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California State University, Dominguez Hills
University of Wisconsin, Parkside
Created: February 25, 2007
Latest Update: February 25, 2007
jeannecurran@habermas.org
takata@uwp.edu
patriciaacone@yahoo.com
Topic of the Week: Fear in America
Fear has been an element of most of our interactions since 9/11. One way to put that fear into perspective and to respond more neutrally to the issues that perplex us today, is to review what social psychology tells us about the use of fear in persuasion. To what extent does fear color our knee-jerk responses to world events, and to what extent are these fears rational?
This issue is devoted to understanding how fear affects our decision-making with the many different persuasion techniques used on us by those wwho wish to market products, politicians, sports, swindles, etc. You can't just ignore advertising, marketing and image presentation. Whole occupations revolve around these careers. That's where lots of money is, and money almost always attracts.
As Amartya Sen reminds us in Violence and Identities we DO have CHOICES. But there is much pressure on us to accept the choices that advertisers and magers of Others' identities would have us believe are the only possible or good choices. Not so. Think out of the box and you will find alternatives. This very concept is one that we need to share and illustrate every chance we get with our own communities. People don't need to make choices out of fear. They need to talk to one another about alternative paths to the things they want and need, and question all those who pressure them to "accept what I say and don't question it; be happy with the choice I offer." Such control by another rarely leads to happiness and contentment. Even white-footed mice want to control their own environment. It's not so much that the controller doesn't offer good choices; it's that the controller takes way our fundamental right to choose for ourselves. And if the controller can enlist our absolute commitment to the choice he/she proffers, we sometimes are willing to engage in violence to enforce that choice upon all as the "only good choice."
Usually a controller appeals to our membership in some specific category to convince us that that category outranks all others and that we must at all cost demand that everyone make the choice we consider right in that category. The categories most often relied upon are: religion, in which the controller's religion is seen as the only "one, true, and right religion;" nationality, in which the controller's nation is the one true and perfect nation-state against which all others pale; ethnicity, in which the controller's chosen ethnicity or color is the one, true, and only color that should rule; race, in which the controller's chosen race or race chosen for denigration represents the fundamental way "it should be" in our world.
. . .
How do we get this messaage out to all our neighbors and friends and even those we don't know in our communities? Find visual decorations for cards, boxes, or even wearable art. People will ask. We can share little reminders like cards and boxes. We can share wearable art with friends. And people will ask. Talk to them. Share Prof. Sen's ideas on how we can eliminate violence from our identities. Just talking about it will keep it on the discussion table. That's governance discourse. That's building communities.
References:
- Fear Studies and Persuasion in Social Psychology Since fear pervades many of our decisions, and since those who seek authoritarian, unquestioned power, use fear as a means of controlling our questioning of their policies and decisions, the series of files on fearstudyxx.htm will summarize research on fear and control as they are used in communication power games. jeanne
- The Redirection [of Iraq Policy] by Seymour M. Hersh. "Is the Administration’s new policy benefitting our enemies in the war on terrorism?" The New Yorker. Issue of 2007-03-05. Posted 2007-02-25. Consulted February 26, 2007. Seymour Hersh is an investigative reporter ranked with Bob Woodward. His ideology is left. He has won a Pulitzer Prize for his My Lai story on Vietnam. For information about how the right feels about Hersh, see The Seymour Hersh Page from the perspective of his right wing opposition.
- Amartya Sen Homepage Sen is the author of Violence and Identity, an important work explaining how violence is furthered against peace when categories of identity, like religion, nationality, ethnicity, are seen as simplistic and with a single category over-riding all others. Summaries up as fast as I can read. jeanne
- truthout - Museum of Tolerance, Los Angeles
love and peace, jeanne
- Spring with Jeanne and Pat in Independent Study
Instructions and Assignments for Independent Study with Jeanne and Pat For Week of February 11, 2007.
Last week we put up the instructions for an explosion card/box, to stimulate discussion on one of the issues we'd like to be sure our community knows about. Go to our first assignment sheet. Pat and I would like to do a workshop this week to be sure everyone has the explosion card/box figured out, and to make some models that we can use for that project.
I wanted to do Wednesday, but that 's Valentine's day. Let's try Thursday. E-mail or call to discuss time and place. Pat: 310-749-8346 patriciaacone@yahoo.com, jeanne 323-876-1389 or jeannecurran@habermas.org.
Independent Study Form for work with jeanne and Pat in Spring 2007
- Los Angeles Gallery Exhibit
Exhibition by Antonia Guzman
Couturier Gallery
166 N. La Brea Avenue, Los Angeles
Reception: Friday, January 19, 7-9 p.m.
exhibition from January 19 to February 24, 2007
- Grades at CSUDH from Fall 2006: Check Issue No. 14, Week of December 3, 2006, for any information you need on winding up this semester at CSUDH.
- Thinking Outside the Box
- mosaic condition: ""Mosaic conditions of a genetic disorder (such as Down's syndrome) are now widely accepted and people who have the condition in a much more minor form are treated differently than those who have it in an extreme form. But we could not have made such a transition if we had not learned to think outside of our inherited categories enough to see the in-between forms, the fuzzy boundaries." Defintiion by Lois Shawver in a post on PMTH listserv. "fuzzy" is a good word to describe this thinking.
Thanks to my Google search I also found Male/Female: A Polydimensional Continuum. By Roberta M. Meehan, PhD. Greeley, Colorado. College Science Educator and Biological Science Writer. 22 May 1998. This is a good reference on the fact that the male/female dichotomy is not a good mathematical model for describing gender.
- Index of Summaries and Sources for Spring 2007 Updated and expanded index on sources for current social, economic, and political issues in our communities. I'll work on this index throughout the semester. It takes time. But you're welcome to nag me if there's a topic that concerns you. jeanne
- Autism: In following through on Ian Hacking's reveiw of Amartya Sen's In Pursuit of Fairness, I came cross his review of Laura Schreibman's The Science and Fiction of Autism. "For anyone close to an autistic person who wants to learn about the problem, this is almost certainly the best available manual. Schreibman’s target readership is the front line." This issue of autism, and what it means to our families and communities is of major importance today. We shoould all have some understanding of it. jeanne
- Interdisciplinarity Another issue all educated people need to be aware of. A future issue will be devoted to this. jeanne
- Reluctant Saint: The Life of Francis of Assisi jeanne begins to post what she's reading. Story of Saint Francis trying to convert the Muslims to Christianity has much to say to us today, especially the way his efforts were reported. (Just started. Will continue.) First posted February 7, 2007.
Added February 27, 2007. Pat has my copy with its notes. Will get summary up as soon as I get it back. jeanne
- No new images for this week. Sorry, jeanne.
Left/Right Perspectives - Cursor - New York Times - The National Review
Arts and Letters Daily - The Economist - The Sierra Club - The Guardian
Wall Street Journal - The Weekly Standard - The Nation
The Cato Institute (Libertarian) - The Open Society
BBC NEWS | Americas
Los Angeles Times - Chicago Tribune - La Opinion - The Washington Post
Cursor's Al Jazeera Archive - Ha'aretz - Palestine Monitor - Palestine Report
Wikipedia - Web Sources Linked from Dear Habermas
Concept Index - T.R. Young and the Red Feather Institute
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