State Of Fear vs State Of Joy

State of Joy

Tom Gilbreath

Most people regard Michael Crichton’s 2004 novel, State of Fear, as an attack on the prevailing view of global warming. While the book has a lot to say on that topic, its real target is even bigger — the increasing use of fear to manipulate people. For big business, especially the media, fear generates money. For academics, fear gains grants. For governments, fear is the control wire running between the manipulators and their marionettes. 

 

The public can be influenced by happiness or peace, but only briefly. And corporations rarely profit from your serenity. Even if it is only “the fear of missing out,” they need to make you afraid. Fear grabs you and motivates you. It’s the crackle of the whip scorching the air above the cattle’s heads. Fear motivates spending — by individuals and governments. Fear manipulates people into doing things they would otherwise not do.

 

In the late 1960s, communications professor George Gerbner studied the effects of television. He concluded that those who watched a good deal of TV tended to see the world as more violent and more dangerous than it really was. He described it as “mean world syndrome.” Testifying before Congress in 1981, he said, “The most general and prevalent association with television viewing is a heightened sense of living in a ‘mean world’ of violence and danger.”

 

With social media, video games, and 24-hour news, the problem has grown exponentially. That’s why what he said next is so important. “Fearful people,” he testified, “are more dependent, more easily manipulated and controlled…. They may accept and even welcome repression if it promises to relieve their insecurities.”

 

Sometimes, an alarm needs to sound. But greedy, power-hungry people never stop sounding alarms. We can start to live in fight or flight mode. Hundreds of fear-based messages bombard us every day from advertising alone. It rewires minds — and changes the world. Manipulators induce fear because it works. And because it works, they use it more and more.

 

A meme swept social media platforms a few years ago that expressed the result of the ever-increasing fearmongering. “Basically nobody under 40 right now expects good things to happen ever again.” Some versions lament the difficulty of explaining this sad truth to parents.

 

Speaking generally, young adults born since the mid-1990s have little confidence in the future. It was fashionable a few years earlier for the young to chase extreme wealth. That dream fell apart in countless ways. Uncertain what will become of them, many now pin their hopes on some form of socialism. They long to believe they will somehow be taken care of. 

 

For millions, hope, optimism, and joy have given way to despair. Such despair is an invitation to Antichrist.

 

Jesus offers something infinitely better — Himself. In Him we find “the fruit of the Spirit… love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control” (Galatians 5:22-23). And it’s not just any joy, but “joy unspeakable” (1 Peter 1:8). It’s not just any love, but “perfect love.” “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear” (1 John 4:18).

 

Yes, good things still happen because “God is love” (1 John 4:8) and His grace abounds toward you.  2 Corinthians 9:8 says, “And God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may have an abundance for every good work.”