Fear as A Political Motivator

[marct]

Hi Ron,

That said, we must never allow ourselves to allow manipulation of said factors in order to control, or direct the actions of a populous in general.

I think it is important to note something here about the use of fear in propaganda; namely that fear generates an anger response in many situations and this response is frequently used to manipulate entire populations. This is, after all, the desired goal of a lot of terrorist attacks. It is also, I should note, the guiding principle behind what's known in pragmatic politics as "waving a bloody shirt".

This is where the greatest fears for many in academia stem from when the collaborative efforts of anthropologists and military are referenced.

I'm not sure I agree with this, Ron. Could we (Anthropologists) help the military produce such a campaign based on fear tactics? Probably, although I suspect that it wouldn't be as good as that produced by a couple of good ole boys from the smoke filled back rooms. As to this being the source of much of the "fear" in academia, I really doubt that. My suspicion is that a lot of that fear is generated more from a concern that they "mysteries" of the discipline will be seen by "profane" hands, and that those same non-initiates will realize that a lot of the "mysteries" are Bravo Sierra.

In direct competition with an enemy then any factors both human and otherwise can and should be considered and employed effectively.

There must be a line drawn however, and it would be somewhere around where long term leadership within these areas are concerned.

Anything else leads us down paths which history has shown us we don't want to follow.

Again, I'm going to have to disagree with you, at least as far as the use of "any factors" is concerned. This marks a key difference between professionals and amateurs in many fields of endevour (including politics): professionals realize that todays opponent may be tomorrows ally, while amateurs often believe that an enemy is an enemy, period.

BTW, let me just make it clear that I'm not saying that as an insult. The observation behind it comes out of a lot of work done on studying how groups operate and how individuals operate in new fields. The short term gain mentality exhibited by amateurs in a field (regardless of their expertise in other fields) often leads to a degradation of that field for all involved. When the field degrades, it has a feedback effect on all people in the field (on the psychology behind this, check out Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi on the Flow experience), and I think this is what you are talking about when you talk about "drawing a line".

Marc