Are we living in a culture of fear?

Are we living in a culture of fear? What has happened to our American exceptionalism, our attitudes built on the wild west, rugged individualism, the culture of “we can do anything we put our minds to?” The society that courageously fought Communism, fascism and created a prosperous freedom-loving country to which people clammer to enter and bring their families?

According to psychiatrist and medical-legal expert Dr. Mark McDonald, MD, we have become victims of a “delusional psychosis” because of COVID-19. While there is a real virus, he said Americans are suffering because there has been so much misinformation and exaggeration about the lethality of COVID -19, which has been broadcast by government officials and the ratings-loving media.

McDonald explained that Americans are fearful of the virus which, up until age 70, is over 99% recoverable. If we are over age 70, its recovery rate is still 95%.

But yet we are fearful of going to work. We are afraid to go to church. We are fearful of singing. We are afraid to go outside without a mask which has holes in the fabric 400 to 1000x larger than the virus itself.

We are afraid to celebrate, hug and get too close to our friends and loved ones.

We are afraid to get the vaccine. We are afraid to not get the experimental vaccine, for a virus that is 95 to 99% recoverable and for which we are now told will not keep us from getting COVID-19. We are afraid that if we don’t get the vaccine, life will not get back to “normal” and we won’t be able to work, vacation, or visit with family.

We are afraid to speak our mind. We are afraid to have questioning or dissenting views or we will be shunned or banned by social media. We are afraid the authoritarian unconstitutional practices (as have been ruled by the courts) of our governor will continue and we will lose our God-given civil liberties as well as the right to work and feed our families and not have our businesses shut down.

We have to be careful because a culture of fear (or climate of fear) is the concept that people may incite fear in the general public to achieve political or workplace goals through emotional bias (An emotional bias is a distortion in cognition and decision making due to emotional factors). It was developed as a sociological framework by Frank Furedi[1] and has been more recently popularized by the American sociologist Barry Glassner (Gustave Gilbert (1947) Nuremberg Diary.)

I know this will incite letters next week calling me a conspiracy theorist. That’s ok. Even if it wasn’t by design, I think we need to consider how much fear we are willing to continue to live with and if the cost is worth the outcome.

There are different types of fear, including: primal, irrational, and rational. Fear is important for survival, but we have to be able to distinguish between rational and irrational fear.

People who are afraid are very easy to control. Politicians love a crisis, which they will never allow to go to waste. Communist cultures and countries depend on keeping people in fear in order to control them.

We are not being controlled by our government as much as we are starting to be controlled by each other. It’s virtue signaling and may have little to do with reality. Businesses and corporations may require us to be vaccinated before we travel, or to wear a mask before we enter a store. If we don’t comply, it’s not against any law, we just won’t get service.

Let’s face it. When the virus was first discovered, we didn’t know what we were dealing with, but now we’ve had a year’s worth of data and experiences. (Reference my editorial last week)

McDonald encouraged people to reject fear as unhelpful, unnecessary and, most importantly, not virtuous.

He further encouraged people to protect those who are at risk with rational evidence-based prophylaxis and treatment like Vitamin D, zinc, exercise, sunlight and even possibly hydroxychloroquine. He said it’s not risky; it’s cheap, reduces risk of infection and doesn’t require an IV or hospitalization and is over 90% effective. It reduces risk of infection and risk of complications if one is infected by over 90%. He made the point that it’s more rational to trust a medication that has been proven safe and effective worldwide for 65 years rather than a new medication that has only been around for six months.

He further said healthy people shouldn’t wear masks and isolate themselves. He says kids absolutely shouldn’t be wearing masks, especially during exercise and sports.

He said we need to practice courage, honesty and freedom in our actions as a society and fight against irrational fear. Sometimes we don’t have our freedoms taken from us as much as we just give them away.

President Ronald Reagan said, “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same.”

Even in the Bible, the phrase “fear not” is used at least 80 times. In Phillipians 4:8 it says “Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable – if anything is excellent or praiseworthy – think about such things.”

While fear is necessary, it also can decrease our hope and limit our happiness and wellbeing.

Dr. Caroline Leaf is a cognitive neuroscientist with a PhD in communication pathology specializing in neuropsychology. She is an author who, since the early 1980s, has studied and researched the mind-brain connection. She explained how important it is that we are in the right mind to encourage our mental health rather than mental illness.

She encouraged people to start first thing in the morning thinking about what they are thankful for and the blessings they have instead of their fears, bitterness and disappointments. She is an expert in neuroplasticity and explained that the chemical reactions from your positive thoughts actually change the chemicals in your brain to help create mental health.

I can’t help but think how all this fear we are being encouraged to feel because of a reaction to a virus that is over 95% curable is crippling our culture, our youth and educational system, our economy, our spiritual life, our relationships and our mental health.

Let’s be smart, and then be careful, considerate and not take part in what Dr. McDonald said is “delusional psychosis that has taken over where people are impervious to rational thinking.” Let’s encourage physical health as well as mental health and not reject all fear, but all irrational fear. I pray you are blessed with physical and emotional health this week.

1. Furedi, Frank (1997). The Culture of Fear: Risk-taking and the Morality of Low Expectation. Continuum International Publishing Group.