Policy Directions

Given the state of fear we have presented in this paper, what can be done? There are some obvious policy implications, and they touch all sectors, from government, to the private sector, from civil society to education and the media. The right measures can begin turning the tide on our many apprehensions.

For government and political leaders perhaps the first and easiest policy step is to stop using fear as a tool for public influence and political gain, as we saw in elections all over the world including the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Additionally, governments and political leaders can take measures to reinforce levels of cooperation, engagement and understanding to turn back the tide on otherness and to turn up efforts on real societal challenges such as climate change, pandemic risk, biodefense, cybersecurity, among others, that we should genuinely be concerned about.

Looking inwardly a great measure of social polarization and otherness has affected social cohesion in the United States. The two-speed economic recovery since the Great Recession of 2008 saw the lion’s share of economic value go to major cities and coastal states, while rural, southern and post-industrial parts of the country were left behind. This gap is a primary driver of fear in the United States. It has led to the rise of populism, economic nationalism and, perhaps most troublingly, the lack of caring for one another. Fear and its attendant consequences are zero-sum propositions; just as the economy and national security affects both sides of the aisle, fear-driven political tactics and social remoteness have long lasting consequences. Leaders from the city, state, and national levels have an obligation to look at themselves in the mirror and then hold that mirror up to their constituents to narrow this gap.

Striving for better financial equilibrium, balancing important priorities like national security, research and development, along with underfunded priorities such as education, infrastructure and the business commons can begin to balance our national economic priorities in meaningful ways. The United States spends more money on defense than the rest of the world combined. How badly are we really menaced, and by what and whom? This spending and the industrial base that benefits most from it, is part of the vicious cycle that needs to be looked at much more closely. Recalibrating national security priorities for a twenty-first century threat landscape that is largely comprised of man-made risks, will require that more money is spent tearing down walls, reeducating our workforce and preparing future generations for a more complex new world.

Civil society and policymakers in turn can devote more of their energy, research dollars, and considerable political clout to changing the narrative around public policies addressing these fears. Measures need to be implemented that can help the United States and the world put fears into proper perspective and address them with proportionate responses. Emphasis on the public health consequences of fear and additional research into the impacts and power structures in the security-industrial complex can help unravel this network and lay deeper accountability at its doorstep. While many of these players are vital industries, how deeply interwoven they have become in the compliance framework and the “demand generation” engine for their services is a subject of grave concern. Additional research efforts around the consequences of fear, the consequences of mental health and the remediation efforts that can be taken to better understand these impacts should also be prioritized

It is in the private sector where perhaps the greatest gains can be made in tackling fear. Beginning with those organizations that participate in the security-industrial complex, such as global security firms, insurance companies, pharmaceuticals firms, and many others, the narrative must change. Fear has insidious economic consequences that in the long run will cost these industries more than the short term gains they get from fueling irrational fears. This should be a sober message and lead to a business proposition that is proportional to the things we should genuinely be afraid of.

In the private sector, the news media deserves special mention and special accountability for preying on fear. While this is driven in no small measure by a market demand for sensationalism, the recipe that many journalists, filmmakers, and TV producers have understood to be economically successful is one that not only plays on fears but in many respects, fabricates them. Fear fabrication can no longer drive public discourse, and deeper accountability and tools to fact-check and verify the accuracy of reports in public perception can and must be developed. Perhaps a “fear-o-meter” can accompany the stock ticker tape on live news broadcasts. Other creative approaches in using journalism to reduce fear can be experimented with, including a monthly newspaper column about fear, or a section juxtaposing say, “Best Fake Fear of the Month” with “Best Genuine Fear of the Month.”

The role of humor should not be underestimated in combatting undue fear. Social media including Twitter, Pinterest, and Facebook, as well as streaming TV and YouTube can all be vehicles for anti-fear campaigns. Philanthropic foundations can be appealed to for funding that would be aimed at social marketing experiments using social media, and include possible funding of documentaries about the role of fear in history, or subsidizing a sitcom about a fearful family and what happens to them. In short, the same creativity that has driven the creation of the security-industrial complex, can be brought to bear in putting fear into perspective. More in the civil society realm, together with foundations a coalition or network of non-profits could be organized, that would put up media campaigns, organize citizens’ groups, town hall meetings, debates, and blogs that appropriately (and soberly) inform public discourse.

Finally, at the very nucleus of these fears is how individual people in our society will evolve. Cities, which have been a central actor in this paper are crucibles of how humanity will evolve in an intensely urban and interconnected world. The plurality and cosmopolitanism that cities represent, however, can also become volatile places with enormous real and figurative walls dividing us unless we figure out long range ways of building bridges inside the cities and among them the world over. While city dwellers have a very different daily reality than their rural brothers and sisters the issue of individual fears can only be tackled at an individual level. For this the educational system must play a greater role in in changing generational perceptions, particularly as it relates to cultural misunderstanding, diversity and proportionality.