Fear
Being a featured background actor on Gotham (Fox), I spend a lot of time thinking about the fictional Gotham City of DC Comics. Years ago, I pitched a female version of the supervillain Scarecrow (named Hayley Fever) to DC editors. They didn’t respond.
Notwithstanding my yet-to-be-published comic book debut, the Scarecrow is one of the most interesting graphic novel characters. Unlike other Gothamites who are based on humor, wealth, brute strength, immortality and fire, the slender man in the potato sack mask delves into an aspect of life that is inevitable: fear. It leads one to question, what is the philosophy of fear?
In order to understand fear, one must understand the history of fear. Let’s start at the beginning, at the inception of cellular life 4.5 billion years ago. The Last Universal Common Ancestor (LUCA), could not have had any predators, since there was nothing preexisting on the planet. Once evolution started, a simple food chain evolved. However, cellular life forms do not possess consciousness, so even if they had evasive tactics, it was likely an automatic reflex and did not evoke any emotions.
As fauna became more complex, particularly with backboned organisms known as chordates, basic brain structures evolved. Early fish struggled at the tendrils of brainless jellyfish and were the first to experience fear. This type of fear was very basic. Once ensnared by gelatinous barbs, it was nearly impossible to escape. The fish had no offensive or defensive tactics. The fear didn’t help much, except in the very rare instances where the entrapped fish struggled and broke free.
Source: Midjourney.
Once fish became more complex, a more elaborate and high-speed food chain emerged. Dunkleosteus, a massive scissor-jawed prehistoric fish, chased down prey items. The prey experienced a new type of terror; the kind that one gets from an adrenaline rush. Whereas jellyfish were incapable of engaging in pursuits (and once prey was caught, it was over), terrifying animals like the Dunkleosteus meant that there was a chance of getting away. Therefore, biochemistry allowed for a rush that offered the hope of survival. This type of predation continued for the next few geological eras, the only difference being that it escalated to land and air.
It wasn’t until humankind set foot on the savannahs that a new system of fear emerged. Humans possessed technology to deter animals who had more muscle mass. We were self-conscious of death, and therefore, self-conscious of fear. We could ask ourselves – why are we afraid of a predator? If we are afraid of it, what can be done about it? No longer did smaller prey items simply run on an adrenaline-based instinct. We could defy the instinct to run from a sabretooth and instead set a trap.
Once agriculture allowed for civilization, mankind encountered a new nightmare: famine. It wasn’t like in hunter-gatherer times when the primary concern was the hunt (while droughts could have caused mass die-offs, hunters could relocate to wetter climates). In agrarian times, it was the weather that man feared most. Civilizations from this era normally had harvest gods that were decorated with chaffs of wheat, who battled the sun, the rain and other elements.
Mankind conglomerated into larger social groups such as ancient Egypt, Rome and China. To build such civilizations, new atrocities were invented, such as slavery and elaborate torture. Everyone, including royalty, was terrified of the possibility of being imprisoned and tormented. Conquerors regularly paraded defeated emperors through the streets in order to assert dominance.
In the 20th century, most developed nations banned cruel and unusual punishment. In first world countries, people became afraid of economic dangers, such as unemployment, getting a bad professional reputation, and losing the house. To ancient people, who faced the prospect of being skinned alive, these fears would have seemed trivial. In the worst case scenario, a man who lost everything in the Great Depression had the freedom to commit suicide. The average man of the 1930s would not have considered the possibility of being chained to a rack by inquisitors.
Nature abhors a vacuum, and this also applies to the human propensity to feel – and even seek out – fear. To fill the void, humans developed a new form of terror: fictional horror.
Edgar Allen Poe regularly wrote about being buried alive, which he described as his worst nightmare. This reflects his time period and locality, for being interred would be a rather painless death compared to the wheel instituted during the Renaissance era. Human beings desire entertainment, and in the midst of the increasing safety of their societies, found stimulation in reading stories about people going through gruesome ordeals. Medical science eventually buried Poe’s anxieties, with better methods of determining if a person was dead.
Fiction writers had to up the stakes. Early horror movies such as Psycho (1960) featured a repressed young man who ran a shady motel. A pivotal scene shows a hairy corpse sitting in a chair. Audiences of the time were terrified of the skeletonized corpse, which to modern audiences appears goofy (case in point: when I was in film school, the class erupted into laughter when they saw the scene and its screeching violin accompaniment).
Psycho movie still.
Eventually, technology advanced enough for filmmakers to engage in a controversial way to scare audiences: body horror. Characters such as Freddy Krueger pushed the censorship line by showing men whose heads had become fused onto pizza pies meant for consumption. The Fly showed a woman giving birth to a baby-sized maggot. Towards the 1990s, computer graphics allowed for interactive fright. Video games such as Resident Evil 2 (1998) ended with an amorphous blob of muscle whipping tentacles at the playable character Claire Redfield, who must kill it with a rocket launcher. These horrifying images were sought-after by teenage boys and resulted in government agencies debating whether or not the games should be censored. It is curious that mankind is the only species that would intentionally seek to be frightened, if only to alleviate boredom.
Towards the year 2008, filmmaking technology had become so advanced that the most horrifying abominations could be realized on screen. Ironically, this had an unintentional effect of diminishing the terror that these images could evoke. Whereas Resident Evil was provocative in the 1990s, by the year 2014, the game was common fare. New horror movies failed to impress audiences, what with CGI being so ubiquitous. Producers started to remake 1980s horror movies in order to recapture the shock potential. Audiences did not respond, and still have not responded.
Considering that torture is currently illegal in most parts of the world, disease is manageable through high-tech treatments, and people now know that paranormal creatures do not exist, what then does mankind fear in the year 2025? Criminals such as the mafia used torture, but the likes of Al Capone and John Gotti no longer exist. Serial killers such as the Gilgo Beach Killer prey on the defenseless, but DNA technology usually leads to their capture and subsequent Netflix true crime shows. Some diseases are incurable, but pain management is available. The only people who believe in the Slender Man are 13-year-olds.
These days, compared to most of Earth’s history, the average citizen in a Western country lives a comfortable life, where they go to work, pay the bills, and hang out with friends on the weekends. This is not necessarily a positive thing. The dodo bird was a flightless bird that evolved in an environment without predators. When sailors introduced hunting dogs to the island, the dodos did not have the instinct to flee. Complacency breeds weakness. This would be fine, if the world was an intrinsically safe place.
Subway surfing. Source: npr.org
Humankind’s desire is infinite, and when the populace does not have something to complain about, they find a new gripe. Teenagers harangue the police with bogus emergency calls whenever they have an argument over a video game, a dangerous practice known as “swatting.” Conspiracy theorists debate if cell phones are causing mind control. For example, social media personality Chase Geiser has been promoting the theory that Sirhan Sirhan was a Manchurian candidate, and that MK-ULTRA was (and supposedly is), successful to the modern day. There is no scientific data that indicates mind control is possible.
Then there are teenagers in NYC who ride atop trains in an effort to increase their YouTube subscribers, or possibly just to get a rush. Websites such as IsAnyoneUp and somethingawful.com invite members to post embarrassing pictures of people so that they can be mocked. Before it was shut down, IsAnyoneUp even encouraged patrons to perform disturbing stunts on camera, such as brushing one’s teeth with sewage, and grabbing a cactus barehanded. In the era Before Christ, folks would have done anything to avoid these brutal punishments. In the digital era, folks punish themselves in order to acquire stimulation.
There are far worse things to be concerned about than brainwashed assassins who are activated upon hearing a codeword. A coronal mass ejection can obliterate the electronic infrastructure, causing global collapse, for humankind is reliant on the internet. Global warming is going to transform the planet into a mountainworld, where humans can live only at the peaks of the highest elevations, and there is no technology available to stop the reliance on oil. Teenagers now take part in massive video game competitions that are staged and televised like sporting events of the 1980s, resulting in a grossly unhealthy and sedentary population (and the sheer sad fact of people sitting in front of computer screens all day).
To say that fear is a good thing is not a false sense of optimism. Fear motivates women and men to excel. Fear tells us when we should get off our butts and fight. Fear strips us of overconfidence, and allows us to fight with strategic humility. To call someone insecure is not an insult. Being insecure means one is able to see the situation realistically.
Fear is more useful than indulgence.
The luxuries of 21st century life are a catalyst for disaster. Perhaps the Scarecrow was doing Gotham City a favor by spraying terror gas over the citizens. The sense of danger removes them from decadence. Without fear, there can be no courage.
Don’t be happy. Be worried.
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