“Concerning his work La soft-idéologie (The Soft Ideology), French philosopher François-Bernard Huyghe says: “Times are tough, and ideas are weak.” Originality is dead, and in the search for the original harmony, man has mixed left and right: each of these sides increasingly resembles the other. Compromise between these opposites is in fashion, taking place on the level of style, form, and trend. Some mimic the electoral programs of others, striving to impose themselves with personal charm, but not with ideas.
What is actually behind all of this? Does this mean that the hour has finally struck for what we call brotherhood and unity among people?
Reality shows that, for now, there is nothing of the sort.
We witness the Byzantinism in the behavior of the world elite, which is only a reflection of the hidden cold war between blocs, which has caused more casualties than past world wars.
Civil society thus silently supports the deepening of its own insecurity.
The systematic repetition of images of crime, war, and other representations of violence contributes to the general desensitization and the loss of sensitivity and empathy among people.”
The promotion of violence in the media (newspapers, television) forms an intellectual habit that increases our insensitivity towards them, accepting such situations as natural from an early age. By not reacting, we slowly and unconsciously accept that it must be this way.
All psychological theories confirm the fact that a person living in a Western consumer society becomes less capable of responding to situations of tension and extreme violence. They become the most fragile beings on the planet. Living intellectually, a person constantly lives at a distance, indirectly, through television and movies. Their ability to survive in conditions of psychological hostility is minimal.
The fear that paralyzes the West
Newspapers, radio, and television publish increasingly dramatic events every day, while their importance and meaning are trivialized. The repetition of isolated information makes them intellectually abstract. All of this deprives the majority of the public of sensitivity to such an extent that they seek greater sensations every day. Witnesses The news for the western consumer has become a spectacle. They are no longer subjects of reflection or conscious choice. No one pays attention to experiencing or deeply experiencing world events, nor is able to respond to what happens to them on a daily basis. It is precisely in this that the root of fear of facing the reality as it is shown to us lies. It is a great fear of an unadulterated reality.
We live with loose ideas, outside of reality, we are afraid of suffering and we come to terms with it in anticipation of better times.
The abandonment of civic action is obvious, yesterday’s ideas no longer motivate and many believe that everything has been tried to improve society and humanity, and that nothing more can be done.
Recent surveys show that citizens in highly industrialized societies are losing trust in institutions. Potential voters seem to only care about their immediate needs.
The new consensus consists of seeking a common denominator: “Don’t touch me, I won’t touch you, be Let us be kind to one another and maintain a relationship that will not bind us to anything. Will not every such relationship, born in a tangle of shallow and artificial connections, turn our closest environment into a permanent unknown? What do these falsely good customs actually hide that only fills us with discomfort, fear, and a certain aggression?
The desire to create an artificial reality prevents the integration of inevitable contradictions in everyday human experiences, which, on a psychological level, translates into the presence of a strong feeling of panic.
Interestingly, the word panic has been erased from the psychology dictionary. A wall of silence is erected in front of this problem. Our entire culture is manipulated and conditioned by fear of atomic bombs, AIDS, unemployment… It takes away our ability to perceive things differently than what is imposed upon us. A person or society, weakened by a sense of fear, are forced to capitulate and lose their dignity by compromising with their own aggressors.
Our freedom The actions are limited by our mental boundaries, our own fears which are the result of skillful manipulation by the materialistic civilization that is in agony facing the idea of its own death. The taboo of panic has been secretly embedded in our own consciousness through unconscious collective manipulation.
It is not my intention in this short article to present yet another apocalyptic image, but on the contrary, to explain why the mentality of indifference and inertia is becoming stronger. A mentality that reinforces egoism and gloomy irresponsibility is passed on to young people who live without ideals, settling for simple survival.
This is a serious problem that concerns the ability of human evolution. Unlike animals, humans are humanized thanks to their ability to develop behavioral patterns that allow them to overcome and control their weaknesses and fears. It is the realization of one’s own vulnerability, the awareness of the need to defy one’s own anxieties, the awareness that makes a human. it made him the way we know him: a being that reveals and creates.
In short, the secret of humanization consists in taming and managing our fears, which we need to recognize and accept.
Panic – the fear that kills
In lower animals, the fear reaction occurs in a series of behavioral sequences that we can recognize as reflexes necessary for survival and that are part of a set of reactions necessary for species maintenance. These are called alarm reactions that evolve into characteristic human reactions.
Perception of danger in humans causes the secretion of hormones, such as adrenaline, which activates the sympathetic and parasympathetic activity, two major regulatory systems within the autonomic nervous system responsible for all the body’s vegetative functions. Its action, for a few moments After the danger is detected, tension increases and energy is mobilized for defense. This can explain the readiness and speed with which a calm pedestrian reacts when they notice a speeding car. Fear activates defense and enables the development of energy that is not manifested in everyday activities, but is constantly present.
The specific function of fear, when it comes to beings of superior organization, seems to surpass the function of a mere series of conditioned reflexes. It could be said that it actualizes the possibility of immediate choice, or the instant initiation of activity using all available instruments and human potentials in order to achieve the necessary choice of roles and ways of acting. The choice of behavior will depend on the development of the individual or species.
Each new reaction to fear will enrich the existential memory of an individual with yet another powerful experience. It is therefore not surprising that when people meet and recount events that have left the strongest impressions in their memories, they do not simply exchange information, but rather engage in a deep interplay of emotions and empathetic understanding. It mentions moments of satisfaction and happiness, but rather moments when they were suddenly forced to face some danger and had to change their usual rhythm and sequence of activities and patterns of behavior. Fear provokes the ability to adapt to new circumstances and opens paths in the search for new inner resources. Thanks to such exploration, an individual is able to awaken their dormant potentials and motivators.
Skillfully applied sense of danger allows for the development of a sense of triumph, victory over oneself, an inner achievement based on which we can positively channel life’s challenges.
Experts know that the best way to overcome fear is not to allow it to turn into anxiety that paralyzes reaction mechanisms. Avoiding intellectualization, one should use all available means that encourage activity. Professor Henri Laborit explains that action, i.e., a mental attitude or mental orientation towards. for overcoming inhibitory effects of fear.
During the last world war, Prof. Laborit was tasked with decrypting enemy codes and during one enemy attack, he found himself trapped in a bunker: “While the Stukas were wailing,” he explains, “it was very difficult for us to focus on what we were doing. We wanted to escape from that place so badly that we would move around the table every quarter of an hour. The state of tension was unbearable. But as soon as we could activate ourselves, even if it was useless, like shooting at the Stukas with an old rifle, our fear would disappear.”
The nervous system must not hinder us from taking action
The mechanisms of fear put all our senses on alert. However, if this alertness is not accompanied by an adequate action that allows psychological confrontation with the threat, instead of activating, it will inhibit the functioning of our senses. Therefore, even if the reactions are not particularly effective, they are necessary for overcoming inhibitory effects of fear. In order to avoid a blockade of the mechanisms of readiness and defense, it is necessary that we occupy ourselves with anything when faced with fear, so that our intellect is not overwhelmed by apprehension.
Fear is simultaneously a signal for alarm and an energy transformer that can activate or inhibit reactions. On one hand, fear awakens attention directed towards defense and raises awareness of our vulnerability. On the other hand, it provokes a cessation of ongoing activities. If a new structured activity does not emerge in a state of tension, this deactivation will provoke depressive behavior characterized by an inability to confront reality.
Mechanisms triggered by the feeling of fear have a positive function if well channeled.
Fear forces us to be cautious and take precautionary measures. Studies conducted on animals deprived of all fear-related reflexes have shown that animals lose their criteria for food intake: they would swallow anything offered to them, even ground glass. Learn to live with the mechanism of fear
Therefore, the goal is not the absence of fear and becoming unaware of danger, but the opposite: to integrate fear in order to overcome it.
Learning to live with mechanisms of fear means accepting the uncertainty of life, building awareness that nothing is definitive and that every feeling of insecurity, no matter how difficult, is necessary for the survival of the species.
History teaches us that decadence and the death of civilizations occurred when people, convinced of their own superiority, thought they were protected from their enemies to the point that, overestimating the power of their means, they distanced themselves from true reality.
Conformism and overprotection deeply discourage a person. Natural mechanisms of fear then dull the senses and weaken a person to the point that they trigger a state of “fear of fear”, that is, fear of facing contradictory situations, suffering, accepting responsibility, and life itself. Carrying risk inherently. It is nothing more than fear of accepting life as it is, and it is a wonderful adventure.
Fear of fear is a real fear that destroys and paralyzes the ability to reason. American researcher Martha Wolfenstein defines panic as fear of fear. She emphasizes that this feeling intensifies when artificial, numbing activity covers up the actual situation. Panic behavior occurs when the truth cannot be seen or faced, when suffering, pain, effort are denied, or when painful scenes of real and concrete events are pushed away by unconscious desire.
Martha Wolfenstein attempted to define six criteria of panic fear:
– intense internal fear
– ineffective or self-destructive behavior
– increased anxiety
– sudden escape from the situation
– lack of any altruism (“me first”)
– aggression towards loved ones.
In her work “Unhappiness as a psychological essay,” Martha Wolfenstein argues that it is precisely the denial of reality and the avoidance of facing oneself that contribute to panic. The possibility of facing problems as they truly are, without the constant presence of projection and hallucination mechanisms, represents the true causes of panic, as well as its consequences. The feeling of panic arises when there is a threat of mortal danger, real or imagined, which is capable of destroying our mental defenses.
Panic is a sudden attack on our poorly controlled emotions, it is very powerful and capable of reducing our intellectual activity. Reduced to a minimum, all our analytical functions (rationality) are reduced to a series of linear behavioral sequences, our common sense is lost, and a feeling of powerlessness dominates.
We cannot overcome a state of panic with reason. Emotional breakdowns and weakness, characteristic of fear, stem from the perception of the situation itself: it is about a real or imaginary belief that the situation is endless, unchanging, and inevitable. The possibility of a positive mental attitude that is not tied to circumstances, situational factors, and the possibility It is necessary to maintain optimism and inner peace – it seems that they are essential for developing an adequate approach in dealing with dangers.
Negative psychological behavior stemming from envy, anger, and laziness solidifies the presence of weak spots where panic can settle. As we will discuss later, mental dispositions, creativity, imagination, and the richness of inner experience are useful factors in creating effective mental defense. Imagination is precisely the engine that mobilizes our inner strengths.