The current apparent obsession with terrorism, particularly in the USA, could be a natural progression from the “red scares” of the anti-communist McCarthy era of the 20th Century and the subsequent Cold War, stretches back to 19th Century political scaremongering and has its roots in deliberate campaigns by the capitalist elite, according to a new study published in the International Journal of Human Rights and Constitutional Studies.
Doomsday proclamations seem to have been present throughout history. It might be argued that imminent the plagues, pestilence and destruction associated with armageddon stories fed this for centuries, not least through religious mythology. In the modern era, as visions of hell and damnation ceased to grip the imagination of lay people quite so strongly as they once did, demons and ghosts made way for new threats – alien invaders, epidemic diseases, the coming ice age, global warming and countless others. Then there are those who promote a colourful threat from across the globe one that somehow will extinguish “our” way of life as it invades our homelands and our homes: the reds under the bed, the yellow peril, the bearded enemy with dark skin.
It’s all intrinsically locked into racism and ignorance, of course. Many of the threats facing American society arise not from the outside but from the enemy within, the deranged or psychopathic shooter on a college campus, the home bombmaker with a serious grudge, the agencies that spy on our every move, our every email and the reformers of education who proclaim that evolution is just a theory and that their creation myth should be taught alongside science as a valid perspective on reality.
Now, Geoffrey Skoll of the Criminal Justice Department, Buffalo State College, New York and economist Maximiliano Korstanje of the University of Palermo, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, have built on social analytics work to come to the conclusion that capitalist elites have built on centuries of fear and modern obsessions and an inherent tendency in too many people to xenophobia. For their argument the team makes the significant disconnection between perceived reality and what is actually happening in the world:
“It is irrelevant whether Communist spies threatened US security, or whether crime has increasingly threatened personal security since the 1960s, or whether terrorists have and continue to pose a substantial threat to Americans and their way of life,” they say. “Causal relationships are set aside, for instance, between crime rates, the actual occurrence of crimes, and the burgeoning criminal justice apparatuses such as police and prisons.”
Some researchers, most notably Steven Pinker, have argued that we live in the best of times, not the worst of times, today, he says, humans are less likely to encounter violence and murder than at any time in our past. This may well be true. Moreover, crime rates have indeed fallen, we are more likely to negotiate with former enemies on sharing trade routes and swapping email addresses than ever before. Acts of terrorism certainly occur, but thankfully despite 24/7 media coverage outside the most unstable regions, violence and destruction remain the rare tragedy.
“Persistent fear is easily transferred to irrational objects,” the team says. “The working classes have had residual, and often realistic, anxieties about losing jobs, losing homes, not getting healthcare, and not having sufficient retirement income, to name some of the more prominent. These are not new. The culture of fear does not and cannot neutralise such fears, but it can offer transference objects.”
If the terrorists become the focus of blame for the everyday problems we all face, just as it was the devil in centuries past and the communists after the Second World War, then it is not the capitalist elite who must face up to the complaints consumer advocates nor the politicians to the disgruntled voters. The greater majority of the people can simply vent their anger and frustration on the nameless devil that is the terrorist.
“The culture of fear encourages diffidence and dependency on authorities, just as does over-protective parenting,” the team argues. “Atomised social relations turn the potential for liberation movements such as those from the 1960s into identity politics. Together, the new social relations and the dominant culture of the 21st Century produce a ‘great and powerful Wizard of Oz’ that demands fear and obedience.”
It is perhaps time to pull back the curtain and reveal that “Oz” for what it really is.
“Constructing an American fear culture from red scares to terrorism”, Int. J. Human Rights and Constitutional Studies, 2013, 1, 341-364
Terrorism obsession – a capitalist plot? is a post from: David Bradley's Science Spot
via Science Spot http://sciencespot.co.uk/terrorism-obsession-a-capitalist-plot.html
Doomsday proclamations seem to have been present throughout history. It might be argued that imminent the plagues, pestilence and destruction associated with armageddon stories fed this for centuries, not least through religious mythology. In the modern era, as visions of hell and damnation ceased to grip the imagination of lay people quite so strongly as they once did, demons and ghosts made way for new threats – alien invaders, epidemic diseases, the coming ice age, global warming and countless others. Then there are those who promote a colourful threat from across the globe one that somehow will extinguish “our” way of life as it invades our homelands and our homes: the reds under the bed, the yellow peril, the bearded enemy with dark skin.
It’s all intrinsically locked into racism and ignorance, of course. Many of the threats facing American society arise not from the outside but from the enemy within, the deranged or psychopathic shooter on a college campus, the home bombmaker with a serious grudge, the agencies that spy on our every move, our every email and the reformers of education who proclaim that evolution is just a theory and that their creation myth should be taught alongside science as a valid perspective on reality.
Now, Geoffrey Skoll of the Criminal Justice Department, Buffalo State College, New York and economist Maximiliano Korstanje of the University of Palermo, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, have built on social analytics work to come to the conclusion that capitalist elites have built on centuries of fear and modern obsessions and an inherent tendency in too many people to xenophobia. For their argument the team makes the significant disconnection between perceived reality and what is actually happening in the world:
“It is irrelevant whether Communist spies threatened US security, or whether crime has increasingly threatened personal security since the 1960s, or whether terrorists have and continue to pose a substantial threat to Americans and their way of life,” they say. “Causal relationships are set aside, for instance, between crime rates, the actual occurrence of crimes, and the burgeoning criminal justice apparatuses such as police and prisons.”
Some researchers, most notably Steven Pinker, have argued that we live in the best of times, not the worst of times, today, he says, humans are less likely to encounter violence and murder than at any time in our past. This may well be true. Moreover, crime rates have indeed fallen, we are more likely to negotiate with former enemies on sharing trade routes and swapping email addresses than ever before. Acts of terrorism certainly occur, but thankfully despite 24/7 media coverage outside the most unstable regions, violence and destruction remain the rare tragedy.
“Persistent fear is easily transferred to irrational objects,” the team says. “The working classes have had residual, and often realistic, anxieties about losing jobs, losing homes, not getting healthcare, and not having sufficient retirement income, to name some of the more prominent. These are not new. The culture of fear does not and cannot neutralise such fears, but it can offer transference objects.”
If the terrorists become the focus of blame for the everyday problems we all face, just as it was the devil in centuries past and the communists after the Second World War, then it is not the capitalist elite who must face up to the complaints consumer advocates nor the politicians to the disgruntled voters. The greater majority of the people can simply vent their anger and frustration on the nameless devil that is the terrorist.
“The culture of fear encourages diffidence and dependency on authorities, just as does over-protective parenting,” the team argues. “Atomised social relations turn the potential for liberation movements such as those from the 1960s into identity politics. Together, the new social relations and the dominant culture of the 21st Century produce a ‘great and powerful Wizard of Oz’ that demands fear and obedience.”
It is perhaps time to pull back the curtain and reveal that “Oz” for what it really is.
“Constructing an American fear culture from red scares to terrorism”, Int. J. Human Rights and Constitutional Studies, 2013, 1, 341-364Terrorism obsession – a capitalist plot? is a post from: David Bradley's Science Spot
via Science Spot http://sciencespot.co.uk/terrorism-obsession-a-capitalist-plot.html
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