Fear and the Media

[botanika]

There are some fears that are fairly primal like loosing your parents - I would loose my mum in a shopping mall all the time when dresses or shoes were on sale - or the fear of water/drowning - or the fear of going to school the first time. But other fears are quite profound and directly the result of the media, intentionally or not. Its quite amazing to ponder what imagery we grow up with.

Nukes

It probably started for me around 1978 - as a 6 year old my parents snuck me and my sister in the boot to see star wars at the drive in (remember those days!). I was pretty young but I can still remember bits and pieces of star wars. That didn't give me much fear, it was awesome, but the movie beforehand did. It was a B grade film called 'Damnation Alley' starring George Peppard. I know the films name because I saw it many many years later on late night TV and kinda laughed that it had scared me so much as a kid. The film though was about nuclear holocaust and was set in the desert with all these giant scorpions and stuff. It was really the nuclear bomb that did it. This continued into school where I think I can remember we even did bomb drills (late 70's early 80's) of hiding under our desks (as if thats going to help you from a 20 megaton atomic bomb!). The media at the time was quite acute in expressing the potential of nuclear war if it broke out and endless footage of bomb tests in Arizona and Bikini Atoll showed clearly the immense scale of destruction possible. Growing up then, for a period, there was this fear that the whole world could be obliterated by nuclear war. Thankfully that hasn't happened, but that is a huge fear to take on board versus natural world fears.

War

There's so many war documentaries eventually as a kid you end up seeing some bad stuff on TV even if your parents supervise well. I remember being about 8 or 9 and seeing part of a program on Vietnam my dad was watching. It was mostly harmless but then on came some of those shocking scenes - the bullet in the head, Napalm, a school hit by a bomb and footage of a child being carried away with intestines hanging out. World War 2 documentaries seemed too far back in time - too abstract with the old grainy black and white footage and overdubbed sounds. But Vietnam was the first truly televised war and mostly in full colour. It seemed more realistic and immediate. Despite loving to play war as a child the idea that war could happen to anyone anywhere was quite disturbing. Animals might fear predation, or not finding food, but they are not continually confronted with being bombed by napalm or land mines.

Murder

Then in my early teens I rented a film from the video store one day called 'Killing of America'. Had I watched it as an 18 year old I would have been ok but as a 14/15 year old I was still quite sensitive and innocent. The film was made in the very early 80's and had a fairly spooky voiced narrator that helped emphasize the ghoulish subject matter. It was all about murder in america from serial killers to snipers to the late 60's riots. It was quite disturbing to see interviews with remorseless serial killers, imagery of bodies being dug out from shallow forest graves and footage of people being shot. That film haunted me for a while. If I wasnt wiped out by a nuke, I could be cut up into pieces by a serial killer.

Funnel Webs and Great White Sharks

Also as a teenager, and as I was exploring more bushland and the ocean, I became both fascinated by and scared of dangerous animals. The media would contradict itself by discussing the brutality of a shark attack whilst also playing it down for tourist reasons. Funnel web spiders were routinely talked about in terms of 'how long you will last before dying', 'these things will rest in your shoe waiting for your foot'. These are natural animals to be scared of but to this day I have never seen a funnel web or great white shark. The media exaggerates the fear for ratings (profit).

Terror

Then 911 came along later in life and the shear intesity of the footage just made my jaw drop. People falling from 80 storey windows, buildings collapsing into streets of dust, victims with skin hanging off them, planes slamming into buildings seemingly all over the place. The media presenting this fear that terror could happen anywhere, anytime. 911 accelerated the use of fear and the conspiracy theories happily added their icing on the cake.

Had I lived on a farm with no access to the media at all I still would have had all sorts of fears but they would be immediate 'be careful of that cliff', 'there's a brown snake - hope it doesn't bite', 'my dad's on a long muster - hope he doesn't fall off his horse' etc. They are real and difficult fears but nothing compared to the sheer scope of fear the media has infiltrated our lives with.

Peace

Im now living overseas and a strange thing has happened. I have stopped watching the general media, primarily because I dont understand the local language here and so I dont bother watching local TV. I can't get much overseas media and Im not really into sat TV. Instead I tend to read more books, watch DVD's and occassionaly stuff at my leisure on youtube etc. I dont have to watch adverts, I dont read the newspapers, I dont watch crummy big brother shows and I dont miss anything I had before. I spend more time on my own projects - recording music, painting, organising expeditions with friends. I still of course watch some horrific fearful stuff but Im older and watch it when I want to.

Anyway I dont know if there's a point to what Im saying except that the media places this layer of fear over society that is quite extraordinary and in many ways unnaturally burdening when you think about it. Since living overseas I have lost touch with it and it truly feels like a weight lifted off my shoulders. Every time I return to australia I find myself switching off the TV or not bothering with newspapers because it seems to re-inforce danger, terror, arguments ('I dont like it'), death, disgrace and corruption. I know those things exist but I dont need to have them thrust down my throat every single minute. The essential news will filter through no matter what, but the rest seems like more of a distraction in the end. By watching the news all we are doing is fearing ourselves unneccessarily and supporting big media cartels and their advertisers getting rich in the process.

I thoroughly recommend not watching the news and most of the junk on TV. There are far too many other better things to be doing in life. Live like a happy child and smile.

Edited July 22, 2011 by botanika

[7baz]

the whole damn world is designed to make us live with fear , its there best weapon.

when you fear the people , you have there control

think swine flue , chicken flu etc etc

and like you said , wars.

the media p[umping it out 24/7

i stopped watching tv like 3 years ago.. not i gota somehow learn to stop checking out the news on the internet everyday lol.

but you are 100% right , once you turn off the tv , put down the newspapers and begin to read books , have coffee with the neigbours and do some gardening and have a few cones.. you feel so much better everyday.

when you sit in front of the news every evening freaking out .. oh shit we all gona die.. what we gona do??? is in fact a emotion we display naturally.. and seriously yes its deeply exaggerated.

great post man.

ps.. this why i have so many bonsai trees , heck it keeps me busy

however what happens when shit is going on and you become aware through people or other forms of communications ?

i mean seriously.. is it just me or has a awe full lot of shit been happening lately that's kinda out of touch ?

Edited July 22, 2011 by 7baz

[botanika]

think swine flue , chicken flu etc etc

ps.. this why i have so many bonsai trees , heck it keeps me busy

 

The virus ones are funny because 1) more people die each year from the common cold and 2) a virus would ultimately be a very unsuccessful organism if it wiped out it's host species!

Bonsai's are great. Ive got two on my balcony. Ones realy old and has an uber gnarly trunk. Better to look at green than a screen.

Edited July 22, 2011 by botanika

[Scientician]

 

I just couldn't help myself.

[Roopey]

http://talismanicidols.org/

Those guys have made a couple of great docos, and at the end of Kymatica they really get into the psychological basis for all this fear. We need it. We have to have all these horrible things happening around us, because if we don't we start seeing all these horrible things inside of ourselves. That's the real fear, actually having to look at the horrible things we do to each other, to the world, to ourselves, and in reality we do these things everyday. Giving McDonald's money even though everyone in the world knows it's not just horrible for you, but that it is a giant mega-corp that doesn't need more money, while your local baker and take-away shops go out of business. The amount of pollution that our daily lifestyles produce is outstanding, the wars that we sit around and do nothing about, our arrogance, our cruelty towards animals, hell even the slaughter and eating of animals, etc. Nobody wants to face the fact that these horrible things are inside of themselves, that they actually contribute to these atrocities daily, so they project these fears onto other people as hatred, as dislike for their lifestyle, as greed.

Obviously watching the documentaries would give you a better idea of what I'm trying to express here. Fear is a choice, and I choose love.

Edited August 1, 2011 by Roopey

[The Dude]

It's definitely true that we crack the shits at others about what we hate about ourselves. We are afraid of our own shadow, this is projected onto a much greater shadowy figure; the omnipotent "powers that be"; the dark prince of illumination, Lucifer out of the darkness bringing enlightenment.

It is only through this illusion of projecting a reality that we see as independent of ourselves, of creating a cosmic hierarchy of self and other, including all the angels, demons, gatekeepers, archetypes and avatars of god (which ever form they take) that are all illusions of separation, falling for the trap of seeing oneself as the result of the world not its cause - that we slowly learn how we're deceiving ourselves; we are our own personal Satan, and we also have the keys out of this prison.

The master of this phenomenal world is one twisted being. I mean it's all pretty hectic being in the middle of it all, that's why ego death is a great moment of clarity and freedom, where these games are for a moment entirely abandoned. Slaughter the ego and have a laugh, you can't spell slaughter without laughter.

Edited August 2, 2011 by The Dude

[Slybacon]

Some good points here.

[synchromesh]

 

[Roopey]

Some good points here.

 

You would appreciate a doco called Programming the Nation. It's a great unbiased doco on the mind control techniques. Of course there is a series of docos THe Monarch - The Pheonix Program that goes into much more detail about what the CIA have actually been developing, not just in mind control, but in poisons, and many other topics. Check them out, you might get something out of them.

Bill Hicks was amazing. It's a shame he had to go. We need him now more than ever.

Edited August 2, 2011 by Roopey