From Fear Set Free

Humankind cannot bear very much uncertainty; to our dying day, we are all afraid of the dark. And so we perceive the world selectively, exaggerating the significance of particular things, downplaying others, and ignoring most of what bombards our senses, all so that we might be convinced, from now until bedtime, that we understand ourselves and our environment. We do this even in the best of times—in fact, without this selective ignorance, there would be no “best of times,” just the pervading fear of what comes next. Imagine, then, a situation where to this basic existential fear of the unknown is added the uncertainty of living without the law’s protection. Where you are subject to the latest despotic decree directed toward “your kind,” or to the whim of the police officer with his truncheon, or to the clerk behind her desk deciding whether to issue you a passport. And where they, too, are terrified by the whims of those above them.Imagine, further, that the regime sees all this—sees the power of fear and learns how to treat it as a commodity that can be stockpiled and spent as needed. Such a regime could attain its ends by making only a small number of opponents suffer physically...