Are mainstream American fears rooted in ignorance?

Question

"Neither a man nor a crowd nor a nation can be trusted to act humanely or to think sanely under the influence of a great fear."
-Bertrand Russell

"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."
-Franklin Roosevelt

kujigafy: Simple, because I am an America.

Answer 1

Fear is;

A basic emotional sensation and response system ("feeling") initiated by an aversion to some perceived risk or threat.

Ignorance;

Is a lack of knowledge. Ignorance is also a "state of being ignorant" or unaware/uninformed.


I don't know many people who go around fussing and fretting about the way things are in this country or how they MIGHT be.

I hear complaints about how things are but fear?? NAH!

Answer 2

Not only mainstream Americans but people all over the world have fears rooted in ignorance. Heck, most of the world's problem are rooted in ignorance. The general population is a bunch of asses who the politicians take advantage of by spreading fear and intolerance.

Answer 3

Mainstream America is rooted in ignorance. Our Founding fathers greatest fear (hence, the reason we are a democratic republic as opposed to a real democracy) was that an ignorant voting public would be easily swayed by crooks who only wanted power and that eventually the voters would elect people who were just as selfish and stupid as they are - bring an end to their grand experiment.

What was it Russell was going to say if he found himself before St. Peter? Something like, .."There was insufficient evidence."
I like that.

Answer 4

I think fear is driven more by blind faith than ignorance. People don't question the things that other people tell them, so in that way, the mainstream public thinks, acts, and fears the way that society, government, and mass media tell them to.

Answer 5

Just at loss from mastering our creator's universal communication in the new universal language with self lack of knowledge and having problems in communication being overlook with misinterpretation and miscommunication with communication failures and communication break-down with Fear is the Key set in and running wild with imagination that spreads like wild-fire being overlook on planet earth.
Were at loss little children were having problems who could not differentiate between fantasy and reality or ghost stories with loss of the missing x-files vital for their own survival being overlook on planet earth.

Answer 6

No. This question is rooted in ignorance. Mainstream America's fears are rooted in the distinct possibility that Islamofascist, racist thugs might very well use a thermonuclear device on us.

Answer 7

i dont know about ignorance ... people watch too much tv i think .... people have been told that if they question anything they are unpatriotic and most people including the media, are afraid to question the official "fear" reports for fear of losing their jobs ... so people are misled .... and lack of being informed via apathy allows fear to spread.

Answer 8

Benjamin Franklin said that

"People who give up some of their freedoms in the name of security deserve neither."

Or something like that.

Answer 9

considering the fact that less than 10% of Americans hold passports, and of those the majority are in the armed forces, then yes, I would say that they are, in the main, hopelessly ignorant

Answer 10

if you think fear is rooted in ignorance why isolate it to mainstream americans?

but yeah, you're probably right.