“The Politics of Fear” Reading Questions – Due Thursday 9/20 – Eta and Theta Blocks Due Friday 9/21 – Zeta and Epsilon Blocks
Please answer each of the following questions in 5-7 thoughtful sentences.
1. When reading Hobbes and Machiavelli, we discussed as a class how the following strategies helped in getting through Hobbes. While you read, “The Politics of Fear” by Al Gore, choose 1-2 strategies you will use to get through his reading. Explain in 3-5 sentences how you think the strategies will help you get through the reading.
•look up definitions of words
•make a personal connection
•take up to a 5 minute break from the text
•highlight places to focus
•talking to the text to process the main points in your mind
•re-read out loud because some of us remember better reading out loud
•read it slow: take your time, be patient
•skip over adjectives and adverbs, and focus on nouns and verbs - decode the sentence
•don't over-analyze each word, look at the sentence as a whole
•recap in your head what was read or what's happening
•ask another person to read it to you
2. Why does Al Gore say that “[f]ear is the most powerful enemy of reason?
3. According to this chapter, what was supposed to be the function of the press? How is working now according to Al Gore?
4. Al Gore mentions the use of a new technology FMRI, according to his writings, what are the implications for democracy?
5. What mental structures do we have as human beings which dominate our decision making according to new research?
6. Describe the process of how fear operates in our brain. What is the significance of the amygdala?
7. What is vicarious traumatization?
8. According to Al Gore, how is television a vital link in creating fear in our culture?
9. What is probability neglect?
10. According to Al Gore, how has the current Bush administration used fear for their own ends?
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18 comments:
Eta Block:
1.
One of the things I like to use a lot when i am reading is highlighting things that stand out the most out of text. I also like to highlight the main topic of what is going on. Another thing I also do is take a 5 mins break and re look at things. When I stop I think about what I have read and make some notes in my head about the topic I have just read. When I take this 5 mins break I make sure I understood everything and if there was a word I didn't understand then I would look it up. If there isn't any word there then I will just make sure i fully understand everything and if I don't then I'll ask someone else about the reading.
2.
If the human is experiencing with fear then this will cloud up the person view and their actions. The person will take a different path that might turn out it wasn't the best, if the person wasn't under the emotion of fear then the person might have made a better choice in the path.
3.
The press was meant for information to be send out to the public. Now the press is more meant for making people fear whatever is going on. To make people get the wrong kind of information and therefore causing fear to re happen again. Now that we have TV it is more easy to have the public views to be afraid over something. To over react on something because of their fear. When people see something it is more easy for them to connect to it and feel the pain. Therefore they will fear it even more.
4.
They are using the FMRI to study how people react towards fear. How people reason with their self when it comes down to fear. They study how when someone is in fear their actions that they take are cause by that emotion feeling of fear. It also showed us how our life is just revolved around emotions feelings then anything else. We also found out that what we do and what we are in conscious of us doesn't really matter that much.
5.
Emotions are the main thing that makes our choices. Whatever the human is feeling it will affect the choice that they make. So for an example if a person was under the emotion of fear then the person will react in very way to protect themselves. Which will cloud up their judgment. Therefore their choice that the person makes up wouldn't be the best one. Which is the reason of why fear can cause their reasons not to make sense.
6.
Whatever we see is send to our amygdala. The amygdala is the one that is more involved in our brain. This will send it our responses to our specie's survival. Just like our urge to have sex is also send to in this way. So the fear that we as human gets will go through this and it will be known to us as a threat. After seeing it so many times on tv it not only will it be a big red flag to us but we will start to make up our own threats.
7.
After our fear going through all of that. Not only we will see it as a threat but if who experience the threat and this person is close to us. We will make it to turn out to be a "vicarious traumatization" which we will feel the same kind of pain as that person did. We will be able to connect to the person who has gone through the threat. Therefor since we "feel" it we see it more as a threat and feel it more as a fear.
8.
With TV a lot of people in America watched TV during their day then going out or sleeping or doing something else. Therefore a lot more people in America will fear whatever was going on. The images that people see on TV will cause them the to fear whatever they see even more. For an example if we see a lot of people getting killed in our area we will fear more to go out. We will make the choice to stay home at night then to go out.
9.
Probability neglect is when someone focus more on that one area of subject that they can't think of nothing else. For an example if someone were to get eaten by the monkey and this monkey took over the world. People would be buying life insecureness with the word written "Will cover monkey threats" and will pay more for that. Then paying for something that say "Will cover everything". Therefore the person wouldn't think of getting "cover everything" because the person will be thinking about the monkey.
10.
The Bush administration use fear by showing and repeating the same threat over and over again out to the public. Right after that they give out a name to who the person was that bomb the country. Soon after they posted the picture of a mushroom cloud over an American city. They did all of the 3 things that will get humans fear up. Saying the threat, misdirecting attention and a vivid imagery. This is why American people were scared out of their pants when 9/11 happened. There could have been some ways to straight the fear out of the people. This is also why the people in America started to have racism issues as well.
Sheryl Soo
Theta
1. I'm going to highlight keypoints in the reading and also look up words I don't recognize. I'll also reread the parts I don't understand when I read it just once. I think these strategies will help me with the reading because it will identify main points, clarify unknown words, and decipher the text better with rereading. If I get tired or distracted I'll take a break and go back to reading after a few minuntes. I might grab a snack or something to refresh my brain so I can refocus easier.
2. Al Gore say that "[f]ear is the most powerful enemy of reason" because fear tends to drive people insane and they aren't conscious of how unreasonable they become. Reason doesn't come into their minds when they are being threatened to the point where nothing matters except getting rid of that fear. Like how Lactantius wrote, "Where fear is present, wisdom cannot be."
3. The function of the press was supposed to be the democracy's immune system. It is supposed to protect us from misunderstanding things. That's the function of a free press, but it doesn't do that anymore. The press is supposed to help us and protect us against errors; to give us the details and correct information. It is not there to manipulate us or brainwash us with false information or fear.
4. This new technology studies human behavior and relationships with fear. The implications for democracy is using fear to manipulate human beings. The research was about human reaction to fear. They discovered how strong those emotions were and now it can be used to other's advantage.
5. According to new research, we have as human beings, the emotion of fear, which dominates our decision making more than anything else. This is because when we have that emotion, nothing matters more than feeling assured and safe again. Fear is like being threatened to think or act a certain way. It is like peer pressure. Human beings cannot consider other factors when they are under the state of fear. Therefore, decisions are made recklessly with poor judgement when there is fear.
6. Fear is hard-wired in us and it causes us to quickly respond for the sake of our lives. We make quick decisions to avoid danger and it completely ignores any logical reasoning. The amygdala is involved in our quick responses during fear. The amygdala is also involved in traumatic events. It activates and stores traumatic memories in a way that it will reoccur almost perfectly like before but instead in the present.
7. Vicarious traumatization is when you can relate to someone you connect to either religiously, ethnically, culturally, historically, linguistically, tribally, or nationalistically, you can feel their sufferings. It's a sign of having empathy for someone that seems connected to you. It doesn't matter whether or not you have experienced anything similar before because when the victim talks about the event, you can experience the same emotions and feelings through listening to it.
8. Television is a vital link in creating fear in our culture because Americans watch a lot of TV and through visual action we can experience traumatizing events as if it happened to us directly. This also becomes an addiction after a while because the constant activation of the brain's circuits becomes a natural thing. It affects the two parts of our brain called the amygdala and the hippocampus. As we keep watching TV, our brain adapts to the usual traumatizing effect. Now that news usually start with crimes, it makes people who like to watch the news everyday be exposed to more traumatizing things.
9. The probability neglect is when fear causes people to ignore probability and only think of the major consequence. This makes people focus more one one small factor of something bad that could happen other than considering all the bad things that could happen. They are impacted by something threatening and therefore the only thing they care about is the thing that caused the impact and not the other possible threats.
10. The current Bush administration has used fear to manipulate us by using the repitition of one threat that it creates a vivid image of only one threat that we need to be aware of, causing possibility neglect. For example the September 11 impact that was misused to impact us to thinking that terrorism is the only thing we should watch out for.
John Carreon
Block Epsilon
1)Well two strategies that I would use in this reading are to read it slow and take my time, and take like a 5 min break. Reading it slowly can help me understand the text more. Reading to fast can cause me to misinterpret what the text means. Taking a break can help me take in what I have read and process it in my mind before I start reading again. Also if I read slower I won’t have to reread parts of the text.
2)Fear and reason is natural in every human being. But they are complete opposites. Fear can get rid of reason from the human mind which causes humans to do irrational things. Reason however, can also overpower fear it can even dismiss fear from the human. The too work in a cycle one without the other they are enemies.
3)Press is the fear factor. With everyone watching the TV fear has become something that is very accessible to us. Fear works like a memory, we remember the emotions we have felt watching cretin images on TV. Like 9/11 as an example, many people who watch those towers fall on the news felt more traumatized then when you read it in the newspaper. With that the government can play on peoples fears to chose which ever side that seems safer to the people.
4)The FMRI showed how people reacted to fear. It studies our brain when seeing images that would have a fear reaction. It just goes to show that people would react to their emotions, basing their decisions on things that they could think relationally but don’t. Every decision in our lives is based on how we are feeling. If we have a positive reaction to it we will say yes, vs. if we have a negative reaction then we would say no. Every thing that we say or do is based on our feeling.
5)For one emotions which we us every day. Also traumatizing things or memories that we have very bad experiences can cause people to react to the fear in a later situation. We also have a mirror fear. If we see something that would harm us and we are watching it harm someone else we react to it and thus a mirror fear. All these things many people wont think with reason and so fear takes it place in this new world today.
6)The amygdala is something you can say is like a memory or our way of saying danger. It reacts to what we see and it is like our instinct. We see something and it sends a imitate response to our brain through the amygdala. It tells us danger or to be careful. It is what people feel and how they react to things because of their emotions.
7)Well a “vicarious traumatization” is like when you see someone experience some type of fear or traumatizing you can soon feel their fear. It is like a connection of the person that it had done to. And when we see more of the fear then we too can be traumatized.
8)Well if people see what is going on then they would be more fear then if they just read about it. When they see it they plant it in their memory. They can react to more fear because they actually saw it. People feel more fear when they see things then they would if they hear about it or read it. Like a horror movie people will react to things that happen in the movie and they can be very scared of it.
9)Probability neglect is when someone focuses on one thing then every thing as a whole. Like if a bomb went off in the white house. People would be like protect us against bomb threats. They wont think that something different can happen. They think a bomb threat would more likely happen because it already happened. Then if a person would get shot.
10)They show fear by showing what effects people the most over and over again. With that they won’t let people move on because they keep showing the images. People will react to them because they see them all the time and the bush administration can basically control people. The administration can tell them they will protect them if they do this or that. They have power to influence your decision with your feelings.
John Sy
Theta
1. Stratigies that I will be using to read this paper are, highlighting things that to me are important and highlighting with a different color what I don't understand. Another thing is to re-read what I don't understand until I do understand and circle words that i do not understand and look it up to see what it means.
2. Al Gore is saying that fear is the most powerful enemy because fear can make a lot of people do wrong things. Some right decisions that people make might involve with fear and some people can't and won't get over their fear. That is why fear is such a big enemey because you an individual can not physicly fight fear, but you have to fight it mentally which is hard for some individuals.
3. According to the chapter, the press was supposed to inform people about what is going on in the socity, but now the press is just using the information that us people don't really need to hear. Some of the information that is being sent out can cause fear in some people.
4. The FMRI is the ability of neuroscientist to look inside the operation of a living human brain and see how many humans react when they are scared or in fear. The democracy part is to see how a human being will react to questions and debates.
5. We have many mental structures but emotion has much more power to affect reason than reason does to affect emotions, particularly the emotion of fear.
6. In the reading it says that fear is "hardwired" in our brains as an ancient strategy that gives us the ability ti respond instantly when survival may be at stake. It is also said that amygdala is involved in speeding other responses important to our species's survival, such as the urge to reproduce.
7. When tramatic events happen, then it will be stored in our memory forever and can haunt us for life, which can also lead to use being in fear.
8. Television is a big way that fear can spread because of the press. A lot of humans watch t.v. and most people will believe whatever is told on t.v. That is what can case a lot of fear.
9. Neglect is when an indivdual is stuck on one situation. And for our socity when 9/11 struck a lot of people were focused on that once thing that happen to us. Because that thing was such a big impact, so people fear that it might happen again.
10. Fear hasn't really ended fear. Bush kind of caused more fear with the whole War and fighting. Instead of trying to reason he is causing hundreds of lives to be killed everyday because of the war. Bush has also tried to use the same fear a lot of times.
Eta Block
1) Some strategies that i use are. highlighting sections of the text hat i believe say somethign important. Another thing i like to do id re read passages i don't understand. And try to analyze what is happening in that section of the text. And if i run inot any thing that I don''t under stand i will highlight and re read later after a break so i can try to read it with a clear head.
2)Al Gore believes that fear is the most powerful enemy of reason because. Fear can shut down reason. Though reason can "disipate fear" Fear is a much stronger emotion. He quoted Edmund Burke "No passion so effectuall robs the mind of all it's powers of acting and reasoning as fear."
3)According to "Former Furure President Al Gore" The press was mean't to distribute information to people to keep them informed. But now in this modern day society the press is used to spread fear. And now with telivision news the fear is being with much ease.So ther are kept in a constant state of fear.
4)This new technology is used to study the functions of the brain. And people can now study what certin thing do the change certian functions of the brain. AL Gore states that in a true democracy the common thought is that people are capable of free rational thought and being able to use reason to solve problems. And the reasearchers who have studied this have seen that powerful emotions like fear can block out rational thought ant the ability to reason.
5)Emotions are the thing that can dominate our ability to make decisions. Accordign to the new research strogn emotions are able to block the ability to reason making a person have thought cause by that emotion. And that the emotions are "hardwired" into us to quickly make responses.
6)Fear is linked to the amygdala . This region of the brain is involved with speedign up responses for the survival of the species. So when something that causes fear the response is faster than the response generaated by reason. THe areas of the brain linked to reason are recently evolved and depend on a more subtle process to generate a response taking a much longer time than the response generated by the amygdala.
7)It is a situation where someone close has exprinced somethign very trumatic and causes us to exprince it also. Though we did not exprince the trumatic event first hand. It happens when someone is told the story of the trumatic event. The physical responses of the person hearign the story is similar to the person telling it.
8) Many people have adopted the telivision as their main source for information. And through this people are taking in trumatic stories that cause fear. They are using the "vicarious truma" ti instill an emotion into people. For example many people did not exprince the terror of september 11th first hand but we all know how terrifying the feelign would be.
9)Probable neglect is when a person decides to focus their attention on one aspect insetad of another aspect. This causes a bias in the persons reasoning and can lead to very onsided responsess and ways of thought.
10) According to Al Gore President Bush and his administration are keeping their power by instilling thought and feeling of fear into the heart of the nation. The search for war for Iraq was launched at a time where it would strike just enough fear into people that they would re-elect Bush into office. It was a a basic scare tatic used on masses of people.
Theta
1. When I have trouble with a reading, it's usually because I don't recognize a word. I'll make a list of words I don't know out of a section the first time I read it. Than, if I am really caught up by those words, I'll check all of their definitions and then re-read the section. It is the best way for me to get through anything difficult.
2. Al Gore says this quote because fear has the ability to completely overrule rationality and logic. Without those two things, people act irrationally and illogically, to the detriment of themselves and others. Without using reason people make rash decisions that level headed people would not make, causing a lot of suffering for everyone.
3. The function of press was to keep us informed. It was to pass on the details and realities of the goings on in the world. It was to keep us from being confused or misunderstanding situations and events. However, the “free press” is currently doing the opposite, filling us with fear through manipulation, censorship, and propaganda.
4. Research was done on the relationship between humans and their fear instinct. It was realized just how intense this feeling can be and how it can be manipulated, insinuating that democracy can use fear to control people. (Which it does)
5. Fear completely dominates human beings more so than any other emotion. The only focus when extremely afraid is finding a way to feel safe and secure again, and as such irrational and unreasonable decisions and accusations are often made by people gripped by fear. According to new research, we have as human beings, the emotion of fear, which dominates our decision making more than anything else. “Where there is fear, wisdom is not.”
6. Fear is an important survival instinct when someone's life is in danger. Decisions are made quickly and often rashly when trying to avoid the danger and return to a safe state of mind. The amygdala is the source of the feeling, and retains traumatic memories, causing the exact emotion to be replicated in situations long after the initial incident.
7. Vicarious traumatization is as follows: “Vicarious” is similar to meaning second hand, and trauma, in the psychological sense, is great psychological pain, associated with fear. You can feel vicarious traumatization with someone who is associated you either through religion, culture, ethics, history, nationality-- almost any number of things. You empathize with them and feel their pain, even if you haven't gone through their situation.
8. The main source of propaganda in our culture is through television. It is the main source of information and therefore the main source of manipulation through fear tactics and censorship. TV inundates us with traumatizing images and stories until we become numb to them; and the brain stimulating effects of television easily capture peoples' senses and they become addicted to watching television constantly. The more visually traumatizing image an addicted brain sees, the more numb and accepting it becomes.
9. The probability neglect is when fear overrules all over reason and the only thing one can focus on is the worst possible situation. They do not consider all the other myriad things that may go wrong, because they are completely fixed on one possibility due to the overriding emotion.
10. Bush and his controlling administration have used “the war on terror” and terrorism propoganda to utterly steal our rights out from under us. We are so focused on “the war on terror” that other more pressing issues, like starvation and homelessness in our own country, are ignored, forgotten, or never acknowledged in the first place.
calvin zhang
theta
1. Strategies i will use in this reading are re-reading what i dont understand and make mental notes in my head. This will help me get through the reading because when i combine the 2 strategies, i wont forget by the time i have class and that i would understand it better from the mental notes. I will also take breaks and recap on what i just read so it will be in my head more.
2. Gore is saying that [f]ear is the most powerful enemy of reason because when we are afraid of something, we cant think straight because you are worried about the fear and your main thought is to first get away from the fear.
3. The press is supposed to inform us on what's happening in society; but it is like a double edged sword. Bad news can cause chaos amongst the nation and this can be easily done because everyone has a t.v., radio, or read the news paper.
4. The new technology studies how we react and act when fear is induced. When fear is induced, its almost like instinct takes over and we just want to get rid of the fear. This can be used by others as strategies for their own advantage.
5. How we decisions is by emotions or how we feel at the moment. Fear is a emotion which strongly influences the way we act. For example, if someone has an extreme case of arachnophobia, (john carreon) when confronted with spiders, he or she will forget what they're doing and get the hell away.
6. Our brain is like a hard drive, and our amygdala is like an antivirus / spayware detection device. Everything that we have seen is store in our amygdala. So if our amygdala reconizes something we see as dangerous, our response will be to get to safety, just like a message will appear on your computer "virus detected, kill it" because if it doesnt do anything, then your computer will get infected.
7. vicarious traumatization is when someone can related to another's position and you are feeling what they are feeling because we've either had similar experiences or that their situation is very emotional.
8. T.v. is a vital link in creating fear in our culture because most of us have and watch t.v. and that commercials, the news, and t.v. programs influence how we act in different times and situation. Like if the news says that eating too much junk food will have harmful effects on your body, then people would eat less junk food and eat healthier because they are afraid of getting those harmful effects.
9. probability neglect is when someone focuses more on one thing than anything else like if a couple was about to have sex and are only worried about getting pregnant, then they might just wear a condom; but they werent thinking about the other possibilities like STI's or HIV.
10. Bush has used fear by showing the most influential images the nation has seen and are afraid of therefore using it in his own advantage by saying if we do this we would be safe. Like 9/11, and how bush said there would be weapons of mass destruction and ended up not being any. Bush scared the hell out of the nation and was part of his strategic plan to control us.
1. The reading strategy that helps me is to read the whole document and then think on what the document as a whole means. This takes advantage of my subconscious because it allows me to think about earlier parts of the reading and make connections that I would not have recognized otherwise. If I were to stop and try to put the thing as it stands at each part it would not make nearly as much sense.
2. Al Gore says that fear is the enemy of reason because fear causes reason to fall behind. Fear stops the brain from thinking clearly because originally it wasn’t a survival trait to stick around and think when something that you were afraid of was about to happen.
3. According to Al Gore the original function of the press was to protect democracy from outside ideologies that would seek to tear it apart. The press is the immune system of democracy and it pokes holes in the fears of the people so that those fears don’t take over and do away with the benefits of democracy. He says that right now the press has stopped protecting us from our fears and the shape of the public forum has changed.
4. The implications of FMRI for democracy are that it shows that people are biologically incapable of using reason when confronted with a fear for their lives.
5. Mental structures that dominate our decision making process are the amygdala, the hippocampus, and the neocortex.
6. Fear overrides conscious thought because it was required to make us react quickly without worrying about whether or not our responses were good ones. The amygdala controls sexual urges.
7. Vicarious traumatization is the phenomena in which the feelings and emotions caused by trauma to someone who is close to us can be transferred to us even though we haven’t directly experienced the event.
8. Television is a vital link in spreading fear in our culture because the images that it delivers to us step around the filters of our conscious mind and go directly into the parts of our brains that control fear.
9. Probability neglect is the tendency for people to ignore the odds when confronted with either a large reward or a large threat.
10. The Bush administration used fear for their own means by ramping up the fear that people felt over September 11th and then ensuring that it was misdirected at a target that they wanted to have an excuse to attack. They harnessed the fear of the people and used it to justify their actions.
Theta Block
1. One of the things I used a lot while i was reading is to try to look at the words i don't understand circle it and read the sentence again to see if I can get what it saying, if not then I would look it up. When I stop reading, I think about what I have read and wonder if I was in situtation what it would be like. I sometime take a little short break to get away from the text then I get back to it and sometimes that helps with understanding.
2.Al Gore says and believes that fear is the most powerful enemy of reason because "Fear can shut down reason. Though reason can "disipate fear" Fear is a much stronger emotion. He quoted Edmund Burke "No passion so effectuall robs the mind of all it's powers of acting and reasoning as fear."
3.The system of the press was supposed to be the democracy's immune system or the main support. It's supposed to protect us from misunderstanding things. That's the system of a free press, but it doesn't seem like it's that way anymore. With the different I would get they say one thing and then the other says another what is the one to believe?
4. This new technology studies human behavior and relationships with fear. The association for democracy is using fear to exploit human beings. The research was about human reactions to fear. They discovered how strong the emotions were and use it to their advantage.
5.Emotions are the main thing that makes our choices. Whatever the human is feeling it will affect the choice that they make. So for an example if a person was under the emotion of fear then the person will react in very way to protect themselves. Which will cloud up their judgment. Therefore their choice that the person makes up wouldn't be the best one. Which is the reason of why fear can cause their reasons not to make sense.
6. Fear is hard drived in us and it causes us to quickly respond for our lives. We make quick decisions to avoid danger and it completely ignores any reason at all. The amygdala is involved in our quick responses during fear. The amygdala is also involved in traumatic events. It activates and stores traumatic memories in a way that it will reoccur almost perfectly like before but instead in the present, which then tells us not to mess with anything.
7. Not only we will see it as a threat through the fear but if those who experience the threat and this person is close to us, we will make it to turn out to be a "vicarious traumatization" which we will feel the same kind of pain as that person did. We will be able to connect to the person who has gone through the threat. Therefore since we "feel" it we see it more as a threat and feel it more as a fear and they use it against us.
8.With TV a lot of people in America watched TV during their day then going out or sleeping or doing something else. Therefore a lot more people in America will fear whatever was going on. The images that people see on TV will cause them the to fear whatever they see even more. For an example if we see a lot of people getting killed in our area we will fear more to go out. We will make the choice to stay home at night then to go out.
9. The probability neglect is when fear causes people to ignore probability and only think of the major consequence. This makes people focus more one one small factor of something bad that could happen other than considering all the bad things that could happen. People that make decisions make it in fear and sometimes doesn't end up in what they thought would happen. They are impacted by something threatening and therefore the only thing they care about is the thing that caused the impact.
10.The Bush administration show fear by showing what effects people the most over and over again. They make the decision when they have a fear of failing and so they just make things up. With that they won’t let people move on because they keep showing the images. People will react to them because they see them all the time and the bush administration can basically control people. The administration can tell them they will protect them if they do this or that.
Ryan Clark
Block Eta
1) A strategy that I thought would helpful to understand this reading better would be to discuss it with someone as I read through it. I did this with my dad and it really helped. It actually helped me come up with the answer to the second question. I also thought that it would be helpful if I read the text and when I came to something that I didn't understand I would take a short break and think about that part before moving. This would ensure that I didn't just skip over parts of the reading.
2) I came upon this answer when I was talking to my dad. Going back to talking about if people are hardwired to do the right thing, people are hardwired to escape danger. For thousands of years people have followed their instincts to get away from situations that they fear. For example, if the only way to live was to jump in the water, but you almost drowned when you were a child, their may be some reservations about getting in the water because of the traumatic experience. I would like to think that my judgment, but I would probably act on my instinct to stay away from scary situations as opposed to following reason.
3)The purpose of having a free press was to inform the people of what was happening without bias or missing aspects of the whole story. With television thrown into the mix the press has moved away from informing so much as showing shocking pieces. The news has become more of an entertainment show than an information show.
4) FRMI is a method used to test peoples reaction to fear. In politics candidates use fear to pursued people to vote for them. This tactic seems to work for a lot of candidates. They can bank on the current events that are controversial by bringing up the parts of the story that cause fear in people.
5) As I said before fear is the priority of the mind. Nobody wants to be scared, so decisions will be made according to that. Other emotions like hatred can cloud a persons judgment. Some people will pick the worse candidate simply because they don't like the other option as a person. Reason unfortunately is behind all emotions in the decision making hierarchy.
6) Once again, fear is hardwired into the brain. When someone is in a scary situation their judgment is controlled by their instincts. I feel like the only way to override this instinct is to step back and ignore that situation in particular and look at the other issues.
7) Vicarious traumatization is when a person fears something, not because of experience that they had, but because of an experience someone close to them had. They have heard about the experience and they care about the person so they will either fear that same situation or feel hatred towards people who perpetrate the situation.
8) Television is a big cause of fear in America. THe news, which is trusted to inform the public about current events is only covering crimes, wars, and death in general. Who wouldn't feel a little bit of fear after seeing these scenes in color picture. Hearing or reading about it is one thing, but when you can see the scene it doesn't seem as distant from our lives.
9)
Antonio Alvarado
Epsilon Block
1.The Strategy i will use in reading this tex is highlight the things i dont know and look up the definitions of the words i dont know afterward. if i dont understand the reading i go over it again and try my best to understand it.
2. what al gore is saying that we all have fears and reasons no matter what we say and no matter what we cant fight it because its a force that you cant beat.
3. the press (in the reading)was created to infom people on whats going on in the world. but when tv came into the press it informed us on the less important things going on.
4. The FMRI shows how people react to fear. How a human being will react to questions and debates is the democratic part.
5. um...i think emotions play a huge part in our choice making what your actionsare based on how your emotions are at that time. like me? if i had a girlfrined and she broke up with me i would feel sad, making me want to do something stupid. it isnt the best thing to do, but at times where it comes to actiong on your emotions you cant really control it.
6.Fear is hard drived in us because when it comes to reactiong on fear on instinct. i dont know how to explain it.
7.Vicarious traumatization are feelings and emotions caused by trauma. like if my mom died i know for a fact that it would hit me so hard i wouldnt have any emotion at all.
8. Many people in the united states are guillibule to meida and the stuff they hear or see on tv. like if there was a muder in Texas and it was brodcasted nation wide everyone that watches it will fear that it could happen to them so they get very cautious.
9.The probability neglect is fear causes people to ignore what could happen if he or she does this and only think of whats going to happen to them due to their actions. like when your friend gets into a fight, your friend wins. then the boy got beat up says im gonna get you on th rebound, all your going to think of is "oh they are gonna get him when he is slippin'" but what could really happen is that if he saw you with him it would make you a target of retaliation.
10. The bush administration used 9/11 as a reason to go into a forigen country and take the countries oil. he put fear into U.S citizens to support his real cause in Iraq. he made it seem like "If we dont go into Iraq and clear the country of all "terrorists" then they are going to bomb the united states."
MY FANTASY FOOTBALL TEAM RULES!!!!
Ivy Leung
Zeta
1. 1-2 Strategies I will use to get through this reading:
- Look up definitions of the word
- Read it slow
I think these strategies will help me through this reading because looking up the definition of word makes me feel like I know what I am actually reading and trying to understand. Reading the text slowly makes me understand it more than when I read fast. But sometimes when I read a difficult text, I need it to be quiet and I need to reread it over again sometimes. Sometimes I need someone to actually read it to me and explain to me as he/she is reading to me. But most of the time I don't need anyone to read it to me. [:
2. Al Gore say that “[f]ear is the most powerful enemy of reason because fear and reason is the essential to human survival. Fear is everywhere and "[w]here fear is present, wisdom cannot be". When there is fear you can't find a reason for it, you can't find a solution at the time you need it, you just want it to be over and you want everything to be right again.
3. The function of the press is suppose to have information be sent to the public informing people about what is happening and not censoring what they don't want the public to see.
4. FMRI is suppose to let neuroscientists to look inside the operations of a living human brain to see which part of our brain is being used. It is now being discovered how human beings functions in relation to fear. Implications for democracy are profound.
5. Our mental life is basically controlling our emotions, motives, and desires. There are other mental structures that govern feelings and emotions, and these structures have a greater impact on decision making than logic and reason. Emotions have more power to affect reason, especially the emotion of fear.
6. Fear is "hardwired" in our brains as an old strategy that gives us an instant signal when our life may be in danger. Amygdala is an example of having a instant signal because it involves in speeding other responses for our survival, like the urge to reproduce.
7. Vicarious traumatization is the ability to conceive of something that activates the amygdala and starts giving the instant fear response. For example, when your family member or a close individual is experiencing a trauma, a person's feelings can be communicated to us even though we didn't experience the traumatic event.
8. Television is a vital link in creating fear in our culture because we watch a lot of TV. American spends two-thirds of his time watching TV. The physical effects of watching trauma on TV is a rise in blood pressure and heart rate.
9. It is how fear influences our thinking. Social Scientists found that when confronted with an enormous threat or a huge reward, people tend to focus on the magnitude of the consequence and ignore the probability.
10. The Bush administration is using fear by repeating by showing what has happened in the fast, such as the 9/11 attacks. Every year they show it over again and many people discriminate the a specific race in forming an alliance to bring down the WTC.
Jasmin Palencia
1- I think that by using the many different techniques for reading I will be able to understand most of the reading. Also because this reading is pretty long I think that these techniques will help me get through it better and faster so that that way I wont have to keep re-reading the text over and over until I get what it means.
2- I think that Al Gore uses these words because when your afraid that something will happen you don’t think about your actions you only do what comes to mind first. Sometimes that isn’t the right thing so it isn’t the most reasonable thing to do. So when he says that “Fear is the most powerful enemy of reason” he means that because fear is such a powerful influence on your actions when you are afraid you don’t think about what you are doing.
3- The function of the press was to inform people about what was happening in the world so that they knew. Now Al Gore says that they are using it against us to brainwash us in to thinking other things while they do what ever they want to do. People are using the power of the press so that they can do what ever they want to do and using the press to cover it up.
4- The implications for democracy is that everything we do is controlled by emotions. Everyone thinks that you were the one answering what you really thought but it turns out that according to your emotion on the subject that is what people answer.
5- The new Research says that or mind is governed by our emotions, motives and desires.
6- When something happens to you that scares you a lot you tend to remember that more than any other memories because they many things run through your mind on what to do.
7- A vicarious traumatization is when you have a very vivid memory of a time that you were really scared and you can remember all the actions you had and you actually believe that you are there again.
8- The television has a lot of power over most of the country because they all watch the news and spend most of their time on the TV so people see everything that is going on in their city and it makes their city seem like they are actually much more dangerous than they are. They make people more paranoid than what they already are.
9- Probability neglect is when people don’t sees what is actually happening because of something else or a big lie.
10- Bush is using the fear to better himself because he makes everyone afraid of something so that he would be able to do what ever he wanted without anyone complaining because everyone thinks that he is doing it for the better of the country.
Logan F
ZETAblk.
1.i am just going to do my usual reading thing. Read slow, RE-read what dosnt make sense the first time, and underline and maybe lookup words that i dont know.
2.Al gore says that fear is the most powerful enemy because fear can make people do the wrong thing at the wrong time.Occasionally the general population will make a good descision when they are scareed and in a stressful position, and there are those few who work well under stress, like its a motivator, but that only SOME people.some of the reasons Fear is such a feroucious enemy is because fear is a feeling, and it cant be fought, it can be overcame, but thats quite a feat.
3. The chapter says that the press is ment to inform us, about whats going on is society, but instead it just tells us about things that we dont really need to hear, things that allow people to vicariously live through the tabloids, and some things in the press sound alot worse then they really are, and it strikes fear in to the heatrs of the public.
4. A FMRI is a thing that neurosceintists use to look at the brain while its being opperated on, and still alive to see how the brain reacts to fear. and the other part is to see how the brain works during arguments and questioning and debates.
5.People have so many mentalities and mental structures, and alot of them are our emotions. Emotion has a greater power over reason, then reason does over emotion. Like fear, you cant really change what you are or arent scared of, no matter how unreasonable.
6. It says that fear is "hardwired" in our brains as an ancient strategy that gives us the ability to respond instantly when our lives may be at stake. it also says that Amygdala is used to aid other responses important to preserving ones self.
7. When somone expierences somthing traumatic, you tend to remember. and since you remember, you want to prevent that thing , and that can make you scared, and live in fear of somthing.
8. Fear is easliy spread through tv, stuff like the news. so many people watch it, and belive what they see.
9. Neglect is hard to explain, its like your stuck, or helpless and you need the support, but arent gettin it, its neglect.This makes people focus more one one small factor of something bad that could happen other than considering all the bad things that could happen.
10. Fear dosnt really work to fight fear. I think it just creates more of it. Like W, and his war of terror, hes got troops evreywere, and hes making so much war and death and destruction and it makes people scared, not for our live directly, but the lives of our friends and family over there, and fear as americans. and that just puts a target on us for the rest of the owrld.
Yvette, Zeta
1. I chose looking up definitions of words because I already do that when I read. The second one I chose was highlighting important points because that helps me look for the main ideas in the text. It also helps me in the future when I have to reference back to that text. The last strategy I used was being patient. I reread when I needed to and looked at each paragraph as a whole to make sure I understood.
2. Al Gore says that fear is the most powerful enemy of reason because this one emotion influences our lives more than we can imagine. Sometimes we are conscious of it and sometimes we are not. Fear can trigger certain things that lead us to make certain decisions without thinking it through.
3. Al Gore wrote that free press is supposed to be our government's "immune system" to manipulation of information. However, this is not working as efficiently because society is not as "open to the vigorous and free exchange of ideas from individuals as it was when America was founded." His suggested solution was to discover new ways in which fear affects the thinking process.
4. In using the FMRI technology, "research demonstrates that" democracy may not be as simple of an idea as people think. In an idealistic sense, it is debate-friendly, fair and collective but FMRI shows that there is a whole other side to it, a side filled with intentions and motives, emotions and desire.
5. There are many different mental structures that subconsciously cause us to make the decisions we make. One example being "heuristics". These are shortcuts our brain develops to quickly make decisions under pressure. These decisions are based off of "emotional reactions rather than considering all options rationally".
6. Amygdala activates emotions in our brains to help us for survival. Fear lets us become cautios of danger. When traumatic experiences are translated into memories, there is no "time tag" so whenever you are reminded of that experience, it feels present. The memory activates the emotion you felt at that time.
7. Vicarious traumatization is literally sharing one's emotions or feelings. It is when (for example) a happy story is told and the people around you begin to feel happy also. It is when emotions are passed through a means of communication.
8. "Television can create false memories that are just as powerful as normal memories" because of the repetitive imagery (sudden movements send signals to our brain and tell us to "look") combined with sound. Television is especially affective because Americans spend so much time watching it.
9.Probablity neglect is when people focus on the presented reward or threat and ignore the probability. A good example would be the Lottery. Most consumers only focus on the large amount at stake but ignore the fact that thousands of other people are also trying to win.
10. According to Al Gore, the "Bush Administration has used some of the techniques identified...repeating the same threat over and over again, misdirecting attention and using vivid imagery." For example, when President Bush talked of "terrorists", by also putting emphasis on Iraq, people automatically make the connection that Iraqis are terrorists when in reality, they have no connections.
Epsilon
Daniel Kong
1.One of the strategies I think helps is to take breaks in between the readings. It helps to let me digest what I've just read through. Another way that helps is to recap in my head what I just read and and this goes hand in hand with the breaks.
2.Fear causes the mind to form irrational thoughts when overcome by fear. It's as if saying you had a fear of fire and that fear overcame you and you made the decision never to go near heat again because you are afraid of being burned.
3.The press was mean to inform the public and provide views on the news and headlines. It is now used as a fear machine. I tis used to recycle headlines and images in order to invoke feelings of fear in the American public
4.He says that now that we can tell what parts of the brain is actually working the basis of democracy is moot. Democracy is based on the thought that the public is a rational and logical being. Using this new technology has proven that untrue. When exposed to fear-invoking images, the stimulus goes straight to the amygdala and the memory of such is stored and can be invoked by similar images or circumstances.
5.Emotions then followed by our memories. Humans base responses on emotions first and if there is sufficient time it is revised by past memories. Also what we have learned to do when we encounter new things plays a role in revising responses. The amygdala has been discovered to, not only store traumatic memories, but also to regulate other storages of memories. There are also “mirror nuerons” which also appear to be stimulated by virtual pain, ie. Watching someone being poked in the side.
6.The image or feeling that invokes fear causes our brain, or more specifically, the amygdala to trigger the “fight or flight” response. The amygdala is a part of the brain that regulates and, apparently, stores traumatic/ fear-inducing images. The amygdala then stores such a memory but does not record when such a memory occurred so that when any similar circumstance or feeling reoccurs, that memory is brought up again and induces the same response.
7.Vicarious traumatization is the name for the physical and mental effects of watching an image of something that causes fear. Even though we do not experience the trauma personally the same mental and physical reactions are nearly the same as if we had actually gone through such an event ourselves.
8.We spend so much of our time glued to the television set. Most Americans spend two-thirds of their off-time watching the television. Watching the news or television constantly forces our brain to collect memories, willingly or not, to be later used as a basis for responses.
9.“Probability neglect” is the focus on the consequences of an action/event and not the probability of such an action or event occurring. This is evident in the propaganda the current administration has used to redirect American attention. Originally the focus was Afghanistan and Osama Bin-Laden. Then it went to Iraq and the supposed WMD's that were being built and stored there. Then it went to the oppression of the Iraqi people and how we are bringing democracy there. Some how along the way, the American public got lost in why we went to war in the first place.
10.Fear was used to put more of Bush's yes people into place and was also used to label people as “unpatriotic” when they voted against bills and amendments that the Bush administration proposed. Fear is used to drive through pressing issues by focusing the American attention elsewhere especially when the issue is important for political processes.
Kaid Alameri
Epsilon
1.
Underlining, highlighting, and talking to the text help me find the main idea of the text and understand it even more, especially when I finish the text then I go back to look for the conclusion. Highlighted sentences help me find the main point of the text which leads me to the conclusion. Taking 5 minutes break help me concentrate especially with this reading because it states a lot of important stuff, and boring and confusing at the same time.
2. Even though fear is our enemy, it is been a part of our life and nobody can’t change it. Fear is the worst enemy for human because fear lead you on doing bad stuff and whenever you have fear of something, your mind don’t conjugate right, and makes human go out of control.
3. It meant to be a reminder for people, and fear people from their fear. And make them think about what they’re doing. Also to protect democracy from the new ideas that are set up to split it up.
4. FMRI shows people reaction when there are in fear, and study the emotions that come with fear, also shows us how human are so emotional no matter how strong the person is. Emotions are involved in every decision that we make every day.
5. As I mentioned in question 4, emotions are what make our decision. If someone trying to fight me, my emotion (anger) will fight back, or if the person that I’m fighting is huge, my emotion (fear) automatically will try to prevent him asap.
6. Whenever something happens to us that will cause us to have some kind of fear, our action depends on our instincts. Amygdala from what I know is a way to send reaction or responds to the brain. And that happens when the fear occurs.
7. Vicarious Traumatization is whenever you are in danger, you will be traumatized by a childhood experience. Or when you see someone in fear, you could feel the person’s fear by looking at him/her.
8. TV support fear in many ways. TV spread the fear into people’s minds especially that most human watch TV. Just by watching a scary movie and it shows a lot of scary senses at night so that makes us be more conscious at night. Or by the news.
9. I think Probability Neglect when a person give his/her full attention and focus on only one thing. Just like when the military was looking for Sadam Husain, and people forgot about how many people in Iraq are getting killed day by day, and they realized that later on.
10. Bush administration used 9/11 as away to fear people, and be scared if that happens again. So they took advantage of that and went to Iraq in the name of (fighting terrorism), where in reality Iraq didn’t have any bombs or anything prove of terrorism. Nevertheless, they took over Iraq, and killed whoever is trying to defend their land. But if you take a look back, fear of terrorism is why people didn’t step up against that from the beginning.
Julian MacDonnell
ZETA
1.To get through Al Gore's The Politics of Fear, the strategies I choose to use is to seek out important terms and sentences. From there, I will also look for words that I don't know or am not sure on the definition and underline them. Then, once I finish the reading, go back and find the actual definitions of the words I didn't understand. Assuming that parts of the text do get hard, I plan on taking little breaks to make sure I don't get bored and don't finish the text. But the breaks won't be to stop reading and do something completely different. Once a break starts, I reflect on the last bit of text I read and try to make sense of it in my mind.
2.“Fear is the most powerful enemy of reason,” according to Al Gore because with fear existing, it causes a person or group of people to think about a situation in the wrong light. Someone might take a threat made to threaten them and possibly their group, and start to panic while trying to find a solution. Because of that, the person in charge starts to change the way he/she thinks due to the over coming fear and will most likely think of the worst action possible to protect them self. With thinking like this, reason basically gets thrown out the window.
3.The press, in our eyes, is meant to inform us on any trouble that has come up so that we might avoid it, or at least be told ahead of time. In the text, the media is actually meant as a scare tactic to freak out the public, and if you look at our media/press today, it is pretty obvious that that is right. One might say the solution is to try to close your self off as much as possible from the press, but as I said about todays media, it is much different from the past. Everywhere you go, everywhere you look, the media is there. From the news paper all the way home to the TV and Internet. The actual solution that actually will work is to do what we are doing right now, waking ourselves up to what is really happening and being said, don't cut out the media, because it will come right back.
4.FRMI is used to test how the general audience that watches/reads the news and gets information from the press handle fear. By way of doing this, we can learn how to control our fear, keep our selfs in tact, and to know what to look for. Through doing these tests, we also look at our emotions and can see way more clearly how they affect us once they are brought out, even to their fullest potential. In short democracy is there not just as a government to give order, but to also control what people see and do. For example, look at the last question in relation to the press.
5.Humans have quite a few mental structures, especially when it comes to making decisions. The main structure within ourselves that helps make our decisions is emotion. Emotion is a powerful tool if used correctly. As you can see, the press use fear to try and scare us, manipulating our thoughts and emotions. Our emotions mold us into what we are today, how we think and act.
6.Our amygdala is where what we see is sent to. It alone is the most involved portion in our brain in our own personal thinking/reason process. Lets say we see food, our amygdala might tell us to eat it, due to what food represents to us and the fact that we need food to live. Plus we don't want those pains in our stomachs if we don't eat. Now lets replace food with fear. If we were to see something that we fear the most, whether it be real and right in front of us, or we see a image of it. Our brain automatically will do what ever the person that sees his/her fear and act it thought the body, most of the time without the person knowing.
7.Vicarious traumatization is what lets us connect with someone that has just witnessed and/or just gone through something fearful. It especially applies itself to the other person if he/she went through the same thing at some point before they meet this person in their life. It also helps humans to get to know what people went through to the best of their abilities by just trying to put them selfs in the persons shoes.
8.As I stated before, TV can be a big reason/way that fear gets put into us because the press is showing us a certain perspective of the fearful thing, whether it be a person or event. And because most of us watch TV, we all see close to the same thing. With that we get fear instilled into us within seconds, and more brutally I might add when comparing the newspaper to the TV news. The newspaper uses mainly words and still images that might not get us the right way that actual video and a live person talking on the news channel might.
9.Probability neglect is when one person is viewing an event and can see from one perspective only and either refuses or just can't see the other views on the same subject. This is one of human natures most unfortunate flaws. I say this because if you look at how this can affect a whole race/culture, it is a very dramatic event. For example, during WWII, people couldn't look at things from a different perspective and by doing so, put all Japanese and Japanese Americans into the same herd were they were considered a threat no matter what anyone said or proved.
10.The Bush Administration uses fear by showing and repeating the same threat over and over to the public. By doing this, the public, at least a major majority, sees this only problem and can't look beyond it. Almost like the Bush Administration is trying to use Probability Neglect to control what the people think so that they can have support for whatever they need. The current war is a very good example, they keep using the threat of bombs and missiles aimed at destroying the US, but truth is they are just over there doing something completely different using the same tired excuse.
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