The Power of Nightmares

"In the past, politicians promised to create a better world. They had different ways of achieving this, but their power and authority came from the optimistic visions they offered their people. Those dreams failed and today people have lost faith in ideologies. Increasingly, politicians are seen simply as managers of public life, but now they have discovered a new role that restores their power and authority. Instead of delivering dreams, politicians now promise to protect us: from nightmares. They say that they will rescue us from dreadful dangers that we cannot see and do not understand."

This is the start of part 3 of the BBC documentary series 'The Power of Nightmares.' The videos are freely available on the internet and I ran into this part 3 in Google video while searching for something completely different (to paraphrase a completely different BBC film series - in case you don't recognize that immediately, it's from Monty Python.)

This part is, like the others, one hour long, but I just had to spend the time to watch it because it fits so much into what we are doing here on this site, that I could consider this study-time. In case you want to spend the time, here it is...

What fascinates me most about this firm, is the fact that it plays hand in hand with the philosophy we promote here at NoFearIRS, that there is actually no, or very little, reason for the fear we are creating for us. Or, as in this example, allow others to create in us.

Do you notice that I really avoid to say that these politicians create the fear? They don't - they might try, but in order to be successful we have to agree with them and allow the fear to enter us. There just is no way around it, that each and every one of us is responsible for what he experiences. In this case at hand, if we do experience fear, we allowed this fear to enter while we had the choice not to do it.

Films like the one above make it easier to accomplish the feat of letting attempts to scare just ripple off of us. They make it a bit easier in the beginning, but they are by no means necessary. Even if the whole of experts and scientists want to tell me that we will fall off the edge of the world if we sail too far, I don't have to listen to them. Columbus was one of them who did not. Or Galileo Galilei, or many others who created an abundance of progress for mankind.

So, make your life, and the correct decisions within, a bit easier by watching the video, or go to the internet archive and watch the whole series 'The Power of Nightmares'. You will even find an ISO images to burn a DVD from to watch on your TV. As I am writing this I am at 6% downloaded and it will probably go all night. But I certainly want that firm physically in my hands to be able to show others.