Using fear
- Frightening
- Exploiting fear response
Implementation
In 2009, as fears surrounding a potential Swine Flu pandemic emerged, Jacques Attali (2009), former adviser to French President Mitterrand, stated: "History teaches us that humanity only evolves significantly when it is truly afraid: it first sets up defense mechanisms; sometimes intolerable (scapegoats and totalitarianisms); sometimes futile (distractions); sometimes effective (therapies, setting aside if necessary all previous moral principles). Then, once the crisis is over, it transforms these mechanisms to make them compatible with individual freedom, and to include them in a democratic health policy. The pandemic that is beginning could trigger one of those structuring fears."
Claim
Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear. We must, therefore, be on our guard against extremists who urge us to adopt police state measures.