Panic and politics

I just read a Time article from late 2007 called "The Roots of Fear", which looks at the ways politicians use fear for political gain (citing, for example, Rudy Giuliani, who "rarely misses a chance to evoke images of crashing planes, collapsing towers and 2,973 dead Americans") as well as the reasons why invoking fear is so politically effective:

It's as pointless for Obama or anyone else to rail against the use of fear to sway voters as it is to bemoan humans' inability to hear pitches as high as dogs can. The brain structure that processes perceptions and thoughts and tags them with the warning "Be afraid, be very afraid!" is the amygdala. Located near the brain's center, this almond-shaped bundle of neurons evolved long before the neocortex, the seat of conscious awareness...

The evolutionary primacy of the brain's fear circuitry makes it more powerful than the brain's reasoning faculties. The amygdala sprouts a profusion of connections to higher brain regions—neurons that carry one-way traffic from amygdala to neocortex. Few connections run from the cortex to the amygdala, however. That allows the amygdala to override the products of the logical, thoughtful cortex, but not vice versa. So although it is sometimes possible to think yourself out of fear ("I know that dark shape in the alley is just a trash can"), it takes great effort and persistence. Instead, fear tends to overrule reason, as the amygdala hobbles our logic and reasoning circuits. That makes fear "far, far more powerful than reason," says neurobiologist Michael Fanselow of the University of California, Los Angeles.

In a way, I'm actually thankful for my panic disorder. It's given me a chance to really understand the science and psychology of anxiety, which I believe makes me better-equipped to recognize when someone's trying to use fear to manipulate me. Here's hoping Obama doesn't lean on this Bush-league tactic to the same extent as did the administration whose term is about to expire!

If you're interested in the biology of panic, I've discussed it before.