The Fear Spike

How to scare people into submission

The symptoms are a peculiar mix. They include sluggishness, a general malaise, depression, and an inability to focus.

The Economist, July 24, 2021

The Economist was commenting on the global economy, not my or anyone’s mental state but it seemed like an apt description of how many people are feeling at the supposed wind down of the Covid 19 Pandemic. Also known as ‘Freedom Day’ in Britain before it became a wet, squibby, not-so-free after all day. After 18 months of relentless fear mongering, we’re not just afraid of the virus— many of us are worried sick about the loss of our freedoms via that other virus— the fear virus.

This mutant exceeds that of the Delta variant and is now so pervasively commonplace that even when there’s good news, as when cases are dropping in Britain, the experts and the media make it sound alarming. Professor Stephen Griffin, a virologist at the University of Leeds, looking perplexed and worried, was wondering what on earth was happening with these sudden drops in cases while the lockdown had been lifted. How could that be? He trolled through some possibilities, but it was clearly dreadful news and even Coleen Christie, the CTV anchor, appeared to be genuinely stricken. That was on July 28th, on Canada’s “most watched” TV News station.

You may think that asking why we’re in an epidemic of fear is silly; it’s the Covid virus, stupid. Well, not really. It is an unprecedented and highly successful propaganda campaign to hypnotize us all with fear of the virus. How often have we been told that we’re fighting ‘a war’ against Covid-19? If so, then we might want to recall that Churchill himself said, 'in war the truth must be surrounded by a bodyguard of lies'. And it was none other than Goebbels who thought that it didn’t matter what kind of government you had, all you needed to do was to convince people that they are under attack and then you can do what you like with them. Prophetic words. 

It reminds one of the famous FDR quote uttered in March 1933: “So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is...fear itself — nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.”

But fear and anxiety, is our ‘new normal’, so we should get used to it if we aren’t already, on an unconscious level. Even the Centre for Disease Control thinks that this anxious state is the third highest risk factor for dying of Covid 19. In other words, making people fearful is a killer. I’m more inclined to push against our new, illiberal normal than most, but I am far from immune to the general malaise. Every time I see young, healthy families with everyone, even the baby, wearing masks outside though it’s 35C in the shade, I feel like shouting at them what are you thinking?? Which is a good question because it all comes down to that. But nobody has time to think much, just getting your head around all the endless new infection numbers, always given without any context, and the serious questions that bedevil the Covid ‘discussion’, the vaccination rates, why vaccines actually do not stop you getting the disease, and why being obese is such a life-threatening issue—I mean, who can keep up? You can’t blame people for cowering in fear behind masks, even when they can barely breathe. I am firmly convinced that the lack of oxygen behind a mask impairs your ability to think. Or to breathe normally. And that they have little if any effect on the ‘transmission’ of virus. And have you noticed that nobody is smiling while wearing a mask? But just try going against the mask mandates; it’s not pleasant, I have tried it. 

The signs of fear infesting everything and everybody in public life is enough to make me believe that we’re all headed for a new, improved version of the DDR, the old Deutsche Demokratische Republik, noted mostly for its efficient organization of citizens spying on each other, the uniform drabness of life, and the universal fear of the thought police. Fortunately, I’ve never lived there, but once upon a time, I spent one week with two dozen seniors from the former DDR. They made a lasting impression on me.

This was back in the nineties, when I was a Tour Guide. Because I speak fluent German, I landed a prize gig: a week of herding a bunch of old, former East Germans around the approved tourist traps in BC, including Whistler and Banff. Unfortunately, after one day on the bus together, we already, oh let’s be nice, disliked each other. 

At first, it was just the normal human tendency to make snap judgments about someone you just met. They struck me as a grim looking bunch of judgmental know-it-alls, and I struck them as somebody who didn’t know what she was doing because I had to look up the names of birds in the Rockies. Oh, the shame! I was clearly a bird brain.

They had no shame either; they thought it was fine to eat a huge and expensive breakfast at the swanky Whistler hotel even though it wasn’t on the list. Explaining the economic facts of life to this bunch was, shall we say, a downer. They were incensed, blamed the messenger, and in the end a couple of them complained about my bad service to the powers above. Being victims was one of their favourite things, and I had victimized them.

Anyway, what has the DDR and my short career as a tourist guide have to do with now? Because this is who you end up being if you live under a regime that runs things by exerting fear. Which, I am sorry to say, is what most western governments are working very diligently at becoming. Boris is best at this game, but our Prime Minister, he of the godly hair and uber woke sensibilities, is working hard to catch up. He has yet to declare an official ‘Freedom Day’ but give him time. As for our Yankee friends, they’re always up for a freedom fight, which is why I love them, warts and all.

And because governments succeeded beyond their wildest dreams in scaring a goodly part of their citizens with bogus ‘infection’ numbers, confusing rules, and endless moving of ill understood medical goalposts, many have forgotten how to be rational. Just look at France, home of increasingly despotic rules that prove Macron has finally lost it. His citizens have, too. They, along with Australians and Americans, are on the street fighting for liberty, equality, fraternity. But their governments are worried sick; they have fallen for their own fear propaganda. What if some of the decisions taken last year now turned out to be wrong? Can’t have that, must stick to our guns, even if they are running out of bullets.

As for me, I'll have to channel my inner Patrick Henry and say, “Give me liberty or give me death.” You might think this position a tad extreme, but I trust you get my point. Because if there is one thing I do not want is to live in the DDR during the final years of my life. I didn’t come to Canada as a teenager only to have this nightmarish nanny state catch up with me and ruin my eighties. If I must choose between safety and liberty, I choose liberty every time. At the moment, most of my fellow citizens, the Media and certainly the political class, have opted for safety above all. Oh, we’ll try liberty again when things calm down, or masks are a small price to pay for being safe, and best of all do you really want to kill your granny?

Since I am the granny here, I want it on the record that making the young pay for my so-called safety is an insult. Allow me please to be responsible for me. I’ve been making a hash of it for 80 years; don’t make me stop now. Seriously, I don’t want any part in spoiling young lives; let them be young and carefree. Because you know what? You’re only young once and it doesn’t last long. Poets know this, and the only thing left is to resort to poetry.  

In To His Coy Mistress, Andrew Marvell pointed out that the only really safe place is the grave:

The grave’s a fine and private place,

But none, I think, do there embrace.

Now therefore, while the youthful hue

Sits on thy skin like morning dew,

And while thy willing soul transpires

At every pore with instant fires,

Now let us sport us while we may

Marvell put his poetic finger on how time is pressing, how we must seize the day before we die. And yes, embrace! Love is supposed to be a powerful antidote to fear, but it is shameful to recall that at the height of collective Covid hysteria in 2020, it was verboten to hold the hands of our dying loved ones. And people went along with this; nobody went into the street protesting over this grotesque, heartless, loveless, and above all needless sacrifice. And know this: many of the elderly died from loneliness; not Covid itself. When you’re in your nineties, the only thing keeping you alive are regular visits from relatives. If you take that away, you are killing granny. And we did do that, all in the name of safety. 

That’s what fear-based rules look like.

So how safe do we all want to be? What price are we willing to pay? That’s the question. How much are we willing to sacrifice for a dubious safety always just out of reach? An arcane science called risk assessment, practiced by mathematicians, tries to figure this one out. But I’ll bet that behind closed doors, our political ‘leaders’ are observing in hushed tones that it was surprisingly easy to browbeat people into submission. No math needed. So naturally, they will continue to do so with the full support of the scared electorate, alas.

But here’s the thing: nobody in North America has ever known what it’s like to live under a dictatorship. How would they even recognize it?? They don’t know what it looks like, what it feels like, what it is. And besides, this is a digital version nobody in the West has seen before. Digital surveillance works great; just ask the Chinese, they have already perfected it. The most powerful tool in the hands of the state and the corporation ever known. And lucky for us, they are cooperating in keeping us all very, very safe indeed. 

Can we be blamed for welcoming it into our homes because we are afraid? As the fear virus continues to gain strength through constant mutation, we won’t even recognize it. And we might agree to anything to make it go away. As they say in India, whattodo?

I have an idea:

The only proven, effective and long-lasting vaccine against Fear is Courage. Also known as balls or cojones, we urgently need to grow some big ones. Go all in, all out, give it our best shot. If we fail to do that, welcome to living in a digital, upmarket version of the old, oppressive, and decidedly unfree DDR. And prove Goebbels, Churchill and FDR right, once and for all.