Quote:
Originally Posted by PepsiFree
If your intent is to make people wear seatbelts, lock their doors, or not date a sex offender out of fear vs. rational thought and logic, it’s the exact same thing.
Presenting the statistics on seatbelt safety and the impact it has on accidents and vehicular deaths isn’t fearmongering. Stating that if you don’t put on your seatbelt you’re probably going to die and you should fear driving in your car without a seatbelt is literally fear mongering.
In both cases, the danger of driving without a seatbelt is very valid, and very real. The approach is what establishes whether it’s fear mongering or not, not the validity of the fear. You can absolutely fear monger people into taking action on real dangers, it just has (usually unintended) negative psychological impacts.
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Ok, so if I tell people that climate change is a real threat to society, and it will cause huge amounts of human suffering, damage to property, and yes, lost lives, if swift action isn't taken now... is that fear mongering, or is that just sharing truthful information about the inconvenient reality of the world we're currently living in?
The problem I have with the term "fear mongering" when it's used against those who communicate warnings of real dangers, is that it implies an accusation of emotional manipulation to provoke irrational responses.
Because that's what actual fear mongering is - fabricating or exaggerating dangers to try and provoke responses that are not rational. (Tuco in this thread for example.)
So in terms of the Harris-Walz campaign, are they using fear mongering in any of their messaging, or are they just communicating real dangers? Looking at Trump's threat to democracy, for example, how do you tell people that he wants to dismantle American democracy, without causing negative psychological impacts?