Freud admitted that all psychoanalysis can do is to “transform hysterical misery into common unhappiness.” And he was not alone in coming to the conclusion that a certain amount of emotional pain is inevitable in the course of life.
Four levels of fear’s severity are identified in the English language:
- Apprehension: which refers to a mild anticipation of a bad occurrence.
- Dread: which blends the conviction that one is facing danger with a powerful reluctance to encounter the scary object or situation.
- Panic: which denotes an overwhelming sense of being scared, coupled with alarmed hyperactivity and physiological arousal.
- Terror: which signifies an extreme degree of consternation, a feeling of doom, “catastrophic aloneness,” and psychomotor paralysis.
The fact that fear is ubiquitous in the animal kingdom suggests that it is a “needed emotion,” that is, one that is important for the organism’s survival and functioning.
Fear is a response to external danger; anxiety to dangers emanating from the internal world.
Phobia also needs to be distinguished from the paranoid fear insofar as there is no motive assigned in phobia to the frightening object. The statement “I am afraid of pigeons” represents phobia and the statement “Pigeons are out to get me” represents paranoia.
Some of these authors have pointed to the fact that most animal phobias involve harmless (spider, cockroach, maggot, snake, and rat) rather than predatory animals (lions, tigers, sharks); they postulate that animal phobias correlate more with contamination and disgust rather than with fear.
A habitual reaction to threat and danger, cowardice — at least on the surface — is a response to fear of actual harm. It involves a “crippling of the will”; one succumbs to fear and withdraws from the “combat.” Cowardice can be evident in physical, intellectual, and moral realms.
Intellectual cowardice results in inhibition of mental activity; one cannot think “outside the box” and gets scared if new insights do pop up in the mind. Moral cowardice manifests as the inability to uphold ethical standards and speak the truth under difficult circumstances; one lies, suddenly seems to lack words, and adopts the “silence of the complicit.”
Unable to express his resentment directly, the coward attributes vicious intent to his opponent and gets terrified. Consequently, he postpones the “debate,” falsely concurs with his adversary, or, worse, flees the situation in reality. Recognition of his timidity fills him with shame and self-disgust; these are often drowned in drink or covered over by the narcissistic fantasy of having deliberately engineered his defeat. The spineless combatant of yesterday thus transforms himself into the lofty bestower of victory to others.
The coward clings to his objects and is willing to sacrifice dignity at the altar of relatedness. All cowardice, when it comes down to it, is the fear of being disliked and being alone.
Monarchies and totalitarian regimes are customarily prone to create a “culture of fear” for their citizens. The term “terrorism” — used these days mostly to designate the political violence of small groups — actually originated in the context of state-sponsored intimidation.
The common element in all such movies is the evocation of fear, often to an unsettling and near-traumatic extent. They provide an encounter with the “uncanny,” by disrupting routine and by transforming the all-too-familiar into the bizarre and unpredictable. While gratuitous throat-cutting violence can elicit tormented joy from filmgoers, it is the helpless anticipation that truly terrifies them. The great maestro of fear, Alfred Hitchcock, recognized this and declared: “There is no excitement in the bang, only in the anticipation of it.”
Fearlessness is of 2 varieties. Primary fearlessness exists in infants and young children who are not aware of the dangers that surround them. Being hurt a few times and being repeatedly instructed by parents gradually curtails such “un-fear.” Secondary fearlessness is seen among low-level operatives in a criminal ring; they carry out nefarious and risky acts under the protection of a powerful boss and feel that nothing can and will happen to them.
Finally, there is courage. Hardly synonymous with fearlessness, courage implies that the person knows that his stance (physical, intellectual, or moral) and his actions can have adverse consequences: financial loss, social isolation, personal ridicule, physical punishment, and so on. And yet, he braces himself to encounter their impending onslaught. Only then can he face destruction and death and not betray the meaningful core of his existence.
“Courage is being scared to death and saddling up anyway.”
“Courage is a perfect sensibility of the measure of danger and a mental willingness to endure it.”
All that happened was that the goose died and the farmer lost the daily nugget of riches that was assured to him.
In this brief tale, Aesop elegantly addressed the coexistence of enormous hunger, impatience, inconsolability, a defective sense of empathy, and ingratitude towards one’s benefactors.
The first qualifier (“excessive”) suggests that acquisitiveness is to be termed greed only after it exceeds a certain threshold but does not specify what that threshold is and how and by whom it has been set up. The second qualifier (“reprehensible”) posits that greed lacks dignity, is vulgar, perhaps even immoral, and something to be looked down upon but does not reveal why does greed deserve such derision.
Its “excessive” nature is revealed by the fact that the quantity of goods desired far surpasses actual need as well as by its exaggerated quality when compared to the desires of others. Its “unrelenting” nature is revealed by the fact that the individual afflicted by it is momentarily pleased with the attainment of supplies and then becomes unsatisfied, empty, and inconsolable. “Greed, in its nature, is inherently insatiable, and so cannot be satisfied. It wants everything, nothing less will do.”
In pathological gambling, the disproportion between the amount spent and the desired reward creates the illusion that what one is about to receive is free of charge. This constitutes a powerful allure since it secretly gratifies the infantile wish of getting something for nothing. After all, it is only in infancy and childhood that one actually gets free supplies; once that period of life has passed, all material acquisition and even all love and respect has to be earned.
Along the 3 primary features of greed (i.e., excessive desire, inconsolability, entitlement) exist certain other manifestations. Prominent among these are a constant sense of hurry, ingratitude, defects of empathy, and corruption of superego functions.
Ingratitude is, in essence, a refusal to acknowledge that one has received goodness, love, and material supplies from others. No amount of indulgence appears enough to the one incapable of gratitude. Inwardly measuring every favor against the “debt” owed to him due to childhood deprivation, such an individual becomes incapable of enjoying what is offered and remains thankless to his benefactors.
The hunger for increasing wealth has no logical purpose; having everything is not enough, and the desire for more is like a race without a finish.
Confusion of means with ends and the distortion of priorities in life; failure to grasp the “big picture” and to acknowledge important human values.
Possessions become synonymous with self-worth, freedom, and privilege along with a sense of superiority and self-righteousness.
Social interactions become impersonal and perfunctory, lacking warmth and not letting others come close; personal encounters are limited to those that enhance personal gain.
Disdain and contempt towards this who do not take advantage of opportunities to compete and to surpass others in wealth.
The individual who has repressed his own greed feels exquisitely uncomfortable at encountering the attitude in others and might even equate their healthy appetites with avarice. A not infrequent accompaniment is pretended contempt for money in real life and “moral narcissism,” that is, yearning to be pure, free of attachment, and above ordinary human needs.
The shift from “parsimony” to “avarice,” however, creates the possibility of viewing greed as a 2-sided phenomenon. One side pertains to excessive acquisitiveness (of oral determination), and the other to inordinate retentiveness (of anal determination).