rhetorics of oppressive persuasion, more generally.

We are told that there is no alternative for the unemployment, the poverty, the marginalization of segments of population the collapse of health and welfare system, the overwhelming  deterioration in the every day  life of individuals.

 Fear is stirred up and utilised to produce obedience to these demands, presented as fundamental and thus overriding concerns for human rights. Τhe culture of fear restricts democracy and impel totalitarianism.

Rhetorics of power employ figures of speech which aim to conceal, distort or even reverse meanings and associations. It shapes people’s ideology by totalising and impeding freedom of thought. Pervasive totalitarian elements stifle the imagination. When ideology theorizes and legitimizes social relations characterized by domination, exploitation and injustice, communication is systematically distorted in processes of destruction or alteration of meaning (Sloan, 1996). Ideologies literally lead to false consciousness, as  Lukács, G. (1971) defines it  and may replace clinical symptoms. The bad thing is not that dominant ideologies just label thoughts as forbidden , but that they render one unable to think or imagine.

Thus a mass-human is formed without creative and critical abilities, and with the only goal -consciously or unconsciously- from ruled to become ruler.

In the fears of annihilation, the archaic ego tends to fragment under anxiety.

Melanie Klein argues in her paper the Emotional Life of the Infant (1952) That when archaic fears prevail, psychic apparatus regress in earliest forms of organization of the defences in which good and bad are separated. The good is introjected and idealised, the bad is expelled, and is projected into something, or someone else – the bad object.  This projected material is disguised as a threat from the other and prosecuting fantasies.

 

References

Klein, M (1952). Some Theoretical Conclusions Regarding the Emotional Life of the Infant. In                         (1993) Envy and Gratitude and Other Works 1946-1963. London: Karnac Books. pp. 61-93.

Lukács, G. (1971) History and class consciousness. London: Merlin Press           

Sloan Tod 1996 Damaged Life The Crisis of the Modern Psyche Chapter 7 The destruction of meaning  Routledge by Routledge New York, , London