Post 3

I was very intrigued by the use of fear in our communication with others. Fear is a great driving factor in what decision a person can make. Fear can cause rational people to make irrational choices, which of course never leads to anything good. If a person wanted the masses to do something that they knew was wrong, that person just needs to instill fear. Look at World War II as an example, Hitler created fear amongst his people that Jews were trying to take over and were inferior people. Therefore, the Jews should be eliminated. Sociologists have attempted to study how normal people could do what they did. And that answer is easy, they were gripped by fear. Have we learned our lesson? No, take a more modern example, the war in Iraq. George Bush used fear to justify his invasion of Iraq. He used fear by telling the American public that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction when in reality, Bush needed an excuse to topple Sadamn Hussein. So will we ever learn from history? Probably not, but we need to be aware when we are making decisions because of fear.