Fear has always been an intriguing phenomenon to me.
No matter how many times I’ve been faced with it I’ve always found myself thinking back on it and working to block it out of my mind.
I understand very well that we’re all human and it’s totally normal to be afraid at certain times during our lives, but I think it’s vital and important to understand there’s a huge difference between being caught off guard with something that can make us afraid in the moment rather than allowing fear to grip us daily. If you allow fear to grip you to the point you’re living in fear then this will guide your decisions as you try to navigate the journey of life. To make decisions out of fear is not a healthy way to live.
After all, we’re living in a Fourth Turning in history right now and like any Fourth Turning things can be very concerning when you take the time to examine all of the things that are going wrong and could go wrong with our country and by extension with the world at large. If you’re not familiar with the Fourth Turning concept please make sure to reference my article here on my Substack to learn more.
So what’s the reality?
When you look at the news cycle you can see that you’re going to have to be dealing with inflation, high gas prices, a housing market bubble (and crash), potential World War III, the elimination of free speech, and the erosion of your individual sovereignty.
These are all issues that are part of OUR reality. Whether you have previously read this blog or listened to this podcast and disagreed with my perspective there’s no disputing the list of those very concerning and very serious realities that I just outlined.
It’s easy to see how anyone could read that list of problems while possibly experiencing a chill down the back of their spine. In fact, I wouldn’t fault you for it if you did.
However, it’s important to recognize the severity of a situation while not allowing the concerning nature of the situation to completely paralyze you. This is where the rubber meets the road when it comes to self mastery and it’s also an essential element to your survival and will prevent you from falling victim to a situation by allowing the paralysis from fear to keep you from exercising your ability of strategic action, or personal human agency.
Now I know it’s Halloween and I’m not trying to paint a doom and gloom picture here. In fact, I want to discuss something that should be very important to you when examining the realities of this Fourth Turning without allowing yourself to be paralyzed by it, but before I do I want to point to how this cultural issue of fear has infected our society.
Fear Is A Control Mechanism
“You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that is an opportunity to do things that you think you could not do before.”—Rahm Emanuel
This quote, particularly in this context, came from former Obama White House Chief of Staff and current Ambassador to Japan under the Biden regime Rahm Emanuel.
I couldn’t think of a better way for someone to communicate how the phenomenon of fear can be leveraged for political and economic gain as we’ve witnessed firsthand in the past couple years regarding the pandemic crisis, the prospect of war crisis, the inflation crisis, and I could go on and on.
After all, Mr. Emanuel is pretty up front and in your face with this in his own words here. There’s no conspiracy or conjecture in this assessment as he pretty much outlines the strategy of a modern day politician in a single sentence.
Why do I say this?
Well let’s take a look at the recent couple years with everything surrounding the pandemic as an example of how fear can root into society and further create what the well known author and professor of psychology Mettias Desmet points out in his writings as the chilling and fascinating phenomenon of Mass Formation Psychosis.
I recommend Mettias Desmet’s writings and Substack on the Recommendations section of my Substack here and I want to strongly encourage you to invest some time and to access and read over those as well.
According to Mettias Desmet this incredibly chilling phenomenon of Mass Formation can take root in a society when society has been conditioned to focus on a certain object of fear which can then cause the group of people to be radically blind to everything that goes against what the group believes in.
As a chilling real life historical reference to the danger and destruction that the end stages of Mass Formation can result in, Desmet references a shocking example of how this develops in stages in the 1979 Iranian Revolution.
He (Desmet) points out that as the group is infected by the Mass Formation in the early stages the group will then take the most absurd beliefs for granted. Initially in the early stages of this he points to many well documented stories of the citizenry of Iran all claiming to see the face of their leader the Ayatollah Khomeini on the surface of the moon with each full moon. As such many people would point at the full moon on display showing each other where the face of Ayatollah Khomeini could be seen.
This being the first phase of Mass Formation Desmet points out that the second phase of how an individual can be gripped by the Mass Formation is where an individual will then radically and willingly sacrifice their individual interests for the sake of the collective.
I’ll return to the Iranian example shortly, but in this second phase of the Mass Formation Mettias Desmet also points out a really good example here with the communist leaders who were sentenced to death by Stalin often with their shocking personal statements prior to their execution saying “If that is what I can do for the communist party, I will do it with pleasure.”
As crazy as that sounds, that was the reality and if you didn’t think the impact of the Mass Formation could get any worse you would be wrong.
In the third stage of the Mass Formation Desmet points out that individuals who have progressed to this stage will also become radically intolerant of dissonant voices.
In fact, those people who have progressed to the third stage will commit atrocities towards those people who do not go along with the masses and even do so as if it’s some sort of righteous sense of duty.
To get back to the situation with the Revolution in Iran Desmet references a story in his writings where he spoke to an Iranian woman who had witnessed with her own eyes a woman that had reported her own son to the state for being a dissonant. If that’s not bad enough the witness saw the mother of the son grab the noose and hang it around her son’s neck herself as the boy stood on the scaffold where he would hang only in the short moment that followed.
After the execution the mother was seen claiming to be a heroine to do what she did for the good of the state. After hearing such a story it’s hard to imagine how a society could get to this point, however similar Mass Formation is well documented and has taken place throughout history in Nazi Germany and in the Soviet Union.
Desmet also points out that whether it was more of a spontaneous event like we’ve seen in Nazi Germany, or sparked intentionally through propaganda and indoctrination like in the Soviet Union that it must continue to be supported by propaganda and indoctrination by mass media in order to survive, or it will most likely fizzle out.
The key element here that I want to point to as I reference Desmet is that if it is not resisted by dissonance, or if the propaganda and indoctrination continues it will lead to a full blown Totalitarian state.
As these concrete historical examples demonstrate this is precisely how and why fear is used as a control mechanism and is the central motivation for my article and podcast episode today.
The Infantilization of Adults
So what makes fear a more prevalent issue with some people compared to others?
Well I’m not a psychologist and don’t have some profound statistics to reference sitting here in front of me. However I would contend that some individuals are probably more wired for confrontation and have a stronger mind for independent thought whereas other people tend to be more emotionally wired and reactive to life and events that unfold around them. In my assessment it’s the latter that more easily succumb to an outside influence with less resistance when they are faced with an object of fear.
After all, it’s pretty well documented and rock solid that during the pandemic those that tended to wear masks, to get jabbed, and to advocate for mandated lockdowns were all pretty much leftist Democrats. Now I want to specify one more time so that you don’t get confused about that last statement. I’m not saying that this was ALL Democrats, but the majority of far leftists Democrats fell and still fall into this category.
That’s not an opinion, but a fact as it was even a rallying cry for many political campaigns and Democratic offices that ran entire metropolitan cities into the ground economically through mandated lockdowns.
These politicians were so strict it resulted in a mass exodus of their citizenry out of the most major cities like New York, L.A., and Chicago while also leading directly to an explosion of crime during the draconian mandates that they forced upon everyone.
The narratives were all about slowing the spread, flattening the curve, and that “we’re all in this together.” This was a prime example of how Mass Formation started to take root after an object of fear was sold to the American people on a 24/7 media news cycle that was…and still is relentless.
So once again what causes some people to be ruled more directly by fear compared to others?
Well I agree this varies and everyone may have their object of fear if you will that would trigger an uncomfortable emotional response from time to time, but I also believe that the impact of culture has a lot to do with it.
With one quick observation we can look back 50 to 60 years ago where most people had jobs where they worked with their hands and their feet on farms, in factories, and in various other positions that demanded a lot more physical labor.
I would contend that this more rugged physical culture that existed among the majority of our society then made us a lot more resilient both mentally and physically.
After all, in those days the obesity rate among American people was virtually non-existent, yet when you look at the obesity rate today in our society it’s close to 42% according to the CDC.
As a lifelong fitness professional and strength and conditioning coach it’s my professional opinion that this is a direct result of the changing of our culture from being more physical to less physical with the growth and explosion of the laptop/ desk job class. The culture changed when the abundance of the free market produced jobs where physical labor had diminished and along with it so did a lot of rugged individualism.
If you’re reading, or listening, to this and you happen to be a physically active individual then you understand this. You know that when you work at either a physically demanding job, or if you’re physically fit that it shapes your mind and toughens you up mentally to a certain point.
So I believe this is one aspect of how our country and society has been weakened, making certain people more susceptible to fear and by extension controlled by a corrupt media narrative.
Granted the lack of physical strength and fitness alone isn’t the sole culprit in the weakening of the minds of those that succumb to fear narratives over and over again.
The other reason this happens is through the impact of pop culture and education. A recent example of this can be pointed out by the famous author and comic book artist and creator of the comic The Watchmen Alan Moore with the recent piece done on him in the Guardian. I will link you directly to see that article here.
In the article Moore points out the reason he decided to quit the comic book business, which according to him, was directly because of the dangers associated with the infantilization it was contributing to adults in our modern society. He states “I’m definitely done with comics,” he goes on to say “I haven’t written one for getting on for five years. I will always love and adore the comics medium but the comics industry and all of the stuff attached to it just became unbearable.”
Later on in the article Moore is even more assertive in his reason for exiting the business by pointing out that “Because that kind of infantilization – that urge towards simpler times, simpler realities – that can very often be a precursor to fascism.”
Looking at Moore’s perspective on this it’s hard to argue with it. All we have to do is simply take a look around at our society and we can easily see how accurate his assessment is with this given what we’ve seen with so many who succumbed to the Mass Formation that I referenced from Mettias Desmet earlier in this episode.
Stoicism
“Complaining about a problem without posing a solution is called whining.”—Teddy Roosevelt
So how’s this sound for a starting solution?
Adopting stoicism in the face of an emotionally charged and broken society is a great remedy for eliminating the possibility of a society being ruled by FEAR.
So what is Stoicism?
Stoicism is a philosophical discipline that involves one working to endure pain and hardship without the display of his or her feelings when experiencing such difficulty.
Granted it’s one thing to talk about stoicism and a completely different ballgame to practice it in one’s day to day life.
So how does one go about doing this?
Over the years I’ve personally adopted stoicism to deal with some personal hardships. I quickly realized that in life I cannot control anything beyond my own actions and even that can be difficult to do at times.
Stoic philosophy is ancient and some of the best writings of stoic philosophy come from our great thought leaders from the past such as Seneca, Epictetus, and the Great Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius.
I believe one of Marcus Aurelius’s greatest stoic quotes can beautifully apply to everything we’ve experienced in the past couple years. To me the following quote really cuts to the heart of every mistake we’ve made as a society with the forced lockdowns and destruction of lives over a campaign of FEAR.
“It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.”--Marcus Aurelius.
In examining this quote and comparing it to the fear surrounding the lockdowns, social isolation, and closings of businesses it’s easy to see how our society caved in and adopted the opposite of what Marcus Aurelius points out here. It’s evident that as a society we chose to fear death and to destroy what it means to live with freedom and purpose in exchange for the feeling of “safety.”
In doing this it’s easy to look back and prove that warm fuzzy feeling of safety resulted in the destruction of many more lives, businesses, and families. Granted if you happen to be a Marxist then this would be ideal, but if you’re a freedom loving individual that cares for others then you know this was a complete disaster that was a result of weakness and a society that was infected more by the pandemic of Mass Formation Psychosis than a physical illness.
In order to not allow this to happen we must continue to speak out and be the dissonant voices while also working to make ourselves stronger and more resilient physically and mentally as a society at large.
Practicing the stoic philosophy is a great start and you can exercise this within yourself by being conscious of your behavior and your emotions when a difficult, uncomfortable, and stressful situation arises. When this happens slow down, breathe, and learn to think through the problem in the moment rather than lashing out with a knee jerk reaction.
This is the whole point of self-mastery.
Once you can master yourself mentally, emotionally, and physically then you’re securing your environment and by extension your society, your state, your country, and ultimately the world.
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