The Importance Of Experiencing Fear

Experiencing the emotion of fear (biophysical contraction) is a vital function for individual and social survival. This is true for all animal species including humans. Because of the presence of armor, many humans have lost the ability to experience fear as a reaction to danger. In them, it is either distorted and felt as anxiety or it is not felt at all. In fact, today’s anti-authoritarian society is in a state of a chronic, false sense of well-being ( biophysical expansion), individually, economically and politically.

Anxiety is a symptom of an underlying emotional disorder. This is the reason that fear including its distorted manifestation, anxiety, is avoided by almost everyone at all costs. Since people are unwilling to look inward for the source of what is disturbing them, they look outward and blame their personal emotional problems on external sources. Or, they avoid feelings entirely and are left being out of touch with themselves. One way to avoid anxiety is to extinguish any uncomfortable feeling with the help of medication such as prescription or street drugs. Instead of rejecting these drugs and tolerating their uncomfortable emotions, which would be a healthier reaction, many look to drugs as a panacea. People’s avoidance reaction to experiencing fear and anxiety is, in fact, the real reason for the popularity of marijuana and the power behind the political push to have it legalized.

Another way to avoid disturbing feelings is through the defensive use of the intellect. According to this approach, everyone (including those who are forsworn to destroy people’s freedom throughout the world if they have the opportunity), is viewed as harmless or well-intentioned. Therefore, fearing them and taking appropriate defensive action is not rational or is unnecessary.

To the contrary, the inability to experience fear renders individuals as well as society as a whole defenseless. History has repeatedly shown that emotional plague-ridden individuals will sooner or later appear and take advantage of other people’s vulnerability to usher in a catastrophe on an individual or social scale.