JIM ‘PAPPY’ MOORE: Profiting From Your Fear
By Jim “Pappy” Moore
Why does an entire flock of sheep submit to the herding of a sheepdog? The sheep instinctively fear the dog, which circles them like a wolf pack getting ready to attack. It is their own fear which traps them in this cycle. They react to his presence and his movements. They are acting out a ritual born of native fear of being eaten.
When you watch the news on television, you watch the commercials of those who have things to sell you. Fear plays a major factor. Whose commercials do you see the most while watching the news? Prescription drugs. Over the counter drugs. Warnings of actions which make you more vulnerable to disease, to injury, to home invasion, to violence. Buy this security camera. Buy this home security monitoring system which alerts you of intruders.
Fear is the major force exploited by those who wish to sell you their products or their politically motivated agendas. The actors selected, the dialogue, the themes sewn all have an objective of triggering you for fears, for hopes, for your sense of well-being and self-satisfaction.
The sheep see the dog as a potential life-threatening enemy. His role is to literally drive them with their fear. The sheep see the man, the shepherd, as their friend. He is raising them to use them, whether it is for the use of their wool or their slaughter to sell their meat. The dog and the man are working together to drive them, to manage them, and the sheep respond never seeing the dog and the man as a team which jointly exploit their inherent fear of something deep in their psyche.
When you watch your television action news team it is the same process. The advertisers want viewers who are motivated by fear. Be afraid. Of getting shingles. Of getting flu. Of getting other diseases. Of being undernourished. Of being overfed. Of being terrified of every kind of fear. You are more easily led if you are afraid.
This bombarding of fear is fairly constant. If you never watched television, or movies, or online videos you would realize how remarkably free of fear your life would be. In our world today most fear rides in as information about things that are happening to other people at other places.
The dog. The sheep. Insane violence in a small town in Idaho strikes fear in the hearts of Americans because it shakes the feeling of security we have when we live in some smaller city. That could be us. That could be our town. It is true. Bad things happen in our own towns, sometimes horrible things to really good people.
Fear is a major motivator for politicians. Some want you to be afraid of each other. Some want you to despise other groups. They encourage it. They push division and pit against each other members of various groups. City versus rural. Race versus race. Religious versus non-religious. Omnivores versus herbivores. Whatever the issue, some want you to fear others in your life, others in your community.
Meanwhile, the news and those exploiting your fear work together, hand-in-hand, to drive you like sheep with your apprehensions. Try this. Read your news. Pick and choose what you read. When watching television, mute the commercials. If watching TV news, mute the most terrible, fear-inducing stories. Do not overload yourself with fear-mongering intake.
The dog and the man manipulate you with your fear, but you are the one who makes their exploitation possible. If the sheep refused to respond to the man and his dog, the man would have to rely solely on leading the sheep, not herding them.
You have to stop being led around by your nose with your own fear.
Copyright 2022, Jim “Pappy” Moore. All rights reserved.
