Disciples of ‘The Science’ are hostile to the free and open exchange of views

Statements like ‘The Science says’ serve as the twenty-first-century equivalent of the exhortation ‘God said.’ Unlike science, the term ‘The Science’ serves a moralistic and political project. It has more in common with a pre-modern revealed truth than with the spirit of experimentation that emerged with modernity. The constant refrain of ‘Scientists Tell Us’ serves as a prelude for a lecture on what threat to fear.

The use of the term ‘The Science’ in public debate expresses its advocates’ insecurity with the absence of certainty. This leads to a defensive posture where scientists are reluctant to entertain the possibility that they might be wrong and that their critics might have a point. Sadly, a science that cannot work with the assumption that it might be wrong has more in common with a religious dogma than with open-ended experimentation. Such moralization of the imperative of fear has important implications for the conduct of public life. By representing scepticism and criticism as a threat that deserves to be feared, disciples of The Science set in motion a cultural dynamic that is inherently hostile to the free and open exchange of views. As we explain later, a palpable sense of intolerance towards freedom, particularly towards free speech, is intimately connected to the working of the culture of fear.

Frank Furedi, How Fear Works: Culture of Fear in the 21st Century (p. 144)

Fear appeals are instruments for influencing behavior

Fear appeals are often used as a tactic to raise attention to an issue and scare people into action. They are now widely recognized by publicists, campaigners, politicians and fear entrepreneurs as a legitimate instrument for influencing behavior. According to one study, a fear appeal ‘is recognized as a distinctive type of argumentation by empirical researchers, who see it as a kind of argument used to threaten a target audience with a fearful outcome (most typically that outcome is the likelihood of death) in order to get the audience to adopt a recommended response.’ Like Plato’s Noble Lie, fear appeals are justified on the grounds that regardless of the facts, they reveal a higher truth. Fear promotion is advocated because ‘fear could be beneficial not only for the way it encouraged people to act in safer ways: it could also promote more “civilized” behavior.’  

Frank Furedi, How Fear Works: Culture of Fear in the 21st Century, (p. 99)

When uncertainty acquires unprecedented power and fuels a sense of fear

The belief that the future will be an unfamiliar and alien territory has acquired the status of cultural dogma. The future is always uncertain but when it appears totally unfamiliar, society has great difficulty in preparing itself for it. In many historical circumstances, communities at least possessed a map that roughly outlined a vision of the future; and even if the map proved to be inaccurate, it allowed people to imagine different possible outcomes. When the future ceases to resemble the present, our sense of uncertainty is no longer mediated through an explanatory framework that can help interpret it and give it meaning. In such circumstances, uncertainty may acquire unprecedented power and fuel a sense of fear.

Frank Furedi, How Fear Works: Culture of Fear in the 21st Century (p. 83)