We can forget who we are. We lash out or run away.
Manipulating mankind’s most primitive instincts to change people’s behaviour is taken from the textbook of tyrants. It shuts down reason and twists reality. It can make us do things we would otherwise know to be wrong. But it gets results.
Panic and phobia prevent rational thought. Demagogues and cult leaders from Charles Manson to Adolf Hitler have used them to instil behaviours that their followers would reject instantly if they were thinking clearly. That’s why the deliberate creation of fear to control behaviour has long been regarded as unacceptable by experts in psychology and politics.
The Covid-19 epidemic changed all that.
Over the past year, we have seen the biggest campaign of fear that the world has ever seen. And it has been at its worst in the UK, where SAGE and the Government took a conscious decision to use fear to ensure that people comply with restrictions.
We now face an unprecedented mental health crisis. Fear has been used like a dirty bomb by SAGE and the fall-out is contaminating every aspect of life.
