Comments on: Can We Use Fear as a Motivator for Change?

By: rowena stone

rowena stone — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 09:30:37 +0000

I came from transition glastonbury forum where the link to this was posted. There’s a lively discussion there about climate change- is it warming or cooling and lots of other conflicting issues and evidence.
I chose not to go to the end of suburbia screening I looked at a preview and felt I didn’t really want to go through the experience that evening even though I would have loved to be with the people.
As for fear being a motivating feeling- hm, I’m inclined to disagree. I am not familiar with Joanna Macy’s work directly though have read a lot about it.
Fear itself is worth looking at, what’s a fear of God, why does violence travel towards fear, does it pre-empt fight or flight? What has fear to do with original sin/ original good, is it the same as awe. Could we possibly celebrate our awe at finding a plan in nature beyond our current dilemmas? Could we work with that? This is not fear but an awakening.
Thing is, tempting as it might be to think that a mass awakening can be stimulated it’s a very personal thing and like water on stone it will happen for each individual in their own time. All anyone can do it to constantly BE the water on the stone that may or may not make a difference, have no fear of that.

By: William Lucas

William Lucas — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 06:18:27 +0000

Hi Rob
I’ve read several Daniel Quinn books recently. They address the question of the nature of civilization as we know it very well. If you are not familiar with the author then I would really recommend that you read, say, Ishmael. Powerful, positive, paradigm changing.

By: Lucy Wills

Lucy Wills — Sat, 02 Dec 2006 17:18:44 +0000

I could not agree more wholeheartedly. I have had variations of this conversation with many people, and covered this topic at a seminar at last years Big Chill festival.

I've been thinking of how to edit it down, and you've pretty much done the job for me.

Here's my response:

The media have exposed us to so many stories of horror and disaster to come - and if these don't happen or don't happen fast enough then we the public have learnt to ignore them.

Even worse than that, many people have just switched off completely. Knowing that others suffer or that their children may suffer form the effects of say climate change, they carry on regardless.

I do believe the tide is turning. 30,000 people at last month's UK climate march and 10s of thousands overseas show that many people care deeply.

A few days ago I heard a talk from Dr Anderson of the Tyndall Centre speak about the energy use and supply options forward from this point.

To very very loosely summarise, we have a huge portfolio of ways of generating power, but most are inefficient or environmentally damaging. The best way to reduce the damage (and indeed to avoid the trauma of peak oil) is to begin to reduce consumption.

One of the best way to do this is to generate power locally. Come to think of it, there's a lot more we can do locally too, and it's the best way to beat our oil addiction without the economy grinding to a halt.

Now how do we get the message out there?

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By: Nicholas Harvey

Nicholas Harvey — Fri, 31 Mar 2006 18:29:39 +0000

As usual, Rob, your article is extremely interesting and thought-provoking. I recently showed a group of my Intercultural Studies students a video called ‘Learning from Ladakh’ about an amazing culture in Northern India where they have traditionally led a peaceful, happy, self sufficient and sustainable existence based primarily on agriculture. The film shows how a people can not only survive in a harsh environment, but thrive and do so with wonderful community support and joy (most of them are Buddhists).

Ladakh’s traditional ways are now under threat from globalisation and encroaching western culture and all the woes that accompany it – crime, pollution, alienation, anxiety etc. But the reaction from my students was interesting. One immediately said she wanted to go and live in the country. Another said it made her feel her (our western) culture was superficial and cheap in comparison to the Ladakhi’s. My own response when I first saw it was what many Peak Oilers understand, that we need to return to a simpler and more sustainable community-based society – something I plan to do over the next few years. The video’s contrasting of an almost idyllic rural community – full of joy, fun, compassion and wisdom with people harvesting, spinning cloth, cooking food with the filthy, miserable existence that was developing in the capital city, Leh, with its shops containing Barbie dolls and Rambo videos clearly showed where most people would like to be.

It didn’t use fear to convince anyone to change their life, but it clearly succeeded in illustrating how utterly misguided our way of life has become and how attractive the alternative is.

By: Fabian

Fabian — Thu, 30 Mar 2006 19:19:57 +0000

Very good questions. I have been thinking about the legitimacy of fear as an instrument of spreading ideas – my point of view: from an ethical point of view instrumentalizing fear is bad propaganda. From a personal point of view, sharing what scares the heck out of you with others is understandable. In fact, it may be the only chance we have. I have worked with a neurobiologist named Gerald Huether at the neurobiological laboratory of the University of Goettingen, Germany when I was a student. In his book “Biologie der Angst” (I don t know whether there is an english edition, but the title may be “Biology of fear” he examines the evolutionary function of neuronal plasticity under stress (fight or flight reactions)in humans versus simpler vertabrates. Humans are at the top of the food chain now because under a state of fear, their synapses get boiled soft – so to say. Which allows to change a formerly hardwired behaviour and thus to become open to new problem solving approaches. Chickens can not – they stick to the old procedure when fear comes and finally die if they cant escape.

I believe intensive fear or at least distress is the one and only trigger for a deep inner change.

Coming back to spirituality: in Zen-Buddhism, students work so hard on their seemingly unsolvable Koan-riddles until the hardwiring finally melts down and enlightenment occors (thats what i hear, i haven t had the pleasure).

By: greg greene

greg greene — Thu, 30 Mar 2006 16:04:19 +0000

i am always a little surprised to read of people’s reactions to The END of SUBURBIA (rob says his students looked ill all week following the screening). i suppose because my reaction to any kind of media (especially sensational accounts of imminent doom, or promises of utopia) is skepticism… i don’t take things at face value. so iam always questioning, doubting – even our own documentary. but there is a fine line between DOUBT and DENIAL. i have no illusions that most people who see our film will go straight back into denial, rather than take what is salient for them in the film and give some thought to practical solutions. my personal hope is that with EOS, and our next documentary, ESCAPE From SUBURBIA (with a cameo appearance from Jason Bradford!), audiences will at least prepare mentally for the coming shocks. i agree with randy: get people talking! blogging! laughing! (hence the camp 50′s in EOS, and in EFS we’ll be laughing at those disco 70′s) it’s a first step. you can’t expect folks to automatically run to the nearest permaculture course (wouldn’t that be nice though..). with the new film we hope to engage people’s imaginations a bit, and show that folks just like them are getting involved at a practical level: getting into their gardens, talking to their neighbours, attending community events, thinking about their auto dependency and alternatives to it, reducing their energy use, thinking about solar panels, etc. fear and laughter – great for channeling doubt and a useful antidote to denial? comments?

By: Randy Park

Randy Park — Thu, 30 Mar 2006 13:41:48 +0000

From my experience in speaking to audiences on peak oil and the Energy Predicament, the biggest barrier is producing so much cognitive dissonance that people shut down. This is especially true with fear.
My goal (which is not the only way, or even necessarily the best way) is to get the greatest number of people aware of and talking about the issue. In my experience, that happens when people are presented the information in small factual doses, nothing too confrontational (as opposed to telling them their suburban lifestyle is over), and giving them the opportunity to mull it over and come to their own conclusions.
As a professional speaker who speaks on how people think, I believe we need more people to do their own thinking. Realistically presented, most people realise this is a serious situation, if not now, then certainly in the lifetime of their children.
In an audience of 100, is it better to have 50 people casually mention it to their friends, or 10 people who are so scared that they attend meetups, write blogs, talk to everyone they know? Personally, I don’t think it is an either/or; I see my approach as laying the groundwork. The danger might be I don’t produce enough action, which is why I give people specific steps to take.

By: Mark

Mark — Thu, 30 Mar 2006 12:07:38 +0000

It is interesting to that that a new spiritual movement may evolve in the west out of the implication of peak oil. I think there is a danger though that those in power are not as dim as we’d like to think and are establishing plans for fundamentalist religion which could be a tool to retain centralised control of our populations in the event of crisis.

That aside for a moment i think people need to understand that as bad as peak oil seems, it’s not the first time people’s lives have been pretty much turned upside down. As well as educating and acting on information we need to balance this with a heathly attitude which is not controlled by fear. If you want to learn to grow a vegetable garden, don’t say you are doing this out of fear you supermarket is going to close and everyone will be eating each other after 3 missed meals. Instead look at the merits of gardening and growing your own natural good quality food. If you want to learn survival skills, people have been doing this since the dawn of time, not in order to prepare for peak oil, but for the enjoyment and liberation it brings.

I intend to start trecking and camping on a regular basis hopefully with some friends whose interest is the outdoor life.

If we are only acting on fears then we are not really learning to deal with life as it is now and has always been. The changes which we need to face peak oil are positive changes and our society will be a better place for them.

By: Rob

Rob — Thu, 30 Mar 2006 10:22:33 +0000

A great load of comments. Very helpful, thanks to one and all. Emma is currently reading Joanna Macy’s book ‘Coming Back to Life’ and just came across the following passages…

“Dangers to their survival move living things to evolve. When feedback tells them – and continues to tell them – that their old forms and behaviours have become dysfunctional, they respond by changing. They adapt to such challenges … by seeking and incorporating more appropriate norms”.

Later she writes, “to let ourselves feel anguish and disorientation as we open our awareness to global suffering is a part of our spiritual ripening. Mystics speak of the “dark night of the soul”. Brave enough to let go of accustomed assurances and allow old mental comforts and conformities to fall away, they stand naked to the unknown. They let processes which their minds could not encompass work though them. Out of darkness the new is born”.

Macy uses the term “positive disintegration” which I love.

By: Brad

Brad — Thu, 30 Mar 2006 08:33:04 +0000

Just remember what happened to Jimmy Carter. People always welcome the bearer of good news. They are less welcoming to the bearer of bad news. Do you want to be Jimmy Carter, or Ronald Reagan? Are people ready for Carter?

By: logspirit

logspirit — Thu, 30 Mar 2006 03:24:17 +0000

“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”
Immobilizing fear. That’s what scares me.
Getting so white knuckled that we can’t grasp the situation.
Peak Oil is frightening. Period.
The numb excepted, if a portrayal of Peak Oil isn’t frightening, then it isn’t representing the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

Unfortunately, fear often leads to violence.
And the survival instinct clouds both compassionate and rational thinking.

Now the question is, and we will soon have the answer:
Whether we can face this fear in a mature, “civilized”, logical way — or not?
History is filled with horror from such failures of humanity.
Terrifying.

Yes, fear looms large in this.
Understood, now let’s get on with it.

By: Graham Strouts

Graham Strouts — Wed, 29 Mar 2006 23:00:22 +0000

Really interesting discusion touching on the more psychological and spiritual issues of the subject.
I agree with Jason Bradfords’ comments about New Age beliefs: narcissistic and childish beliefs in the power of “mind over matter” which result in the suppression of anything that might be deemed to be “negative”: but of course, although the context is important, fear is an essential evolutionary quality without which we would bnever have made it this far because we would have just allowed ourselves to be eaten by the bear or burned in the fire. The really interesting thing about this phenomenum to me- the narcissistic culture which Ken Wilber has called “Boomeritis”- is that these beliefs themselves are a result of too much energy in the system, and the availability of enourmous energy to individuals and indeed whole cultures who have no comparable emotional maturity: 80 or so energy slaves available to each of us each day has created the illusion a culture that has turned inward and runs on the ethic of “never had it so good” and “because Im worth it” etc..
Another point is the way the mainstream society uses and distorts fear: terorism- the bogey man coming to get you- is evoked as the greatest threat,or bird flu or whatever, which are individual threats which can prevent us from seeing the bigger picture.
So a little bit of fear in the right context might be a good thing- but we must offer Action Pathways as a response.

By: Nate

Nate — Wed, 29 Mar 2006 22:57:05 +0000

Our motivations and how we quickly we act on them can be measured in an economic concept called a ‘discount rate’. This measures how much we value the present moment and circumstances over the future. A high discount rate means we care very little about the future (this is evident in many drug users, etc). A low discount rate means that people are considering the future into the present decisions.

After reading your interesting and valuable commentary, it struck me that in an evolutionary framework, fear competes with relative fitness for activating behavior. If everything is fine and one is safe, they will do what is best for their inclusive reproductive fitness (or, more to the point, perform those behaviors that give the right neurotransmitter mix that met with evolutionary success). If there is an immediate danger, neural algorithms take over (fight or flight) which dominate behavior ( I need to live before I can procreate and garner resources).

To me then, fear is an effective motivator if the fear impacts ones immediate circumstance – if you try and scare someone about something 20 years from now, it wont work at all. On the other hand, if you tell someone to grow onions and potatoes in their garden due to peak oil, they might not do it this summer, but they just might make some long term plans to plant a garden, because it appeals to their relative fitness algorithms.
Bottom line – steep discount rates are necessary for fear to be an effective motivator – sometimes those are appropriate – in most cases, when the danger is not immediate, relative fitness based carrots will work better to change behaviors.

Nate

By: Bob Owens

Bob Owens — Wed, 29 Mar 2006 20:41:39 +0000

If we compare the fear factor for peak oil vs bird flu, we can see the different mechanisms clearly. Bird flu affects people directly; there is no cure; it is totally an unknown quantity; the media is broadcasting its spread around the world with every dead bird; It affects both rich and poor. Peak Oil does none of these things; its fear factor is much diluted.

How to get people to respond to peak oil? There is only ONE mechanism: rising prices.
Unfortunately that will only occur on the downhill side of the peak.

We are going to have a very bumpy road ahead.