Better Than Sex: Selling Fear For Fun and Profit

This is a version of a paper I wrote for school. Hope it makes you think.

Everyone knows that sex sells. It has been used to sell just about everything imaginable, from cars, cigars, and beer to political aspirations (would Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachman be so successful on the national stage if they weren’t attractive?). As effective as it is though, it can only really be considered, at best, the number two selling tactic, for the simple reason that it lacks the universality of the number one tactic, fear. Not everyone can be motivated by lust. The very young and the very old, at least, are practically immune to it. Everyone, however, is capable of fear. Sex is also very subjective (what trips one persons’ trigger may not do anything for the next person), and therefore much less psychologically contagious than fear. Fears are much more commonly shared across all demographics. Through fear, people can be motivated to act, not only irrationally, but in ways that are counter to their own self-interest, both personally and societally. People with something to sell, whether it is cosmetics, male enhancement products, or national security know this, and are ever ready to make the most of it.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933) once said, “The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself.” Randy Newman, in his song, “A Few Words in Defense of Our Country”, (2008) added, “Now it seems like we’re supposed to be afraid. It’s patriotic in fact, and color coded.” Fear has been used to motivate us since the beginning of time. To keep this fairly short though, I’ll restrict myself to American history. From the time of the Salem Witch trials, through the present, we have never run short of people and things to be afraid of, both nationally (Indians, Yankees, Confederates, Blacks, immigrants, Germans, Japanese, Russians, Cubans, Mexicans, Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Communists, Fascists, hippies, conservatives, liberals, voter fraud, unions, nukes, our own government, etc.), and personally (gays, women’s lib., pedophiles, too many guns, not enough guns, the clergy, serial killers, surveillance, welfare exploitation, ourselves because we’re not thin enough, sexy enough, virile enough, smart enough, or rich enough, and everybody that is not just like us.). That is okay, though, because there is always someone who has the answer, and so we get sold diet pills, masculine enhancements, plastic surgery, reservations, internment camps, backyard bomb shelters, gated communities, home owners’ associations, proposals for voter restrictions, armed guards and metal detectors in schools, computer software, home security systems, drones, wars, and Guantanamo Bay.

Arguably, the biggest beneficiary of our fears is the defense industry. As long ago as 1961, President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned of the dangers posed to our freedoms from the military industrial complex. He stated, “This conjunction of an immense military establishment, and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence – economic, political, even spiritual – is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government …We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes.” This from the man who rode his successes as Allied Supreme Commander in WWII, U.S. Army Chief of Staff, and NATO Supreme Commander into the white house in 1953. In the same speech, he warned of, “The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocation, and the power of money…we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.” In this modern era, the defense, science, and technology fields are so intrinsically intertwined as to pose a double threat to our freedoms and way of life without actually seeming to make us any safer. They never seem to eliminate any of the things that we fear, and often seem to just make things worse. Just as the 1960 U-2 incident caused further strains on U.S.-Soviet relations, can there be any doubt that the current spate of surveillance of foreign leaders has damaged the security of our nation? Have the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq made us any safer?

It is not just about international threats, either. In these days of cyber-espionage, and cyber-wars, anyone with a computer is considered a threat. In his column on data security, Robert Cringely (2013) writes, “Here’s the genius of this new threat: every country, every company, every technically smart individual can be seen as presenting a cyber threat ….The threat of cyber warfare will drive defense and intelligence spending for the next half-century. It will never be conquered, nor do the warriors really even want that to happen since their livelihoods would go away.” It causes concern, not just because of the possible, if not inevitable, violations of our civil rights, but because, face it, surveilling most of us is a complete waste of time and resources. It is hard to imagine anything more fruitless or pointless than listening to the conversations or reading the e-mails of 99 percent of all Americans. We are just not that interesting, let alone threat-ening. Monitoring our internet usage would be far more depressing and disturbing than anything else. One has to wonder how many NSA analysts have been driven to madness by the sheer quantity of pornography and cute kitten videos they are exposed to.

Possibly even more disturbing than government surveillance is commercial surveillance, but we all seem to be okay with that. For the sake of saving a few pennies, we join grocery clubs, fuel clubs, etc., happily swiping away with our loyalty cards, knowing full well that information on our purchases is being stored, monitored and analyzed so that corporations can target us with deals tailored to our every need, want, and desire. The very inefficiency of government provides some degree of comfort. Not so with corporations. If money is speech, as the Supreme Court would have us believe, then there is far more to be learned about us and our lives by what we buy than what we say. We all talk a lot of nonsense, but we spend our money on what matters to us. If information is power, then corporations have the means to exercise far more power over us than the government ever will, and from more cynical and sinister motives. But it is okay with us, because we just saved 5₵ on a gallon of gas.

In these days, when opinions are presented as facts, and propaganda is indistinguishable from news, everyone from advertisers to preachers to pundits are ready, willing, and able to capitalize on our every fear and insecurity. If, for some reason, we are not afraid of something, they are happy to supply us with a multitude of reasons why we should be, as well as some new book, program, product, weapon system or candidate to alleviate our newfound fear.

We pride ourselves on being “The Land of the Free, and the Home of the Brave”, but are we really? If we are so brave, then what are we so afraid of? At what cost do we allow others to pander to, and manipulate, our fears? Maybe what we need to do is teach ourselves to face up to our fears on our own. Take a little time to examine each fear and ask ourselves, “Is this really something I should be afraid of, and if so, is the solution offered worth the cost?” There are lots of scary things out there, and many genuine dangers. There always have been, and there always will be. All we can do is accept that, and face them as they come. It is ironic that for years we have been spouting the mantra, “If we give in to fear, then the terrorists win,” and then we flock to the sellers of terror for protection. We spend 20% of our federal budget on defense, and 3% on transportation infrastructure, 2% on education, and 2% on science and medical research. (Plumer, 2013). We keep getting better and better at killing people, but not so much at taking care of people. Maybe we need to take a long, hard look at our priorities, and ask ourselves if maybe they don’t need some major adjustments. Or maybe we just need to grow up and stop screaming like little girls at a slumber party every time Bill O’Reilly, Glenn Beck, Rachel Maddow, Sarah Palin, or any of the other panic-mongers on either side of the political fence tell us a scary story.

References

Cringely, R. (2013, August). Eisenhower, Snowden, and the military industrial complex.

Retrieved from http://www.cringely.com/2013/08/14/eisenhower-snowden-and-the-military-industrial-complex/

Eisenhower, D. (n.d.). Transcript of President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s Farewell Address

(1961). Retrieved from http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?doc=90&page=

transcript/

Newman, R. (2008). A Few Words in Defense of Our Country. Retrieved from

http://randynewman.com/category/music/albums/

Plumer, B. (2013, January 7). America’s staggering defense budget, in charts.

Washington Post. Retrieved from http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/

wonkblog/wp /2013/01/07/

Roosevelt, F. (n.d.) “Only Thing We Have to Fear Is Fear Itself”: FDR’s First Inaugural