"Hate is economic." Is it economic? According to Ahmed the answer is yes and for good reason. Ahmed does a great job of breaking down the emotions of fear and hate, two of the most powerful negative emotions. Ahmed says on page 3, "together we hate, and this hate is what makes us together." Although Ahmed is talking about the Aryan nation and their hate for basically every other race, I think this can apply to mostly any group that is directed toward hating another. I think we can say the exact same for fear, together we fear (and/or hate), and this fear is what makes us together.
Ahmed could have used this line for her part on terrorism as well. The ones fearing in this case being the American population. It also dawned on me that by fearing someone you would be more inclined to hate them as well. Ahmed shows the great struggle of Arab, South Asian, and Muslim men through many stereotypes of being terrorists. So, being educated to be afraid of these races has also made a good number of people hate them too.
Another great line, "What is detrimental as coming-close carries with it the possibility that it may stay away and pass us by; but it actually enhances fear" (pages 9-10). She talks a little about horror movies and the same effect they have on us like this line says. Fear is what we are waiting for, "to that which is approaching rather than already here." 9/11 made us fear future terrorist attacks like the one on that horrible day and also made us fear the certain races we were informed to fear.
The rambling is over, one question for you is what do you think would be a good way to stop this fear? You could also think how to stop fear while at the same time not creating hate either. Or just let me hear anything you think about these emotions and their affects on us all.
This is kind of an interesting example of old things magically being new again (for me, anyway): I have a bunch of old English school-stories from the 20s and 30s, and a recurring theme when the students talk about their history lessons is that fear is often the root of cruelty. And now here is Ahmed saying the same thing again. It's remarkable how theories come round again and again.
ReplyDeleteAnd if I had an answer for your question, I'd run for office. :/
I don't necessarily think that you could, or should, stop fear entirely. It serves good purposes, motivating humans to avoid emerging tragedies and unifying those who respond to such threats together. (And, most of all, making horror movies exciting!)
ReplyDeleteBut, in my humble opinion, we could and should do a lot to curb the unhealthy and counterproductive effects of fear. Knowing is half the battle. Merely by educating ourselves of the various techniques that are being used to manipulate our reasoning (like metonyms, repetition, condensation symbols) we vastly increase our power to resist the manipulation.
Having read Ahmed, we're probably less inclined to conflate bodies identified with "terrorist" and "Islamic" or "refugee" and "bogus asylum seeker".
By recognizing that political speech has this potential, we become empowered to resist it. At the very least, we should be more conscious of when our own language tends to create a false association fueled by fear.
If Su runs for office on a fear-resistance platform, she can count on my vote :)
Good point about horror movies. In horror films, we feel fear leading up the climatic kill. But once the character has been murdered (maimed, tortured, chased, decapitated, etc.) the fear is gone. Just compare your level of fear in the middle of the movie and at the end. The only time you feel fear again after watching a horror movie is when you reimagine a scene and you relive that approach.
ReplyDeleteHow do you think Ahmed would respond to phobias? People with phobias feel fear not at the approach of an indefinite object (there could be a spider in my room) but at the actual object itself (there is a spider in my room). Phobias seem to be more consistent with Aristotle’s conception of fear.
Brian brings up an interesting point. The anticipation of death is what builds fear in horror films. There is some kind of relief when someone is off-ed in a horror film, but, depending on the character's demise, a new emotion arises--disgust. I watch a lot of horror films, and disgust is the emotion that always sticks with me, rather than the fear. The fear is a temporary emotion; I think the disgust resonates more because I carry the image of that character being killed and I then associate disgust with that image. However, Brian also brings up another interesting issue: re-imaging the scene after the fact can induce the fear. Maybe that's why Jaws is such a scary movie for a lot of people. That's why I refuse to go in the ocean because I imagine the opening sequence of the movie, and I get scared. This fear is extremely irrational, and I think Aristotle would shed more light on fear and disgust, as opposed to Ahmed.
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