Crisis and Disaster Mindsets - why?

[exnihilo]

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed – and hence clamorous to be led to safety – by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary. – H.L. Mencken

There is this. The state thrives off of worrying people. It needs problems to justify itself as the answer to the problem.

Another institution that thrives off of worry is the news. The more they can worry you the more you tune in or read their content.

Our world, at least in the US and West, is safer and easier than ever before. We have great medicine. Crime, including murder, is far less common than it was in the past. We don’t have to worry about starving to death, which was a real concern for man throughout most of history. But, we worry.

I do think one reason we worry more is we live in a radically individualistic society. We don’t have the bonds of the nuclear family let alone the extended family. We don’t have the bonds of culture and group. There has been a concerted effort to destroy any bonds between people. Even members of the Church have promoted this. As a result we are all isolated individuals who face a collective that is far stronger than us. It is only natural that we would feel greater angst.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

Another institution that thrives off of worry is the news. The more they can worry you the more you tune in or read their content.

I am so very, very tired of the news having to manufacture a crisis every other hour to keep people visiting their websites and social media pages.