Politics and fear

It has just come out in bookstores Explosive modernity, by Eva Illouz (Ediciones 62). The thinking of this woman, born in Fez, Morocco, in 1961, is one of the most interesting on the current scene. I don't know whether to say she's the most sociological philosopher or the most philosophical sociologist, but her ideas often offer a different and interesting perspective. I made my students read Love, reason, irony, which is the transcription of a lecture he gave at the CCCB in 2011. I like that at no point does he try to épater the bourgeoisie, one of the intellectual epidemics of the 1970s, a resilient and constantly mutating virus. I also appreciate that it is expressed clearly. The aforementioned book talks about emotions, but it has nothing to do with the usual cheesy, soft nyigo-nyigo when this topic is discussed. Emotions can be perceived almost as a behavioral failure that deviates us from the safe path of rationality, or, in an opposite sense, as our true identity, the one that makes us human. Blade Runner, the test to catch replicants is based, precisely, on discerning the presence or absence of emotions.

Fear, obviously, occupies a central place in this mental algebra, but, as we will see later, the subject is more ambiguous than it seems. "Both the left and the right have used fear as a political weapon," Illouz states on page 193. The examples are endless: they range from the dramatization of meteorology to the dehumanization and brutalization of immigrants, passing through a thousand and one hyperbolas often referring to anecdotal but emotionally harrowing events. It is true that fear can be used to manipulate, but the issue does not end there. I propose a current reference: that of the asteroid YR4, whose probability of collision with Earth was taken seriously by scientists a few months ago. This was no urban legend: there was an objective risk, very low but by no means imaginary. How the risk (and, above all, the associated collective panic) should be communicated and politically channeled is another matter. Could it have been used to instrumentalize fear among personnel? Of course it could. Should we ignore it, then? Of course not. I think that nuance is important. Not all fear is justified, but it's not necessarily unfounded either. Another case that just turned five years old, that of the COVID pandemic, shows the same ambiguity. In this case, it was the most resounding far right, that of Trump or Bolsonaro, that tried to downplay a real risk that ended up killing some 15 million people worldwide. That situation was manipulated by some governments. pro domo suaYes, of course. Did it pose a potentially devastating risk, though? Also, of course. For those who are averse to nuance, it's an uncomfortable example.

How to manage fear? Right now, fears appear or disappear erratically depending on what the powers-that-be, the real powers-that-be, decide through, among many other things, the algorithms that guide the various social media platforms or the topics instilled through the new opium of the people: TV series. The role of professional media outlets, unfortunately, is not always the most appropriate, because they are increasingly linked—or rather, entangled—with social media. The loss of the arbitrary role of rationality in collective decision-making represents a major erosion of the democratic system. As long as only those who shout the loudest are heard, those who make up for the lack of arguments with varied gestures; as long as the protagonists of public life continue to be those who choose to move rather than move—that is, to mobilize—democracy has an uncertain future. In fact, the increasingly enigmatic notion ofpublic opinion For many years now, it has won the game against the clear notion of citizenshipThe reference point for many politicians no longer lies in the programs endorsed by the ballot box, but in the dubious results of demographic studies conducted, without any real oversight, by private companies or public institutions that often only tell their clients what they want to hear. Managing fear, or any other emotion like those analyzed by Professor Illouz—collective disappointment and hope, personal envy and resentment that end up being politicized, or nostalgia for things that never really existed—is, in a framework like this, as difficult as dialogue.