Fear, Lies and the Liar

"Fear is an idiot" according to Ambrose Bierce.  As I recall, his point was that fear is unintelligent, indeed stupid in the extreme.  Fear cannot think, according to Bierce; it has no brain.  Thus, when possessed by fear (the equivalent in some ways to being possessed by a demon) a person has no brain, doesn't think--cannot think, in fact.

Bierce was treating Fear as if it was a person, or being of some kind, to which human attributes may be ascribed.  In the same fashion and for the same purpose, we may say that Fear is a liar.

How could it be otherwise if Fear is an idiot, incapable of thought?  Fear can't speak the truth as it can't know the truth. Ascertaining what is true in a particular case requires inquiry into a situation.  As C.S. Peirce and John Dewey would say, inquiry is appropriate and effective when there is a problem to be solved, i.e. when we're confronted with something uncertain, unclear, confusing.  Inquiry doesn't arise, though, when interpretation of circumstances is preconceived or predetermined.  Then analysis of a situation becomes a kind of special pleading.  What seems to be uncertain isn't construed as uncertain.  Instead, the situation is deemed to be an instance of X or Y, and efforts are made to make the circumstances conform to the assumption made without taking them into account in any meaningful way.

H.L. Mencken wrote that to a government, the most dangerous person (he said "man," actually) is someone who can think things out without regard to the prevailing superstition.  That may be true.  But in these strange times, who is there who can think things out, let alone think at all?

Lies are ubiquitous now.  Social media and some traditional media are full of them.  Some lies are made with the intent to confuse or promote fear.  Some lies are merely circulated, as instantly as they're made, by those who believe them.  Some merely misstate the facts.  But it seems that lies are believed more and more as more and more lies are made and spread across the World Wide Web, and repeated again and again.

We live in a propagandist's paradise.  Joseph Goebbels would be amazed by the possibilities available, and enthralled by the opportunities presented.  It's so very easy to lie, easier still to spread the lie, now.

Which brings us back to Fear.  There are many liars and so there is much fear.  We have a president who according to available evidence lies virtually every instant.  This is unusual even in a politician.  

Fear is here, and is as ubiquitous as are lies.  Fear of the new, fear of the strange, fear of change, primarily; fear of violence, fear of division, fear of displacement, fear of others unlike ourselves.  Fear the liar takes advantage of Fear the idiot.  Fear the idiot accepts the lies of Fear the liar, without reservation. Fear the liar incites Fear the idiot to thoughtless reaction and to a thoughtless desire to be free from fear and thought, or the need for thinking.